Lyle Stewart was ‘Yellowstone’ before Yellowstone. People like that TV series. And, not withstanding his foibles, they liked Stewart.
It’s not always the case in this social media age that someone becomes even more likeable after they beat someone up.
But Lyle Stewart — the 73-year-old Thunder Creek/Lumsden-Morse MLA who died this week after a long battle with cancer — was built different.
Stewart had stopped on a gravel road on his way to work at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building to help a man whose truck was in the ditch. The perpetrator — threatening him with a knife that never appeared — demanded the MLA’s 2001 Ford Taurus.
“I thought I better do something,” the rancher calmly re-counted to bug-eyed reporters the next day.
“I got out and a fight ensued.”
“It probably wasn’t pretty. I slipped on the road in the mud and he got in the car first and took off so I jumped in on top of him,” said Stewart, rehashing the events of the previous morning as if he’d been asked what he had for breakfast.
“He ripped the mirror off my windshield and whacked me in the head (with it) a few times,” he chuckled. “Nothing serious at all.”
In the end, the would-be thief wound up on the floor of the car with Stewart’s shoe firmly planted on his neck as the MLA dialled 911. The man, wanted by city police, was arrested by the RCMP.
“Probably not, I probably wouldn’t advise it,” Stewart said when asked if he thought his choices were advisable. “But that was my reaction anyway.”
Lyle Stewart was ‘Yellowstone’ before Yellowstone. People like that TV series. And, notwithstanding his foibles, they liked Stewart.
One does wonder how Stewart’s career survived his relationship with Thatcher, which included helping him remove his daughter from his ex-wife JoAnn Wilson’s home days after Wilson’s 1983 murder at Thatcher’s hands.
There were other events, including Stewart’s feud with former Progressive Conservative MLA Rick Swenson over the Sask. Party Thunder Creek nomination. As happens in politics, Stewart certainly made enemies. There were some who were less charmed by the shoot-from-the-hip style of the former agriculture minister.
But what was actually astonishing about Stewart during his long career is how many people did like him. Even political rivals on the left seemed to sincerely like the right-wing conservative.
It says something about the nature of people and politics. But it may also say something about a problem Premier Scott Moe and his Saskatchewan Party government now face.
What immediately struck you about Lyle Stewart was something that’s waning in today’s political world: authenticity.
Stewart was hardly a perfect person and was certainly not a perfect politician. But when he did something others perceived as reckless, foolhardy or just plain wrong — his 2009 fight with a would-be carjacker likely fits somewhere in that area — it was done out of what he viewed to be loyalty or principle.
And, most often, he was humble enough to acknowledge his mistake, as he did with Thatcher’s invitation. It earned him respect — even among political foes. Stewart was authentic.
That now comes as a rather sharp contrast to many in today’s politics — especially those in this country’s conservative movement, inclined to emulate the dishonest, role-playing weirdness that has has seeped north from the U.S. and has now infiltrated Canadian politics.
One of the Moe government’s biggest problems is the loss of some of its more likeable members. An even bigger problem is the controversies in which ministers simply haven’t been honest.
The Sask. Party government could use a straight shooter like Stewart right now. He will be missed.
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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