Leadership race in home stretch

In this weekly series, Leader-Post reporter D.C. Fraser and StarPhoenix reporter Alex MacPherson scrutinize everything happening on the campaign trail as candidates compete to be the next leader of the Saskatchewan Party and the Saskatchewan NDP.

The race to replace Brad Wall as head of the Saskatchewan Party has entered its final phase.

Ballots have been mailed to the party’s 27,125 members — 17,625 of whom have signed up since August — whose choice to replace the outgoing premier will be revealed at a convention in Saskatoon in just over three weeks’ time.

But unless more information about the biggest scandal to rock the race becomes available, members may be casting their votes without a clear picture of what happened before and after a partyrun debate in Weyburn on Nov. 30.

The scandal emerged in early December, when the StarPhoenix reported that the Sask. Party’s leadership election committee was investigating allegations of questions being leaked to a candidate ahead of the debate.

Three candidates — Tina Beaudry-Mellor, Scott Moe and Gord Wyant — raised the concerns in a letter to the party. The document did not name a candidate, but Alanna Koch’s camp was quick to deny any wrongdoing.

The Leader-Post subsequently reported that the candidates’ concern stemmed in part from a senior official in Wall’s office’s request for information from the health minister’s office about nurse practitioners — a subject that came up during the debate.

Koch’s campaign then confirmed a request for information on the subject was made before the Weyburn debate.

The party subsequently said while its probe did not uncover concrete evidence that a question or questions were leaked, the inquiry from Wall’s office could be a concern for candidates.

Beaudry-Mellor, Moe and Wyant have not issued a formal response to the party investigation’s findings, and with the committee’s refusal to comment further on the matter, several important questions remain unanswered:

First, it is not clear how the party chose to investigate the allegations, who the committee interviewed or how deep it dug for evidence that its leadership election process had been subverted. It should make its full report, and the emails in question, public.

Second, its findings appear to contradict each other by suggesting that while the investigation turned up no hard evidence that the integrity of its process was compromised, the candidates were justified in bringing forward their concerns. An explanation is warranted for the sake of transparency.

And third, it is not clear how an internal memo, explaining that government ministries including the executive council were at the candidates’ disposal, was not as a matter of course sent to the party and on to each of the five camps. Why do only one or two candidates claim to know this?

That none of the five remaining candidates have issued a response to the committee’s finding suggests there is little interest in pursuing the matter — they are all on the same team in the end — but in a process where integrity is everything, a probe should not raise more questions than it does answers.

While the debate question probe dominated coverage of the race in December, there was another significant development in the form of Rob Clarke’s early exit from the race and subsequent endorsement of Ken Cheveldayoff.

Clarke said he decided to drop out to avoid a “damaging votesplitting scenario,” but it seems strange that anyone would pay a partly non-refundable $25,000 fee to enter the race late and then quit with more than a month to go.

The Sask. Party also last month revealed it is now proportionally larger than Alberta’s United Conservative Party was when it voted in Jason Kenney as its leader earlier this year — a staggering accomplishment by any measure.

The fact that more than 13,000 people reportedly signed up for the first time sends a strong signal that Saskatchewan residents care deeply about who takes the reins, and want their voices heard even if they are not traditional Sask. Party supporters.

Who those people are, however, remains an open question. How many of them are members of the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation, a group that could determine the province’s next premier, is one of the bigger unknowns at this point.

Officially, the STF is refusing to endorse a candidate but it seems clear that teachers and their families are leaning toward Wyant, who has released a clearly thought-out, moderate and comprehensive platform that appeals to educators.

Estimates as to how many teachers signed up vary wildly, but STF president Patrick Maze didn’t hesitate to make a tongue-in-cheek social media post suggesting every one of them paid for a membership and a ballot.

The significance of the teachers’ votes was made clear earlier this month when Moe pledged to restore $30 million to public education with the aim of hiring 400 educational assistants and other staff for classrooms across the province.

Whether Moe’s attempt pays dividends remains to be seen, but it seems clear that he is taking the prospect of teachers getting involved seriously, and his pledge may force the others to take similar steps.

The votes will be counted at a convention in Saskatoon on Jan. 27.