Shaun Newman Podcast - #741 - Brad Wall

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

He was the 14th Premier of Saskatchewan serving between 2007-2018. We discuss the US election, the Saskatchewan provincial election, appealing to families vs ethnicity and why a concession speech is important to pay attention to. Cornerstone Forum ‘25 https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/ Clothing Link: ⁠⁠⁠https://snp-8.creator-spring.com/listing/the-mashup-collection⁠⁠ Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

This is Ben Davidson. This is late and great. This is Tanner Nadey. This is Tom Romago. This is Chuck Brodnick. This is Alex Krenner. This is Jim Sinclair. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Thursday. How's everybody doing today? Yeah, we have had a busy stretch. You know, I was like, I was talking the other day. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The weekend reviews the day late. And then it didn't get put out.

And I was like trying to get it put out again. And I didn't get put out. So, you know, like on this side of things, the old one-man band routine caught up with me today, this week I should say. It has been a great stretch, like a ton of great content. But, I mean, to put it in perspective, five podcasts plus pretty much a live stream once a week for anywhere between what were we saying last night, four to six plus hours. It has been a busy, busy stretch. A great stretch. We've had lots of great feedback from all you folks.

that have been tuning in, paying attention. And today, you know, we got an interesting one, obviously coming up here, and that's, well, I want to get you to do that. So how about we start here? Precious metals can be thought of as the ultimate insurance policy against economic uncertainty and government incompetence with deficit spending and fiscal irresponsibility unlikely to end any time soon. Now is the time to protect a portion of your hard-earned savings with a form of money that has been recognized for thousands of years. Yes, I'm talking about silver, gold, bull, and I'm talking about silver and gold,

as they are my go-to for precious metals with their complete in-house solutions whether buying, selling, storing, or adding precious metals to your retirement accounts. They have a new feature exclusively for you that allows you to buy Royal Canadian Mint, silver coins for the same price as generic silver rounds. Text or email Graham down in the show notes for more details.

McGowan, Kristen McGowan, that is. She's running for school board trustee. You got to hear earlier this week on the podcast. She's running for school board trustee. She's got three things that she's been paying attention to and wants to see addressed in the next election. Parental rights and inclusive education policies, funding and resource allocation, and curriculum changes. And the monitor, why do I have so many ands in there? I don't know why I did that to myself.

And monitoring of new testing policies adopted. I'm like, as I read that, that's Sean's language, not Kristen. So she's way better spoken than I just put in there. You can, well, the elections, November 13th, and pay attention for her name coming up in the Northwest School Division election. That should be interesting there. Substack, it's free to subscribe to. Obviously, I'm not blowing your email up. I can't even get out of bloody week in review this week because of how hard I've been pushing, getting to the UCPAGM, and then, you know, on and on.

I'm not making excuses. I am making excuses, but regardless, we're not going to blow up your email, folks. just want you to pay attention to what's going on with the SMP. The substack is going to keep you up to date, and it's free to subscribe to. You can also become a paid member on there, and we try and add in a few things to make, well, hopefully, value add for you. Friday, November 29th, SMP Christmas party, we've got three tables left. Dueling Piano's, Gold Horse Casino.

We're down to three. So if you are dragging your feet, don't drag them anymore because we're running out of time, folks. The Cornerstone Forum returns May 10th, 2025. May 10th, 2025. Yes, that is coming to Calgary at the Winsport, and we got Tom Luongo, Alex Kramer, Chuck Prodnick, going to all be speaking guest host, Chris Sims, Tom Bodrovics, Kainland Ford's been added to the show. We're adding a trade show this year, so we're going to have some companies there,

and early bird tickets are up. Down in the show notes, scroll down there, cheap tickets, they're going to be the cheapest ticket you get. As we get closer, the prices are going to be going up. So make sure you grab a ticket to the Cornerstone Forum in Calgary. That's going to be a ton of fun. All right. Let's get on to that tale of the tape. He was the 14th Premier of Saskatchewan.

He served from 2007 to 2018. I'm talking about Brad Wall. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Brad Wall. Thank you, sir, for hopping on. Hey, thanks for having me, Sean.

It's good to be here. I don't want to spend a ton of time on this because I already know that people know who you are. but at the same time, maybe somebody is from, you know, down in the States, far side of Canada, you know, is kind of like me. What didn't girl up a political nerd and now is starting to become a political nerd? Welcome. Welcome to that club. Exactly. We should have like hats and shirts for you. But when someone like you sort of joins the nerd club, you should get some.

People should know it. Well, I just paid, you'll get a kick at us. I just paid a babysitter and bought pizza for the kids so I could watch a municipal debate of local politics. And I went like, this is where I'm at now. Do I tune into the Euler game? Well, maybe sometimes. But right now, like Jamie Sinclair, was texting me about the Ruff Rider game. I didn't know what was going on.

Like I'm so focused on what's going on politically. I've become that person. So, yeah, thanks to the world for that. Now, Brad, give everybody just. a little bit of a background on you. It's the first time you've been on the show. I don't think you need much of an introduction, but heck, like I say,

that we do have listeners across Canada into the States. There's going to be people who don't know who you are. Well, sure. I mean, I am, I'm also a political nerd. It have been since grade six, where I may have harbored ambitions and hopes to just represent my hometown as current somewhere at the provincial or the federal level. I didn't care, but I was interested.

you know, for since then. So a long, long time. You know, in long story short, I ran, when the Saskatchewan party was formed in August of 97, when liberals and conservatives came together and said, look, we agree on far more than divides us. Why would we split the vote and let the NDP win majority governments with 40% of the popular vote?

That got my interest in politics again. I had been interested in it. prior to that, been involved in it prior to that in youth politics. I was a political staffer in a provincial government, but had left it alone for about eight years, and that sort of got really garnered my interest and attracted my attention to this new party, this Saskatchewan Party, sought the nominations of Kirk, was lucky enough to win it, very fortunate enough to win September 16th, 1999 in the provincial election where the SASS party actually won the popular vote, but didn't win a majority of the seats.

And so we were off and running. And we had another go at it in 03 at an election. We all thought we could win. And our leader at the time, Alan Hermanson, thought we could win as well. And though I don't think it was his fault, he decided in the wake of that loss to Calvert to step down. And then I ran for the leadership, which I got on the Iads of March, not a great day to be selected leader of some group of the Iads of March 2003. And then obviously we started to work very hard in opposition to try to earn the trust of many people in urban Saskatchewan. And we'll talk more about that relative to the most election.

And we were fortunate enough to win in 07 and again in 11 and then in 2016 we were lucky enough to win again. And then I stepped away. I had always thought, Sean, I knew that in that last term after the 2016 election, I had pretty much decided I'm not going to run again. So then the decision is the timing of my exit. And so I chose for my own reasons, but I thought it through. And I thought, we need to have a budget brought down and schedule that moves us away from resource revenue dependency.

And that's going to be a tough budget. That's going to involve cuts. And it did. Things like when we we basically deleted a, we ended a long-time Crown Corporation called STC, a bus company that, you know, that had, that notionally, I guess, theoretically provided services to the whole province. But we figured out that we were taxpayers for subsidizing every rider on that bus, $100 a seat, a ticket. And so that was an example of a tough call because a lot of people in rural Saskatch when you use that bus service for health care or the part. service brings the parts on their farm and that was a tough one and then we made some revenue decisions also difficult but we didn't do we did not expand the PST on used vehicles we had taken

that off as a part of an 07 election that happened subsequent and but we did expand it you know we we expanded the PST I think a lot of economists would probably tell you a fairer tax even then a progressive income tax is a sales tax Although so long as the necessities aren't part of the base, but we didn't expand the base and increase to my point. Not a very popular budget at all. I called it the budgetist mixture budget. It tasted awful, but I thought, you know, that would work.

I still call it that. But my point is this, Sean, I wanted to do that budget, knowing I wouldn't be around for the next election. The next person shouldn't have that. Maybe I could, you know, take a little bit of the unpopularity of that off with me when I went. And so in 2017, I announced that I wasn't running again. And since then, well, I've been, you know, I've started a business, a consulting business that's been busier than I thought it would be. I didn't really know what to expect.

But I'm on a few boards here and there that I enjoy very much. I guess I'm a partner in a, not a guess, I am a partner in a yearling operation with my, with our son, Coulter, who's moved back, sort of after the pandemic, moved back from the states. and I'm ostensibly on the silent partner, although I think when I told Coulter that I plan to be the silent partner, he might have said something like, oh, 18 years in politics, and now you're going to be the silent partner. I try to be silent when fencing day comes around. I'm generally pretty silent and just gone for that. So that's what we're doing now. We're living in Cypress Hills. We move from Swift Current to Cypress Hills, to Cyprus, Saskatch, won in 20, May of 20, and there's your update. There's the, I fill a, mustered my own introduction, but there you go. No, it's perfect. What I want to know is, well, I got, there's so much to cover here, you know, and I want to put this out to the listener. Brad says to me, nobody wants to listen to me talk.

I laugh at that because I just listen to that, like, oh, man, I got so many questions. I want to know, wow, man, okay, let's get to the most, the most relevant topic because it just happened. U.S. election, what did you think of Trump, Harris, and everything? I was surprised. I mean, I thought it would be close, and I was reading, I wasn't just reading sort of mainstream media or the sources on social media that might have confirmation bias about an anti-Trump vote and how well Harris was doing since the Democratic Party basically just handed her the nomination without any, you know, without any process, certainly without the kind of rigor of a primary process. I was, as we got, I was, I was a bit surprised. I mean, consider the win this morning. And I stayed up until about two.

I wanted to see a speech and more on that at a moment time. I think the concession speech and a victory speech in our country in the United States, in a subnational election like we just had in Saskatchewan in any election is more telling and arguably more important, even though most folks have probably gone to bed, because of the message that it sends to the media that do follow it, but even more important match on to that leader's party. win or lose, your candidates are watching that speech, the people that will be part of your government at the political staff level, the senior bureaucracy, they are watching that speech.

And you set a tone with it. And I wanted to catch, I wanted to hear what Trump had to say. I was hoping against hope that he wouldn't, you know, that he wouldn't kind of spike the football and do what probably most people thought he would do. And I don't, I think actually it was a pretty magnet. by Trump standards, a pretty generous magnanimous speech, kind of a uniting speech. Anyway, so I stayed up for that long with the short answer or the medium long answer to your question is I was surprised at the win that looks like they flip the Senate. By two now, maybe three seats with Senator Tester just south of me right now in Montana going down to defeat to a former Navy SEAL, Shih.

That was the one I think that gave them the two-seat margin now in the Senate. it very important. Trump's win is clear. You know, 277 electoral college votes now, getting closer to 300, I think, when we finally get the last of the last,

of the state settled. And then the House, it looks like they're going to keep the House. And we, I'm not sure Canadians understand the importance of it. You know, we run our first pass-the-post system in a federal election.

And the leader of the party that elects the most seats in the House of Commons is a de facto, if it's a majority, and this sounds blunt, but you're kind of de facto dictator for four years. There are no checks and balances other than your own, you know, that leader's own self-awareness and integrity. So if a person gets elected in Canada, in the provincial level, the federal level, they get a majority of seats, they are unchallenged by some other level of government, by some other house of government. they are the leader of a majority government for four years.

And in the United States, of course, it's different. You have the check and balance of the House, which is not always the same party as the president. In fact, I'd say it's usually not. And same with the Senate. And so you need decisions except for executive orders, which are limited in scope. You have to go through all those parts of the system,

all those checks and balances to get anything meaningful. done, get your budget passed to make major decisions for the American people. So, you know, people sort of mock that system because of the gridlock that can happen. And it can, there can be a lot of gridlock. But I'll tell you what, Sean, I would like to have a Senate in our country. That was a real Senate and not a rubber stamp that actually had some decision-making power and influence. And that was constructed on a, on the same basis as the United States Senate.

is right now in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where is our remedy if we have, as we have been for the last eight year plus, if we are sort of at the at the whim and the will of a federal government and a prime minister that doesn't like how we make a lift. And that and that dislike has manifested itself in policies that are literally damaging to how to to how we like to make a living. Disproportionately so to us than to somewhere else. Well, if we were in Montana, for example, we'd have two senators, and we could send a message to those through those senators. And that's the same number of senators, by the way that California has with all of those other members of the House that they get. They still only get two senators. That check and balance alone would be really nice to have in our country. And so I'm barely remembering your original question.

Very long story short. I'm surprised at the result, but it is a resounding win, and he has a mandate. He didn't just win, John, this isn't important. We were lucky enough to win big majorities when, you know, when I was in government, very fortunate to win them. You get a mandate from those, which is a bit different than a win. A mandate is you have, you do, the people have given you the chance, the opportunity to do what you said you would do and all of it because you want it.

And so now that's what Trump and then Republicans have. Yeah, you point out a really good thing. They didn't just win the, you know, one. They won three and they got the popular vote and everything. Like it's just a clear sweep. And that points to a mandate of like, okay, go get things changed around for us. Yeah. And that to me seemed pretty clear early on last night.

It was we did live election coverage being Canadian and being, I didn't start this at grade six. I've been, you know, thrown into fire getting to talk to people such as yourself and others and starting to learn how our political process works here in Canada. You know, one of the things you said early on about, you know, you were going to, at the end of your career of being the premier is you were going to put table a budget that was going to put in some cuts, people were going to be upset about it. And I'm curious about that because I'm like, isn't that what conservatives want? isn't or my because this is I sit here as a newbie and I I listen to guy who's been premier for 11 years came in after the NDP who everyone in their dog in Saskatchewan would say was the most disastrous government Saskatchewans ever have maybe you would argue with me on that but that's that's the story I've been told since I've been knee high and I look at it and

I go okay so when you came in weren't you just cutting things and pulling things out and doing and moving fast or that's just not I have a different idea. of what pace of government is? I think we made a lot of change quickly. We made 150 plus promises in that first campaign platform. By the way, in subsequent platforms, we did not make that many promises. We kept every single one of them. We kept every single one of them, large and small.

So there were some major changes we made. In our province, we disproportionately relied on property taxes to fund education. And it was a disproportionate pain on world schedule. And we campaigned on and therefore got sent with a man. to make that major structural change. You know, the graduate retention program that has now kept 80,000 young people in our province. We used to, you know, you'll know this perhaps. Maybe a quick tick has shared it with you and he's been on the show.

But, you know, the joke used to be in Saskatchewan. If you, you know, what do you buy for a graduation present for someone graduating from a Saskatchewan high school? Used to be the, you know, the joke, you buy them luggage because they're gone. The graduate retention plan and I hope other economic policies help change it. fortune and good luck and good commodity prices. I think it's really important for politicians to give credit where it's due. And we worked hard in government to make sure, look, we've had all this success, but credit you, the people of Saskatchewan, credit commodity price strength, and hopefully our growth

plans helping, and in addition to that, we're getting out of the way of all of you as you build this new Saskatchewan. But to your point, we had an ambitious plan and program and we made those changes, but that last budget was about, you know, we'd always rely through the NDP in Saskatchewan, and the same in Alberta, through different governments, you'd have relied disproportionately on resource revenue. So you've got this whip sawing of your budget cycle, depending on the price of oil. And if it crashes or the potash isn't worth much in any particular cycle or uranium prices, correct, or even on the agriculture side, if you have a downturn there, your budget suffers

immeasurably. And then you're in, you've gone from whatever a regular budget would be to one have austerity and have cuts in order to get somewhere close to a balanced budget. So we just wanted to make some changes there. And we cut the small business tax in that particular budget, but we, as I said, off the top. And we increased the PST. It wasn't much fun doing that. That's not what conservatives want to do.

But we just thought that this would help us stabilize the budgeting. in the revenue source for the province. If we weren't so reliant on resource revenue, and in time when resources, when resource prices were high, well then we could actually put it, put it away because we wouldn't be needing it to balance the budget. When you look at,

you know, I come all the way down to like the smallest sense, like municipal politics and you go revenue streams, right? The biggest revenue stream is taxation, right? I think you can correct me if I'm wrong. And then there's probably, you know, commercial or business, you know, but once again, it's a form of taxation.

Is there like when you were in government and you're sitting there exploring all these ideas, is there different things that can plan revenue that can actually ease the burden of taxing the common person? Or is that just not the case? And on the municipal side, it's basically took your property tax, right? That's the revenue source. You're going to get a bit of fees and licenses and it's not going to amount to anything too substantive so it's property tax and and i guess there's one other revenue source that i'm i'm

kind of proud to point back to the other thing apparently expensive thing we promised in in advance of the o seven election shone was was to revisit and and restore or ensure better revenue sharing with municipalities and we did that we found a simple formula we tied it to one point of the pst and we said, whatever 1% of the PST revenue is getting, that's the amount we're going to share on a quick capital basis with rural and urban municipalities. And it was a big number, a big increase. And the challenge with that, but we didn't do that because there's a lot of political upside to that. Other than, you know, I think it was the right thing to do. We had promised to do it, right? And remember the eight most powerful words in politics are he did or she did or they did

what they said they would do. We banked pretty heavy. on that axiom, on that truth. And I would still say that advise it today to people in politics, even if people don't like the thing that you're promising, even if they think it's dumb, they give you credit if you kept that promise. Anyway, so the revenue sharing piece was part of that. And it's a big source of, it's a big source of revenue for them. But by and large, they got the property and that's it. Fast forward then to this past Sask election. I think where it sits is 3427. I think it's I think that was the last figures I saw.

SAS Party sitting at 34 seats, 27 to the NDP. What are your thoughts on the SAS collection? Well, it's underreported. I was referenced a bit on election night, but underreported in all of this is the historic nature of the win. Other than my former Chief of Operations and Director of Communications, Kathy Young was on the Saskatchewan CTB, and that works as one of the commentators.

And she made this point very effectively, but nobody else really was. This is the fifth majority term for the Saskatchewan party. In the modern era of politics, it doesn't happen. I mean, in Alberta, it happened up until, you know, up until when it stopped happening. And I'm not sure we'll get to that point now, but you know, I'll defer others about Alberta politics. Five majority governments, clear majority governments in the modern era is a remarkable achievement by any political. party. And so that to me is the top line. The top line news story isn't, is who won the election and the subset of that, the slug line, if you will, would be, well, this is the fifth time that

that's happened and no one else coming close to it in the country. The other storyline, of course, is the NDP gaining some seats in urban Saskatchewan and sweeping the city of Regina and getting everything but one in Saskatoon after that one of that other second Saskatoon seat flip when mail-in ballots were counted the next day um and so there's that that has been that's dominated the media narrative oh gosh look at how you know the NDP swept this and look how close the NDP are and I would just say this and I mean I think the new leader of the NDP Carla Beck has done a very good job I think she's moderated her party she's taking them back to the center to the extent she can't from the more radical left that they were sort of moving to or were there already, I guess,

under the previous leader. So she did some good things, but they lost by double digits. They lost by double digits when the time for change number in Saskatchewan in any poll you were looking at was significant, very significant. and and the margin of loss in those rural seats and the smaller in swift current estabam north battle for yorkton except for yorkton were basically as yawning gaps as they ever were so the seats they picked up the seven of seven of the ten closest seats in the election in terms of margin of victory were nDP wins in those cities of saskatchewan party incumbents who lost the their seat or seats where there wasn't incumbent not running again, but it had been a Sast party seat. Those were very, very close still. So then the question becomes, now, what next? If the new Democratic Party loses the popular vote in Saskatchewan by double digits, when the time for change number is as high as it is, when the government's been around for four terms,

and then by definition it has made some decisions that aren't real popular, because you have to, you've got all that going for you when when there's sort of momentum behind this momentum against incumbents right across Canada and I'd argue North America if you if you can't close the gap to something less than 12 points in a scenario like that when are you going to be able to do new leader pretty good leader moderated the party

time for change is high tough for incumbents tough to win four terms never in mind five and you lost by double digits And that's part of the story that's not been talked a little bit about. And, Sean, if you will, I mentioned off the top, we talked about Trump speech here. But one of the most underreported perhaps or a part of an election campaign that gets the least focus is that speech. A concession speech or a victory speech. I have it on some pretty good sources that Carly may have only had one speech written, that they were absolutely convinced they were going to win the election.

We know a number of their MLAs. One in particular was at the rider game just before the election, telling people they were going to win 37 seats. I know another fellow that is a lawyer in Regina that was telling people, he was going to be the chief of staff to Carlybeck when she became the premier. We know that they were sort of checking out the ledge building itself for, you know, I mean, I guess akin to measuring the drapes in the offices. This is a very dangerous thing to do in politics.

It tells you that maybe their own internal polling, like the public polling, was wrong. It sounds like you're up to one going in the third period of game set in the Stanley Cup, and you're already celebrating, then you get beat 5'2, or you know, you could put whatever number you want. You never celebrate until it's done. Boy, that's the truth. And you focus until it's absolutely done.

You know, prior to 07, we had a transition team. that I didn't, you know, I put, I pointed a transition team, a group of women and men who had experience in government. We asked them to, and it was chaired by the individual to become the deputy premier, the MLA for Carpelli, Ken Kervats, just a great, great guy. And someone who went on to be an excellent cabinet minister and deputy premier. But so that process was going on. But in a way that wasn't presumptuous. In fact, I said, I don't even want to talk to you guys. I mean, just go ahead and do that work.

We have to win this election. We have to earn it first. And I think the NDP really, really did get ahead of themselves in this election. I think there was only that one speech written. And then the one she gave has gotten hardly any coverage at all. And I'm going to just spend if I can a moment on this because I hope it illustrates my point. Whether you win or you lose, but especially if you win or even beat expectations, your job in that speech is to express human.

And after that, you express humility. And after that, you're humble and you're grateful and you're earnest. If you won the election, I believe you're humbly grateful and you're committing to earnestly earn the support. Because you haven't earned anything yet on election night. You got those votes. But my approach was that's the day you start to try to reach it to earn the trust that Saskatchewan people gave you for both those who voted for you and those of those. voted for you and those that didn't. And that was in Scott Moe's speech.

Scott Moe's election night speech from Shelbrook, Saskatchewan, Canada was outstanding. He had just won an historic fifth term, but he was earnest and he was grateful. And then he said something like, I'm paraphrasing, he said it better than I'm about to. He said he knew that he knew there was a lot of people who that didn't vote for the Saskatchewan party in this election and he received the message that they sent and he was going to work hard to earn back their trust and that is the message and here's why as i said here's why it's important you know off the top and talk about trump that's pretty that speech happens pretty late trumps was two in the morning and and scots was late carlos was late so really wall how much really doesn't matter

who's still up and who's still watching well as i said before you're the officials in your government the unelected officials and your government are watching or or they will watch it later. Your colleagues, the MLAs that were elected are watching. The MLAs, the candidates that lost are watching. Their teams, the political nerds, the people that were volunteering, they're watching. And you are sending them a message.

And you are setting the tone for your government. And I just think it's the most important. And by the way, to the extent other people are listening to, and it's even more important to get that message out of earnestness and of humility. I don't know if you watched the speech by Miss Beck, but I didn't hear any of that. There was regret.

She thought she was going to win. She even, she basically intimated what we were just talking about, that, you know, she was thinking she was going to win. But whoever wrote that speech for her that night, and if they just wrote the one, they had just written maybe the victory speech that had to quickly cobbled together a concession speech, they missed the most important part.

And if I was the Saskatchewan party, I would be reminding the leader of the opposition of that in the house in question period. You had a chance to say to rural Saskatchewan, that notwithstanding all of these other preconditions for you to be more successful than you were to do better than a two-digit loss of the popular vote, you didn't do it. And you didn't say that night of the election, hey, rural Saskatchewan and small cities in Saskatchewan, we're clearly doing something. long. And we're going to figure this out and we're going to reach out to you and we accept this result and we're humbled by the support we did get, but we have to do better. There was none of that. And in the subsequent coverage of it, it's basically, and I think in the commentary I've seen from those in the NDP, it's been the same from the same sort of tone, lacking that self-awareness and lacking that earnestness to say we need to do better. But even more importantly,

and we've seen it a little bit in the social media, it's warning from those on the Democrats, side, the rank and file supporters of the NDP on social media on X and elsewhere, well, what are they doing with that? Are they expressing humility or gosh, we better do better by rural Saskatchewan or figure out why we're not connecting and why we haven't earned their support? No, they were attacking rural Saskatchew, you know, for how they voted. You're a bunch of hillbillies. You don't know what you're doing. Your bunch of rednecks, this, that. And the other thing, this long list of insults. I couldn't believe it. When I opened my phone, I expected some of it. But there was a lot of it. And that scene and that, and that, and that, and that,

seem to be the consensus view by the supporters, the volunteers, sort of the rank and foul members of the NDP was to attack that group. John, that's not going to work. And if the Saskatchewan party is successful, and I think they will be in doing what Scott wants, which is to reconnect,

which is try to earn back that support in enough places in those seven out of ten really close races where they really lose by much the SaaS party. I like his chances a lot better. Or the SaaS parties, chances a lot better in four years than I do the new Democrats. You've got to use election night, especially when he really were successful by reasonable

measures, as Carl was. That is your chance to connect with Saskatchewan people and say, man, thank you for this support, but we know we've got to do better and we will. You know, coming from a hockey background, it's the little things that win your championships. And, you know, being nude, I can't believe I'm about to say this sentence. Being new to being a political nerd, is that something? Okay, for sure. You're, you're, uh, I didn't watch the concession speech. I never even thought to watch it. I watched Scott Moll talk. I watched Donald Trump, uh, his, his victory speech.

You know, I, I don't even, it kind of glaze over the other one. You're maybe teaching me a very valuable lesson this morning that, uh, you should watch what the other side is saying, because that might be, uh, as important, if not more important to where they're heading, you know, in the future and the fact they're attacking. I guess doesn't surprise me. I mean, I watched last night, who was it? I forget his name. He was on, I think it was CNN. And he talked about how it's a clear sign the Democrats. You know, if they're smart, they take a look and realize how they've been talking to a portion of the United States American public, basically talking down them. They don't know what they're doing.

And everything you just said, Carla Beck and team were saying about rural Saskatchewan, well, they get to vote too. And they're actually really smart. And when you offend them, now they're passionate and they go out and do what needs to get done. And we just saw it in the United States. And the fact that's what's in the concession speech of the NDP in Saskatchar. I'm like, well, that ain't get a bode well, right? Like, I mean, just doesn't get a bode well. Well, and I think that was Scott Jennings that you're referencing that said that on CNN.

There was similar commentary on other things that I saw. I would just finish off the point about what some of the NDP supporters were saying on X about us, Roobes in rural Saskatchew. and how security we were from the SaaS party. This, the, I hope someone in the, someone in the Saskatchewan party should be bookmarking every one of those posts because I would, I would be using them. I would be using them in the future. So you make a great point about maybe the Democrats and maybe other, maybe other sort of

more liberal or left of center political parties and movements in North America are making that particular mistake of not of not understanding the perspective of families middle class families especially yesterday apparently and I think that I'm not sure if these numbers still held but quite late into the evening in Florida they were breaking down the numbers of both African-American vote and Hispanic vote and African-American vote and African-American vote

for Trump had doubled at that point. I don't, that's, maybe that's changed. African-American men voting for Trump doubled over what they did in 2020 for him. And the Hispanic numbers were similar. And apparently across the United States, in major cities, while Miami-Dade, you know, in that same state, but in other major cities in the U.S., that sort of, that similar trend was happening. And it was interesting to watch some of the commentators on CNN, just be completely,

completely flammoxed by this. How can this be? How can they, how can Trump be doing better among African-American males or Hispanic males or that or or African-Americans period and Hispanic folks period? And he had improved in Arizona in, you know, amongst Hispanics as well last night over four years ago. Well, how about stop looking at them at by their, the color of their skin or their ethnicity, I would say to those Democrats that were scratching their head? Their families. Those African-American men are dads. Those Hispanic men, their moms and dads.

And they have concern about affordability. And they have concern about inflation. And that would be probably their top two concerns. And a lot of them have a concern about immigration and security, obviously, from the exit polls, the security of their person and their property. Well, and I might add one in, Brad, because we've seen it here in Canada, right? normally Muslims and Christians are kind of an opposite ends. But when they had the one million march for children, right, of stay out of the family,

stay away from the children, let the parents decide on what happens with our children and all this gender stuff. What did you see? You saw Muslims and Christians march together. And I'm like, oh, man, this is something because that doesn't make any sense. But when you go down to what you just said, these people are dads and their moms. And when we talk like that, all of a sudden, we all care for our children and we can all get a line real fast. And I think that's a really interesting point.

And I might add, you know, like a quick dick and a Vance Crow and Steve Barber once upon a time were on stage for me in Lloyd. And we were talking about the rural urban divide. And how do you get, how do you get them to come together? Because like, obviously people in the city think similar things to the person living out in the country. There's different things going on for sure. But maybe you've just pointed out something that when you treat them like, you know, when you get down to some of the core issues about, like you said, inflation and cost of living, but other things that are now starting to impact the family. Maybe that is where you're going to start to see cities and rural, urban, I guess, rural and urban, sorry, start to align on things. It could well be.

It could well be. That's one of them. And I think the political party that continues to campaign or to construct their campaigns and their marketing communications around identifiable groups of people, separate and distinct from each other by the color of their skin or their faith or indigenous or they're going to find it hard to win. And I think last night showed us that. I think to the expense of the Saskatchewan election showed us that as well. They only remember there's a two-digit need for the SAS party. They were very, very close, and a lot of those urban writings where they, where they'll try to win next time. And I wonder if it's these sort of family-related issues that helped close an otherwise larger gap they may have been facing there.

So I, you know, I just think that the political party that that just starts connecting with communicating to offering promises for. families, regardless of all these other considerations, is going to be the party that's most successful. I would also, one other thing in Saskatchewan, I'm not sure it's like that in Alberta next door. It might be getting close. The NDP brand in Saskatchewan is broken. And I don't the brand talk as cliche and quality. We all, you know, we talk in terms of branding and branding narratives and all that stuff.

And it's kind of annoying and it's cliche. But it's cliche because it's true. That's how something becomes a cliche, really. So branding and politics is important. And what is the brand of the orange and black in Saskatchewan of the NDP? In rural Saskatchew, it ain't good. It ain't good. And there's a bunch of reasons for it.

It's tied to their record when they were in government, when they had to make some tough budget decisions, and all of them seemed to be the pain of those decisions, all of them seem to be visited on rural Saskatchewan in terms of school closures, hospital closures, and less of the pain shared by other places. And whether that's right or wrong, that's part of the brand. It's part of the brand. The decline, the population issues that buy your kid a piece of luggage for graduation, that's all part of their brand.

For good or for real, for fair or not, that's part of their brand. The gentleman that I replaced, a really good man, Warren Calvert, Premier Saskatchewan, used to call Saskatchewan the week. place. One of his cabinet ministers used to say of our plan to grow the province by one percent in a year, our population, by one percent a year, 100,000 people in 10 years, was statistically impossible and was foolish. That's part of their brand, this notion, the NDP's notion, at least in or else a schedule, you know what, we're just the we province, we're always going to be in and out of equalization. We really can't grow it. You know, we couldn't even grow at the national average in terms of population. By the way, Sean, they were right. We did.

grow at 1% at the national average we exceeded it you know we exceeded in the first seven years we we hit that target and i don't say we the sass party i mean we the province of saskatchew but all that's part of their brand in in rural saskatchewan here's the other thing that's that part of that's part of the brand thank you no no bueno and uh this notional tie of the modern nbp to the radical left in this country is part of their brand. That is going to be a challenge for them in rural Saskatchew. I would argue a challenge for them in rural Alberta as well. And, you know, maybe they should have changed their name. Maybe they should have been the Saskatchewan Democratic Party and said,

look, we are not that. They're not the federal wing. We want nothing to do with them. And we're not, we're not going to be associating with the elite manifesto and some of this craziness that we did get associated with some of our more radical provincial NDP members went to the various conventions. You know, the brand is not good in rural Saskatchewan. And I don't know how you fix that because you can have a better leader. She is. You can have better policy. They've been presenting it. But out here where I live in the country, that brand is busted. I'm not sure terrible. You inherit everything before you. And the NDP name with people my age, and older for sure i don't know how much younger it goes i've always been curious about that like how much

younger than me because i was born in 86 right so like all my form of years are under ntp government it's like we we you know like and living on the border you know we're just on a farm 20 20 kilometers into scistachshadron you could you could literally walk across the border and see what alberta had and be like what is going on we lived that close to it you live the object plus that is the app i used to use in speeches. There was this other great map, too, that showed oil and gas development in Saskatchewan and Alberta and the area where there was development was shaded in red, you know, townships of land shaded in red. And there was a line where the red stopped. I mean, even though there's always been a healthy oil and gas industry in Lloydminster,

comparatively speaking, or down the west side, comparatively speaking, the color change from red to pink to sometimes white. And I used to make the joke and speak as I'd put it up on a slide and say, See right here, folks, this is the line. This is the line where the dinosaur stopped dying. They didn't die over here, but they just died over here. And I know people would also say to me, you know, it's the food they ate that created the oil, you know, whatever. You know, if I may with a couple more minutes before I let you out of here, Brad, you know, one of the things when you talk about the NEP and like they inherit all the things before them. I just go, well, if you're my age, probably a few years younger than me, you live through it and it's hard to get you to change.

not forget that, right? No matter how good a speaker they got. And I might argue that the SaaS party is case in point, right? Because before you had the NEP in power, you had the progressive conservatives. They got tied up in a bunch of, I don't know the story because of well before my time, but a bunch of legal court cases, et cetera. And if you look at the conservative party of Saskatchewan, like the, I think that's what they're called, right? They, they, I don't even know how many candidates they ran this election. Did they run any candidates? candidates? Like, that's where they're at. And what you had was a new form coming after that that took liberals and conservatives and put them together, became a SaaS party. It took time. And then eventually you've become government. So, like, when you take that model and you go, the NDP are inheriting everything they've done, if they rebranded, could they find a way? Maybe they could. But right now, yeah. I hope to put it this way. I hope they don't. And I don't think they will. because i i think they i mean i think they should but i don't think they will and you're right the pc party brand was also irreparably damaged uh and so uh a bunch of the progressive conservative mlleys in 1997 just said let's sit down with our colleagues on the liberal side of the aisle and see if we can hammer something new out uh and and i think it's important by the way that the that's the scatchews party remembers its roots that we are an amel of provincial conservatives, but also provincial liberals.

Remembering that provincial liberals in Saskatchewan have always been much more conservative or market-oriented than federal liberals, right? We think of Ross That versus Pierre Trudeau. You know, that illustrates my point. But it still was two parties that came together. It's why we were able to build into some strength in urban Saskatchewan, which I still believe is there, notwithstanding the seat count. and but it's important for us in my view i think it's always it's important for a party to remember

it's roots especially if they're if they're good roots if they're healthy roots and these ones are and we'll see going i think that's what's going to happen like i go back to scott's speech that night that was my you'd think well the best the best part for wall on election night must have just been when they finally declared to win or when he was watching the seat count go up no it was Scott's speech. It was excellent. And I know, because he said, I know the kind of guy, Scott, I had appointed Scott

to the cabinet as my environment minister. He was the actual first sort of guy to walk out on the carbon tax announcement by the federal government. He's walked out on it now literally and figuratively. He does what he says. He's, he's got that, you know, those eight most powerful words.

He does what he says he'll do. And so when he said that on election night from Shelbrook, I was like, yeah, This is going to be okay. And we are, I'm glad he's the premier. One final one for you. You'd said, you know, like, this is the fifth, correct? Fifth, fifth in a row?

Yeah. And you said it's pretty historic for Saskatchewan. When you look over at Alberta, they've had some governments run a long time. It's not so shocking when you look across the border because, I mean, they, you know, you go back to Ernest Manning and that group of people. Well, 40. I'm not sure that's going to it's you can that's repeatable. Okay. Well, that's my question then. Why isn't it repeatable? Why is it that that you can't have, you know, because when you look, when you look at Saskatchewan, or I'll take Alberta, I'll pick on Alberta to see a blue. They all want conservative government in. Why can't you have that for the next? I don't know, maybe not 100 years, but you know, like why? Why is five terms so historic?

Why is that? Because I think modern conservatives generally split off from each other more easily than they did. And we just saw Daniel Smith come through a leadership review with an amazing number. And one that's surprising. I thought you'd be okay, but over 90%. 91%. 91.5%. I was in the building.

Right. when she faces this uh you know there's always someone further a bit further on the right who who haven't heard that the that the uh the enemy the enemy of the good is the pursuit of perfection so if you're a conservative out there everything you know the party that you that you supported that's in power now is not getting every single perfect you know little thing that you want to done perfectly done because maybe they have to worry also about the center well it's just we're going to start a new party or we're going to agitate against it and leadership review or try to run. I think there's a greater propensity.

This is just being on the right than there is on the left for that was kinds of splits. And I think it makes it harder. I mean, we had, they didn't actually turn out to do much in this last provincial election in Saskatchew, but you had two parties, right? You have the Buffalo Party and the South United Party. There was still the progressive conservative party. It's a lot of parties. Plus, I also think people are in this modern era, they're more apt. Let's try something new.

You know, there's a, the time for change thing is really difficult to overcome. And Scott was able to do it. But Kamala Harris was not able to do it. Time for change is tough. I think it's tougher now than it was back in the 44-year conservative heyday in Alberta. And also when there was no alternative. You know, since not what you've got kind of, I mean, I would support them, especially with, I'd be very wary of Nenshi, but you've got a strong opposition, a large number.

You do have an alternative that's there where you haven't had that. You didn't in those 44 years really have much in Alberta in the way of, for a while. When Klein won that tight one, that was about as, you know, even as it was in your house there, but for most of those 44 years, the opposition was small, there's no immediate alternative, even for the person that's thinking, I think we should probably have a change. So I think there's a lot of factors into it. I'm just, I believe in my, I strongly believe that five majority governments is rarefied error.

It's tough. And in Saskatchewan, you make a good point. It did happen here. Tommy Douglas, in the CCF, five terms. And that was in 1960. That was when it ended in it. Asking a political nerd, what's one thing that you think people knew into politics? If they were, I don't know.

I'll leave this pretty wide open. I don't know if it's something you should read, something you should follow, something you should watch. Little things that you think add up to big things. You know, the concession speech is interesting to me. I'm going to go watch it now because I'm like,

oh, I should probably just go watch it. If it's stuck out to you, a guy who has spent his life around politics, I'm like, ah, the guy needs to do that. But if you were to be like,

well, if you're interested in Canadian politics, specifically, because as you pointed out, we are very different than the United States. where would you point a guy that's the most important thing or the

or I don't know I don't know I don't I don't know about most important I don't know if I love that wording I just I just think like you've been around politics a long time what is it that you think uh you know really helps formulate thoughts or your viewpoint on watching politics play out well there I think we are there I think we have some common ground with our friends in the U.S. At least those, you know, I'm pretty comfortable and familiar with places like Montana, North Dakota.

They're just right over the border. And I think we're the same in this sense. And we actually talked about this before. What do you want for your family, Sean, from government? And what would you like them to just stay away from, to butt out of? You know, those are probably two important questions you could ask. And the answer that you give to those two questions, what would you like from your government for your family? They would make things better for you and your family?

And what would you like them to stay away from and not touch for your family? That's probably pretty indicative of what your friends would say have asked that same question. Or strangers that live in your community would say if asked that same question. these are the things that we these are the things that we want and politicians and those of us that are political nerds we still we talk in terms of left and right you know maybe a maybe a more conventional politician might answer your question just now with well you need to look for these right wing principles of policies nobody on coffee row talks in those terms ron Reagan famously said when he switched from when he switched from being a roosevelt democrat and the head of a union, the head of the screen actors guilt, becoming, evolving into this voice for free enterprise and conservatism and eventually, maybe the most successful Republican politician of the last 100 years in the United States, at least after Teddy Roosevelt, they asked him, how can you make that switch? How can you be a Roosevelt New Deal Democrat one day?

And a couple days later, you're your Republican, how can you move that far from left to right? And Reagan says, I don't think in terms of left and right. in terms of up and down i believe there are certain policies uh that will lift people up and i believe there are policies that would bring people down and i'm in favor of up and i'm paraphrasing that but not that's basically it and so i think that that's important you know that's part of the answer to this question well what are we what should you look for um you should look for you know look for the party whose platform whose commitments would lift you and your family up and also uh leave them alone where it's important, their government leave families alone.

And you're probably going to find that that's very representative of a large cohort of a large group of people. And enough, if you're in politics and you happen to find a way to engage in those terms, you're going to probably be successful. Appreciate you hopping on and doing this, Brad. I hope it's not the only time we ever get to sit and chat. You know, when we first started, you said nobody wants to listen to you. I'm like, I think between your ears, you've got a lot of knowledge that I'd love to share

with people and ask questions and pull on. And certainly when I speak of Saskatchewan politics, you know, because in Alberta, they always talk about Klein and in Saskatchewan, they always talk about Wall. That's from my eyes, the way I see it. Either way, really appreciate you giving me some time this morning. Appreciate you. Thanks, Sean.