Sask. Party’s great strength is unity of right

Left-leaning parties lacking in discipline across continent

There’s legitimate reason to be frustrated with how dismissive Premier Scott Moe was last week regarding the news that the Wexit movement would be running candidates in the next provincial election on a platform, one presumes, of removing Saskatchewan from Confederation.

Provincial premiers and other leaders must stand strong for this nation. That Moe would not outright condemn Wexit is even more disheartening than the western alienation/ soft western sovereigntist game he, Brad Wall and maybe a few other conservatives (see: the Buffalo Declaration that Moe also would not condemn) seem to have been playing since the Oct. 21 re-election of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

One might think the presence of a real separatist party toying with the idea of breaking up our country would produce from Moe a profound, nation-building statement ... if for no other reason than the self-serving one that Wexit could potentially drain extreme right voters from the Saskatchewan Party in a general election that Moe appears to want sooner rather than later.

After fanning the flames of western alienation, is it possible Moe and the Sask. Party are about to get burned by not only Wexit but perhaps also the old Progressive Conservative (PC) party that might have received a jolt from the increased involvement of those attached to Maxime Bernier’s federal People’s Party of Canada?

Well, not likely. And why it’s unlikely has to do with a phenomena that started in Saskatchewan and has spread throughout Canada and the rest of North America.

As grating as it might be hear Moe say “that’s not my job to worry about them” in reference to Wexit, it was a subtle signal that farther-flung right parties (even separatist parties) aren’t really worth fretting about and energies should be expended elsewhere. Certainly, it set off a desired response on social media from Sask. Party loyalists warning against splitting the right-wing vote and — in this case — enhancing NDP chances.

The upstart parties likely won’t make a difference.

The Sask. Party is still winning rural seats with as much as 75 to 80 per cent of the vote. Sure, losing votes in closer city seats could be problematic, but the old Progressive Conservatives have been trying to inflict such damage on the Sask. Party for three elections now without any success. In 2016, the PCS received only 5,571 votes in the province, or 1.28 per cent.

The Western Independence Party received a grand total of 318 votes provincewide, or 0.07 per cent.

The Sask. Party? It received a whopping 270,776 votes, or 62.36 per cent of all votes. Its success has been no accident.

What the Sask. Party has demonstrated is successful movements require years of dedication to a single-minded goal. Really, the

Sask. Party’s endgame since its creation was not just defeat the NDP, but also ensuring the province’s once natural-governing party never governed in Saskatchewan again.

The Sask. Party has been the model for other unite-the-right parties, including the Conservative Party of Canada, formed in 2003, as it strives to oust the Trudeau Liberals. Much like the current Republican movement in the U.S. under Donald Trump, it’s less about ideals than a burning desire to stop a movement to the left.

Now, compare that with the left — whether it be Bernie Sanders vs. Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, the split in the federal NDP under Jagmeet Singh or even the lack of cohesiveness in the Saskatchewan NDP under Ryan Meili — where it’s all about ideological divisions within. The unity and single-mindedness is not the same.

Saskatchewan, home of North America’s first social democratic government, may very well be the birthplace of the notion of united conservatism that’s swept the continent.

And, right now, what separates the right and the left all across North America is the discipline of unity.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the

Regina Leader-post and Saskatoon Starphoenix.