#skndpldr Roundup

The most significant news from the Saskatchewan NDP leadership campaign this week was the release of another month's worth of financial reports. And the December numbers look to reinforce rather than change the existing financial picture, with Ryan Meili posting strong gross and net numbers, Trent Wotherspoon spending enough to cancel out a significant take, and the other two candidates seeing fairly little activity.

But I'd think the most important number may be a low rather than a high. Cam Broten's $4,292.25 December take was the smallest for any candidate in any month of the campaign - and combining that further drop with Broten's already-sluggish fund-raising, I have to wonder for the first time whether he'll have to run the rest of his campaign with a substantially smaller budget than the party's already-modest spending limit.

Meanwhile...

- Broten supporter Mitchell Anderson earned some free media space to respond to Yens Pedersen's earlier contribution to the Star-Phoenix. But I'm not sure he particularly challenged Pedersen's main point that political parties can pursue change both by winning power and by influencing public discussion about policy issues.

- Jason Warick reported on the Rosetown leadership debate. But more interesting than his skeletal review of the debate itself was this bit of discussion about the NDP's road back toward success in rural Saskatchewan:

For much of the 1980s, the Grant Devine Progressive Conservative (PC) administration was seen as invincible in most parts of rural Saskatchewan. But soaring interest rates, unpopular policies and a widespread financial scandal reduced the PCs to just 10 seats in the 1991 election.

That year in Rosetown, Wiens narrowly defeated former PC cabinet minister and legislative speaker Herbert Swan. Wiens then comfortably won re-election.

Wiens believes there are signs the NDP could find electoral success in rural Saskatchewan.
"There are nicks and cracks showing up in the current government, and we've got a new generation (of candidates)," Wiens said.

"I am encouraged."

Another area farmer and former NDP leadership candidate, Nettie Wiebe, also attended and agreed there is cause for optimism.

"We are always on the edge of possibilities in a democracy," said Wiebe, who teaches at the University of Saskatchewan. "I am very impressed with the depth. I think it's a very strong field."

- While Murray Mandryk's take on the race includes plenty of utterly gratuitous potshots, he does hint at one important theme which I've discussed before. At a time when all of the candidates are talking about a need to reach out beyond the NDP's current level of support, at most one or two have made any visible progress in growing the party's grassroots during the leadership campaign - while much of the leadership campaign strategy seems to have been based on competing for small pieces of the existing party base.

- But lest anybody buy the story that the candidates are refusing to reach out beyond the NDP's core membership, all four have been appearing on John Gormley's radio show over the course of the week. I haven't yet had a chance to listen through in detail, but those interested can find the interviews here [Updated with Broten's at first link].

[Edit: fixed reference to Warick.]

#skndpldr Roundup

With the holiday break now over, we can likely expect a steady stream of news from Saskatchewan's NDP leadership campaign until the March convention. So let's take a look at a few developments from the past week.

- While it's still not clear how much progress Cam Broten has made in generating excitement among the NDP's grassroots, he's certainly done well for himself when it comes to media reaction - with the latest example being Joe Couture's naming Broten as the top NDP performer in the legislature for 2012.

- Meanwhile, Yens Pedersen offered his own take on the campaign in the Star-Phoenix - drawing a contrast between Broten and Trent Wotherspoon as candidates he sees as pursuing power for its own sake, and Ryan Meili and Erin Weir as candidates more focused on policy outcomes. And while I'd see the issue as involving placement on a continuum rather than contrasting positions on a yes-or-no issue, there doesn't seem to be much doubt that the two sets of candidates better represent the business-as-usual and significant-reform positions respectively.

- Meili unveiled his policy on gender equality, with most of the more specific proposals summed up by this broad statement of principle:

There is no prescription to bring about greater equality; there is only a process. That process begins with changing the conversation about gender, recognizing that everyone benefits when the status of women improves. Rather than gender neutral (which tends to mean gender blind), policy decisions need to be made with an explicit gender lens and a commitment to gender equality in mind, from idea to implementation to evaluation.

- Finally, Gavin Gardiner and Brett Estey both offered partial coverage of yesterday's Rosetown leadership debate. But the more thorough review at the time from Cole Hogan seems to have disappeared.

#skndpldr Roundup

Not surprisingly, the last week has been fairly quiet on the Saskatchewan NDP leadership front. But I'll offer comments on a couple of developments I hadn't yet discussed.

To start with, Joe Couture reported on questions about the similarities between Cam Broten's leadership platform and the policy report produced from the process he chaired in advance of the previous election. And while I don't see the issue being quite as serious as both Erin Weir and Ryan Meili make it sound in their quotes within Couture's report, I do think it works to the detriment of Broten's core message.

After all, Broten's campaign theme has revolved around his experience and readiness to lead immediately. And he hasn't hesitated to point to his role in the policy review process in support of that argument.

But it strikes me as curious that Broten didn't apparently get out in front of inevitable questions about similarities between his platform and issues already discussed by the party - for example, by pointing back to the consultations and votes held in support of the policy review at the time he was unveiling his leadership platform. Which looks in retrospect like both a missed opportunity to speak to one of his own putative strengths, and an obvious source of potential criticism which has now materialized.

The other main development in recent weeks was Ryan Meili's proposal for a provincial Faith and Social Justice Commission - which looks noteworthy both as a means of ensuring ongoing engagement with faith groups who share common goals with the NDP, and for its accompanying statement of support from Lorne Calvert (reflecting a noteworthy step forward in encouraging past party leaders to comment on the party's current direction).

Again, I'd expect the campaigns to be fairly quiet over the next little while. But since the break in the action offers an ideal opportunity to take stock of where the candidates stand, I'll have plenty to add over the next week - so stay tuned.

Leadership 2013 Roundup

Assorted news from the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership campaign over the past few days...

- Ryan Meili explained his choice not to start unveiling policy just yet by suggesting that leadership starts with listening - and the list of user-submitted ideas on his website looks to be expanding nicely to signal that people are interested in contributing. Meanwhile, Meili was also the subject of the most frivolous campaign story of the week.

- Erin Weir commented on the general effect of free trade agreements, raising a natural question as to what he'd plan to do to counter the chilling effect of such agreements:

Economist Erin Weir of the Progressive Economics Forum adds another negative, as he sees it.

He says FTA and NAFTA, which followed five years later, have restricted the power of governments to intervene in the economy to push back against global forces, namely because they fear law suits for protectionist practices. He cites the $130-million payout to AbitibiBowater in return for expropriated assets by Newfoundland after the company shut down its Grand-Falls Windsor pulp and paper mill.

- Cam Broten and Trent Wotherspoon unveiled assorted endorsements, while Wotherspoon also earned a report in the Nipawin Journal.

- Finally, Joe Couture reported on the candidates' websites. But it's worth noting that while it's probably true that all of the sites are relatively safe in terms of candidate-driven content (which I'd think would be expected), all but Broten's have at least some form of publicly-submitted content as well. And I'd expect candidates' interactions with visitors to make for one of the more significant signs as to how they'll engage with the public.

New column day

Here, on how the mixed-riding proposal of Saskatchewan's federal electoral boundaries commission offers at least some improvement over the current all-rurban mess when it comes to recogizing communities of interest.

For further reading...
- Joe Couture covers both the initial proposal, and reactions from parties and academics.
- Kelly Block's acknowledgment that rural voters in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar would represent her margin of victory can be found here.
- And again, anybody interested in participating in next month's public hearings should sign up here.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Paul Buchhelt offers five reasons why the extremely wealthy should pay more in taxes. But if we can anticipate some conflict over that idea, there's stronger evidence than ever that the public is rather united behind one side.

- Bob Hepburn notes that there's plenty of work to be done to save Canadian democracy from the Cons' toxic and unaccountable politics. John Ivison slams the Cons' secrecy surrounding their choice to obliterate any pretense of independent review of resource projects. And Kevin Page rightly challenges the false spin that the Cons can't let Canadians know what services they've slashed until a year after the cuts are made.

- Joe Couture put together a couple of reports worth noting this week - first discussing the contrast between the Sask Party's willingness to boost MLA pay based on changes in the cost of living as a matter of course and its refusal to do the same for the minimum wage, then highlighting the concerns of Saskatchewan's Children's Advocate Bob Pringle about the Wall government's decision not to count children when it comes to assigning electoral weight.

- Finally, while I have some concerns about his insistence on a progressive narrative which seems to cede an awful lot of ground to exactly the interests we need to counter, Jared Milne's guest post at pogge on the need for a new progressive narrative is worth a read.