Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads
There is a new leader of the official opposition for the provincial government. Ryan Meili has been elected leader of the New Democratic Party of Saskatchewan.
The NDP held its leadership convention on March 3 at the Delta Hotel in Regina. More than 500 delegates attended the convention in person and nearly 11,000 NDP members cast ballots to help elect the party’s new leader. Meili is the MLA for Saskatoon Meewasin.
New provincial NDP Leader Ryan Meili
Meili defeated Regina Rosemont MLA Trent Wotherspoon to win the party’s leadership race. The victory comes just a little more than a month after the Saskatchewan Party elected its new leader, Premier Scott Moe.
A total of 10,837 ballots were cast out of 13,414 eligible voters for a turnout of nearly 81 per cent. Meili received 5,973 votes and Wotherspoon received 4,860 votes, so Meili earned more than 55 per cent of the vote. Four ballots were rejected.
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It was the third time Meili ran for the party’s leadership, having also run in the 2013 and 2009 leadership races. Meili did not have a seat in government in either of his previous two attempts. He finished second to Dwain Lingenfelter in 2009 and second to Cam Broten in 2013 when he lost by only 44 votes.
Meili, a family physician, will assume the position of leader of the Official Opposition after he is approved by the Government House Leader. Both Wotherspoon and Regina Douglas Park MLA Nicole Sarauer have served as interim leaders since the 2016 election.
In an interview, Meili said he spent a lot of time travelling throughout the province in the months leading up to the leadership convention and he estimates that he has travelled about 50,000 kilometres by car in that time.
After visiting communities across the province in recent months, he said it was surprising to hear people telling him they believe it is time for a change in Saskatchewan even in areas where the NDP has struggled for support in recent byelections. The leadership victory is a source of pride for him and his team.
“It was really rewarding to get that vote of confidence from the membership,” Meili commented. “I worked so closely with a team of volunteers on my campaign and it was just really nice to share with all of them that feeling that we had done a good job.”
Meili, who won a byelection on March 2, 2017, to become the Saskatoon Meewasin MLA, said his role will change a lot as the party’s leader. He has to be a spokesperson for the party and play a crucial role in helping to keep the government accountable, but he also has to put forward a vision for what the party needs to do now. He said he will continue to reach out to all Saskatchewan residents as time moves on.
The interim leaders did a great job, but now the party’s team could start to structure its vision and be vocal about that vision with a permanent leader in place, he said. For him and the party, it is nice to move forward with permanent leadership.
He noted that one of his first tasks as leader is to assign roles to the party’s caucus members, and to get everyone ready to go for Monday when the spring session opens. He said he is going to help define the party’s approach and keep asking tough questions of government.
The NDP leader said he believes it helped him to be a sitting MLA in his third leadership bid and the third time turned out to be a charm. It also helped to have several of the same campaign team from back in 2013 and 2009.
Meili said the party has a lot of work to do in rural Saskatchewan. He said while the NDP gained a bit of support in the recent Swift Current byelection, the other two byelections did not show much improvement. As the new leader, he said he brings with him a focus on rural areas.
“A big part of my mandate is to have a focus on connecting back to rural Saskatchewan,” he said, recognizing that the party has to put forward new ideas with an agricultural and rural platform to show strength and confidence to rural folks.
Meili still practises medicine on a casual basis, but he said he chose not to practise through the busiest stretch of the leadership race. He added that he hopes to return to a casual practice to help maintain his skills.
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