On rapid responses

Eddie has already pointed out the CBC's story on complaints about some NDP membership sales in northern Saskatchewan. But while there isn't enough information available yet to comment one way or another about the allegations, it's certainly worth highlighting how the party has dealt with them:

The party's CEO, Deb McDonald, says the party has had phone calls from people in the north who expressed concern.

However, she wouldn't say what those concerns were or how many people had complained.

"We can't be sure the memberships that they're speaking about — whether it was only one camp that has sold these memberships," she said.

The party leadership committee will be meeting Friday night to discuss the issue and will spend the weekend investigating, McDonald said.

"We're going to take a look at these memberships and we'll phone some of the people and we'll talk to them and just check out with regard to how they obtained their membership — if they're happy with their membership, if they really wanted a membership — and just give them options," she said.

Compare that response to what would figure to have happened if a similar internal party issue had been raised when it comes to, say, the Harper Cons. From them, the default responses would be an angry denial to start with, followed by an attempt to point at some unrelated issue in another party or to smear whoever raised the issue, with the possibility of temporarily punishing a lower-level operative kept in mind as an absolute last resort. And at no point would getting at the facts behind the matter be seen as a priority.

In contrast, the Saskatchewan NDP has rightly acknowledged that the allegations exist at least in the eyes of some callers, and has placed its focus on figuring out exactly what happened. And whatever the result of the investigation, the party looks to be far healthier for that response.

Update: Eddie provides a few more details.