The people spoke in quite convincing fashion on Monday night, as they helped the Saskatchewan Party win their third consecutive majority win, with another mandate given to govern the province for the next four years.
The election process isn’t perfect, but our form of democracy works, and the results came through quite clearly with 51 seats versus 10 for the NDP, minus leader Cam Broten.
But what does it all mean? In the face of electoral changes in this country, some of them rather extreme compared to historical trends, Saskatchewan seemed to go on solidly in support of the direction and leadership that has been provided thus far by Brad Wall and Company.
The provinces in our immediate vicinity, Alberta and Manitoba, took a turn in a different direction, with the long-standing dynasty of Conservative voting abruptly changing in the Wild Rose province to the NDP, for example. Could that have happened here?
Well, certainly not this time around, as Broten found out in his own seat in Saskatoon, and in regard to his party province-wide.
The economy was likely one of the factors that bolstered the Saskatchewan Party’s position, as people clearly took the cue from what the party has been saying and doing and basically told them to continue on that path, to help the province steer its way through this economic challenge, mainly caused by the downturn in oil prices.
One comment the premier made on election night is that the Saskatchewan Party is actually proud of the oil and gas industry in this province, and at the national level, he showed he was one of the few premiers to make that stand in regard to the prime minister and the other premiers.
He also made another comment that was quite true, when he said that they hadn’t won anything, but were given the opportunity to serve.
For those in politics at any level, this is true and hopefully more politicians will feel that way as they put themselves forward to run for office.
All of the candidates who ran in this election should be commended for having the courage to make that stand and campaign for what they believe in, whether they won their particular riding or not.
With municipal elections to be decided this October, the hope is that many more people will take that step forward and put themselves on the line to serve the residents of the province and of their municipality. — Greg Nikkel
