Saskatchewan Party wins in Saskatchewan
First off, congratulations to premier elect Brad Wall on his victory in Saskatchewan. After 16 years in power, the NDP has gone down in defeat to the Saskatchewan Party. This has been a long time coming and most polls have consistently showed the Saskatchewan Party with double digit leads, which beared out tonight. At the same time I was not expecting a total blowout simply due to the way the votes were distributed last time around. Rural Saskatchewan was already solidly in the hands of the Saskatchewan Party, so all we saw is rural Saskatchewan go even more massively for the Saskatchewan Party. In Saskatoon and Regina, on the other hand, the NDP won most of these ridings by large margins so a massive shift was needed just to make those ridings even competitive.
The main reason for the defeat was more than likely, people felt it was time for a change. Asides from Alberta, winning five back to back terms is extremely rare elsewhere in Canada, so I suspect this was the main reason as the economy is doing quite well in Saskatchewan and usually a strong economy results in governments being re-elected. The Saskatchewan Party also ran a very centrist platform so trying to paint them as scary as they did in 2003 was a lot more difficult. Indeed this should be a message to all those hard core conservatives arguing the Conservatives federally and also here in Ontario need to move to the right to be successful. In Saskatchewan, the party ran on a more right wing platform in 2003 and lost, while they ran on a more centrist platform this time around and won. With the NDP now out in Saskatchewan, Manitoba remains the only province with the NDP still in power. Likewise after losing in PEI and New Brunswick, those on the right at least have something to cheer about, at least sort of, although I am sure the ideological right wingers probably will argue the majority would have been a landslide had they ran on a more right wing platform, but the evidence suggests the contrary.
The main reason for the defeat was more than likely, people felt it was time for a change. Asides from Alberta, winning five back to back terms is extremely rare elsewhere in Canada, so I suspect this was the main reason as the economy is doing quite well in Saskatchewan and usually a strong economy results in governments being re-elected. The Saskatchewan Party also ran a very centrist platform so trying to paint them as scary as they did in 2003 was a lot more difficult. Indeed this should be a message to all those hard core conservatives arguing the Conservatives federally and also here in Ontario need to move to the right to be successful. In Saskatchewan, the party ran on a more right wing platform in 2003 and lost, while they ran on a more centrist platform this time around and won. With the NDP now out in Saskatchewan, Manitoba remains the only province with the NDP still in power. Likewise after losing in PEI and New Brunswick, those on the right at least have something to cheer about, at least sort of, although I am sure the ideological right wingers probably will argue the majority would have been a landslide had they ran on a more right wing platform, but the evidence suggests the contrary.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 7:35 PM
2 Comments:
The Sask Party still ran well to the right of the Ontario PC's though and could clearly differentiate themselves from the Liberals and NDP...
I would disagree anonymous after reading their platform. I don't recall them talking about privatizing any crown corporations despite the fact three of the four (Sask Tel, Saskatchewan Government Insurance, and whatever the name of their gas company is) could privatized. In fact only Hydro here in Ontario is still government owned. In 2003 they ran more to the right, but less so this time around.
In addition I would hardly describe John Tory's campaign on extending funding to religious schools as being centrist or centre-left. He is a Red Tory though on the whole.
In fact many commented on how the NDP and Saskatchewan Party didn't differ a huge lot so I don't think trying to be a different as possible works necessarily.
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