Saskatchewan NDP’s future, leadership on line
The provincial NDP leadership race is underway and the next year will determine the road ahead for Saskatchewan’s once natural governing party.
Over a year ago on my radio show, we mapped the path that Trent Wotherspoon would take to seek the NDP leadership.
In 2013 Mr. Wotherspoon finished third in the party’s leadership race behind Cam Broten and runner-up Ryan Meili, the social activist physician from Saskatoon.
After a third consecutive NDP loss to Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party a year ago, a disgruntled New Democrat reached out to me and sketched the narrative: Mr. Wotherspoon would be installed as interim leader, repeatedly state no ambitions on leadership; he’d develop a public profile and would then resign as acting leader and join the leadership race, saying he’d been urged to run by party members.
The prophecy has played out. Mr. Wotherspoon’s recent resignation as interim leader should see him formally enter the leadership race within days.
The main unknown is the only declared candidate,
Dr. Meili, who wasted no time entering the race after becoming an MLA in March.
This leadership contest will be the NDP’s version of a tale of two cities or, more precisely, the two factions in every city.
The historic NDP base is made up of traditional trade union working-class people from the public sector and blue collar jobs. With a strong sense of party history, the base has been baby boomers and their parents.
Often at odds with this — particularly in Saskatoon and Regina — is a much harder, more activist left inspired by Canada’s Leap Manifesto and the politics of U.S. socialist Bernie Sanders.
This nouveau left is university centred, often sporting family incomes exceeding $200,000 and living in tony houses in Nutana and Cathedral.
In Saskatoon, where Mayor Charlie Clark’s city hall victory was engineered by eastside activists, this group also aligns with Ryan Meili, more left wing than New Dems are accustomed to.
Trent Wotherspoon’s candidacy is favoured by establishment NDPers. But the party has changed.
Demographically, as elders have moved on, they’ve been replaced by hipsters and activists energized by a strong social justice focus, with little knowledge (and even less concern) for NDP traditions and history.
Dr. Meili’s performance in the 2009 leadership race, where he challenged establishment candidate Dwain Lingenfelter, surprised many.
Four years later, he came just 44 votes short of Cam Broten for the top job. Now, the Meili base has an energy and enthusiasm that threatens the NDP status quo.
While a new leader will be chosen next May, the NDP — as the self-professed party of equity seekers — will take pains to avoid a repeat of its last leadership race, when four white men duked it out with not a woman or visible minority candidate in sight.
Unhappiness over the Sask. Party government’s austerity budget has given New Dems hope that their party has become relevant, while public opinion polls show them rebounding from their lowest support levels in history.
Many are also emboldened by the unprecedented NDP win two years ago in Alberta and the party’s recent surge in British Columbia.
Regardless of party, Saskatchewan politics are rooted in pragmatism and results. Voters reward parties that enunciate a meaningful platform that distinguishes them from their opponents and has a workable possibility of succeeding.
One of the NDP’s greatest vulnerabilities is that they opted to take a pass on an existential review after losing government in 2007.
Unlike past rebuilding exercises after NDP defeats, this time the party stubbornly maintained it didn’t need to be put on the hoist and have any major work done. Instead, the sense seems to be that New Democrats can wait out their own history.
This strategy may profoundly affect not just their leadership race but the immediate future of the party.