Martin Shields secures third term as MP

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Incumbent Conservative Party of Canada candidate for Bow River Riding, Martin Shields has once again secured his position of MP in Canada’s government.

Shields secured his position within the riding with a landslide victory, netting 34,276 votes. The candidate immediately following, Jonathan Bridges from the People’s Party of Canada, came in with 5,024 votes. 

“Being in an election, putting yourself out there for the public to look at, it’s always humbling to do that. You learn a lot. To get the support to be elected, that’s always a privilege but it’s humbling as well,” said Shields.

The 2021 federal election marks the third electoral victory Shields has claimed in Bow River riding and he has served as an MP for the past six years, since he was first elected during the 2015 election.

“There’s only 338 people in this country who get to do this kind of position, so (I’m) extremely honoured to be able to do it,” he said. 

“There’s not many people that have the opportunity that I do and I very much appreciate being able to do this.”

Shields added he constantly receives feedback from the public. Thus far and pertaining to this election, he noted constituents are very supportive that Shields will once again be representing them, but there is disappointment that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not lose. 

In Alberta, according to the election map available through Maclean’s, as of Wednesday only four ridings in the province did not vote Conservative. Three ridings voted for the New Democratic Party and one voted for the Liberal Party. 

Coming back into his position representing Bow River, Shields said there are two major industries he wants to see more support for — being irrigation and the beef sector. 

“We have the largest irrigation districts in Canada within this riding, so agriculture in the sense of the innovation and strength of the irrigated crops, is four per cent of the agricultural land in the province (and) produces 20 per cent of the agriculture GDP,” he said.

“This is critically important for our local economy, as well as export economy … The situation of drought and dry land, what that has created is also a different issue for agriculture and for producers and that gets into the cattle industry as well.”

Another change Shields wants to see addressed at the federal level is access to broadband services in rural areas. 

He adds that current support is not sufficient and simply getting service out to every community will not be enough.

“It needs to (service) the last farm gate and needs to be stronger than their 50-10, which they often talked about is the maximum that they need to support. That just isn’t working.”

“Broadband, countrywide, but also on this riding is huge. That’s another issue that I work with and that’s something that we need better.”