Buffalo Party makes sudden leadership change

According to the Elections Saskatchewan website, the Buffalo Party has a new leader.

As of Tuesday, Shirley Huber has been labelled as the party leader, replacing Wade Sira.

Sira had been the interim leader of the party since June and no reason has been publicly given for his departure from the job.

The removal of Sira as party leader came as a surprise to the man himself, as he said he found out about his removal during an interview with a Saskatoon media outlet.

“It was unexpected. I did not know anything. I was not at the meeting that they had where the decision was made and I did not hear about it until (Wednesday) when another reporter called me and asked me some questions about what happened,” Sira said. “I did not know what happened.

“I’ve spoken to some people who were former board members, but I have not heard from anybody with the party at all.”

Sira says the former board members he spoke with were also let go from the party during a recent meeting, but they could not provide the reasoning for their departures due to a non-disclosure agreement.

“It really seems that there’s a lot of fishy, fishy things, very questionable activity, that has happened on the board within the last 72 hours,” Sira said.

The Buffalo Party, formerly known as Wexit Saskatchewan, became a registered provincial party with Elections Saskatchewan in March of 2020. The name was changed to the Buffalo Party in June of that year.

The party finished third in voting in the 2020 provincial election while not garnering any seats.

Sira believes the recent decisions along with the lack of communication will reflect poorly on the party as a whole.

“It really does not look good for this party …,” Sira said. “Whether I stayed as leader or if someone else came in as leader by the membership of voting them in, there was a real chance that there’s going to be (a possibility) in 2024 for the election for the Buffalo Party to not just gain some seats, but really throw some heavy weight around.

“This could really undermine all of that.”

The party’s inaugural convention is set to take place Nov. 5-7 in Swift Current.

Sira says he was under the impression he would be the interim leader at least until 2022.

980 CJME has reached out to the Buffalo Party for comment but had not received any response by the time of publication.