‘At-home’ Brad Wall needs to be a lot more like ‘away’ Brad Wall

That a politician creates more enemies at home than abroad is an inevitability.

This is so even for a Brad Wall who enjoyed phenomenal popularity at home for his first nine years.

Of course, one can see pockets of that support in Saskatoon from those who could afford to slap down $250 a ticket to the Saskatchewan Party fundraising “premier’s dinner.”

But to think this is still the norm for Wall and the Sask. Party requires one to not only ignore the polls, but also the growing outrage stemming from the 2017-18 Saskatchewan budget, expressed online, in letters to the editor and even among those who were to show up on the route to last night’s “premier’s dinner” to express their outrage to those attending.

If anything, it’s things like Wall’s political fundraisers that are now deepening the divide at home.

They actually serve as a reminder that many of Wall’s political donors in business fared a lot better than others did in the March 22 budget — with tax decreases compared with the majority hammered by tax increases and program cuts.

Even when Wall does the right thing, like reversing course on the $4.8-million library cuts, it’s been met with a surprising amount of derisive sneering. This tells us a certain disdain for Wall has settled that wasn’t there before.

And one suspects it’s been accumulating for a while.

Wall’s problem likely began in earnest when the story first broke on the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) land flip deal and the premier rather boldly predicted that the story would be over in a week, leaving the reputation of the local CBC in tatters.

It didn’t quite play out that way.

Yet rather than chastise former economy minister Bill Boyd, who at least bears responsibility for the massive overpayment cited by the provincial auditor, Wall allowed Boyd to gently exit. In duplicitous fashion, Wall has defended Boyd and the GTH deal daily.

Now, Wall and new Economy Minister Jeremy Harrison are duplicitously trying to blame the former NDP government for the Sask. Party government’s 2009 secret decision to give Canadian Pacific Railway 300 free acres of developed GTH land — logic that would make U.S. President Donald Trump blush.

So given the political direction in which Wall seems to be headed at home, it’s passing strange that Wall would be seen, nationally, as one of the leading, respected and moderate conservative voices in Canada’s delicate trade relationships with the Trump presidency.

A national newspaper recently called Wall “Trudeau’s secret weapon” as the Saskatchewan premier jaunted off to Iowa and then Washington, D.C., where he met with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.

In fact, while in Gray on Thursday for no other purpose than a farmyard photo-op prime ministers so love, Justin Trudeau singled out Wall for his “excellent and productive visit to Washington and Iowa” as part of the federal Liberal government strategy to offset Trump’s erratic sudden push to tear up NAFTA.

How could a premier from a small province showing his own signs of erratic behaviour at home be helpful in dealing with an erratic U.S. administration?

Well, it may be because “away” Brad Wall bears little resemblance to “at-home” Brad Wall.

In fact, the Wall who scrummed Wednesday on the need for countervailing duties after the U.S. imposed 20-percent duties on softwood was reasoned, calm and collected as he called for a rationally negotiated solution while girding for possible countervails down the road.

“They’re going to be tough negotiators, and if the softwood lumber experience with the Americans in the past is any indication, they’re not going to much care if they lose rulings, in terms of making a change,” he said.

“So I think we need to be very firm and united, and again, I think the prime minister’s tone is right and we’ll support him all the way.”

Thoughtful. Reasoned. Wellplanned.

It can only make one wonder why we’re not more often seeing this Brad Wall on issues at home.