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When you look at their campaign signs, many of the candidates vying for the 61 seats in the Saskatchewan legislature right now look the same – bright smile, a suit, possibly with a tie. But when you look at some of their resumes, some have taken an odd route to get here.
If you search for Meara Conway you might find articles about her work in the courtroom, but you can also find videos of her standing on stage in full costume, singing at the top of her lungs.
Before she decided to try her hand at politics as the NDP’s candidate in Regina Elphinstone, and before she took up the law, she was an opera singer.
Meara Conway, NDP candidate for Regina Elphinstone, in front of her campaign office. Oct. 13, 2020 (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
Conway said she started off taking cello lessons to fit in with her older brothers but then she moved into singing because it’s what she loved to do.
She has a masters in opera along with her law degree, though she uses the latter more than the former these days. Conway said the opera training isn’t much help at karaoke.
“I’m not a great pop singer, it’s a very different,” she paused. “I mean, it’s hilarious, I still do it, but I’m certainly not better than anyone else. You don’t find Rossini and Bellini and Mozart on the karaoke list. I’ve been searching for that karaoke but I’ve still not found it unfortunately.”
Conway said she has a friend who jokes that her opera career has prepared her well for politics because she’s used to getting stabbed in the back. Conway then quickly explained that there’s a lot of stabbing in operas.
Nadeem Naz
With her experience in Regina’s music community, Conway may have come across Nadeem Naz.
He’s running for the Sask. Party in Regina Douglas Park, and it also a well-known tabla player – that’s a type of east Indian drum.
Naz said it can take years to learn how to play them because it’s all memorization – he started when he was growing up in Karachi, Pakistan.
Nadeem Naz, Sask. Party candidate for Regina Douglas Park, playing his tabla. Oct. 16, 2020 (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
“I was lucky to have an environment where a lot of musicians and composers lived in that area. And in the evening-time it was all the time people were practicing and all that, so I picked up from that an interest in music,” said Naz.
When he first came in Regina he said he was lucky to find some good musicians like Jack Semple and Ian McDonald to play with.
“We started jamming, we had a chance to perform all over Saskatchewan as a music group I had called Free Range. It was all instrumental,” said Naz.
Naz said the highlight was when the group was able to tour around the country with the Roughriders for Saskatchewan’s centennial.
These days Naz said he doesn’t have much time for music but, when she asks, he will take out the drums and play for his daughter at home.
Yens Pedersen
Yens Pedersen’s hobby isn’t on the musical side, unless you think the buzzing of bees is melodic. Pedersen runs his campaign to keep his seat with the NDP in Regina Northeast, but he’s also a beekeeper.
Pedersen said he was born into it, that there are pictures of him in a diaper as a baby watching his dad tend bees.
Yens Pedersen, NDP candidate for Regina Northeast, holding some of his bees. Oct. 9 2020 (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
Dealing with his 50,000 or so bees means Pedersen gets stung quite a bit – he said he doesn’t even flinch.
“This summer I’ve probably been stung about 50 times, maybe close to 100, I’m not exactly sure. In my world that’s not a lot, in your world that’s probably a whole lot. That’s probably more than more people have been stung in their life,” said Pedersen.
Pedersen’s hives are in his front yard and he said he’ll eat honey straight from them every chance he gets.
“It’s got a much more floral taste and honey has the taste of whatever flowers it’s being gathered from, so you get very unique tastes of honey and very fresh tastes of honey compared to what you can buy in the store … honey right out of the beehive, there’s nothing like it.”
Mark Docherty
Mark Docherty’s most recent job has been keeping everyone in line in the legislature as Speaker, but that doesn’t mean his entire life has been by the book.
Before the Sask. Party’s Docherty was running to get his seat back in Regina Coronation Park, he did some work for Much Music.
In the early days of the Canadian music channel there was a show called “Mike and Mike’s Excellent X-Canada Adventure.” Docherty said the show came through the city and he became fast friends with one of the hosts, Mike Campbell, and when he’d go visit Mike, he’d get put to work.
Mark Docherty, Sask. Party candidate for Regina Coronation Park. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
“Denise Donnollan at the time was the head of Much Music and she’s going ‘okay, I need you to go here,’ and I go ‘but I don’t even work, I’m not even employed.’ And she’s saying ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, just do this.’ And so, you know, go to the airport and pick up whatever bands, go get them. Or get in that mosh pit with a camera, whatever it was going to be.”
Although, Docherty points out that it wasn’t really a ‘job’ because he never got paid for it.
In the late 1908s Docherty was also a co-owner of The Venue in Regina which had live music. He said that they had the Tragically Hip on their first tour.
“Tragically Hip come through, the first time, we paid them the door … I’ve still got the receipt book, we paid them $467.”
There are dozens of teachers and rural politicians vying for MLA seats in this election. Some other past occupations include a former professional pet stylist, a candidate who used to work artificially inseminating pigs and an instructor for a surf fitness class.
Whatever they used to do, or do in their spare time, all of them are hoping the legislative building will be their next office.