Saskatchewan Provincial Election - Nov 7 / 11 Part 2

Regarding the outcomes, while I have seen projections as low as five seats for the NDP, I'd be surprised if it were that bad.  If the polls are correct and the NDP vote has eroded, that is a serious problem.  But far greater is the collapse of the Liberal vote, virtually all of which appears to have gone to the Saskatchewan Party.

I think the nightmare scenario for several campaign managers would be getting 48% of the popular vote and the Greens getting 3% - leaving the Saskies with 49% and the seat.  Indeed, the Liberal collapse means that the NDP could suffer a loss of several seats even if they make major gains in the popular vote.

It's not really surprising that most of the old Liberal vote has gone Sask. The SK Liberals have merely accentuated their drift rightwards over the years. Going to the right of the SaskParty this year is an interesting trick ('interesting' in a Yes, Minister sense). I wonder what their federal cousins would think of such antics …

Wall warns against complacency.

If the NDP comes through this election and loses only a few seats, that is definitely going to cause problems for the SaskParty down the road when they want to do the things they swear they're never do. It gives the NDP a bully pulpit to marshal and rally the anti-Saskie forces, and possibly take down Wall in 2015.

Wall realizes that the SaskParty is very popular in parts of the province, but only sometimes in the places that can win seats. If the NDP largely holds on to Saskatoon and Regina, that will represent a real failure of Wall and his party to connect with the urban parts of the province. Little incidents like the Ottenbreit episode will reside in some minds as showing what the SaskParty is *really* about. Billboards and attack ads can't vote, no matter how much the SaskParty wishes otherwise.

Out canvassing today, I do begin to wonder whether Wall has really got this election wrapped up in a bow. The polls and media say he has. The people I talk to on the doorstep say something else.

It sure seems like the Sask Party is running a much more negative campaign than they need to. Maybe they have some polling that contradicts these wild numbers that have been published in the MSM.

Oddly, I've been hearing some desperation from my SaskParty contacts.  Not desperation that they could lose, but fear that if they win too big they won't be able to ride herd on their lunatic fringe.

There is one aspect of the NDP's campaign that I think is bloody brilliant.  They've finally given up on that mindnumbingly stupid strategy of shrieking "OMG, the Saskies are Scary!!!!" as though that constituted a coherent or appealing message.  It failed three times, and it would have taken first class stupidity to try it again.

(Some will challenge my assertion that it failed three times sine we actually formed government following the 99 and 03 elections, however I would argue that was in spite of the central campaign message rather than because of it.  In 1999, with the parties of the right sorting themselves out, we should have won a comfortable majority. Instead, we lost the popular vote and fluked into winning enough seats for a minority - which became a majority with the coalition.  In 2003, the SaskParty collapsed on the incompetence of its own architects - although with a less likeable and avuncular leader than Lorne Calvert, the Saskies would likely have won anyway.  In 2007, the same twice failed strategy delivered us our lowest popular vote since 1938 - and in 38 we didn't even run a full slate.)

Would that lunatic fringe include Greg Ottenbreit?

Murray Mandryk has tweeted that there will be a new poll out tomorrow - and that he won't even hint about what it says.

I don't think Saskatchewan is quite ready for one party-rule, Alberta-style. The SaskParty fears that Malcolm mentioned are quite real. All it would take is one of the new MLAs (or an emboldened old one) to start musing about selling the Crowns, fairly soon after election night. The NDP wouldn't have to tell stories about the scary SaskParty, because the SaskParty would be doing it for them.

I agree edmundoconnor. 

THat's why Wall is doing his best to make it look like he is compromising, while in fact they are doing as much as they can out the back door.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGv6uhKrZsE&feature=uploademail

He did confirm though, that they are thinking about forcing unions  to collect their own dues. Mind you, they have been openly attacking labour all along, and I guess that is something he thinks he can get away with.

The problem is that the NDP chose short term politics over renewal and rebuilding.  The saving grace of a serious thumping is that we won't have the option of putting off real renewal any longer.

I heard the tail end of that piece, knownothing. Pretty darn ridiculous. Pederson just has to draw breath, stand upright, and talk in coherent sentences to look good next to Hutchinson.

Great piece on a Sask Party Candidate trying to manipulate the news, and getting caught. Well-worth watching :

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/skvotes2011/story/2011/11/04/sk-hutchinson...

I guess sometimes those CBC reporters actually do deviate from the script handed down from the PM's office after all.

With all due respect  Edmund, doesn't PCS pay more than just royalties?  Income taxes, business taxes, municipal fee for business licenses, purchasing of supplies for the expansions, and associated PST on those purchases?   Think one of the problems in this campaign is that Link made the assumption that people would assume that the 5 cent royalty payment was the only revenue PCS generated for the province.

Hi Smith, 

I'm not talking about a $100 business license.  Among others, I am talking about a development permit required to make a change to the mine - these are typically based on a percentage of the capital investment.  So if PCS is making a 500M expansion, it's not out of line for the development permit to be 5M to to RM, plus PST on all the consulting and contracting labour, plus the supplies required.  Income tax from the workers does has a provincial component  - just check your last filing, there is a provincial filing.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there isn't room to refine and adjust a taxation/royalty framework, just that e conversation needs to be comprehensive.  For Link to have dumbed it down to a nickel a dollar without acknowledging ancillary benefits of the presence of the industry says a lot.

In the Alberta experience, Stelmach did exactly the same thing by focussing on the royalty only and not considering ancillary benefits.  What happened is that all the drilling was immediately paused while the oil companies re-evaluated the economics of all their well.  In the meantime, hundreds of oil field workers went home laid off, production in Alberta declined, wells were shut in, and overall government revenue declined substantially.  Just saying that Link certainly didn't look west to learn from past experience.

Step 1) Make the Weak Link walk the plank and get a new leader

Step 2) Work for an NDP breakthrough in Alberta, which is near certain to have an election within a year.

Maybe we should lower it then 5 cents on the dollar does seem a little high sheesh

If the results are as bad as some people fear, then I expect Link would probably indicate his departure on election night.  But if so, I think it would be a mistake to rush into a leadership race.  The party desperately needs to take some time to renew itself intellectually, and leadership races tend to short-circuit that process.  The last ting we need to do is rush into a leadership race as though a new face is all we need.  It didn't really work very well for the federal Liberals, after all.

There have been two attempts at a formal renewal process since the 1991 win.  The first (initiated after the near death experience of the 1999 election) got pre-empted by the 2001 leadership race and the process afterwards was an exercise in platitudes.  The more recent attempt occured after the last leadership.  Billed as "policy renewal," it ended up being little more than platform development.

What we need is a grown up conversation about what it means to be a social democrat in Saskatchewan in the 21st century.  It needs to be a deeper philosophical self-examination / party inventory.  The end "product" might be a new foundational document - a modern Regina Manifesto, if you will.

I think this is better done under an interim leader (say David Forbes or someone like that), although it could also work under a lame duck Lingenfelter, provided the usual suspects don't try to micromanage the process.  The best candidates to lead such a process would be someone like a Noah Evanchuk, a Ryan Meili or a Yens Pedersen - although I think the person chosen would properly rule themselves out of the subsequent leadership race.  (That said, while I can imagine any of them as a candidate in the next leadership race, I expect only one of them would run in any event.)

That process leads us through until late 2012, with the election of a permanent leader targeting mid 2013.

Ken, I'm not sure Link is able to hold on to leadership in any circumstance. Consider that he is the first Saskatchewan NDP leader who will not be Premier. Popular support for the Saskatchewan NDP is at historic lows, and is trending lower. Each election after the first term of a right-wing government can reliably return more NDP seats than before, but it looks very likely the opposite will happen this time. What was once the province's natural governing party is now severely weakened, and everyone can see. Say what you will about the party brass, at the end of the day party performance is important, and when the party is not performing, changes need to be made.

And ironically enough, there is a realistic probability of the Alberta NDP breaking through and becoming official opposition, not to mention that Alberta now has more NDP MPs than Saskatchewan. How times change.

I get the point, but there is another reason for that, The NDP got double the popular vote in this province.

Actually, Prairielover, the one time I heard Lingenfelter speak at a gathering on the issue he did just that. He made a comparison to rates of potash and other royalties around the world, the factors of accessibility, and the size of Saskatchewan's recource, as well as analyst opinions that PCS would still make a hefty profit even if the rates doubled.

So whatever sound bite you are taking that from, that is not the extent of the argument that the party was presenting. I did not feel insulted.

But again, good to know that your position is more friendly to the people of Saskatchewan than Brad Wall's.

Looks like the Saskies are playing dirty right to the last minute, anyone know if this is illegal? or what actions can be taken against these SP staffers who were caught red-handed?

http://saskndp.ca/news/rapid-response/item/?n=150

Since it's published on the main SK NDP website, I have no difficulty believing this is kosher. As Aristotled24 points out, however, unless there's hard proof, it's going to be a 'he said, she said' story. The media (and voters) will chalk this up to excitable staffers, and call it a wash. Although it seems odd that high-level people like that would be involved in such amateur-level hijinks. The story is pretty specific about who was there, and given the NDP has been at pains to run a positive campaign, this has the smell of plausibility about it.

Wouldn't it be nice if those results held?

Lingenfelter behind in his own riding, with one poll reporting, if anyone cares.

I'm watching too with you all! Go NDP

What the hell is going on in Cut Knife--Turtleford?  How is the NDP doing so well there?  I mean, yes, 5 of 55 polls - but still!

Deb Higgins now leading in Moose Jaw Wakamow.

Cathy Sproule now leading in Saskatoon Nutana.  Bernadette Gopher up in CKT still improving popular vote share over 2007.

NDP currently leading in the two northern seats; Saskatoons Centre, Massey Place, Riversdale and Nutana; Moose Jaw Wakamow; and Reginas Rosemont and Elphinstone-Centre.

NDP now trailing in Moose Jaw Wakamow.

I'm looking at some of the winning results and amazed at the low number of votes to win - like under 2000 votes total - omg! eg. Swift Current

Keep in mind that you're looking typically at half of all the polls being counted in ridings that are about a quarter the size of a federal riding in Saskatchewan.  If you want freaky low, look at Yukon or PEI.

NDP now declared elected in Athabasca (Belanger) and Saskatoon Massey Place (Broten).

Wow, what a blowout. It's 1982 all over again. (Actually, it's even worse - in '82 the NDP got 38 percent of the vote but this time they'll be lucky to crack 30).

Sask Party leading/elected in 50 and the NDP leading/elected in only 8 - and some of those are very tenuous. The Saskies are winning the rural seats with 75+% in most cases. The NDP is currently leading in only 2 seats in Regina. Link is on track to lose his seat. Even if he hangs on, he's going to have to resign tonight or very shortly thereafter. What a disaster.

Lingenfelter is down by 700 votes with just two polls left to report. He's toast.

So the question is, does he pull an Iggy: make a graceful speech, sleep on it, and announce his resignation within a day or two; or does he pull a Hugh McFadyen and resign immediately in a petulant huff (but not before slagging the voters for being gullible and venal).

Andy Iwanchuk 24 votes behind in Saskatoon Fairview, with one-third of the polls yet to report.

The Liberals are at a miniscule one-half of one percent of the province-wide vote (!), with the leader getting a derisory 12% in The Battlefords. The words "completely moribund" come to mind.

Bernadette Gopher is a Saulteaux First Nation businesswoman. She owns and operates White Rock Gas and Confectionary. Her husband, Fred, is a former Saulteaux chief and councillor.
http://www.newsoptimist.ca/article/20100621/BATTLEFORD0101/306219994/-1/BATTLEFORD/bernadette-gopher-seeks-ndp-nod-in-cut-knife-turtleford

And now Iwanchuk's behind again. 5-vote lead for SaskParty. That one will go down to the wire.

Also, in the category of "Headlines I Never Thought I'd See in a Saskatchewan Election": the CBC website has an article headed "NDP to maintain party status as 2 MLAs re-elected".

Eleven women elected or leading, out of 58 MLAs.

maybe I'm crazy but it sure seems like the NDP leading ridings are taking forever to be declared.

Yep, they actually took their time declaring Lingenfelter's defeat even though he was clearly way too far behind to catch up.

I will be curious to read Malcolm's post-mortem (literally in this case), but I can't help but wonder if this is the end result of running in 1999, 2003 and 2007 on a "The Saskatchewan Party is Crazy and Will Eat Your Children If Elected" platform. Then the sky didn't fall after the Saskies got in, there was no compelling reason to vote NDP anymore. As Malcolm has pointed out elsewhere, to the party's credit, they didn't run on that theme again this time, but as the saying goes, too soon old, too late smart. I see the recent Saskatchewan political cycle as being somewhat analogous to the 1980 U.S. presidential election, where Carter and Reagan were actually neck-and-neck until the debates. Carter had played to voter concerns that Reagan was some crazy extremist. Then when Reagan didn't appear crazy in the debates ("there you go again"), Carter's entire narrative collapsed and the reason not to vote for Reagan vanished. The rest is history.

The 4 there all have spreads of 200 or more. The real squeaker is the one in Regina

This is also the strategy that the NDP next door in Manitoba has been using to win elections since 1999, and I have previously expressed my gut feeling that the Manitoba NDP may very well be headed down the same road.

Link has told the media he has tendered his resignation efective immediately.

Of the likely caucus of nine (Belanger, Broten, Chartier, Forbes, McCall, Nilson. Sproule, Vermette, Wotherspoon):

• four are potential leadership candidates (Broten, Chartier, McCall, Wotherspoon)
• one has no legislative experience (Sproule)
• three actively supported Lingenfelter and are therefore tainted by recent events (Belanger, Vermette, Wotherspoon)
• four have experience on the treasury benches (Belanger, Forbes, McCall, Nilson)

The logical candidates for the interim leadership are Belanger, Forbes and Nilson.  As noted, Belanger's early and active support for Lingenfelter means that he would have trouble changing the page.  John Nilson, frankly, is the weakest retail politician of the three (though possibly the smartest).

David Forbes is the obvious candidate for the interim leadership.

Just two seats left to be called: Regina-Lakeview, where the NDP has a 151-vote lead with 2 polls to report, and Prince Albert-Northcote, where the SaskParty has a 127-vote lead with 3 polls left to report.

Essentially the Liberals vote shifted 100% to the Sask (Conservative) Party. Can someone remind me of the logic behind the idea that Liberal and NDP votes are supposed to be "interchangeable" and that people who vote Liberal all want to "stop the Tories" more than anything else. The evidence in the provinces indicates that when the Liberal vote vanishes - its the Tories who tend to benefit

In BC the NDP may benefit from some federal Tory voters deciding that the Social Credit/BC Liberal party is not rightwing ENOUGH or them (hard as that may be to believe) and going BC Conservative - but the fact remains that 100% of the activists and organizers and leading figures of the federal Liberal Party in BC - back the ultra rightwing so-called BC Liberals in provincial politics. They all think that the one and only priority in BC provincial politics is making sure that a progressive government is never elected and if that means linking arms with people like Stockwell Day and Preston Manning at a BC Liberal convention  to form their common front against the NDP they are only too happy to do so. 

All numbers in the following post are rough eyeball estimates.

Swings to the NDP, general election over general election, range from +3.71 (Cut Knife--Turtleford) to a jaw-dropping -46.35 (Regina Walsh Acres).  The only other seats that saw positive swings to the NDP were Athabasca (+0.97) and Cannington (where, in losing by 60.04% rather than by 61.17%, the NDP ever-so-artfully managed a swing of +1.13).  Swings in Saskatoon range from -9.55 (Massey Place) to -25.97 (Southeast).  In Regina, the least negative swing for the NDP was the -5.93 swing in Rosemont.

True enough; annoyingly, I'd actually noted the lack of an SP candidate there in 2007 but forgot to actually factor that in beyond the initial observation.  Discounting RWA, the biggest swing against the NDP was the (my estimate, as above) -33.99 in Regina Coronation Park.  Reginas Dewdney and Douglas Park also saw swings of more than 30 against the NDP.

After the 2011 election, communities in all of Saskatchewan outside Regina, Saskatoon and the two northern ridings have no voice in the opposition. They have no local voice to question any government action or inaction. Their regions face one-party rule.

If Saskatchewan had a democratic voting system . . .

http://wilfday.blogspot.com/2011/11/if-saskatchewan-had-democratic-voting.html

[post83 for the complete run down]

Sorry for being so ill informed- but was Mielli running?

Who would be obvious/likely names from outside the Caucus for leadership?

Bearing in mind that it is even more difficult to guess wo is up, or might be, for such a re-building job.

On the bright side- the way governments and voters are- Wall and the Sask Party will most likely have very much worn out their welcome long before 4 years from now. You can never count on that- but in terms of how difficult the road is likely to be... that probably will be there for room to find the legs and develop.

Cmon, if there is one thing that did work last night it was democracy. 64% voted Sask Party.

In a 2 party-system FPTP actually works.

As a minor footnote, it was pleasing to see both the Liberals and Greens utterly squashed. Bater can howl at the moon all he likes. No-one's going to listen to him.

Sounds a wise tack Malcolm- where my thoughts would run if I were there.

The only caveat I would put in is that the [explicit] deliberative process might be too long.

A lot of deliberation is vital. And no leadership vote, or run-up to it, is also essential.

But how process-wise you get that good deliberation is the tricky question.

Nothing focuses people better on questions of direction of the party than a leadership race. It gives multiple groups a reason and a structure for working on that.

The downsides- for the group deliberation process- is that the leadership race also is a lot aboy personailities and leadership styles. The breaking into groups with a plurality of directions to flog is strong enough to outweigh that downside..... but you dont want to be off into all the dynamics of a full fledged race, or close off candidates who migh emerge or grow interested largely because or out of a process of explicit deliberation.

So the prior extended delibeartive process is intuitively the best. Unfortunately, it does not draw as many people in. It tends to be only the policy wonks with a smattering of organizational junkies [who are usually inclined to policy wonking too]. Its hard to give the process the punch it needs.... and there is usually no natural leader capable of breathing life into it.

Something to keep in mind is how the post 1993 debacle federal party formal renewal deliberations blended into the leadrship race- even before it was formally set. And by the latter stages of the Renewal Process, the meetings even hosted leadership candidate debates on the side.

If you are male.

And if you live in Regina, Saskatchewan, and the two northern ridings, yes. In the other 57% of Saskatchewan you are living in one-party regions. Problems with your Health Region in Prairie North, Prince Albert Parkland, Kelsey Trail, Sunrise, Sun Country, Five Hills, Cypress, or Heartland? Who're ya gonna call?

Last night Saskatchewan elected nine women and 49 men. Don't blame the voters: polls have shown 90% of Canadians want to see more women elected. If women are nominated we'll elect them. The Saskatchewan Party nominated very few women, because they nominated all candidates one at a time.

What would have happened if one-third of MLAs were elected from regions?

Not to mention that under a PR system, the Saskatchewan Party still has a super-majority that can do what it wants anyways.

Where's the party to the right of the Saskatchewan Party?

Closing for length.