Buckley Belanger sole Sask. Liberal in sea of blue, CBC projects

Jeffery Tram · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 29, 2025 2:59 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 hours ago

In a breakthrough for the national Liberals successful a state dominated by Conservatives, Buckley Belanger is projected to triumph the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River.

CBC is projecting a Liberal government, but Saskatchewan has stayed blue: the Conservatives are expected to triumph 13 of the province's 14 ridings.

Belanger cruised to triumph with implicit 65 per cent stock of the votes, aft having mislaid to a Conservative successful 2021.

Belanger said the ambiance was electrical astatine his run office successful La Ronge on Monday nighttime arsenic supporters gathered to people the victory. He described the infinitesimal arsenic "exciting and enormous."

"The radical of bluish Saskatchewan, they privation a dependable successful Ottawa and we're going to springiness them that voice," Belanger said.

Rebecca Sylvestre, a nonmigratory of Turnor Lake, Sask., said successful a substance connection that she is thrilled Belanger volition correspond bluish communities.

"As a existent Northerner who lives, knows, and loves the North, helium understands our challenges. We're assured that his dedication and enactment volition thrust affirmative alteration for our communities."

Belanger, who is Métis, began representing the North successful the provincial legislature for the Liberal Party successful 1995. Three years later, helium near the enactment to articulation the provincial NDP, maintaining his spot until 2021.

Belanger said his national run resonated due to the fact that voters were bushed of the persistent challenges facing the North, from mediocre lodging and infrastructure deficits to the emergence of illicit drugs. He said the radical in the portion privation a authorities that volition enactment alongside them.

"This full effort connected the bluish Saskatchewan people's portion is each astir economical and societal justice," helium said.

Belanger said his archetypal precedence volition beryllium to archer the stories of bluish Saskatchewan communities successful Ottawa and to propulsion for a corporate plan. He hopes to convene a bid of summits bringing unneurotic leaders, artists, onshore stewards and connection keepers to signifier a shared imaginativeness for the North's future.

"We person specified tremendous wealthiness connected that onshore and yet we person section challenges," Belanger said, emphasizing that solutions indispensable travel from wrong the portion itself.

Belanger besides voiced beardown enactment for Prime Minister Mark Carney, calling him a "fantastically intelligent man" with a heavy knowing of nationalist and planetary economies. He said Canadians volition beryllium impressed with Carney's enactment arsenic the Liberals determination toward what Belanger called a "reconciled and autarkic Canada."

Belanger is promising voters helium volition beryllium assertive and strategical successful Ottawa, and pledges to advocator loudly for their needs.