PCs hold onto Assiniboia, Kirkfield Park

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This article was published 18/09/2019 (2421 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Progressive Conservative Party was able to hold onto two key ridings: Assiniboia and Kirkfield Park.

Scott Fielding was re-elected as MLA of Kirkfield Park and Scott Johnston, former incumbent for the St. James riding, was elected as MLA of the new Assiniboia riding. Fielding and Johnston are longtime residents of the St. James-Assiniboia area, with Fielding serving the area both as a city councillor as well as an MLA.

Fielding said he’s worked hard to stay in touch with the residents of Kirkfield Park.

“What I tried to do was really stay in touch with residents. I’ve attended around 172 community events to make sure I was staying close to the residents, to get any issues they had resolved. I think as a result, we heard some good responses (at the) doors,” Fielding said.

Fielding said he was going to continue to focus on “fixing the province’s finances,” improving investments in health care, and continuing to provide tax relief. Fielding referenced the Manitoba PC’s proposed $2020 tax rollback plan, which will cut or remove the PST on items such as home insurance, which will save Manitoban families around $2,020 over four years.

In Kirkfield Park, roughly 24.2 per cent of the residents are aged 65 and older, compared to the 15.6 per cent province median age. Census data shows the median household income is $74,294. The riding has consistently voted PC until 2007, when the riding flipped to supporting the NDP.

Assiniboia was a different story. The riding has flipped between parties in its over 100-year history, recently voting PC in 2016. Johnston pushed out a victory against the NDP’s Joe McKellep with 4,102 votes.
Johnston said he will focus on enhancing the lives of Assiniboia residents.

“Our government was elected on a platform of trust and taxes, we will continue to fulfil our commitments to the people. We’ve established a state of the art emergency room (at Grace Hospital), I anticipate we will continue to build on that,” Johnston said. “I’m also very aware of our senior population in Assiniboia. We will continue to try and eliminate excessive taxation, we’ll deliver more disposable (monies) for people on fixed incomes.”

Just like Kirkfield Park, the riding has a larger-than-average number of seniors, with 21.1 per cent of residents being 65 and older. Both ridings also have a higher median age than the provincial average: Kirkfield Park’s average age is 47.1 and Assiniboia’s average age is 42.9. The provincial average is around 38.3.