Saskatoon - Rosetown - Biggar

This riding encompasses the southwest part of Saskatoon (south of 33rd Street West, and west of Idylwyld Drive North and the South Saskatchewan River) and the rural region west and southwest of the city. Outlying communities include Rosetown and Biggar.

Seventeen per cent of the population is aboriginal and seven per cent are immigrants. Eighty-five per cent listed English as their mother tongue in the 2006 census.

This riding has a diverse economic base that includes agriculture, manufacturing and the service sector. The average family income is $61,020 and the unemployment rate is 6.2 per cent.

Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar was cobbled together in 1996 from about one-third each of the ridings of Saskatoon-Dundurn, Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing and Kindersley-Lloydminster. In 2004, it added about 3,500 residents from Saskatoon-Wanuskewin.

Population: 69,547 (2006 census; a decrease of 4.8% since 2001)

Political History

Carol Skelton kept up her winning streak in 2006, winning the riding for the Conservatives. In 2004, Skelton came in 2,278 votes ahead of New Democrat Dennis Gruending. Skelton came to office with the Canadian Alliance in 2000 when she beat Gruending by just 68 votes. Gruending had won the seat in a 1999 byelection after NDP incumbent Chris Axworthy resigned to run provincially.

Before the 1996 redistribution, Axworthy served two terms as MP of Saskatoon – Clark's Crossing. That riding went to the Tories in 1979, 1980 and 1984.

Saskatoon-Dundurn was won by the NDP in 1979 and 1980, by the PCs in 1984, by the NDP again in 1988 and then by Liberal Morris Bodnar in 1993.

Kindersley-Lloydminster was Tory territory before it turned Reform in 1993.

Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar:

• 1997, 1999 byelection – NDP
• 2000 – CA
• 2004, 2006 – CON