By Thia James

Political fur flies over ‘broken promise’

Feb 20, 2015 | 5:57 AM

The NDP candidate running to fill Prince Albert Carlton MLA Darryl Hickie’s seat in the next provincial election is calling Hickie’s early departure a “broken promise.”

“And it’s a flip-flop, which has become, you know, something very typical,” Shayne Lazarowich said on Wednesday.

On Feb. 13, Hickie announced he would be resigning on March 9, well ahead of his original plan to leave politics at the end of his current term. Hickie plans to return to his career with the Prince Albert Police Service, where he will be an eight-year constable.

In his original statement last April about his decision not to seek re-election, he said:

“I will continue to serve as MLA for Prince Albert Carlton until the next election. The Saskatchewan Party has worked hard and delivered real results for Prince Albert and I am proud to have been a part of that. I look forward to continuing to serve the people of Prince Albert by returning to my previous career as a police officer.”

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On Thursday, Hickie admitted that he broke the strict wording of the promise. “I’m breaking it for the greater good to return back to policing, where I can serve and protect the people of Prince Albert,” he said, and described policing as his first love.

“I got into politics to effect change. We made many promises we kept and things like the [Diefenbaker] bridge that we repaired, where the NDP wouldn’t in their previous term. Promising another bridge in a partnership with the City [of Prince Albert] and the federal government. Pineview Terrace. The Carlton [Comprehensive High School] gymnasium. St. Anne’s School. More police officers in Prince Albert to serve and protect. More health-care workers in Prince Albert.”

Hickie said the decision to resign before his term was over was not an easy one to make. He added that he’s proud of his legacy, and said during the seven years he’s been in office the government helped many people get through tough times.

But in response, Lazarowich re-iterated his view that this is just another broken promise.

“It’s really unfortunate and the argument that it’s for the collective good, I mean, this is the reality of the choice that Darryl has made and the Sask Party has made. This is their decision and they’ve left the people of Prince Albert in a very bad spot. Meaning that they will be without an MLA for possibly up to a year, or possibly more than a year or need to pay a lot of money for a by-election, and I think that’s unfortunate.”

Since Hickie’s resignation takes effect after March 7, Premier Brad Wall has the option of, but is not required to, calling a by-election for the open constituency seat.

This will mean that Prince Albert will have one remaining MLA, Victoria Jurgens, who represents the Prince Albert Northcote constituency.

paNOW has contacted Premier Brad Wall to find out whether or not he plans to call a by-election in the Prince Albert Carlton constituency.

According to Elections Saskatchewan, the provincial election will happen on one of two days, as legislated. The provincial election will go ahead on Nov. 2 if the federal election set for Oct. 19 does not go ahead. If the federal election is indeed held this October, then the provincial election will instead be held on April 4, 2016.

On Wednesday, Lazarowich noted that without a by-election, Prince Albert residents could be without a second MLA for a whole year. “We need that kind of representation. I think we’ve already been severely underrepresented by the two MLAs that we already have, and so I just think it’s not right.”

Hickie, however, is challenging Lazarowich and the NDP to release their platform for the Prince Albert Carlton constituency or Prince Albert in general.

“Where’s his party’s platform on all their promises? They criticize, he takes cheap shots as an unelected member , but he comes out with no policy to counter to make Prince Albert Carlton and Prince Albert a better place. I’d like to hear what his party’s platform is.”

Lazarowich said the platform will be forthcoming within the year. But he said his response to Hickie’s statement would be “What does that have to do with a broken promise? He’s just trying to deflect the question.”

No MLA pay for Hickie after resignation

Once Darryl Hickie’s resignation takes effect on March 9, he will no longer be receiving any MLA pay, he said.

“That’s it. I don’t get any more money from the government after that.”

After he resigns and returns to the Prince Albert Police Service, he will start to receive a police constable salary.

Last spring, he came under criticism for undergoing police training while staying on as an MLA until 2016. Hickie made the decision to stay on as an MLA, telling paNOW that the police didn’t need to be distracted.

“I had some time to do it and I knew that it was going to be an intensive training cycle. I knew I was able to jump in with other officers that needed refresher training as well,” he said, adding that keeps him from needing to taking the training by himself at a later date,” he said last June.

“In hindsight it was selfish and self-serving, yes, to get back in the game so to speak. But it also made sense because I was grouped with other officers.”

But he also will not be eligible to receive his MLA pension, which he said is the same as any government worker’s pension in the province. This means he is not eligible according to his years of service and age to draw that down, he said.

“What I will do, as I did before with my penitentiary and federal government pension, is I will take whatever’s in that pension and roll it in to the police pension that I’m entitled to do that.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames