Saskatchewan’s newest political party, aptly named the Saskatchewan Party, has received mixed reviews.
It is no surprise that two of its harshest critics are the premier of the province, Roy Romanow, and the federal cabinet minister from Saskatchewan, Ralph Goodale. In full flight at a press conference in Rosetown recently, the premier referred several times to the party as being formed in the dead of night in a smoky room and appeared indignant that “they” have done away with the party of Sir John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker, “Saskatchewan’s prime minister.”
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Not surprisingly, he said the province already has a Saskatchewan party, his own New Democratic Party, which was formed on principles, to be “for” something, not “against.”
Goodale, in a letter to Liberal party members, called the members of the new party “backroom connivers” and suggested this is not the way that Liberals do things.
Apparently, the knifing of former provincial leader Lynda Haverstock is conveniently forgotten for the moment. (She who had the good sense and grace to choose not to sit with the new party but to maintain her position as an independent.)
In the background, provincial Liberal leader Jim Melenchuk keeps repeating the mantra “it’s not my fault.”
Meanwhile, back at the Conservative camp, leader Bill Boyd and the three members who moved over with him are in trouble for suggesting that the provincial Tory party is dead and will not be running candidates in the next provincial election.
The fabulous four apparently forgot that the MLAs are not the party, that the people are the party. There are many party faithful who say, like many Liberal faithful, that their provincial party is not yet dead in the water.
The new party is talking about a fall or winter leadership convention.
People on the street are asking how delegates will be selected for a party that as yet has no popular base of support, no staff and no money and right now only dreams of being the Opposition in the next legislature.
It remains to be seen whether a political party born of an essentially negative reason and with a platform, which almost certainly will be cobbled together with policies and programs from the Liberal centre, the Conservative right and the Reform extreme right, can work.
