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Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
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Volume 16, Issue 14, Week of April 10, 2017
Pat Lorje
Civic politics shouldn’t be partisan
P
art Lorje is worried that partisan politics will soon hold a deeper influence on municipal elections and decisions. “Partisan politics is happening in cities all across Canada,” said Lorje, “and I see it growing momentum in Saskatoon, too. If that happens, Saskatoon won’t be well-served. I believe councillors should have DC041025 Darlene
Pat Lorje was first elected as a Saskatoon city councillor in 1979. (Photo by Sandy Hutchinson)
NED POWERS People
independence of thought and work for the people in the wards they represent.” Lorje is an experienced hand at politics. She was first elected as a Saskatoon city councillor in 1979 and stayed until 1991. She then entered provincial politics and won the Wildwood constituency for the NDP in 1991 and won the renamed Southeast constituency again in 1995. She re-entered civic politics in 2006
and held the Ward 2 post from 2006 until a somewhat surprising upset in the October 2016 election. “I was disappointed and partly, but not entirely, surprised by the results,” said Lorje. “I was told three or four months before the election by an NDP MLA that I shouldn’t count on the support of all the voters I had in the previous election. That told me that some of the NDP supporters I once had were going to vote for someone else. And they did. Some said I was too fo-
cused on supporting my own Montgomery Place neighbourhood, but I don’t buy that. I led the move to get the transit bus barns moved out of Caswell to the outskirts of the city.” Hilary Gough, new to the campaign trail, won the seat with 2,437 votes. Lorje was second with 2,298 votes. “I have always believed when it came to city hall, we park our partisan politics at the door. We’ve had municipal politicians before who ran provincially or federally. (Continued on page 4)