During the recent provincial election do you remember Premier Brad Wall saying anything about a dreadful shortage of provincial politicians?

Do you remember him saying anything during televised leader debates, radio interviews or in newspaper stories about his plan to add three more seats to the provincial legislature?

We don’t. In fact we checked his party’s provincial platform and there was no mention about adding more politicians.

Then why is his government sliding in legislation during the busy Christmas season that would add three seats to the Saskatchewan Legislature? Good question.

It’s not like Saskatchewan is struggling with overworked politicians. No doubt many provincial MLAs are working hard, but when you compare Saskatchewan with other provinces, Saskatchewan already has the highest ratio of politicians to citizens out of all Canadian provinces with a million or more people.

According to Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan currently has a population of about 1,058,000 people. Given that there are 58 seats in the provincial legislature that means every provincial MLA serves about 18,241 people.

By comparison, Manitoba has more people (1,250,000) and one fewer MLA (57.) Thus, Manitoba has one provincial politician for every 21,930 people.

Alberta has one provincial politician for every 43,437 people and Ontario tops the charts with one for every 124,981 people.

Clearly, Saskatchewan politicians have it pretty good right now.

In the Saskatchewan government’s news release, they cite the province’s growing population as justification for adding more seats to the legislature. The release notes that over the next four years, Saskatchewan’s population will increase by 100,000.

That’s all fine and dandy, but that doesn’t mean the legislature necessarily needs more seats. Even if you don’t increase the number of MLAs, a population of 1,158,000 works out to one politician for every 19,966 people. That is still the highest ratio of politicians to citizens in all provinces in Canada with a population of a million or more people.

So what’s the big deal? Why shouldn’t the province add more seats?

Well, first off, each politician that gets added to the government payrolls will require a salary, expense account, multiple offices, staff and who knows what other expenses. Clearly, the sky isn’t the limit when it came to how much taxpayers are willing to pay for politicians’ pay and expenses.

Secondly, there’s an accountability issue here. If the premier felt so strong about the need to add more seats during the election, why didn’t he say so? Sure, no candidate can ever address every single issue that might come up during the following term, but clearly this was one his party was thinking about. After all, it was one of the first pieces of legislation tabled after the election. How did it suddenly become such a priority?

Thirdly, unlike in Ottawa where re-jigging the ridings requires either a virtually impossible constitutional amendment or an increase in the number of seats, Saskatchewan doesn’t have this problem. Premier Wall can increase, decrease or leave alone the number of MLAs in Saskatchewan without triggering a constitutional veto from Quebec.

Finally, if more politicians were such a priority, why wasn’t the need for more seats mentioned in the provincial throne speech? And why wasn’t there some kind of consultation with taxpayers to see if they wanted to pay for more politicians?

The answer is pretty simple. The only people who are demanding more politicians are...the politicians. Hopefully, if you speak out, they’ll reconsider.