The Saskatchewan New Democratic Party is looking for its seventh leader since the party lost power in 2007.
That is a high rate of turnover even considering three of those leaders were interim appointments until a leadership vote was held.
Any management consultant will tell you that kind of turnover reflects deep underlying issues.
The latest leader Ryan Meili had about four years to prove himself and his ability to draw voters and candidates.
Loss of the far northern riding of Athabasca in a byelection was the last straw, causing him to resign. Athabasca was considered the last NDP stronghold in the province.
While Premier Scott Moe grudgingly admitted Meili is a principled man, he sniped at Meili as if the man were a danger to Moe’s political standing by saying the NDP leader had fallen on his own sword.
The Saskatchewan Party managed to convince voters Meili was too far left, too associated with helping the poor.
That convincing wasn’t so hard in the Saskatchewan of today.
The people of Saskatchewan have come out of an age of have-not status to one of have status since the last NDP government in 2007.
Starting in 2007 federal equalization payments were eliminated as the province achieved that have status. Indeed the new Saskatchewan Party Premier Brad Wall vowed to fight Ottawa for $800 million in lost equalization funds and then dropped the lawsuit when a federal Conservative government was elected.
In 2007 the average salaried employee in Saskatchewan earned $983 a week, jumping to $1,404 by 2020
The average hourly wage earnings increased from $529 a week to $793.
Saskatchewan workers joined the higher end of the middle class in droves with the third highest annual income of 10 provinces by 2020.
The increase in wealth has made the NDP policy focus to improve the lot of the poor less relevant.
The consolidation of farms into larger units has similarly reduced rural support for the NDP, notwithstanding the deep rural grievances at the 1990s closure of 40 rural hospitals.
For success, the NDP needs to become more relevant to voters by shifting emphasis from help to the poor to policies that attract voters from the Saskatchewan Party.
Considering the relatively good economic times in Saskatchewan those policies may be as elusive as grabbing a wet eel.
Another factor the new NDP leader and the team needs to deal with is the rise of far right wing politics in the province; a phenomenon not lost on Premier Moe with his policies on public health restrictions in the face of Covid.
Attracting quality leadership candidates becomes difficult for two reasons: who wants to lead a party that seems lost in the wilderness for years; and a dearth of potential NDP candidates from municipal politics.
A revival of the NDP would be healthy for Saskatchewan. Strong opposition numbers tend to keep governments on their toes and setting policies based on wants not on political ideology.
An unbalanced continual government majority leads to voter apathy, low turnouts at the polls, and eventually frustration causing debacles like the so-called freedom convoy.
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
