Tomorrow’s my birthday, and although I’ve been having a rough week trying to get business issues resolved, the only thing I can think about at the moment is how mind bendingly bizarre it was last Saturday to start listening to a post in Facebook coming online and an opinion being expressed on voting rights by Brittney Senger, NDP MLA for Saskatoon South.
I really wasn’t paying that much attention to what she was saying, so much as what I what I was beginning to read in the Comments section, because, quite frankly, virtually none of them were even dealing with the topic that she was discussing. I’d only met Brittney some six months ago, and even though I’ve only had two conversations with her exchanging opinions on political matters, she makes her point by referencing all points of consideration for discussion, then calmly awaits an intelligent response disagreeing, modifying or even supporting her contentions – you know, like in the good old days where Thanksgiving dinners were the time when you tolerated Uncle Buck’s “strength of the individual” philosophy because your Aunt Mary could keep him from overembellishing the point.
Several of the commentators agreed with Brittney, but by and large the posts echoed that “Only people who are over the age of 18 and are Canadian citizens should have the right to vote in Canada”. While the online SP trolls are pretending to reference our legal limitations on laws pertaining to our right to vote, what Brittney was ACTUALLY pointing out to anyone who happened to be listening to her was that the ONLY Order of Business conducted at the Saskatchewan Party’s Annual Convention (other than puffing up Scott Moe’s leadership ego) was the passage of an amendment to their PARTY’s Constitution TAKING AWAY the voting rights of party members who just happened to be under the age of 18 or had yet to receive Canadian citizenship. – begging the question as to why these same individuals now having to renew same, then look forward to their being completely ignored in any future debate.
Why would ANY political party want to do that? To the best of my knowledge, the age “restriction” on membership to the Saskatchewan Party is 14. For the NDP, the “Youth” category alone starts at 13 and goes to 30 with a membership fee of $7 to encourage young people stuck in this age category having a voting participation rate being the lowest of the low to participate in the democratic process.
Why place such a restriction on youth delegates? There are already too many issues in this province requiring “fixing” legislation applicable to youth; any teacher I know could quote dozens of such issues, including class size, curriculum minimization due to lack of subject qualified candidates at the high school level, lack of incentivization to improve one’s teaching abilities and credentials, shrinking academic standards, bullying and increasing tendency of governments to silence such voices through punitive legislation such as Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith denying teachers the right to appeal back-to-work legislation by incorporating the Notwithstanding clause into Bill 2.
NOWHERE in that list is a reference made towards “woke” culture being imposed upon youth, or that our educational system “suddenly” taking away a parent’s “right” to “educate” their children according to their family’s beliefs; the ONLY common factor here is that our current government is becoming increasingly willing to deny youth a voice in mapping the future pathway of democracy in the creation of much needed progressive legislation for themselves.
The complete absence of debate on members’ proposed resolutions to influence governmental direction issues in future legislative sessions while at convention should also be a warning to SP delegates that the party is internally torn between the choice of following Alberta Premier Smith and her march towards separation being moved towards final irrelevance were Saskatchewanians to create a petition opposing such political direction and the rapidity in which its signature commitment was completed in record time.
So, ask yourselves: WHAT was this SP constitutional amendment all about, or was it just a “wedge issue” that is being floated to the troops just to demonstrate that only “they” should have the “right” to direct our province and nation’s destiny?
Were you to be of southeastern Asian heritage, believe in a God with a different name, or even if your idea of a suntan is “different” from my own – AND you’re not yet eligible for Canadian citizenship, I’d be worried about what that message is saying to you. Parties on the “right” of the political spectrum have recently been insinuating that our governments are now “vulnerable to foreign influence”, and particularly China; thus in order to guard against such danger here in Saskatchewan it has become necessary for the SP to “restrict” the “influence” of components within its membership that might share the concerns of their previous homelands. Such an approach is not only a farce but deflects our government from focusing upon resolving what is our ONLY current major economic crisis: finding a way out of the economic chaos created by our overreliance upon the United States as our economic trading partner.
Ask the now disenfranchised members of the Saskatchewan Party if they would agree…
Better still, teachers; ask your students to write an essay as to how they feel about their being candidates for disenfranchisement…
