It’s rather gratifying on a personal level that in the last three weeks I’ve been approached by more than a few locals asking me why they’ve not seen my column in the Herald for some time. Simply put, I stopped writing them…
It’s not that I’d run out of ideas as to what I should be writing, but rather the reality that I’d found myself more inclined to cursing politicians who have abysmally failed to address our increasingly acute affordability crisis, which has only be exacerbated by U.S. President Donald Trump bombing the Hell out of Iran for six months, and only succeeding in making these issues even more disturbing to our voters.
This stagnation of policy thought I tend to blame upon our right-leaning parties to try and blame previously governing parties, such as that of a Liberal squad then led by Justin Perry-Trudeau, as opposed to seeking resolution of such distress through policies that require them to think in time frames longer than considering what they would like to eat at supper.
These comments may seem to be mean spirited, but it fully reflects the anger I was giving way to when all I could write about at the time consisted of 4,000 word political theses that I couldn’t shorten without swearing, correcting typos, or worse, forgetting to eliminate the stuff I was trying to rewrite so readers could understand my personal frustration, and resulted in Herald staff having to further edit what I thought was reasonable content, yet lacked any focus.
When friends started to draw my attention to these matters and asking me to take some time off, I took the hint – and am just glad that I had people around who still supported my diverse take on Saskatchewan political realities.
While I may now feel “refreshed”, I’ve decided to take a more “cynical” approach to my topics, contrasting what Saskatchewan voters have been coping with in talking about political realities, as opposed to what is actually happening to their thought processes, while this week concentrating these efforts in trying to understand what is happening on a federal level even as Saskatchewan voters seem to be entering into both a Saskatchewan and nation overlapping election cycle
At the federal level, the Conservative Party is freaking out that Prime Minister Carney is approaching resolution to our economic issues by invoking a significantly longer-term approach towards ending its personally crippling effects. Unfortunately, he is being handicapped by an American president whose agenda can best be summarized as “Look at us; aren’t we GREAT?” tariff-weaponized attempt to make Canada in particular bow down in subservience to the strength of their economic clout on an international level.
Carney is trying to sever this invisible economic umbilical cord by noting the obvious, namely that our abundant varieties of natural resources are of great value to ANY nation seeking a progressive future that emphasizes growth based upon green energy and technological innovation, and from an international perspective, particularly within the investment communities, that approach is met with massive approval.
Our political left is naturally concerned that Carney’s approach seems to be weakening our ability to address climate change. Equally important, the NDP in particular feel that government negotiators dealing with the investment community may find themselves being seduced by the siren calls for a more “business friendly” approach to putting these project priorities online, resulting in our failure to control the vast potential of localized manufacturing infrastructure creating greater profit for Canadians, as occurred when Marc Lalond introduced his National Energy Program.
Unfortunately, Pierre Poilievre is still forming talking points based upon MAGA conspiracy theories, insinuating that Canada deliberately terminated CUSMA negotiations to bump up Liberal favorability ratings in the polls and call a snap election. Canadians don’t seem to care; their contemptuous response appears to sound more like “Who cares? Why did it take so long to even do this?” Focusing upon Trump’s increasing tariff rates affecting successful businesses and job losses also doesn’t appear to raise any major concerns with a majority of Canadians, as these opportunities will arise once we’ve pared down and extracted ourselves from American dominance. Lastly, while Conservatives now see themselves grasping at straws by condemning Canada’s attempt to grow its European market potential is meeting harsh resistance, even if no one really understands what “seeking a greater economic tie to the EU” means, Canadians almost collectively believe that Carney would never stupidly trade away our sovereignty priorities for EU policies such as “open borders”, immigration flow, or increased business taxation.
The consensus seems to be within Canada that Trump has taken his campaign against our very existence to the point where our relations with the United States will never reach the same levels as have been in place for the last eighty or more years. More to the point, as long as eastern-based Conservatives beg askance of Poilievre’s attempts to drag the party back towards the Hate Agenda by even hinting at EU policies as they relate to immigration and open border access, we can be assured of at least one thing…
Carney may just well decide to call that snap federal election, possibly as early as March or April of 2027.
At least sixteen current Saskatchewan MP’s should now be worrying about this prediction coming true…
Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former election candidate for the federal NDP. His column appears on Saturday.
