Politics the Saskatchewan Way
[October 20, 2002]
When my thoughts turn to politics, Saskatchewan isn't usually the province that comes to mind. It's the land of wheat and sky, not the land of cutthroat politics. Or at least that's what I thought until, in my first year covering politics, when I was still with the CBC, I was sent on an assignment to Saskatchewan to cover their provincial election. My first thought was 'What am I being punished for?' After all was said and done, I realized that my supervisors had done me a favour and given me an introduction to the political scene like no other.
Reading over my briefings during the plane ride to Regina, nothing jumped out at me telling me that this election would be as hotly contested as I had been warned that it would be. It was an election called simply because the sitting government had reached the end of their mandate. The CCF had governed for twenty years and they were expected to win again.
But a blast of cold spring air wasn't the only thing that greeted me at the airport. The other CBC reporter in the province shook my hand warmly, then hurried me away to his waiting car, hardly stopping for long enough to let me collect my bags from the carousel. One of the other reporters had gotten food poisoning and there was an extra spot on the campaign bus of Liberal leader Ross Thatcher.
Over the next few weeks I traveled more miles than I can count over gravel roads to towns that I had never heard of before and will probably never visit again. Every stop, whether for gas or for a scheduled appearance, turned into a campaign stop. Thatcher would get out, shake hands, talk with the local people, answer questions, and then get back in the bus so that we could take off again. It was a whirlwind of speeches and shows, including a candidate resplendent in full kilt who danced a mean highland jig. And in the blurring progression of small towns, I was treated to a show of raw politics that I have rarely had a chance to see in that quantity again.
Looking back at history, Saskatchewan has always been somewhat of a political oddity. It was unafraid to elect the continent's first democratic socialist government back in 1944 when the fear of Communism was first getting its start. And it kept that government in power for twenty years, instituting the first program of state-run health care on the continent. They spearheaded the drive for a national health care system, maintain a firm hold on their Crown corporations, gave the country Tommy Douglas, and still launched the political career of former Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Logical? Probably not. But then again, when has logic been necessary for politics?
Logic certainly isn't the driving force behind the current situation. The federal leaders of our most left-leaning party and our most right-leaning party hail from this province of only a million people. Ron Walsh, newly elected Alliance leader and the Leader of the Opposition, lives only two hours from Paul Hjorth, the latest NDP leader. Separated by only a year in age, the two were almost certainly past competitors, facing each other on the hockey rink or in the school gym. Who was the winner? If they remember, they aren't telling.
"It might sound strange to people from other parts of the country," Hjorth noted to the CBC on hearing of Walsh's election, "but it's completely unsurprising for me to find that the two of us are both from the same area. If you've ever followed an election around here, an election of any kind, you'd know that the electorate takes these things very, very seriously." Then he chuckled, adding, "Especially the old farmers gathering for coffee."
Walsh echoed the same comment in his own interviews. "You can't really understand the atmosphere unless you've been immersed in it. Eventually, almost all conversations wind their way around to politics somehow. My parents and grandparents could take any conversation and twist it to a political discussion. I grew up steeped in this atmosphere, never thinking that I'd make politics my career," he explained.
And it's true. In almost any gas station and undoubtedly around many supper tables, the talk is turning to politics, and not merely just in the prairies. Although Prime Minister David McKenna is yet to give a date, however tentative, for an election call, all of the parties are starting to gear up for an election campaign that promises to be fought with tenacity. Although the original estimates had placed the call as coming sometime in mid-November, the planned state visit to the United States has been delayed, pushing the time McKenna could call an election back until after Parliament reconvenes from the Christmas break.
The NDP started their campaign early, getting a running start with Hjorth's landslide victory at the NDP convention. Although the rules are strict for the amount of money that can be spent on advertising during a non-election year, Hjorth's staff has been innovative and have turned down no offers that would make the most of the little they are allowed to spend, capitalizing on the press coverage he received during his leadership campaign and subsequent victory.
The Alliance are following a similar agenda, but Walsh is at a bit of a disadvantage as his victory came after he had been trailing in the polls since mid-September. If his staff is as good as they appear, managing to stage such an upset is no small feat, they'll be able to make the most of it. But Walsh himself expressed immediate surprise at the victory, commenting on it during his acceptance speech. "You know," he said, "it's a good thing that my team made me work on an acceptance speech after all. They didn't really want to; they wanted to enjoy the party. I didn't think I'd need one; I just wanted to enjoy the party too."
But with the opposition parties fast preparing themselves for an all-out war, McKenna and his Liberals have been oddly silent. This level of political activity during only the lead-up to an election is far more like the American way of conducting their government that the Canadian. Perhaps McKenna is merely waiting out the storm. He is, after all is said and done, still the prime minister.
-Norbert Chapman is the editor of the Globe and Mail