All polls clearly show most people don’t want an NDP government. Less clear is what kind of the Sask. Party government we may be getting.
Published Mar 18, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read
Premier Scott Moe giving a speech to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. Photo by KAYLE NEIS /Regina Leader-Post
There is a big conundrum facing the Saskatchewan Party as it is about to face the voters in a general election. It was evident on a couple fronts last week.
The first was in the assembly when thorn-in-the-side Saskatchewan United Party Leader Nadine Wilson demanded the government “come clean” on its support for net-zero carbon emissions.
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“Will this government find its feet today and stand with the people of this province and admit that CO2 is not a pollutant and scrap their net-zero by 2050 agreement with Justin Trudeau?” asked the former Sask. Party MLA who was dumped from caucus nearly three years ago for allegedly misleading colleagues on her COVID-19 vaccine status.
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Crown Investment Corp. Minister Dustin Duncan responded the Sask. Party government has “disagreed with the clean electricity regulations” since the federal government imposed them and will “continue to oppose those.”
It was a strange answer for the one-time environment who not so long ago brought us Prairie Resilience to demonstrate the province cared to find its own solutions to greenhouse gas emissions. Frankly, it was odd that Duncan would be responding to this question at all.
Call me old fashioned, but shouldn’t the province’s near-invisible environment minister be responding (and responding vigorously) when an opposition MLA claims “CO2 is not a pollutant” elevating greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and that we should scrap “net-zero by 2050?”
Wasn’t it former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper who introduced the policy to phase out coal-generated electricity by 2030?
Alas, this is Saskatchewan politics in 2024. And Wilson is surely not the only one pushing the Sask. Party further right. She noted in question period Thursday that the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) — the voice of rural Saskatchewan, according to is convention lanyards — seems to be of the same mindset.
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Consider the SARM resolution last week calling for the province “to remove itself from any national or international agreements that reference net-zero.”
For SARM delegates to suggest the provincial government remove itself from any national or international agreement that even references net-zero is wading into the murky waters of climate change denial.
These farmers may be divorced from their very own realities of another abnormally dry year attributable to a changing environment.
Yet SARM delegates surely were not done there. The cabinet ministers’ “bear pit” session was salted with notions that public schools were a training ground for “little Marxists.”
One can’t blame the provincial government for a few offside resolutions or remarks made by others. Then again, we aren’t exactly hearing vigorous government rebuttals. Shouldn’t the education minister be defending public schools and a curriculum that hasn’t been altered in decades. Crickets.
Certainly, politicians need to be called to account for this, but one can see the aforementioned big conundrum the Sask. Party now faces.
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Following the Insightrix poll showing the NDP now holding a slight lead provincewide comes an Angus Reid online poll from March 12 that shows the Sask. Party with a still-healthy 12 percentage point lead. (Fifty per cent Sask. Party, 38 per cent NDP.)
Most would suspect this is a more realistic reflection of politics in this province where the NDP simply cannot make headway in rural Saskatchewan — largely because of what we are hearing out of SARM and other places.
In short, all polls clearly show most people don’t want an NDP government. Less clear is what kind of Sask. Party government we may be getting.
What seems undeniable, however, is the NDP is closing ground at the same time Moe’s government is being pushed further right by the right. The Freedom Convoy. Abandoning COVID-19 restrictions. The economic sovereignty tour. The pronoun bill. And now the school curriculum.
And it’s not just the Buffalo or Sask. United parties. This push is coming from the heart of rural Saskatchewan — from the SARM convention floor.
Delegates — some of them disinterested and talking during Moe’s low-key speech Thursday — are demanding much more.
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This push to the right is now insatiable. And the more Moe attempts to satisfy their increasing demand, the greater risk of losing moderate, centre support to the NDP.
It’s quite a conundrum for Moe.
Murray Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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