{"id":98303,"date":"2020-10-27T06:17:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T03:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/"},"modified":"2020-10-27T06:17:17","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T03:17:17","slug":"in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"#In Saskatchewan election, four Moe years was a foregone conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2893c51bc04\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2893c51bc04\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/#Saskatchewan_is_Canadas_one-party_province\" >Saskatchewan is Canada\u2019s one-party province<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/#Moes_ho-hum_and_that_will_do\" >Moe\u2019s ho-hum, and that will do<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/#The_NDP_was_not_obliterated\" >The NDP was not obliterated<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/#Ghosts_of_the_past_cant_haunt_Saskatchewan_forever\" >Ghosts of the past can\u2019t haunt Saskatchewan forever<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/#The_alarm_bells_dont_ring_as_loudly_here\" >The alarm bells don\u2019t ring as loudly here<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#In Saskatchewan election, four Moe years was a foregone conclusion<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n                            Canada has a new one-party province, the NDP&#8217;s vital signs have returned and other takeaways from voting day on the Prairie\n                        <\/div>\n<div>\n                                                                        The Saskatchewan Party\u2019s fourth straight majority seemed a safe bet from the moment Premier Scott Moe dropped the writ, and voting-day results confirmed the inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>At publication time, Moe\u2019s party was ahead or leading in 47 seats, to the New Democrats\u2019 15, easily surpassing the 31 required for a majority.\u00a0The governing party had, for the third straight time, more than 60 per cent of total votes and double the total of its rivals.<\/p>\n<p>Moe\u2019s NDP rival Ryan Meili claimed he was gunning to replace Moe, but polls had always shown a blowout as clear as Saskatchewan is flat. <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Media<\/a> outlets only waited only 38 minutes after the polls closed to declare the outcome. At that point, just one seventh of ballot boxes had been counted.<\/p>\n<p>Some takeaways from the historic win:<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Saskatchewan_is_Canadas_one-party_province\"><\/span>Saskatchewan is Canada\u2019s one-party province<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Alberta\u2019s Tories ruled for 44 years; Ontario\u2019s led for 41. The Saskatchewan Party have a mighty long way to get that far\u2014they\u2019ll be in power 17 years by the end of their newly secured fourth term\u2014but Monday\u2019s victory shows the party belongs in the conversation about\u00a0right-leaning dynasties in Canadian provincial\u00a0politics. This was Scott Moe\u2019s first try at the helm of the group that Brad Wall led to three straight majorities, and the unremarkable Moe picked up right where his\u00a0charismatic predecessor left off, with another no-doubter landslide, and by far the longest current win streak of any Canadian government.<\/p>\n<p>Even if this is a slightly reduced majority\u2014the NDP was poised to gain two seats\u2014Moe and company will still have more than twice as many seats as the Opposition. That party (and its previous incarnation, Tommy Douglas\u2019 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) ruled Saskatchewan for 47 of 63 years\u2014until Wall, Moe and their fellow party members started their\u00a0own dynasty. They have established themselves as the provincial ruling class and a donor magnet (corporate and even out-of-province giving is still allowed), while reducing the NDP to perennial opposition thanks to the Sask Party\u2019s utter dominance of rural and small-town ridings. Those constituencies comprise 35 of the legislature\u2019s 61 seats, compared to only 26 for Regina and Saskatoon combined.<\/p>\n<p>The Sask Party, whose colour is the same green as the province\u2019s much-worshipped CFL Roughriders, has proven its stranglehold over provincial politics can easily outlive Wall. This contest was never in doubt; nor was the expectation that whatever Moe promised was bound to become government policy. So it goes in a one-party province.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Moes_ho-hum_and_that_will_do\"><\/span>Moe\u2019s ho-hum, and that will do<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Brad Wall\u2019s follow-up act had impossibly big shoes to fill. The three-term premier blended an aww-shucks charm, boosterish zeal and a dazzling rhetorical style; Moe has the aww-shucks demeanour down, but the comparisons end there. The current leader, a former farm equipment salesman, has attempted to talk tough with his campaign monotone: he once warned Justin Trudeau to \u201cjust watch me\u201d on the carbon tax, and peppered his election speeches\u00a0with constant references to a \u201cstrong\u201d economy, \u201cstrong\u201d party and \u201cstrong\u201d province.<\/p>\n<p>Thus far, Moe has shown little interest in governing differently from Wall, and largely offered a keep-the-momentum going suite of campaign promises, including some populist middle-class offerings like an electricity bill rate cut and home renovation tax credit, as well as new urgent-care facilities in Regina and Saskatoon, to keep cities in the Saskatchewan Party\u2019s corner.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a decent amount of spending for a province already facing high deficits, but Moe\u2019s program looks tightfisted compared to that of the NDP. He faced heat during the campaign when a 1994\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/saskatchewan\/party-leader-discloses-previously-unknown-impaired-driving-charge-1.5753789\">impaired driving charge came to light<\/a>\u2014the second unearthed<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>from a past that also includes involvement in a 1997 car crash that killed a woman (Moe has said he was not drinking before the fatal collision). But with some contrition, he weathered that storm.<\/p>\n<p>He also took heat for tweeting a picture of himself shopping <a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/saskatoon\/covid-19-masks-election-saskatchewan-moe-meili-1.5770915\">without a mask on<\/a> (contrary to public health advice), but his NDP rival had been unmasked in a store, too.<\/p>\n<p>Moe doesn\u2019t seem to aspire to greatness. With the Saskatchewan Party, being good enough is more than sufficient to win.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_NDP_was_not_obliterated\"><\/span>The NDP was not obliterated<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Yes, this was another rout. Yes, the party of titans like\u00a0Douglas, Allan Blakeney and Roy Romanow has featured a rotating cast of also-rans during the Saskatchewan Party\u2019s reign. And Meili was the fourth NDP leader in as many elections. But if early numbers hold, he\u2019ll be the first leader in three tries to actually win his own seat. It means that the opposition party doesn\u2019t have to start yet again at square one.<\/p>\n<p>With Meili, the party was trying something different, something bolder. Its past leaders took a centrist, gentler line of\u00a0attack against the popular Wall; Meili, a former doctor who was arrested at the 2001 anti-globalization protests in Qu\u00e9bec, came from the NDP\u2019s activist wing. He swung hard by alleging Moe had a hidden agenda for \u201causterity\u201d cuts, and played to his side\u2019s base by pledging a wealth tax and $15 minimum wage, alongside various spending hikes. Yet he came across as more of a steady Opposition leader than a political firebrand, and voters seem to be rewarding him by slightly expanding his\u00a0caucus. For Meili to get from here to government, though, will prove a vastly more daunting task.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Ghosts_of_the_past_cant_haunt_Saskatchewan_forever\"><\/span>Ghosts of the past can\u2019t haunt Saskatchewan forever<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Meili spent much of the campaign attacking the Saskatchewan Party\u2019s record, and Moe repeatedly returned fire, even if the NDP government the premier was slagging<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>lost power 13 years ago. This was a mainstay of Wall\u2019s campaign rhetoric, warning about the days of a sluggish provincial economy and past rural hospital closures. The criticism\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/leaderpost.com\/opinion\/columnists\/mandryk-moe-taking-on-past-ndp-government-record-may-be-ill-advised\">came across as stale<\/a>, especially given that the once-dominant Saskatchewan NDP government wasn\u2019t some kind of one-and-done experiment like the oft-reviled Ontario NDP of 1990. Fearmongering about the bad old Roy Romanow days may not faze new voters come the next election in 2024: they were in diapers the last time the NDP ran Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_alarm_bells_dont_ring_as_loudly_here\"><\/span>The alarm bells don\u2019t ring as loudly here<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Although Saskatchewan is partially exposed to the oil price crash that has ravaged Alberta\u2019s economy, Moe\u2019s province actually isn\u2019t doing too badly\u2014it now boasts Canada\u2019s lowest provincial unemployment rate, at 6.8 per cent. That\u2019s in part thanks to the strength of Saskatchewan\u2019s trusty old farming sector, but also because the province was among the first to reopen during the coronavirus crisis, and hasn\u2019t been hit as hard as other provinces, with only 25 deaths and cities that have largely avoided outbreaks.<\/p>\n<p>Moe didn\u2019t necessarily enjoy a COVID bump, but\u00a0nor did he suffer from crisis mismanagement complaints or economic doldrums. And nobody could accuse him of an opportunistic election call (as was the case in New Brunswick or British Columbia): Moe dropped his writ on Saskatchewan\u2019s fixed-election timetable.<\/p>\n<p>This was as neutral-state an election as you could possibly ask for in 2020, when the only campaign rallies on either side were drive-in, horn-honking car-and-truck affairs.<br \/>\n<span class=\"ctx-article-root\"><!-- --><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/politics\/in-saskatchewan-election-four-moe-years-was-a-foregone-conclusion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#In Saskatchewan election, four Moe years was a foregone conclusion&#8221; Canada has a new one-party province, the NDP&#8217;s vital signs have returned and other takeaways from voting day on the Prairie The Saskatchewan Party\u2019s fourth straight majority seemed a safe bet from the moment Premier Scott Moe dropped the writ, and voting-day results confirmed the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/MOE-MARKUSOFF-OCT26-750x422.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[77281,67806,77285,77286],"class_list":["post-98303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-2020-saskatchewan-election","tag-editors-picks","tag-ryan-meili","tag-scott-moe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}