Saskatchewan provincial election 2015/2016 (more likely in 2016)

[DL]

The idea that he won't run for leader because he doesn't speak French leaves out proven new tools for learning a language like Rosetta Stone where a person can learn at least the basics of a language in around two weeks.

Tell that to Paul Dewar! That is ridiculous - to achieve true fluency in a new language as an middle aged unilingual person would require YEARS of total immersion. If Wall resigns as Premier and lives in a village in rural Quebec with a family for like two years...then i will believe he is serious about national leadership.

I've heard he just wants to make post of money in the private sector.

Apropos of nothing, there has NEVER been a Canadian PM who was ever a provincial premier. Every provincial premier who has taken a stab at federal politics has flopped.

[DL]

Apropos of nothing, there has NEVER been a Canadian PM who was ever a provincial premier. Every provincial premier who has taken a stab at federal politics has flopped.

This has always striked me as odd. Any idea as to why? Is it the language issue? Is it that Premiers are usually unpopular by the time they leave office, thereby ruining a chance to jump to federal politics? If Wall remains popular, that wouldn't be an issue.

Wall doesn't have to be that proficient in French, I think. He doesn't have to master the language by 2017; he would have to be somewhat fluent by 2019 though, if he wins the leadership.

Any party leader would have to speak French well enough to take part in a French language leaders debate in 2019...you have to be VERY fluent to be able to do that competently.

I think part of why provincial premiers fail in Canadian federal politics is that Canada is a country with a lot of regional tensions and rivalries and premiers often have a hard time making a convincing case that they can represent the "national interest". For example Wall has a lot of profile a regional chauvinistic spokesman for the Prairies and has made public statements about how Ottawa should just ram pipelines down the throats of other provinces whether they like it or not...good luck with that

[DL]

Latest poll by Mainstreet shows a major narrowing of the gap

SP - 51% (down four from last week)
NDP - 37% (up four from last week)
Libs - 8%
Greens - 3%

http://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/ndp-gains-sk-party-still-wide-lead/

NB: This popular vote split would take us right back to 2007 when the NDP took 18 seats

[DL]

Ugh. SK NDP wants to reduce the number of seats. So the next time the Sask Party gets 60%, they can be assured of getting wiped out entirely (save for maybe the two northern seats)

In practice, Saskatchewan is a bit gerrymandered with too many thinly populated rural ridings that are Sask Party strongholds. If the size of the leg were reduced from 61 to 55 seats it would mainly mean merging a lot of rural SP held seats while the under-represented cities (where the NDP seats are located) probably wouldn't change much.

[DL]

I don't see the size of a legislature as a right/left issue. Harper added 30 seats to the House of Commons I guess he was a raving socialist! There should be some sort of formula or principle for how many people there are per seat within reason. Why should Saskatchewan have fewer citizens per riding than Manitoba

[DL]

I suspect that dropping four candidates from a slate if under a week has to be some kind of record.  Hopefully for the NDP there are no more to come and they can quickly recover.

A lot of this stuff happens behind the scenes...I've heard that last year when it suddenly looked like the Alberta NDP was doing much better than expected and that more seats would be winnable and that candidates would be under greater scrutiny etc...candidates were re-vetted and a whole bunch were quietly replaced without any fanfare and without anyone in the media noticing...

In the federal election last year i think the CPC, NDP and Liberals each had to fire about 6 or 7 candidates over the course of the campaign, including the infamous case of the CPC candidate caught on video pissing in someone's coffee mug! I suppose better to ditch 4 candidates all at once in two days than to have it go drip-drip-drip over the course of the campaign