Although the next provincial election is more than a year away, the Saskatchewan NDP have been hard at work making sure they are ready to put up a strong fight against the Sask Party government in November 2011.
Along with a steady blitz of critiques of the Brad Wall government, party leader Dwain Lingenfelter has been criss-crossing the province, attending NDP meetings, speaking at Say No to Bill 80 rallies and meeting with the media.
Lingenfelter and fellow NDP MLA Trent Wotherspoon, who is the shadow MLA for the Estevan Constituency, were in the city April 7 to speak with Mercury reporters Norm Park and Chad Saxon.
In part one of a wide ranging, and sometimes candid, interview, Lingenfelter and Wotherspoon spoke about the party's plans for the 2011 election and their concerns about how the Sask Party has been running the province since taking power in 2007.
The Estevan Mercury: These trips that you have been making during the break are taking you into the dens of the Sask Party's strongholds. Are you seeing any progress there?
Dwain Lingenfelter: Oh yes. In 2007 we wouldn't have had the Service Employees International Union or CUPE or the IBEW out doing any work for us or even thinking about us.
It wasn't that they hated the NDP, it's just that I don't think we were relevant in the last election in towns like Shaunavon or smaller cities like Estevan. Now we are. I go to the hospital in Shaunavon or the nursing home people come around and talk to me and say when you get back (to Regina) can you give them hell about this. And some of the farm families too appreciate some of the things we say. In the southwest they were glad that the coyote program was nonsensical because their issue is gophers. The farmers said killing the coyotes in the Shaunavon area is ass-backwards because the coyotes, we want more of them because they control rats moving from farm to farm. This isn't a big issue but it is symbolic of a government that doesn't understand or isn't doing. The other thing is they were very upset that $93 million was pulled out of the agriculture department this year. The biggest cut in all of the budget was in agriculture and they are saying we feel (the Sask Party) just doesn't understand us or they just assume we are going to vote for them no matter what they do.
I don't think it has translated into support for Lingenfelter or the NDP at the farm gate but there are many people who have moved back into the middle column on being uncertain politically about what they are going to do.
EM: What are some of the concerns that people in the Estevan Constituency have been raising to you?
Trent Wotherspoon: I think there are some general things. I think there is a sense, and it is certainly the reality, that this is the economic engine of the province right here and this area supplies the provincial coffers with more money than ever before. In fact, really what prevented Saskatchewan from having a shortfall in revenues was this region of the province in oil and gas specifically. When you are looking here, I think people are saying we are providing all the money, Brad Wall spends more than he takes in - at a time of record revenues he has a deficit - and you don't have much cabinet representation down in this region at all. Nothing from Estevan.
Then you have different issues that are there and I think nothing is larger than health care. You look at the doctor shortage that I think is exacerbated in this region when you have Oxbow, Arcola, Carlyle and Redvers all struggling with doctors, it puts a huge strain on Estevan.
People expected Brad Wall to fix this because he had made big promises and the exact opposite has happened. There is 50 per cent more vacancies for doctors than there was when he was elected and surgical wait times have gotten longer, not shorter and that is a big issue down here in Estevan.
The clean coal program is something that, when you are looking at mismanagement, that is a prime example and here we have a project that we really don't where it is going yet. We see big federal dollars bypass Saskatchewan and go to Alberta and those should be right here in our province.
The truck bypass, I think people are watching right now to make sure that capital doesn't get deferred with the many deferrals going on with this budget. Highway 39, the twinning is of interest. There is many local issues but the point is I think the people of Estevan feel that they don't have a voice at that cabinet table to raise those issues. There is a taken for granted feeling.
EM: Have you been able to make any headway locally in terms of finding a cabinet and building infrastructure?
DL: We plan to have the nomination completed here by the end of this year. I can't tell you names because they would be not only embarrassed but some of them, it might actually affect their employment because the other thing about Brad Wall is he is very hard about people who express opposition. Whether it is organizations or unions who make statements against his government, they usually find that they are in his bad books, so I don't want to mention names.
But we have four or five people who I think would be very credible candidates to take on Doreen.
EM: Do you think this is a winnable seat?
DL: I think they are all winnable and the reason I say that is not based on some sort of bravado but on my own personal knowledge of politics and how it works. I think any party or individual can win seats if they do the work.
When I first ran in Shaunavon in 1978, the constituency bordered on Alberta and Montana. It was seen as one of the most right wing areas of the province, everybody said you can run there but you are not going to win and we won. We went out and sold 1,000 memberships and we won it again in 1982. In 1982 (the NDP) only had eight seats and one of them was Shaunavon.
In Estevan when we ran here against Grant Devine (in 1980) when Grant was the brand new leader of the Conservative Party, we won this seat.
So my view, and I say this sincerely, I am not writing off any seat. We are campaigning full tilt in every riding in this province. I think, as a serious political movement, I don't think you can say that you are serious about politics, we are gunning for every seat. Are we going to win every seat? Obviously not, but I think we have to give the opportunity for every NDP riding association to win their seat and let them prove it.
If they put together a team down here like we had when we ran against Grant Devine, they will win this seat. I will give them every opportunity and all the help and Trent is doing one heck of a job as the buddy MLA, but absolutely the NDP can win this seat.
EM: The party has said it plans to spend 2010 developing policy and will release the policy in Spring 2011. Is that enough time to get your message out to people in that stretch of time between then and the election?
DL: That is a good question. The role of the opposition under the British parliamentary system is to oppose and we make no apologies. I know why Brad wishes we would quit opposing and if I were Brad I would try and spin that line too - quit being negative. Negative is hurting him. His popularity numbers have gone from 75 per cent when I started to 55 per cent in 12 months and if he continues to drop at the speed he will literally be out of contention.
EM: Did (the NDP) capture that 20 per cent?
DL: No. There are two steps to people when they move (politically). First of all nobody wants to admit that they elected the wrong premier last time. You don't want to say I made a mistake.
There are two steps that occur. First of all you say, I didn't know that he had bankrupted two companies personally. If I had known that, I probably wouldn't have voted for him. They also say I didn't know he was going to run deficit budgets in good times, not in bad times, but in good economic times. Why can't he spend the same amount as he takes in? It's not that he doesn't have money. The income to the province is up by 25 per cent. The problem is he spent 32 per cent so he is running deficits not because he doesn't have money, but he doesn't know how to control it. He doesn't have the numbers right.
The other thing is, once you get to a certain point, moving people into the middle, how do you get them into your party? That is where we are at today. The way you get them in is to first involve them in your strategy of policy. So I want to get those people who have moved back into non-commitment of the Sask Party to think and believe and know that their ideas are needed. That is the process we are going through with policy reform.
Is March of next year too late to get the final piece together, I don't think so. We want to get people engaged in the process of politics because they have been disengaged with the NDP.
EM: What major errors do you see this government making?
DL: The major error that I saw was in their first budget, which has not been talked about very much. He spent more in his first budget than he should have. Nobody who has been in business or farming would have done what he did and this is where experience comes in.
His experience in business is bankrupting two companies and people need to know that because it is part of his resume and people tend to do in their lives what they have done before. He is doing what he saw happening in the Devine government, then he did in his personal life with two companies and now he is doing it again. My point to the public is, what are you surprised about?
My belief is you run a budget the same as we do our family. If you are making $40,000 a year in income, you spend $38,000. That is my theory in life or business.
Check next week's edition of The Mercury for the remainder of the interview as Lingenfelter and Wotherspoon talk about the ugliness of politics and other provincial matters.
