I get it. People don’t like me.
When you’re one of the only voices publicly critiquing a monolithic government in a micro environment, you can and do earn enemies. I’ve worked in the small town-like environment of Saskatchewan politics, media and communications for fifteen years, not shy to say what I think online or off.
That’s a life choice I made with my eyes wide open.
I cultivate my online brand deliberately and while aware of its many flaws, I’m proud of its strengths. It comes down to choosing every word (including obscenities - sorry boys) and tone as necessary. When the entire world is screaming into the same microphone, I’ve developed an effective personal strategy, for better or worse, for cutting through the noise.
Evidence? You’re here, reading this. Thank you so much.
Like you, we are not the same person online as we are off, but know full well that one impacts the other. While they don’t always compliment each other, managing the intricacies of both in real life, where it actually matters, is crucial. I don’t need y’all to like me, but with an authoritarian government the size of ours, I hope you find ways to consider my perspective and that of many others.
I started OurSask.ca in March of 2016 after Geoff Leo released his first story on the GTH and just how badly things had regressed inside the Sask Party caucus was now obvious.
Also in 2016, my friendship formed with Ryan Meili, skeptically at first, admittedly. Meili taught me everything about forgiveness and compassion, particularly in relation to drug addiction, as well as the value of harm reduction. In him was a stubborn, smart and determined leader who wanted to make a difference. I believed in him. Still do.
In early 2018, Meili doggedly won the Sask NDP leadership on his third attempt in ten years. I wasn’t involved beyond providing some personal advice and support and writing a blog post to endorse him. It was nothing personal against Wotherspoon… it was politics.
Today I say with full confidence I have never witnessed a worst-loser than Trent Wotherspoon.
Now, these are my opinions. My perspectives, based on my interactions, on why the Saskatchewan NDP Opposition’s toxicity is as harmful to and hinders our grandchildren’s futures in this province as much as the Sask Party’s. You don’t need to agree with me, but let’s be abundantly clear that what you read next is rooted in my experience, which you don’t get to deny… because it’s my experience.
Anyone named in this piece is welcome to tell their side of the story, because I’m well aware there’s always two. I’ve been asking for an explanation for years, but none of them seem to want to look me in the eye. Weird, right?
You trust me enough to spend your money to read it, so hopefully you trust me enough to know I would never write anything unless I know it to be the honest truth, rooted in fact.
On that note, my first point today is this: NDP leadership loser Trent Wotherspoon’s unwillingness and inability to accept his own losses has played a significant role in devolving the Sask NDP into what it is today - a dumpster fire.
For the four years Meili won the privilege of steering the Titanic, everybody close to the issue knows there was no middle ground inside that party or caucus - you were either Team Trent or Team Ryan.
Bringing me to my second point: Wotherspoon made no useful attempt whatsoever to ever unify the NDP caucus or party, from the day he lost and began pouting til the day Meili quit.
Now, Meili was no passive player here.
There are legitimate reasons Meili is no longer a politician.
But what’s happened over the past four years, in my opinion, would have been insurmountable for any leader in any arena.
For example, former NDP MLAs and Team Trent co-captains Eric Cline and Pat Atkinson still seem unable to grasp how much they have likely damaged their own legacies with their meddling and machinations. Those Nineties-NDP stalwarts still consider themselves influential in that party (just ask them) and ran hella smear jobs on Meili, both until he won and then for all four of his leadership years - the devastating impact on Saskatchewan people, our province or their own f**king party be damned.
You’re not going to hear denials from those two, because they know there’s plenty of people who know damn well it’s true and will shut them down if they try.
As for me, again, mature adults grasp the difference between an online voice and a real person. I’m not perfect, but we’ve all had an issue with other people in life - that’s life.
These are the facts:
I’ve met Doyle Vermette once
Trent Wotherspoon once, seven or eight years ago.
Warren McCall once, yet McCall (a big Team Trent guy, alongside the other 2016-2020 term Regina MLAs ) viscerally hated me (and others) so much that up until he retired from his seat in 2020 I was afraid to go to the Legislature for fear of running into him
have never met or spoken a word to Alanna Young, Nicole Sauerer, Nicole Rancourt, Jen Bowes, Meara Conway
I know Matt Love and consider him a friend because I am far better friends with his delightful wife
I’ve never met Carla Beck, though I spoke to her once on the phone in 2016.
In fact, the only other NDP MLAs I know are Danielle Chartier and Cathy Sproule. I worked extensively for both Chartier and Sproule privately through their meagre constituency office budgets - I was not paid by the party, I was paid by you, the taxpayer to research Opposition issues, because democracy is supposedly still a thing in Saskatchewan. Happy to report both women remain good friends today.
But besides close personal friendships, including with Meili, I had almost no contact with the Sask NDP caucus office the entire time he was leader, because Team Trent weaponized everything they could against Meili at every opportunity. Especially anyone who wanted to try to provide the professional support that Meili desperately needed to succeed, but absolutely was not receiving.
Don’t believe me? Ask Meili’s longtime BFF Dave Mitchell, who tried and failed inside that viper pit, why he didn’t stay.
Or ask Olin Valby, a childhood friend who believed enough in Meili to quit the successful career he had in the Texas oil industry (I hear we like that shit around here, could have been a pretty valuable guy to have around, Dippers) and travel back to Saskatchewan to take the role of Sask NDP caucus chief of staff, why he left and didn’t look back.
These guys’ stories are not mine to tell, but wouldn’t it be f**king grand if someone besides me would step up and address the real truth behind what’s driving Saskatchewan’s ineffective, tanking Opposition party into the ground?
Some of the worst adult, workplace behaviours imaginable is the real truth. Behaviours that would never be tolerated in any other vocational environment besides the diseased, toxic Saskatchewan Legislature.
Again, I’ve never met or spoken to many, if not most, of Team Trent - they know me from Twitter. Mature adults understand they do not know me remotely enough to judge me, but it wasn’t about me. It was about punishing Ryan Meili at every opportunity for having the audacity to manifest Trent Wotherspoon’s loss. Like many others, I got caught in the crosshairs.
Good story Tammy, but who gives a shit? Yeah, I hear you.
So here’s my third point: do you think I’m the only one experienced that kind of behaviour during Meili’s tenure? Do you think I’m the only member of Team Ryan who was driven away from the Saskatchewan NDP, hard, since 2018?
Sure, my own example is extreme, but so was my proximity to the heart of The Problem. (In fact that’s always been my problem - getting too close, seeing too much, grasping The Problem because I’m not a complete dumbass… and then not shutting up about The Problem.)
Now, I understand that Meili could have found a way to unite the party.
As I’ve also stated, there are legitimate reasons Meili is no longer a politician.
He could have united it, but the chances of reaching that goal were miniscule. Going forward, that unity gap will turn into a gaping black hole if somebody doesn’t change the trajectory of the Saskatchewan NDP.
Doing things differently for the Sask NDP isn’t a suggestion, it’s the frantic stab of a second adrenaline needle into the heart of a dead party.
And Carla Beck is just more of the same.
Do I need to say more than the caption on that photo?
Do I need to say more about who didn’t endorse Carla Beck that day? Who still hasn’t endorsed her?
So much unity.
And of course let’s not forget this little nugget of stupidity, after every one of them howled sanctimoniously for literally almost two years about wearing masks in crowds:
The Please Like Us vibe, homemade tank-tops, creepy mustaches… I mean, it had it all.
Yet, when the completely easy to predict (except when their comms guy had two beers apparently) backlash hit, you think any one of these individuals, including Beck, took a shred of personal responsibility?
Hell no - according to them, it was Meili’s fault. Well, more specifically, at first it was literally everybody else’s fault, including mine at one point (seriously, because Twitter) - but never theirs.
Seriously.
Again, I defy you to find a soul who will disagree with that fact, or the fact that instead of doing their goddamn jobs as Opposition heading into the deadly fourth wave of the pandemic, Team Trent, including Beck, spent the three months following that lame picture hitting the fan… trying to organize a party coup.
It’s the truth and they all know it. The disservice done to Saskatchewan people, including the dead, during this pandemic, by both the Sask Party government and the Official Opposition, was and remains appalling.
Trent can’t run again, because even he has the sense to know that he’s done, but heaven FORBID new blood - blood that he and his posse can’t control - enters the race.
Heaven forbid change be on the horizon for the Saskatchewan NDP.
Well don’t worry, it’s not.
Carla Beck represents more of the same failure and regression that is essentially the Saskatchewan NDP’s brand - and I will back that up in Part 2 of the Suicide Diaries, coming at a later date.
People over party. People over partisanship. Those will always be my strongest political values and I owe the Sask NDP nothing. If I sound bitter, it’s because I am - I truly believe we just lost our last chance at relief for this current Upside Down version of Saskatchewan, especially our healthcare system, by way of Ryan Meili’s forced (and it was) departure.
If this deeply divisive faction of their party does not stand down, you and I, alongside the entire province, will continue to live under a Scott Moe dictatorship. Because who do you think most benefits from the Saskatchewan NDP’s dysfunction?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of not talking about reality. This is the NDP’s reality, whether they want to hear it or not. Until the division is addressed, it its entirety, head on, nothing changes for anyone in Saskatchewan.
In the meantime, Carla, I suggest you keep your campaign lap dogs, including your husband, on a leash - cause we’ll be talking about their (your) tactics in Part 2 as well as why you’re not suitable to lead anything. I sincerely hope you consider dropping out of this race, because you don’t represent a scintilla of anything that Saskatchewan needs right now or frankly, ever.
We’ll talk about alternatives in Part 3.
Have a great week everyone,
