Quoted in its entirety as this is the category of blog post that sometimes goes *poof*…
I happened to be passing through the lobby during the last morning of the NDP convention today when I came upon Dwain Lingenfelter threatening to have a party member charged with assault while the member was being physically restrained by two other people.
I didn’t see the start of the incident but from what I was able to glean, it sounds like the member had bumped into Link with his shoulder, possibly after having an exchange relating to this story where Link appeared to be contradicting the will of the party’s membership almost immediately after winning the leadership.
I don’t know if Lingenfelter feels that he’s begun reaching out to the supporters of other campaigns as he promised to do in his acceptance speech. But obviously, they’ve begun reaching out to him!
(Bad joke, I know. But I share the frustration of many in that it appears that Mr. Lingenfelter’s words are empty – both in terms of how he intends to be a leader of all NDP members and also in how swiftly he appears to be ignoring the will of the majority of the delegates at convention who voted for a strongly worded anti-nuke resolution.)
Dawhine has been away from Saskatchewan politics for awhile so it might have escaped his notice that there has been a fundamental shift in how the Saskatchewan electorate sees the future of this province. The Wall government is enjoying a high approval rating and with good reason.
Today’s voter in this province is in no mood to go back to the days of worn out ideas, fear mongering, mediscare, high taxes, fed bashing, policies meant to stiffle growth of our population and on and on.
Lingenfelter is a huge step backward for the NDP and there are a significant number of members who attended this convention who know it to be the case. Had the voting not provided for second and third choice voting Ol’ Link just might have lost this one.
Lingenfelter gets one chance and one chance only to form the government in the next provincial election. I am pleased to say that I don’t like his chances.
Link= Pink= Dink= Oink= Fink= Wink= Sunk );
Snagglepuss! Greetings – Salutations – Hello even.
bob: I know a bob, but he’s a little different (;
I had the privelege of having a job selling sophisticated medical and surgical devices in Saskatchewan in 1965 through to 1968. I called it the Zombie territory then. I was also responsible back then for Manitoba down to the Lakehead in Ontario. The despair in the Saskatchewan market was palpable. I came later to have national responsibilities. During the intervening years there seemed to be no improvement in Saskatchewan other than the fact that Manitoba seemed to have no health care system at all for a while. Meanwhile we in the suppliers circles marvelled at how Alberta overspent.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan lost quality personel,quality of care and prospective quality candidates for posts in the system, notwithstanding a very few noteworthies.
One can contrast the Maritimes as budget restrained but seemed to offer quality care through many dispersed communities. They of course did not tend to vote NDP often.
The NDP in Ontario set them back a great deal. Strangely the people blame Progressive Conservative Mike Harris for reducing hospital beds even though it was a process begun by the NDP.
The answer is funding based on patient outcomes and funding hospitals according to patient throughput.
bob: over my head until I re-read while phonetically in-chararacter. Been so long, haven’t seen Quick Draw or Baba Looey for quite some time, but I did hear that Ranger Smith, in spite of Huckleberry Hound’s protestations had to put little BooBoo down; something about picnic baskets, as I recall.
Hey Hoarfrost, the NDP in the Nova Scotia election are promising a doctor for every patient in addition to a chicken in every pot. Something tells me that we are paying dearly for St Jean of Crouton’s cutting med student enrollment back in the ’90s to “balance” his budget, provinces be damned. I can still remember when health care was a 50/50 fed/prov deal. Heaven help the US as they leap into socialized health care head first.
The scary part is not Mr. Lingenfelter himself (although he is quite the piece of work), but rather, all of the people who ‘supported him’ A well-known lawyer, for instance, in Regina, who bullied farmers during the lawsuits for SPUDCO. A corrupt former SaskPower executive. Etc., etc. Exactly the people that we elected a SaskParty government to get rid of.
You right wingers;never satisfied. Link embarrassed Debbie the Dipper and what’s left of the left wing of the party. He will help Brad bring in nuclear power, he is pals with the oil cartels and I am sure he can be convinced to let the coal people have a few more decades to get on the emission band wagon. He will do all the heavy lifting to rid Saskatchewan of labour lackeys and the few remaining dyed in the wool socialists and all he asks is that he gets to get a chance, albeit a slight one, to be the premier when he is 67 or 71. Be nice. Relax whether he knows it or not, the Linkanator is OUR side.
The NDP has always been two–faced about the uranium industry. Their position on the question of nuclear power plants is no different.
Yes,thats right,Link wants to be from the govt so he can help us peons as we are not capeable of looking after ourselves.He has to do it soon before we realize that we can look after ourselves in spite of what the NDP has told us for the last 65 years.
lol – I think the saskparty should run attack ads Sideshow Bob-style when he was running for mayor of Springfield. “Dwain Lingenfelter is even in favour of nuclear power”.
Snagglepuss – as I recall Ranger Smith had to do, not with Huck Hound, but with Yogi – smarter than the average bear. (poor Booboo)
As bad as Lingenfelter is, he still appears to be a far better deal than any of his opponents. What a gong show! In the extremely unlikely event that the NDP form government in the near future, can you imagine Deb Higgins as premier? That would be a disaster of apocalyptic proportions.