There’s an old saying somewhere that goes like this: If you keep on doing the same thing over and over again with the expectation at the results will be different this time around, you’re in need of serious psychiatric help. As an illustration, we’re now stuck with Saskatchewan Party rulers for the fifth term in a row, and another four years of watching our deficit grow and green technology job opportunities that Governor Smith is chasing out of USA North being sucked up by Ontario.
You think that’s “bad”? Then add to this the fact that we still have at least another eight months of listening to Pierre Poilievre and his supporters wail on about the carbon tax, crime issues that the RCMP in British Columbia and Peel Regional police seem to have brought under control, and now housing, where Poilievre has decreed that he would kill the Liberals’ housing accelerator program in favour of removing the federal sales tax on housing that sells for under $1 million. That’s DESPITE members of his own caucus privately begging Housing Minister Sean Fraser to release even more coin for low income housing projects in Canada’s major centres. In reality, Poilievre sounds as wrong-headed as Teresa Wright portrayed Miss Birdie in John Grisham’s “The Rainmaker” – “Cut, cut, cut…”
Already, Poilievre and our local MP, Randy Hoback are beginning their childish sloganeering designed to paint PM Justin Trudeau and national NDP leader Jagmeet Singh as conjoined twins, which may well prevent NDP leader Carla Beck’s much strengthened caucus bench from being able to keep the Saskatchewan Party under check as it pursues its agenda to send us back to pre-Confederation days, all in aid of helping Poilievre move into 24 Sussex Drive. I don’t like sounding like some doomsayer when in fact there are many positive things that happened in this provincial election. That’s not to say that the NDP campaign went off without a hitch, but their weak and timorous abstaining on the issues of climate change and destruction of our natural habitat made for some awkward moments for a few candidates on the doorsteps.
It now appears that progressive farmers and Indigenous communities were looking forward to hearing about respecting sustainable food supply policies, or perhaps even how to keep the Lake Diefenbaker irrigation project from turning into just another Love Canal through overuse and disregard for the chemical pollutants that plague the soils of the hillsides surrounding the lake. IF the provincial party had also considered formulating these concerns into a viable farming policy, it might even have swayed many working the land from voting for Scott Moe.
Equally important to the NDP, what could have turned out to be a disastrous stance and policy expression citing “crime” as a major issue – which it is – without explicitly telling candidates to emphasize the approach the Party will be taking is one in which social justice issues and law reform must prevail as items of discussion almost turned into backlash from Indigenous communities who keep trying to tell us that their communities are ALSO victims of crime, and so their ideas as to what must happen in order to truly “fix” the problems and stop rural voters from thinking Gerald Stanley is some type of “hero”. Fortunately, candidates such as Trina Miller in Batoche and Mark Thunderchild in Shellbrook Rosthern were able to effectively communicate such sentiments to their Indigenous voters, and if Scott Moe or even Cody Lockheart, the Saskatchewan United candidate weren’t really concerned about the mainly pro-Indigenous vote of some 1,700 plus votes that Mark Thunderchild garnered this time around should wake them up in a hurry. If Premier Moe is truly intent on this time around “listening” to the electorate, he might well stop to think that perhaps it’s not really healthy that our Indigenous communities perceive the new Marshal service as being nothing more than a group of untrained “rent-a-cops” out on vigilante patrol in rural Saskatchewan, thereby creating some tense moments for these individuals doing a routine stop somewhere in the near future.
It’s equally unfortunate that many Indigenous leaders still wrap themselves in their traditional blanket of their being “leaders negotiating with leaders”, when a truer and considerably more “honest” way of interpreting our Constitution should be that it is the federal government that leads, while the provinces and territories are but branch plants of the same organization, with the premiers being required to address specific duties to include health, education, infrastructure and social justice – for ALL Canadians, including those of Indigenous stock, and only make things worse when they whine about providing such services, especially to reserves, because they’re “afraid” that the feds aren’t going to compensate them for their efforts. Newly elected Grand Chief Bobby Cameron, as part of the negotiating procedure, should be demanding that it become MANDATORY in our Constitution that the provincial governments meet with reserve leaders in consultation so that racial-provoking politicians can no longer utilize the word “taxpayer” as a dog whistle.
There’s much, much more to write about, but since I can’t outline it all in one column, I’m going to beg the reader to mull over what I’ve stated so far as what went wrong or right in this provincial campaign, and go back to Poilievre and local MP Randy Hoback already in federal campaign mode attempting to “sell” a seriously childish suggestion that the PM and NDP leader Singh are merely Siamese twins. Were an operation to be performed (i.e.: a federal election), only the stronger twin would survive, and the prevailing thinking is that this will be the Liberal machine, even if Mr. Trudeau remains the party leader. So that you might want to think about that idea, I’ve developed a single multiple choice question for you to consider:
- Which of the following legislative items were moved as a result of an initially Liberal concern?
- CERB-related plans to assist Canadians in dealing with financial hardship due to the pandemic
- Dentalcare
- Pharmacare
- The proclaiming of September 30th as becoming a national day to address reconciliation
The answer will be in next week’s column.
