POLITICS HAS ITS OWN FRINGE FESTIVAL

Worried that you won't be given enough choice on the next provincial
election ballot?

Don't be. No fewer than eight registered political parties submitted
returns for 2006, according to Elections Saskatchewan.

They included: Green Party of Saskatchewan; New Democratic Party,
Sask. Section; Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan;
Saskatchewan Heritage Party; Saskatchewan Liberal Association;
Saskatchewan Marijuana Party; Saskatchewan Party, and; Western
Independence Party of Saskatchewan (WIP).

So why are we seeing a rise in fringe parties, spanning the political
spectrum from the far left to the far right? Does it make any sense,
given that Saskatchewan politics seems to be a two-horse race, with
the one horse -- the Saskatchewan Party -- enjoying about a 25-length
lead over the NDP?

The above thoughts cross one's mind because of how vocal some of the
fringe parties have become this summer.

First, there was the case of Wawota student Kieran King, who was
suspended for leaving his small town school and organizing a protest
after being disciplined for sharing his views on the potential use of
marijuana. Those who didn't know that even Saskatchewan had its own
wing of the national Marijuana Party may have been surprised how
capable a single-issue party is of glomming on to what quickly became
a national issue of free speech.

And yesterday we saw the release of the platform of the Western
Independence Party of Saskatchewan -- a party dedicated to the
establishment of an independent western Canadian nation consisting of
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and the Territories.

University of Regina political science professor Ken Rasmussen said
fringe parties have existed throughout Saskatchewan's history and
notes that's how the CCF started. And it's even more common to see
such protest parties emerge when there appears to be a groundswell of
support to kick out an established party.

This is the similarity that the WIP likely shares with the Marijuana
Party or even the Green Party, Rasmussen said. All represent a
comparatively small protest voice of those who feel disenfranchised.
All feel they might be able to emulate the Saskatchewan Party's
success from non-existence to the cusp of power in a few short years.

But while the Marijuana Party or the Green Party have been
single-issue parties, the WIP is a classic mix of right-wing populism
of the separatist reform movement mixed with a bit of libertarianism
and rural boosterism that speaks directly to a specific region of the
province, Rasmussen said.

Noting the formation of the separatist Western Canada Concept Party
in 1970s, Rasmussen said it's also no small coincidence that such
movements tend to "rise with oil prices".

Certainly, with consecutive federal Liberal and now Conservative
governments failing to take seriously historical grievances on
natural resources ownership issues -- this time, in Stephen Harper's
failure to abide by his promise to remove non-renewable resources
from the equalization formula -- small factions in the West begin to
question the benefits of confederation.

But Rasmussen also noted that -- like in the early 1980s when Grant
Devine's right-wing Progressive Conservatives were on the rise --
rural Saskatchewan fears becoming even more isolated as the
Saskatchewan Party begins to moderate to appeal to more
liberal/centre urban voters.

This is evident in the WIP platform, released Tuesday to every weekly
and daily newspaper in the province. The platform stresses
traditional right-wing democratic reform and economic concepts like
referendum votes that would override provincial laws, recall
legislation for MLAs (based on 35 per cent of all constituents
signing a petition), fixed election dates, legislated balanced
budgets, a single income tax rate, abolition of all employment equity
and affirmative action programs for all government departments and
development of nuclear power to address global warming.

But it also hammers away at more localized issues like the
privatization of Saskatchewan liquor stores (but not major Crown
corporations like SaskTel, SaskEnergy, SaskPower, and SGI), education
tax reform (eliminating the tax on all farmland except for the home
quarter) and repeal of the Liquor Consumption Tax (that's an
"unacceptable burden for struggling hotels, especially in small town
Saskatchewan").

In short, it's an appeal to the disenfranchised who see now -- a time
of potential political change -- as the right time to make a
political statement.

- - Mandryk is the political columnist for the Leader-Post.