Self-sabotage
No, Carla Beck shouldn’t step down as Sask NDP leader
An MLA has left the SK NDP caucus. The party is stalling in the polls (or is it?, depends which ones you trust). Conflict with the federal NDP (whose new leader, Avi Lewis, just had a successful visit to Saskatchewan) is creating division among the membership. A petition has members calling for the leader to step down. Surely it’s time for the leader to leave?
Nope.
One of the simplest things for a party to do when it’s in trouble is to dump the person on the billboards. That person, elected by the members, is the most visible representation of a party’s success or lack thereof. This includes things they have little or no control of: internal party processes, the actions of individual MLAs etc. That said, in our legislative system, the leader has a great deal of power and a great deal of influence on the party’s fortunes.
So when a leader isn’t operating in the way you’d like, ideologically or electorally, why not ditch them at the first sign of trouble? Well, first off, a party is not a Kleenex box. There’s no guarantee of someone sitting in the wings who will be immediately able to step into the role
.
One of the biggest assets for a leader is familiarity. This is especially true in a place like Saskatchewan, where personal connections mean so much, and in a media environment where it’s harder than ever to reach a general audience. Elections are million-dollar investments in developing name recognition and trust. Putting up a newly-named nobody against a well-known incumbent is a huge risk.
For anyone reading this newsletter that doesn’t know, I used to have Carla’s job: leader of the Sask NDP and Her Majesty’s (it was still Liz II at the time) Loyal Opposition. And I left after one election. This means I have both some insight and some bias on this question.
In my 2023 book, A Healthy Future, the penultimate chapter was about leaving politics and about the general experience of burnout post-COVID. In that chapter I wrote, somewhat cryptically, that “The drama within the party had grown increasingly toxic and taxing.” That obviously wasn’t the whole story. This won’t be either; I’m not here to spill tea or settle scores, but I can say there was a lot of unhelpful division led by people who thought a change in leadership was all the party needed.
It’s not the whole story, but it was part of why I stepped down. I have very intentionally avoided commenting on NDP internal politics ever since. I have my views on different choices made by the party since then, some supportive, some critical, but I never wanted to be the leader who left and knocked their successor from the sidelines. For the good of Saskatchewan, I want my former colleagues and the new members to do well. I do, however, want to speak against the kind of infighting and self-sabotage that made my job much harder than it needed to be.
But wait, Ryan, aren’t you the example of why a party should change leaders? Didn’t they do a lot better after you left. Yep, they sure did. A gain of fourteen seats, a big rise in the popular vote. But was it because I left? Maybe if I stayed, we would have won government. Or maybe we would have done even worse. That we’ll never know, we can’t run the A-B test. My point is not to litigate what happened during or after my time in politics, but to caution against leadership change as a knee-jerk reaction.
That’s not to say changing leaders is never a good idea. Clearly, there are cases where changing leaders is exactly the right move. The federal Liberals offer us two recent examples: Justin Trudeau on the way in and on the way out. A new face brought a tired party that had been cycling leaders and losing ground back into relevance. Then, when the Canadian public had tired of Trudeau, the last-minute replacement with Mark Carney snatched victory from the jaws of what appeared to be certain defeat. These counterexamples overshadow the majority, according to a study of the history of provincial politics in Canada, of cases in which the opposite occurs: new leaders get a brief polling bump and then go on to do worse in the subsequent election. They also underscore the key point: the leader will change eventually, but in politics as in comedy, timing is everything. Removing a leader who has worn out their welcome or failed to launch can be the right move. Ditching one who has had a good showing and only one shot at an election is premature and self-defeating.
So, to those who want to fire Carla Beck, I say hold your horses. She performed well in the last election, has done a good job of keeping a new, expanded caucus on target, and is well-liked by Saskatchewan people. She deserves to contest a second election. You may have legitimate reasons to want a different approach, but a) it’s not going to work, and b) if it did, it wouldn’t help. An online removal petition that has gathered a paltry 240 signatures (from whom? There’s nothing to stop Scott Moe himself from signing) is not a sign of resounding support for your position. And whatever your criticism of the leader may be, it is far too early in her tenure to give up and replace her with an as-yet unknown quantity.
My advice is this. If you’re not satisfied with your party, whatever party that is, work to make it better. Sure, send a message at convention if you’re not happy. Maybe leaders shouldn’t get the expected Kim Jong-Il levels of support that make leadership reviews ridiculous. Remind the caucus that the membership matters; the divide between the actions of the elected members and the views of their supporters is a perennial problem in what is meant to be a democratic movement. Bridge that divide by getting closer. Build up your party by working within it, and by reaching outward to create demand in your community for the changes you want to see. This is the much harder groundwork – firing a leader is the easier way to feel like you’re changing something – but it’s what’s needed to make any lasting and meaningful difference.
In the meantime, keep a leader, help them grow, give them a chance to succeed. Their job is maddeningly complex, frantic and inherently compromising. The learning curve is vertical; they won’t get everything right, but the commitment they make to serve in that role and the investment the party makes in them are tremendous. The choice of whether or not to change should be taken with as much gravity, or perhaps even more, than the choice of who should be leader in the first place.
Wise and generous. Good for you. I hope Saskatchewan NDP members heed this sound advice.
" Beck expressed opposition to Lewis’ views on resources and also turned down his campaign’s invitation for a meeting, unless and until Lewis reversed his positions.” "She pointed to Lewis saying on Nov. 20, 2025, that he was “unequivocally opposed to any new fossil fuel development — including LNG.” I agree with Mr Lewis and it is time we change our sources of power, and such a change will also provide new jobs. Both she and Rachel Notley of Alberta remain wedded to the exploitation and burning of oil and gas. Our planet is now 2 degrees hotter than it was due to our refusal to engage climate disaster in any meaningful way. There are many kinds of energy we could develop and all provide jobs.