Make no mistake that a lot of conservative politicians will be re-elected in rural Saskatchewan in the coming year.
With a federal election slated for this fall and a provincial election to follow in April 2016, the odds are good that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party will again be well represented.
There just doesn’t seem to be many viable alternatives — neither another practical alternative further to the left nor an alternative to the right.
The thought crosses one’s mind as we now watch two right-of-centre parties in Alberta — where the overall political sentiments and issues often resemble rural Saskatchewan — duke it out for control of the province.
Much to the surprise of many who assumed current PC Premier Jim Prentice had done in the Wildrose Party when he convinced its former leader Danielle Smith to cross the floor, the Wildrose still appears to be in bloom. According to the last polling numbers, Prentice’s PCs trailed both the Wildrose and even the NDP in the polls — a startling political development no one predicted.
Yes, even the Alberta NDP seem to have found a way to relate to the province’s right-of-centre voters and are in the game. Now one might think that is good news for the federal and provincial NDP here in Saskatchewan. One might also argue re-emergence of the left-for-dead Wildrose Party is something that bodes well for Rick Swenson trying to revitalize the old Progressive Conservatives.
But for very different reasons, don’t expect a repeat here.
In regard to Swenson, the rest of the province doesn’t dislike Brad Wall and the Sask. Party as much as Swenson does. There is simply no groundswell of discontent — especially in rural Saskatchewan — with either the Sask. Party leadership or his running of government.
Credit Swenson making some headway on some very specific issues like Craik’s fight to maintain a doctor, the postponement of the Surface Rights Act that that had effected farm and ranch owners and the changes coming to large institutions like pension funds owning Saskatchewan farmland.
For a party with no seats and political machinery to speak of, this has been a rather amazing track record. And rural Saskatchewan does need someone capable of such critiques.
But Swenson simply does not have any political machinery. That differs greatly from the Wildrose Party that got considerable financial endorsement from Alberta’s oil sector, social conservatives and even a lot of average Alberta voters fed up with the big spending ways of Alison Redford and now the cuts of Jim Prentice.
Swenson has none of that going for him.
However, one thing that Swenson does seem to have going for him is experience in rural Saskatchewan and an understanding of its issues. This differs greatly from the federal and provincial NDP politicians who — along with the Liberals — continue to struggle to prove they are relevant to modern-day rural Saskatchewan.
Consider comments recently made by provincial NDP agriculture critic Cathy Sproule at the legislature, who lambasted Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart for not insisting on being consulted by federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz in advance of the deal to sell the Canadian Wheat Board assets.
In fairness, Sproule is a bright person trained in law and did grow up on a farm. And it’s not as she didn’t have some valid points, questioning whether Saskatchewan farmers were getting true return on value for these assets.
But she also did so with little or no recognition of her party’s political history in rural Saskatchewan or recognition of the reality that a New Democrat now raising the Wheat Board likely turns off voters than it attracts.
“The Wheat Board debate is over,” Stewart succinctly responded after Sproule’s questions.
And so, frankly, is much chances of much changing in rural Saskatchewan in the coming federal and provincial elections.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
