It's been a full week since our neighbours to the west held their provincial election and brought in the United Conservative Party, and for the most part, Saskatchewan citizens are optimistic with the result. As for our representatives at the federal level, that feeling is shared.

"I watched it fairly closely on the night of the election," says Souris Moose Mountain MP Dr. Robert Kitchen. "From what I understand, it was the biggest turn out in Alberta's history in people showing up to vote which I think gives a strong mandate to premier-elect Kenney. I think Alberta has spoken on certain things and where the economy should be going in Canada."

Kitchen says that the day Rachel Notley's NDP government got into power in Alberta was a surprise to everyone in his circle that saw the election unfold. The 2015 election saw 1,486,901 voters make their way to the polls compared to this year, one of the highest percentages of voter turnout in recorded history, over 1.88 million. When Notley took over, her government was one of the first to adopt the carbon tax within the province, and actually had theirs in place long before it came down federally. With the shift from the NDP to the UCP in Canada's largest energy producer, Kitchen says there's a major shift in how the fight against it may play out.

"I think it's tremendous. It again shows another province that is totally against the carbon tax, and taking steps as the premier-elect has indicated to ending the carbon tax. We had a great rally up in Regina on that very issue, Saskatchewan has been leading the way, but now we start to see Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and now Alberta all on board on getting rid of this carbon tax."

While the issue of the carbon tax is one of the major ones affecting the Canadian oil industry the hardest, the other major factor is the lack of progress on pipeline projects in the country, and this change should be a major swing in that fight as well.

Jason Kenney has represented southeast Calgary at the House of Commons federally before he decided to take a leadership roll provincially, and in his time from 1997 to 2016, he's been able to build a bit of a reputation within the Conservative Party. When it comes to the character of the new premier-elect, Dr. Kitchen has spoken with Kenney on a number of issues, and is excited to see what he will do.

"When I became a member of parliament, he was still a sitting member and so I talked with him during that time as he debated on what he was going to do, whether he was going to go provincially etc., and he's got a big challenge ahead of him when he took that step. The right was divided when he went back to Alberta and he first had to win a leadership in one party and that had to run to bring two right wing parties together, and then he had to win a leadership of that party, and then to win the actual election. So he's a formidable man, he works hard at what he does, and I give him all the credit."

When it comes to what this could mean for the federal election that's slated for October, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick all have Conservative governments in place, and Quebec has a right-of-centre party after their election last October, Kitchen is quite confident that the federal election in October will sway towards his party's favour.

"There's a lot of hard work we need to do and continue to get our message out there and talk to the people that need to hear clarification on issues and we'll proceed to do that."