(Surprise! Here’s a freebie bonus post I didn’t know I was going to put together til last night.)
Danielle Chartier cared whether your mom lived or died.
As I was producing yesterday’s video on Vermette, I remembered that it was a June 2020 exchange between Chartier and Jim Reiter on similar heartbreaking matters that prompted me to start producing video.
You just can’t grasp the full context of what happened in that meeting without seeing Reiter’s face and hearing his “quiet” voice.
I had worked with the former NDP MLA and health critic to prepare her for that committee meeting and was watching and supporting her remotely while it was on. It was going to be Chartier’s last chance to question the then-Minister of Health on the plethora of care - both health and long-term - issues she’d been trying to get answers on for years.
The misogynistic, patronizing treatment she endured was her reward for trying to sound multiple alarms regarding the now-fatal flaws in our healthcare system.
What does it tell you that Reiter, knowing he was being recorded, was comfortable responding to Chartier the way he did? At that time, pandemic horror stories of seniors languishing and dying in nursing homes, right here in Canada, were emerging daily.
Who’d be alive in our province today if Chartier, not Reiter, had been overseeing Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 response?
That’s not a question we should ever have to ask ourselves again, yet it feels like we don’t know the difference between hindsight and foresight anymore.
As both the Sask NDP and Sask Party begin to recruit candidates for 2024, they must screen for strength, skill and experience, not trashy Facebook posts and party donations. This does not mean every MLA must procure their PhD to run, quite the opposite. However you can consider the party’s slate an indicator of where that party thinks the buck should stop when overseeing multi-billion dollar government systems and services and how.
If government systems are shit, nobody ever looks to middle management of the public service for accountability. Direction begins and ends with the elected official at the top, every time. That’s one reason you vote - the individual who earns it is supposed to represent you and steer positive outcomes for your government systems and services.
People over party: that is the way forward.
Not the economy. Not party donors and corporate tax rates. Not catering solely to the wealthy. Not focusing solely on the downtrodden.
Not the party colors of the candidate.
Not partisanship and the blind loyalty that always follows it.
I am proud to have supported Danielle and to call her a friend. In fact, our relationship is an example of what happens when we grow, evolve and forgive and move forward together.
Who knew that one day, years down the road, Chartier and I would find ourselves in Vegas together? That the little girl she brought to the protest would one day present me with the best birthday cake I’ve ever had in my life?
For the record, let me apologize again, now, for saying such a stupid, rude thing. Danielle and every woman who showed up that day, or wrote me hate mail, was right. I deserved the backlash. I learned a lot from it and continue to do so today.
I’m grateful it happened and I am grateful for my friend.
I’m mortified I’m even sharing that article, because what I argued was absolutely moronic. Even if I believed that at the time and understood the potential for backlash (I didn’t on both) what I wrote is just cringey.
Eventually my circumstances changed. I deprogrammed and matured (debatable). I started thinking and reading for myself. I see today’s idea of left and right as just a way political parties are trying to stay in business. The days of parties leaning on social values to define themselves are, or should be, mostly gone.
Saskatchewan’s political parties are all struggling with what they are and where to go next.
What if we looked at that process differently? I would love to see a political party birth itself from a simple set of values used to recruit like-minded supporters and candidates - then decide what colours it wants to wear.
Instead of fifty year ideology, that championship it won twenty years ago, team colours and desperate dovetailing with federal parties (every single one of which could care less about Saskatchewan), what if a political party and its candidates embraced who and what Saskatchewan is at this moment? Instead of this never-ending pursuit of what a handful of washed-up elites think it should become?
No politician is perfect, but the night and day contrast between Chartier and Reiter is startling. We don’t need business people or career politicians in the muck running the provincial government. Instead we need groups of good, smart, experienced and empathetic people - candidates - to lead the provincial government.
Danielle was one of them. She doesn’t know I’m writing this and I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing our story. If she does mind, I happen to know she’s pretty skilled at forgiveness, so I’ll ask her for it.
Talk soon.
