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mandryk: upon further review ... testy voters may not be moe's biggest problem
it's a perfect metaphor to the age-old saskatchewan paranoia that somehow, somewhere down east there's someone always screwing us over.
aug 20 2024
3 minute read
there may be a few reasons why the roughriders lost last thursday, but it was the kind of loss that feeds the province's deep-rooted political paranoia.
heywood yu
/
the canadian press
we are on the cusp of a rail strike and the cfl command centre again screwed over saskatchewan’s beloved roughriders last thursday.
voters seem to be in a foul mood this summer as the pace quickens toward a fall general election — which is less than ideal for premier scott moe and his incumbent saskatchewan party government …
… or maybe not.
in this often-aggrieved province, what’s always of more significance than the embitterment du jour is the deeply rooted grievances that bore deep into the saskatchewan psyche.
admittedly, it would be silly to ignore the more obvious reasons for recent provincial voter grouchiness with moe’s government, which lately have had more to do with moe being distracted by largely irrelevant issues like chemtrails and less focused on dealing with issues more critical to voters, like keeping doctors here.
or so suggests the summer insightrix polls that repeat february warnings that the ndp is slightly ahead, provincewide.
sask. party strategists fobbed this off as inaccurate polling, but they might be slightly more worried than they are publicly letting on.
sources close to the sask. party caucus say that while the party is telling candidates not to worry about the insightrix numbers and just keep on door knocking, the party is still not letting candidates see its own internal polling results as it early said it would. hmmm. wouldn’t better polling be a better way to reassure antsy candidates?
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that said, it’s still worth noting that the sask. party won every one of the province’s 29 “rural” seats by at least 35 per cent of the vote and that the ndp didn’t get 35 per cent of the vote in any of those rural seats.
going into the election with 29 of 61 seats already in your back pocket is pretty comforting.
and, again, what’s really bothering saskatchewan’s electorate may have less to to do with moe’s government and more to do with a combination of legitimate issues and long-standing obsessions.
let us start with the reality of thursday’s pending rail strike.
there is no economic issue more important to a landlocked, trade-dependent province than ensuring our products get to market. farmers already stressed by rising farm input costs and an imperfect growing season now face a devaluing of their products if they can’t get to market.
however, this also drills down into the deeper, age-old galling notion that outside forces (in this case, unions) beyond the saskatchewan boundaries always seem to be impeding success here.
but those with a stake in the matter aren’t mad at moe’s government. if anything, this works to his political advantage.
for whatever else voters may be angry about, bet those directly affected by a potential rail strike are generally satisfied that the moe government has consistently gone to bat f or them while the ndp and federal liberals seem either supportive of striking union workers or indifferent to harm their actions may cause.
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it’s become another reason to believe outside forces — usually coming from the east — are against us. if it’s not justin trudeau and his damn carbon tax, it’s the refs … or, specifically, the damn cfl command centre.
and any hopes of saskatchewan farmers escaping such angst by watching the roughriders battle the montreal alouettes last week were thwarted by that miserable, wrong call from the command centre that awarded the als the gaming-winning touchdown even though quarterback davis alexander clearly stepped out of bounds.
of course, a lot went wrong for the riders, including four missed field goals and blown coverages. and one might have to ignore the notion that the cfl command centre, non-partisanly, blows calls for every team. really, bad cfl reffing should bind us as a nation.
but past such annoying realities, it’s a perfect metaphor to the age-old saskatchewan paranoia that somehow, somewhere down east there’s someone always screwing us over.
bet that moe isn’t beyond continuing to exploit this province’s long-standing resentment, come the fall election.
mandryk is the political columnist for the regina leader-post and the saskatoon starphoenix.
our websites are your destination for up-to-the-minute saskatchewan news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and leaderpost.com. for regina leader-post newsletters click here; for saskatoon starphoenix newsletters click here
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