Tank: Moe managed minor miracle by keeping Sask. right united

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Perhaps only in Saskatchewan would a fifth-straight majority government by any party prompt so much analysis about what went wrong.

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But the biggest victory for Premier Scott Moe’s party, which started its fifth mandate with this week’s throne speech, is that it kept conservative voters united in a country where right-wing splits inevitably happen at both the federal and provincial levels.

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Even more impressively, he did it in a jurisdiction that is less urban than most similar provinces in Canada, with rural voters more likely to lean right and to gravitate to more conservative parties or movements.

In the two provinces west of Saskatchewan, a centre-right split resulted in the party further to the right becoming dominant.

In British Columbia, the attempt to rebrand the former Liberals as B.C. United, which was supposed to be a moderate, centre-right party, failed miserably and the right-wing B.C. Conservatives emerged as the main conservative party in last month’s election after United collapsed.

In Alberta, the former leader of the Wildrose Party, which formed because the governing Progressive Conservatives had become too centrist for some, is now leading the United Conservative Party.

Premier Danielle Smith panders openly to far-right interests, including to people who believe in the bizarre, baseless chemtrails conspiracy theory.

Similar folks live in Saskatchewan — and Moe has been criticized for not denouncing their views — but he has not indulged them anywhere close to the extent his Alberta counterpart has.

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Unlike in B.C. and Alberta, though, no serious splintering of the right-wing vote has happened here, despite obvious attempts. A determined effort by upstart parties to gain traction failed resoundingly.

Moe’s party sailed rightward midway through the last term in an obvious attempt to prevent the growth of the right-wing Buffalo Party, which delivered a surprisingly strong showing in the 2020 election, even though it was only a few months old.

Buffalo self-destructed, but the Saskatchewan United Party emerged to replace it. Armed with enough money to pay for billboards in the biggest cities and a reasonably coherent platform with a big tax cut promise, United still fell flat.

Actually, United did worse last month than Buffalo did in 2020. Buffalo finished second in four races in its electoral debut; United finished second in zero and none were close.

And the consternation over United splitting the vote in the handful of seats where the party fielded candidates in Regina and Saskatoon failed to materialize; none of those races were won solely because United syphoned off right-wing votes.

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Only in Regina Wascana Plains did the combined vote for the Saskatchewan Party, United and Progressive Conservative candidates add up to more than the winning NDP candidate.

Buffalo shocked by getting the third-most votes in 2020 despite running only 17 candidates. United also placed third in total votes with 31 candidates, but finished with a lower average vote per seat (581) than Buffalo in 2020 (665).

You can view Moe as a brilliant strategist for shifting his party to the right to prevent the growth of a viable alternative, or as a panic-stricken alarmist who needlessly alienated voters in Regina and Saskatoon with exaggerated reactions like the pronoun mandate.

Since the election, a contrite Moe seems to be suggesting it was the latter, as he backs away from campaign comments that his top priority if re-elected would be new rules for change rooms in schools.

He seems determined to try to win back the cities, but that will prove difficult without alienating conservative rural supporters, particularly as Saskatchewan faces the tough trajectory of a Trump presidency in the U.S. and a decline in the immigration that has been fuelling growth.

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Grant Devine’s PCs lost their grip in the largest cities in the 1986 election — even though that meant four seats compared to one for Moe — and it proved to be a prelude to the party’s virtual extinction.

Likewise, Moe’s minor miracle in keeping Saskatchewan’s right dominant and united may be only a fleeting mirage.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

[email protected]

twitter.com/thinktankSK

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