Saskatchewan Youth Voters

Get Informed

Learning about our electoral system and staying up to date on current events will make you a more informed voter and, if you should so choose, a better advocate for your political beliefs. Read through the links below to learn about Saskatchewan's government and to find resources for further learning.

Election Basics

The First-Past-the-Post System

In Saskatchewan provincial elections you do not vote directly for the person you think should be Premier. Instead, the province is divided into 58 small divisions called “constituencies.” Each of these constituencies holds its own mini-election. So when you go to the poll, you will see a list of people running to represent your constituency. Most likely, none of the party leaders will be on your ballot. Some of the people on your ballot may be nominated by registered parties, in which case the name of their party will appear below their name on the ballot, and some of them may be running as independents. You vote for whichever person you think deserves to win, based on whatever criteria you like. Whichever one of these people receives the most votes will go to the legislature in Regina to represent your constituency. The other candidates will not represent your constituency, no matter how close to winning they came. That is why our system is called first-past-the-post: it is a winner-takes-all system in which finishing second is as valuable as finishing fifteenth.

Forming Government

All of the winners of the 58 constituency elections then go to Regina to take their seats in the legislature and become Members of the Legislative Assembly, or MLAs for short. Each of these people now has the job of representing his or her constituency until the next election. However, if each MLA acted completely as an individual, looking after only the interests of his or her own constituents, nothing would ever get done. Thus, the Lieutenant Governor asks one group to form a government. Determining who this group will be is a matter of simple arithmetic: the party whose candidates won the most constituencies is asked to form government because it is the party most likely to be able to pass laws in the legislature. So, if Party A won 35 constituencies (sometimes called “seats”), Party B won 15 constituencies, and Party C won the remaining 8 constituencies, Party A would form the new government. And, as you might expect, Party A’s leader would become the new Premier of Saskatchewan. Thus, even though you didn’t personally vote for the leader of Party A (unless she was elected from your constituency) she is now the leader of the province. Those MLAs who are not members of the party that forms government are referred to as “opposition” MLAs. They continue to represent their constituents, but do so by questioning the laws the government is trying to pass and by making sure that the government is ruling fairly and justly.

Parties that have formed government in Saskatchewan	Dates
The Liberal Party	1905-29; 1934-44; 1964-71
The Conservative Party	1929-34
The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation	1944-1964
The New Democratic Party	1971-82; 1991-present
The Progressive Conservative Party	1982-91

Different Kinds of Government

Our method of choosing a government can lead to some seemingly strange outcomes. In the simplest case, one party wins more than half of the seats in the legislature and thus forms what we call a “majority government.” Because one party controls a majority of the seats (and therefore the majority of votes) on its own, it is likely to be able to pass whatever laws it likes during its time in power. Sometimes, though, the party with the most seats in the legislature still has less than half the total seats. Imagine if Party A won 24 seats, Party B won 20 seats, and Party C won 14 seats. In this case, Party A would be asked to form government, but would not be able to pass new laws if both Party B and Party C chose to vote against them. In this situation we have what is called a “minority government.” Minority governments need to compromise with other parties in order to get things done. For example, Party A might choose to work together with Party C because, between the two of them, they would have enough votes to pass bills through the legislature. As you can imagine, minority governments sometimes have a hard time getting things done. If a minority government isn’t able to get any laws passed in the legislature, a new election will be called and Saskatchewan voters will have another chance to elect new MLAs.

Only 2 elections in Saskatchewan’s history have lead to minority governments:

Elections returning minority governments	Composition of minority legislatures
7th Provincial Election (1929)	Liberal--28 seats; Conservative--24 seats; Independent--6 seats; Progressive--5 seats
24th Provincial Election (1999)	NDP--29 seats; Saskatchewan Party--25; Liberal Party--4 seats

In addition to the possibility of minority governments, there is also the possibility that the party which wins the most constituencies is not the party which actually gets the most votes. If Party A wins 30 constituencies, but wins each one by only ten votes, it may have less overall votes than Party B, which won 28 constituencies, but won them all by several thousand votes. Something like this actually occurred in 1999 when the Saskatchewan Party received more votes than the New Democratic Party but won 4 fewer constituencies. Conversely, sometimes a party which wins the popular vote can see its victory exaggerated into a far larger number of seats than its total votes would seem to indicate. In the 1987 New Brunswick provincial election, the Liberal Party received 60% of the total votes, but won 100% of the seats in the legislature. Similarly, in the Canadian elections in 2000, the Liberal Party received 41% of the vote but 57% of the seats, turning a minority of the votes into a majority government. Different electoral systems have different ways of dealing with these sorts of situations, but in Saskatchewan the total number of votes is not important; all that matters is who wins the most constituencies.

Of Saskatchewan's 23 majority governments, only 11 have actually recieved a majority of votes cast in the election.

Results for every Saskatchewan general election and by-election are available on the Elections Saskatchewan website

What Does the Government Do?

Being the party that forms government does not give you the automatic right to do whatever you want with Saskatchewan’s laws. As mentioned above, minority governments may be unable to pass any new legislation at all if they cannot convince some opposition members that it is a good idea. Even majority governments may face opposition from their own MLAs if they try to do something too controversial; each MLA still has to go back to his or her constituents and face an election in five years or less and is still representing his or her constituents, not the party leader. However, the government does have certain rights which the opposition does not. The government names the heads of government departments (called Ministers), sets the timetable for hearing new legislation, and writes the provincial budget (though it still has to get it passed in the legislature). In addition, the head of the governing party becomes the Premier, a position which allows him or her to represent Saskatchewan to Canada and to the rest of the world. While the power the government has varies depending on how many more seats in the legislature it holds than the opposition, it is fair to say that every political party is hoping, one day, to form government.

Why is there an Election in the First Place?

In Saskatchewan, it is technically the Lieutenant-Governor, the Queen’s appointed representative in the province, who decides when an election will be held. In reality, though, it has been a long time since a royal representative has tried to call an election on her own. In modern Saskatchewan there are a number of factors which determine when an election will happen. The Canadian constitution says that there must be an election at least once every five years. So, even if a government is functioning smoothly, the citizens of Saskatchewan must periodically be given the opportunity to re-elect the government or choose a new one. If we have a majority government, it is likely that it will serve at least four years of its five-year maximum. At some point towards the end of that term the Premier will ask the Lieutenant Governor to call an election. The Premier can call for an election whenever he wants, but the Election Day must happen no more than 34 and no less than 28 days after his official announcement. Following his announcement, candidates will be nominated in each of the 58 constituencies and a new (or the same) members will be elected to the legislature to form a new (or the same) government.

In the case of a minority government, things are a bit more complicated. As you read above, minority governments sometimes have a hard time getting things done because they have to cooperate with other parties or other independent MLAs. Sometimes this cooperation works well and a minority government will serve most of its five-year term. At other times, though, this cooperation goes very poorly and the government cannot pass new laws. If the government is unable to pass even its own budget, it will have no money with which to operate. When this occurs, the Lieutenant Governor will dissolve the legislature and call for a new election. Thus, even though the constitution says that we only need to have one election every 5 years, it is possible to have many elections if minority governments are unable to cooperate.

Saskatchewan’s shortest-serving government was the Liberal government of Jimmy Gardiner’s second term, elected on June 6, 1929; Gardiner’s minority government lasted only three months. The opposition Conservative Party took power on September 9, 1929 with the support of the Progressive Party and a few independent MLAs.

Stay Up to Date

Keeping up on current events will make you a more informed voter during the next election. You can follow major provincial, national, and world events by reading these newspapers online or in print. The Regina Leader-Post The Saskatoon StarPhoenix The Moose Jaw Times Herald The Prince Albert Daily Herald Planet S Find your local paper by searching the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspaper Association members list The National Post The Globe and Mail

Keep up with Student Events

If you live near a university or SIAST campus, you can stay up to date with campus events through the following links. University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union University of Regina Students’ Union SIAST Kelsey Campus Students’ Association SIAST Wascana Campus Students’ Association SIAST Woodland Campus Students’ Association

See What the Parties Have to Say

Interested in solutions to a particular problem or just wondering if someone else is thinking about the same issue as you are? Check out the websites of Saskatchewan’s registered political parties to see if anyone has ideas that might help you out. Green Party of Saskatchewan New Democratic Party, Sask. Section Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party Saskatchewan Liberal Association Saskatchewan Marijuana Party Saskatchewan Party Western Independence Party of Saskatchewan (W.I.P.)

Get Informed

Election Basics

Stay Up to Date

Keep up with Student Events

See What the Parties Have to Say

Further Reading