The coalition was with Elwin Hermanson, Grant Devine and Grant Schmidt who are all members of the Saskatchewan Party now. They are Reformers and supporters of the Grant Devine regime and were cabinet ministers.
I know this is a sore point with the Reform Party. We have had about 22 elected Reform, Tory, Liberal and officials from that Devine government, that coalition, who were charged for breach of trust and other very terrible things about which the former RCMP officer from Selkirk—Interlake would know more than I. I was just an MLA at that time and not part of the police force. It was his colleagues who investigated these people.
I do not know the number, but I think about 15 of them were found guilty. The Saskatchewan Party is a new party in Saskatchewan made up of Reformers. Elwin Hermanson, the former Reform house leader, is the leader of the Saskatchewan Party and has all these Grant Devine folks in there, those who were not in jail.
They attended a big convention the other day of about 150 people. By the way, on Saturday one of the provincial ridings in my federal district, Regina—Qu'Appelle Valley, had a nomination convention. We had just under 300 at a nomination convention for one provincial riding with only two people seeking nomination. We can tell how powerful the Reform Party of Saskatchewan is in Saskatchewan.
The Reform Party and the party in Saskatchewan of Grant Devine are basically the same. They put forward the same policies, the magic policies of less taxes, more services and more jobs. That is what they promise. Grant Devine did that and the Reform Party did that. Grant Devine was elected, however, and we ended up with fewer jobs, incredulous increases in taxes and very few people working. I believe that was part of the problem.
The Reform Party just embraced this Grant Devine policy. I should not be warning it not to continue doing that. I should encourage it to keep pumping that policy because if it does that it will never get elected. I am very concerned that Reform members do not remember their history. Somebody once said that if we forget the lessons of history we are doomed to repeat them.
I am not a teacher by background, but I think it is really important to remind them of their history. Their history in Saskatchewan is really bad, corrupt and terrible. It has been shown across the province that all the things they have undertaken resulted in fewer people working, higher unemployment rates and higher taxes for people, which resulted in money leaving the province and huge debts left for taxpayers.
We in the west are very worried about that. Yes, the member's arithmetic is right. There were more Reform members elected in the last election than there were New Democrat members, but that is the way it goes. We in this party respect democracy. Being from Saskatchewan, the member would know that there is an old saying that when you throw a rock in the dark and a dog yelps you have hit a dog.