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Oct 20, 2024
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LANG, SK. — At the dining room table in her grandparents’ home about 69 kilometers south east of Regina, 980 CJME met with Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck to uncover the person behind the politician.
Carla shared how her farming roots shaped her values and leadership style. She reminisced about family memories, including her engagement and summers spent playing baseball, which fostered her community spirit.
Carla also discussed her passion for social work and the importance of public policy, emphasizing her commitment to addressing current issues in health care and education.
WATCH: Three minutes with NDP Leader Carla Beck
READ: Q&A with NDP Leader Carla Beck
Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck. (Alex Brown/980 CJME)
Why did you want to do this interview in your grandparent’s house in Lang, Sask.?
When I’m asked, ‘Where are you from?’ I always say I’m from Lang. This still feels like home to me. I know I’ve been in Regina for a long time, but this is where my roots are. And you know, this place, this house in particular, had a lot to do with who I grew up to be.
Your mom said this is where you got engaged?
We did, right about here, actually. My husband surprised me at Christmas time. So some special memories there.
Photos of your kids are on the wall there, do they come out here?
Yeah, it was really important to me, having been raised out here and raising kids in the city, that they got to spend a lot of time out here. When Mom and Dad still had cattle, we always made sure that they were out there, helping out, bales of chop up to the cows.
The family home is adorned with photos of 11 grandkids, three of which belong to Beck. She said it was really important her city kids got a bit of the country experience by helping out on the farm. (Screen shot of 980 CJME video)
How long did you play ball for?
I was not known to be a fantastic baseball player, but I could bat. Our whole family was involved with baseball. The baseball field here in Lang is named after our family, and my dad and my grandpa, are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was a big part of how we how we grew up, certainly in summers it was a lot of baseball.
I played baseball in Milestone, my aunt was the coach, and I played right through until high school.
I think the reason I could bat was after dad would come home at night from working on the farm, we’d say, ‘Dad, can you pitch us a bucket of balls?’ There were softballs, there were hard balls, there were tennis balls in there. So if I can hit, it’s because of those many buckets of balls.
You coached as well?
One of the things that my parents always instilled in us is, if you expect good things to happen in your community, or you want good things for your kids, you need to be prepared to step up. I wanted my kids to play softball and T-ball in the city. I won’t say I was the best coach, but I was enthusiastic, and I coached both Nolan and Hannah when they were little in a community league.
What is the most adventurous thing that you’ve ever done in your life?
Well, I would say putting my name forward to lead a political party is probably one of them. You know that that ranks up there. I think that’s probably been the bravest thing that I’ve done, but it’s been incredibly rewarding, for sure.
How did you get over your fear of public speaking?
Practice, and also becoming more confident, more comfortable, with what I was saying and myself. And realizing everyone’s a little bit nervous to public speak. It’s just getting through it.
If you weren’t a politician right now, what would you be doing?
I’d be a social worker. The last job I had wasn’t working front-line, it was managing a shelter for women and children who were fleeing abuse. Working in public policy was also something that I was always very interested in, from the standpoint of a front-line worker.
You can do a lot of good as a social worker, but it’s often one family or one person at a time. If you had good public policy, the potential to help more and more people, I think was greater.
Social work is a hard job.
Social work is a hard job, but I found it a very, very rewarding job. I always thought of it this way — there are bad things that happen to people. When the social worker comes in, usually the bad things have already happened and you have the opportunity at that point to be helpful at a time when people really need help.
I worked on some very difficult situations — I was on the perinatal loss team at the General Hospital — but if you can be there and stand with someone in some of the most difficult times in their life and make it a bit better, I think that’s important and social work was a great career.
The craziest rumour Beck has heard about herself is that she has manicured fingers. Being a farm kid, she said that couldn’t be further than the truth. (Screen shot of 980 CJME)
Can you give me three words to describe living in Saskatchewan?
Connected is the first thing I’m thinking. I love going around the province and everyone knows everyone, it seems like.
Understated is a word that’s coming to mind. I think people here are so talented, are so accomplished, and are so humble, so that being understated is something I would say describes growing up in Saskatchewan.
And lucky. I’ve always felt incredibly lucky to have grown up here, to grow up in this family, to grow up in this town, to grow up in this province. We’ve got so much here.
Do you like surprises?
No, but I can handle surprises. The other thing about being a social worker, you get a lot of surprises, you have to be very calm when the surprises come. So probably, if I’m being most honest, no, I don’t really like surprises.
What is one thing that you had to learn the hard way?
To focus on things that you can change and not spend a lot of time worrying about things that you can’t.
If you tried to focus on everything at once, you couldn’t do anything well. So learning to let some things go and focus on the things that you can change, I think, has been been the hardest lesson, but also maybe the most important lesson.
What is something that you’re tired of?
Divisive politics, wedge issue politics. And by that, I don’t mean debate, I don’t mean differences of opinion. I mean division for the sake of division is something that I’m very tired of, and I think a lot of people are tired of in this province right now, and not just in this province, right across the country and beyond.
Who would you want to play you in the movie of your life?
Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Seinfeld, in Veep.
What do you do to unwind at the end of the day?
To truly unwind, I have to be outside. And I have to be outside the city. We often go to some of the trails around Regina, or come out here. There’s a little, well, we call it Red Licks Lake, but it’s really a slough that I just love being out there with the dogs.
What music are you listening to on drives for your campaign?
I have a crazy eclectic list of songs. Sometimes I get into a country vibe, sometimes it’s Florence + The Machine. Sometimes it’s real rev-up energy. So I’ve got some angry songs I listen to when I need to cool down. It really depends on the mood.
What’s your pump-up song?
Macklemore was one that we came into my nomination on, but Florence + The Machine’s Dog Days Are Over. There’s a line, “run fast for your mother, fast for your father”. It both pumps me up and makes me quite emotional.
Is it weird to drive around in vehicle with your face on it?
It’s incredibly weird. Yes, yes. And even when we were driving to the office this morning, there were people that were looking at us. I’m like, ‘Oh, I think people are recognizing me.’ And then I realized, well, no, you’re driving in a truck with your face on it, which is incredibly weird. It’s still weird to see my face on a on a bus bench, let alone be driving around in a truck.
Beck said it’s incredibly weird to drive around in a truck with her face on it. She said when driving around there are people looking at them. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I think people are recognizing me.’ And then I realized, well, no, you’re driving in a truck with your face on it,” Beck said. (Screen shot of 980 CJME video)
Do you try to not make the same face that you’re making in the picture?
The first day the campaign, I wore the same suit intentionally. But, yeah, it’s still incredibly weird. I’m not someone who really loves being in the spotlight or having my face on things. And being in politics as a 50-year-old woman is it’s own thing. But, the response to it’s been really, really good. And Richard, my driver, said most of the hand gestures are friendly. So that’s good.
Do you have a favourite thing to cook?
Oh, the first thing that comes to mind, especially this time of year, is comfort food. Chicken pot pie — the kids like that — shepherd’s pie, those kind of things. But I’ll try anything. It’s another way to relax, not as good as being outside. But I do like to be able to putter around in the kitchen and cook. Not bake. I’m not a great baker.
What’s the difference between baking and cooking?
I think it’s too precise honestly, for me. When I’m cooking, I like to mix it up and not strictly follow the recipe, baking doesn’t work out so well if you do that.
A lot of the rhetoric in Saskatchewan when you mention the NDP is, “they closed hospitals, they closed schools”, how do you convince people otherwise when that opinion is so ingrained?
The problems that are in front of us right now — the problems that we’ve been focused on, and the solutions we’ve been focused on — require attention now. We’re not going to get further ahead by looking in the rear-view mirror. We have to address what’s in front of us today.
We have to with health care, with education. These are really crucial investments that need to be made, and we can’t wait any longer. We’re focusing on the plan in front of us. We recognize that there’s trust to build. There is this held belief, and we could debate the veracity of it, but there are these lines that have been repeated over and over again for 17 years.
It’s why we’ve been early with releasing our fiscal document. It’s why we have got out early releasing our platform. It’s why we spent so much time over the last two and a half years talking with people, not just with billboards or from the front of the room, sitting down with people at tables just like this, and being willing to work through what maybe some of their frustrations or perceived frustrations were with the NDP in the past, getting to where their frustrations are with the current government, and working from that common ground.
Is it frustrating to come up against those ingrained beliefs or to hear them repeated back?
I’m one of the oldest members of our caucus. For example, we’ve got a lot of people in our caucus who were in diapers or in grade school in the ’90s.
The first election that I voted in, I was 18 years old, was in 1991 — the last time we went from a Conservative government to an NDP government. I’m 50 years old. Even former Sask. Party cabinet ministers have said it’s time to retire those lines. And I’m hearing that from people, I certainly heard it from nurses yesterday.
Look, I don’t want to hear anything about two decades ago. We’re going to make Scott Moe accountable for his record because it’s Scott Moe and the Sask. Party that have taken us to last place on education, health care, cost of living, racked up the debt in the process, and are still wanting to point back 20 years.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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