NDP leader Ryan Meili (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

By Lisa Schick

Leader close-up and personal: Ryan Meili

Oct 22, 2020 | 1:43 PM

Ryan Meili has been leader of the Saskatchewan NDP for about 2 1/2 years and this fall he’s hoping the voters in Saskatchewan will make him leader of the province as well.

Meili has spent the last few months letting everyone know what he and his party think when it comes to things like health care, classrooms and the Global Transportation Hub, but what about getting to know the man behind the platform?

Meili said he grew up with two older brothers on a farm southwest of Moose Jaw. He said they had lots of cattle and grain and so he spent a lot of time out in the fields.

When he was a kid, Meili said he thought farming would be his future.

“My thought was, you know, I could think up the stories all summer as I was riding around in the tractor and then I could write the books in the winter,” said Meili. “And then I discovered I wasn’t smart enough to be a farmer so I decided to go into medicine instead.”

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When he was trying to figure out his path in life, Meili said he thought about what good he could do in the world.

“Medicine just seemed to fit what I was good at and what I thought I could contribute through, and that’s what I decided to do and I pursued that to try to be of service to the folks most in need,” said Meili.

He worked for about a decade all over the province including in rural Saskatchewan and up north. Most recently he got back his licence to practise to help with testing for COVID-19 and to help out at a weekly clinic at The Lighthouse in Saskatoon.

The pandemic has thrown a wrench into a lot of things for many people, and just because he’s a politician doesn’t mean Meili is immune. He said in the beginning his parenting schedules were shaken up and he ended up taking his oldest son to work with him.

“So, I’d do a press conference and then hang out with him and we did go from almost zero screen time to playing some Tetris and playing some other video games together,” said Meili.

These days Meili is in full campaign mode, often bringing the subject back to campaigning and the election. When asked what superpower he’d most like to have, Meili said super speed so he could make it to every doorstep in the province.

Meili said he likes to play the guitar and will sometimes bring it out in the campaign van and play a couple songs.

The days are quickly counting down to election day but Meili said he’s not nervous.

“I’m having so much fun,” he said. “It’s a really exciting election (and) we’re having a great time. I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people on Oct. 26, and (we’re) just excited to get into the next phase and be part of a government that actually puts people first.”