Pinball and politics: Walters talks shop during patio event

Jeff Walters spent part of his Saturday afternoon taking on all challengers at Pokey’s Pinball Cafe in Saskatoon.

It’s a lot like his role as leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal party. Walters knows there will be a journey ahead — admitting the party was “basically troughed” for some time.

But the sessional professor-by-day said he’s ready to roll up his sleeves and do the work, tackling the job with a “mixture of excitement and dread.”

In the 2020 provincial general election, the Liberal party only had three candidates running and received only a few hundred votes.

“In other words, we weren’t in existence,” Walters said candidly.

However, the leader is seeing this as a fresh start for the party, a time to “rebuild something that used to be formidable.”

He said the Liberal ideology aligns closely with his own and as a “younger” leader, he recognizes the need for a 21st-century vision — and a less polarizing, more central political stance.

“We’ve had this binary political system for more than 20 years … people, I think, I believe, are looking for other choices that just aren’t available right now,” Walters said.

Right now, he said his role is to bring about that crucial aspect of democracy: choice. One that, as he described, is more mainstream, more moderate, doesn’t reflect the other parties and people can feel represented by.

He started with his pinball and patio afternoon — literally rolling up his sleeves to try his hand at the Dracula table.

“It’s so rare that we can actually do this without having to talk a certain way, be proper in a certain way … after a beer or two, who knows what’s going to be said,” he said with a smile.

The day was a return to his roots. Walters said when he was a student at the University of Saskatchewan, Old Louie’s was the place to hang out — a “dank, dark place” that boasted a Ms. PacMan machine.

“That’s how we kind of came of age,” he said.

He’s hoping his determination and willingness will pay off — in both the unforgiving worlds of politics and pinball.

“We are taking steps through different avenues of democracy to try and proactively find solutions to problems that people want to see solutions to where the old guard … stuck in their ways refuse to exercise,” Walters explained.

“Our job is to give people who don’t think they have a voice, an actual voice.”

Walters also wants to force action in the political sphere. He’s gathered 15,000 signatures on a petition for a plebiscite to look into the Saskatchewan Party’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Just because you’re in power doesn’t mean you don’t need to respond to people,” Walters said.