Moe needs to butt out of Alberta politics

Given that Saskatchewan was the first place in North America with a social democratic government, it’s not as if we are strangers to overheated rhetoric.

But there are rules and one of the more important rules here (and most everywhere in the country) is that you confine your politics to your own jurisdiction.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe crossed that line this week in a tweet directed at Alberta voters urging them to unite behind one conservative party to defeat NDP Premier Rachel Notley.

“Dear Albertans, Prior to the formation of @SaskParty 20 years ago, our province was the example of what dividing the free enterprise movement will do: electing NDP governments, over and over again. United we win, divided we lose,” Moe tweeted.

Moe is supposed to be the premier for everyone in Saskatchewan. And he is addressing Albertans?

Essentially, Moe is engaging in the online equivalent of physically knocking on doors for Jason Kenney and Alberta’s United Conservative Party.

Why would he or others around him not get that there may be problem here?

Sure, Moe has the right to his personal views and stating them in public likely surprises no one. Sure, it’s common to hear barbs thrown across the floor of the Assembly after the election in another province.

But there’s a reason why you have never seen other Saskatchewan premiers like Brad Wall or Lorne Calvert or Roy Romanow or Grant Devine campaigning for another province while in office. Unlike Moe, they were cognizant of their duties, responsibilities and who elected them.

You weren’t elected by anyone in Alberta. You don’t represent “the free enterprise movement.” Nowhere in your job description does it state that it’s your role to prevent “electing NDP governments.” Your job is not to hurry Rachel Notley along to her political demise, which seems an inevitability, anyway.

Good heavens! Can anyone imagine what Scott Moe would be saying if Rachel Notley started campaigning for Ryan Meili? Golden rule here.

Consider how Prime Minster Justin Trudeau was rightly crucified for doing the same thing by stumping for then-Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne. So Moe is now following Trudeau’s lead? How’d that work out for either Wynne or Trudeau?

Mostly, though, you don’t do it because it’s bad for business.

It’s bad when you go to Conference of Confederation meetings and you have to stand shoulder to shoulder with Alberta’s premier — regardless of who that is — to fight for critical regional issues like pipelines. What would happens if Saskatchewan did have an NDP premier and Jason Kenney decided he couldn’t work with the NDP on pipelines? Would Saskatchewan be right to be miffed?

It’s bad the next time Saskatchewan has to go to a western premiers’ conference to talk about the New West Partnership to talk about stocking Saskatchewan beer in Alberta or even barring Alberta licence plates at Saskatchewan work sites. (Sadly, the latter seems to have been a largely mythical issue that likely did arise over the Sask. Party government’s need to pick a fight with Alberta over something.)

It’s really bad because it represents a mindset of partisanship taking precedence over what’s good for the province. If Moe needs any reminding how problematic this is, he may want to recognize he’s complaining we don’t have a good equalization formula after Wall and his government abandoned pursuit of the equalization formula everyone in this province really wanted so as not embarrass former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper for what amounted to an unworkable national promise.

But worst of all, it can only heighten the nastiness because voters see it as one more thing that was once unacceptable now become acceptable.

We witnessed elected Saskatchewan Association Rural Municipalities delegates scream “traitor” at 40-year-elected MP Ralph Goodale. We heard at SARM mindless rants about separation and shipping the socialists to Venezuela.

Is Moe or anyone else thinking about whether this helps political discourse in Saskatchewan? Wouldn’t we be better off to tone down the animosity and rhetoric?