Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads
Ken Cheveldayoff
Saskatchewan Party leadership candidate Ken Cheveldayoff believes he’s best suited to be premier with his diverse background in rural and urban areas.
There are six candidates running for the Saskatchewan Party leadership. The candidates are being featured in a series of articles leading up to Dec. 8 – the deadline for when party memberships have to be obtained or renewed in order to vote in the leadership election.
The candidates are Cheveldayoff, Tina Beaudry-Mellor, Rob Clarke, Alanna Koch, Scott Moe and Gordon Wyant. They are being featured in the order in which their interviews were conducted by phone or in person.
While the New Democratic Party of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan Liberal Party will also hold leadership conventions in 2018, the leadership race for the Saskatchewan Party has greater significance because the winner will become the province’s next premier.
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To be eligible to vote in the leadership election, new memberships and membership renewals must be received by the party headquarters no later than Dec. 8 at 5 p.m.
The leadership election takes place Jan. 27.
Cheveldayoff, the MLA for Saskatoon Willowgrove, was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2003 and he was re-elected in 2007, 2011 and 2016. He has served as minister of parks, culture and sport, minister of First Nations and Métis relations, minister of environment, minister of northern affairs, and the minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, Saskatchewan Gaming Corporation, Saskatchewan Watershed Authority and Saskatchewan Water Corp.
The leadership candidate’s portfolio has also included Crown corporations Enterprise, SaskEnergy and Trade. He obtained a bachelor of arts with honours degree in political science and economics and a master of business administration degree from the University of Saskatchewan. Cheveldayoff worked for the federal government at Western Economic Diversification before he was elected in 2003.
Cheveldayoff said he grew up in rural Saskatchewan on a farm in the Blaine Lake area. His father farmed and his mother worked as a teacher. The Saskatoon Willowgrove MLA said he believes his personal history and political history put him in the best position to lead the party.
“I’ve been a cabinet minister for 10 years in the province and part of the Brad Wall government,” he said. “I just feel that I have the background, the experience, the passion and the vision to be the next premier of the province.”
He said he was elected in an urban constituency and he won the seat by 595 votes. Cheveldayoff said he won by nearly 5,000 votes when he was re-elected in 2016, so he has proven he is able to win elections in an urban area. He noted that he believes the next premier could benefit from having a mixed rural and urban background.
The leadership candidate said his campaign slogan is Rural Roots, Urban Strong and it sums up his background, experience and knowledge of all areas in the province. The Saskatchewan Party has always had a strong rural base, so the party would continue to focus on those areas.
However, he said the party must win seats in urban areas in order to form the province’s next government in 2020. He said the party won all but one rural seat and three urban seats in the 2003 election including his seat, but the party still lost the election.
Cheveldayoff said the big question for party members is which leadership candidate could help to win seats in rural and urban Saskatchewan to remain in power beyond 2020. He said the leadership race is not all about the estmarijuablishment.
“It’s not about the establishment and the establishment candidate,” he said, adding the leadership race should not be decided by endorsements. “It’s about the grassroots and grassroots voters, and that’s why I’ve worked so hard to go to as many towns and villages and cities as I could to meet people and to talk to them.”
Every member of the party is given the same weight in the leadership decision whether working in government or not, so Cheveldayoff said his campaign has been about earning grassroots support one vote at a time. He noted that policies are important and he is a fiscal conservative, so he believes in balancing the budget.
He said Internet service has been a topic in rural areas because people living in small towns, villages and hamlets want better Internet service. If elected to be the premier, he said his goal is to increase Internet service by 225 per cent.
The candidate said another area of concern to him is the advent of marijuana in the province and the crime that goes along with it. He said he believes the legal age for marijuana use should be 25 years old due to research that shows the brain is still developing until that age. He also opposes a carbon tax and in his view, agriculture is the solution to the carbon question and not the problem.
He believes party renewal means new ideas going forward. Cheveldayoff said a new set of eyes and ears in the premier’s office to look at and listen to concerns is important in the renewal process. He stressed that the premier must be in tune with all issues.
Cheveldayoff said mental health and addictions are important to him, and he has ideas to help in those two areas. He added that he has served in government for 14 years and he believes he has the ability to win the election in 2020.
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