Epilogue...

None of this was possible without the help and support of a few very dedicated individuals and volunteers. We put together a very effective war machine out of nothing and went after the best of them and I believe held his feet to the fire. Bob, Stew, Sylvie, and Raye – every commander needs great generals and you four proved your worth beyond four stars! Glen, Celena, Chris, Myrna, Theresa, Amiee, Randell, Mira, Ang, Al, and all the others – I am in your debt for your dedication, belief and actions you have shown me. Thank you to my Band as well for allowing me the time, grace, and support to see me work on this election. Thank you all. Without you, none of this was possible. All in all, I was amazed at the support I recieved, businesses gave, organizations rallied around me, and people I never expected to jump on board were encourgaging me. It was a very exciting time for me but in the end Warren recieved 2504 votes while I ended up with 1721 votes. A difference of 783 votes and a more than respectable finish.

So where did it all go wrong?

I didn’t go after the Indian vote like I should have. I took them for granted. That was my mistake. Sad really, I thought they’d come and support an Indian showing initiative in this so I decided to focus on consolidating my support among the other cultures, Caucasian, Asian, Middle-Eastern etc and to my credit (if I do say so myself)I was able to secure a large portion of this vote. I could get them to believe in me, but was not able to get my own peoples support. Even though I did get the support of some of my First Nation friends, I know a lot of my potential aboriginal supporters went over to Warren’s camp on Election Day simply because they believed I was nothing more than a token to the Saskparty. I know this was the perfect storm to take this seat and I don’t know if there will ever be another opportunity as good as this one was. The NDP will have another leader in place next election, a different platform, and Warren will have had four more years to show he’s not taking Elphinestone-Centre for granted. It’s an impossible seat, but I’ve still not looked at the final results to see where our strength came from and where we made in roads and even won polls (God bless the seniors). I’ve done better than anyone else has in this riding and I’m proud of that. Will there be a next time? I don’t know, but I know that when given the chance I will step up to the challenge rather than sit back and critize. And for doing that I make no apologies.

Reality Check...

I had an opportunity to sit at the table. And lost. Oh well, I threw all I could at this election and came up short with 39% of the popular vote – closer to Mr McCall than anyone has ever gotten. I will not hang my head over the outcome nor be ashamed of the party I chose to represent. As First Nations we have a lot to work for and we need to understand our rights, issues and needs are more important than one political party but rather we need to make sure our voice is heard and influencing every level of government regardless of who is in power. The NDP claim to represent us but as the last four years has demonstrated here in Saskatchewan being in opposition has very little effect on government policy. And will have even less this time. But instead of waiting for ‘our party’ to form government again we need to be in those corridors of power, sitting at the table, bringing our concerns to the forefront and raising our rights to every level of government. Not just with the political parties we feel cozy with but with every party that comes to power, otherwise we’re just playing their game of divide and conquer. Our thinking needs to be larger than the political spectrum, it needs to longer than the mandate of any elected official and it needs to be achievable for our children who will pick up the torch of progress down the road. And isn’t that what this is all for?

Perception...

In my foolishness I thought I’d be able to overcome what people thought about the Saskparty because of who I was and my reputation. I believed I could but I forgot one thing – I had an opponent fighting to save his seat. You see what I’ve learned about perception is that people will believe whatever it is they want to believe, regardless of what you believe. Changing peoples minds is a big part of politics. I was told that the Saskparty was the party of the rich, NDP of the working class, Saskparty was racist, NDP was inclusive, and Saskparty didn’t care about the poor. AND I was picked by this party to lasso the Indian vote, (as an aside I’d like to comment that I was unable to get most Indians to vote for various reasons, believe me – I tried) but I would be nothing more than a token Indian in a white party having no voice and no power. Yet we elected a man with eight of his friends to somehow oppose this government. Kind of a token opposition, but I digress. During the 9 or so months that I spent getting to know the Saskparty I was able to build a positive repertoire with many of the members, I attended every caucus retreat I was invited to, made great impressions at the convention, and gained the respect of the party brass during the election for my hard work and dedication to winning. But none of that mattered because the perception was that I was with the wrong party. I never believed that, don’t believe that, and will not believe that. It’s a party made up of people who have ideas, a party I had a chance to be a part of and I believe influence.

Why Did I Do It...

An impossible goal, little support, and nagging questions as to my own potential worth as a candidate, what did I have to gain? This is where people disagree with me, I’ve lived and worked in Elphinestone-Centre for over 15 years now and its been an area I’ve come to love. I’ve eaten at the soup kitchens when I lived in the basement of a church, wandered aimlessly downtown when I was younger, worked at various jobs in the area, got my GED in the area, did different projects with different organizations in the area, lived in the area as I got my university degree, and continue to live in the area today. You see, I believe I understand the area, the needs and situations of the people because I’ve lived them myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to bring oppressive restrictive policies that would hold people back in the area, I wanted good things in the area, I wanted positive development and I wanted to bring change to the area that would help people grow and prosper with the rest of Saskatchewan. If you really believe in change, you have to be willing to do something different. The old NDP have held on to this area now for over 60 years, and it is considered NDP holy ground, and a fortress of socialism – and yet the mean income of the area is one of the lowest in Saskatchewan, an area rift with social issues, and crime. While not all these issues can be laid at the feet of the NDP MLA’s who served the area I believed a change by someone who cared for the people of the area couldn’t be bad. A different direction by a different party would be a good change. I thought.

The Fact of the Matter was...

I knew running for the Saskparty in Elphinestone-Centre was going to be rough, I had no delusions, I expected much of my aboriginal support to leave me at the start. And I was right, but I had thought that over the course of the election I would win them back. Being politics I knew people would get nasty and call me ugly names or send me trite messages of venom spewed hate. And I was right, people got ugly as soon as I dropped my name out there and for the most part didn’t let up until after the final vote was counted and I had lost. People told me they were ashamed of me, I was racist against my own people, thought I was stupid, and any host of other things they could think of. So I deleted messages, smiled and thanked people, set myself up as a solid rock ready for anything that might crash against me. I had a goal, I had focus, and I was not going to back off. It was this mentality that I moved forward, it was this stubbornness that kept me going, it was this determination carried me through the worst criticisms. And when that eventually failed (and it did), the continued prayers and faith of my friends and family picked me up and set me back on my path. I was determined to finish what I started.

No turning back...

I talked to family, friends, and people I barely knew about the choice I had to make. Either a riding for the NDP that I had no history in and I knew would be a hard fight against an extremely popular MLA who was also the Speaker of the House, Mr Don Toth, or a riding for the Saskparty in which I had worked in for the last 10 years at various organizations and accomplishing many events, programs and had a good history with, again against a very popular sitting MLA. It was a choice I’m sure many of my critics have never found themselves in. I could either run for a party in which people would likely say, ‘oh Bill’s running for the NDP! Good for him, I hope he does well!’ and know I was going to lose or ‘oh Bill’s running for the Saskparty! What a sell out! I wonder how much money they promised him, I can’t believe he’s running for the oppressors! What’s wrong with him?’ and maybe have a hope of winning. It was a riding I had worked in, a people I knew and loved, ian area I felt I could be a good representative. Now, Elphinestone-Centre has always been an NDP stronghold having never elected any other party to serve. After much consideration, advice, and prayer I made my choice.

A New Choice...

Warren McCall is a great man, works hard and is dedicated to serve – a fitting NDP’er. And I can only guess the phone call I gave him to inform him of my musing of running for the Saskparty in his riding made him wonder why I would even consider such an idea – he did wish me luck, not enough apparently... But anyway, word got up the chain of command somehow and I got a message from Chad B who was running for the NDP up in Yorkton that he and Mr Dwain Ligenfelter wanted to meet with me. True to their word they showed up at my office one Friday afternoon and we sat down and discussed the possibility of me running for them instead. In the riding of Moosmin. To their credit they made it sound glorious, I’d have all the volunteers I’d ever need, money would come from the central campaign and I would not have to put in one red cent or have one fundraiser for this, and all the Indians in all the world would vote for me and I’d ride a wave into the NDP ranks – even if by chance I did lose I would be “considered a god” because I let my name stand in an actual election. Sounded pretty impressive. Good thing Chad had let me know which riding they were thinking of letting me run in and I did some research on it. It was an extremely conservative seat in an area that the Saskparty held strength. One thing Link did say though was after the election if I ran for them and somehow lost, I could be given a seat at Warren’s Executive Council and maybe run in Elphinestone-Centre in 2015.
I had a choice to make.

Deeper thoughts...

The Saskatchewan Party is associated with conservatism in many First Nations circles and as such, not to be trusted. If you’re First Nations and want to get involved with provincial politics, the easy road is to join the New Democratic Party, the belief seems to be that they are our party. Indeed, the Saskparty doesn’t inspire the warm and fuzzies among First Nations people, limiting the amount of smokes we can buy on reserve, cutting off funding to the FNUniv, not sharing the resources of this province with us, and all that jazz... Rather, they chose to meet with the Chief’s of many First Nations and ask what would you like, opened up more dialogue with FSIN and reached an MOU on working together to improve First Nations educational, and even attend what FSIN called a ‘Bear Pit Session’ to further discuss the concerns of the Chief’s were. Many would argue this was simply an election year ploy and many would agree with that, I had to consider that just maybe they were looking to engage with us and wanted a better relationship. I could help with that. Being a voice in a caucus that previously had no voice from us could prove to be advantageous and given my education and work history I felt I had a lot to offer from our point of view. But how effective could I be as just one voice? Tokenism... or effective activism?

Watering the Seeds...

Over the next couple weeks I had a few things on the go, my job, doing a masters class, I had a play I wrote that perked someone’s ear in Toronto and they wanted to fly me out to take a playwriting workshop. My life was on the go. But somehow I got to call the number Glen left me and set up a date to meet with some SaskParty official who was going to introduce me to the political process of getting involved and give me some more information about the party itself. When we finally did meet I looked for the tell tale signs of an evil party, horns on his head, a request for a goblet of my blood he could share with his colleagues or a manual on how to properly sacrifice a small animal on an alter... Nothing like that at all showed itself. Al was actually a very nice man who made sure I knew what I was getting into and was happy to answer all my questions. We chatted for two hours about the party, the platform, the history, who I was and how all this came together for a possible candidate. The platform as I came to know it was something I could be comfortable with and the ideals... I could embrace. Smaller government meant less intrusion into my life, a business oriented economy meant more opportunity to be employed, a social safety net that encouraged people to be independent was great I thought. I could work with this, I wanted to see change in North Central and the same old ideas of the ever present NDP in the area were not doing it. Something needed to change... but could I do it?