Let us take nothing away from Brad Wall.
He likely would have been a multiple-term Saskatchewan premier under any circumstances. The time was right for Wall and he was certainly the right person for the time.
While the economic success of the latter-day Lorne Calvert NDP is something we shouldn’t overlook, his 16-year NDP government had truly gotten long in the tooth and was making some serious blunders.
Losing investments in Spudco and U.S. Internet and information technology companies had caused many voters to grow weary.
But it was really the fact that the NDP was only governing for half the province that proved most tiresome. This was a government that was catering strictly to urban voters — preferably those of the unionized variety rather than those who were business people or self-employed. Rural voters need not be reminded that this was a government that didn’t even bother campaigning in the rural seats and thus saw little reason to address critical issues like education property tax on agricultural land.
Wall quickly took ownership of these issues. It would be wrong to suggest his has been a broad-based government that has governed for all. But it would be fair to say that on issues like offering a hand up to the working poor, the disabled or providing wages and support for unionized professionals like nurses, Wall has often been surprisingly strong.
Sure, Wall’s massive second-term win was aided and abetted by an intense voter dislike for former NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter and his scattered 2011 election platform. But understand that the charismatic Wall would have been given a second mandate in Saskatchewan regardless of whom he was running against.
Moreover, it’s equally hard to overlook how much Saskatchewan has changed — how it truly has moved away from its sleepy agrarian roots to become a province of dynamic small cities and towns that really reflect a total different outlook.
Saskatchewan has long ago left behind the days of government involvement in most everything especially, economic development. The problem for the NDP is that they simply never realized that was the case.
However, it is also hard to overlook how much the good fortune of oil prices and other high commodity prices have played in Wall’s stratospheric popularity. To have maintained the approval of two out of three voters for his entire seven years in office is phenomenal.
But often equally overlooked is that Wall’s tenure has coincided with a time when oil prices were never higher.
Within eight months of coming into office, oil soared to $145 US a barrel, affording the Wall government to make good on his tax reduction commitments, offer nurses an unheard of 36-per-cent wage increase and still have plenty of money left over for massive infrastructure builds and even debt pay down.
Well, oil is now nearly a $100 less a barrel — under $50 US a barrel as of last week.
And while no one can surely blame Wall for this reality governed by other events, he must show leadership in 2015 like he has never had to display before.
For the first time since coming to office, Wall is going to have to govern in tougher economic times that will require tougher decisions. Many of those decisions are ones that voters won’t much like.
But cashing in some of his current popularity for some unpopular choices appears very much to be the only choice Wall has in 2015.
It was soaring oil prices that propelled Wall to new heights in political popularity. But it may be what he does in times of falling oil prices that will truly define what kind of premier history will see him as.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
