Mandryk: Moe trapped with conspiracists in maze of his own making

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What seemed obvious Tuesday morning is that Premier Scott Moe felt less comfortable speaking in a room littered with reporters than one filled with internet conspiracists.

One gets it.

Those of us who have ever been stuck in a room full of reporters may have felt a little sympathy for the Saskatchewan premier.

But that still doesn’t explain Moe’s presence at an April meeting in Speers filled with far-flung notions and people eager to impose them on any politician willing to listen to them.

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Contrary to his original nonsense explanation that he was invited by Speers’s mayor, this wasn’t just a meeting of local concerns. As even Moe acknowledged, not all were local and organizers had held similar events with representatives of the Buffalo Party and the Saskatchewan United Party, who are now running a candidate against him in his Rosthern-Shellbrook riding.

Moe — usually rather accommodating to the fourth estate, staying in scrums until the last question has been answered — seemed reluctant to chat on Tuesday.

Had it not been for the insistent CBC national crew from the weekly political radio program The House, one wonders whether he would have stopped at all.

“I actually don’t believe in chemtrails,” Moe eventually told reporters as he tried to explain why he told one person he would look into concerns that governments have been complicit in allowing jets to dump chemicals on the masses.

Of course, he doesn’t believe in such conspiracies. But that just begs the question: Why didn’t he say so at the time? What does he now tell those same people after he rightly characterized their bunk as bunk?

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And, again, why was he there in the first place?

The problem may be the role Moe has had in creating the maze that’s popped up in the middle of the Saskatchewan Party’s big tent.

The success of Moe and former premier Brad Wall before him involved the creation of one big, open-area tent where any and all to the right of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Saskatchewan NDP were welcome.

It has truly been a great venue for political tales like the one Moe spun at the Premier’s Canada Farm Show Breakfast of population growth accomplished through trade, export and sustainable farming practices through improved technology.

Unfortunately, even some conservatives have grown weary of hearing such stories over and over again. Any compelling yarn requires an element of conflict (real or imaginary) in order for the story to remain politically impactful.

So the re-telling of this hero’s journey has now been spiced with ample claims (again, real or imaginary) of other governments and outside forces now threatening our existence. Some are far-fetched, but people do need a compelling reason to vote.

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As the chronicles have grown louder and more fanciful in that big, conservative Sask. Party tent, some orators shriek fire and brimstone of lost freedoms stripped from us by government and others. You can do that because few are ever turned away from his raucous tent.

And in the middle of the Sask. Party big tent have sprung up walls forming a disorienting labyrinth. Into this maze, Moe sashayed.

Maybe he doesn’t believe the conspiracists, but he isn’t picky when it comes to whom he courts.

Remember the night of the 2020 election when he told Buffalo Party voters — some supporting Saskatchewan sovereignty — that he heard them? Remember his lack of regret in meeting with anti-vaxxers during COVID-19, even as doctors begged to meet with him to extend prevention measures?

Remember his tacit support of Freedom Convoy blockades and occupation of downtown Ottawa? The “economic sovereignty” meetings? The unnecessariness of Bill 137 after letters from “voters” threatening to flip their votes in the Lumsden-Morse byelection?

And we are to now believe he just “accidentally” stumbled into a meeting of conspiracists of whom he had no prior knowledge?

Moe followed the chemtrails into a maze he helped construct. Now, he is struggling to find his way out.

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

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