REGINA – The Saskatchewan election results will be closely watched to see if it is part of a recent national trend.
That trend has seen incumbent provincial governments and Premiers seeing major losses or being thrown out entirely.
The trend became most noticeable last year in Manitoba, when Wab Kinew and the New Democrats threw out Heather Stefanson and the Progressive Conservatives in their election.
On October 19, BC voters gave a rebuke to David Eby and the New Democrats, who went from a majority government to results that are too close to call, with counting still going on to determine whether the NDP will stay in power over John Rustad’s Conservatives. Returns following election night had the NDP at 46 seats, Conservatives at 45 and Greens with two.
Then on Oct. 21, New Brunswick voters threw out Blaine Higgs’ PC government and elected Susan Holt and the Liberals.
The Liberals took 31 seats to 16 for the PCs and two for the Greens. The result was so decisive that even Higgs was beaten in his own seat.
Now, people are looking at Saskatchewan to see if the New Democrats under Carla Beck are able to topple Scott Moe and the 17-year-old Saskatchewan Party government when votes are counted Oct. 28.
Several polls in the closing days have suggested a tight race. Many observers have pointed to parallels in the Sask. NDP platform to the winning Wab Kinew campaign in Manitoba a year ago, such as a focus on health care issues.
Tom McIntosh, professor of politics and international studies at the University of Regina, sees some parallels that could emerge in the Saskatchewan results. One that could mimic the BC result is a potential urban-rural split, though McIntosh noted in BC there are some differences.
“I’m not sure it’s urban-rural as much as it is the lower mainland versus the rest of the province,” said McIntosh of the BC results.
“There’s a lot of urban British Columbia that’s not in the lower mainland that all voted Conservative. And so if you look at the electoral map, the orange is all down in that one corner of the province and sort of up the West Coast, and the rest of the province is entirely blue, Conservative blue. And so that’s kind of similar to the kind of rural-urban divide that we may see here.”
If an urban-rural split does appear in Saskatchewan results, it might replicate what happened in the 1999 and 2003 elections when the Sask Party won almost all rural seats and the NDP almost all urban areas.
McIntosh did say that compared to BC it is “much more clearly an urban-rural split in Saskatchewan, or there’s a much greater likelihood of a truly urban-rural split.” He believes it will pose real challenges for the government and opposition going forward, beginning with the Sask Party.
“It forces you to sort of confront a question about how are you going to govern the province? Are you going to double down and say we’re a rural party and we’re going to put those interests front and centre? Do you try to reach back out to the urban centre, try to find some way to include urban voices into your government?
“Similarly for the NDP in Saskatchewan, if we wind up with that kind of split, it just highlights the fact that over the last decade and a half, two decades, they’ve let their once quite deep rural roots sort of wither away. They’re not able to attract the sort of high-profile rural candidates that they’re going to need if they’re ever going to win those seats. They need the local mayor or the reeve or the person who was a councillor or the school board trustees and that to be choosing to advance their political careers by running for the NDP in their rural community. And there’s not enough of that happening for them right now. And so this is just indicative of this is a party that does not have any real deep roots any longer in the rural parts of the province.”
As for comparisons to New Brunswick, McIntosh does not see a lot of similarity.
“People tried to draw a connection with the pronoun bill that Higgs had introduced in New Brunswick that was replicated somewhat in Saskatchewan. Higgs lost his seat in the election,” McIntosh said.
“But I think part of that was the pronoun bill divided the Conservatives in New Brunswick. He lost cabinet ministers over that bill. There was none of that in Saskatchewan.”
McIntosh said that the Sask Party caucus – “even those who later said they disagreed with the bill,” were silent about it at the time the bill was brought in.
“Nobody stood up and walked out of a cabinet meeting and handed in their resignation because of that bill. So I think the situations within each of the parties was quite different.”
He did not expect “anything like New Brunswick” to happen here, saying he didn’t think Moe is “at any risk of losing his own seat either.”