The Scandal Machine Backfires: Sask NDP Admits to Electioneering on Voting Day

When the NDP issued this press release, one can imagine the reaction they hoped to elicit was one of outrage.

Instead, they've drawn attention to what seems like a potential violation of Elections law. The press release, which claims that Saskatchewan Party staffers, including Deputy Chief of Staff to Premier Brad Wall Terri Harris, was issued on November 7, 2011. It claimed that the staffers had been spotted removing NDP door-hangers mere moments after they had been placed:

"The Sask Party operatives were removing NDP literature which helped the senior renters know where and when to vote, and offering rides to voters in the bad weather.

'I think she’s seen me,' said Rogochewsky upon being spotted by NDP team members, who had already noticed that literature seemed to be disappearing from doorknobs minutes after it was placed there."

The problem for the NDP is obvious. It's illegal to campaign on election day, and if they're in a seniors' apartment complex anywhere in the province hanging partisan material on door knobs, they're in violation of the elections act.

Certainly, it's awfully nice of them to offer rides to seniors. They can quite easily do that without leaving partisan material behind.

Any Saskatchewan Party staffers encountering the NDP leaving such material behind are certainly not obligated to allow the NDP to break the rules to the Saskatchewan Party's disadvantage. This is, of course, presuming that what the NDP claims is happening at all.

Considering that the NDP were already lying to the people of Saskatchewan before the writ was even dropped, they'll need some evidence. There's no reason to simply take their word for it.

If You Want to Do Better, Mr Lingenfelter, Apologize

Lingenfelter pretends to shy away from negative campaigning

During the Saskatchewan leaders' debate last night, many people noted that there was a noticeable lack of some of the staples of political debates. The leaders seemed to entirely decline the talk over each other, and mostly stuck to promoting their own policy ideas to the people of Saskatchewan.

NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter insisted that, for his part, it's been a deliberate campaign tactic.

"I watched the Ontario election and less than 50 per cent of the people came out to vote," Lingenfelter said. "I think part of it was because of all the negativity — negative ads, personal attack ads. Maybe I can change that. I'm going to try."

Good. If Lingenfelter is going to try to be the politician who disavows negative campaigning, he can start by apologizing for the dishonest ad in which the NDP fabricated a quote by Premier Brad Wall.

His party eventually replaced the ad, but they've never apologized for it. They've accused the Saskatchewan Party of being "childish" in objecting to the ad, but they've never apologized.

So now Dwain Lingenfelter knows what he must do: apologize for his party producing a campaign ad that was a blatant lie, and promise to never do it again.

NDP Response to Saskatchewan Party Ad "Childish"?

Prior to the beginning of the 2011 Saskatchewan election, the NDP released an ad that featured a fabricated quote, portrayed as from Saskatchewan Party leader (and Premier) Brad Wall.

When challenged over the blatantly deceitful ad, NDP House Leader Kevin Yates dismissed the Saskatchewan Party's complaints over the ad as "childish".

Now, the Saskatchewan Party is running an ad the NDP insists is untrue.

The ad notes that Nexen, the oil company NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter worked for, moved its head office to Calgary, and insists Lingenfelter did it.

Then-Nexen CEO Charlie Fischer insists that Lingenfelter didn't make the decision to move Nexen's head office to Calgary. But as it turns out, Lingenfelter was still involved.

To move the Nexen head office to Calgary required repeal of the Wascana Act, which stipulated that the head office of the company had to remain located in Saskatchewan. Wascana Energy had formerly been known as SaskOil.

Lingenfelter lobbied Kindersley MLA Bill Boyd to support the repeal of the Wascana Act. (Boyd isn't clear on whether or not ne actually supported the repeal.)

Dwain Lingenfelter's involvement in the reloaction of Nexen's head office, however, is undeniable. The NDP's response to this ad is childish and over the top. After all, unlike the NDP, they didn't lie.

Desperation is Not the Answer

NDP running on rent control in Saskatchewan

With his leadership already a disaster and an election already in progress, there's nothing Saskatchewan NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter can do but try to put an optimistic face on it.

Although he tried to fire his supporters up by forecasting an NDP victory in the 2011 election, Lingenfelter and the NDP are simply desperate.

They were desperate when they produced a campaign advertisement that fabricated an anti-labour quote by Premier Brad Wall. And they're desperate when they turn to rent control as a key campaign plank.

The party has pledged to throw $320 million at a housing strategy in Saskatchewan which will basically combine government-funded housing developments with rent control.

This is remarkable, when all they really have to do is leave the market alone to work; which is something that, for all its occasional frustration, is something that has always worked far better than government intervention.

As a policy, rent control has been destructive everywhere it's been implemented. It discourages property owners from offering housing units for rent, and discourages the construction of additional units. It produces a social loss.

Of course, with the levels of support in Saskatchewan being what they are, this isn't a policy the NDP has a prayer of ever being able to implement. It's simply desperate pandering to its own base, to the crowd who turned out for events such as Occupy Saskatoon.

By offering up a policy such as rent control, Lingenfelter has certainly boosted his chances of getting those people out to vote. But the average citizen of Saskatchewan, who are quite pleased with the job Wall has done as Premier, is the vote that Lingenfelter needs. He's just guaranteed he won't be able to get that vote.

If Dwain Lingenfelter really wanted to lead the NDP to victory in Saskatchewan, he would have dispensed with this policy as quickly as it was dreamed up. But Lingenfelter must, by now, know that he can't win this election.

He's simply embraced the politics of desperation, clearly did so long before this election, and should have resigned as NDP leader the second he did.

Saskatchewan NDP Already Making Excuses For Losing

Orange getting ready to be crushed in SK

In Becoming Holyfield, multi-time World Heavyweight Champion Evander Holyfield offers an intriguing insight into the behaviours of boxers who know they cannot win a big match:

They give themselves an excuse to win.

Holyfield even attributed the infamous ear-biting incident to this particular behaviour: Mike Tyson giving himself an excuse for having lost.

With pre-election polls in Saskatchewan indicating that, barring a miracle, serious gaffe, or major political scandal, the Saskatchewan Party will win a dominating victory in the coming 2011 provincial election, the NDP is already looking for it's excuse for losing.

Regina-Dewdney MLA Kevin Yates has decided on his excuse: blame attack ads from the Saskatchewan Party undermining NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter.

“This is how the right-wing does things," Yates complained. "I don’t think it would have mattered who the leader is, they would have gone after the leader. The tactics might have been a little different but that’s what they do."

Yates complained that the ads were unfair. He's obviously banking on voters forgetting about the deliberately deceptive attack ads the NDP has been running, featuring fabricated quotes cast ridiculously out of context. How Yates says the right-wing does things is not all that different from how the left-wing does things.

Other than Yates, other NDP candidates and activists seem to be quietly admitting defeat, and focusing on making it as small a defeat as they can.

Saskatoon-Nutana MLA Pat Atkinson will not run in the 2011 election. This grants her a great deal of freedom to speak openly about the NDP's prospects in the coming election.

“There is no question we are in a battle to maintain the seats that we have. But I think it’s important that the NDP do well enough so that the government has an Opposition that can be effective,” said Atkinson, formerly Minister of Finance. “It appears as though Brad Wall is going to be re-elected ...we usually give a government two terms. The important thing will be to have an effective Opposition.”

(Noting that Saskatchewan often gives governments at least two terms seems to smack of another excuse, even if it seems more gracious.)

“Brad Wall is a very popular guy," Atkinson conceded. "There’s no question about that. But does that mean you give him a mandate to do whatever he wants? I don’t think the public wants to do that.”

There is little question that Saskatchewan would be better off with a strong opposition than a weak one. But with the NDP pulling some boneheaded blunders and seemingly conceding the election, they'll have great difficulty electing that kind of opposition.

Brad Wall will continue to be a great Premier of Saskatchewan -- far better than Dwain Lingenfelter could hope to be -- the NDP is already doing enough to ensure that.

A Confusing Brand to Embrace

When going into an election, one would expect that there is an incentive for politicians to be on their best behaviour.

The Saskatchewan NDP, however, has not been on their best behaviour. They've been closer to their worst. The party got itself into hot water in July when it released a radio ad featured a heavily-edited quote. The quote was not merely heavily-edited -- the new favourite defense of the far-left when they are caught red-handed behaving poorly -- it was heavily-edited to the point of sheer dishonesty.

A comment made in response to a question about the tactics used by a public service union during a strike was presented as a comment about how Premier Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party feel about helping working families confront higher cost of living.

"I don't really care. We're not going to do it, and they're coming back to work."

When considers the extent of the warping and twisting of context in the presentation of this quote, there's really only one reasonable conclusion: the NDP lied. They made a decision to lie to the people of Saskatchewan, and turned out to be not all that good at it.



In response to the revelation that the NDP took Wall's comments bizarrely out of context and then altered them, the NDP is refusing to budge. They insist that the comments accurately reflect Wall's attitude toward working families.

They have nothing to support those claims, but they make them nonetheless. It's just what they do.

Now the Saskatchewan Party has released an ad highlighting the NDP's blatant attempt to deceive the people of Saskatchewan. The intent of the ad is very clear: they're seeking to brand the NDP as liars.

Bizarrely, the NDP has not only chosen to embrace that brand, they've sought to counter-brand the Saskatchewan party as childish for objecting to the NDP's lies. Naturally, they say nothing at all about their own childishness in lying in the first place.

Polling numbers indicate that the NDP is going to get creamed in the 2011 provincial election. There will be no orange crush. Instead, the orange will be crushed. Considering they have a leader who owes the people of Saskatchewan his resignation for approving this ad in the first place, they deserve much, much worse.