Mayoral candidate once led fringe party
Saskatoon’s latest candidate to enter the mayor’s race is no stranger to politics in Saskatchewan.
He was a candidate and former leader for an upstart provincial party almost a decade ago — but under a different name.
Kurtis Devon Hein ran in a byelection in Martensville in 2007 under the banner of the Saskatchewan Heritage Party, finishing last in a race won easily by the Sask. Party’s Nancy Heppner. Later that year, he was listed as the leader of the party, which by then had changed its name to the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party. Now, he is running in Saskatoon’s mayor race using his middle name.
“I’ve always gone by Devon Hein,” he said in interview.
He said he joined the Saskatchewan Heritage Party because the party needed a candidate, and he “filled in when they had problems, when they had nobody else to run that stuff.” He said he wants to focus his campaign for mayor on building better roads, lowering taxes and eliminating crime in the city. He doesn’t want his previous involvement in the provincial political party to cloud people’s vision when it comes to voting for mayor.
“I’m not even part of the Sask(atchewan) Democratic Action Party,” he said.
Hein says he wants to give voters the choice of a candidate who is unabashedly in favour of lowering taxes and reducing crime. On crime, he said, it’s time for candidates — specifically Charlie Clark and Don Atchison, who have served on council — to step up and stop blaming each other.
“They both have created this crime issue in Saskatoon by mismanagement and not focusing resources. They are trying to blame each other, when really they are both responsible for this problem,” Hein said. He said ensuring potential criminals know there will consequences for their actions is part of his plan as mayor.
“I think when a person becomes an adult they are responsible for their actions. I think whatever their background is, wherever they come from, I think they have to understand that if they commit a crime it’s not going to be tolerated,” he said.
The Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party’s archived website shows it was mostly a populist party, rallying against the Saskatchewan Party and New Democrats.
The party also took an anti-immigration stance on its website, saying “cheap third-world foreign labour” is “causing more expensive local Saskatchewan labour to be laid off or fired.”
Hein said in his capacity as mayoral candidate, he wants to build a better retention program to keep new Canadians in Saskatoon. “We need to make sure this city is a place where people would like to stay and not just for a couple years,” he said.
Despite his previous party’s rallying cries against foreign doctors and foreign labour, Hein categorically denied being anti-immigration.
“I can tell you for sure I am not part of any far right, crazy antiimmigration movement,” he said.
Hein also said he would be the only candidate promising to hold the line on taxes. “They seem perfectly content to let taxes go up another 20 per cent over the next four years. Our seniors, people in the city don’t need that,” he said.
Hein received 37 votes when he ran in Martensville in 2007. Though listed as a registered party, the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party did not run any candidates in the 2007 election.
Hein wrote a letter to the StarPhoenix in 2009, decrying the state of foreign health-care worker recruitment and calling it “unethical.”