SASKACHEWAN
Mandryk: Meili stepping down as NDP leader both sudden and inevitableMurray Mandryk - Yesterday
© Provided by Leader PostRyan Meili's announcement Friday that he stepping down as NDP leader ends a stormy relationship at an especially stormy time.
There was a time when one might have thought having a medical doctor leading a political party in the middle of a pandemic would be a rather advantageous thing.
But like a lot of Ryan Meili’s skills, abilities and beliefs, that thought was something that just never seemed to quite fit the bruising world of Saskatchewan politics — especially politics emerging out of COVID-19 and scarred by deep wounds that won’t easily heal.
Certainly, things have taken a dark and ugly turn not only for Meili and his political fortunes but also for politics in this province, and the country as a whole. For a politician who built his political career on an upstream philosophy of pouring resources into the social roots of problems, the timing wasn’t right.
While it’s unlikely Meili’s brand ever had a chance of selling — and even many New Democrats may have held that suspicion — it certainly had no chance after the NDP’s stunning Athabasca by-election loss in the wake of this pandemic.
“As we see this pandemic hopefully coming to an end — and I believe it is hopefully coming to an end — I just felt now was a time for the party to move in a different direction,” Meili said in a telephone interview Friday morning just prior to making his announcement official.
“I became the voice of masks and mandates. But I am proud we said and did the right things that the Premier (Scott Moe) wouldn’t say and do.”
It didn’t seem all that long ago that Saskatchewan — and everywhere else in the world, for that matter — agreed with Meili’s message that measures like getting vaccinated or wearing masks were what we needed to do to stop COVID-19 spread. That Saskatchewan is still seeing record hospitalizations and 63 deaths in less than two weeks suggests Meili is still right about the need in this province for cautions to remain in place.
But somehow, such messages in the last six weeks have flipped into becoming “ divisive” or “hateful” , as described by Premier Moe on Wednesday morning. The premier said Meili’s messaging played a big part in the Athabasca by-election loss.
Meili argues that it’s Moe and his Saskatchewan Party spreading division, hate and contempt for science in its attempt to drive the province and the party towards “Republican, Donald Trump-style” politics.
“The Sask. Party, I’ve never liked, but they aren’t (now) even the Sask. Party of before I’ve never liked,” Meili said.
That said, Meili admitted the reasons for him stepping down as NDP leader were ones he’d been thinking about long before Tuesday’s by-election results.
The writing seemed to be on the wall the night of the 2020 Saskatchewan general election where it took mail-in ballots to save Meili’s Saskatoon Meewasin seat — a victory that left the NDP with no more seats than they had going into the election.
Meili survived election night and a year later survived a leadership confidence vote with shaky 72-per-cent support. However, Tuesday night’s Athabasca by-election loss seemed the last straw when it came to his often-tenuous relationship with his party.
His first run for leadership in 2009 as an idealistic 34-year-old doctor pitted him against Dwain Lingenfelter and the party establishment hellbent on punishing Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party for wresting away power.
His razor-thin loss to Cam Broten in 2013 represented a massive split between the urban, social-issue-oriented party that Meili championed and what was left of the NDP establishment from government days.
That established NDP machine all but vanished by the time Meili defeated Trent Wotherspoon in the 2018 leadership. But the win didn’t produce much unity in the party or caucus — or success at the polls.
Asked Friday if he now thinks his brand could have ever been accepted in today’s Saskatchewan, Meili called that a “strange hypothetical” that may be “worthy of refection” down the road.
What is certain is his departure comes at a stormy time. The doctor had hoped for a sunnier outcome.
Ryan Meili resigns as Sask. NDP Leader
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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