REGINA – After more than 16 years in opposition, the Progressive Conservatives were voted back into the Manitoba legislature after Tuesday’s provincial election.
Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives party leader, Brian Pallister’s platform included a promise to join the New West Partnership Trade Agreement – a pact between Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
So, what does the majority win mean for neighbouring Saskatchewan? For some analysis Teri Fikowski sat down with Jim Farney, political scientist at the University of Regina.
Q: Jim, how significant is this PC win in Manitoba for Saskatchewan?
A: It’s a little bit. The government worked fairly well with the old NDP government. There were some big hydro deals for example that stopped us from having to build new power plants ourselves. One big part is that New West Partnership deal, Saskatchewan has been very involved in it and it’s an interesting deal. It covers everything from international Premier visits; it drums up trades, to making sure the regulations on truck attire means you don’t have to stop at the boarders if you’re doing heavy hauling. So, having Manitoba in on that would be helpful for us, but it’s not a super huge deal.
Q: Does it help Brad Wall to have a conservative ally or does the New West Partnership between BC, Alberta already have a range of party leaders that it doesn’t matter?
A: I mean it’s already got the Liberals in B.C, the NDP in Alberta and the Sask Party here. I think the NDP in Manitoba had stayed out of it for ideological reasons. It got started because Ralph Klein was really the push behind in back in the day, so I think they stayed out of it for that reason. But it’s not huge. It’s a good thing , but it’s probably not a huge thing that people will notice. Where it might matter a little bit is having anther predevelopment, pro-pipeline voice in First Ministers’ meetings. I think there will be difference. Still, hard to tell because it’s still just two Premiers out of 10 plus the territories but it should make a difference.
Q: Will it help Brad Wall again having that conservative ally on the federal level?
A: I think it will. Again, we will have to see how it plays out. I put Pallister is in about the same spectrum as Wall but he has a remarkable tendency to stick his foot in his mouth (which is hard when you’re 6’8′). So, we will see how it plays out. He spent a lot of time in Costa Rica when there was a natural emergency in Manitoba, he said some stuff in the past, he basically won because Selinger was so unpopular. He won a landslide, the numbers looked almost the same as our election but he’s a very different leader than Wall. So I think they’ll get along, I think they’ll work together. The question to me is, how effective that will be as a duo?
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