REGINA - Former Saskatchewan Party MLA and Speaker Randy Weekes has made it official — he’s supporting the NDP.
“Yes I have Endorsed Carla Beck and the NDP. It’s time for a change,” posted Weekes on the X platform.
The endorsement comes soon after Weekes has said Tuesday that a caucus staff member had overheard David Buckingham, running for re-election in Saskatoon Westview, using a racial slur during a caucus meeting.
In response, the Sask Party issued a statement to media stating they do not tolerate any form of racism.
“The Saskatchewan Party does not tolerate any form of racism within the party, government or caucus.
“There was a situation in the caucus office where MLA David Buckingham was talking about another individual using a racially inappropriate term and in doing so, he repeated that term. Mr. Buckingham realized he should not have done that, apologized and took sensitivity training.
“We are not aware of any of the other incidents that the Speaker described in his media availability today."
Included in that Sask Party statement was this from Buckingham: “There was one occasion where I repeated a racially inappropriate word as I was recounting a story of another individual using that word. That was wrong and I should not have used that word, regardless of the context. I immediately apologized to caucus staff, realizing it was a wrong thing to say, and then apologized to my caucus colleagues at the first opportunity.”
In speaking to SaskToday/Harvard Media, Weekes provided some more detail on what he heard had happened. He confirmed that the racial slur was used repeatedly in a conversation in which Buckingham, the government caucus chair, was involved.
"And there's a young black woman that worked in the caucus at that time. Her office was nearby and could hear this, and it was very traumatic for her. And so it was something that was serious to her," Weekes said.
"She took that very hard, and even though there was an apology given to her, she actually locked herself in her office for the time being because of how she felt about it."
As for Buckingham taking sensitivity training, Weekes saw that as a slap on the wrist.
"And so it just seems to be a bit of a culture in the Sask Party caucus, and it speaks to the lack of leadership of Premier Scott Moe that there's never anything done with individuals that do these things."
Weekes’ endorsement follows on the heels of his major falling out with the Sask Party, going back to last fall when Weekes, who had been the Sask Party MLA for Biggar-Saskatchewan Valley in the legislature, lost the Sask Party nomination in Kindersley-Biggar to Kim Gartner.
At the end of the session this past spring, Weekes hurled accusations at the Sask Party house leadership over harassing text messages, including accusing Jeremy Harrison of bringing a gun to the Legislative Assembly. Harrison later admitted to the incident having happened several years earlier and resigned as Government House Leader.
Weekes also posted on the X platform a photo of his caucus card cut in half, accompanied by the words “enough is enough.”
Scott Moe’s reaction at the time was to characterize Weekes as a “sore loser” and of “sour grapes.”
Weekes officially announced his resignation from the government caucus on June 24.
More recently, Weekes has appeared at a town hall meeting on accountability along with Aleana Young and Meara Conway, and on Sunday he appeared at the campaign office opening for Carla Beck in southwest Regina. Lately he also has posted a number of X posts that have generally been favourable to the NDP, including one last week that stated: "Enough is enough!! Good luck Carla."
Finally, on Tuesday, Weekes confirmed he was indeed endorsing the NDP.
In speaking to SaskToday, Weekes confirmed that "I'm going to be voting NDP in the next election, and I think it's time for a change."
He was also once again critical of the "intimidation and bullying" he was subjected to from Harrison while he was Speaker -- something he has been vocal about for months.
"And I worked with the clerk staff, and we meet every day during session to discuss points of order and the day's routine proceedings. And I would not bow to the pressure and the intimidation of Harrison.
"And there were — it got back to me that on a regular basis, virtually every spring and fall while I was Speaker, that they were considering removing me because I wasn't doing the government's bidding. And it continued on right through to the last spring. And I decided that I'd had enough of that."
"And as I said, 'enough is enough' when I tore up my Saskatchewan party membership card. And I've been speaking out ever since May 16th when I made a number of—well, much information that came out. And I've been doing that ever since."
There were other reasons Weekes cited for leaving the Sask Party.
"So with the leadership of Scott Moe, when he became premier, the Sask Party began turning to an extreme right wing," said Weekes, who pointed to the 'pronouns' legislation where parents needed to be notified for name changes of students under age 16.
"And you can look at Bill 137, the emergency debate, which was many people shake their head that the government's having an emergency debate about that issue.
"That's just one example. It was obviously a gut reaction to Nadine Wilson and the Saskatchewan United Party and the Lumsden by-election," said Weekes, referring to the Lumsden-Morse byelection in which Jon Hromek finished second with over 20 per cent of the vote.
"And many policies of the SaskParty under the leadership of Premier Scott Moe has become just, I find it unacceptable," said Weekes. "I have said this before. The Sask Party left me. I didn't leave the Sask Party."
