Maybe it’s not fair to single out Saskatchewan’s New Democratic Party (NDP) opposition for sowing the seeds of division in our world through partisanship.
There are plenty of examples in today’s world that would be far better examples of unnecessary division, this month’s U.S. presidential election being the first to come to mind.
What happened south of the border demonstrates how easily overblown rhetoric can get out of control.
Moreover, let us understand the role oppositions play because it may help us understand that some of the things they do aren’t so divisive, after all.
The issues for any opposition or government are seldom a matter of left or right.
Usually, they are a matter of right and wrong.
For example, the issues related to Regina’s Global Transportation Hub (GTH) $103,000-an-acre payment for 204 acres of land have nothing to do with political philosophy.
Rather, it’s about holding the Wall government to account.
But that doesn’t mean that any opposition here or anyone in politics needs to oppose everything.
In fact, in this day and age when so many us live in their own bubbles – we talk to the same people on coffee row and we go to the same blogs, websites or talk radio shows for our information – it may be more important to see our politicians take a more reasonable approach in legislative assemblies.
Information moves at the speed of light and often without any context or nuance.
Politicians need to wary of this, both for their own sake and ours.
And because of this, an entire reasonable argument can fly out the window rather quickly.
That might have been exactly what happened to the NDP during a recent legislative debate calling on all members to support Wall’s call from last February for the federal government to spend $156 million on cleaning up orphaned and abandoned oil wells.
It should have been a no-brainer, right?
The policy would put more than 1,000 Saskatchewan oilpatch workers back to work at least temporarily, noted Cypress Hills MLA Doug Steele, who moved the motion.
Steele further noted that Saskatchewan produced 178 million barrels of oil valued at $8.3 billion in 2015, accounting for 33,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Moreover, cleaning up environmentally hazardous oil wells would be something one might think even the NDP would support.
Well, the NDP did support this notion, but they also headed down a partisan rabbit hole where they need not have gone.
What quickly became an issue for the NDP was the notion that oil companies are large political donors to the Saskatchewan Party and might benefit from this federal taxpayers’ money.
“The (oil cleanup) idea was the brainchild of Dan Cugnet, chairman of Valleyview Petroleums Ltd., an independent exploration and production company from Weyburn,” said NDP MLA Cathy Sproule in Thursday’s debate. “Mr. Speaker, we know that Mr. Cugnet is a big supporter of (Sask) Party and has continually helped out this party with corporate donations.
“And we have to wonder why an exploration and production company who is responsible legally for the decommissioning of these well sites… why was it his brainchild, and what is it he’s looking for? He is looking for help because he can’t pay for his own responsibilities, Mr. Speaker. I think that’s too clever by far.”
Really, is the biggest reason why Wall and the Sask Party government want to do this to line pockets of a few friends who own oil companies?
Would there be no way to ensure that federal money aimed at cleaning up wells couldn’t be confined to that purpose?
It was one of all too many examples of unnecessary partisanship in our legislature.
And it sure isn’t the kind of leadership we need these days.
