Mandryk: Despite Moe’s flubs, Beck struggling to sway Sask. voters

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Overlooked in a disastrous month for the Saskatchewan Party since the session ended is that it wasn’t exactly a great spring session for the NDP, either.

New Democratic Party supporters may take umbrage with that. On the surface, it does appear the Opposition caucus is doing lot better of late.

Having last fall exposed that motels owned by government MLA Gary Grewal were profiteering off social services clientele, the NDP successfully kept the heat on the Saskatchewan Party government in the spring sitting. They further scored on questions on conflicts of interest related to Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill’s window business and the suspicious choice of a California company getting a provincial tire recycling contract after hiring a Sask.-Party-connected lobbying firm.

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This has been good opposition work … although it can be argued the Sask. Party government’s floundering is a problem of its own making.

Moreover, this spiralling only got worse when the spring sitting ended with Speaker Randy Weekes dropping his bombshells regarding the conduct of senior Sask. Party members, including former government House leader Jeremy Harrison, who brought a gun into the legislature.

The latter issue still dogs the Sask. Party; Weekes convened the House Services Committee on Monday — a committee that includes Harrison — to address the issue.

Frankly, we should really be hearing from the legislature’s Standing Committee on Privileges to get to the bottom of Weekes’s allegation that as an officer of the legislature he has been bullied and harassed by not only Harrison and other high-ranking ministers but also members of Premier Scott Moe’s staff.

Rather than change the channel by talking about jobs, manufacturing sales, the hiring of more nurse practitioners, a new high school oil and gas course or even the federal government gagging oil companies in their concerns over the “Trudeau-Singh carbon tax” that will allegedly take a billion dollars a year out of the Saskatchewan economy, Moe has spent the month stomping out fires.

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A few of those fires he has set ablaze himself.

Why Moe attended the gathering in Speers organized by a couple of local conspiracists (contrary to the false information again provided by his media services office, Moe was not invited by the Speers mayor) is as baffling as why he answered conspiracists’ questions in a way that suggested he was seriously considering their nonsense.

These are all great issues for the opposition, but herein lies the NDP’s dilemma. No opposition wants to remain the opposition. In order to change that, you still have to make the case that you are a better alternative.

Notwithstanding demonstrating that it is a much better opposition than it’s been for most of the last 16 years, it’s hard to see where NDP Leader Carla Beck and her crew made the case that they are the only viable governing alternative.

While Beck started each question period demanding the Sask. Party cut the fuel tax, there isn’t much to suggest this will change many votes. While the NDP ended each QP noting drug deaths and the addiction crisis, few blame the government for the drug epidemic or feel a change in government will change anyone’s lives.

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Sure, many feel the government has messed up on important issues — of greater significance than the more boutique issues like Harrison’s entitlement or even the bizarreness of Moe getting caught courting right-wing conspiracists in this home riding. But has the NDP made a compelling case that it has better ideas and thus would be a better alternative?

In conservative-minded Saskatchewan, do the government’s flubs and mini-scandals move the political needle as much as Moe’s incessant hammering on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his carbon tax?

Did Beck and the NDP break into any new political territory with the key issues they raised? Did their concerns over wait times or emergency services closures bring them closer to winning any rural seats?

For that reason, it likely wasn’t as great a spring for the NDP as some suggest.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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