Progressive Conservative candidate Ron Schuler is back on the campaign trail hoping to regain his seat in the Manitoba Legislature, representing Springfield-Ritchot. He runs against two competitors: Tammy Ivanco of the NDP and Trevor Kirczenow of the Manitoba Liberals.
Regardless of his track record in the region, Schuler says that he’s not taking anything for granted. He and his campaign team have been knocking on doors and attending public events virtually every day for the past six weeks.
It’s a pace that he describes as gruelling.
But that’s the kind of hard work Schuler attributes to his wins over the past six elections.
“I always run my campaign as if I’m two points behind but gaining,” says Schuler. “Also, I work very hard between elections. We’ve now sent out between 80,000 and 85,000 pieces of mail from last year. We are always at events and I’ve brought $296 million dollars to my constituency in the last four years.”
Schuler first became an MLA in the 1999 election and has served his constituents ever since. His district has seen three boundary changes over those years. Most recently, Niverville and the RM of Ritchot joined Springfield in 2019.
According to Schuler, though, the Electoral Division Boundaries Commission (EDBC) may not have considered the scope of the area when making that boundary decision.
“This constituency is far too big geographically,” Schuler says. “We have really different communities. But it’s also a very big population. There are some seats which have 9,000 voters and we have over 17,000.”
That’s not the only issue for Schuler and his fellow candidates in this election.
He says that the RM of Springfield’s municipal council has become badly divided in recent months, creating a dysfunctional situation. It began over the debate about whether to allow an Albertan company, Sio Silica, to drill into an underground aquifer for the purpose of silica extraction.
Schuler says that the fear, anger, and hate he’s seen throughout the RM is disheartening, and he worries that these deep-set emotions could cause people to exercise poor judgment at the polls.
“I am perturbed because I have represented my communities very well,” Schuler says. “I’ve invested my life, my heart, and my soul. So it hurts me to see the fighting. Have your differences, but then go out and build your community.”
This same division, he says, has created roadblocks to some important projects that were underway in Springfield and have now been indefinitely stalled.
“Never be a politician that divides people,” he says. “Always be the unifier. And that’s what I try to be. Nobody ever elected me to go fight with the other levels of government.”
Schuler wasn’t representing Ritchot during the years when their council underwent similar dysfunction, but he’s buoyed by the outcome which resulted in a complete council shakeup there.
Working with both the Ritchot and Niverville councils over the past four years, he says, has been a joy.
While there are many differences between the various RMs he represents, there is one commonality: steady upward growth. This is true for Niverville as well as the two main urban centres in Springfield, Dugald and Oakbank.
Ritchot is in some ways unique, having a population distribution that’s a little less focused.
“You have, in Ritchot, four or five different centres and they’re all growing to some degree, so they all have different needs, but they’re still all growth needs,” he explains. “There are other groups of communities across Manitoba where they have declining populations and that brings a totally different dynamic to the region. That’s not my communities. Here, it’s all about, ‘We need more services!’”
And these are services Schuler is proud to have had a hand in delivering.
Among his proudest moments this term, Schuler says, was the opening of Niverville High School and the CRRC, both made possible through provincial aid. Other projects soon to be realized include Jette Studios, the rebuilding of Highway 311 on the west side of Niverville, and the creation of a $110 million wastewater treatment plant to serve up to 70,000 residents in four municipalities.
Funding has also been announced for a community centre in Oakbank and an aquatic facility in Dugald.
Apart from new sports facilities and a community centre in Grande Pointe, Schuler says that provincial funding in Ritchot has been more focused on upgrading the aging infrastructure.
Much of the funding for these projects has come from the Arts, Culture, Sports and Community (ACSC) fund, which cost-shares with municipalities on approved projects.
Schuler and his government believe that every community’s needs are unique to them, so assessing those needs is best initiated by residents who see the gaps and are willing to do the work to fill them.
Schuler says that he can help bring local dream projects one step closer to reality by assessing individual funding applications that come across his desk and provide advice to the applicant on how to make the application present to the government as viable and well-backed.
And once the application reaches the province, Schuler can step in to help lobby on its behalf.
Schuler says he is also deeply appreciative of the vast agricultural component that comprises so much of his district.
“It never grows thin on me, and I’m always aware, that there’s probably some child somewhere in the world that wakes up and is hungry,” he says. “They will sit down and there will hopefully be something nutritious in front of them. And, in part, that may come from Springfield, Ritchot, and Niverville because we export more than what we consume here.”
He says that the PC government has demonstrated support for farmers in recent years by providing farmland tax rebates, among other things.
And what about environmental issues? To a large degree, Schuler says, his party has already put some work into helping rural communities begin the transition towards EV technology. But almost more importantly, he adds, are the government’s efforts to get phosphorous out of waste management systems.
“If you want to talk about the pollution of Lake Winnipeg, it’s because of phosphates. Under the NDP, they would always pivot to blaming the four-legged pigs when it was actually the two-legged people that were polluting the lake. We are now putting substantive money into that because our lakes are a natural resource.”
As for CO2 emissions, Schuler says that a lot more emphasis could be put on carbon-capturing through tree planting and other such initiatives. He says that the carbon tax is a narrow-minded approach.
“There are a lot of things that we can do,” Schuler says. “But first of all you need to have a reasonable plan. What the federal government did is just one thing, and it was to punish everybody who uses a fossil fuel… You talk about what is important to us as a province, and it is affordability. And we’re hearing that at the doors.”
Over the next four years, he hopes to be in a position to continue helping local communities flourish and grow.
“I would say to individuals who move here from the city, ‘Leave your city behind.’ In the city, you have neighbourhoods. Leave your neighbourhood and feel welcomed to community. Because there’s a difference between neighbourhood and community. Community is where we take care of each other.”
