A bad case of premier envy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/10/2023 (1047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a certain bet that Manitoba premier-designate, Wab Kinew, won’t be using the notwithstanding clause to violate the human rights of schoolchildren. Nor will Kinew introduce a retrograde carbon tax challenge. It’s enough to give this Saskatchewan resident a bad case of premier envy.

Heather Stefanson made the mistake of balancing her budget — and a symbolic $270-million surplus — while Manitoba’s health-care system mouldered, neglected and underfunded.

For cash-strapped Manitobans, they’re in overdraft so dreaded trips to the grocery store yield smaller bags for more money each week. If voters’ household budgets aren’t balanced, they’re not wooed by provincial belt-tightening.

Like Stefanson, my cautious Saskatchewan premier, Scott Moe, relishes his balanced budget. When anxiety-inducing inflation, high rents, soaring food prices, rising mortgage rates and the lowest minimum wage ($14/hour) in the country collide, it’s not time to clutch your coin purse.

Instead of addressing real social problems, Stefanson and Moe dangle a red herring to engage their backward base. On Aug. 22, Dustin Duncan, Saskatchewan’s education minister, told parents they could pull their children out of sex-ed and banned third-party organizations like Planned Parenthood from teaching sex-ed courses. Duncan also mandated that children under 16 require parental consent if they want to go by different names or pronouns at school. On Aug. 29, he was relieved of his education portfolio during a SaskParty cabinet shuffle. On Sept. 28, a sensible provincial judge granted an interim injunction to halt the Draconian policy.

Not one to be deterred by mere human rights violations, Moe stubbornly vows to deploy Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, known as the notwithstanding clause.

A school board issue suddenly gained the traction, unwavering attention and budget of two witless provincial Prairie premiers.

Like most rebellious Gen Xers, I sagely kept my socially conservative parents in the dark. It’s an awkward kind of denial but it preserved my dignity and their sanity.

At Fort Richmond Collegiate, I gleefully squandered my double-spares, chain-smoking over a bottomless cup at the Pony Corral. On weekends, I wisely dropped my bush party 12-pack of Molson Canadian and raced deeper into the woods away from Winnipeg’s slow-footed constabulary.

At no time did high school staff report to my parents about my sexual preferences, my politics or my illicit pot smoking behind the gym during dinner breaks for musical rehearsals of The Red Mill.

I’m nostalgic for the youthful freedoms I took for granted. At this rate, young Saskatchewan queers will find themselves squirming in the front row of mandatory conversion therapy classes and automatically registered for mandatory, full-contact hockey. It’s The Handmaid’s Tale meets Hockey Night in Canada.

Premier Stefanson mistakenly decided to side with parental rights in the controversial pronoun debate. Did it cost her the election? Her ham-fisted tactics certainly pushed the Liberal vote over to the NDP.

Conservatives fail to get the big picture. They cynically focus on the hot-button topics favoured by angry outliers. It’s a form of moral corruption that will soon morph into cautionary tales relayed at Drag Queen Story Hour.

We live in an age of agile word splicing over action-based policy-making. This terrible trend started when George W. Bush changed the term “Global Warming” to “Climate Change.” It worked. Voters just assumed our planet was undergoing some kind of temporary menopause and returned to flipping houses.

One look at the Manitoba NDP’s pragmatic election platform predicted an easy majority. Re-invest in health care. Tend to the environment. Kinew seized a majority despite the ad hominem attacks and the climate of fear and blame that predominates public discourse in 2023.

Social democrat provincial governments in Western Canada now bookend two conservative regimes. This week, Premier Moe will look to Alberta and wacky Premier Danielle Smith for consolation. Maybe Smith will prop up Moe’s flagging spirits with her fiendish CPP cash grab?

Despite conservatives’ efforts to stall social change, the orange tide is spreading. Wab Kinew’s victory comes with enhanced citizen expectations. It’s time to invest in youth, not hold them hostage to the morality police. It’s time for real change.

Patricia Dawn Robertson is a Saskatchewan freelance journalist. Learn more about her errant youth in her forthcoming memoir, Media Brat.