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What lies ahead for Sask. politics after fall sitting begins in controversy, ends with $500 cheques in mail

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The fall sitting of the Saskatchewan Legislature started with controversy and ended quietly on Wednesday with confirmation $500 affordability cheques have been mailed.

The past seven weeks have seen the typical disagreements on what the government’s priorities ought to be, but it began with an incident that made international headlines and led to an apology by the premier.

On Oct. 26, Lt.-Gov. Russell Mirasty delivered the government’s throne speech. Seated in the crowd was convicted killer and former Saskatchewan cabinet minister Colin Thatcher.

Thatcher, 84, was found guilty in 1984 of the first-degree murder of his ex-wife, JoAnn Wilson, who was found beaten and shot to death in the garage of her home the previous year.

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He was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years and granted full parole in November 2006.

Thatcher was invited by Thunder Creek MLA Lyle Stewart, who initially defended the decision, before calling it an “error in judgment.”

The Saskatchewan Party government relieved Stewart of his legislative secretary duties. Five days after the throne speech, Premier Scott Moe apologized.

On Wednesday, deputy premier Donna Harpauer met with reporters, as Moe was in Washington, D.C.

“It was a mistake, one that the premier addressed on behalf of all of us, but we are very focused on the government agenda and got back to our agenda very quickly,” she said.

Colin Thatcher, a former Saskatchewan MLA and a convicted murderer, walks out of the chamber after the speech from the throne at the Saskatchewan Legislature in Regina on Oct. 26. (Heywood Yu/The Canadian Press)

NDP Leader Carla Beck said the invitation was a “slap in the face” to survivors of domestic violence, those that work in the field, and the assembly.

“We’re looking at a government that is out of touch,” the Opposition leader said.

“The fact that they did not see a problem with inviting a convicted wife killer to the legislature on throne speech day and then took five days and international embarrassment to even table the weakest of apologies,” said Beck.

“It sent a terrible message in a province that has twice the rate of domestic violence in the country.

Saskatchewan First Act

A day after Moe’s apology, Justice Minister Bronwyn Eyre introduced the Saskatchewan First Act, which the government said will confirm the province’s autonomy and jurisdiction over its natural resources.

“This isn’t about fed-bashing for kicks,” Eyre said on Nov. 1.

“This is about quantifying, assessing, and defining economic harm. It’s about our place in this federation and our responsibility to the people of Saskatchewan to foster economic growth.”

The Saskatchewan First Act has been overshadowed by new Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act which was introduced on Nov. 28 and is already going to be tweaked by government.

On Wednesday, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations called for the proposed Alberta Sovereignty and the Saskatchewan First acts to be withdrawn.

Moe and Eyre have said the Saskatchewan act is inclusive.

“It doesn’t change the intentions the government has to include all Saskatchewan people, Indigenous or otherwise, in the economy,” Moe said last week.

“What the act is focused on is to make sure we have the focus on Saskatchewan so we can collectively benefit.”

Last week, Beck and members of her caucus received some criticism for voting to move the bill to committee.

Beck said it is not clear what the bill accomplishes.

“My observation is that this was an act that was designed to have a political motivation behind it, but really materially wouldn’t have had that much of an impact on the people of this province. It reasserts rights that already exist.”

Beck said she has concerns about a lack of consultation with Indigenous and Métis communities.

$500 cheques not enough, says Opposition

Beck and the Opposition spent much of the sitting calling on the government to spend more to help people facing increased cost-of-living.

The government said it had responded with its decision to spend $450 million to send $500 cheques to more than 900,000 adults.

After an initial delay in getting the cheques mailed, they have been sent to people who filed their income tax by Aug. 31.

Harpauer said Wednesday the government is addressing needs by spending in areas of need like health care and education.

“We have committed additional dollars in a plan for health care for recruitment, retention, training and incentivizing more workers, recognizing that there is stress in the health-care system,” she said.

“We also addressed stresses within education by providing additional dollars for inflation for our school divisions as well as an increase in student enrolment.”

Beck said the government’s priorities do not match the Opposition’s, mentioning the government’s decision to create a Crown corporation, the Saskatchewan Revenue Agency.

The bill to create the agency was introduced this week. The government said its aim is to “pursue greater autonomy in tax collection.”

“We think this is a priority,” Harpauer said.

“The piece of legislation I introduced this week is a very high-level piece of legislation that won’t come to fruition for a few years. But at some point, we do want to explore it, and this lets the public know what our agenda is.”

Saskatchewan Finance Minister Donna Harpauer released the mid-year update last month. The government is projecting a $1.1 billion surplus for 2022-23. (Matt Howard/Radio-Canada)

Beck said the public was not looking for a new tax collection and administration agency.

“There’s a very big distinction between the priorities that we brought forward because these are concerns that people in the province have,” she said.

“The government seems very pleased with in this building I don’t think translates very well to the people out there who are struggling to just get by right now.”

Harpauer disagreed, saying the proposed revenue agency is a response to what the government has heard.

“We are listening to stakeholders around the province, to different groups as well as our own constituents. This isn’t just coming from nowhere. This is something that people are raising concerns about.”

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Holder bows out of politics ahead of election – Telegraph-Journal

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Former cabinet minister is the latest Tory rebel to exit politics

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Progressive Conservative stalwart Trevor Holder, the province’s longest-serving MLA in the legislature, is bowing out of politics, becoming the latest Tory rebel to make that call ahead of the provincial election.

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In the legislature Thursday, Holder, who has served the Saint John riding of Portland-Simonds for the last 25 years and was a cabinet minister under three premiers, made the announcement, thanking all his colleagues “regardless of political stripe” who later rose in the House to give him a round of applause.

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“All I ever wanted – along with all of you – was a chance to help make (New Brunswick) better than it already is,” said Holder, who described himself as a “north-end kid” from Saint John.

Holder didn’t make himself available to the media after his announcement. He also didn’t formally resign on Thursday, sending a note out to reporters that he “won’t be back in May” but hasn’t “set the official date yet” for his resignation.

News of his exit comes less than a year after Holder resigned as the province’s minister of post-secondary education, training and labour, citing the impact of Premier Blaine Higgs’s top-down leadership style on caucus decision-making.

Holder was the second minister to resign from cabinet last June amid Tory caucus infighting over changes to the province’s gender identity policy for public school students.

Fellow Saint John MLA and Tory stalwart Dorothy Shephard was the first to resign from cabinet last summer, giving up her post as minister of social development before announcing last week she won’t reoffer in the upcoming election this fall.

Shephard also cited Higgs’s leadership style in her decision to leave cabinet.

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During his speech Thursday, Holder made a point to thank Higgs “for the conversations over the last number of days leading up to my decision here.”

Higgs later told media he didn’t know Holder’s exact plans for the future but knew the Saint John MLA had “opportunities.”

“He’s a great statesman in the legislature and certainly his care for his community is genuine,” the premier said.

When asked if he had addressed Holder’s concerns about caucus decision-making, Higgs said he thought so but acknowledged he’s “always struggled with things not getting done at a certain level of pace.”

“It’s rare if you ever come out of caucus or cabinet with unanimous decisions,” he said.

“There’s always a degree of differences, and that’s not going to change, but leadership requires real decisions and you’re not everything to everybody, so you do what you believe is right and you do with it conviction and you hope it’s just the right thing to do.”

Holder ‘a truly progressive conservative’: Coon

Both opposition leaders spoke glowingly of Holder’s commitment to provincial politics.

“He was a real asset to the legislature, he was a real pleasure to work with, so it’s a loss to see him leaving the legislative assembly,” Liberal leader Susan Holt told media Thursday.

That was echoed by Green leader David Coon.

“(Holder’s) very committed to improving our system of government and he’s made real contributions to doing so,” Coon said. “I’m sad to see him go. He’s truly a progressive conservative in the truest meaning of that term.”

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In his 16-minute speech, Holder spoke of the importance of bipartisanship, describing his relationship with former Liberal cabinet minister Victor Boudreau.

They used to “tear each other” up in the House, Holder recalled, but “when I was in opposition, (Boudreau) helped me with my constituents, and when I was in government, I did my best to do the same for him – and this is how this legislature needs to work.”

First elected at the age of 25 in June 1999, Holder has won a total of six elections over the course of his 25-year provincial political career. He’s a former minister of environment and local government, tourism and parks, wellness, culture and sport, and tourism, heritage and culture. He also served as deputy speaker.

Holder thanked his wife Brenda Thursday, along with their two daughters, Margaret and Katherine, for their support over the course of his political career.

Holder’s and Shephard’s departure announcements are the latest in a string of changes within the Tory caucus ahead of the election.

In February, fellow Saint John colleague Arlene Dunn abruptly resigned from her ministerial and MLA duties. Meanwhile, colleagues Daniel Allain, Jeff Carr and Ross Wetmore – who were part of the Tory rebels who supported a Liberal motion on Policy 713 changes – have announced they won’t reoffer in the next election.

Wetmore had announced his retirement intentions before the Policy 713 kerfuffle.

Fellow rebel Andrea Anderson-Mason, MLA for Fundy-The Isles-Saint John West, has yet to announce her plans.

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Opinion: Canada's foreign policy and its domestic politics on Israel's war against Hamas are shifting – The Globe and Mail

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The vote in the House of Commons last week on Israel’s war against Hamas represents a shift in both Canada’s foreign policy and its domestic politics.

The Liberal government is now markedly more supportive of the rights of Palestinians and less supportive of the state of Israel than in the past. That shift mirrors changing demographics, and the increasing importance of Muslim voters within the Liberal coalition.

Both the Liberal and Conservative parties once voiced unqualified support for Israel’s right to defend itself from hostile neighbours. But the Muslim community is growing in Canada. Today it represents 5 per cent of the population, compared with 1 per cent who identify as Jewish.

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Although data is sparse prior to 2015, it is believed that Muslim Canadians tended to prefer the Liberal Party over the Conservative Party. They were also less likely to vote than the general population.

But the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper deeply angered the community with talk about “barbaric cultural practices” and musing during the 2015 election campaign about banning public servants from wearing the niqab. Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was promising to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada if elected.

These factors galvanized community groups to encourage Muslims to vote. And they did. According to an Environics poll, 79 per cent of eligible Muslims cast a ballot in the 2015 election, compared with an overall turnout of 68 per cent. Sixty-five per cent of Muslim voters cast ballots for the Liberal Party, compared with 10 per cent who voted for the NDP and just 2 per cent for the Conservatives. (Telephone interviews of 600 adults across Canada who self-identified as Muslim, were conducted between Nov. 19, 2015 and Jan. 23, 2016, with an expected margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points 19 times out of 20.)

Muslim Canadians also strongly supported the Liberals in the elections of 2019 and 2021. The party is understandably anxious not to lose that support. I’m told that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly often mentions the large Muslim community in her Montreal riding. (According to the 2021 census, 18 per cent of the people in Ahuntsic-Cartierville identify as Muslim.)

This is one reason why the Liberal leadership laboured so mightily to find a way to support last week’s NDP motion that would, among other measures, have recognized the state of Palestine. The Liberal caucus was deeply divided on the issue. My colleague Marieke Walsh reports that dozens of Liberal MPs were prepared to vote for the NDP motion.

In the end, almost all Liberal MPs ended up voting for a watered-down version of the motion – statehood recognition was taken off the table – while three Liberal MPs voted against it. One of them, Anthony Housefather, is considering whether to remain inside the Liberal caucus.

This is not simply a question of political calculation. Many Canadians are deeply concerned over the sufferings of the people in Gaza as the Israel Defence Forces seek to root out Hamas fighters.

The Conservatives enjoy the moral clarity of their unreserved support for the state of Israel in this conflict. The NDP place greater emphasis on supporting the rights of Palestinians.

The Liberals have tried to keep both Jewish and Muslim constituencies onside. But as last week’s vote suggests, they increasingly accord a high priority to the rights of Palestinians and to the Muslim community in Canada.

As with other religious communities, Muslims are hardly monolithic. Someone who comes to Canada from Senegal may have different values and priorities than a Canadian who comes from Syria or Pakistan or Indonesia.

And the plight of Palestinians in Gaza may not be the only issue influencing Muslims, who struggle with inflation, interest rates and housing affordability as much as other voters.

Many new Canadians come from societies that are socially conservative. Some Muslim voters may be uncomfortable with the Liberal Party’s strong support for the rights of LGBTQ Canadians.

Finally, Muslim voters for whom supporting the rights of Palestinians is the ballot question may be drawn more to the NDP than the Liberals.

Regardless, the days of Liberal/Conservative bipartisan consensus in support of Israel are over. This is the new lay of the land.

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Recall Gondek group planned to launch its own petition before political novice did – CBC.ca

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The third-party group helping promote the recall campaign against Mayor Jyoti Gondek had devised plans to launch its own petition drive, as part of a broader mission to make Calgary council more conservative.

Project YYC had planned with other conservative political organizations to gather signatures demanding Calgary’s mayor be removed, says group leader Roy Beyer. But their drive would have begun later in the year, when nicer weather made for easier canvassing for supporters, he said.

Those efforts were stymied when Landon Johnston, an HVAC contractor largely unknown in local politics, applied at city hall to launch his own recall drive in early February. Since provincial recall laws allow only one recall attempt per politician per term, Project YYC chose to lend support to Johnston’s bid.

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“Now we have to try to do door-knocking in the winter, and there’s a lot of preparation that you have to contemplate prior to starting. And Landon didn’t do that,” Beyer told CBC News in an interview.

Project YYC has helped gather signatures, created a website and erected large, anti-Gondek signs around town. It has supplied organizational heft that Johnston admits to lacking.

Their task is daunting.

According to provincial law, in order to force a recall plebiscite to oust the mayor before the term is up, they have two months to gather more than 514,000 signatures, an amount equal to 40 per cent of Calgary’s population in 2019.

They have until April 4 to collect that many signatures, and by March 21 had only 42,000.

Beyer criticizes the victory threshold for recall petition as so high that it’s “a joke,” and the province may as well not have politician recall laws.

So if he thinks it’s an impossible pursuit, why is he involved with this?

“You can send a message to the mayor that she should be sitting down and resigning … without achieving those numbers,” Beyer said.

Project YYC founder Roy Beyer, from a Take Back Alberta video in 2022. He is no longer with that provincial activist group. (royjbeyer screenshot/Rumble)

He likened it to former premier Jason Kenney getting 52 per cent support in a UCP leadership review — enough to technically continue as leader, but a lousy enough show of confidence that he announced immediately he would step down.

Gondek has given no indication she’ll voluntarily leave before her term is up next year. But she did emerge from a meeting last week with Johnston to admit the petition has resonated with many Calgarians and is a signal she must work harder to listen to public concerns and explain council’s decisions.

The mayor also told the Calgary Sun this week that she’s undecided about running for re-election in 2025. 

“There used to be this thing where if you’re the mayor, of course you’re going to run for another term because there’s unfinished business,” Gondek told the newspaper.

“And yes, there will be unfinished business, but the times are not what they were. You need to make sure you’re the right leader for the times you’re in.”

The last several Calgary mayors have enjoyed multiple terms in office, going back to Ralph Klein in the 1980s. The last one-term mayor was Ross Alger, the man Klein defeated in 1980.

Beyer and fellow conservative organizers launched Project YYC before the recall campaign. The goal was to elect a conservative mayor and councillors — “a common-sense city council, instead of what we currently have,” he said.

Beyer is one of a few former activists with the provincial pressure group Take Back Alberta to have latched themselves to the recall bid and Project YYC, along with some United Conservative Party riding officials in Calgary. 

Beyer’s acknowledgment of his group’s broader mission comes as Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet ministers have said they want to introduce political party politics in large municipalities — even though most civic politicians have said they don’t want to bring clear partisanship into city halls.

Although Beyer admits Project YYC’s own recall campaign would have been a coalition effort with other conservative groups, he wouldn’t specify which ones. He did insist that Take Back Alberta wasn’t one of them.

A man in a grey baseball cap speaks to reporters.
Calgary business owner Landon Johnston speaks to reporters at City Hall on March 22 following his 15-minute conversation with Mayor Jyoti Gondek. (Laurence Taschereau/CBC)

Johnston says he was approached by Beyer’s group shortly after applying to recall Gondek, and gave them $3,000 from donations he’d raised.

He initially denied any knowledge of Project YYC when documents first emerged about that group’s role in the recall, but later said he didn’t initially realize that was the organizational name of his campaign allies.

“They said they could get me signatures, so I said, ‘OK, if you can do it by the book, here’s some money.’ And it’s worked,” he said.

Johnston has said he’s new to politics but simply wants to remove Gondek because of policies he’s disagreed with, like the soon-to-be-ended ban on single-use plastics and bags at restaurant takeouts and drive-thrus.

He’s no steadfast conservative, either. He told CBC’s Calgary Eyeopener that he voted for Rachel Notley’s NDP because one of its green-renovation incentives helped his HVAC business.

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