A forum for discussion

As may have been mentioned before, the last Saskatchewan NDP leadership forum took place in Regina tonight. And a near-packed house was treated to a strong performance from each of the candidates - which shouldn't come as much surprise given that each has had a chance to hone a message over the course of the last two weeks. But there are a few individual notes worth pointing out.

While there wasn't a lot new on the policy front, Deb Higgins did present one extremely interesting idea which I hadn't heard from her before. On a question about youth involvement in the NDP, she proposed that the candidate targets should include a youth component, with the intention of running 30 candidates under 30 (or 40 under 40).

The proposal sounds like it's still at a relatively early stage of formulation. But it's certainly one which deserves plenty of future discussion - and indeed in a campaign where the possibility of targets for female, First Nations and other underrepresented types of candidates have already been proposed, it makes sense to add youth into the mix as well.

Meanwhile, the strongest critique of the night also came on the question of youth involvement. In his response, Yens Pedersen attacked the idea that younger party members should be satisfied with the opportunity to be mentored by older ones who keep control over the party. Which of course makes for a direct challenge to Dwain Lingenfelter's effort to defuse his own age as an issue by talking about grooming another generation within the party.

But then, the issue stopped there as Lingenfelter didn't pick back up on the theme. And indeed the most striking element of his performance was how his early-campaign ideas about party renewal seem to have largely gone by the wayside: to my recollection he didn't mention the mentorship proposal at all, alluded to a policy renewal process only tangentially, and even on the youth involvement issue proposed little more than outreach to sell more youth memberships (with little about how to better involve current young members).

That could be the result of a conclusion that he's better off directing the conversation to his perceived areas of strength in terms of policy knowledge and political experience. But one has to wonder whether a reduced emphasis on renewal in the leadership race might continue after the convention.

Finally, Ryan Meili's performance was highlighted by his answer on nuclear power which zeroed in on a theme which looks to be worth plenty of development. While Meili mentioned the environmental and cost considerations of nuclear as compared to renewable energy, he also spent a substantial part of his time discussing the opportunity to spread out renewable-energy development around the province so as to benefit a far greater number of communities and provide for local control.

Coupled with the efficiency concerns surrounding nuclear or other centralized power mentioned by other candidates, one could easily see that critique serving as the backbone of the NDP's energy policy to counter the Sask Party's obsession with a nuclear megaproject. And if the ballot question in 2011 comes down to the Sask Party backing a nuclear reactor which creates jobs and development in only one community against an NDP rural revitalization strategy which emphasizes localized power projects across the province, then one has to like the NDP's chances of reaching its goal of bringing rural seats back into the fold.

Update: See Leader-Post coverage here, and Jason's take here.