REGINA – Premier Scott Moe is calling for the NDP to remove its campaign director over a fundraising email that circulated this weekend.
The email was from Jeremy Nolais, the recently appointed Campaign Director for the NDP, and sent to party supporters. The most eyebrow-raising portion of the email saw remarks directed at four Sask Party MLAs in particular.
“The Sask. Party thinks they’re entitled to govern this province forever. They ooze arrogance and smugness,” the email stated. “Just take a moment and think of the faces of all the ones you hate so much.”
The email then names the names: “Scott Moe. Tim McLeod. Jeremy Harrison. Jeremy Cockrill.”
“And now take another second and imagine their faces when we beat them.”
The “hate” reference outraged Moe, who stood up and gave a members’ statement in the Assembly condemning the comment. His remarks are recorded in Hansard.
“‘The ones you hate so much,’ Mr. Speaker. That’s the Opposition Leader’s chief of staff in a fundraising email, telling the people in Saskatchewan communities, think of that young father’s face; think of this husband and young father’s face, Mr. Speaker; think of this father’s face and hate them.
“Mr. Speaker, this is sick. And in today’s political climate, promoting this kind of hatred is not only careless, Mr. Speaker, but it is dangerous. The leader of the NDP opposition’s chief of staff was just appointed campaign director late last week, and his first order of business was to elevate hate against fathers and husbands and individuals who are serving this province.
“The Leader of the Opposition, I would say, today has a choice to make: she can endorse this hate or she can say that it is wrong, it is sick, and it is unacceptable. And fire that individual for promoting hate in this province of Saskatchewan.”
Moe repeated his call for the NDP to remove the campaign director a few times in the Assembly, but instead of apologizing or pledging to take action, Beck doubled down.
“How very precious of the Premier to clutch his pearls and talk about hate, when he knows what he did in the last election,” said Beck.
“If he wants to debate that, I’ll be happy to stand beside him and debate it in that rotunda today, Mr. Speaker.”
When Beck spoke to the media after Question Period it became obvious that her “election” reference to what Moe “did in the last election” was in connection to the controversy surrounding Moe’s pledge that his “first order of business” would be to implement a policy to restrict change rooms to biological boys and biological girls, respectively.
“I will take absolutely no lessons from the Premier who put a target on the back of a couple of elementary school kids because he thought he was going to lose an election,” Beck said to reporters.
Beck added the emotion she was hearing from people was “very real.”
“Whether you use the word hate, you hear a lot of concern, a lot of frustration, a lot of fear from people right now who really are struggling.”
In speaking to reporters, Moe repeated his concerns, saying they are elected as members of the Assembly to “debate, not hate.”
He said what they were seeing here was hateful comments directed at individuals, as opposed to debatable policy.
“Today we live in a very charged political environment around the world,” said Moe, and that was “why I was so deeply disturbed by an email a fundraising email no less by the opposition, where they explicitly did not debate in any way any type of policy. They actually called on others to look at the faces that they hate, and then named off four members of the government, myself included. This is not where we are in Saskatchewan. This is entirely uncalled for, and I would say should be disturbing to Saskatchewan people.”
Moe called it “a new low for politics in this province, absolutely.” He made clear he wanted nothing short of removal, saying the individual had “no place” in the politics of the province.
He said he hopes there is action taken, so that these comments are “not the new norm of bringing American style comments into the province of Saskatchewan.”
As for what he expects from NDP leader Beck, Moe said Beck had a responsibility to the people of Saskatchewan to use her best judgement. “We’ll see what that judgement is.”
