Looking backwards

The Saskatchewan NDP has rightly been pointing out Dwain Lingenfelter's goals for party development from the party's response to the Wall government's throne speech. But there's another part of the NDP's reply which looks to deserve more attention than it's received so far. Here's Deb Higgins:

I got a copy of the Speech from the Throne when I was leaving the legislature yesterday, sat down with a highlighter, and I went through and marked what were former initiatives that they were again highlighting — not over just last year but over the previous two years — and my final count came to 53 old initiatives that were highlighted again in the Speech from the Throne. And I was being generous, Mr. Speaker, in what I considered a new initiative, and I think there's around 15. Now I counted some of them that I have heard being announced before, but I thought, well I'll be generous; maybe there is more to come as we get into session and we start looking at this.

So when I look at the front and the cover of the speech and it was titled “Moving Forward,” it's pretty hard to move forward when you're spending so many pages in your vision for the future looking back and patting yourself on the back.

Of course the few new parts of the throne speech - coupled with Brad Wall's distraction tactics - have largely managed to throw the media off the scent so far. But when Wall has reached the point after just two years in government where he needs to spend over three quarters of his time looking back rather than being able to suggest anything new, there's reason to suspect that the Sask Party will be completely out of gas by the time the next election rolls around.