Mandryk: Meili must rewire city voters to hear NDP's message

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However, the Sask. Party’s slow and steady advance knocked down the gates of the Queen City in 2016, taking the majority of its seats. The fall of Regina four years ago fortified the notion the once-natural governing party in this province has been relegated to also-ran status with virtually no statistical chance of winning on Oct. 26, 2020. 

Changing the thinking pattern of voters is absolutely critical to the NDP’s survival right now.

There are an estimated 86 billion neurons in the human brain — each with an estimated 10,000 connectors. The paths toward thinking and learning are endless.

Yet past the voting age of 18, our brains are already settling into familiar patterns. While we never stop thinking and learning, neuroscience tells us our thinking tends to settle into more familiar patterns equated with memory and acquired knowledge.

Now, consider this in relation to how we vote … or more specifically, how certain demographics influence the voting process and the electoral results.

We are generally considered an older province, although changing demographics during our recent decade-and-a-half-long population growth spurt has actually slowed our aging process quite a bit.

For example, the 170,425 Saskatchewan seniors in the 2016 Canadian Census represented a 10.9-per-cent increase from the 153,705 seniors in the 2011 census. Seniors made up 15.5 per cent of our population in 2016 — actually, below the Canadian average of 16.9 per cent. Just five years earlier, the percentage of Saskatchewan seniors (14.9 per cent) was slightly higher than the Canadian average of 14.8 per cent.