Saskatchewan residents once again proved they are masters of safeguarding against floods – even when it comes to the usually dry voting process.
By the time the polls closed Monday evening, and the Orange wave swept across Canada, but not a drop touched Saskatchewan soil.
Once again, voters in the province handed 13 out of 14 seats to the Conservatives. Liberal Ralph Goodale prevented a complete Tory sweep by narrowly winning the Wascana riding.
Political expert Tina Beaudry-Mellor said the so-called Orange Crush was enough to propel the NDP into official opposition territory, but they did that without any help from Saskatchewan.
“They’ve risen in popular support, but that didn’t translate into a seat,” Beaudry-Mellor said.
A handful of NDP candidates did challenge for a number of Saskatchewan seats, but none were successful.
Among the closest calls — NDP candidate Nettie Wiebe in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar. She fell to Conservative Kelly Block by just 774 votes.
NDP candidate Noah Evanchuk also came close; he lost to Conservative incumbent Ray Boughen by 766 votes.
“I’m very disappointed Saskatchewan chose to reward Stephen Harper for giving us nothing for the last five years,” NDP candidate Brian Sklar said.
Others warned this isn’t the last Canada has seen of the Orange Wave.
“It went over Saskatchewan, one more time, but this will be the last time,” NDP candidate Marc Spooner said.
Meanwhile, Conservative candidates said they were eager to get to work now that Canadians have handed them a majority.
“To win with a majority the way we did is going to be a tremendous four years,” Tom Lukiwski said, winner in Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre. “We’ll finally be able to get some legislation passed.”
Lukiwski said the Conservatives are looking forward to scrapping the gun registry and making the Canadian Wheat Board voluntary for farmers.
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