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Unionized steelworkers in Regina are talking about voting for Conservatives: Let that sink in for a moment.

In the very city where Canada’s social democratic movement was born 86 years ago — in the only province where the NDP could have ever been seriously considered the natural governing party — we have some of its strongest backers in the union movement suggesting they see Andrew Scheer as a better alternative than Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats? Something seems amiss.

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Sure, we’re far removed from the days of Tommy Douglas’s Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). We may be even farther away from the days when the provincial NDP had a sniff of forming government in Saskatchewan. Moreover, it’s a long-standing myth that the NDP has ever been much of a force in federal politicsin Saskatchewan.

That members of United Steelworkers Local 5890 are seriously considering not voting NDP because of its stance on pipelines speaks volumes to the problems Singh and his party now face. However, it may also speak to a problem for all parties in this 2019 federal campaign, where there’s been limited scope on key issues — something that seems to be polarizing us further.