Meili sees growing acceptance for his ideas in leadership bid

As Ryan Meili awaits his meal at a downtown Regina restaurant, jovial Cumberland MLA Doyle Vermette saunters up to the NDP leadership hopeful to kibitz about picking up the cheque.

Vermette is part of the NDP caucus majority supporting rival leadership hopeful Trent Wotherspoon, but the warmth expressed toward his Saskatoon Meewasin colleague seems real.

And being a caucus colleague is what Meili sees as the biggest difference between his NDP leadership run this time around and previous runs in 2009 and 2013.

“I don’t want to dwell on what happened then, but I want to say that there have been lessons learned,” Meili said when asked about internal policy and political divisions after his two previous NDP leadership bids where he was, respectively, the runner-up to Dwain Lingenfelter and then Cam Broten by a mere 46 votes.

Sure there have been minor tensions in this leadership race — especially, over Meili’s refusal to take union and corporate donations and his pointing out Wotherspoon’s unwillingness to do the same. And behind the scenes, there has been unhappy chatter between those from different camps — often under the umbrella of what Meili broadly describes as he and his team pointing out “what hasn’t worked in the past” and trying to push the notion that “new is not scary.”

However, Meili also believes the leadership debates demonstrate there has also been remarkable agreement — even when it has come to some of his policies once viewed as too left wing to be electable.

The practising physician says he believes his vision has changed less than has the willingness of the party and province to accept it.

“I don’t see any real difference (in his own views) from (what they were) when I was attending med school,” said the Saskatoon doctor, also known for his Upstream movement that focuses on how a healthy society could be created “through evidence-based, people-centred ideas.”

Certainly, those ideas have been clearly articulated over the years, including in Meili’s book, A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health can Revive Canadian Democracy.

They are also evident in what has likely been the most robust party leadership platform this province has seen in years.

Although Meili may feel more accepted and less of an outsider in this particular race, the questions remain whether the party — and, ultimately, the province — is ready for his specific brand of progressive politics.

While admitting that it may not be the best political analogy, Meili likens his own decade-long political journey to the path of U.S. Democratic presidential nominee hopeful Bernie Sanders, whose once radical-sounding views became more mainstream during the course of his political career.

He notes today’s new-found emphasis on health outcomes, social supports as a preventive measure and the open political dialogue on mental health weren’t talked about 10 years ago, but are all now part of policy discussion.

However, this may not mean everything Meili advocates in his platform will be an easy sell.

For example, asked about his views on carbon capture and sequestration at Boundary Dam 3, Meili said he would preserve the costly $1.6-billion public investment, but would not extend CCS to Boundary Dam 4 and 5. He would also eliminate coalfired electrical generation by 2030.

Meili admitted that such policies remain a difficult sell, but argued attitudinal change can happen by listening to people’s concerns (he advocates town hall meetings similar to those conducted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) and focusing on, no matter how entrenched their view, moving people one step from their existing position.

The NDP hopeful said his approach is different than that of the Saskatchewan Party he says discount voters’ willingness to change or even think for themselves. “I think the NDP has been guilty of this, too,” noting the NDP’s lack of success in rural Saskatchewan. “There is a dismissiveness of rural people.”

But Meili believes his patience can bring about change ... something he intends to prove in this third leadership run. This is the first of two NDP leadership candidate profiles. Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post. mmandryk@postmedia.com