Shaking hands and making small talk with constituents is nothing new for long-time Bow River MP Martin Shields. Right now, people across the riding in smaller communities will have a unique chance to meet and greet with the MP as he makes his way across the riding to locales like Cheadle, Duchess, Gleichen, and Swalwell.

Shield’s Summer Meet and Greet Series began on August 11 at Swalwell.

When asked about how the tour is going, Shields said, “It's really good. People really appreciate that you take the time to either meet with their group in their coffee shop, or knock on their doors. They really appreciate that you get out there to see them where they live.”

“There's lots of combining going on, and so I stopped beside this combine, and they stopped their combines and we chatted. I go where they are,” he said.

“When I talk with rural people, in agriculture the dry conditions, the crops it’s a real concern in the agricultural sector,” he said. “They're harvesting now. The crops are not good. So there's a lot of concern in the agricultural sector, which goes to the cattle sector as well, because hay prices are very high.”

“There's a lot of small communities in this riding. In the larger community, as you know like Strathmore, they have a rodeo, which is very successful. You see a lot of people, but on the other hand in smaller communities like Swalwell, Rosebud, Milo, Gleichen those kinds of communities that I've been in, there's not those large events necessarily that that you would see a lot of people at,” said Shields.

Shields says his goal is, as always when he’s around the constituency, to reach out to those small communities and find those people who you may not see in larger communities. “Because there's not those events that might happen, that they would be at in their communities.”

Shields explained that when the tour is over, the information he’s gained is relayed to the party critics like Lianne Rood (Conservative MP for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex)

“I stay in communication with her and say ‘these are the issues that I'm finding in the agricultural sector.’ The same thing with small businesses. In small communities, small businesses they've got some challenges either trying to survive with COVID or trying to find people to work now. I relate that back to our critics who are working on those particular issues in our party,” said Shields.