REGINA - Well, my lecture for today is about the so-called Saskatchewan provincial election campaign.
I say it’s “so-called” because technically the election has not been called yet. We have yet to see Premier Scott Moe walk over to Government House to ask the Lieutenant Governor Russ Mirasty to call the election.
But that hasn’t stopped the major parties from making a whole flurry of pre-election announcements over the past number of weeks. They must have known I was coming back to SaskToday because ever since I returned, day after day it has been one announcement after another.
The governing Saskatchewan Party had been going around doing spending announcements, consisting of a lot of re-hashing of stuff that had already been announced in the budget.
There’s even been announcements for stuff that isn’t even complete yet. For instance, Premier Moe and several members of the government were at the “80 per cent completion” of the Regina General Hospital parkade. That sounds good, but it would have been more impressive if it were “100 per cent completion.”
The government has also been at announcements for the site location of new elementary and high schools in The Towns area of Regina, for safer communities initiatives and more front line officers in various communities, and to move ahead with new health care facilities. Premier Moe was at one such announcement as I write this, in Rosthern.
Just the other day here in Regina, they had an announcement about investments they were making into rural roads. They also had an announcement about $500,000 they were giving to the local IMAX theatre in Regina. The list goes on.
All the while, the government is insisting this is not “campaigning.” Premier Moe was asked about it himself at the parkade announcement. He said this was “not about campaigning, this is our record. This is our record of investing, of creating and doing what we can to work with industry partners across this province to ensure that we have a strong and vibrant economy so that we can make investments just like this.”
Well, they sure have been making lots of these announcements. The messaging is clear: they want to show the voters what good guys they all are making these investments. They’re hammering home the message that they are actually doing something. The opposition likes to complain that the government is doing nothing, but here's their chance to show they are actually working for the people of Saskatchewan.
That’s the one advantage a government has prior to an election: by making announcements about investments, it is more than merely being a “campaign promise.” With campaign promises it just comes across as politics, because you will never know what you might get after the election. But a government spending announcement sounds more permanent and more official. They're putting their necks on the line here, this is something they can't easily reverse.
Meanwhile, you take a look at the New Democrats and they are already acting like the election is on. NDP leader Carla Beck and her party have been making campaign commitments day after day, one after another. They’ve promised to get rid of the PST on groceries and on kids clothing. They’re promised $2 billion for education, and promised new schools in White City and Moose Jaw. They want to suspend the gas tax for six months. And they are trashing the government over their health care record.
A lot of these are nothing new; anyone who watched the Legislature during the spring saw the NDP hammer the government day after day about the gas tax and the PST and all kinds of issues. Still, it’s interesting to see the NDP in such obvious campaign mode. It wouldn’t surprise me if the NDP soon asks why Premier Moe hasn't called the election yet, and then accuses them of not calling the election in order to instead waste taxpayers’ money making spending announcements on the people's dime.
Meanwhile, Sask Party folks are currently going around asking where the NDP plans to find the money for all of their campaign promises. From the taxpayers, perhaps?
One wonders what to expect when the writ is dropped for real. At the current rate, the NDP will have their whole platform released before then.
If that is the case, what happens to our great SaskToday campaign coverage? Our crack team of province-wide reporters had these big plans for daily coverage of exciting announcements on the campaign trail. At this rate, there’s going to be nothing left for the NDP to announce.
In fact, we are playing a guessing game as to when the election will actually be called. Theoretically, it could be called at any time now. But the exact date is tricky.
We don’t expect a call to happen Sept. 23 — that’s when the pronouns case is in the appellate court. We also don’t expect a call on Sept. 30 — that is National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, and the optics of upstaging that solemn occasion with an election call would not be good.
The last possible day that a call could happen looks to be Oct. 1. That would take us to an Oct. 28 trek to the polls.
If Premier Moe waits until the last minute to call this vote, that is just fine with me. In fact, I want these political jokers to hold off as long as possible.
My fear is that once the campaign gets under way for real, then we won’t be covering election promises or any of this fun stuff we are doing now. In fact, with the NDP platform pretty much known and with the Sask Party cabinet done making their "positive" spending announcements, my fear is things will deteriorate real fast.
I saw what it was like during the spring sitting of the Leg when MLAs were hurling accusations across the aisle over one ethics thing after another, to the point where even the Speaker directed a few words about it to certain individuals. It was non-stop personal attacks.
But in an election campaign it will be worse, because all the usual suspects on social media will be doing it. An election call will be the signal to all of them to really ramp up the negativity, and all the rest of the usual mudslinging we have come to expect in Saskatchewan elections. All the embarrassing videos and stories about incendiary stuff that candidates said or did will be dredged up and circulated again.
Even on policy I expect the parties are saving their hardest-hitting stuff for the actual campaign. The Sask Party have been pretty much holding their fire in attacking Trudeau and the federal government so far on issues like the carbon tax, but I have a feeling that’s going to change.
Of course, Premier Moe will be feeling the heat over a lot of stuff. He’ll likely be attacked over his pandemic response. He’ll be getting attacked over tire processing contracts going to California. You can bet we’ll see all the controversies in education come back again, including all the allegations about Legacy Christian Academy, not to mention all the “pronouns” stuff that was brought in.
Maybe it’s a good thing we are not in an official campaign yet. What we are seeing from the parties right now could well be the calm before the storm.
