Mandryk: NDP needs to get its leadership right

By Murray Mandryk

The problem with today’s Saskatchewan’s NDP isn’t just that they are too left-wing, representing an ideology too radical and far-removed from the mainstream views of this province.

Yes, this certainly has been the prevailing perception of the NDP under now out-going leader Ryan Meili.

But the NDP’s problems likely go much deeper than that.

The NDP under Meili lost more by-elections than it won — including that critical Athabasca by-election that turned into Meili’s death knell because it was a seat that the NDP had only lost once in the previous 47 years.

And when it came to the general election in October 2020, the NDP wound up with no more seats than it had before the campaign started.

Meili and the rest of the New Democrats were running against a government in a pandemic running up the biggest debt and deficits in Saskatchewan history. There were reasons to think they should have made gains.

As a doctor leading a party during a pandemic, this would be Meili’s time to shine. Whatever his political enemies might think of him, Ryan Meili wasn’t wrong about many pandemic-related issues.

But these results point to bigger issues for the NDP than Meili — issues much broader and deeper than the pandemic.

The problems for the NDP are clearly not just about Meili and his perceived left-wing views or his seeming eagerness to support the carbon tax. (As a point of fact, while Meili supported some form of carbon pricing, he didn’t specifically support the federal government program he and everyone else rightly identified as being ineffective in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.)

There was clearly greater emphasis on social policy and social concern under Meili’s leadership. But when you break it down to specific policies like more support for northerners and First Nations, health care and mental health, you are dealing with policies that no one now finds particularly radical.

Moreover, it can be argued that Meili’s predecessors Lorne Calvert, Dwain Lingenfelter and Cam Broten, were all right of the NDP leader when it came to their approach and policies. None of them fared much better in the past 15 years of Saskatchewan Party government rule.

If anything, the rise of Meili and party’s swing to the left his leadership was said to represent came after frustration within the party about how the same old approach stemming from the Roy Romanow-Lorne Calvert era wasn’t working.

But it should also be said that what wasn’t working before surely worked no better under Meili. Arguably, things have gotten worse, given Meili’s tenure was exactly during good times for the Sask. Party government, either.

The NDP needs to do a lot of things differently.

The first thing it needs is a charismatic leader that better relates to Saskatchewan as a whole.

This doesn’t mean the NDP needs a leader from rural Saskatchewan … although there sure doesn’t seem to be anyone that leaps to mind.

But the party needs someone who can relate to a broader spectrum of the province in the way that Brad Wall and even Scott Moe have.

It should be noted that under both Wall and Moe, the Sask. Party has won seats in urban areas like Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, north Regina and west Saskatoon that simply were not NDP territory before.

Again, the loss in Athabasca was very telling. This was a riding where the social issues like First Nations poverty, violence and suicide — the very issues Meili championed — are prevalent.

That the NDP lost indicates that voters there were looking for something else.

The NDP needs a relatable leader that has at least a solid mix of business/economic and social policies.

The NDP needs a leader that’s likeable relatable, and isn’t seen to represent a single special interest.

Finding such a leader will be no easy task.