Saskatoon Eastview

Saskatoon Eastview takes in the neighbourhoods of Queen Elizabeth, Eastview, Nutana Park, Adelaide/Churchill, and Avalon on the city's east side. Matt Love of the NDP captured the riding in 2020 under dramatic circumstances — the Saskatchewan Party's original candidate had been forced to resign over connections to the QAnon conspiracy movement, and a replacement was parachuted in with less than a month until election day. Love won narrowly, with the final result confirmed only after mail-in ballots were counted. Four years later, he returned as the NDP's education critic and caucus chair, running on a record built around classroom advocacy in a riding where education remained the defining issue.

Candidates

Matt Love (NDP) — A Saskatoon Public Schools teacher who spent a decade at Aden Bowman Collegiate before entering politics, Love led a social justice and anti-racist education program that included a weekly radio show on CFCR and a regular opinion column in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. He also served as senior football coach and GSA facilitator at the school. After Carla Beck became NDP leader in 2022, Love was appointed the party's education critic and caucus chair, roles that placed him at the centre of opposition efforts on school funding and the Parents' Bill of Rights debate.

Francis Kreiser (Saskatchewan Party) — A University of Saskatchewan graduate with degrees in arts and education, Kreiser worked as a teacher and school administrator before spending more than a decade as an operator in the oil and gas industry. He was active with the Knights of Columbus and served as fundraising lead for the St. John Bosco Wilderness Camp. He had also spent three years as a lay missionary in southern Peru. Kreiser won a contested nomination for the Saskatchewan Party.

Brad McAvoy (Saskatchewan United Party) — A police officer with the Saskatoon Police Service since 2008, McAvoy brought over a decade of community policing experience to his campaign for the Saskatchewan United Party.

Kendra Anderson (Green Party) received approximately one per cent of the vote.

Local Issues

Education dominated the Saskatoon Eastview contest for the second consecutive election. Love's profile as a classroom teacher turned opposition critic gave him a platform to argue that the Saskatchewan Party had allowed classroom conditions to deteriorate through years of constrained funding. The NDP's pledge to hire additional teachers and support staff resonated in a riding where many households had direct experience with growing class sizes and reduced educational assistant positions. The Parents' Bill of Rights added a new dimension, as families debated whether the legislation protected parental authority or put vulnerable students at risk.

The presence of a Saskatchewan United Party candidate alongside the Saskatchewan Party nominee illustrated the fracturing of right-of-centre politics that emerged during the term. The Saskatchewan United Party, registered in late 2022 and led by former independent MLA Nadine Wilson — who had resigned from the Saskatchewan Party caucus in 2021 over her COVID-19 vaccination status — drew a modest share of the vote in urban ridings but contributed to a dynamic in which the NDP benefited from a divided right.

Love's decisive margin of victory in 2024 — far wider than his razor-thin 2020 win — reflected both his personal entrenchment in the riding and the NDP's broader sweep of Saskatoon. The party's dominance in the city left the Saskatchewan Party without a seat in Saskatoon's south and east, a historic reversal for a government that had once competed credibly across the urban landscape.