SaskPoliticker Speaks in Estevan to thousands who braved the cold in support of the CCF

“Friends, we are the grassroots. Look around us, snow melting, giving way to the dirt that, by God’s will, shall yield the fruits that feed our province, our nation, and the world…with the help of your strength, labour, and wisdom.”

“Let us recall these sage words:”

“God said "I need a caretaker", so God made a farmer.”

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it.”

“So God made a farmer. Friends, we all know this story well. It embodies our community in the Prairies, our values, and speaks volumes to our character, ability, and accomplishments day-in and day-out.”

"I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps; who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, and then pain’n from tractor back, put in another seventy-two hours"

“In my youth, there were such days for me on the ranch. As young as I were, I’d seen stillborn calf’s and colts, as we all have, hoping in all perseverance that we never see the same the next year. We know well the innovation of our Prairie people, from days of old to now, and it is why we prosper, why we get ahead. I put in many straight 48 hour days at the Livestock Exchanges in Provost, Vermillion, Saskatoon, and Moose Jaw, and many painful stretches for days on end stacking and plowing in tractors. I bring this work ethic with me to Ottawa, where I work just as hard and just as much. A farmer in Ottawa is what the Prairies, and what Canada needs.”

"God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds, and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place"

“Friends, we well know how to help out our fellow neighbours. When crops are dry and low, when floods wash us out, we lend a helping hand, we come together, we form cooperatives informal or formal, and we come through. That’s the relationship I’ve had with all of you, my friends in neighbours in the Prairies, and it’s the relationship I want to maintain as your MP.”

"God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark.""

“The strength of our Prairie bonds and values we know well. They’ve brought us through hard times, they’ve lent us joy throughout, let us prosper in the good. Our physical strength, and collective strength, we take pride in, and we use it to help out others, regardless of who they are.”

“It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church; somebody who would bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says that he wants to spend his life "doing what dad does"”

“…friends, if there is one thing that I can do as an MP, regardless of the result of this election…it is to inspire. To inspire someone to follow this path, to take pride and joy in public service, to represent the needs of fellow friends and neighbours to the best of their ability. But most of all, there can be no greater feeling for any of us, and this we all know well in our hearts…to have lived a life so well, so true, that our children can look to us and say "thats who I want to be"”

“Thank you.”