Murray Mandryk: Brier boos may be a sign of Moe’s growing unpopularity

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It might have come as shock to Premier Scott Moe to hear boos from curling fans Sunday night at the Brier final in Regina.

Sure, politicians aren’t always warmly received at sporting events. And maybe the booing wasn’t quite as overwhelming as some made it out to be.

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Also, this was all happening in Regina where Moe’s Saskatchewan Party is facing the possibility of losing most every seat in the October vote.

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That said, these are all curling fans at the Brier final — a demographic that tends to be older, more rural or from elsewhere in the country and, most significantly, exceedingly polite, courteous and genteel. (Especially, when not in the Brier Patch.)

Heck, the Brier final was Saskatchewan versus Canada … pretty much like it is every day at the provincial legislature. Isn’t everyone supposedly enamoured with how the Saskatchewan premier takes on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau almost every day?

So the boos probably came as a surprise to Moe and his handlers, who obviously wouldn’t be pleased with him being booed on national television.

As for the rest of us? Well, we might actually have a better grasp of what might be making Moe’s government less popular these days: It keeps doing and saying unpopular things and It ignores critics that point that out and browbeats anyone even mildly critical or questioning.

Why those in government may now be oblivious to what everyone else sees as obvious is, oxymoronically, complicatedly simple.

Over time, a government tends to further insulate itself from the growing unwanted noise by instead listening to those whose livelihoods depend on doing whatever the powers that be tell them to do.

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Or it becomes interested in only listening to those who lavish government with praise — a commodity that tends to dwindle in supply as the years go by.

Soon, it convinces itself that anyone critical is somehow illegitimate — something that further convinces those in government that its decision-making is infallible and that anyone raising legitimate questions about government policy has a political agenda.

Thus, governments begin to crave compliance and are not above threatening or bullying to get it. This may be the problem in the government’s relationship with the Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA).

Admittedly, this relationship is a bit more complicated in that the SSBA is (or at least should be) partners with government in negotiations with the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation.

As such, it’s perfectly logical that the SSBA would not want authority for funding classroom composition and complexity to be transferred from elected representatives. But what’s going on here doesn’t seem to have the markings of true partnership.

The government announced Friday a four-year deal to address classroom size and complexity issues that includes a $356.6-million floor for funding for the 2024-25 fiscal year until 2027-28. It’s also a $45.6-million increase from last year’s budget.

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This all sounds great, but there are questions about the details and how his deal came together. According to federation president Samantha Becotte, SSBA trustees “were only provided 24 hours to consider whether they would endorse the agreement or not.”

Moreover, we also know this deal may be amended with the agreement of Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill, Mental Health and Addictions Minister Tim McLeod and Jaimie Smith-Windsor, president of the SSBA, which is reliant on government for its funding.

That sounds less like a partnership and more like a dictate from a government that’s grown far too accustomed to dictating terms — even to its supposed partners.

“This is a backroom deal,” said Regina School Board trustee Ted Jaleta. “We didn’t have any consultation … This is bull—-.”

Yes, Jaleta is a former NDP candidate, but that only underscores that most non-partisans have been bullied into silence, as seems the case with the SSBA trustees.

But this is also how a government becomes oblivious to the growing resentment its approach has created … until it begins to hear some boos about it from some rather unexpected places.

Murray Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and t he Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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