Brad Wall
If there was any doubt about the editorial position of the Regina Leader-Post with respect to Western-based opposition to the federal government, it was laid to rest last month. The July 6 column by the paper’s political columnist, Murray Mandryk, attempted to take former premier, Brad Wall, to the woodshed for doing what most of us would expect from a friend and good neighbor. Wall committed the sin of providing sage advice to someone he knows from his home town who dared to participate in the truckers’ convoy.
Mandryk claimed Wall had tarnished his legacy by encouraging the truckers’ convoy organizer, Chris Barber, to avoid the assorted loonies who are frequently attracted to exciting public events.
A more likely outcome is that Wall’s legacy will remain intact, it is Mandryk and the paper he works for who risk losing the respect of Saskatchewan residents.
Mandryk’s July 6 column reads like a combination of anti-convoy talking points sent out by the Prime Minister’s Office and an exercise in guilt by association. Mandryk recites a list of largely unfounded, hyperbolic accusations about the nefarious activities of supposed convoy participants. He follows that up by attacking Wall for advising organizers to avoid engaging in those same sorts of activities. According to that logic, Wall would have been less culpable had he stood by and said nothing as opposed to providing sensible advice about avoiding the sorts of excesses that have Mandryk incensed.
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Mandryk might have more reasonably gone after the prime minister for not meeting with the protesters, listening to their grievances and offering cautions similar to those provided by Wall.
Somewhat surprising, is the change in tone and style that Mandryk’s polemic against Wall represents. For decades now Mandryk’s efforts to critique politicians have been rather mild mannered. If someone is going to be criticized in a Mandryk piece, the critique follows a column of copy in which he extols the virtues of the people he is about to criticize. Perhaps the Leader-Post has recently made a decision about the sorts of readers it wishes to appeal to, and it doesn’t include alienated westerners strongly opposed to the Central Canadian agenda.
One might be so bold as to make a couple of predictions. The readership of the Leader-Post will continue to shrink. And, in the absence of the subsidies provided by the Trudeau government to conventional print media outlets more of them will close. Long after mainstream dailies like the Leader-Post have disappeared, I expect Brad Wall will still be enjoying his well-deserved status as Saskatchewan‘s most popular premier. He’ll be fending off efforts to make him prime minister years after the Leader-Post has lined its last bird cage.
Jim Warren is an adjunct professor and lecturer in environmental sociology at the University of Regina. Former Premier Brad Wall, has, from time to time, contributed op-ed pieces to Pipeline Online.
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