Settling in a week after the election, we can consider what went so wrong with the NDP campaign. Personally, I didn't see it coming, I figured that we would see a typical election from a largely happy province. A couple flips in ridings without incumbents, maybe a couple extra seats for the current administration. I didn't see the opposition hitting rock bottom and losing their leader in the process. But, that's what happened, and it's time to consider the cause.
Well, it's easy to figure out, to be honest. Building a platform around potash revenue was a foolish move on the part of the NDP, and it likely is the reason why they saw their support drop out from beneath them. There are a couple reasons for this, depending on where you are and what your concerns might be.
First off, any attempt to adjust royalties will meet with immediate backlash from any area which has an interest in the success of the industry. The most obvious areas are those which have exploration happening on their doorstep, Yorkton included, as well as places with confirmed mines like the area around Jansen. Then, the cities are hoping to land a head office for one of the big companies, and in general we're looking at many players with an investment in the industry.
Since they have an investment in the industry's success, these areas will want to approach the industry like it's recommended you approach a wild animal: no sudden moves. That makes the idea of a royalty review a scary prospect, that industry might suddenly run off and take with it all the potential spin-off benefits. As a result, you have a number of different regions who are unwilling to support any party that could potentially scare away that investment.
Then, you have people with a long memory, who recall just a couple years ago when a resource miscalculation caused huge problems in the provincial budget. When you have a party proposing that all sorts of new and exciting policies are paid for by potash royalty adjustment, the reaction from many people wasn't the "hooray for new programs!" that the party was hoping for. Instead, for many people, it was a question of whether this plan would actually work. Since we have recent evidence of a resource based budget being volatile, building a budget based on resources is risky at best, but downright foolish in hindsight.
It's not to say that the entire platform was bad, the rent control proposed might have worked and some of the other plans weren't bad ideas. It might not have won the election, but it wouldn't have caused a crushing defeat either. No, the problem was that with the proposed royalty review was the centerpiece, and it was also the part of the platform most likely to scare away voters. With the evidence of the vote, it's clear that it did.
The Sask Party didn't have to do much to win, and their platform was mostly focused on maintaining a largely content province. It wasn't something that normally would gain large numbers of voters, but it wouldn't lose any either, a good plan for a comfortable position. Luckily for them, the NDP unveiled a platform that could scare people away, and the results are in the final numbers.
