The once-dominant Saskatchewan Party could consider a spring election as a strategy to halt momentum by the province's opposition parties.
Saskatchewan’s government begins 2024 — a year in which it is scheduled to face the voters — as an outlaw in Canada.
Premier Scott Moe announced in late October that the province would stop collecting the carbon tax on natural gas for home heating, and later added electrical home heating to the mix.
The Saskatchewan Party regime is banking on the unpopularity of the carbon tax and the federal Liberals to make the government look like it’s fighting for the province’s people.
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The move was sparked by the cynicism of the so-called carve-out for the carbon tax by Justin Trudeau’s government for home heating oil used primarily in the Atlantic provinces, where people still vote for Liberals.
Moe’s counter-move seems like a shrewd political strategy, unless you respect the rule of law.
Sometime this year, some sort of response from Trudeau’s Liberals to the refusal to collect taxes, which Moe has acknowledged violates the law, will land like an electoral gift for the Saskatchewan Party.
If the feds do nothing, Moe will claim a victory and vindication and campaign on that. If the federal government takes action in the form of financial penalties or withholding transfers, Moe can claim the victimhood that has become his signature stance.
At this rate, Moe’s tombstone seems likely to say: “Justin Trudeau did this.”
You can’t deny that there’s a touch of political genius in claiming affordability relief by refusing to collect a federal tax from a tax-hike-happy provincial government that has mostly ignored the affordability crisis — if you can ignore the hypocrisy.
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Regardless, bashing the feds boasts a long history in Saskatchewan and still plays well in much of the province. Plus, it helps distract from the other serious issues in health care and education, not to mention a steep dive in the provincial economy that erased a billion-dollar budget surplus in six months.
Aside from the government’s shaky budgeting, 2023 was a year during which the Saskatchewan Party shed any pretence of serving as a big-tent party where centrists could feel at home.
The perceived threat from the Saskatchewan United Party, which is still just over a year old, prompted the province’s dominant party to abandon the middle to prevent losing voters to the new right-wing challenger.
And, even though the party has only fielded a single candidate in one byelection, Lumsden-Morse in August, the United challenger finished in second place — but with less than half the vote of the victorious Saskatchewan Party entry.
Despite what would seem to many like a minor challenge, the Saskatchewan Party seems obsessed with United, pursuing policies like a new law requiring students under 16 to acquire parental consent to change their names or pronouns at school.
Yet it seems unlikely Moe will continue down this socially conservative path in an election year when the Saskatchewan Party looks to be in trouble in the province’s two largest cities.
In Regina and Saskatoon, homelessness and health care undoubtedly rank as greater concerns than students’ pronouns. And the NDP Opposition seems poised to take advantage.
The election is scheduled for the end of October, but several factors could prompt an earlier call in the spring.
The economy could be even worse in the fall, although it could also improve.
Also, the more time you give a party like United, the more opportunities the fledgling movement has to establish itself. United is currently pushing to create constituency associations in advance of the election, which would give it more solid footing to mount political challenges.
Likewise, the long-irrelevant NDP seems rejuvenated under Leader Carla Beck, at least in Regina and Saskatoon. And giving an opposition party with momentum a few more months will make it more challenging to douse that fire.
A federal response to Moe’s carbon tax gambit could also result in a spring election call because Moe would much rather campaign against Trudeau than on his own government’s record.
Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
ptank@postmedia.com
twitter.com/thinktankSK
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