RiversdaleReporter.ca

Welcome, friends, explorers, and weary internet travelers! This is the unofficial local newspaper for Riversdale an upcoming area of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

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The too small hall was packed with more than 300 voting delegates, at least forty of whom had to stand at the back of the hall for the duration of the nominating convention. There is nothing like a well planned nomination meeting to inspire confidence in a political party's ability to govern a province.

Contesting the nomination were three candidates, Betty Nippi-Albright, Naveed Anjum and Senos Timon. Senos is an immigrant from South Sudan who talked about Canada giving him a second chance after civil war broke out in his homeland, and about the need to improve the conditions of people in the constituency. Anjum identified economic growth as the most important issue, with a need for fairness in the sharing of the fruits of the economy among the diverse people of the province being his motivation for seeking the nomination. He was clearly the Bernie Sanders candidate.

Nippi-Albright claims to the nomination included being the self-proclaimed "best candidate" , being sober for more than 30 years, having served on a slew of boards and committees including the YWCA and Saskatoon Sexual Assault Center, having a Masters Degree in Political Studies and an Honours Degree in Aboriginal Public Administration, having used the food bank, being "stalked" for two years, having been a teen mom, being married and having 7 grand children, and being of Cree, Saulteaux and Metis ancestry. She seems to have considerable experience sucking on the taxpayer teet and was recently appointed as the City of Saskatoon's Truth and Reconciliation Coordinator, a position advertised as paying between $87,000 and $102,000 per annum.. She was clearly the Hilary Clinton identity politics candidate.

As the first ballots were counted, Party Leader Ryan Meili delivered a mostly uninspiring speech where he noted the NDP had a nomination meeting the previous week with a similar strong attendance, reiterated the NDP's promise of a $15 minimum wage, said an NDP government would have concern for the environment, and castigated the Sask Party for the economic doldrums Saskatchewan is in.

Neither Meili or any of the NDP candidates placed any blame on the Federal government and its agricultural and oil and gas policies, its regressive carbon tax, or the horrible abomination that is euphemistically called "Canada's Equalization Formula" but really operates as a Quebec and Ontario at-the-expense-of-the-western-provinces subsidization scheme which disrupts the inter-provincial migration patterns that would naturally flow to the benefit of this province and Alberta if the scheme did not exist. Nor did Meili talk about the horrors and hardships that Federal governments have inflicted on Canada's First Peoples in western Canada or its immigrant settler farmers.

Despite having the best speech, and the only speech recognizing the primacy of economic issues to the future of Saskatchewan and its inhabitants in the constituency, when the ballots were counted Naveed Anjum was running second with 102. Nippi-Albright was first with 134 or something similar. Senos Timon was third at 60. 5 ballots were spoiled.

For reasons known only to Timon, when given his chance to speak after being dropped off the ballot, he decided to encourage his supporters to vote for Nippi-Albright. While some of them looked very disappointed in the turn of events, most of them followed his advice.

This time, after the final ballot giving identify politics candidate Nipppi-Albright the victory, there were six spoiled ballots.