After a little over six months in office, the Selkirk Record caught up with local MLA Richard Perchotte to see what being our local representative is like and how he’s working for the people of Selkirk and St. Andrews.
“The first couple of weeks it was kind of like drinking from a firehose. But quickly after that, settling into the role was extremely rewarding and a little bit surreal to have the ability to represent over 22,000 people of our area it’s an honour and the strength of that honour is not lost upon me,” said Perchotte.
After his election to office on Oct. 3, 2023, being a first-time MLA, Perchotte attended an orientation session which went into more detail about his new role’s requirements.
“We’ve nicknamed it the MLA School. For all brand new MLAs, from across the province, there was a program that was put on at the legislative building that was done by the staff. So everybody [learned the ins and outs] from finance, ethics, the clerk’s office and procedural roles, to how bills are created and regulations. It was an absolutely incredible program. What we gathered after that created an environment where the new MLAs were ready to get to work almost immediately, and didn’t have a huge learning curve to go through. It did something else as well it took people from across party lines, and humanize each other. We got to find out a little bit more about each other and even though we may disagree politically, we can still like each other,” he said.
Perchotte explained that since he is a representative of the PC Party and the NDP Party are in power his group started out with the goal that they were going to hold the governing party to account.
“What we need to do is take a look at what they bring forward, and recognize that they have the numbers to pass their bills. We need to make sure that what we look at is done correctly. We need to make sure that with the backgrounds [of the MLAs] that we have on our side, we can take a look at a bill and try to make sure that it meets our core values in meeting the content that we want for the people that we represent,” said Perchotte.
Perchotte brings a business background to the table as the president of Kodiak Shelter Systems a division of Janice Manufacturing Inc., a family-owned company based in Selkirk.
“I’m the critic for advanced education and training and throughout my personal life, education has played a very important part not just for me, but for the people who’ve been in my employ. Recognizing the importance of education or advanced training that somebody has, education is power. People can raise themselves out of any situation. Having an opportunity to get an education, they can be whatever they want. My background certainly made that transition into the political life and taking a look at the advanced education and training very easy for me,” he said.
One of the perks of the role of MLA is that Perchotte has been able to recognize people and groups on the floor of the Manitoba Legislature. In his first few months on the job, he’s written into the history books of our province Inclusion Selkirk as well as Shaylene Nordal and the Manitoba Marine Museum for all of the work that they do advocating for and adding to our community.
“It’s incredibly humbling, not just for my role, but to have the opportunity to stand up in the chamber and recognize people and organizations that contribute so vastly to our communities,” he said.
He also hinted that he’ll have other opportunities to put our community members and groups in the spotlight and he plans to do just that.
Another positive aspect of his role as MLA is being able to attend many local events as our representative. He didn’t want to miss anyone out but said that he’s been to a tremendous number of events and has enjoyed how diverse a range of occasions that he’s been able to attend. He also said he would be open to attending more should local groups like to invite him out.
Overall, Perchotte said that the transition to politican life has been good.
“Personally, the transition from previous private life into the role of a politician has been very exciting and rewarding. I do feel that partisan politics, it plays a little bit of too much of a role in the daily chamber work that we do at the Legislative Assembly. I think that we need to put partisan politics aside as a display of gesturing or playing for the camera and get down to the business of governing as the people who elected us expect from us. As a matter of fact, I had an opportunity, I stood up in the house [last week] and said to the other members of the House, that if the people who elected you could see how you behave, they’d be very ashamed of where they cast their ballots,” said Perchotte.
As for the future, he says that he and his party are going to represent their constituents and as the opposition will be holding the government to account.
As our representative, Perchotte is available for residents to speak to by appointment at his Lockport office. To get in touch with him to talk about local concerns residents can call 204-481-4677 or email him at richperchotte@gmail.com.
