Mandryk: Moe faces the age-old problem of an aging government

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Governments are usually only good at a few things, anyway. And as they age, they seldom get better at the things they’ve never been good at.

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Most of us get better with age and experience … or so we convince ourselves.

Generally, though, it’s how things work in the real world. You gain more experience and knowledge toiling at the same trade, craft or profession. You get better at it.

But how things work in the real world can be far removed from how things work in politics and governance — which, in fairness, tends to be more complex and diverse than what most of us do.

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This helps explain the old true truism that aging governments  — like this Saskatchewan Party administration  — aren’t particularly inclined to get better.

Such thoughts come to mind after Premier Scott Moe’s year-end interview, in which he made the presumably well-intended observation that the 2024 election results told his Saskatchewan Party government it needs to improve in some areas.

Two messages were sent on election night. One is that “we were elected for a fifth term,” Moe told the Leader-Post’s Alec Salloum. “And two is … we need to alter … some of the course that we have and focus more specifically on what, you know, matters to Saskatchewan people.”

This is why the first order of business for the Sask. Party government in the fall sitting was, according to Moe, to “deliver on our platform, and we did that through introducing the Saskatchewan Affordability Act as well as the carbon tax fairness.”

The problem is that this is just refocussing on what this government already does. And it’s not exactly a great New Year’s resolution, to tackle what you really need to improve upon — in this case, the delivery of health care and education and addressing increasingly complex social issues.

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Admittedly, what Moe is offering is considerably better than what we saw during the October election campaign — the politicalization of delicate social issues by declaring halfway through the campaign that monitoring change rooms in schools was the No. 1 priority.

One thing governments do get better at is politics. As Moe said in his year-end interview, “Did people vote for a certain party or against a certain party on some statements that were made during the campaign? Sure. Probably both ways.”

Such political cynicism is another reasons aging governments don’t get better. Their focus is on winning, rather than solving issues.

But there is another factor in play: Governments are usually only good at a few things, anyway. And as they age, they seldom get better at the things they’ve never been good at.

To better understand, let’s go back to the previous NDP government of Roy Romanow, which was very good at balancing the books, but very bad at other things … like creating economic growth.

After balancing the books because the previous Progressive Conservative government seemed the exception to the rule in that it was bad at most everything, the NDP’s age-old problem of not being able to grow the population or the economy was exposed.

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It invested badly in failed dot-com and agricultural white elephants, like Spudco and the Broe deal. That it all aged poorly was hardly surprising. After 16 years, the  government caucus had virtually no one with a business background. It didn’t even have an active farmer to serve as agriculture minister. (Really, it was the mirror image of today’s Sask. Party caucus.)

Along comes Brad Wall with plenty of agricultural and business experience, and an economic boom that afforded it the fun opportunity of addressing economic matters that the NDP did not have the wherewithal to address.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t blessed with many people who were familiar with the complex delivery of health and education administration.

So by the time Moe inherited government, the fun stuff was done. What’s left are problems the Sask. Party hasn’t been good at solving. Worse, after one term he has lost his most savvy, experienced cabinet minsters from more diverse backgrounds.

That’s another reason governments seldom age well.

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

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