Saskatchewan New Democratic Party

The Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP) (formerly the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF)) is a social democratic political party in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It currently forms the government of Saskatchewan and has been a dominant force in Saskatchewan politics since the 1940s.

Origins

The party's origins lie in the Farmer-Labour Group, a political organization created by the United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section) led by George Williams, and the Independent Labour Paty led by M.J. Coldwell in 1932. The FLG won 24% of the vote, but only five seats in the 1934 provincial election, which saw a Conservative-Progressive-Independent coalition government replaced by the provincial Liberals. Following the election, the Farmer-Labour Group officially became the Saskatchewan branch of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), although it had been known unofficially as the CCF's Saskatchewan wing before that. The national CCF party had been founded in 1933.

In government

In the 1944 election, the Saskatchewan CCF, led by premier Tommy Douglas, swept to power, forming the first socialist government in North America. The CCF/NDP has governed the province with only two interruptions (1964-71 and 1982-91) since 1944.

Arguably, the party's greatest accomplishment was the introduction of North America's first comprehensive system of public medical insurance or Medicare (sometimes referred to as socialized medicine). The fight to introduce Medicare in the province was intense, due to the opposition of the province's doctors, backed by the American Medical Association. The AMA feared that public health care would spread to other parts of the continent if introduced in one part. The doctors staged a 23-day strike. But despite a concerted attempt to defeat Medicare, the program was introduced and became so popular it was soon adopted across Canada.

After doing much of the preliminary work on Medicare, Douglas resigned as party leader and Premier in 1961 to become the founding leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada. The NDP had been formed by a coalition of the CCF and the Canadian Labour Congress. The Saskatchewan CCF followed suit, and adopted its current name in 1967 after a transitional period when the party was awkwardly named the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, Saskatchewan Section of the New Democratic Party of Canada.

The turmoil of the Medicare fight took its toll, however, and the NDP-CCF government of Douglas's successor Woodrow S. Lloyd was defeated by Ross Thatcher's Saskatchewan Liberal Party in the 1964 election. The party dropped the "CCF" name after the 1967 election.

Recent history

The NDP rebuilt itself and went through a painful confrontation between a left-wing movement dubbed "The Waffle" (a name derived from Toronto leftist economist James Laxer's quip that if he was perceived to be "waffling" on a policy question, then he'd "rather waffle to the left than waffle to the right") and the more conservative party establishment. The party returned to power in the 1971 election, under Allan Blakeney, embarking on a programme of nationalizing the province's natural resources. This saw the creation of parastatel or Crown corporations that drilled for oil (Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Corp. or SaskOil), mined potash (the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan) and sought hard-rock minerals (the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corp.). Blakeney's government was defeated in the 1982 election by the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan, led by Grant Devine.

The party returned to office in 1991, and has governed since then under the leadership of Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert.

The Romanow government was more conservative than previous CCF/NDP governments, and instituted a program of hospital closures and program cuts in order to eliminate the budget deficit and reduce debt inherited from previous governments. Romanow later quipped that he was a supporter of Tony Blair's Third Way concept before it even existed, and there were many who doubted the party's continued commitment to democratic socialism. The NDP's Third Way alienated some of its left-wing members, who left the party and merged with the Green Party supporters to form the New Green Alliance.

Romanow almost lost the 1999 election, and his government formed a coalition government with the three elected Liberal MLAs. Following the 2003 general election, the NDP, now led by Lorne Calvert, was able to form a government on its own with a majority in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan of only one.

An irony of recent Saskatchewan NDP history is that despite starting in the 1930s as a party of rural discontent, it had by the 1990s lost almost all of its rural seats and found its greatest strength in Saskatchewan's cities.

If past political patterns hold true, the next Saskatchewan provincial election will be held in June or October 2007.

The NDP was rocked on Sept. 16, 2006, by the unexpected "resignation" of junior cabinet minister Kevin Yates, who was identified by the oppositon Saskatchewan Party to have been behind a plan to depose Calvert, whose popularity has been waning with an election approaching.

Party leaders

• M.J. Coldwell (July 27, 1932-July 17, 1936)
• George Williams (July 17, 1936-February 12, 1941)
• John Brockelbank (February 12, 1941-July 17, 1942) (leader in the legislature)
• Thomas C. Douglas (July 17, 1942-November 3, 1961)
• Woodrow Lloyd (November 3, 1961-July 4, 1970)
• Allan Blakeney (July 4, 1970-November 7, 1987)
• Roy Romanow (November 7, 1987-January 27, 2001)
• Lorne Calvert (January 27, 2001-)

See also

• List of articles about Saskatchewan CCF/NDP members
• Saskatchewan New Democratic Party leadership conventions
• List of Saskatchewan political parties

External links

• Saskatchewan NDP caucus site
• Saskatchewan NDP

• The Prairie Roots of Canada's Political 'Third Parties'

• Frank Quennell, NDP MLA for Saskatoon Meewasin