Small issues crop up with days to go before Sask. Party vote
In this weekly series, Leader-Post reporter D.C. Fraser and StarPhoenix reporter Alex MacPherson round up what’s happening on the campaign trail as candidates compete to be the next leader of the Saskatchewan Party.
No one will know the results for another 12 days, but the race to replace Brad Wall could already be decided.
That is because ballots were mailed to the Saskatchewan Party’s 27,125 members last month, and are being completed and mailed back in the hundreds to the party’s office in Regina, where they will sit, just waiting to be counted, until Jan. 27.
With each of the candidates concentrating on getting out the vote — Ken Cheveldayoff, for example, has reportedly hit half a dozen cities over the last week, knocking on every party member’s door — there have been few policy announcements and fewer major developments. Because it remains impossible to say who will win when the party members convene in Saskatoon later this month, speculation is worth little.
Instead, here are a few smaller — but not insignificant — issues that have cropped up over the last seven days.
First, a few news outlets raised the issue of Sask. Party members as young as 14 years old casting ballots to decide the party’s next leader, and the province’s next premier. This is an important question, but it is also a moot point: People aged 14 to 25 make up only one per cent of the Sask. Party.
The notion of people ineligible to cast a ballot in a general election voting for a potential premier is a worthy discussion, but perhaps the bigger question is this: Why have so few young people joined the party to participate in a historic process with huge implications?
Alanna Koch, meanwhile, attempted this week to provide some clarity on her post-convention plans but succeeded only in sowing confusion.
Her long question-and-answerstyle news release titled “Setting the Record Straight” contained two apparently contradictory answers.
On the one hand, Koch indicated she would “immediately” run in a byelection if she wins the leadership race.
On the other, she said she would consider running in her home constituency in 2020 rather than “just any riding” because she doesn’t want to be an absentee MLA.
The latter statement is obviously in relation to what happens should she lose, but it raises the question: Is Koch committed to the party only if she can be its leader?
She tried to set the record straight, but it’s still unclear — and that is important to caucus members.
Tension appears to be building in caucus, and may well be at an all-time high in the party’s history. The five candidates began the race furiously agreeing with each other, but cracks are beginning to show, with Tina Beaudry-Mellor going on record that she wants herself, Scott Moe or Gord Wyant to win.
Because those three MLAs have far more caucus members behind them than Cheveldayoff and Koch, largely due to Moe’s support from virtually all senior cabinet ministers, it is beginning to become clear that this race could leave the party more divided than ever.
One issue the candidates are united on involves a closely-held report prepared by the Sask. Party’s leadership election oversight committee after it concluded an investigation into whether questions were leaked to a candidate ahead of a debate in Weyburn in November.
Postmedia News learned the report was more substantive than what the party released publicly, but it remains unclear what it contains. Or, for that matter, why the party and the campaigns involved seem content to keep it hidden from public view.
Whether the report could affect the race is an open question. The chances of that happening diminish every day. But for a government already plagued with questions about transparency, it seems strange to line up yet more for its new leader to answer on his or her first day.