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A year from now, Premier Scott Moe will likely become the first Saskatchewan Party leader to lose seats in a general election … which probably has less significance than such a statement seems to suggest.

It’s been a remarkable 22-year run for the Sask. Party, that went from eight seats at its inception in 1997 to 25 seats in its first general election in 1999 to 28 seats in 2003 to 38 seats and government in 2007 to 49 seats in 2011 to 51 seats in 2016. If anything, the loss of seats would seem an inevitability for what should now be considered Saskatchewan’s natural governing party in the 21st century.

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What was a 51-seat caucus after the 2016 vote has been reduced to a 46-seat Sask. Party government that has already lost three members this term through byelection losses and two more to federal Conservative candidacies.

Clearly, Moe has inherited from Brad Wall a solid majority, an even more solid rural base and the crown of the most popular premier in Canada he has continued to wear. And given that he also inherited a significant 2017-18 Saskatchewan budget mess with a deficit approaching a billion dollars, Moe already deserves credit for restoring any slippage in support. He has been politically successful in his relentless attack on highly-unpopular-in-Saskatchewan Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his federal Liberal government policies like the largely unworkable carbon tax.