What does Buckley Belanger's resignation, run for Liberal MP nomination mean for Sask. politics?

Buckley Belanger, Saskatchewan's longest serving MLA, announced Tuesday that he will be resigning from his position.

The longtime MLA for the Athabasca riding in northern Saskatchewan will seek the Liberal Party nomination for the federal riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River. The federal seat is currently held by Conservative MP Gary Vidal.

Belanger, a member of the Saskatchewan NDP, was first elected to the legislature in 1995 as a Liberal. He joined the NDP in 1998 and has been re-elected in every election since.

He will finally step down from his MLA role effective Aug. 15.

What does this mean for both provincial and federal politics?

Some experts in Saskatchewan believe the resignation is bad news for the Saskatchewan NDP.

"You want to work with a party that's going to take you somewhere. And this isn't a good sign for the provincial NDP. When your good swimmers start to leave the ship ... it's not a good sign," said Doug Cuthand, Sask. freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker. 

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Why exactly is Belanger jumping ship? The popular northern MLA said he is ready for a new challenge — one that would put him in a better position to help northern Saskatchewan residents. 

"There just doesn't seem to be any respect afforded by the provincial government toward northern Saskatchewan," Belanger said on Tuesday.

"The federal Liberals and Trudeau have assured me that this is really important to them as a federal party."

Howard Leeson, professor emeritus at the University of Regina's department of politics and international studies, agrees that Belanger's leave from the NDP is a bad sign for the opposition. 

"Is it a major problem for the New Democrats in Saskatchewan? I think it is. It depends on who will run up there," said Leeson. 

Friday morning, the NDP announced that it has chosen Meadow Lake's Harmonie King to run for the party in the Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River riding.

King was the provincial NDP candidate for Meadow Lake in the Saskatchewan general election in 2020. She lost to Sask. Party MLA Jeremy Harrison.

King also ran in the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan election in May 2021 and finished fourth in the race for treasurer. 

While Leeson said he can understand Belanger's thinking behind the resignation, that doesn't mean it did not catch him off-guard. 

"He was originally a Liberal MLA and part of the Liberal Party and then moved over to become an NDP and sat in the legislature for a very long time. So I was quite surprised," Leeson said. 

"It's not an easy move from provincial to federal politics, and it's much more difficult during a time like we have with COVID.… So overall, I was surprised."

However, Leeson said Belanger's history with the Liberal Party and the continuing state of the Sask. NDP as the Opposition makes the decision seem logical. 

"It's good for the Liberals, obviously, without having Ralph Goodale in the province, and probably not so good for the New Democrats, both federally a bit and also provincially." 

Now retired, Regina-born Goodale served as an MP multiple times, and had a long political career spanning other provincial and federal leadership roles. 

Cuthand said Belanger's choice to run for the Liberal nomination lines up with his reputation as an action-oriented person. 

"He was a cabinet minister and he's languishing on the opposition benches and it doesn't look like they're going to go anywhere soon. So, yeah, I can see him saying, 'Well, either I quit politics and go do something else, or I jump in deeper.' And that's probably what he's decided to do. Most politicians don't quit until they get thrown out," he said. 

How the switch from NDP to Liberal affects Belanger's chances

Both Leeson and Cuthand said Belanger's choice to switch from NDP to Liberal likely won't lead to a big change in the federal riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River.

"It's very complex. First of all, politics in the two northern constituencies at the provincial and at the federal level actually are far more personal than they are done in the south," said Leeson. 

The centres that are represented are generally much smaller than in southern Sask., and the population is largely Indigenous.

"So politics is quite a bit different there. It's much more centred on local matters and on family matters than you would find in some of the bigger urban areas," Leeson said.

Leeson said he believes Belanger's long-standing career has been based on that philosophy, and his relationships with his constituents.

"So if you want to do something in the north, in that sense, you have to be connected locally. Yet because of the large Indigenous population, much of what you want to do has to do with the federal government," Leeson said. 

"So it would be very, very important having direct access for an Indigenous person and the Indigenous community in the north to the federal government." 

Cuthand said Northern Sask.'s concerns are very specific and don't necessarily have much to do with a specific party.  

"The national issues that the Liberals have highlighted are not going to be the issues that [Belanger] faces in the north. It'll be, you know, assisting northern communities, dealing with a lot of the issues on First Nations, clean water, that kind of thing. Very down-to-earth bread and butter kind of things," said Cuthand. 

Those that came before

Belanger is not the first northern MP-hopeful to make the switch from NDP to Liberal in Saskatchewan.

Joan Beatty was the NDP MLA for the constituency of Cumberland. In 2008 she became the Liberal Party's candidate for the House of Commons in the Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River riding. She lost the federal by-election to Conservative candidate Rob Clarke.

In the 2019 federal election, Conservative Gary Vidal won the Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River riding with 41.7 per cent of the votes. He beat out NDP candidate Georgina Jolibois, who had 28.9 per cent of the votes, and Liberal candidate Tammy Cook-Searson, who had 26.6 per cent of the votes.

Cuthand said Cook-Searson, who is chief of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, didn't necessarily lose because she ran as a Liberal. She lost because the vote was split between her and Jolibois. 

Therefore, Cuthand doesn't believe Belanger necessarily has a better chance than the similarly popular Cook-Searson at winning the riding.

"The split vote was split several ways last time, and a lot of people don't realize. First of all was two strong women candidates, one for the NDP, one for the Liberals," said Cuthand.

"Georgina in the north is Dene, so she carried all the northern Dene vote. And Tammy [further down] south was Woodland Cree. So she took most of the vote in that area."

Cuthand said that during that election, many life-long NDP voters voted for Cook-Searson because she was a "personal favourite."

"In the north, a lot of the majority of that constituency is Indigenous. And Indigenous people tend to vote for the individual and not the political party, so they will switch around and they will vote for somebody else."

Leeson added that Belanger probably has a better sense of what it's like to be in a cabinet and how to operate as a representative in the north, due to his significant experience. 

Cuthand admitted that some other factors, like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's conflict with MP Jody Wilson-Raybould over the SNC Lavalin affair, may have hindered Cook-Searson winning as a Liberal in 2019. 

"The other thing is that Jagmeet Singh [Leader of the NDP] is quite popular among First Nations people. But people will vote Liberal if they see a good candidate with the hopes that they'll get in and be able to make some change."