Stop the Hogs!

UP AGAINST THE WALL: A Pre-election Series

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By Jim Harding December 9, 2015

Saskatchewan will have a provincial election this coming April, and with only a few seats in the legislature, the NDP could be said to be “up against the wall”. If we look beneath the political narrative coming from the Sask Party, we may find that we are all up against the wall.

It’s clear how the Sask Party will frame its campaign. Premier Wall is already featured in ads saying we can’t go back to the bad times of the NDP. And his popularity and knack for getting into the national news could work for him.

It remains to be seen whether Saskatchewan people want to be so associated with an increasingly lone-wolf premier who seems out of step with progressive national and international trends. Wall’s continual defense of the fossil fuel industry and recent statements about Syrian refugees may be sounding a little too much like U.S. Republicans. With Alberta announcing a carbon-reduction plan, Wall’s Saskatchewan is pretty much left alone in “right field”. It’s not much of a shift to see Wall’s Saskatchewan not as “the new” but “the old” Alberta.

WALL’S NARRATIVE

We are all familiar with the story which we learned as children. Wall is the white knight in shining armour who will take the desperate people out of the dark days of the past, into a better future. The “dark days” are being associated with the NDP being in power. Such mythic stories can play a powerful political role. Whether having to do with the “economy” or “security”, Harper constantly appealed to a patriarchal fairy-tale about the strong father figure.

If Wall can convince enough voters that things have been getting better since he’s been premier and that voting NDP would be “going back” to darker times, then he’s a shoe-in. But can such simplistic messaging work again in 2016? We’ve just come through the “dark days” of the Harper government where wedge politics kept us from tackling the climate crisis and the growing gap between rich and poor. Will the Saskatchewan voter be a little more discerning this time round?

THE SERIES

In this ongoing series I will concretely explore Wall’s narrative. Was everything bad under NDP governments? Are there things accomplished by our predecessors, including the CCF, that still benefit us? What about the Crowns? And why isn’t Wall talking about the “dark days” of Grant Devine and the huge deficit he left us? Are there things happening today, after several terms under Wall, that are not good signs for our province?

I won’t write from a partisan view, but rather from what the research reveals; I’ll “commit” a lot of sociology and let the historical and social facts speak for themselves.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Wall’s speeches often suggest that his open-for-business embracing of the fossil fuel and non-renewable resource industries is a means to improve our quality of life. So it is fair to look broadly at indicators of this.

I’ll not only look at public health and Medicare, but at the arts, income distribution, long-term care, affordable housing, treaty rights, multiculturalism and the evolution of human rights here. I’ll look at aboriginal incarceration and at family violence, watershed protection and safe drinking water, especially in indigenous communities. I’ll look at heritage protection. And of course I’ll look at the carbon footprint in Saskatchewan.

There will be some things about our history that may come as a surprise. There will also be some things happening today that should shock us.

“CLEAN-COAL” AND NUCLEAR

My previous column was about the folly of Wall embracing carbon capture and storage (CCS). Such a white knight policy would supposedly take us towards enlightened energy policy and away from the dark days of the NDP. Wall continually bragged about CCS on several trips across the border lobbying for Keystone XL. But what are the facts? It was actually the NDP that initiated a pilot project on so-called “clean coal”. And there were already signs that this technology wasn’t cost-effective. So if the Sask Party is so enlightened, as its pre-election ads suggest, why didn’t Wall leave this behind?

The duality that “we’re good and they‘re bad” breaks down. Both past NDP and the present Sask Party governments followed the wrong policy when trying to salvage coal plants. Ontario and now Alberta are on the right track phasing out their coal. The $1.5 billion Wall spent on CCS could have converted thousands of homes to low-carbon solar energy.

The important question now is which party is most likely to take us forward. It is encouraging that Sask Power just announced that it will aim for 50% renewables by 2030. It’s about time. For years some of us have been saying that 20% of our electricity could and should come from wind alone. The price of solar continues to fall. So why has Wall’s government stubbornly persisted with a pro-uranium-nuclear policy, when the rest of the world has discovered that nuclear is neither cost-effective nor “green”. Nuclear continues to shrink as new, sustainable technologies gain ground.

Our past shouldn’t be rewritten to become a political football. We must be honest about our past but also about what is wrong with present trends. Will Wall’s simplistic knight-in-shining-armour narrative work in the coming election? Are we really that gullible? Or, might we return to a more balanced understanding of what’s progressive about Saskatchewan’s past? And build upon this? And if so, how might this affect the election outcome. Stay tuned!

Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
http://www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com

SASKATCHEWAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS HERITAGE

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BY Jim Harding December 9, 2015

This is the second part of my pre-election series “Up Against the Wall”

It is always risky to present the past as the bad times to try to garner political support for an upcoming election. But this is what Premier Wall is doing in his pre-election ads about previous NDP governments. This strategy requires that people remain largely unaware of their own history. The politics of spin can easily become the politics of disrespect.

It was encouraging in November 2012 when Premier Wall came out in opposition to Harper refusing to pay for chemotherapy for a refugee who was diagnosed with cancer after coming to Canada. Wall may have wanted to differentiate himself from Harper’s harsh policy and his attempt to use refugees as a wedge issue.

Under our Charter of Rights, refugees should have a right to be treated with dignity and respect, which includes access to vital services. In this case however, Wall wasn’t so much setting a new course for Saskatchewan Premiers, leaving the dark days of the NDP behind. He was actually following in a proud tradition of some of our past premiers.

PREMIER DOUGLAS

Tommy Douglas is primarily known as a pioneer of national Medicare. Although forgotten or never known by many, the first CCF government under his premiership passed human rights legislation in 1947. This was long before any other jurisdiction in the Americas and predated the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights by over a year. (This Declaration by the way was drafted by a Canadian.)

Then in 1950, Tommy Douglas stood alone as the first premier to call for a Canadian constitutional bill of rights. Such standing alone on the national stage as an advocate of human rights was very different than premier Wall standing alone in defense of fossil fuels.

Saskatchewan went on to play an important role in achieving such rights. A Progressive Conservative government headed by Saskatchewan’s John Diefenbaker passed the first Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960. And although this was only legislative protection, it forged the way. In 1982, the Trudeau Liberals finally had the Charter of Rights inserted into our repatriated constitution.

But there is more, for a past Saskatchewan NDP government played a central role in bringing about the Charter. When federal-provincial negotiations were frozen in 1982, a meeting of Roy Romanow, Jean Chretien, Roy McMurtry, the attorneys general from Saskatchewan, Ottawa, and Toronto, created the compromise that allowed repatriation and the Charter to go forward. It is no exaggeration to say that Roy Romanow, who later became premier, played a major role in Canada finally getting a Charter of Rights.

TREATY AWARENESS IN SASK

But there is more. Aboriginal and treaty rights finally became part of the Canadian constitution in 1982. And, from 1874, when Treaty Four was signed in Saskatchewan, until 1982, treaty rights here and across Canada were totally ignored. The Indian Act, Residential Schools and the unlawful Pass Laws were how the federal government ruled aboriginal Canadians. Aboriginal Canadians weren’t allowed to vote until 1960.

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan played an important role in bringing forward awareness of the treaties. In 1961, Premier Douglas worked directly with John Tootoosis, the first President of the newly formed Federation of Saskatchewan Indians (FSI), to publish copies of the treaties. How many Premiers across Canada did that?

The Treaties were published by “The Provincial Committee on Minority Groups” which Tommy Douglas chaired, in cooperation with the FSI. (The use of the term “minority” still shows the paternalism of the time.) The publication was called “The Treaties: Between Her Majesty, Queen Victoria and the Indians of British North America.” Part I contains the discussions and text of treaties 3, 4, and 5, and Part II contains this for treaties 6, 7 and 8.

PERSONAL AWARENESS

The Introduction starts with “The Proclamation of 1763”, making it an excellent resource for raising awareness. This was the only reason that I knew about and read the treaties in my twenties; there certainly was no “treaty education” in my high school curriculum. Such awareness was crucial when I was active in the 1960s in helping form the Student Neestow Partnership Project (SNPP), a desegregation project somewhat modeled on the U.S. SNCC civil rights project in which I had been a volunteer.

At that time, human rights activist colleagues from other universities across the country knew almost nothing about the treaties. Because of the respectful collaboration of Douglas and Tootoosis, Saskatchewan helped spearhead this belated effort towards awareness of our overlooked history.

The struggle for human rights continues across the world. While we should never be apologetic for our country’s flagrant disregard for aboriginal and treaty rights, we should also celebrate how past actions laid the groundwork for advances today. Let us all acknowledge and celebrate our progressive past.

I’ll return in the New Year. I trust that everyone has a happy and fruitful holiday.

Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
http://www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com

ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Has Premier Wall Been Forward-Looking?

By Jim Harding For publication in R-Town News January 15, 2016

This is the third in the pre-election series “Up Against the Wall”

Premier Wall hasn’t had much to say since he returned from the climate change talks in Paris. He is standing out as the only premier continuing to defend the fossil fuel industry. Most recently, he backed Trans-Canada Pipeline’s $15 billion dollar NAFTA suit against the U.S. government for not approving the Keystone Pipeline.

He also stands alone in continuing to back questionable carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology being used for oil recovery which in turn brings more carbon into the biosphere.

Perhaps Premier Wall had hoped to be able to come back from Paris able to promote nuclear power and Saskatchewan uranium exports as a responsible carbon-reducing strategy, but the global research is nearly unanimous that nuclear power isn’t a timely, safe or cost-effective way to address the climate crisis. As I’ve noted in past articles, with the threat of nuclear proliferation and the buildup of nuclear wastes, going from fossil fuels to nuclear is like going from the frying pan into the fire.

Meanwhile, Wall continues to depict the NDP opposition as stuck in the past while the Sask Party government is presented as “forward-looking”. Might this pre-election narrative become vulnerable once it gets seriously investigated? For example, just how forward-looking has Wall’s government been about climate change? About reducing our province’s huge carbon footprint? About embracing the technological revolution in renewable energy? About making our economy less dependent on fossil fuels and the volatile non-renewable resource sector?

CANADA’S CARBON FOOTPRINT

According to the United Nations, Canada has become a high greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter. This trend accentuated under the Harper Conservatives. In 2011 Canada’s total emissions were 701,791 gigagrams (Gg). This was not much lower than Europe’s largest economic power house, Germany (916,495 Gg) which has taken the climate crisis to heart, and is even higher than the much more populated United Kingdom (556,458 Gg).

Canada looks even worse when you consider per capita emissions. The Conference Board reports that in 2010 the emissions among all seventeen OECD countries averaged 12.5 metric tonnes (mt) per person. Canada’s was nearly double this at 20.3 mt, which was third highest in all OECD countries. Environment Canada information shows that the major culprits were transportation (24%), oil and gas (23%) and electrical generation (13%). Emissions from buildings and agriculture were next.

Only emissions from electricity dropped (from 18% to 13% of total) since 2000, which was largely due to Ontario shutting down its coal plants. Transportation, and oil and gas continued to increase as a proportion of Canada’s overall emissions.

PER CAPITA EMISSIONS

However, national averages can be deceptive; there is a great range of emissions from coast-to-coast-to-coast in Canada. Environment Canada’s information shows that since 2000, total emissions have been steadily declining in Ontario, Quebec and B.C., and steadily rising in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Since 2000, Alberta has been the biggest overall GHG polluter of all the provinces, even surpassing Ontario with its much bigger population and economy. The oil and gas sector, especially the tarsands, and coal-fired plants, have been largely responsible. With its oil and gas “boom” and dependence on coal plants, Saskatchewan now emits more total GHGs than the much more populated B.C.

It’s not surprising, then, that the per capita (per person) levels in Alberta and Saskatchewan have been “off the wall”. Average per capita GHG emissions for all Canadians have been around 20 metric tonnes (mt). The figures for Alberta and Saskatchewan have been hovering around 60 to 70 mt, which is three or more times the national average.

HIGHEST ON PLANET?

Premier Wall likes to project himself as forward-looking, but do the facts support this?

The trend line is revealing. Environment Canada and other information shows that in 2000 Saskatchewan trailed Alberta at 61 metric tonnes (mt) of GHG emissions per person per year. Alberta was much higher at 74 mt; the country’s highest level. By 2005, Saskatchewan and Alberta were very close, at 71 and 70 mt per person per year, respectively. But by 2011, Saskatchewan had surpassed Alberta releasing 68 mt per person per year. Meanwhile, Alberta had dropped to 63 mt.

When the Sask Party formed and vied for power, Saskatchewan was behind Alberta, which was Canada’s highest per capita GHG emitter. Under Sask Party rule, Saskatchewan has achieved the reputation of becoming Canada’s highest per capita GHG polluter. This continues to this day. Our province’s carbon footprint is now nearly six times the OECD level (12 mt per person) which places us among the highest per capita GHG polluters on the planet.

This trend is hardly an indication of being forward-looking.

Sometimes it’s good to be first, but not when it comes to carbon pollution. Being the No. 1 carbon polluter is not a source of pride for Saskatchewan. This matter should be front and centre in the spring election.

Next time, I’ll explore how Saskatchewan became Canada’s largest per capita GHG emitter. Happy New Year!

Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
http://www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com

WHY IS SASKATCHEWAN SO FAR BEHIND ON RENEWABLE ENERGY?

BY Jim Harding for publication in R-Town News January 29, 2016

This is the fourth in the pre-election Series “Up Against the Wall”.

Our province is now Canada’s largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). We have surpassed Alberta which previously held this notorious reputation. There are many reasons for this and none of them suggest that the Wall government has been forward-looking.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Under Wall, our province dropped to the bottom of the pack in terms of endorsing low-carbon renewable energy. In 2005, renewable energy, broadly defined, accounted for 24% of our electrical production. In 2011, it was still only 25% and this trend continues. And most of this (22-23%) is from hydro, which itself carries many nasty ecological impacts.

Wind power was only 2% of electrical generation in 2011 and this was mostly because of the Cypress Wind project near Gull Lake initiated by the previous NDP government. For years, independent analysts have shown how wind from our wind-swept prairies could generate 20% of our electricity. And our neighbours, Manitoba and Alberta, along with Ontario, have steadily moved in this direction.

SIDETRACKED BY UDP

What was Wall’s government doing while this shift was occurring? It was bad-mouthing renewables while advancing nuclear power as some sort of value-added solution to the energy crisis. Remember all the public resources wasted with the Sask Party’s Uranium Development Partnership (UDP) during their first term? The UDP was so much in the pocket of industry that it recommended a uranium refinery, nuclear power along the North Saskatchewan River and a nuclear waste dump in the north. We’d be broke if these had proceeded.

The Wall government was backward, not forward-looking. The global trend was set in 2005, before the Sask Party was even elected, when electricity from renewables surpassed that from the nuclear industry. The share of the global electrical market provided by nuclear has steadily fallen and is now at only 11%, while the renewable sector has more than doubled. It is now approaching 25% of global electricity.

LIKE OLD ALBERTA

Premier Wall likes to brag that, under his watch, we became a “have-province” like oil-rich Alberta. In fact, we are more like the old Alberta not the new, modernizing Alberta. Even with its ties to the tar-sands, Alberta has done much better with renewables. By 2011, Alberta was producing nearly 4% of its electricity from wind. With a grid three times the size of ours, this was about 6 times the wind power capacity of Saskatchewan. Perhaps you’ve driven through the huge Pincher Creek Wind project. Alberta is now also looking at solar power.

Meanwhile, it took until 2015 for Sask Power to even admit the global trend and commit to 50% renewables by 2030. Thankfully, Sask Power finally accepts that 20% of our electricity can come from wind. Unfortunately, there is still no commitment to solar, which will most certainly surpass wind as a renewable energy sector.

RESOURCE ECONOMY

In addition, the Sask Party has made us more, not less, dependent on carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Even its costly carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at Coronach is being used to extract more oil to pollute the atmosphere. Saskatchewan is one of the last Canadian jurisdictions to try to salvage coal plants. Had the $1.5 billion of our money spent on CCS gone directly into renewables, we would also be able to start shutting down coal plants!

Meanwhile, the new Alberta NDP government has introduced a plan to wean the province from its coal plants though it doesn’t yet have an acceptable plan to reduce GHG emissions from the tar-sands.

Becoming the highest per capita GHG emitter and the last to embrace renewable energy are, of course, directly related. And all the Sask Party hype about us being a resource-rich “have province” just obscures how far behind we are. With the new federal Liberal government now tackling climate change, and willing to spend infrastructure money to shift our energy and economy to being more sustainable, Saskatchewan is even more out of the loop.

ENERGY SECTOR

Our economy remains as vulnerable as Alberta to the volatility of non-renewable resources. By 2011, 25% of our GDP came from the energy sector, just behind Alberta at 28%. Only Newfoundland was higher. If anything, the Wall government has increased this dependence.

We’ve seen what this did to Alberta, with its fixation on the tar sands. Now facing the bust-side of its boom-bust commodity-based economy, there are not only higher levels of unemployment but of suicide. Alberta already has 63,000 people on EI and suicides went up by 30% in the wake of the oil-price crash.

The indicators are not good here. Housing and retail trade are already way down. While oil drilling went down by 50%, unemployment went up 33%, to a record high of 30,400 people in 2015 - according to Sask Trends. Thirty-five hundred people lost jobs in manufacturing which is tied to resource exports here. Stats Canada reports that, by the end of 2015, Saskatchewan already had 15,000 people on EI, the highest overall percentage increase across Canada.

THE SPRING ELECTION

With a spring election coming, Saskatchewan needs an honest, evidence-based discussion about the needed shift in our energy system and economy. Back in 2009, the NDP actually called for an expansion of wind to produce 20% of our electricity. The fact that Sask Power has finally adopted such a policy further questions Wall’s pre-election rhetoric that, since the Sask Party replaced the NDP, we’ve been steadily moving forward. We haven’t!

But can the NDP opposition get its head around the hard evidence about the counter-productive trends under Wall’s premiership? Can they make a break from their own past myopia and, like their sister party in Alberta, start to squarely face the facts about energy, economy and the environment?

Saskatchewan desperately needs this public airing. Are the two mainstream political parties going to step up to their responsibility?

Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
http://www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com

IS CAM BROTEN BRAD WALL’S BEST “FRIEND”?

BY Jim Harding Published in R-Town News March 18, 2016

This is the fifth in the Series “Up Against the Wall”.

Sask Party ads encourage us to not go back to the “bad times” of the NDP and as their lead narrows, Wall may ramp up this narrative. Of course, it’s always possible that the Sask Party doesn’t want us to look back because we might learn something about all of our governing parties.

HERITAGE FUND

Looking back is sometimes a good thing. Murray Mandryk is quite right that a Heritage Fund that saves resource revenues for a “rainy day” should be front and centre in this campaign. And, he notes in his Feb. 26th column that the need for a Heritage Fund was raised by the NDP in the 2011 campaign.

Actually, we have to go back a lot further, 45 years, to 1975, when Blakeney’s NDP created the first Heritage Fund. By 1981, this fund had $1 billion dollars in it. By the time Grant Devine’s Conservatives took power, it was empty. In 1980-81, 56% of it was returned to the province’s Consolidated Fund to help compensate for reduced federal transfers. More telling, 20% of it was spent propping-up the non-renewable industry; much of this went into the uranium industry. Only 0.3% was spent for renewable resources and environmental protection. Yes, less than 1%. (If you want details, see chapter 12 of my 1995 book “Social Policy and Social Justice”.)

Perhaps Cam Broten doesn’t want us to look back either. It is indisputable, however, that had this NDP-created Fund been established as a truly public saving institution and a means to convert to a sustainable economy, Saskatchewan would be a very different place today.

PROVINCIAL DEBT

Wall doesn’t want us to look back because it would show that his government also squandered economic advantages for political gain. Under his government, the provincial debt has mushroomed to the same size ($13 billion) that it was when the Romanow NDP took over from the bankrupt Grant Devine Conservatives.

After 2011, the Wall government did do some research into its version of a Heritage Fund. Its cautious Future’s Fund would have saved any resource revenue that exceeded the 5-year average. But, as Mandryk points out, the Sask Party couldn’t even find the $100 million dollars as seed money for this Fund. Instead, it had to borrow $700 million to fund infrastructure projects. This, on top of its $427 million dollar projected deficit for 2015-16, is a $1.2 billion deficit. This, after a decade of bragging about the good-time boom years and moving Saskatchewan forward!

The NDP has gotten some traction criticizing how Wall is spending its deficit. The $1.9 billion Regina Bypass project locks us into an expensive foreign-based P3; the land deals around the Global Transportation Hub are now being investigated; and the $1.5 billion spent on carbon capture and storage (CCS) was like throwing public money down the drain.

CARBON TAX

But the NDP doesn’t want us to look back too closely and find that it was their government that launched “clean coal”. Here, the Wall government actually followed the Saskatchewan NDP down the wrong path, away from sustainability. It also did this with uranium and nuclear power.

Meanwhile, Wall now stands almost alone in opposing a carbon tax. Even Reform Party founder, Preston Manning, now supports a carbon tax. Such a tax or levy could have created its own fund to help finance the conversion to a sustainable economy. Without a carbon tax. the $1.5 billion that the Sask Party has spent on CCS has all come from the taxpayer and general revenue, and has likely contributed to our accumulating debt. Meanwhile, under Wall’s Premiership, Saskatchewan has earned the reputation as having the highest per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada and amongst the highest on the planet.

Cam Broten has had the opportunity to clearly distinguish his party from Wall’s backward-looking approach. So, why hasn’t he made a carbon tax a central election issue? The fear of being labelled a “tax and spend” party is no excuse; a carbon tax would actually protect the average taxpayer as well as the environment.

SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Of course, it’s important to talk about healthcare, long-term care and class sizes. But, what about the big picture!

The dependence of our economy on toxic non-renewables, our continual squandering of resource revenues, our huge and inexcusable carbon footprint and the need to protect our environment and our watersheds, should all be at the centre of this campaign. Yet I looked at an NDP leaflet used for door-to-door campaigning in Regina and couldn’t find the word “environment” or “water”.

Meanwhile, the Chinese state corporation, Yancoal, is full-speed ahead on a solution potash mine upstream from the Qu’Appelle Valley that could use 50% to 100% of the water used by Regina. This is not sustainable.

There is nothing in this NDP leaflet on the “climate crisis”; along with more extreme weather, this will become a water and food security crisis. One reason why the deficit and debt has grown so quickly under the Sask Party is because of ill-preparedness for flooding and forest fires, on the rise in large part due to unchecked carbon pollution.

Why is the NDP letting the Wall government off the hook on such crucial issues? If Cam Broten presented a real alternative, one embracing the vision of sustainability, he would increase voter turnout and increase his seats. And our province needs a stronger progressive opposition; otherwise we will all be “up against the wall”.

Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
[ http://www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com ]

IS SASKATCHEWAN REALLY STRONGER AFTER WALL’S RE-ELECTION?

Up Against the Wall No. 6


BY Jim Harding, Ph. D. Published in the R-Town News April 15, 2016

It doesn’t seem like we’ve even had an election; things remain pretty much the same. Wall’s Sask Party maintains firm control and the NDP remains a weak Opposition.

The Sask Party ran on the slogan “Keep Saskatchewan Strong” and there’s no doubt that it has a strong grip on power. But, is this really what makes Saskatchewan, its communities and environment, strong?

Their door-to-door leaflets talked about a “strong economy” and we know what this means. They are not talking about a healthy provincial democracy or a resilient environment! They aren’t really talking about “strong” communities.

Their narrative tries to tie a “strong economy” with “quality of life” but the connection is elusive. The wealth from non-renewable resources simply hasn’t been trickling down to communities, including the rural ones that continued to give the Sask Party so many votes. After so many boom years, just why does the province have such a high debt and a growing infrastructure and social deficit?

PROUD OF OIL AND GAS

It was very revealing in Wall’s victory speech when he emphasized that Saskatchewan had “a government that is proud of oil and gas”. He didn’t say he was proud of Saskatchewan having the highest per capita carbon footprint in Canada and one of the highest in the world! Or that he was proud that our drinking water and wastewater treatment infrastructure was so antiquated that our capital city was dumping untreated sewage into the downstream waterway. Nor was he saying he was proud that there was a shortage of affordable housing or that more and more families had to use food banks. He didn’t say he was proud of our extremely high aboriginal incarceration and domestic homicide rates.

And, Wall is not going after $156 million dollars of federal infrastructure money to try to solve pressing environmental and social problems, but to help clean up abandoned oil and gas wells, something that was to be done and paid for by the industry.

It was no surprise that the Harper Conservatives held most of their Saskatchewan seats in October’s federal election. Saskatchewan is pretty much in the same situation under Wall that Canada was heading under Harper. Wall holds on to his version of a Petro State and with his “strong mandate”, he’ll continue to push his non-renewable resource agenda. This will continue to tie us to fossil fuels - oil, gas and coal, and the environmental chaos that comes with global warming.

DISTORTED LEGISLATURE

The media always makes things simpler than they are, so Wall’s victory was reported as a landslide. (In the natural world, landslides are not good for us.) Leader Post columnist Murray Mandryk even called Wall’s rule a “dynasty”. The dumbed-down commentary we saw from the CBC panel simply reflected the dumbed-down politics in the province.

With 27 rural and 24 urban seats, the Sask Party will certainly be able to control the Legislature. With only 8 urban and 2 northern seats, the NDP will continue struggling to be an inspirational Opposition.

However, to understand what happened, we need to consider all the electorate and not just those who voted Sask Party. And, Sask Party supporters remain a minority. Yes, the Sask Party got 63% of the votes, but only 57% of the registered voters cast a vote. That means that slightly over one-third (36%) of registered voters selected Wall’s majority government. And, if you add in Saskatchewan residents who weren’t registered, the percentage drops.

The seats in the Legislature are, therefore, unrepresentative of Saskatchewan people. The Sask Party got 2 votes for every 1 that went to the NDP, yet the Sask Party got 5 seats for every 1 going to the NDP. Under a fair Proportional Representation (PR) system, the Sask Party would have 41 not 51 seats and the NDP would have 20 not 10. The NDP would then be much more able to launch an effective Opposition, which is going to be necessary with Wall’s government now sliding into deficit and the high probability of service cuts.

An effective Opposition would make Saskatchewan a much stronger province, but that’s clearly not what Wall’s Sask Party means by “Keeping Saskatchewan Strong”.

VISIONARY LEADERSHIP

Opposition leadership always matters and with such a small caucus, leadership probably matters even more. However, NDP leader Cam Broten couldn’t even win his Saskatoon seat. This is the second election in a row where this has happened; NDP leader Lingenfelter also lost his seat in 2011.

The NDP’s popular vote went to an all-time low of 30%. And that’s 30% of 57% or only 17% of registered voters. Clearly, the play-it-safe NDP approaches are not resonating. Saskatchewan voters have not been given a reason to seriously consider returning the NDP to power. And the Sask NDP Opposition probably could not effectively challenge Wall’s narrative because it isn’t free of it, itself.

A new leader is clearly required, but a new leader won’t make any difference if the party doesn’t make a big “leap” in their thinking. If they don’t present a coherent, sincere alternative vision and program, then in 2020, there will be a similar result. Mandryk could then be right that there is a political dynasty here.

THE NEW SASKATCHEWAN

But this isn’t likely. The Sask Party likes to brag about the “new Saskatchewan”, and not going back to the days of the NDP. However, going into a third term of Sask Party rule, our province feels a lot like it’s going back to the Old Alberta. With the bias of the voting system, it even feels a little like a one-party state, which doesn’t feel good. That may make the Sask Party feel “strong” and even powerful but it certainly won’t make Saskatchewan a better place to live.

The NDP is finding it hard to make a clean break with the toxic economy, including ending its support for uranium mining, coal plants and environmentally-destructive corporate farming. Perhaps that is why it never talked about protecting our water and waterways. The task of building a new vision, something around which voters could rally, still falls on progressive grass-roots organizations throughout the province. The NDP needs to start listening.

The Sask Party will continue to promote the toxic non-renewable economy and try to keep it strong. The “new Saskatchewan”, an ecologically-sustainable Saskatchewan, has yet to be born.

Jim Harding PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
[ www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com ]