What any politician owes to the electorate really should be no more than what any other employee owes his boss.
In fact, politicians can argue they owe the voters less than that.
Sure, politicians have four years of job security and are compensated reasonably well for their efforts — a lot better employment situation than many enjoy these days.
Moreover, they likely have better pensions and severance packages (generally, a full year’s salary if you make it past two terms of elected service) than a lot of us.
However, there is no overtime, a tonne of weekend work and more travel than most of our families would care to take on. Many give up successful careers or businesses at great financial cost.
And then there’s that prospect of dismissed with cause as decided by their voter-employer.
Some of the luckier politicians do transition back into old jobs or better new ones based on the contacts they have made and the experienced they have gained. Others, however, leaving with sparse prospects of f rebuilding businesses, careers and even reputations.
So if current Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has aspirations of other more lucrative jobs — say, a promotion to leadership of a federal party — does he owe it to us to tell us now?
Maybe not. But maybe as Premier, Wall does have added responsibility to make good on his four-year commitment.
After all, will we be voting in four months on a new Saskatchewan government — a vote that many of us will make on the basis of who is designated as Premier.
So if Wall does have any aspiration replace Stephen Harper as federal leader of the now opposition Conservative Party of Canada, should he be making a four-year commitment to stand as Premier of Saskatchewan?
One big problem is we don’t know truly know what Brad Wall’s aspirations are.
We should likely take him at his word that he really has no aspiration to jump to federal politics. Certainly, the realities of politics don’t exactly work in his favour.
Charles Tupper was about the Canadian prime minister who ever made the transition from a premier’s job to federal politics. However, we’ve seen our share of failed efforts from Tommy Douglas to Robert Stanfield.
As a long-time politic student, Wall would recognize this.
He would also recognize that federal politics is a completely different game than provincial politics where — for starters — some level of fluency in French would be needed.
Even more critical would a national team extending well beyond Wall’s capable Saskatchewan political staff.
Former and present Conservative MPs would have spent decades honing such contacts for the possibility of such a political run. And with more than 100 Conservative MPs there are a lot out there who would consider themselves equally qualified.
That said, there is a draft-Brad-Wall-for-leadership Twitter account and FaceBook page. And there are lots of rumours abounding that someone is trying to put together a national committee on his behalf.
And there are couple more factors.
With “conservatives” losing in Alberta, federally — and everywhere else in the country after the Liberal win in Newfoundland and Labrador — we have pretty much run out of governing Conservatives.
Of course, that doesn’t make every federal Conservative MP or former cabinet minister a loser. Some of them would surely have the credibility to rebuild this party.
That said, the taint of that unpopular Harper government will make that harder.
And after Wall’s performance as the lone “conservative voice” at the First Ministers’ meeting and the Paris summit on climate change, there are many who believed Wall can and should make a move now to federal politics.
This creates a dilemma for the Sask. Party:
If Saskatchewan is about to vote for Brad Wall to lead for the next four years, shouldn’t we know for sure that he’ll be there for that entire time?
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
