Regina Gardiner Park

Regina Gardiner Park is an east-side Regina constituency that was first created for the 2016 election, essentially replacing the former Regina Dewdney riding. The constituency includes the Gardiner Park and Gardiner Heights neighbourhoods, bounded by Ring Road and Park Street to the west, Ring Road and Dewdney Avenue to the north, and extending east toward Prince of Wales Drive. Gene Makowsky of the Saskatchewan Party won the inaugural 2016 contest decisively, defeating NDP candidate Faycal Haggui, and entered the 2020 election as a well-known figure in the constituency and across the province.

Makowsky's name recognition as a former CFL star, combined with the Saskatchewan Party's incumbency advantage, made Regina Gardiner Park a challenging prospect for the NDP. The 2020 rematch between Makowsky and Haggui followed the same pattern as 2016, with the Saskatchewan Party winning comfortably in this suburban riding.

Candidates

Gene Makowsky (Saskatchewan Party) — Makowsky is a Saskatoon native who graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor's degree in education. He played 17 seasons as an offensive lineman with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, earning two CFL Most Outstanding Lineman awards, five CFL All-Star selections, and a Grey Cup championship in 2007. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. After retiring from football, he worked as a substitute teacher in the Regina public school system before entering politics. He was first elected as MLA for Regina Dewdney in 2011 and served in cabinet as Minister of Parks, Culture and Sport.

Faycal Haggui (NDP) — Haggui holds a doctorate in Agricultural Economics from the University of Saskatchewan and a master's degree in Economics and Management from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, Greece. Born in Tunisia, he has lived in Saskatchewan for over 20 years and worked for several provincial government ministries including Economic and Cooperative Development, Social Services, and Labour Relations. He has served on the boards of the Regina Food Bank, Spring Free from Racism, and Amnesty International.

Helmi Scott Uguh (Green Party) — Uguh ran for the Green Party in Regina Gardiner Park as part of the party's province-wide campaign.

David Teece (Progressive Conservative) received less than 2 percent of the vote.

Local Issues

As a suburban constituency on Regina's east side, Gardiner Park's residents were focused on bread-and-butter issues of taxes, services, and economic management. The Saskatchewan Party's 2017 austerity budget, which raised the provincial sales tax from 5 to 6 percent and expanded it to previously exempt items, had created some unease among suburban voters. However, the party's overall record of economic development and its opposition to the federal carbon tax continued to resonate in the riding.

Education was a prominent concern for families in the constituency. With classroom sizes growing and school board resources stretched, the debate between the Saskatchewan Party's claim of record education funding and the NDP's argument that per-student spending had declined significantly was played out at the local level. The NDP promised $125 million for safer schools and smaller class sizes, while the Saskatchewan Party pointed to its $1.94 billion in education operating funding as the highest in provincial history.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought healthcare to the forefront, even in a riding not typically defined by health policy debates. The NDP's platform promise to hire hundreds of additional healthcare workers and establish mental health emergency rooms spoke to anxieties about the healthcare system's capacity to handle both the pandemic and everyday care needs. The Saskatchewan Party campaigned on its commitment to the Victoria Hospital expansion in Prince Albert and broader infrastructure investments as evidence of its healthcare priorities.