Brad Wall isn’t exactly a farm boy.
He does share a farm boy’s love of tinkering with cars and motors.
And he truly loves country and western music. It’s a love affair that goes back to before his attempt to establish Canada’s Country and Western Hall of Fame in his hometown, Swift Current.
Today, he has an even deeper connection with his talented son, Colter, on the brink of what might very well be a fantastic career as a Country singer now being compared favourable with a young Johnny Cash. (Evidently, Colter has inherited his music talent from his mother, Tami.)
Even his hometown town has grown into a city with most of the amenities of urban life.
But whether or not you want to consider Brad Wall a farm boy or a country boy is of less consequence than what he has done for rural Saskatchewan.
Not before or since Grant Devine — a farmer/rancher and doctorate in agriculture who loved, lived and embraced every aspect of rural Saskatchewan life — has rural Saskatchewan had a premier that’s done as much for rural voters.
So, the notion that Brad Wall might — and let us stress, might — be on his way out of provincial politics and headed for federal politics is a matter of particular interest to rural voters.
In fairness, these are rumours that seem to have less to do with what Wall is saying than what others — specifically others in the national media — are saying about him.
As recently as the last Sunday year-end wrapper of CTV’s Question Period, respected National Post columnist John Ivison debated host Robert Fife over whether Wall would take a run at the leadership.
Fife argued Wall has denied any interest and does not have the needed French language skills to attract needed votes in Quebec and elsewhere.
Ivison countered that language skills can be acquired and Wall that would have no other choice than to deny any federal aspirations on the eve of an April 4 provincial election.
Now factor in the delay of the Conservative federal leadership race to 2017 — perhaps time enough to give Wall some breathing room between the provincial election and a leadership bid. Some even contend this was done for Wall’s benefit.
Opinion polls do show Wall running second to Peter MacKay as the full-time successor to Stephen Harper, so the temptation will be there.
For his part Wall has done nothing to fuel the rumours, instead choosing to generally laugh them off.
Consider his response to the question myself in year-end interview you can read in today’s newspapers:
Postmedia: The rumours about you running federally will not cease. Can you offer the Saskatchewan public the guarantee: If you become if you become Premier on April 4th again, you will Premier for the next four years?
Wall: I can’t do that because I don’t know what will happen to my life health wise or family wise ... But I can say I will not be leaving for federal politics.
I read the Toronto Star online that stated, emphatically, that I am taking French lessons.
Postmedia: Are you taking French lessons?
Wall: No! No. No. And I’m not running.
That would seem relatively definitive, yet the rumours persist.
But even if Wall does not run federally, it may not choose to run again in 2020, making this his last campaign, anyway.
So the question than becomes: Is there viable rural MLA to replace him?
After all the Saskatchewan Party is losing strong rural stalwarts like Ken Krawetz and June Draude who would have been likely leadership candidates at one point.
And it has already lost Lloydminster’s Tim McMillan to Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
More likely candidates are Jeremy Harrison, Dustin Duncan and Jim Reiter.
However, it is a problem a few years down the road from now.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
