Saskatchewan isn’t fond of sending Liberals to Ottawa.
But Ralph Goodale, the incumbent Wascana MP, has proved a steadfast exception over the last 15 years and is likely to earn a sixth consecutive victory Oct. 14.
As he wages his latest campaign, the soon-to-be 59-year-old continues to have strong support in a province otherwise painted Conservative blue.
“It would appear that support levels are in the same order of magnitude as they were last time, which is somewhere above 50 percent,” he said Sept. 18. “But I never take that for granted.”
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He didn’t always enjoy such popularity.
Raised on a farm near Wilcox, Sask., Goodale earned a law degree in 1972 and went to work for federal Liberal justice minister Otto Lang.
At 24, Goodale was among the youngest MPs ever when he represented Assiniboia from 1974 to 1979. The years after would test his political resolve.
He lost in 1979, again in 1980, and became leader of the provincial party a year later. Goodale, and the Liberals, would not hold a seat until 1986, when he won Assiniboia-Gravelbourg.
But the lure of Ottawa led him to resign in 1988 and run in the federal riding of Regina-Wascana. He lost once more and retreated to the private sector.
Many thought Goodale would not return to politics, but he won Wascana in 1993 and was among the first Liberals from Saskatchewan to return to Ottawa since his defeat 15 years earlier.
In 1997, he was the sole survivor, and since then, two men representing the province’s northern riding joined the Liberal caucus only briefly.
Ken Rasmussen, director of the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Regina, said Goodale’s long-time involvement at both levels of politics has given him name recognition any politician would love to have.
“He is above the party in the sense that he has his own brand,” Rasmussen said.
The Ralph Goodale brand helps him win where the party does not, he said.
Goodale’s government responsibilities from 1993 to 2006 include cabinet posts in agriculture and the Canadian Wheat Board, natural resources, public works and finance. He was also house leader in both government and opposition.
During his term in agriculture he ended the Crow Benefit transportation subsidy and was part of the government that implemented the much maligned gun registry.
He also strengthened wheat board legislation to stop potential border runners, who shipped grain across the U.S. border without proper permits to protest the CWB monopoly. The changes also gave farmers greater control of the marketing agency.
But it was likely the lead-up to and campaign for the 2006 election that proved most personally trying.
Rumours had been swirling about whether the Liberal government would tax income trusts. Goodale, as finance minister, eventually announced that would not happen. However, heavy investing in trusts just before the announcement led some to believe there had been a leak.
Partway through the campaign, in December 2005 and January 2006, the RCMP said it was investigating. As head of the department, Goodale took the brunt of the criticism and calls for him to step down.
He won by a large margin.
“He’s risen above the income trust, he’s risen above the gun registry,” Rasmussen said. “He’s overcome a lot of adversity.”
It helps that he is considered by many to be, as Rasmussen puts it, “the hardest working man in show business.”
Goodale is a dedicated constituency worker who attends as many events as possible. And people genuinely like him, Rasmussen said.
His fellow MPs voted him parliamentarian of the year in a survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid for Maclean’s magazine and the Dominion Institute in 2006.
Rasmussen suggested a Goodale victory with a reduced majority is likely. The Conservatives are running a former Saskatchewan Party president and candidate, Michelle Hunter. The NDP candidate, is Stephen Moore, a New Brunswick native who teaches in the University of Regina’s English department.
Neither is considered a strong threat to unseat Goodale.
Rasmussen said if he does lose, it would likely be a sign of a larger cross-country trend, not a personal loss.
“He could be road kill in a big Tory sweep,” he said.
