Saskatchewan NDP leadership

I don't know... they grow plenty of wild rice in northern Saskatchewan.

And considering we have the highest point of land between the Rockies and Labrador, and plenty of hills and deep valleys, there is no lack of places to build terraces, if that were necessary. I'm not so sure it is, and given that weather seems to be getting more extreme, not just warmer, I'm expecting more snow in August than rice-growing conditions.

But regarding the water, absolutely. I happened to be driving north through Elrose last week and he depression north of town was a lake which stretched to the horizon. Also, a friend of mine was at Manitou not that long ago and said that the water is no longer buoyant, and there is a huge dike built to prevent Danceland from being underwater. 

I didn't get the actual height, but you now have to walk down a flight of steps from the water to get to it. There was a dike built last year over by Camp Easter Seals, but this is a new one.

This would be the downside of having a salt lake with no outflow, I guess. 

What band are you in? PM me if you want.

What can people tell me about Wotherspoon? Right now he and Meili interest me. Broten seems like a major schemer and Weir has a great sounding resume but appears charisma challenged. I don't think Meili has the best policy ideas and I think his message is a little too far out of the mainstream to win a general election, but he definitely has charisma. Something between Meili and Weir is what I am looking for. Also, why no female candidates? Is there really a shortage of talent in Saskatchewan? I doubt it.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I don't know... they grow plenty of wild rice in northern Saskatchewan.

And considering we have the highest point of land between the Rockies and Labrador, and plenty of hills and deep valleys, there is no lack of places to build terraces, if that were necessary. I'm not so sure it is, and given that weather seems to be getting more extreme, not just warmer, I'm expecting more snow in August than rice-growing conditions.

But regarding the water, absolutely. I happened to be driving north through Elrose last week and he depression north of town was a lake which stretched to the horizon. Also, a friend of mine was at Manitou not that long ago and said that the water is no longer buoyant, and there is a huge dike built to prevent Danceland from being underwater. 

Wild rice is in a different family, although it is in the same genus. Also rice can grow in a variety of conditions and terraces are not required.

U.

Actually that is its only natural range that I am aware of. My understanding is that in Manitoba, only FN people are allowed to harvest and sell what grows there (at least that was the case some years back).

Here in Saskatchewan it is not native. And wild rice production is a commercial operation, open to anyone, and plenty of wetlands which have the right conditions are open to seeding.

Strangely enough, since I wrote that I was in Edmonton and saw a newspaper article about a community garden being threatened by development. The picture was of a woman from the Phillipines in front of a rice plant from her home country in the soil and doing fine.

On topic, the first leadership debate was last weekend in Regina:

http://www.leaderpost.com/news/call+renewal+leadership+debate/7568589/st...

Any frontrunners?  How's the race developing?

I wish that Noah Evanchuk would throw his hat in the ring.  He is a lawyer, he has charisma, and he is young and very articulate. He would be able to reach a broad base of support in this province.

As for Brad Wall being popular, one can argue that it takes very little skill and talent to run a province when the economy is doing well. Grand Devine once bragged early on that he could mismanage the province for ten years and still come out ahead.  That is when he ran up a 0.5 billion deficit in his first six months in office. Brad Wall has an excellent economy and he still can't control his insatiable urge to sabotage our Crown Corporations and to off-load services to the private sector, and all this with a healthy cash flow.

Today, potash sales are strong, oil and gas is strong, wheat prices are good.  When things turn, and they do in Saskatchewan, you will see the Saskatchewan Party's popularity dive. Brad Wall has had a very long honeymoon in office so far, and his skills have never been properly tested.

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Mean Moe wrote:

Heard a few interesting items via the Sask NDP grapevine, both about Trent Wotherspoon.

1) He's been chumming around with Link and, 2) He campaigns for Ralph Goodale in federal elections.

 

Can anyone confirm these rumours?

I'm not from Saskatchewan, so I can't speak to the rumours, but I checked his website and it seems he is the "establishment" candidate.

If one could only combine Meili's charisma with Weir's mind for policy. Here's a poll suggesting Meili is in second with Cam Broten headed for the win.

Goggles Pissano wrote:

Grant Devine once bragged early on that he could mismanage the province for ten years and still come out ahead.

But why did he have to test the hypothesis to its breaking point?

robbie_dee wrote:

Quote:

The field in the Saskatchewan NDP leadership got a little bit smaller Wednesday. Erin Weir, a Regina-based economist, withdrew from the competition and threw his support behind Saskatoon doctor Ryan Meili. “I believe he is the candidate in the best position to ensure progressive leadership of our party,” said Weir at a press conference at the Tommy Douglas House in Regina.

[url=http://metronews.ca/news/regina/567343/erin-weir-withdraws-from-saskatch... Regina: Erin Weir withdraws from Sask. NDP race, endorses Meili[/url]

Wow! Weir has really earned my respect. I hope Meili wins, Weir helps him to become a much better leader and they both end up in cabinet one day together. It's interesting how the two outsider candidates have coalesced into one slate. I wonder if they will be sharing their sign-up data with one another.

Bump again - last day of the race!

I voted a few days ago.   Have received a lot of calls from Meili and his supporters.  Have received mail from Broten and Wotherspon.  I look forward to seeing the outcome.

Final ballot:

Broten over Meili by 44 votes.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2013/03/08/sk-conventio...

Is Broten the "status quo" candidate, or does he represent something different?

And what was it about Meili that seems to have driven almost all of the Wotherspoon delegates to Broten as a bloc(even though Wotherspoon made no personal endorsement of Broten?

If that's the case, do you have any theories as to why the overshelming majority of Wotherspoon supporters seemed to want to stop Meili?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

If that's the case, do you have any theories as to why the overshelming majority of Wotherspoon supporters seemed to want to stop Meili?

I'm sure we could speculate as to why things turned out as they did. As for real answers I doubt I know any better than you do.

But I think what is most important now is how Broten deals with this result.

And everyone else involved... of course.

 

 

It'd be nice if he dealt with it by increasing the SNDP's level of support in the next polls.  Not sure how he plans do that as as of yet.

Did the SNPD sign up many new members during this leadership race?  That is usually an indication of how much energy a new party leader can generate. 

Ken Burch wrote:

Is Broten the "status quo" candidate, or does he represent something different?

And what was it about Meili that seems to have driven almost all of the Wotherspoon delegates to Broten as a bloc(even though Wotherspoon made no personal endorsement of Broten?

Its a bit of an exgarretion to say that "almost all" of Wotherspoon's voters went to Broten. The first ballot was Meili 39%, Broten34% and Trent W. with 24% (plus 3% went to Weir even though he had withdrawn) since the fianl vote was 50.1% to 49.9% its clear that of the 27% who voted for the candidates dropped off that ballot - 17% went Broten and 10% went Meili. I suspect that Wotherspoon's voters tended to preference Broten second because both Broten and Wotherspoon are sitting MLAs while Meili was the outsider. If you were an SNDP who put a higher priority on having a leader with a seat in the legislature - it makes sense you would preference the two MLAs as 1-2.

I'm disappointed that Meili lost. He strucjk me as a dynamic guy with lots of new ideas. The "good" news in this is that having come so close but having lost the leadership - Meili would now be the IDEAL candidate to riun for the federal NDP in the proposed new seat of Saskatoon West which has been drawn to be an almost certain NDP win next time. I look forwardded to a federal NDP "dream team" of candidates in the next federal election in Saskatchewan spearheaded by Noah Evanchul in Regina and Ryan Meili in Saskatoon!

I live in Ontario and i want Meili's talents available to Canadians across the country at the federal level. He's too good for provincial politics!

Meili could be a potential minister of Health for all of Canada post-2015 - that sure beats being a backbencher in opposition in Regina for the next 20 years. Right now the federal NDP is wayyyyy more likely to become the government of canada than the Saskatchewan NDP is to rule again in Sask. It may take 25 yeasrs to repair the damage done by Lingenfelter

I shouldn't be so down on the NDP in Saskatchewan. I think they will come back. But realistically, there is at least a 50/50 chance the federal NDP will be in power after the 2015 election. The Saskatchewan NDP needs to recover from the shellacking of 2011 in 2015 and then might be able to vie for power in 2019 if all goes well.

Yes, I know it is going to be awhile, and I know that the party is to a great degree responsible for its own failure.

But it's not just a question of when they will next get into power any more than the party was useless all those years of opposition in other provinces, or Ottawa, for that matter.

The Sask Party may hold near-absolute power, but there are still some areas in which they have held back because I suspect they know there is still enough public opposition that they can only go so far. We still have public insurance in this province, a public phone utility, and public electricity and natural gas. And I think Brad Wall took note of what happened when the phone utility was sold off in the province next to ours (and for that matter, the fate of the Conservatives here).

As bad as the current assault is, I think without a strong opposition it would be even worse. There still is no guarantee those crown corporations won't be gutted and sold off. Wall announced this winter that they'd be opening private liquor stores. When asked why he wouldn't sell any existing public liquor stores you could hear the bitterness in his voice when he responded "because we said we wouldn't".