Step Right Up, the Sask Party Circus Is In Town.
From slapstick surpluses to Scott Moe’s beer blunder, the Sask Party’s governance is a masterclass in comedic political performance.
I’m still taking a “thinking” hiatus, meaning abstaining from the research and deep dives.
This is the first year in ten years I’ve not to written about the Saskatchewan budget.
I’ve been saying for pretty much all of those years that the Sask Party ceased using the budget as a legitimate governance tool in 2011, or after they kicked off their second term as a supermajority.
Today it’s just a highly-fictional, theatrical political performance, demonstrated wholly by the fact that the Sask Party has insisted, sometimes years in advance, that they’d be presenting a “balanced” budget.
A high number of variables go into forecasting and predicting a provincial budget, including but not limited to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price of oil and the price of potash, neither of which the Sask Party can control (despite what they’d love you to believe) or even really predict.
Dismissing the 2025-26 budget as nonsense was a no-brainer for me after I saw they forecast a razor-thin 0.5 percent surplus on a $2.1-billion budget.
Like they do every year, they did it by padding their WTI, potash and Canadian exchange rate forecasts (and underestimating taxation revenue, like clockwork).
Add one cent USD here, another there and voila, you’ve found an extra $12-million, no problem.
I do love though, that after years of hustling Sask Party budgets, Murray Mandryk declared this year’s “one of the greatest works of fiction” ever written. He’s a decade late, but who’s counting (well, besides voters).
Then there’s the NDP’s response to the provincial budget - standing on the empty Legislature steps, singing O Canada to nobody gathered below. Just into the void.
“Cringe” doesn’t cover it, but it’s the best I’ve got.
If Saskatchewan wants to continue to elect that kind of incompetence, well, here we are.
Pretty sure that’s never going to change.
Another thing that’s never going to change is the fact that Saskatchewan media can’t keep up with the news and information you need in any kind of timely fashion.
Colour me surprised to learn on Monday that restaurant and hospitality advocacy groups in Canada were roasting Scott Moe and the Saskatchewan government for completely f*cking up its American alcohol ban.
You’re telling me Scott Moe couldn’t even manage an issue involving beer?
The above story was published in the Globe and Mail on Friday. By Monday, the Sask Party government announced it was reversing their ham-fisted decision.
Complete and total incompetence.
Here’s another one that I was surprised to hear about, given it was nowhere in the Saskatchewan mainstream media two days later:
This would be an announcement of federal support for farmers on the Chinese tariffs that Scott Moe has been whining over for weeks, but couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge when he got his way.
For the record, I think this is bullshit.
I’m happy to provide fiscal support for family operations seeding four quarters.
Otherwise the vast majority of this funding, which is all your money, will go to huge corporate farms, mostly under foreign ownership, that now blanket our rural landscape. The Sask Party has allowed those to overrun our province in recent years, but they donate to the Sask Party so…. well, here we are.
One last note - as hard as he tries, Scott Moe just cannot find ways to be as revolting as Danielle Smith.
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, comments Smith made over two weeks ago to an American media outlet hit the mainstream in Canada over the weekend. The fact that much time lapsed before anyone here noticed should highlight for you the level of overwhelm facing Canadian journalists and newsrooms, particularly in western Canada. Breitbart is not mainstream, but it’s not exactly fringe either.
It’s unsettling how much we likely don’t know, in a timely fashion anyway, about what’s really going on.
Anyway, Canadians finally caught up and the general consensus is Smith’s outrageous comments have dealt a massive blow to the CPC campaign, right out of the gate.
Her comments at least dance around the borders of treason as defined in the Canadian Criminal code. Canada’s Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act seems it might apply here as well.
I don’t have to be a lawyer to understand that and neither do you.
Whether Smith was lawbreaking or not - it doesn’t matter. The fact we could have a legitimate discussion about the Criminal Code and treason, in the context of a provincial premier, is insane.
All this to say some Albertans are looking to their province’s Recall Act as a potential remedy for their Danielle Smith problem. I had to double-check that the content at this link was current, because this is not the first time Smith has faced calls for her head (it is current).
The Recall Act was legislated in Alberta by UCP premier Jason Kenney in 2021, one year before his own party recalled him as leader. Last year Danielle Smith mused aloud about amending the Act to make it easier to recall an elected official, when one of her own was trying, but failing, to use it to oust the mayor of Calgary.
Unsurprisingly, nothing was amended.
The catch on Alberta’s Recall Act is the petitioner needs to collect signatures of at least 40 percent of eligible voters in the constituency, or more than typically turnout for both party’s combined in a general election. It’s also a cumbersome process requiring two more rounds of voting to complete.
But still, this means that in the unlikely (but not inconceivable) event she has pissed so many people off that a petitioner could gather enough signatures in her riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat to trigger a Recall, Danielle Smith will have been foiled by Jason Kenney.
Kenney was following B.C.’s lead, which installed its Recall Act in 1991. Scandalous, wildly unpopular premier Bill Vander Zalm put it on the ballot as a referendum question, in an effort to convince fed-up, distrustful voters to vote for him anyway, since they’d have this new tool to hold government extra-accountable.
Voters overwhelmingly voted for the new Act but punted Vander Zalm, forcing the newly formed BC NDP government to begrudgingly implement it. It did, including a plethora of monumental hurdles that voters would need to jump to use it.
By the time Kenney passed his “trust me” Act in 2021, all of the two dozenish attempts by petitioners to trigger the BC Recall Act had failed.
Of course we don’t have a Recall Act in Saskatchewan. Given the above histories in other provinces, maybe we shouldn’t. I still found it interesting that the Sask Party’s own base, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), was calling for one at their 2023 convention.
The provincial government’s response, via Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Don McMorris:
‘Voters have a recall mechanism they can use, once every four years, to keep or eject elected officials and that’s plenty.’
I’m paraphrasing, but not far off. You can read it all yourself here.
The moral of the story is from now on, expect elected officials to never leave office once they’re in there, no matter what kind of corrupt bullshit they pull off, right in front of your very eyes.
Almost like we should be smart about who we vote for, right?
Anyway, hope your Tuesday is better than Pierre’s.
You’re dreaming if you don’t believe there’s a fat CSIS file out there on Scooter and India. I do have another piece on Moe, the Sask Party and India in the works, but… well, you know. I just don’t know if it’s worth it.
Anyone who claims they know what’s going to happen on April 28, 2025 is full of shit, but let’s do it anyway: pretty sure Pierre Poilievre is about to get destroyed.
I’ll leave you on a positive, for once.
Thirty years ago today, March 25, 1995, Canadian actor Dan Aykroyd returned to host SNL. One of his caveats was that the Tragically Hip had to be the musical guest.
I’ve handled Dan Aykroyd. It’s like being in a room with the sun - everything just revolves around him. You don’t say no.
I mean he’s a dick, but still.
At least he’s earned the right - and I respect that.
So today is the thirtieth anniversary of that Hip performance on SNL, which I absolutely remember watching live. It was so awesome and weird to see Canada represented in such an undeniably cool manner, especially in the United States.
The clips are kind of hard to find. Their first performance was ‘Grace, Too’, which you can find it here, resplendent with Aykroyd’s introduction wearing Canadian regalia. That was the performance where Gord Downie got so stoned beforehand that he screwed up the very first line.
Here’s their second performance of the night, ‘Nautical Disaster’.
I could only find one on Twitter, but this is my favorite clip of that night, because we get a glimpse of legendary Chris Farley absolutely mesmerized by the Hip and their music.
I mean, everybody is high AF, but it was the Nineties.
Well now I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I write about the Nineties on a different Substack. In fact I just recently published this update about why I’m slow on that side as well.
I’m finding writing the Nineties right now particularly relevant, given the number of holdovers in the Sask Party government currently shitting their pants over the possibility of losing their iron grip on the Legislature, which they’ve spent the last forty years flexing and perfecting.
When Scooter finally, blessedly departs, status quo for the Sask Party is not going to happen. I’m convinced.
You’re going to get an outsider in there and that person is going to wipe the floor with the insiders I just described, who are desperate to ensure everything about the establishment remains the exact same.
Sorta like exactly what happened with the Regina mayoral race.
Have a good week,
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