NDP leadership campaign a chance to create clear identity: Meili

by Kevin Brautigam
of The Independent (Biggar)

The provincial NDP leadership campaign will be about reinvigorating a party that has fallen by the wayside, according to one of the four candidates, Ryan Meili.

With a majority Sask Party in power, that process seems daunting, even impossible, something the 34-year-old doctor is confident can be accomplished.

“I really felt as though we have a need to do some serious rebuilding in this party,” Meili said, working as locum relief at the Biggar Health Clinic last week. “We’ve just been handed a fairly significant defeat in the polls and are at a bit of a crossroads, a bit of an identity crisis as a party. Our membership numbers were at an all-time low because despite years of pretty good government, we stopped interesting people, we stopped inspiring them, exciting them, and I thought we needed something that would do that once again.”

The success of the NDP in governments past, perhaps led to voter apathy, born from a lack of a common goal -- not necessarily a crisis that bonds, but no clear vision. The NDP may have fallen victim to their own past success, never adapting to changing times, he hinted.

“We got a bit managerial,” Meili reflected, “and failed to really take advantage of some of the opportunities that we had. We went from fighting those great debts that we were handed in the early ‘90s, to solvency and beyond. But we didn’t actually know what to do next it seemed, and I think we got so worried about not losing that we forgot to win. . . So I think right now, as a party we need someone to come in as a leader that represents a movement towards those big ideas that the NDP is known for, that will turn heads.”

Meili is also a community organizer, creating a medstudent program aimed at community health. He also works for the College of Medicine, giving medical students the opportunity to work in Northern Saskatchewan. Meili grew up on a farm near Courval, Saskatchewan, going to school in Moose Jaw before the U of S, graduating from medical school in 2004. Meili practised in Northern Saskatchewan, Mozambique, rural Africa, inner-city Saskatoon. He will be married this August.

Meili first joined the NDP during the 2001 leadership campaign, and is currently endorsed by Nettie Wiebe, sitting NDP MLA David Forbes, former NDP Cabinet Ministers, Peter Prebble and Lon Borgerson, Regina attorney, Dion Tchorzewski, son of former Cabinet Minister Ed Tchorzewski.

Throwing his hat in February 5, he runs against Dwain Lingenfelter, Deb Higgins, Yens Pedersen (who was in Biggar, May 1). The leadership convention is June 6 in Regina.

“I was the last one to enter the race because I saw who had come out: Mr. Lingenfelter, Deb Higgins, Yens Pedersen - - all quality people, but I didn’t see the person there who was going to light us up again, that was going to take us in the direction we needed to go.”

If elected at the NDP’s leadership convention in Regina, June 6, Meili will realistically serve time as opposition [a provincial election will be in 2011], “being a good watchdog, making sure that provincial matters aren’t being neglected”, but also putting forth their alternative.

“It’s important our party be successful. I think we have a better vision of equality, of working to improve the lives of people regardless of their position in society, that the Sask Party has traditionally not had,” he said. “They [the Sask Party] serve those who already have.”