Wyant goes from Sask. Party asset to liability
It’s not uncommon for opposition politicians to call for a minister’s head, but consider what the NDP’S call for Education Minister Gord Wyant to resign means in the context of the teacher labour unrest that he has fuelled.
Then further consider it in the context of what Wyant — a serious leadership contender who offered an urban, more liberal perspective — has meant to Premier Scott Moe’s right-wing and rural Saskatchewan Party government.
The Sask. Party is riding high and will win the 2020 Saskatchewan election — whenever it is called — on the strength of its rural caucus and support for its oil/ resource policies.
So solid is that support right now that — had it not been for the unforeseen world upheaval that got in the way of Moe’s grand plan — we might very well have seen Ryan Meili’s NDP wiped out in an April vote.
Yet there is an uneasy feeling that maybe we should be more worried right now about how the Sask. Party government seems out of balance and out of step. For all the talk of self-isolation and social distancing, it appears it’s the Sask. Party that’s out of touch with Saskatchewan’s immediate needs.
Thursday, the raison d’être of Health Minister Jim Reiter seemed to be spinning how all the April election talk was a media creation. Setting aside the simple fact that it wasn’t, he is the health minister in the middle of a potential health crisis during a worldwide pandemic. The front page headlines in the Leader-post yesterday were “COVID-19 reaches Saskatchewan,”
“Sask. nurses’ union demands respirators” and “Don’t let fear drive actions, psychology professor says.”
Maybe now is not the time to play arrogant political games. Maybe now is the time for political leaders to grow up, step up and lead.
But the problem didn’t start with COVID-19. If one is to analyze how we got to this point, a good start may be the recent evolution of Wyant.
Whether by happenstance or very bad issue management, Wyant suddenly has gone from being one of the Sask. Party government’s biggest assets to a bit of a liability.
This should be troubling for government not only because Wyant deals with a wide berth of stakeholders, from teachers to parents to students.
It’s troubling because this government must lean on its Gord Wyants, heavily, to provide a bridge to those with interests other than business, agriculture or oil.
This week, Wyant was shouting across the floor of the assembly that teachers are walking away from their kids and we heard him call Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation President Patrick Maze the “grinch that stole Hoopla” (the provincial high school basketball championships that quite realistically might have been cancelled anyway because of COVID -19. After all, that’s what was done by a little basketball organization called the NBA).
One gets that there is tension during any negotiations. One might even get that maybe the STF and Patrick Maze have to take more ownership of his union’s classroom size and composition demands. Since 2007, there has one teacher hired for every 18 additional students, the government contends. Five days out from a budget where the government will be scrambling to pay for already-growing expenditures, maybe the STF does have to concede that more hirings and two-per-cent-ayear wage increase demands are incompatible.
That said, a government formed from Liberals and Progressive Conservatives needs a Wyant to be the yin to the rest of the Sask. Party caucus’s yang.
More than ever, the Sask. Party needs the nice, level-headed guy you saw in Wyant’s 2017-18 Sask. Party leadership campaign video. Coffee cup in hand (the man surely loves his coffee), Wyant proclaimed: “Not a wheel turns in this province unless you have a good foundational education system. This is all about return on investment. If you invest in the classroom today, you’ll reap tremendous benefits in the future.”
One gets that a minister is allowed to lose his cool every now and then, but the Wyant we saw this week speaks to a bigger problem.
Wyant has evolved into another caucus/cabinet member isolated from solutions to serious public concerns. The Sask. Party already has too many of those.