Brendan Pyle

Hello friend,

The greatest thing about being a Saskatchewan New Democrat is that I can look at all the candidates in the leadership and see all four of them holding our banner and leading us to victory in the next election. Dwain Lingenfelter, Deb Higgins, Yens Pederson and Ryan Meili all have what it takes to rebuild our party and lead Saskatchewan to a brighter future.
Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party are the enemies. They are the enemies of the people of Saskatchewan. The “Saskatchewan” Party government is a proxy controlled by special interests in downtown Calgary and Toronto!

I know that no matter what the outcome of our leadership contest the New Democratic Party will stand united with the people of our province in opposing the morally bankrupt and short-sighted ideology of the “Saskatchewan” Party.

With that said, I am here today to ask you to support Ryan Meili to be the next leader of our great party. I want you to join with me and the Meili campaign so that we can build Our Future Together.

The Farmer-Labour Party and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation were the forerunners of our party. The principle behind all of these great movements from the past, represented today by our New Democratic Party, is that by working together we can build a better life for all. We work together to ensure that more of the wealth created here with our own hands and initiative stays here and in invested in services that will give the people a better quality of life – our roads, our hospitals, our schools, our labs, our water systems, our bridges. By working together the great wealth given to us by providence can be used to make a society where the people can be given a better and more fulfilling life. I cannot imagine a purpose other than this one, which is moral, that government and public service should be based on.

Ryan is the candidate that can bring the sole (soul) principle of our movement - by working together the people can build a better life for all – into reality as the Premier of our great province. We can return Saskatchewan to moral rule by electing and re-energized NDP to government with Ryan Meili at the helm!

Ryan’s life story is one of service to the community. There is a fire deep within Ryan that forces him to confront injustice and work for a better world. As a man who has travelled to many areas of the world far poorer than our fair Saskatchewan and as a family doctor in some of the poorest and most remote parts of our province Ryan has seen what inequalities in wealth and opportunity do to peoples’ health. Ryan has tirelessly organized for Station 20 and SWITCH. These projects engage some of our poorest and most vulnerable residents with more services and resources with which to better their lives.

Ryan wants us to build Our Future Together.

Ryan is concerned with the big questions and big ideas of 21st century social democracy. Our province is facing many challenges – an unhealthy addiction to oil revenues which fluctuate wildly and are not renewable – especially when those revenues are wasted and in a time of our greatest prosperity many of our communities lack safe drinking water. Ryan is concerned with how our province can break its dependency on non-renewable resources and build an economy that supports the needs of our people – and that includes ensuring we maintain the environment in which we live.

Ryan wants us to build Our Future Together.

Ryan knows that a person’s quality of life is determined by many things including poverty and discrimination: these problems are not only moral outrages but also negatively affect a person’s health. Ryan wants to build a society where all are treated equally without regard to their gender, race, class, ethnicity, language, or sexual orientation regardless of where they live in our province. Ryan is concerned that our rampant consumerism is wrecking our families and our communities with its credit cards and fostering of a mentality that says we can all get everything we want right now without any hard work. Ryan knows that to achieve we must work had and work together – even if that means years of dedication. It is about all people working together for a brighter future for all.

Ryan wants us to build Our Future Together.

Some have asked if Ryan has the experience to run a political party and lead us to victory. The Farmer-Labour Party was not founded by politicians. The Farmer-Labour Party was founded by people who saw that their government was not focused in protecting them from special interests. They saw then as we are seeing now a government that is committed to enriching special interests and not in investing in our basic infrastructure. The basic infrastructure a society must have if it is to ensure the people a better life.

The teachers, farmers, coal miners, doctors, lawyers, homemakers and others who tried something that had not been done before – to take power into their own hands to build a better future for all – managed to turn this province into one of the most developed places on the planet. I can still visit the sod hut that my paternal grandmother grew up in. An earthen hut in the middle of the prairie where it can be 40 degrees below zero with no natural gas heating, running water or electricity. The house I live in, not outside the span of one lifetime, has all those things plus high speed internet.

Our struggles now are not nearly what my grandparent’s faced. For one thing there is a people’s party guarding our interests – The New Democratic Party. Thanks to folk like Dwain Lingenfelter and Deb Higgins – who both have exemplary records of service to our movement – the party is here and ready and willing to be the peoples’ champion! Yens Pederson has served our values well with his dedication to the National Farmers Union and our party. I would be proud to have Dwain, Deb or Yens as our leader. I would, as I assume all of you would as well, gladly march out into the cold and knock on doors to ensure the people’s party is returned to power!

The strength of our movement will ensure that Ryan can lead us. New Democrats are about working together. Ryan is committed to working with all of us as New Democrats and people who want a more just future. Ryan can rely on fine people like Gary Carlson, Jenn Ruddy, Dion Tchorzewski and Noah Evanchuk (just to name a very few) for advice about our Party and our government. Gary has given most of his life to our party – the comfortable world in which we live is due to his hard work and dedication. Jenn has worked tirelessly to ensure that the NDP does not forget it is feminist. Dion knows our movement up and down and his commitment to social justice is in his blood. Noah worked and organized for the NDP in his home town of Calgary and knows what hard political work is all about. If a group of committed, but inexperienced, people could change this province in times of war and depression I am sure it can be done again. The history of our party shows it can be done!
Ryan has worked continually in the community to make the lives of people better. He may not have been in the party for more than eight years – but his heart holds the true values of our movement and has animated his life. He has a great network of people across this province that believe in him and have seen Ryan in action – in his real life –and although they have never gotten involved in politics before they are excited to help out Ryan and his team because they believe that he is in this business for the right reasons. The only reason – for us to work to build Our Future Together.

Those of us who have been in the party a long time sometimes forget about the world outside of the Legislative Building and the committees of our party. Politics is about the people. Politics is about making things better for the people. Ryan knows about helping the people. Ryan is very smart and very dedicated. He will learn as much as he has to and work as hard as he has to build Our Future Together.

As I leave my grandmother’s sod hut I think about what we will leave for our grandchildren – will it be a world where they envy our life and wealth as we have consumed and degraded our environment to such an extent that it cannot support as rich a people? Will it be one of crumbling infrastructure because of the profligacy and waste of my generation in using up our non-renewable resources without investing in the technologies of the future?

It could be. Or...

Or we can choose to build Our Future Together. We can choose a future where our grandchildren will see our housed of today and think them as quaint and amazing as we do the sod huts of our parents and grandparents. They will laugh at our use of fuels that degraded the environment and the inefficiency of our homes and cars. They will be part of an economy that will be stable and geared to providing the real needs of people each and every day and not boom-bust cycles that leave humanity scrambling for survival every few years.

Ryan has thought about what the future will be for Saskatchewan. He knows that the challenges will be immense. He also knows that if our grandparents can bequeath to us so a rich, prosperous and developed land that we can do that for our grandchildren as well!

Please join me in working with Ryan Meili to build Our Future Together.

Brendan Pyle