REGINA – Like many in the room, the two men at the back table took copious notes and listened closely to the resolutions, the speakers and the attacks on the federal government.
But when most of the crowd of about 1,000 rose to give a standing ovation to New Democratic Party leader Alexa McDonough, the two stayed sitting.
It isn’t surprising, considering this was the election campaign launch of the NDP, a key rival to Reform party politicians Elwin Hermanson and Garry Breitkreuz.
“In Saskatchewan, the NDP are a force to be reckoned with,” said Breitkreuz, who stood, uncharacteristically, with large NDP signs behind him, bathed in their warm orange glow. “We have to hear exactly what they’re saying and not just go by rumors.”
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Breitkreuz said at least one-third of the votes he received in 1993, when he toppled NDP heavyweight Lorne Nystrom, came from disgruntled NDPers. He’d like to hang on to them.
Hermanson agreed.
“We have replaced the NDP as the populist party.”
Many see the NDP and the Reform party at opposite ends of the political spectrum, but in rural Saskatchewan, the two parties may be fighting for the same voters.
Steven Bobiash, NDP candidate for the Blackstrap riding, which includes part of Saskatoon, said he thinks he will be going toe-to-toe with Reform.
“I think we’re going to be two distinct visions for rural policy and agricultural policy,” said Bobiash, who will have to defeat two sitting politicians – Reform’s Allan Kerpan and Liberal Morris Bodnar – to win the urban-rural seat.
“I think the Liberals will be in real trouble in rural ridings.”
Gun control a sore point
With the Liberals hurt by the federal gun control law, many Liberal voters will be looking for someone else to support, and that means Reform or NDP, Bobiash said.
The NDP will pick up pro-Canadian Wheat Board voters and farmers who want more control over the national transportation system, he said. And he will use the Reform party’s support for deregulation, privatization and breaking the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly against it, Bobiash said.
But Hermanson said he thinks his party’s opposition to the gun law will draw most of the anti-Liberal votes and leave Bobiash in the cold.
“That will sideline the NDP,” he said. “They won’t be a factor in the riding.”
The gun law has divided the NDP. Alexa McDonough and many party members favor stronger gun laws, but sitting MPs have fought against it.
The official NDP position is that the party wants to review and revise the law. It opposes it on detail, not principle.
McDonough said she didn’t think the party has lost its hold on the prairie populist vote to Reform. But she said voters attracted to both will find a better alternative in the NDP.
“The populist strength of the NDP had to do with building on our sense of community, it had to do with building on those co-operative roots in prairie Canada. It had to do with building on the notion that we all share in our successes and support each other in the hard times,” she said in an interview.
“None of those things characterize the Reform party.”
