Virus might not have much effect on fall vote

Let’s take a quick look at all the things that have or might change from this spring to this fall ... and the one big thing that may not have changed much at all.

We will have limped through more than six weeks of social distancing and self-isolation that will (hopefully) have produced an infection rate and death toll that’s thankfully low ... although that’s rather relative.

Saskatchewan’s 531 COVID-19 cases (as of Thursday) were nearly double the 263 cases in Manitoba that’s roughly the same population but one-eleventh the 6,017 cases in Alberta which is four times as large in population. Of course, the Prairie numbers are minuscule compared with the 20,363 cases in Ontario or the 35,238 cases in Quebec that, were it a separate country, would have the 17th most coronavirus cases in the world. (Canada sits 10th.)

This offers little solace to La Loche that now accounts for about 70 per cent of Saskatchewan’s “active” COVID-19 cases (138 cases in the “far north” from which La Loche cases are not precisely broken out).

Sadly, one aspect likely unchanged is our disregard for La Loche and the north in general until the next inevitable crisis — especially, with the overwhelming problems in our immediate vicinity that are likely to carry into the fall.

One such problem is the almost incomprehensible 53,000 fewer jobs in Saskatchewan from March to April that are part of a massive 73,800 job loss in this province since February.

Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate is now 11.3 per cent — its highest in the past 44 years and getting close to the numbers our grandparents and great-grandparents endured in the Dirty Thirties. Surely, this gives some pause to those suggesting we don’t have to move ahead so fast on the Re-open Saskatchewan Plan.

There should be some better news by the fall. Farmers are doing their part with the annual seeding megaproject. Today’s US$25 a barrel West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price should recover.

Contrary to view of federal leaders Elizabeth May of the Greens or Yves-françois Blanchet of the Bloc Quebecois, oil is not dead.

But as this crisis drags into months instead of weeks, it is taking a massive toll — not only on our economy, but also on our collective psyche as we lose more things like the remainder of the school year to (likely) Craven’s Country’s Thunder to (now quite likely) the CFL season.

It will continue to require more stimulus packages like Premier Scott Moe’s $2-billion booster shot announced Wednesday.

Yes, such massive spending desperately needs legislative scrutiny, which simply has to (and most likely will) happen before the fall. It’s more than a little weird to see conservative-minded supporters of the Saskatchewan Party now justify such taxpayer subsidization, but perhaps the bigger puzzler is how the NDP Opposition will viably criticize a spending policy with which they agree.

Surprisingly, what hasn’t changed much in the past two months and may not change by the fall is the political fortunes of the NDP and Sask. Party.

Two months ago, just as this crisis was starting, Moe and company were contemplating sneaking in a spring election to catch the badly disorganized NDP off guard. It was a brutally partisan decision that would have likely left an already specious 2020-21 Saskatchewan budget without proper scrutiny.

One might think such gamesmanship combined with the enormity of the COVID-19 mess and all its negativity would be creating massive problems for a governing party, but opinion polls suggest Moe — like most Canadian leaders — is perceived to have handled this crisis well.

Meanwhile, Ryan Meili has been largely relegated to the sidelines, having to be exceedingly careful what the NDP chooses to criticize in today’s volatile circumstances where there’s not much appetite for partisanship.

And then there’s the NDP’S old problems of having only half their candidates nominated, having little or no hope in rural Saskatchewan or some suburban seats, no money to mount a campaign ...

It begs the question: If the NDP were likely to be wiped out in a spring election, what’s changed for a fall vote? Mandryk is the political columnist for Regina Leader-post and Saskatoon Starphoenix.