Last weekend I asked Twitter what Dechene and I should talk about next; the response was overwhelming. Since there were so many issues, we recorded them on Monday (October 7, 2024) as their own episode.
From asbestos in public infrastructure to the historical influence of the Saskatchewan Roughriders on provincial politics, we covered a lot of ground.
Near the end you’ll be treated to my live, unvarnished howls of disbelief after coming across, in real time, the Sask Party’s campaign announcement about funding IVF and providing life-saving access to cancer testing… if re-elected.
I am well-aware that self-administered HPV tests serve a useful purpose. But that’s not even what Moe announced; his exact words were “home self-screening option as an alternative to the Pap test.”
Have you ever had a Pap test?
No one who has, I promise you, has ever thought “You know, I could just as easily do this at home.”
That is what I am reacting to in the podcast (and what I am still sitting in disbelief over two days days later): the audacity of dangling something so utterly basic in front of Saskatchewan voters and expecting a reward.
Of campaigning on protecting a woman’s cervix.
If the Saskatchewan Health Authority had announced, at any other time besides the 27-day period that occurs once every four years during which it would be viewed cynically, that they were making these tests available to Saskatchewan residents, it would have been widely applauded. The Sask Party would have greatly benefited from the residual approval.
The exact same principle applies to funding IVF.
Any time except the present an announcement like that coming from the Ministry of Health - heck, since it’s funding, not delivery-related it could have came from the Minister of Health - would have been embraced by Saskatchewan parents. The Sask Party would have basked in the approval afterglow.
Instead, oafishly and obviously trying to leverage the basic products and services voters pay for as direct funders of the healthcare system suggests chaos in the backrooms of the Sask Party’s central campaign offices.
Campaigning as an incumbent government is damn hard when your record is as bad as the Sask Party’s. Every proposed tweak and change can and probably should be perceived as an admission of failure.
This, though, is far worse. What we’re seeing is indicative of a group of people - an organization - in existential crisis. We’re getting an extraordinary glimpse into a political party that has become so detached from its role in society - from reality - that it doesn’t know how to be real anymore.
One other thing.
A few of you pushed back on my comments on SUN issuing years of public statements regarding the chaotic, frightening conditions in their members’ workplaces - our health care facilities - but taking little other action as a labour representative.
I opined that SUN’s ongoing messaging on overcrowded and understaffed ERs, minus any real action or consequences beyond being forced to continually raise the public’s threshold for hallway medicine horror stories, may have contributed to normalizing all of it in the collective mind.
Some questioned what I think SUN should have done instead.
The thing is, I get paid really good money to give out that kind of advice. Not in Saskatchewan, of course, but pretty much anywhere else.
Once I’m retained, I immediately conduct an inventory of the individual or organization’s storytelling assets and liabilities. These tend to include but are not limited to: accessible and proprietary imagery/archives, trained spokespeople, former and existing narratives, buried narratives, unreleased narratives, ownership of digital platforms, privacy laws & regulations and legal issues pertaining to sharing information (the latter two can differ by sector and province/state). I will also create a historical editorial timeline of the issue and measure the client’s tolerance for taking communicative risks.
Once I am satisfied I have enough information to do my job well, I feel confident enough to give advice on creating a strategy.
In absence of any of that, all I can tell you I would have recommended SUN create more compelling visuals than we’ve ever seen before. This means no more billboards featuring one stoic nurse with their arms crossed and a quote about how bad things are in their workplace.
Today, so much than that is necessary to create the emotions required to have an indelible impact on oversaturated, exhausted voters.
It would require a technical communication strategy, including the best illustrators, animators and digital creators around to create something that is compelling, emotive and conveys the ultimate consequence of the Sask Party’s mismanagement of our health care facilities and the people who try to work in them: death.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue to point out where I think labour can and should do better. It’s never been an easy fight, never will be - that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about trying to be better.
Talk soon, T
