This is unusual. There’s a federal general election in the fall and the parties are busy nominating their candidates.
Yesterday, a sitting Cabinet minister from Saskatchewan, Lynn Yelich, was defeated in her bid to be re-nominated. She lost to a relative unknown, a sportscaster from Saskatoon who only announced for the nomination a month ago.
Yelich has been in Parliament for 16 years.
There must be something going on in the local party for that to happen.
Interesting. Did Waugh out-organize and schmooze the party faithful better than her? Was she seen as arrogant or out of touch?
I used to live in Yelich’s riding. She’s fairly well regarded, though not particularly prominent. She’s held minor ministerial posts of late, but never any of the big portfolios.
Waugh has been doing the sports at local stations since I can remember so has good name recognition, but why local Tory members would prefer him as an MP to the incumbent is a mystery to me.
I haven’t lived in Saskatoon for 20 years and I still know who Kevin Waugh is. I’ve never heard of Lynn Yelich before.
Well given that he’s a sportscaster, he presumably has a loud, clear voice which can be used to shout over the opposition during Question Period.
Saskatoon-Grasswood is a newly created riding. She was the incumbent of Blackstrap which was a rural-urban blend. The urban part turned into Saskatoon-Grasswood and the rural part was combined into Moose Jaw–Lake Centre–Lanigan. Perhaps she was more popular with the rural party members.
One month isn’t much time to organize and schmooze, so I’m a bit puzzled.
They’re saying that, but Saskatoon-Grasswood isn’t really very much changed from the old Blackstrap riding. It’s still basically the east side south of 8th and the developments south and east of town. They lopped off the actual rural chunks (leaving the portion of Corman Park east of the river, which is mostly comprised of small acreages with stupidly expensive houses these days) and added two small neighbourhoods in the city. I’d predict it’s still a safe Tory seat, unlike the other two new Saskatoon ridings.
That Globe and Mail article says that the rural part was attached to Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan. That’s a big rural riding if it stretched from Moose Jaw to the edge of Saskatoon. The re-distribution must have caused some headaches for the incumbent Tory MPs.
Gorsnak help a non-Toon-towner out: was Waugh well-known as a community person before this, or just as a sportscaster. I’d never heard of him, but maybe that’s just my Pile-o-Bones parochialness?
I wonder if Yelich assumed she had it in the bag and didn’t do much organising herself?
I only know him as a sportscaster, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he hasn’t been active in the community in ways that would make him attractive as a candidate. I don’t really move in those sorts of circles. He’s been doing sports at CFQC since I was a kid in the 70’s.
Yelich is from Kenaston, which is in the rural portion of Blackstrap that got cut out, but I understand she has a residence in the city and anyways that vast majority of the voters in Saskatoon-Grasswoods were also in Blackstrap.
And another sitting MP is denied re-nomination, by two different parties!
Backstory is that a Tory MP, Eve Adams, ran into troubles seeking re-nomination by the local riding earlier this year, in part because her significant other, a paid employee of the party at the national level, appeared to be providing her assistance, which is a no-no for the staff of the party. She ended up withdrawing her nomination last February, and her fiancé, Soudas, lost his job with the party.
As one commentator described it:
So, she crossed the floor, and joined the Liberals. Justin Trudeau had a big press conference to welcome her to the Liberals.
Except the local riding association apparently didn’t get the memo about what a great catch she was for the Liberals. Yesterday, they rejected her as their candidate and nominated someone else, by a vote of 1,330 to 790:
This one is a bit more understandable than the Yelich one.
Eve Adams crashes, grassroots repudiate Trudeau choice: Tim Harper
I have always felt that Junior Ministers make perfect targets, in government so a focus for ire, not so important that the party cannot afford to dump em.