Oh goody

Apparently the fact that the public will be treated to pro-nuclear propaganda as the starting point for discussion in the Wall government's consultation process left open more risk of authentic public debate than some were prepared to tolerate. So to make sure that only the pro-nuclear side gets a voice, the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce with an assist from CanWest is now trumpeting a 26-page FAQ which helpfully cites sources like Bruce Power, Bruce Power (via the Uranium Development Partnership) and Bruce Power (through the Canadian Nuclear Association) to support the view that nuclear power is all about magical rainbow sparkle ponies, such that we should turn our public treasury over to Bruce Power. And needless to say, it's encouraging people to take over the public consultations with its talking points - since pro-nuclear domination of both the UDP and the stakeholder meetings apparently isn't seen as tilting the playing field quite far enough.

We'll see how long it takes for time at the microphone to be allotted based on the results of a "Why I Like Nuclear Power" essay contest. But while Dan Perrins may have had the best of intentions in taking on the task of chairing what was nominally supposed to be a real public consultation process, at this point the exercise can't be described as anything of the sort.

(Edit: added wording & fixed typo.)

Turning back the clock

A couple of noteworthy developments in the Saskatchewan Legislature this week don't seem to have found their way into the media. But let's take a moment to note just how the Sask Party looks to be moving itself and the province far into the past.

First, there's Christine Tell's explanation as to why the Sask Party plans to spend millions of dollars at the 2010 Winter Olympics:

Mr. Nilson:... To the minister: why are Saskatchewan taxpayers shelling out more than $4 million for the Vancouver Olympics while families pay more to camp in Saskatchewan parks?

Some Hon. Members: — Hear, hear!

The Speaker: — I recognize the Minister Responsible for Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport.

Hon. Ms. Tell: — Mr. Speaker, all we have to do is look at 1986 Expo. The Government of Saskatchewan spent over $6 million to have Saskatchewan House at the Expo and the pavilion, Mr. Speaker. We are talking more than 20 years later, Mr. Speaker, and we are putting, we are putting our best foot forward . . .

Naturally, John Nilson responded Tuesday with the following:

Yesterday the minister compared the $6 million spent by the Devine government on the 1986 Vancouver Expo with the 7 million the Sask Party is spending on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Mr. Speaker, the opposition is willing to concede the point that this government manages public finances as prudently as the government of Grant Devine.

But while one would expect to see a government led by a Devine-era party apparatchik imitating that government's rationale to throw money down the drain, it might be a bit more surprising to see gender parity being set back several decades further. And Deb Higgins revealed a fairly stunning bit of news on Wednesday suggesting that's exactly what's happening within the Sask Party:

(T)he average Saskatchewan woman is paid 84 cents for every dollar paid to the average Saskatchewan man. But figures provided by the government show that women working for the Sask Party are paid just 53 per cent of the median salary earned by men working for the Sask Party.

Needless to say, the Sask Party wasn't about to actually answer Higgins' questions about that fact, even given another day to prepare for followup questions on Thursday. But their choice of how to pay men as opposed to women working under their own banner likely says more than enough already - and Higgins and the NDP would figure to have plenty of opportunity to highlight the Sask Party's gender gap in election campaigns to come.

And in other Saskatchewan leadership news...

Apparently the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race won't be the only one to be decided in the province this spring, as the Greens have replaced Amber Jones with Larissa Shasko.

Now, it can't be an ideal result that even the Greens themselves don't seem to have publicized the leadership election in advance: oddly enough, the only public indication seems to have been in Amber Jones' own message in the last edition of the party newsletter. But they can at least be proud that there was enough interest within the Greens to lead to a contested race - which is more than we can say for some parties.

Meanwhile, the Greens' change in leaders also raises a serious possibility that the Sask Party might be the only one which runs the same leader in 2011 that it did in 2007. So who's up to take over the PCs from Rick Swenson?

Leadership 2009 - Week in Review, April 5

With the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race headed into what may be the decisive stretch over the next few weeks, as the formal debates lead up to the membership signup deadline. And it shouldn't come as much surprise that some of us will be watching each development closely from an NDP perspective. But I'll use this edition of the Week in Review to highlight the fact that it isn't just NDP partisans who have a stake in the outcome - and to encourage participation in the leadership vote even from people who may not otherwise have any interest in NDP politics.

So why would it be worth the effort? I'd argue that taking part in the leadership vote figures to present the best opportunity for anybody with an interest in Saskatchewan politics to shape the direction of things to come.

For those who expect to decide between the NDP and any other party or parties in the next provincial election, the leadership race will do more to influence just what your choices are than anything else that happens between now and 2011. And indeed there's plenty of reason to think that a leadership vote will give you more incremental influence than any general election vote could.

After all, the number of voters may not be much more than that which would vote in a provincial riding. But a leadership vote will be sure to have a direct effect on a major party's future course, rather than going toward electing a single one of 58 MLAs in a legislative assembly whose composition is mostly determined in votes outside one's own riding.

And the leadership race may be even more important for anyone who might sympathize with the NDP in principle but hasn't been happy with its actions in practice. Not only will the leadership race provide you with an opportunity to make sure the NDP gets things right in the future, but you'll also have a chance to make common cause with others within the party who share your concerns regardless of the outcome of the race.

Of course, there may be a tendency to see party membership as a barrier to getting involved. But there's no reason in principle why politically interested but non-partisan voters shouldn't participate in shaping the face of political parties - much as already takes place in the U.S. presidential primary system. And the comparison is one worth making at a time when many on the Canadian political scene are lamenting the relative weakness in leadership on our side of the border.

With that in mind, I'll encourage current non-members - whether or not they agree with my previous take on the leadership race or the political scene as a whole - to sign up in advance of the April 24 deadline in order to be able to cast a ballot in June. And if the end result is to get more citizens thinking about the ideas being presented on all sides of the leadership race, then that's a result which both the NDP as a party and the province as a whole can only see as a positive.

Wall: Patronage Is My Only Principle

In a well-timed follow-up to last night's post, Murray Mandryk notes that Brad Wall has finally found an issue where's willing to differentiate his party from the provincial NDP. But there's plenty of reason to doubt that Saskatchewan voters will buy into his call to beg for federal handouts:

While Wall said the court challenge should be pursued "if there's a chance to win this case", he seemed equally critical of the NDP government for clinging to the "have-not" equalization argument.

"Are we going to have the kind of leadership in the province any time soon that acts like it's leading a 'have' province and a province that intends to remain a 'have' province?" Wall asked last week.

Interestingly, Wall's talking points were near-identical to what came out of Harper's mouth: "What Saskatchewan needs is a government that will understand the challenge is to take advantage of that opportunity to become a 'have' province permanently, rather than try and come up with some formula that's going to pay equalization to have provinces, because there is no such formula," Harper said...

While reiterating he's been as frustrated as anybody with the Conservatives' broken promises, Wall said he's equally frustrated because he believes there was a better deal to be had for a "have" province outside the equalization formula, one that might have involved federal infrastructure spending in Saskatchewan or addressing off-reserve First Nations issues. Moreover, even though his past criticism of the broken Conservative promise has not gone over well in Ottawa, Wall hinted that his closer relationship with the federal Conservatives could help Saskatchewan secure an even better deal than the $800-million-a-year deal.

So here's the contrast between the two parties. The Calvert NDP is calling for a stable federal formula which meets the Cons' campaign promises while actually allowing the province to spend the money as it sees fit - and wants to pursue the most obvious avenue to reach that goal.

Meanwhile, Wall is looking for a mandate to make regular appearances, hat in hand, at the federal Department of Pork, in hopes that Saskatchewan can pry out a few more federal dollars based on his ideological connections. And all in the name of presenting Saskatchewan as a proud "have" province.

What's more, it's worth noting that Wall may have missed one of the most important conditions attached to the federal infrastructure funding which he seems to want to pursue. That's right: after his party has spent the past four years trying (unsuccessfully) to shed its well-deserved reputation for wanting to axe the province's public sector, it's now entirely willing to make Saskatchewan dependent on funding which is explicitly tied to P3 schemes rather than public ownership. Which could turn the campaign into even less friendly terrain for the Sask Party.

Of course, the campaign hasn't even started yet, and it could be that other issues will turn up - assuming that Wall is willing to take another stand rather than trying the safer tactic of a full Seinfeld campaign. But his current stand has the potential not only to turn the provincial debate in the NDP's favour, but also to weaken the federal Cons in the province as their own patronage gets placed in the spotlight. Which means that Wall's effort at mutual back-scratching with the Harper government may only wind up giving both exactly what they deserve.

A power play

As Buckdog has already noted, the Saskatchewan Party is already in serious trouble over its continued antipathy for Crown corporations. But I have to wonder if they've also provided another issue that will result in some serious mileage for the NDP down the road - even if it largely escaped notice at the time.

I alluded briefly in this post to a discussion about SaskPower's options for new generating capacity. The article focuses mostly on SaskPower's decision to pursue natural gas, wind generation, waste heat recovery and biomass rather than clean coal to meet the province's capacity needs over the next five years. But here's what Dan D'Autremont - Sask Party's chosen spokesman on the subject, and not coincidentally the same MLA who let the party's mask slip when it came to the Crowns - had to say:

(D'Autremont) added the Calvert government has its "blinders on" when it comes to nuclear power and other options that could provide safe and secure energy for the future "We need to be looking at all of the technologies, including nuclear, to see what's economically viable."

Let's mostly leave aside the questions of whether nuclear power is either economically viable in the first place, or realistically capable of being constructed quickly enough to meet the demand discussed in the article. (Though in brief, the answer is "no" on both counts - even if there always seems to be some nuclear apologist willing to massage cost projections enough to try to pretend otherwise when it comes to the cost factor.)

What's particularly striking is that while D'Autremont attempts to paint the NDP as refusing to consider "all of the technologies", he doesn't seem able to name a single source other than nuclear that the Sask Party would see as a viable option. Which provides a strong hint that given the chance, the Sask Party would be looking for excuses to bring nuclear power into the picture regardless of the ready availability of a myriad of other sources.

Needless to say, that figures to be a political loser for Brad Wall and his troops if it becomes an issue. There's obviously little (if any) natural constituency which would be attracted to the Sask Party based on a desire to see nuclear power plants in Saskatchewan, particularly with the province's utility rates already the lowest in the country.

Meanwhile the NDP, which has already been working to burnish its environmental credentials (particularly over the last year), would surely welcome the chance to argue against the risks of both nuclear power generation and the resulting waste. And an imminent danger of nuclear power could make any frustration with the NDP's willingness to develop the uranium mining industry seem relatively inconsequential in comparison.

We'll see whether D'Autremont's comment will simply be ignored in the longer term, or whether a debate on the subject will actually materialize. But if the Sask Party continues to want to see nuclear energy put at the top of the list of options, then there's every reason to think that in addition to harboring a desire to attack the province's existing Crowns, Wall and company are also severely wanting in judgment as to what the province should look to build for itself in the future. And that can only help the NDP's effort to point out the similarities between Wall and the PC government he once assisted.

Disclaimer unfortunately needed

!!!EXCLUSIVE!!! Breaking Saskatchewan political news in keeping with what seems to qualify as today's big story!!!

Unconfirmed reports suggest that some NDP members and/or supporters have been known to abbreviate the Saskatchewan Party's name as "Sask Party", thereby linking the party to the term "ass". Mock outrage from Brad Wall at 11.