Saskatchewan booming

Saskatchewan booming: Premier set for a landslide return

Imagine a province where migration from other provinces is up 40% — where people are streaming in from places like Ontario and Quebec, and even Alberta.

A place that's cutting taxes — but still running a surplus. A place that the recession seems to have missed completely. Where is this lucky place? Why, it's Saskatchewan, the great success story of the past decade in Canada.

Saskatchewan used to be a socialist, have-not province. The NDP had such a lock on it that this rectangular-shaped province used to be called "red square." Not anymore — it's so business-friendly that companies have fled neighbouring Alberta to set up shop there. World commodity prices have helped. Saskatchewan is blessed with oil and gas, uranium, potash and wheat — all of which are in high demand these days.But Alberta is blessed with resources, too — and yet it's running record deficits and has higher unemployment. And Saskatchewan has always had these resources in the past — but never truly benefited from them before.

So what's changed?

The answer is red square turned green — the colours of that province's new Saskatchewan Party, led by Canada's most dynamic premier, Brad Wall. The Sask Party was born in 1997 out of the ashes of the former PCs. The new party, with Wall as its leader, finally broke the hammer-lock of the NDP and their labour union bosses.

In 2003, the Sask Party came within two seats of winning a majority and in 2007 it vaulted ahead, with 38 out of the 58 seats in the legislature. Monday is the next election, and the latest poll has the Sask Party at 66%, with Wall personally at 83% approval. The only real question is, how big of a landslide will it be?

Saskatchewan and Alberta both joined Canada on the same day, Sept. 1, 1905. They were originally going to be one big province, called Buffalo, but the Liberal prime minister of the day, Wilfrid Laurier, thought that would be too powerful a block, and would challenge Ontario and Quebec's dominance in Canada. So Buffalo was split in two, the western half named after Queen Victoria's daughter, the eastern half taking an Aboriginal name. For the first 25 years, the twins boomed. And then the Great Depression hit — and it hit the Prairies the hardest.

Both governments teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Farms were foreclosed, eastern banks were blamed, with some justification. And both provinces sought radical political solutions. Alberta turned to a preacher named Bill Aberhart, with a kooky economic theory called social credit. Saskatchewan turned to a preacher named Tommy Douglas, with a kooky economic theory called socialism. Aberhart's ideas — like printing his own money, called prosperity certificates — were thrown out by the Supreme Court. And in 1943, he passed away, with his deputy, the great Ernest Manning, becoming premier, a post he would hold for 25 years.

Manning got rid of the cranks and nuts and social credit, and set Alberta on a path of prosperity. Tommy Douglas didn't die, and neither did his socialist ideas. For the better part of a century they dominated Saskatchewan, and had a strong influence on national politics.And so the twins, which had grown together at more or less the same pace, started to look quite different.

Saskatchewan's population peaked in the Great Depression, and 80 years later, it's pretty much the same. Zero population growth. Compare that to its twin, Alberta, which is now close to four million people. Now, Saskatchewan is growing again. Saskatchewan's economy now is the stronger one. Now, resource companies favour the eastern side of the border, not the western side. Now, it's Alberta with the big taxes and regulations and deficits and labour union bullies. Saskatchewan was stuck in amber for 75 years. Brad Wall hauled it into the future — with a gentle hand and a smile.

Monday will be a landslide.

EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY