Sask. Liberals vote to change name and re-brand

The Saskatchewan Liberals will be changing their name and will go through a re-brand.

This comes after the party held its Annual General Meeting in Saskatoon and the party voted in favour of the motion.

According to leader Jeff Walters, he felt it was a debate that needed to happen within the party.

“It has been an issue for quite some time. This tends to come up especially when we detached from our federal liberal counterparts in 2009. There was a push to become absolutely our own entity,” he said.

Walters added that he understands why people would not want to change the name but he also understands why people would want to change the name.

“It really just comes down to how we can re-imagine ourselves in the future,” he said.

As for what is next, the Sask Liberals will be going through a name search process.

Walters said the party is looking at putting it in the public’s hands where people will submit names and the best 10 to 15 will be voted on by the party membership.

“Ultimately we don’t want this to be a top down decision (and) it really is to re-engage the public once again to let them know that this is the opportunity that they’ve been waiting for to help re-brand and re-make a party in their image,” he said.

Walters added that now that the party has decided for a re-brand there may be a leadership race.

He believes that having a race will be a good idea.

“It might be a smart idea to have a new leadership race so, existing members and new members can have their say and put a face on what they want their party to look like,” Walters said.

He added that it is an exciting time in the party.

“It doesn’t happen very often where you get the chance to completely re-make something,” Walters explained.

He explained that so far it has been a positive process.

“This is a good, solid and honest effort to try and re-make a party image that the public at large can see themselves in and it requires people to engage and that’s really what we want.”