More than a year ago I told former Premier Lorne Calvert that I would love to be the candidate running against Scott Moe come Oct. 28. Mr. Calvert, with whom I have been friends now for almost 30 years, looked at me for several seconds – and then started laughing.
I would expect that type of reaction to come from members of the Saskatchewan Party, or perhaps even the “Uniteds”; after all, I’m not typically short of words when it comes to roasting either the premier OR Nadine Wilson’s statements on policy issues, mostly due to the fact that any of their utterances are either evasive or accusatory, me “being a Dipper” and all, and so constituents should just ignore me altogether.
I fully admit to my being annoying at times, but just because I support the NDP’s platform (which everyone reading this column already knows) does NOT mean that I “have no right to express such sentiment in public, In actuality, it should be ALL our “duties” in being citizens living in a democracy society to champion governmental policies that neither pit voters against one another, as does the premier when he claims to “own” the rural vote.
When he stopped laughing, however, I knew that Mr. Calvert was about to express his opinion as to what my words suggested, as during his leadership of the party and premier he always had the capacity to recognize the direction in which a conversation was heading even when it wasn’t all that obvious and respond accordingly and without insult: “Well,” he began, “he certainly won’t be able to ignore you.”
To me that was the defining argument as to why Saskatchewan voters should be forcefully working to chuck the Saskatchewan Party or any of its clones out onto the pavement, much as has Moose Jaw in its treatment of their homeless population: they simply don’t want to listen.
Being soon to enter my eighth decade, even my closest friends still poke fun at me in “not seeing the error of my ways” in expressing ideas that the SP would dearly love to label as “woke”, simply because they can’t understand that society still has a lot of reforming to do before attaining its “Utopia”. Here we have, instead, Scott Moe pretending that he’s “consulting” with his “supporters” in just sitting down with Allan Kerpan and a few other “separatists” from the Buffalo or Maverick parties and listen to the buffoonery expressed in their not even understanding the concept of our Constitution, or how this nation was built through negotiation with Indigenous leaders, and now influenced by the Treaty law these negotiators decided would govern our future.
It is only fitting, then, that Scott Moe must now face a young Indigenous male candidate who will contest the riding for the NDP – the “head” of a biracial family whose voice isn’t raised when he is asked a controversial question, someone who grasps the meaning of words the first time they’re uttered, a personality that invites the opportunity for reasoned confrontation without uproar, and one who will share the Indigenous experience with joy and understanding, even if his stories wreak of tragedy and discontent.
What I am saying, then, is that Mark Thunderchild, the NDP candidate for the Shellbrook – Rosthern riding, is the anthesis of Premier Moe – and voters are going to want to listen to him, simply because it provides some hope for the future direction of this province’s economic and social evolution.
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Just so my good friends in the Saskatchewan Party and the “United” understand the sentiment being expressed in the next few paragraphs, my name was also on the ballot that elected Mr. Thunderchild. My basic sentiment here is that while there are many who believe he’s on a “fool’s errand” trying to unseat our premier, I find that attitude particularly annoying, especially in the way this province has been run of late, and can only envy his courage in taking on this task.
What should provide Mark with some incentive of belief that his task of winning IS possible, is to understand that almost the entire Saskatchewan Party caucus consists of “true believers” who maintain that by their emphasizing their “strength” and prowess, this false bravado is nothing more than their demonstrating contempt for any form of “weakness”, particularly when it comes to developing compassionate policies to address our social ailments. To myself, at least, theirs is just another tale too close to the story line of “The Emperor has no clothes”, and amply illustrated, not to mentioned ridiculed by the results of economic policies that turn their boasts into something more symbolic of a male patient suffering from ED, as opposed to anything else.
Even though he may have less time to become well known in the riding than does current U.S. presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, he will most certainly draw attention from the women in the riding worried about emergency rooms being shut down, physicians abandoning even long term practices, and the ever-increasing lengths of patient lineups waiting for surgery.
Mark Thunderchild is also going to join the increasing ranks of candidates such as Batoche’s Trina Miller or Saskatchewan Rivers’ Doug Racine letting First Nation communities that the NDP is there to listen to their concerns and fashion policies according to their recommendation, as opposed to merely imposing solutions upon problems no Sask Party candidate really believes exists within our existing social disorder.
The overwhelming majority of voters in these three northern ridings are tired of being represented by a party incapable of any feeling save greed or ego. They are no longer “long-shot” ridings teeming with voters who react in fear at the prospect of being once again exposed to progressive thought, slogging in the mud of political indifference, contempt and hate that Premier Moe’s government has been insistent upon creating.
These people care – and the NDP has gotten that message in spades.
