That was quite an interesting battle royal to determine our province’s next premier, wasn’t it?
I watched the coverage of the Saskatchewan Party convention on the local CTV station on Saturday evening, which took place from Prairieland Park in Saskatoon. Odd how it didn’t take place in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan and the home of the legislature itself, but I digress.
I thought the process to get to the eventual winner and the next leader of the province was entertaining, and it provided some classic nail-biting and eye-opening moments, the likes of which perhaps can only be matched in the final moments of any big sports showdown. It went in different voting rounds, with the intent to whittle down the result to the final two that would determine the winner.
Tina Beaudry-Mallor’s rather swift exit from the numbers was interesting. Other candidates had votes in the thousands, whereas she was taken out with less than 300 votes to her name. Was it a clash of ideals between her vision of the province and voting party members, perhaps? We’ll never really know.
Once it came down to Gordon Wyant, Ken Cheveldayoff, Scott Moe and Alanna Koch, things really got interesting. The next one to go was Wyant, and depending on whom you asked, that was either a surprising result or a foretold one. Cheveldayoff was next on the chopping block, and that seemed to surprise a number of urban figureheads who had ‘Chevy’ picked to win, or at least come in second place.
The battle really came down to Alanna Koch and Scott Moe. In the early rounds, Koch had the lead in votes with Moe riding her coattails, but that soon changed as he closed the gap. Finally, in the fifth round of vote tallying, it was decided that our next premier of Saskatchewan would be……Scott Moe.
So what does this mean for the province? What does the future look like? Are we in for “Moe better blues” or “Moe sunny days”?
I think it’s too early to tell right now, though if you’re a keen follower of provincial politics and stand by the values and vision of the Saskatchewan Party, perhaps you’re already excited about the possibilities under Moe’s leadership. Or you’re dreading the future ahead because your beliefs fall under another party, and that’s okay too. While it’s great that people can approve of a government’s actions on any number of topics or issues, it’s just as if not more important to hold our elected officials accountable, and that’s the job of the Official Opposition.
I have to admit though that I *did* find it kinda funny how the provincial NDP caucus already had a produced video clip ready to be uploaded to social media virtually the second that the race had been won, berating Moe for doing this or that. Twenty bucks says that they had clips ready to go for all of the candidates.
Personally, and without proclaiming my allegiance to any political party (because I have none), I think that we’re in solid hands with Scott Moe. I was able to interview him back in October just after he’d announced his campaign for leadership, and in our half-hour talk, I got the sense that he’s someone who sticks to his guns and has a vision for our province that has the possibility to take us to the proverbial “promised land”. Now whether he can steer the ship to pull that off is another story, but I think it’ll be an interesting journey.
As for the outgoing premier Brad Wall, what else can be said about his impact and legacy? Ten years in any position is a feat in itself, but I think that length of time in the biggest leadership position in Saskatchewan speaks volumes about Wall’s contributions to the province and where he took us as a collective people.
As for where Scott Moe may take us, I hope the road has few bumps and that he continues to fight for us in the same way that our previous leader did.
Hopefully, Saskatchewan is in for some “Moe better days” ahead.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
