On dishonesty

I'm at least a little bit surprised that Murray Mandryk seems to have been taken off guard by the Sask Party's speed in throwing its campaign promises out the window. But based on Mandryk's latest column, it appears safe to say that Brad Wall's electoral honeymoon is over:

The oath and affirmation that Saskatchewan Party government MLAs swore to on Tuesday required them to bear true allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors.

Unfortunately, it didn't specify that they were required to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is an oversight perhaps in need of addressing.

Ironically, the day government members' swore the above oath happened to be the same day that we caught the government in its first two blatant incongruities:

Contrary to the Saskatchewan Party's Prince Albert Carlton candidate's election commitment that "a vote for a Darryl Hicke is vote to keep the mill open" we listened to Hicke's rationalization of how the cancellation of the $100-million Domtar memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the former NDP government to try and reopen the mill has virtually no relationship to that commitment.

And we also heard from none other than Premier Brad Wall that the government would impose some form of essential services legislation -- this despite repeated assurances from Elwin Hermanson and Don McMorris (the latter a mere 10 days before the election call) and Wall himself that the Saskatchewan Party saw no reason to legislate essential services and that the unions and governments could work this out at contract time...

(T)here is a bigger principle at work here -- a principle about as simple and basic as principles come in politics: You have to be honest and forthright with the voters.

Wall, McMorris, Hickey and now Advanced Education and Labour Minister Rob Norris simply aren't being honest with the voters on these two issues.

While I don't agree with Mandryk's analysis of the actual policies at stake, it's still important to note how little the Sask Party's word has meant so far during its stay in government. And hopefully Mandryk and others will take the latest reversals as a cue that - as the NDP has warned all along - there's little reason to take Wall's assurances at face value.