There are now two Saskatchewan Party MLAs in the legislature especially awaiting the federal election in 2019.
First, former Speaker and Saskatoon Eastview MLA Corey Tochor upset incumbent MP Brad Trost to win the Saskatoon University Conservative nomination.
More recently, Regina Walsh Acres MLA Warren Steinley took the Conservative nomination in Regina Lewvan.
We will now see these two MLAs collect a paycheque from provincial taxpayers while actively campaigning for a federal seat.
This has NDP Opposition Leader Ryan Meili demanding the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly Act be changed so that MLAs will no longer be allowed to have such divided loyalties between levels of government.
He has a point. However, one wonders why politicians only exercise these high moral standards while in opposition.
For years under previous NDP governments, there seemed no problem with MLAs holding a provincial seat while representing other interests. For example, for years former Regina mayor, Henry Baker, was an NDP MLA while running the city.
Moreover, former NDP MLA John Solomon actively ran for the federal NDP long before resigning his provincial seat on Sept. 9, 1993 when the writ was dropped for the federal election that October. Like Tochor and Steinley today, Solomon had little problem collecting his provincial paycheque while running for federal politics.
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Provincial politicians of all stripes have always been distracted by outside partisan political interests.
That Tochor and Steinley will be out knocking on doors for themselves is just a slight extension of the reality that they would likely be out door-knocking for their own provincial re-election interests or maybe for some other candidate’s election interests.
Rightly or wrongly, campaigning and door-knocking has always been considered part of the job. And given that politicians can and do have other outside interests (farming, businesses, medical practices, legal practices, etc.) that they are allowed to partake in while actively sitting as an MLA, one might argue there are likely even worse potential conflicts of interest.
As for the NDP’s assertion that representing the Sask. Party government while running for Andrew Scheer’s federal Conservatives is a conflict, that, too, seems a bit of stretch.
While on a point of principle Tochor, Steinley (and Solomon, years ago after he secured his own federal nomination) should resign their provincial seat, it’s not because any of them were in an egregious philosophical conflict.
As it stands right now, the Sask. Party and federal Conservatives are virtually indistinguishable.
But maybe that is where one of two new problems arise.
Maybe the notion of the Sask. Party being just the provincial version of the federal Conservative party is not an inoffensive notion to Conservative supporters.
Certainly, it’s been problem for any number of rural voters who, for years, voted for Conservative, federally, and for the Sask. Party, provincially, have no problem with the notion.
But if this is the case, maybe it’s time to end the charade that the Sask. Party is in any way still an amalgamation of provincial Liberals and federal Progressive Conservatives.
However, a bigger issue seems to be why Tochor and Steinley may have resigned. It likely has something to do with the unlikelihood that either would been re-elected in their city seats as Sask. Party MLAs.
There seems to be a pattern here.
Jennifer Campeau, Kevin Doherty and, soon, Tochor and Steinley will all have resigned city seats since the 2016 campaign.
The ensuing byelections in Campeau’s and the late Roger Parent’s seats were handily won by the NDP.
One suspects the NDP will do equally well in the upcoming three city byelections.
Meanwhile, the Sask. Party won three rural byelections by even larger margins.
What this spells is a return to the old rural-urban splits in this province in a major way.
That isn’t good news for anyone.
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