Moderation wins the session
It may not be good news to either the frothing-at-mouth right who demand lower taxes and deregulation, or the frothing-at-mouth left wanting government intervention at every opportunity, but moderation usually wins out at the end.
Unfortunately, moderation has not always been found on the red-turnedgreen carpet of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly, where supposedly irreconcilable philosophical differences between the right and the left have often been a convenient excuse for not listening to what might be a perfectly reasonable idea from an opponent.
But reasonableness was precisely what both the Saskatchewan Party and the New Democrats provided this fall sitting. It was nice to see.
No MLA was forced to withdraw an inappropriate remark. The opposition wasn’t vitriolic. The government didn’t really come across as arrogant. And there was nothing like the nonsense we saw in Ottawa this week or in this very legislature in the past. Heck, upon conclusion of business Thursday, MLAs across the floor were offering each other handshakes and even hugs.
When the MLA most accused of overstepping his authority happened to be Speaker Dan D’Autremont, who in his tri-cornered campaign tried to rid the building of supposedly badly dressed reporters or anyone voicing an opinion in the rotunda, one is left with the impression that things are about as good in the Saskatchewan legislature as they have ever been.
In fact, about the biggest problem with a session like this is determining the winner and loser.
For example, the NDP acted like winners because they didn’t engage in the dogmatic histrionics that often accompany a party going through a leadership process. Under the low-key guidance of interim leader John Nilson — who told reporters Thursday his caucus’s focus was on issues raised by, and most affecting, ordinary people — the Opposition basically stuck to meaty issues such as “Jimmy’s law” to provide a safer working environment for late-night retail workers or “Howard’s law” to establish an asbestos registry.
The Opposition didn’t always get what it wanted but, as the wise ol‘ men of rock n’ roll would say, “ya get what ya need”. In the case of Pakistani refugee and cancer patient Seleem Akhtar, that was something as simple as health care.
There was some unnecessary NDP shrillness surrounding the privatization of Information Services Corp. (ISC), new private liquor stores, labour law changes and budget accounting of the general revenue fund that Provincial Auditor Bonnie Lysak says is translating into another deficit budget this year. The NDP is right about Lysak’s assessment, but lost in its vitriol is the fact that nine of the last 10 budgets — including all five of the last NDP government budgets — were not balanced in the general revenue fund.
Nevertheless, the small NDP caucus did much this fall to reclaim credibility lost during Dwain Lingenfelter’s leadership.
But whether the NDP really gained all that much ground this falling sitting is questionable, given that the Saskatchewan Party government’s own reasonableness offset many of the gains the Opposition could have potentially made.
Premier Brad Wall’s government did remain unnecessarily obstinate on the film tax credit file and engaged in the old budget- ing shell game. There also remains reason to worry that the labour legislation is a game of bait-and-switch in which the Saskatchewan Party distracted the public with talk of an anti-union, right-to-work approach while intending all along to hide a lot of niggling, harmful labour-law changes in pending regulations.
But to dwell on this would be to ignore a lot of good emerging in the new labour laws, including better protection for workers through tougher occupational health and safety fines and minimum-wage indexing.
Wall clearly won with his incremental approach. Whether it was changes to liquor regulations, the privatization of only new liquor stores or perhaps even limiting privatization to ISC, “reasonable” and “incremental” best described the Saskatchewan Party approach.
Perhaps it is because we were at a unique time, when a small Opposition needed to be reasonable to re-establish its credibility and a large majority government needed to be seen as reasonable to avoid the “arrogant” label.
Whatever the case, both sides were reasonable and both sides performed well as a result.
And the real winners may be very well be the voters.