Last Mountain—Touchwood

Last Mountain—Touchwood is a large rural constituency east of Regina, stretching from the agricultural plains around Indian Head northward past Last Mountain Lake. The riding had been held for over two decades by Glen Hart, one of the longest-serving Saskatchewan Party MLAs, who announced in 2019 that he would not seek re-election. The open seat drew Travis Keisig, who won a contested Saskatchewan Party nomination in January 2020, and the NDP’s Thera Nordal, who mounted a competitive campaign and captured more than a quarter of the vote—a notable result in a riding the NDP had not held in a generation.

Candidates

Travis Keisig (Saskatchewan Party) — Keisig was born in Balcarres in 1972 and raised in the Rural Municipality of Tullymet. He served in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves with 16 Medical Company before enrolling in the welding program at SIAST. He worked as a mobile pressure welder in the oil and gas sector and at refineries, power stations, potash mines, and pipelines across the province, eventually returning to the family farm in the RM of Tullymet.

Thera Nordal (NDP) — Nordal and her husband Matthew were owner-operators of a small business and a conventional grain farm near Southey, north of Regina. She had served on multiple community boards and coached numerous local teams. She had been active in opposing a proposed potash solution mine near her farm.

Gordon Bradford (Buffalo Party) received a modest share of the vote. Victor Teece (Progressive Conservative) also ran. Justin Stranack (Green Party) drew two percent.

Local Issues

The retirement of Glen Hart after more than twenty years as MLA marked a significant transition for Last Mountain—Touchwood. Hart was a well-known figure in the legislature and his departure left a void in local representation. Keisig, with his background in farming, welding, and military service, positioned himself as someone who understood the working realities of the riding’s resource-dependent communities. The contested nomination suggested that the riding’s Saskatchewan Party membership took the selection of Hart’s successor seriously.

Potash mining was a distinct concern in the constituency. The proposed Yancoal solution potash mine near Southey had drawn opposition from local landowners worried about the effects of industrial development on agricultural land, groundwater, and property values. Nordal’s involvement in opposing the proposed mine near her property connected her to residents who shared those concerns, and the issue highlighted tensions between resource development and farming interests in central Saskatchewan.

As across rural Saskatchewan, the 2020 campaign was shaped by the pandemic’s economic fallout and the ongoing debate over federal carbon pricing. Producers in the riding depended on grain farming and livestock, and rising input costs from carbon pricing were a persistent concern. The Saskatchewan Party’s strong stand against the federal carbon tax and its promise to lead the province’s pandemic recovery resonated in a constituency where the NDP had not been competitive for many years—though Nordal’s quarter of the vote signalled that dissatisfaction with the status quo was not entirely absent.