National Post (National Edition)
FAST FACTS ABOUT THE RETIRING BRAD WALL
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall announced Thursday he is retiring from politics after a decade in office. Here are a few key facts about the long-serving Saskatchewan politician:
Age: 51 Hometown and riding: Swift Current, Sask.
Family: Wall and his wife Tami have a grown son, Colter, and two grown daughters, Megan and Faith. Colter has a budding country music career.
Outside politics: Wall is a huge football fan and a booster of both the hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders and Oakland Raiders. He has done a segment called “Premier’s Picks” on Saskatchewan radio during Canadian Football League season. He’s also a classic car buff. Last year, he bought a white Cadillac convertible once owned by country music legend Waylon Jennings.
Early career: In the 1980s, he worked in Ottawa in the office of Swift Current Tory MP Geoff Wilson. He returned to Saskatchewan and worked as
a ministerial assistant in Grant Devine’s Progressive Conservative government. Wall was first elected as a member of the legislature in 1999, under the banner of the Saskatchewan party. As premier: Wall was first elected premier of Saskatchewan in November 2007. He won two more general elections with majority votes in 2011 and 2016.
Notable moments: Wall has been a fierce critic of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax policy. He has also called for the suspension of the federal government’s plan to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees and has been a passionate advocate for pipeline projects.
Quotable: “This meeting is not worth the CO2 emissions it took for environment ministers to get there.” — Wall’s statement after Trudeau’s surprise announcement of a carbon tax whilst environment ministers were in a climate change meeting.