#skndpldr Roundup

The Saskatchewan NDP's leadership campaign hasn't seen a lot of official news over the past week, as the candidates look to have directed most of their efforts toward the continued series of debates. (Among the more thorough coverage of the recent ones, see the live-tweets of the Humboldt debate from Brett Estey and Erica Spracklin, and Saskatoon live-tweeting from Aaron Genest - who followed up with a blog post on the level of acrimony in the leadership race.)

Meanwhile, Ryan Meili's campaign turned a headline typo into a discussion of what actually constitutes the #frontlineofdemocracy:

I found the list Mr Gormley presented of "frontline" elements of democracy very interesting. Autocratic states, totalitarian states, oligarchical communist regimes – these also have courts, soldiers, and their own version of the rule of law. They sometimes even have parliaments. Yes, the items he listed are important institutions in the protection of a democratic state. But are they elements of democracy itself? What about the autonomy and freedom to make our own choices, the power of the citizenry to direct its own destiny? Aren't these things the core of democracy? Isn't active engagement the true frontline?

Finally, while the Saskatoon debate mostly covered fairly similar ground to the previous ones, Erin Weir's position on uranium development managed to get some attention. But as with his push on political financing, the main effect looks to have been to identify an area of broad agreement - with the main difference being Weir's suggestion that it's worth having a debate within the NDP as to what to do about uranium mining, while Cam Broten and Trent Wotherspoon gave continued mining a thumbs-up.