OPINION: Sask. United Party must address FCC blunder to earn trust

The Saskatchewan United Party and its supporters are currently eating a giant plate of crow over a false rumour the party spread last week regarding Farm Credit Canada.

“Multiple high-level sources have told Sask United that Farm Credit Canada is leaving Saskatchewan and relocating its operations to Quebec,” the political party claimed in a news release sent to media and echoed in the Legislature by its leader, founder and only sitting MLA, Nadine Wilson.

It took only a couple hours for Farm Credit Canada to issue a direct rebuttal.

“To be absolutely clear, FCC is not moving its head office from Regina,” a spokesperson for the organization told 650 CKOM in an emailed statement.

It’s not surprising that the Saskatchewan United Party would peddle false information. If it wasn’t for false info, the party might not exist in the first place.

Wilson, you’ll remember, used to sit with the governing Saskatchewan Party, having served as a back-bencher since 2007. That changed in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic when Wilson was booted from the party for “misrepresenting her vaccine status.” Her misrepresentation placed Premier Scott Moe in hot water after he publicly claimed that his entire caucus was vaccinated or in the process of getting their shots.

So Wilson was turfed from the government benches, and after a brief stint as an independent, she formed the Saskatchewan United Party to better represent her values.

One could conclude a party that only exists due to misrepresented vaccine status might misrepresent other important things as well.

The remaining credibility of both Wilson and her party now hangs by a thread.

Thankfully, this FCC situation has given Wilson an opportunity to either salvage some credibility or sever that last thread of public trust.

I’m going to be watching very closely this week to see if Wilson names the “multiple high-level sources” who are apparently feeding her falsehoods in an effort to embarrass her party.

If she does, we can chalk this whole business up to a few bad actors who worked together to make a political party look foolish by peddling lies.

Such a thing could happen, and the party could be forgiven for falling for it.

But if Wilson doesn’t disclose the sources of the false information her party was peddling, it could lead people to assume the Saskatchewan United Party made the whole business up themselves.

High-level sources declined to speculate on which option is more likely.