Sask. Party must embrace change to survive after Brad Wall

Change. It's a word that can drive shivers down the spine of even the most seasoned management team.

Change, particularly at the organizational level, often requires forms and flowcharts, contracts and consultants, and even then the outcome can still be chaos. Entire institutes devote themselves to studying change phenom — specifically, why humankind seems so programmed to resist it.

With the election of its new leader, the level of organizational change facing the Saskatchewan Party is high.

The relatively young party only began to cement its identity and find its stride in the provincial political landscape after electing Brad Wall as its leader, who went on to not only lead the party, but embody it.

The notion of a Saskatchewan Party — or even Saskatchewan — without Wall at its helm is unfathomable, despite the insistence of his wannabe replacements that they can artfully and skillfully navigate into his role with minimal disruption and only positive outcomes.

One cannot fault Sask. Party leadership candidates for perpetuating this notion, as they have no choice but to do so.

Their commitment to 100 per cent success in navigating this leadership change must be unwavering, as the consequences of failure are too great — it is essential to the party's survival. And, first and foremost, every one of them must be commended for taking the flying leap into the unknown and vying for what could prove to be, at best, a thankless job or, at worst, a career killer.

Embracing change 'no easy feat' after leadership contest

The good news for the Sask. Party is that one of the most difficult factors to overcome in the change process, that of inspiring in people a desire for change, is a moot point given Wall's departure. Well, sort of. A common theme that has emerged from this race is that of status quo — should it be maintained?

Does the current party culture and ideology truly service its membership satisfactorily and attract potential voters? If so, who is best suited to tow the party line? Alternatively, is some shift at the top necessary to guide the party back to the centrist coalition position that launched it in the first place?

In order for the Sask. Party to survive this leadership change, the rest of the organization must be motivated to embrace it — meaning not just the new premier's cabinet or even caucus, but every single member. That's no easy feat for a new leader who will likely have been the first choice of only a minority fraction (potentially less than one-third) of the membership.

Constituency presidents, for example, must be called upon to commit to the direction of the new leader, to speak with one voice and model behaviours for their individual associations.

In the meantime, while you can be certain that once the results of the leadership vote — and even for a good five minutes afterward (sarcasm) — the public face of the Sask. Party will be that of unity, behind the scenes the new leader will need to support and deal with individuals, particularly Sask. Party MLAs and members of executive council who are disappointed or even disgruntled.

Who's the right candidate to handle disgruntled camps?

On the surface it would appear that Scott Moe might be the best suited to handle the latter, based solely on the numbers; he has the majority, by a slim margin, of caucus supporting his candidacy.

That could turn on him, though, as the divide is most keenly exacerbated by that support. If someone like Alanna Koch won, who has almost no MLA support, save Don McMorris and Dan D'Autremont, at least caucus would be virtually united in its dislike of their new leader, and Koch would have a clear and present obstacle to overcome.

The Ken Cheveldayoff dichotomy is fascinating and largely terrifying for a majority of members, given the unlikeliness of Chevy bringing in 50 per cent plus one on the first ballot.

There are simply too many candidates and not enough front-runners to make an educated guess.- Tammy Robert

He's a workhorse who has been grinding out membership sales and shaking thousands and thousands of hands in this province since his campaign unofficially (but basically officially) kicked off the day Wall announced his departure (or 15 years ago, depending on who you ask).

But with Chevy, he's either your first choice or your last — anecdotally there appears to be no middle ground, and that could spell big trouble for him in a couple of ways. Firstly, he needs to be at least some voters' second choice in order to secure the win, and secondly because if he does win, he's got a potentially large base of haters to lead.

Gord Wyant appears to be a safe second choice, but it's impossible to predict whether or not that will get him past the second ballot, which right now looks like it could be so tight that Tina Beaudry-Mellor's handful of voters' second choices could decide the fate of whoever moves past that round into third-ballot territory.  

Wyant's fate isn't the only one impossible to predict — as it stands, mere hours before the winner is declared, no one can say with any certainty what is going to happen, despite the valiant efforts of some of the more adventurous, if not rather reckless, political pollsters.

There are simply too many candidates and not enough front-runners to make an educated guess on who might pull the few thousand votes that will catapult the winner into Wall's vacated office.

Election could be called sooner given 'weak' NDP infrastructure

The uncertainty surrounding the choice of Saskatchewan's new premier runs deeper than just the question of who is going to win.

There is the question of where Sask. Party members would go, or what they would actually do, if the new leader fails to reunite a party that has badly fractured itself with this leadership race. Is there any possibility at all of the Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties re-emerging as separate entities in the province?

Can the Saskatchewan NDP reorganize itself in any fashion conducive to winning over centrist voters, abandoned by what could be the Sask. Party's official and decisive move to the right? There's uncertainty around the next election call, with rumours abounding of a potential call as early as the spring, in order for the new premier to capitalize on the Saskatchewan NDP's still disorganized and weak infrastructure and secure him or herself a full four-year term.

In fact, today the only thing certain about the political future of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Party is uncertainty, coupled with the fact that things will likely stay that way for a while.