On maturity

Following up on last week's post, I'll take some time to expand on what Pat Fiacco's out-sized, self-promotional reaction to events like next year's Bon Jovi concert says about Regina as a city - and what we should be looking to do to take Regina's growth to the next level.

To start with, I'll note that it's indeed for the best that Regina is growing - and whoever gets to make decisions at City Hall next should be eager to continue that trend. But the current pattern of growth without much thought about where Regina fits into the wider scheme of things has effectively put the city in a state of urban adolescence: the population knows things are changing, but hasn't yet given much thought to the question of what change we actually want, settling instead for reassurance that somebody is willing to soothe our self-image.

And Pat Fiacco has positioned himself perfectly to take advantage of that situation. Indeed, one could hardly design a better political analogy to a boy-band/girl-band celebrity developed for the adolescent crowd: camera-friendly, well-funded, well-choreographed and utterly devoid of content.

Here's the problem, though: there's still a good ways left for Regina to go in its development as a city, and the next step is one which Fiacco seems incapable of taking based on his track record. It's well and good to celebrate the first few examples of Regina receiving a perceived boost among urban centres by attracting top-level music acts. But somewhere around the fourth or fifth concert announcement, we should be starting to grow into the understanding that it's not such a big deal as to justify putting the entire city on hold to celebrate.

Again, all of the other stops on Bon Jovi's Canadian tour are well past that point. Out of Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, none placed the concert as a top local headline, and none had its mayor rushing for the cameras to promote the concert. And the contrast in how the concert was received highlights the fact that Regina has a ways to go before it truly becomes comfortable as a major centre - as well as the reality that Fiacco's political persona doesn't fit with that development.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much prospect of change at the top in this year's election. But some sorely needed new blood on City Council can make for a first step in ensuring that Regina starts growing up rather than just growing out. And hopefully by the next election cycle, we'll have matured to the point that any stunt like Fiacco's will be rightly taken as evidence that a candidate is behind the times.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

By-election aftermath

Obviously the most important result of last night's by-elections was the fact that both Saskatoon Riversdale and Regina Douglas Park stayed in NDP hands. But let's take a closer look at last night's results to see what they may mean for each of the parties involved.

For the NDP, the percentages are probably close to the best that could have been expected. With all parties focused entirely on the by-elections, the outcome figured to be closer than would normally be the case in a general election setting. And indeed the percentages narrowed far less in both of the ridings decided last night than in the 2008 Cumberland by-election - signalling that the NDP has managed to substantially improve its lock on traditional party turf compared to just a year ago.

That said, there seems to have been at least some disconnect between the NDP's expectations and the actual outcome. In Regina Douglas Park in particular, the Lingenfelter campaign spent much of the latter part of the campaign trumpeting record numbers of signs and identified votes. But those obviously didn't translate entirely into votes when it counted - and in fact the latter number actually exceeded the NDP's final tally at the polls.

So there are a couple of lessons to be taken from last night's results. First, the NDP needs to stay focused on the final result rather than taking too much pride in side projects like sign totals. And second, the voter identification process could probably use some tuning up - likely including both additional verification of identified supporters, and a stronger push to ensure that identified voters are kept involved throughout the campaign.

For the Sask Party, the by-elections served primarily as a test as to whether a combination of any remaining honeymoon period for the Wall government and a fairly negative air campaign against Dwain Lingenfelter could create enough of a head start to make up for the NDP's advantage in feet on the ground. And the answer there was a resounding "no", even with the Sask Party able to focus on only a single riding in each of Regina and Saskatoon.

But that doesn't mean the by-elections were a total waste for the Sask Party. Presumably the anti-Lingenfelter ads will serve Wall's purposes in framing the NDP for future elections even if it wasn't enough to put either of its candidates over the top this time out. And the absence of any meaningful Lib vote (by choice in Regina Douglas Park, but not in Saskatoon Riversdale) looks to have operated to the Sask Party's favour in both ridings, hinting at some changes in the dynamics likely to affect Saskatchewan's urban results in 2011.

To the extent any candidate could claim a stronger performance than expected, that honour would have to go to the Greens' Victor Lau in Regina Douglas Park, who increased his raw vote total from 2007 and nearly doubled his share of the vote. But even that result leaves Lau far from any serious contention for the seat - and it's doubtful that circumstances will get any better for the Greens in 2011, particularly if the nuclear question has been decided one way or the other by then. (Meanwhile, the Greens' campaign in Saskatoon Riversdale was a fairly thorough flop, as Tobi-Dawne Smith took a lower share of the vote than the previous Green candidate.)

Finally, there are the Liberals - or what's left of them. On paper, they seemed to have an opportunity to put themselves back on the political map in Saskatoon Riversdale: for their first by-election under a reasonably well-hyped leader, they managed to recruit a candidate who won over 34% of the vote in an adjacent riding under the Sask Party's banner in 2007. And of course most of the Libs' seeming strength should have been in Saskatoon, where former leader David Karwacki was the only Lib candidate to top 16% in a riding which featured a full slate of opponents.

But instead of building on any combination of her own history and any Lib machinery in Saskatoon, Eileen Gelowitz barely nosed ahead of Smith for a distant third place with 2.6% of the vote. And that complete absence of a party capable of assembling even a minimally successful campaign even under the most friendly of conditions would figure to make it next to impossible for the Libs to recruit similar candidates in the future.

The results are in

Congratulations to Dwain Lingenfelter and Danielle Chartier on their by-election victories. And RIP Saskatchewan Liberal Party, 1905-2009.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

E-Day

Today's the day for voters in Regina Douglas Park and Saskatoon Riversdale to have their say in two provincial by-elections, with polls opening at 9 AM and closing at 8 PM.

Both NDP candidates have apparently shattered previous records for sign locations, signalling that a strong volunteer effort has translated into plenty of public support. But the count that matters comes today - so I'll encourage voters in both ridings to make sure their voices are heard, and anybody interested in volunteering to stop by the NDP's campaign headquarters (Tommy Douglas House in Regina, 1030 Avenue L South in Saskatoon) to pitch in.

On public interest

Ryan Meili's Sasquatch column is definitely worth a read in highlighting the need for "less politics and more democracy" to get more people involved in. But while the Saskatchewan NDP will be working its way toward new ways of interacting with the public during the course of its upcoming policy development process, it can take pride in the fact that it's doing well in getting large numbers of people involved in its current electoral challenges:

In the first week and a half, Dwain's team already has more sign locations, more volunteers and more ground covered than we did in the 2007 election campaign.

Now, the presence of more volunteers and more ground covered might be expected when all of Regina's NDP supporters are able to focus on a single riding. But it's the first of those indicators that's particularly remarkable: a third of the way through the by-election campaign, more voters in Regina Douglas Park had already made the decision to display their support for the NDP than was the case during an entire general election campaign for a popular, long-time MLA. And the fact that so many citizens even in a single riding are responding positively to the by-election campaign would seem to provide a hint as to how much more interest there may be once the party as a whole launches its process to give the public a stronger voice in democratic policy-making.

The races are on

While the NDP has been laying the groundwork in both ridings for some time now, the by-election campaigns in Regina-Douglas Park and Saskatoon Riversdale are now officially underway.

The current conventional wisdom is that the timing is set up to avoid a federal election campaign later this fall. But from my standpoint (and acknowledging that the NDP isn't about to take anything for granted), the timing would seem to suggest that Brad Wall's goal is primarily to have a losing set of by-elections register as little with the public as possible rather than seeing them as opportunities to pick up seats. After all, one would have to think that a short campaign at the end of summer which is bound to be overshadowed to at least some extent by the release of Dan Perrins' nuclear development consultation report will make for about the worst possible set of circumstances for the Sask Party's chances of making up the gap in two strong NDP ridings.

On turnout

LRT has already nicely covered the Regina Douglas Park nomination meeting last night where Dwain Lingenfelter was formally nominated for the upcoming by-election. But I'll take a moment to expand on one of the points reported in LRT's post.

Included in the crowd of 200 was a who's who within the NDP across the province: a strong majority of the current caucus was in attendance, along with a lengthy list of former MPs and MLAs and a strong contingent from Saskatoon featuring Saskatoon Riversdale candidate Danielle Chartier. Which means that the good news is that there's no concern at all about unity among the party's stalwarts - a fact which was reinforced by the presence of Brendan Pyle (one of Ryan Meili's Regina co-chairs) as one of Lingenfelter's nominators, as well as a reference in Lingenfelter's speech to the party's priority of achieving gender balance in the NDP's candidates and MLAs as championed by Deb Higgins in the leadership race. (And yes, Higgins was one of the MLAs in attendance.)

But there's somewhat of a flip side to that distribution of audience members. While it was undoubtedly a plus to see plenty of bigger names and out-of-riding members in attendance, it was noteworthy that the actual Douglas Park numbers seemed relatively low: only a handful of riding members moved or seconded motions (often after some prodding), and a minority of attendees raised their hands to vote when that was required.

That distribution within the crowd may be understandable given that there wasn't too much concern about a challenge to Lingenfelter, and the slightly larger numbers at the Saskatoon Riversdale meeting might reflect the fact that more members will be inclined to turn out in a riding which is seen as more likely to face a contested nomination. But I'd still think the high proportion of household names and imports to riding-level members signals that there's plenty of work to be done in developing a broader base of support to go with the top-level turnout - and that seems just as true in longtime strongholds like Regina Douglas Park as in the rural areas which Lingenfelter is rightly concerned with rebuilding.

(Edit: Revised wording of second paragraph - see comments.)

On non-stories

It's a plus that Murray Mandryk has realized that the Sask Party's facade is far different than what lurks below the surface. But it would be even better if he didn't feel the need to toss in several paragraphs of unfounded concern trolling about the NDP in doing so:

Lingenfelter announces Monday that he will be running in the Regina Douglas Park seat that is being vacated by 23-year MLA Harry Van Mulligen -- what should be a good-news announcement for the NDP. However, with Van Mulligen winning 52 per cent of the popular vote in that riding in 2007, any Saskatchewan Party candidate coming within 20 percentage points (its Douglas Park candidate received only 30.9 per cent in 2007) wins a moral victory.

Now, it's probably fairest to say that Van Mulligen's announcement was less a good-news announcement than an entirely expected one from the NDP's standpoint. But it's downright remarkable that Mandryk manages to both present a misleading analysis about what would be a "moral victory" for the Sask Party (since by-elections figure generally to result in a closer race with all parties able to focus all their attention on one or two ridings) - and then assume that outcome in advance in order to claim bad news for the NDP.

But wait, there's more:

Tuesday's news that NDP leadership runner-up Ryan Meili won't be seeking Lorne Calvert's Saskatoon Riversdale seat means that Meili and Lingenfelter won't be sitting together in a unified Opposition caucus, allowing the Sask. Party to hammer away at the perceived split in NDP ranks for a while yet.

Of course, it's almost certainly true that the Sask Party will look to "hammer away at (a) perceived split" regardless of what happens in reality. But there's no apparent reason why Meili's decision to work outside the Legislature would offer any actual evidence of a split. And indeed, Meili's decision not to run in Riversdale is best taken as evidence that he wants to keep the NDP's members working in the same direction for now rather than facing a potentially divisive decision in the riding.

(As a bonus, let's offer up a counterfactual: if Meili had declared his intention to run for the Riversdale nomination, how long would it have taken Mandryk and others to point out his competition with a strong female candidate as an indication of fissure within the NDP? Yeah, I thought so.)

Finally, there's this:

But perhaps more importantly, this signifies a strategic change for the NDP.

For most of the past four decades, the NDP's two safest seats (Riversdale and what's now Regina Elphinstone-Centre) were occupied by the NDP's leader or deputy leader. With all due respect to current Regina Elphinstone-Centre MLA Warren McCall and political novice Danielle Chartier (who likely will be the NDP candidate in Riversdale), we are no longer seeing NDP heavyweights in these rock-solid seats. In fact, many of the party's safer Regina and Saskatoon seats are occupied by MLAs who aren't exactly heavy contributors.

Now, it's worth noting that Mandryk's premise looks to be faulty in the first place. McCall can already claim the contribution of a major report as well as significant cabinet experience well before the age of 40, and given Chartier's strong bio and organization to date there's every reason to think she'll join any list of "heavyweights" in a hurry.

But even taking the premise to be true, is it really such a plus for Wall if Meili runs in a riding which the Sask Party might otherwise have some hope of winning - or better yet, uses his developing public profile to flip a riding currently held by the Sask Party?

If anything, one essential element of any 2011 victory for the NDP would seem to be attracting the strongest possible candidates in the closer ridings which will determine which party holds power. And while Meili may yet find a safe riding in which to run, I'd have to think any Sask Party MLAs or candidates who might have to face off against him in a riding with more potential impact on an election outcome would have to be less comfortable than if Meili and his enthusiastic base of support were safely ensconced in Riversdale.

Of course, it may be that a few speculative or ill-advised shots at the NDP are a minimum requirement for any CanWest column which dares to point out internal problems in the Sask Party ranging from "explosive frustration" to potential retirements or defections. But if the non-issues raised by Mandryk are the worst dangers the NDP faces, then Wall may really have reason to worry in 2011.