Peter Garden, Saskatoon business owner

For those of you who know me well, you know that I am a political person but rarely get involved in party politics. In fact, I feel very uncomfortable with party politics and find them mostly to be divisive, disingenuous and ineffective at creating the kind of change that I am working for in my personal activism and with Turning the Tide.

We recently finished an era where the so-called progressive party in our province, the NDP, held power for 16 years and failed to do much to move this province in a positive direction either socially or environmentally. The NDP generally maintained the status quo and pandered to the business interests who call the shots in this province. For many people who consider themselves to the left of the political spectrum, this was a disappointing and disenchanting time. I know a number of people who have been involved at the grassroots of the party and have attempted to create change within, only to have their voices and ideas paid lip service but the changes they were seeking marginalized. It is for this and other reasons that my only involvement with the provincial NDP was during the last leadership convention (at the time when a person I have a great deal of admiration and respect for, Nettie Wiebe, was running for the leadership of the party).

With that being said, many of you also know that I am a pragmatist and someone who tries to maintain a balance between my idealism with the realistic circumstances of the world in which we live. As such, I see a handful of times where my energy devoted to engaging with the political system can potentially make a difference and when space is open to shift the direction of the political party machines in just and environmentally sustainable direction.

I believe that the current circumstances with the leadership race of the NDP are one of those opportunities. Lorne Calvert has stepped down and in the race are four contenders. Ryan Meili and Yens Pedersen are two young and progressive candidates from outside the party establishment, while Dwain Lingenfelter and Deb Higgins both represent the party power structure to greater or lesser degrees (in the case of Lingenfelter, clearly the interests of big business - specifically the oil industry for whom he has been working in Alberta for the past number of years – check out the oil pump jacks in the background graphic of his leadership website).

I find Ryan to be the most dynamic candidate and the one with the most potential to lead the party. Ryan is a friend who I have known since organizing around the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Quebec City in 2001. He is one of the most intelligent people I know and I have a great deal of respect for the work that he has done in the community, particularly in his role as a doctor in the inner city and in his work overseas. While he was a medical student, he was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the SWITCH program (run out of Saskatoon’s Westside Community Clinic) which brings medical students, nursing students, social work students into contact with and into the service of Saskatoon’s most vulnerable and under-serviced populations. He was also one of the founders of Friends of Station 20 West and a continuously vocal advocate of the project. He has spoken out on the issue of nuclear development in Saskatchewan and is an ardent supporter of finding sane solutions to our environmental problems.

I know Ryan to have a great deal of integrity and the ability to see and understand the needs of community, then put that understanding into action. In my experience, this is a skill that few people have. Ryan has also shown significant willingness to work collaboratively with those at the grassroots, developing policy ideas and vision with others in the community. Despite Ryan’s relative lack of experience in politics, I see him having significant abilities to rise and meet the challenge of taking the leadership of the NDP.

Beyond the leadership race, I also see this as a time to influence the culture and direction of the NDP. A win or even a strong showing for the progressive candidates in the leadership race can send a strong message to the party establishment that the party needs renewal. I see the participation of a broad group of people at this juncture as potentially having a significant effect on the NDP.

I have no illusions that simply electing a progressive person as leader of the NDP without a coherent and persistent grassroots movement (not necessarily within the NDP) will change this province. One of the reasons that the NDP simply maintained the status quo and stagnated in this province was the lack of a large and diverse grassroots social movement to apply pressure and create a kind of popular power to counterbalance the voices of the conservative business community in this province. I believe that the development of this kind of social movement is crucial to a liveable future in this province. At the moment however, we do not have this kind of movement and pragmatically, the greatest chance we have to influence power right now is to make sure that within the institutions of power where we can have a voice, that our voice is heard. It is my view that we don’t necessarily have to believe in the NDP as an institution to view this as a strategically important opportunity to influence the politics of this province. I certainly count myself in a camp that has a lot of faith in the NDP as an institution.