Following dismal election, Sask. NDP looks to future
Party's governing body to meet in Saskatoon on April 23
Saskatchewan New Democrats are picking through the rubble of last night's election results and talking about what to do next.
The NDP had been hoping to begin rebuilding after its disastrous result in 2011, when it lost more than half its seats including that of then-leader Dwain Lingenfelter.
Instead, the party got an even smaller percentage of the popular vote in this election, a new historic low for the NDP, and again watched the party's leader lose his own seat.
Cam Broten has said he will take some time to talk with his family and his colleagues about what he does next, but the clock is already ticking towards a meeting of the party's governing body on April 23.
Was it our platform? ...Was it our campaign tactics and narrative? Or was it our leader?- Kent Peterson, NDP provincial council member
Kent Peterson, a member of the NDP's provincial council, is already talking about what will be on the agenda at that Saskatoon meeting.
Thorough review needed
He says it is important to thoroughly review the factors that led to the April 4 result, or the party is in danger of fixing the wrong things.
"Was it our platform?" he asked. "Was it our campaign tactics and narrative? Or was it our leader? And to what degree was it a combination of all of those things?"
Peterson said it is not necessary for Broten to stay on until that review is finished.
He says provincial council could elect an interim leader on April 23.
NDP needs a vision
Former NDP MLA and cabinet minister Pat Atkinson believes the NDP needed to spend more of its campaign focused on its own vision of the future, rather than its political opponents.
"We have to really sit down and think about an alternative vision," Atkinson said. "We can't just try to be a nicer version of the present government. That doesn't work."
Atkinson says the party must also work hard to rebuild its traditional strength as a well-organized political machine, to ensure quality candidates stick around for the next provincial election.
She and other long-time party members believe the slate of candidates running in this election were the strongest, most diverse group in the NDP's history.
"Outstanding people that have credentials and experience but somehow because of the shortfalls of the campaign ... just weren't able to get through to voters," said Atkinson,
Regina lawyer and long-time New Democrat Noah Evanchuk agrees the quality of the candidates in this campaign was a bright spot.
New ideas needed to attract younger voters
However, he thinks the ideas they brought to voters need work — including, for instance, the party's dogged opposition to privatization of any kind, including 40 government liquor stores.
He says he heard first-hand while door knocking with a provincial candidate that many voters simply do not care about the issue.
"I had countless young people talk about the experience with liquor stores and not viewing it as a bad idea," Evanchuk said. "It's not the bogeyman."
Instead, Evanchuk said, the party could have appealed to younger, non-partisan voters with other ideas, such as a "cities agenda" to improve urban roads, schools, rinks and pools as well as an invigorated arts and culture scene.
Or, as Alberta's NDP did, Saskatchewan New Democrats could have proposed a $15 an hour minimum wage, Evanchuk said.
"That is an actual tangible policy to effect change with people who are lower income, without being seen as just being tied completely to organized labour," Evanchuk said.
Evanchuk says the party needs to re-think what its means to be progressive in the 21st century.
We have to stop being the party of grumpy old baby boomers- Noah Evanchuk
"The big mistake New Democrats make when they lose," Evanchuk says, "is using 20th century thinking of linear left/right, on a line, you're either centre, right or left."
"Being a progressive now is not what it was in the 1950s and '60s," Evanchuk said. "We have to stop being the party of grumpy old baby boomers."
Evanchuk says even if he does not agree with all of the party's ideas, it is time for New Democrats to start debating again.
Their first chance to do that will come in just a few weeks, at the April gathering of the party's provincial council in Saskatoon.
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