'A lot at stake:' NDP interim leader looks ahead to 2017

In December, 980 CJME senior reporter Sarah Mills sat down with Trent Wotherspoon, the NDP interim leader, in an annual year-end interview.

Wotherspoon also spent some time looking ahead to the upcoming year.

Sarah Mills: You have witnessed a lot of change in your party since being elected. The transition from Lorne Calvert to Dwain Lingenfelter and then to Cam Broten and now with a new leader being picked.

Are you offering advice internally about what you have learned from all that? Are you looking at what input you can provide in 2017? 

Trent Wotherspoon: I will be there as a full team member through the process. My approach is to trust the people I am working with, to trust Saskatchewan people and to lean on our team and Saskatchewan people.

At the end of the day we have a tremendous group of people who know what motivates them, why they are serving. I have been pleased to watch this entire team take their opportunities to lead within our province.

We have had healthcare forums right across this province; we have had meetings, rallies in communities small and large. We have been sitting down and listening, critics being leaders in their portfolios, really relying on and building relationships with the leaders in Saskatchewan.

We might look like a small team by way of numbers in the legislature but I think we are much, much stronger when we’re reaching out to Saskatchewan people and trusting Saskatchewan people.

Mills: Are there any hopes that you have personally or professionally for the year ahead?

Wotherspoon: The reality is there is a lot at stake for the people of Saskatchewan right now.

The potential sell-off of our Crown corporations or portions of those.

Concerns around certain scandals that haven’t been answered. Concerns around cuts for the most vulnerable and supports for classrooms.

Our goal is going to be to serve as an effective as an opposition as we can be. Build as a party, build as a province.

We are going to be reaching out, we are going to be rallying, we are going to be doing all we can to stop some of the damage we see being currently being done by the current government all while keeping a mind to building that plan and building our province together.