‘Tis the season, apparently, for another election campaign.
While the provincial election is still months away, the TV ads and campaigning has already started in earnest by the two major parties.
Both the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP may want to exercise some restraint here. Not only have we just come off the longest official federal election campaign since the 1800s, but the actual campaign was even longer. Voters are tired and already it’s starting again and just as the Christmas season is getting under way.
Not only should the parties, particularly the governing party, be wary of voter fatigue, they should be cautious about message. In the federal election, voters soundly rejected the negative campaigning, fear and wedge politics of the Conservatives, yet Premier Brad Wall appears to taking a page out of the Stephen Harper handbook on those plays.
Granted, Saskatchewan bucked the national trend in the federal election, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much when it comes to provincial politics.
The current Sask Party ads start out with the question “Remember what it was like under the NDP?” It is a set up for the tagline, “Let’s never go back there.” Of course, they want people to remember the negatives, but it might remind voters of other things.
Other things such as the fact that since 1934 no party other than the NDP and its forebear the CCF has ever ruled this province for more than two terms and before 1982 when the Progressive Conservatives won, it was always the Liberals who formed non-NDP/CCF governments.
In fact, the success of the Saskatchewan Party was based on the fact it was founded as a coalition of former Progressive Conservatives and Liberals. They have done well in power by, so far, governing more like liberals than conservatives.
If Wall wants to shift the party, and the province, to the right, which certainly seems to be the case, he might want to consider the centrist-socialist history of the province.
Despite the fact the East views Saskatchewan as right-wing because of our penchant for sending Conservatives to Ottawa, internally, Saskatchewan people are not so much conservative as they are populist and sometimes contrarian. Plus there are a lot more progressive voters than may be apparent by federal election results.
A shift to the right could scare those voters away from the Saskatchewan Party. The fact it did not work for Trudeau federally does not necessarily mean it will not work for the NDP provincially. After all, there is a smouldering resentment here toward the new prime minister’s father.
The NDP also needs to be careful not to go too negative. Most people don’t think the Saskatchewan Party has done a bad job. It may have been a bit lacklustre in some ways, but not overly incompetent or corrupt. Whether they deserve a third term, however, is a case the Opposition can probably make without going overboard.
One thing Wall has gotten right is tapping into the anti-refugee sentiment, which seems to be particularly prominent in Saskatchewan. Whether that can carry him to victory in an election that is still so far away the refugees may already all be here by then remains to be seen.
Of course, the other possibility is that Wall’s current rightward leaning indicates some personal ambition. If he does not win the Province come spring, he could be a front runner to replace Stephen Harper as leader of the federal Conservatives as long as he doesn’t look too Liberal in the interim.
