CLIMAX, Sask. – It’s unlikely there is anywhere in Saskatchewan with more voter discontent than in Wood River.
Hospital closures, changes to the Gross Revenue Insurance Plan, criminal charges against former politicians, the federal gun bill and the ending of the Crow Benefit are all hot topics here.
While Liberal Glen McPherson tries to capitalize on unhappiness with provincial cuts to health and farm programs, New Democratic Party challenger Allen Engel is trying to gain on the unhappiness with the federal Liberal government. Progressive Conservative candidate Jim (Yogi) Huyghebaert thinks he will benefit from a protest vote against both the provincial and federal governments.
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The riding is made particularly volatile by the candidates themselves. McPherson was elected as an NDP MLA for Assiniboia-Gravelbourg in 1991 but crossed to join the Liberals after the government’s controversial GRIP changes and hospital closures. Engel is a long-time NDP politician who has represented southwestern Saskatchewan in the 1970s and 1980s. Huyghebaert has no political past but is drawing on his career in the military, when he commanded the Moose Jaw air base, and his outspoken support of the federal Reform party to tap into a disgruntled constituency.
This southwest riding sprawls from Assiniboia and Coronach in the east to Shaunavon and Climax in the west. It contains grain farming, ranching and heated opinions on the provincial election.#
Ponteix typical of area
Typical is the Ponteix area, where the hospital was downgraded to a health centre. The town gave most of its votes to the NDP in 1991, but a tour of town coffee shops reveals a different mood.
“You couldn’t kick me hard enough in the head to make me vote NDP again,” says a farmer, who refused to give his name. He and his table companions said they thought an NDP government would help them, not take away their hospital. The man said he might vote Liberal, while a friend said he will vote Tory because he likes leader Bill Boyd.
Hugh McDonough is openly showing his support for the NDP with an Engel sign in his field. But if it’s open support, it’s also qualified support: “I’m willing to give them another chance, another round.
“I know they’ve been tough on people, but we had to be tough to get (the province’s finances) back in shape,” he said about hospital closures and GRIP changes.
“Once we get the fiscal part straightened around I hope they can start doing something good for the people too.”
Communities all over the riding lost their acute-care hospitals and many local producers were outraged when the GRIP was unilaterally changed by the provincial government in 1992.
But as Engel shakes hands and chats with producers at a Climax auction, few complain to him about the provincial government. Mostly they talk about farming conditions and each other’s families.
But when McPherson shakes the same hands and talks to the same people he gets an earful about the federal gun law and a few complaints about Liberal leader Lynda Haverstock. But, oddly, after complaining to him, many producers say they will vote for him.
Orkney producer Ken Carleton, who has voted NDP and PC in previous elections, said McPherson is popular personally and that is how local people vote.
Outspoken in his support of McPherson and denunciation of the provincial NDP is Glen Kluzak, a lifelong NDP/CCF supporter.
“I trust Glen (McPherson). I would vote for him no matter what party he’s in, the way he stood up for us,” said Kluzak, whose father was a CCF MLA.
“The NDP are going to get a real beating down here and it used to be a stronghold.”
Engel said McPherson will lose votes because he crossed the floor to join the Liberals, but Kluzak said many local producers took the same walk and will switch their votes to Liberal this election.
Engel said he thinks the hospital and GRIP cuts were necessary, not a big deal and he is happy to defend them. He said most local hospitals weren’t full, acute-care hospitals anyway, and “to any of the farmers that challenge me on GRIP, I say ‘Hey, you’re a little too greedy.’ . . . I got three dollars for every dollar I put into GRIP.'”
He thinks Wood River constituents will vote for him as a means of opposing the end of the Crow and the federal gun bill.
Huyghebaert admits he knows more about federal than provincial politics, but he is happy to run for the provincial PCs because Bill Boyd’s platform is so similar to Reform policies.
He said charges against more than a dozen former Tory politicians won’t knock the PCs out of the election race. He said the PC party is a new party and the only one through which voters can oppose both the NDP and the Liberals.
Across the constituency election signs are popping up. If they can be taken as any sort of indication of what is occurring in Wood River, McPherson is well ahead of Engel. No Huyghebaert signs could be seen in the riding, but this was only because they had not yet been printed.
