Battleground: The Socialist Assault on Grant Devine's Canadian Dream

David E. Smith is a political science professor at the University of
Saskatchewan and author of Jimmy Gardiner: Relentless Liberal.

The authors of this book are journalists: Jackson is currently editor of
the Calgary Sun and Baron is a former editor of the Country Guide.
During the years of the Progressive Conservative government in
Saskatchewan under Grant Devine (1982-91), Baron was a speech writer for
the premier and Jackson a special assistant to Devine. Their credentials
explain a lot about Battleground—its excessive partisanism and its
unauthenticated claims, even some of the errors of fact and questionable
interpretation—but they do not excuse them.

There is no question that the defeat of an established socialist
government and then the dismantling of its legacy by a political novice
needs to be examined. Battleground fails to do this, and notwithstanding
the reader’s political persuasion it is hard to believe that Devine
and his Tories do not deserve a more intelligent analysis than Baron and
Jackson provide.

The authors’ dichotomous world of private enterprise versus socialism
allows little room or inclination to explore the electoral realignment
Devine forged in 1982. Although impressive, the victory that year was
not (despite the claim twice made here) the largest, either in seats or
votes, in Saskatchewan history. Because the authors tirelessly disparage
both the qualities and values of NDP leaders and policies (in phrases
like “narrow negative view” and “doomsday vision”), they
actually depreciate the nature and significance of the Tories’
electoral achievement. From this perspective the NDP ought to have lost,
when at the time all indications were that they would win.

Battleground is not without interest, but its strident tone and the
absence of reflection as well as serious research rob it of any
authority.