9 books by Sask. writers to read during the provincial election campaign
These books offer insight into Sask. politics and provincial parties as voters prepare for Oct. 28 election
With 10 days left in the Saskatchewan provincial election campaign, you might be looking for a way to kill some time until you get to vote on Oct. 28.
Why not pick up one of these books about Saskatchewan politics by Saskatchewan authors?
This list includes insider accounts of Roy Romanow's NDP government and the formation of the Saskatchewan Party, polemics and memoirs about topics we're hearing about this campaign, and some books about issues neither the Sask. Party or NDP seem keen to talk about.
This is not an exhaustive list, but a selection of books that provide insight into our provincial politics and where we might go after the election.
A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Can Revive Canadian Democracy by Dr. Ryan Meili
With both the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP making health care a key issue in their campaigns, you might find this book by a doctor and former politician a helpful read. Written several years before Ryan Meili became leader of the Saskatchewan NDP in 2018, A Healthy Society recounts his experience working in Saskatoon's core neighbourhoods, while making the case that governments need to focus on the factors influencing health — income, housing, education — to fix an ailing society.
From Left to Right : Saskatchewan's Political and Economic Transformation by Dale Eisler
How did the Saskatchewan Party so soundly — and repeatedly — defeat the NDP and maintain power for the past 17 years? Former Saskatchewan journalist Dale Eisler wrote a book that examines how the province turned away from its socialist past and embraced Prairie populism. From Left to Right won a 2023 Saskatchewan Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2023 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and The Hill Times Best Books of 2022.
Minding the Public Purse: The Fiscal Crisis, Political Trade-offs, and Canada's Future by Janice MacKinnon
The 2024 provincial election has been filled with references to Saskatchewan NDP governments from the 1990s. This insider account of the early days of Roy Romanow's government from former finance minister Janice MacKinnon provides some context about the debt crisis that threatened the province with bankruptcy. MacKinnon also reveals fractures within the NDP at the time, singling out the "Liquor Cabinet" — the party's old guard of men drinking and plotting in the legislature's basement.
Peace And Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice in Canada by Harold R. Johnson
Harold R. Johnson, who died in 2022, was a Crown prosecutor and trapper from Montreal Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.
Using his experience as a lawyer and events like the death of Colten Boushie and the subsequent trial of the man eventually acquitted in his death, Johnson's 2019 book examines how the justice system fails Indigenous people, as well as how the legal profession — including him — perpetuates trauma and prevents true reconciliation.
Potash: An Inside Account of Saskatchewan's Pink Gold by John Burton and Squandered: Canada's Potash Legacy by Eric Cline
We haven't heard much about potash during this election despite its significant influence in Saskatchewan's economy and provincial budgets. In Potash, John Burton, an NDP politician and party operative who died in 2022, takes readers behind the scenes of the battle over nationalizing Saskatchewan's potash industry. Much like Burton, former NDP cabinet minister Eric Cline argues in Squandered that Saskatchewan's lax royalty regime allows corporations to reap record profits while shortchanging citizens.
Risk & Reward: The Birth & Meteoric Rise of the Saskatchewan Party by Gail Krawetz
This is a history of how the Saskatchewan Party formed and laid the groundwork for successive dominant election victories. Author Gail Krawetz had access to plenty of party insiders to tell the tale — she's married to Ken Krawetz, one of the original seven Liberal and Progressive Conservative MLAs who joined forces to create a new provincial party. Ten years later, that little band of disrupters turned into a political powerhouse.
Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot
Saskatchewan author and naturalist Trevor Herriot, with help from Métis Elder Norman Fleury, explores how governments and settlers perpetuate inequality against Indigenous people, through the lens of land and environmental issues. Herriot offers solutions to protect native grasslands that don't exclude Indigenous knowledge and might even rectify past injustices. Towards a Prairie Atonement won the 2017 City of Regina Book Award.
Truth Telling: Seven Conversations About Indigenous Life in Canada by Michelle Good
Cree author Michelle Good just won a 2024 High Plains Book Award for Truth Telling, a collection of personal essays about Indigenous identity and reconciliation that challenges non-Indigenous to question their assumptions and engage in Indigenous issues. A member of Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Good also wrote Five Little Indians, which won the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and CBC's Canada Reads 2022.
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