THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2011
VOL. 89 | NO. 17 | $3.75
AUCTION SEASON | BARGAINS IN BRANDON P68
SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923
|
WWW.PRODUCER.COM
FEDERAL ELECTION | NDP SUPPORT WANES
RISING WATERS | SPRING MELT
Why the West doesn’t vote NDP
Frenchman River poised to overflow
Votes vanishing | Emphasis on corporate culture changing Saskatchewan’s political landscape BY BARRY WILSON
Saskatchewan communities of Eastend, Val Marie preparing for extensive flooding
OTTAWA BUREAU
BY KAREN BRIERE REGINA BUREAU
Water flow in the Frenchman River basin began to pick up last weekend finally signaling the start of a much slower than usual spring runoff. Saskatchewan Watershed Authority’s acting director of basin operations, John Fahlman, said the flow measured at six cubic metres per second April 23 climbed to 17 cubic metres on Easter Sunday and then to 22 by April 25. “Our best guess is 200 so we’ve got a ways to go,” he said. The region is one of the last to see melting this spring. Emergency preparedness officials have been working with communities in the area, including Eastend and Val Marie, to get ready for the event. access=subscriber section=news,none,none
SEE FRENCHMAN FLOODS, PAGE 3
»
u|xhHEEJBy00001pzYv":= APRIL 28, 2011 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4
Jack Layton’s NDP is gaining ground in Quebec but losing it in the West. | suggest a number of reasons for the NDP decline in the province, beginning with the collapse of Liberal strength. “The NDP really needs three-way races where the Liberals drain away some Conservative votes and that just is not happening,” said McIntosh. Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan countryside has changed. There are fewer farmers, larger farms, weaker towns, less of a rural community culture and more of an entrepreneurial attitude among farmers, says veteran University of Regina political scientist Howard Leeson. “There really has been a conservatization of the rural attitude in Saskatchewan,” he said.
“The disappearance of the smaller farms and the co-operatives and community activities those farmers supported have made a huge difference. That was the NDP base and now there is much more a business approach.” As a farm activist and former longtime president of the National Farmers Union, Swift Current-area farmer Stewart Wells has watched the transformation of rural Saskatchewan with dismay. “Farmers seem to have bought into the notion that what is good for companies in the food system is good for farmers, the trickle down theory,” he said. access=subscriber section=news,none,none
SEE NDP SUPPORT WANES, PAGE 2
»
REUTERS PHOTO
THE DECLINE OF THE LEFT IN SASKATCHEWAN Number of MPs elected to Parliament in Saskatchewan, by party: Lib. Con. 1988 0 4 1993 5 0 1997 1 0 2000 2 0 2004 1 13 2006 2 12 2008 1 13
NDP 10 5 5 2 0 0 0
other
0 4 (Reform) 8 (Reform) 10 (Cdn. Alliance) 0 0 0
Conservatives formed government Liberals formed government Source: 2011 Parliamentary Guide | MICHELLE HOULDEN GRAPHIC
The Western Producer is published in Saskatoon by Western Producer Publications, which is owned by GVIC Communications Inc. Publisher, Larry Hertz Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240; Registration No. 10676
PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. — For third-time NDP candidate Valerie Mushinski, it was a delicious miscue by a federal Conservative minister that she hopes foretells the future. In November, she wrote a letter to her local newspaper, the Nipawin Journal, condemning the federal Conservatives’ treatment of veterans. Several weeks later, the newspaper published a rebuttal letter from veterans’ affairs minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn, responding to the letter from “Prince Albert MP Valerie Mushinski.” Actually, Prince Albert Conservative MP Randy Hoback sits not that far from Blackburn in the House of Commons. “It was nice recognition,” she smiled during an interview. The letter hangs on the bulletin board in her campaign office. Doesn’t the NDP wish. Saskatchewan candidates hope that a late-campaign national surge in party popularity and favourable reviews for leader Jack Layton will give their local campaigns a boost, but the party has been in the doldrums in the province for more than a decade. The Prince Albert riding is an example. It was solidly NDP from 1980 until 1993 after the death of former Progressive Conservative MP and prime minister John Diefenbaker. It was briefly Liberal and then solidly Reform and Conservative since 1997. It reflects the steady decline of the NDP in the province that saw its electoral birth. The party held 10 of 14 Saskatchewan seats as recently as 1988. The last federal New Democrat was elected in the province in 2000. This election, the party considers its best bet to be Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, where former National Farmers Union president Nettie Wiebe is trying for the fourth time to win election after three tantalizingly close losses. Tom McIntosh, head of the political science department at the University of Regina, is not convinced this is the election for the NDP breakthrough. “I would be shocked if we see any significant change in the political make-up of the province after May 2,” he said. “Nettie Wiebe is their best hope, but I think she would need a three-way race to win and I don’t see that.” In 2008, the Liberal vote collapsed in the riding to a distant fourth. Analysts of Saskatchewan politics