New column day

Here, on the options available to the Wall government in responding to a budget deficit other than to renew its attacks on Saskatchewan's public servants - and why we shouldn't trust a premier whose answer to the failure of his anti-worker economics is to amplify the pain.

For further reading...
- In case we need a reminder of the Saskatchewan Party's systematic austerity no matter how much money is flowing into provincial coffers, here are just a few of the examples from 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
- Kent Peterson nicely sums up what Brad Wall's position seems to be on his own fiscal management:

This news release on the Sask. Party's latest deficit messaging is bold, if not a little unconventional... #skpoli pic.twitter.com/c4GEZDMTdy

— Kent (@SameOldKent) January 18, 2017

- And I'll note again that SaskForward is offering an opportunity to propose better ways than the Wall slash-and-burn plan.

Moose Jaw North - Gary Vieser Seeking NDP Nomination

Or at least, that seems to be the safe conclusion for the Moose Jaw-area electrician and business manager - even though Vieser's Facebook page still lists his "running for" as "Stay Tuned!" at the moment. (Update: Not surprisingly, Vieser's intention to run in Moose Jaw North has since been confirmed.)

Needless to say, Moose Jaw North will be one of the top targets for the Saskatchewan NDP in the 2011 election after it fell to the Sask Party by only 33 votes in 2007. And Vieser's strong launch today (including some well-timed pre-announcement publicity) bodes well for his chances as he seeks both the NDP's nomination and the seat in the general election to follow.

(Edit: fixed typos.)

Worth watching

By way of follow-up to this morning's post, the one area where there's serious reason for concern about the abuse of letters to the editor and other expressions of opinion is where they're submitted by individuals paid to support a particular position, particularly out of public funds. And Kent offers up reason for concern that it's NDP Watch itself that's resulting in public money being misused for partisan purposes.

Saskatchewan NDP Convention - Sunday Wrapup

The Saskatchewan NDP convention ended this morning with another lively session featuring elections, constitutional amendments and policy resolutions to go with two speeches (a presentation from Save Our Saskatchewan Crowns, as well as a final address from Dwain Lingenfelter).

Two elections were contested: a seven-candidate race for five vice president positions (which saw Kent Peterson of Humble Opinion elected along with Kent Lindgren, Wil Olive, Sherry Magnusson and Brandi Tracksell-Sampson), followed by a two-candidate race for treasurer won by Arlee McGrath.

While the elections took top priority on the agenda this morning, a noteworthy set of constitutional amendments came next in the order of precedence with mixed results. The convention passed two amendments: CA1 to constitutionalize a candidate screening process (which to my surprise didn't face any opposition), and a housekeeping amendment in CA3. Two amendments which would theoretically have served to reduce the scope for discussion at conventions (one to reduce maximum speaking times, the other to close discussion after two consecutive speakers present on one side of an issue without opposition) were defeated, and the composition of the NDP's executive was referred for review after CA5 (deleting at-large members) also failed.

Not surprisingly, the combination of nine election speeches, two votes and a long list of constitutional amendments left little time to deal with policy, with the result that only one resolution from the health/education/social development panel was considered - and that only because the convention agreed to prioritize ED1 supporting First Nations University of Canada. Meanwhile, four emergency resolutions passed, including support for unionized workers at Affinity Credit Union, a resolution on SCN and the Saskatchewan film industry, a strong condemnation of the Sask Party's political interference in the hiring of a Chief Electoral Officer, and a call to restore the Aboriginal Employment Development Program.

I'll have more discussion about the impact of the convention in the next couple of days. But even as a relatively relaxed event sandwiched between two which figure to play exceptionally large roles in the party's development (between 2009's leadership contest and the 2011 policy convention), the convention still saw plenty of passionate debate while bringing the party together for what looks to be an extended election campaign. And if this spring will indeed play a large part in determining where each party stands going into next year's election, I'd have to figure that the NDP has reason to be happy with its position after this weekend.

On positive discussions

Anybody who's been keeping tabs primarily on the Sask Party's actions over the past little while may be wondering if there's anything at all positive happening in Saskatchewan politics. Fortunately, the answer is "yes", as the Saskatchewan NDP's policy renewal process got underway last weekend - and for those who couldn't make it, there's plenty of information available about the proceeedings.

In particular, Kent has blogged about his impressions of the event, while the NDP itself has posted videos and slideshows from the forum. And even better, the party is facilitating the generation of new ideas by anybody interested in sharing them.

Of course, the most important part of the policy review will be working with those ideas to shape the NDP's vision - and that's the one part of the Moose Jaw proceedings which isn't yet being made public. But at the very least, Saskatchewan citizens can take heart that at least one party is working to encourage discussion and debate about where the province is headed - and hopefully we'll see many more people involved as the process continues.

On organized efforts

Following up on yesterday's announcement that Tamara Harder will run for the NDP nomination in Regina Coronation Park, there's some more good news on the party renewal front. Kent Peterson, who may be familiar from his blog Humble Opinion, is running for a vice-president position - and assembling what looks to be far more organization than I've ever seen put into a run for an internal executive post. Kudos to Kent for throwing his hat into the ring and raising the bar for any competitors, and we'll look forward to finding out at next month's convention who else will seek a central role in guiding the Saskatchewan NDP.