Will Sask. Party crumble without its solid Wall?

As it turned out, 2017 was the last stand for Premier Brad Wall.

One wonders if his Saskatchewan Party government will now crumble.

It would seem unlikely. What 2017 also taught us — or more specifically, what the leadership race to replace Wall has so far taught us — is that the Sask. Party still remains very strong in the rural areas. Exactly how many of the Sask.

Party’s 27,125 members are rural constituents remains unknown, but common wisdom suggests a significant majority.

That said, it was likely no coincidence that a May poll showing Wall trailing the NDP for the first time since he was first selected leader in 2004 came after the terribly unkind 2017-18 Saskatchewan budget.

Prudent spending — even in times of largesse, when there were dollars to be thrown around — was never exactly Wall’s strength. Not nearly enough has been said about his departure from office with a record $17.9-billion public debt (as of this month’s release of the 2017-18 mid-year update) and without a Sovereign Wealth/ Heritage Fund that would have helped Saskatchewan get through tough years like this one.

Wall’s tenure was about “attitudinal changes” in Saskatchewan rather than the drudgery of the legislature where real and badly needed social/economic structural change gets done.

Less in doubt, however, was how his considerable political talents allowed Wall and the Sask. Party to limp through one last year in 2017.

Certainly helpful is the reality that his NDP opponents lumbered through 2017 with their own uninteresting leadership race between Ryan Meili and Trent Wotherspoon, which so far has offered little sign that it has captured the imagination of the province the way Wall’s populism did a decade or so ago.

The populism we have seen from Wall in the past year is not quite the same type we’ve witnessed south of the border, where U.S. President Donald Trump aimed at accentuating that country’s deep divisions. Wall does not believe in a kleptocracy, which in any event would not work in a relatively small place of 1.1 million people where voters are more sophisticated and not as economically divided.

What Wall understood in 2017 — and, frankly, throughout his tenure — is the dire need of a provincial politician to carefully pick his spots.

Consider his ongoing battle with Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the carbon tax, where Wall was careful in 2017 to not deny man-made global warming the way Trump and several of Wall’s own conservative colleagues do, but was very deliberate in reminding voters that a $50-a-tonne carbon tax is unnecessarily punitive to a provincial economy dependent on oil, mining and agriculture and coal-fired electrical generation.

Wall demonstrated in 2017 that he stills knows the Saskatchewan audience better than most.

Replacing public sector custodial staff with private contractors, moving to one health board while backing off the same strategy for local school boards, backing off the talk of privatizing SaskTel, and even ending the perennial money-losing Saskatchewan Transportation Company demonstrated Wall’s much-vaunted ability to be on the right side of perceived Saskatchewan common sense.

However, there were just too many occasions in the past year when Wall’s instincts were simply off.

The 3.5-per-cent wage/ remuneration rollback clearly did not go over the way Wall thought it would (remember the nonsensical “Wallidays?”) because it was seen as unfairly punitive and unworkable. The same could be said for budget cuts to libraries, children with autism, funeral costs to the indigent and grants-in-lieu to municipalities that Wall had to walk back.

And then there were the events beyond Wall’s control — often involving others. Past decisions by former economy minister Bill Boyd on the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) caught up to Wall in 2017. Education Minister Bronwyn Eyre’s throne speech rant on the First Nation curriculum may be an unnerving glimpse of what life might be like for the Sask. Party when Wall isn’t around to rein in cabinet ego and nonsense.

Wall’s successor will enter 2018 without Wall’s skills, but inheriting many of Wall’s 2017 problems.