It’s the first nice day of spring and Nettie Wiebe is cooped up in a windowless office no bigger than a large closet.
What was once a blood lab has been hastily converted into a federal election campaign headquarters for the former National Farmers Union president, who is running as a New Democratic Party candidate in the Saskatoon-Humboldt riding.
Down the hall, a member of her team has been wedged into what was the women’s washroom. An upright map of the district obscures her view of the toilet. A Jack Layton poster taped overhead blocks some of the frigid air pouring out of the air conditioning vent.
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The office atmosphere is tight and uncomfortable, mirroring the race shaping up in the constituency.
Joe Garcea, head of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan, said it will be a fun riding to watch on June 28.
“I think that’s probably going to be one of the closest results in the province.”
Incumbent Jim Pankiw was first elected to office in 1997 with the Reform party, winning by 220 votes over the NDP candidate.
In 2000 he won the riding easily with more than 44 percent of the vote for the Canadian Alliance.
Shortly after the win, Pankiw walked out on his party along with 11 other dissident MPs to protest then leader Stockwell Day’s leadership. The other dissidents later returned to the party, but Pankiw was denied readmission to caucus.
Last year he ran unsuccessfully to be Saskatoon’s mayor. This year he is running as an independent.
Garcea said he thinks Pankiw will retain followers who admire his anti-establishment views, such as his rejection of tenets associated with bilingualism and “race-based privileges” for Indians. He will also attract “disaffected” people who can’t bring themselves to vote for the mainstream parties.
But Garcea said he doesn’t believe that will be enough to elect him to a third term.
However, according to a survey commissioned by Pankiw that polled 760 constituents, Pankiw had 30.4 percent of the vote heading into the election, with his nearest rival at 16.8 percent.
He attributes the strong results to his independent status.
“I’m not bound by parties and forced to toe the party line,” he said.
Conservative candidate Brad Trost, a geophysicist who grew up on a farm near Springside, Sask., said Pankiw will cause a split in the right wing vote but Pankiw will also draw from other parties.
“If you look at his results in the (2003 Saskatoon) mayoral race he did the best in the historically NDP strongholds in this city.”
Trost is confident when it comes to the rural vote, which accounts for one-third of the riding’s electorate.
“The farm vote is solidly behind us.”
He expects a photo finish.
Liberal candidate Patrick Wolfe said although his party finished a distant third in the last two elections, that’s about to change.
His team has been working the riding for nearly two full years, selling 2,100 new Liberal memberships in the process.
“That is a feat that hasn’t been done in 30 years.”
The Saskatoon businessperson has set his sights on capturing some of the 9,420 votes that went to the NDP in 2000.
“We know that the NDP is not going to form the federal government,” he said.
“I’m the only person that has the realistic chance of actually being inside government.”
Wiebe is optimistic about the NDP’s chances in the riding now that Pankiw is running as an independent. Her party finished second in the constituency the last two elections.
One of her primary objectives is to dethrone Pankiw, who she feels has tainted the riding by giving its constituents a national reputation as hard-minded people.
“I think that completely misrepresents us.”
