Susan McNeil

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

This is Randy Hoback’s fifth election run, and not only is he planning to keep his seat, he has full confidence it will be as part of a Conservative majority in Ottawa.

Hoback was one of 14 Conservative candidates elected as the party swept Saskatchewan in 2019. Now, he’s confident they can extend that success to the rest of the country in 2021

“If you would have asked me three weeks ago, I would have said this is tough,” he said on August 23. 

Hoback argued his party set the conversation for the campaign by releasing a platform right away. He said that’s helped them make headway with voters faced with uncertainty.

“Talking about securing Canada’s future, jobs, health care, dealing with the addictions crisis and mental health,” Hoback said. “Basically, everything is around the word securing.”

Hoback said the federal government’s debt load and coping with the re-opening of the economy are common issues that keep popping up when he talks to people in the riding.

“They are really concerned about getting back to work and finding employees,” Hoback stated. “They’re having a shortage of employees. They want to see those people come back into the work force that are sitting on CERB payments right now.” 

Asked what have been some accomplishments during his term as Member of Parliament, which started in 2008, Hoback points to the Canada/US trade agreement. 

“Basically it was us, myself and the trade committee who were opening up the Rolodexes in Washington to make sure that we had something that at least secured what we had for a trade agreement,” he said. “It was something that took a lot of time and took a lot of effort but I think we achieved as good a result as possible, considering the leadership we had on the Canadian side.”

He is running again because there are still some things he wants to accomplish, especially when it comes to international trade. 

“There’s still work to do on the international stage. There’s still a lot of rebuilding that needs to happen,” he said. 

Rebuilding connections can help bring Canada back up to its former glory, he said. On the local stage, he said there is a lot of work to do at the area recovers from COVID-19.

“There are addictions issues, there are people that are needing assistance and help and that’s a part of the job people aren’t talking about,” he said.

Hoback argued his team in Prince Albert and Nipawin are good at assisting local residents with problems, like helping people having trouble with their Old Age Security pensions. 

“Those are the victories that we don’t talk about a lot, but actually mean a lot to people and actually give me a lot of benefit in the job,” he said. 

susan.mcneil@paherald.sk.ca