Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River

Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River encompasses the entire northern half of Saskatchewan, stretching roughly 800 kilometres from communities near Meadow Lake and Prince Albert National Park to the shores of Lake Athabasca and the Northwest Territories border. It is the third-largest federal riding situated within a province, covering more than 340,000 square kilometres of boreal forest, Canadian Shield, and subarctic terrain.

Candidates

Gary Vidal (Conservative) — A Chartered Professional Accountant born and raised in Meadow Lake, Vidal co-owned a local accounting practice before entering politics. He served as Mayor of Meadow Lake, winning his first mayoral election in 2011 and serving until his resignation in 2019. He won the Conservative nomination in December 2018.

Georgina Jolibois (NDP) — The incumbent since 2015, Jolibois had served for twelve years as mayor of La Loche, a predominantly Dene community in Saskatchewan's northwest, before winning the federal seat. Her 2015 victory came by a margin of fewer than one hundred votes in one of the closest races in the country that year.

Tammy Cook-Searson (Liberal) — Cook-Searson served as Chief of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, one of the largest First Nations in Canada, since 2005. She was acclaimed as the Liberal candidate in May 2019 and campaigned on health-care infrastructure, including advocacy for a mental health centre in La Ronge.

Sarah Kraynick (Green Party) and Jerome Perrault (People's Party) also ran in the riding. Kraynick, a cybersecurity professional, self-funded much of her campaign and focused on ecotourism and grassroots economic innovation.

About the Riding

Approximately seventy percent of the riding's population identifies as Indigenous, primarily Cree, Dene, and Metis, making it demographically unique in western Canada. Cree and Dene are widely spoken as first languages across the riding. The northern economy revolves around mining, forestry, fishing, and trapping. The Athabasca Basin is home to some of the world's highest-grade uranium mines, operated by major producers and employing a significant Indigenous workforce. Forestry operations feed regional sawmills and pulp facilities, while commercial fishing on lakes such as Lac La Ronge and Wollaston Lake provides seasonal employment. Meadow Lake, the riding's largest town, serves as a gateway between the agricultural south and the forested north. Despite this resource wealth, the riding faces severe challenges in health-care delivery, housing, education, and transportation, with many communities accessible only by air or seasonal winter roads. Boil-water advisories, overcrowded housing, and food insecurity were pressing federal issues in 2019, alongside resource development, environmental protection, and education funding for First Nations.