John Gormley is a former MP, retired Saskatchewan radio talk show host and now Legal Counsel at Seiferling LawVoting began earlier this week in Saskatchewan’s new “voting week“ concept. It’s a good idea, providing voters an opportunity to vote more flexibly over six days. For the political parties it’s been an extended play of GOTV — “get out the vote” — and many electors have already cast ballots in Saskatchewan’s 30th election. With the NDP’s trite motto “time for a change“ (a cringeworthy slogan well suited to a high school student council election,) change is certainly an impetus against a 17-year Saskatchewan Party government. The NDP of Carla Beck has leaned hard on voter dissatisfaction with healthcare and blaming the government for frustration over education policy.The Saskatchewan Party of Scott Moe has doubled down on an opportunity agenda and focus on growth — economic growth and record high population increases — to generate tax revenue to fund social services and lower taxes. Demographically, generations of Moe voters recall no-growth NDP governments and will need the reminder not to go backwards. Among younger Millennials and Gen Zs, who don’t remember the last NDP government, there is a readiness to take the leap and go back to the future. As with the five earlier elections of this century, only two parties are in play, the SaskParty and NDP. The ever-hopeful Green Party has fielded a full slate of 61 candidates but is not a political threat, generally receiving two percent of the vote. Saskatchewan’s old-line parties still exist, barely. The Progressive Conservatives, whose members defected en masse to the SaskParty in 1997, are running just 11 candidates on a shoestring budget. The province’s founding party, the Liberals, have virtually disappeared, changed their name to the Sask. Progress Party, and have only three candidates running. Of particular note are two newer, right-wing parties, both to the political right of the SaskParty. There is the Buffalo Party, born of Western alienation, which first appeared in the 2020 election, ran fewer candidates than the Greens and PCs, and finished second in four rural ridings and third place overall in the popular vote (although with only 2.6% of the votes.) This time there are 16 Buffalo candidates and they won’t amount to much, in part because of the emergence of a new party.The new party to watch is the Sask United Party, outspokenly right wing and unabashedly socially conservative. Created out of frustration and anger at the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SUP got a seat in the legislature when a SaskParty MLA, tossed from the caucus over misrepresenting her vaccine status, joined the party and became its inaugural leader. Since then, a new leader has been chosen and helped boost the SUP with a $200,000 personal donation. Jon Hromek first ran for the party in a rural byelection, where he finished in second place, one point ahead of the NDP, and still 30 points behind the SaskParty. Hromek’s party is running 31 candidates and inspires Wildrose-like passion for right wingers convinced that Scott Moe’s SaskParty has become complacent left-wingers. Weirdly, unlike the coalition that has endured for the SaskParty, many in the SUP are cheerleading for a vote split that could cost the SaskParty the election and usher back the NDP. While SUP true believers predict a handful of seats and elaborate vote splitting scenarios, more grounded observers tend to be less sanguine.The election will be focussed on whether and how the NDP will grow to a significant extent in the city seats of Saskatoon and Regina, where their popularity has grown. The one-time impenetrable NDP fortresses of Prince Albert and Moose Jaw are presently all SaskParty seats, which are being challenged. The NDP will likely not win back its once strongest seat, the vast northern riding of Athabasca, which the SaskParty won in a by-election several years ago.Beyond that, the NDP will have to hope to gain a foothold in some of the smaller cities and suburban areas, which is statistically improbable but remotely possible if a Sask United vote split occurs. If this doesn’t warm the hearts of SUP supporters — and throw paroxysms of fear into the rest of us — nothing will. John Gormley is a former MP, retired Saskatchewan radio talk show host and now Legal Counsel at Seiferling Law.
