Last week, the new federal minister of Rural Economic Development was in Portage la Prairie to take part in an Association of Manitoba Municipalities' roundtable discussion on economic development.

It's a newly created cabinet portfolio, and Bernadette Jordan was named minister about a month ago. She wants to see it grow.

"We have a rural caucus that's very active," she says, "And they've been saying for years that we needed a rural lens on things. When we talk about immigration, a lot of people think in terms of cities. But we need immigrants in rural Canada. We want to make sure that when we look at any policy or any law that we develop, that we look at it through a rural perspective."

Jordan represents a rural riding, knows how important the federal government is for those areas.

"With offices (like Service Canada) -- I want to keep those in rural Canada," she stresses, "I think it's really important. There used to be a rural secretariat under Agriculture, and it was cancelled in 2012, and there has not been a rural lens on things since then. So we want to make sure that we've got that moving forward."