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NDP carry two byelections

By: Larry Kusch and Bruce Owen

24/03/2009 10:35 PM | Comments: 27

People head into Glenelm School Tuesday morning where a polling station for the Elmwood byelection was located.

WAYNE GLOWACKI/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

People head into Glenelm School Tuesday morning where a polling station for the Elmwood byelection was located.

After three decades of sitting in the opposition benches in Ottawa, Bill Blaikie will finally get a taste of power, joining the Doer government as the new MLA for Elmwood.

Blaikie easily outpaced three other candidates — winning more than half the votes cast — as the NDP won both byelections Tuesday, as expected.

Premier Gary Doer joins Bill Blaikie's victory party.

Enlarge Image

Premier Gary Doer joins Bill Blaikie's victory party. (BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

In The Pas, Frank Whitehead, a political adviser to Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Ron Evans, also won handily.

Blaikie said Tuesday night  he looks forward to taking a seat in the Manitoba legislature and learning the ropes of provincial politics.
"I’ve been an observer of it but never a participant," he said.

Blaikie also said the Disraeli Bridge project, the big issue in the campaign, is at the top of his agenda. He dismissed claims the Doer government did not care about keeping the bridge partially open during its upcoming construction.

Premier Gary Doer said the byelection victories put "wind in the sails" of his government as it heads into budget day today. Neither he nor Blaikie would talk about the possibility of Blaikie being named to cabinet.

Meanwhile, Progressive Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen took solace in the fact that the NDP’s margin of victory in Elmwood was lower than in past elections.

The NDP have won more than 60 per cent of the vote in the constituency for at least the past three elections until its "dramatic slide" to just above 50 per cent Tuesday night, he said.

"Clearly there’s a pretty dramatic shift against the NDP, certainly in Elmwood, and it’s consistent with what we’re seeing across the city of Winnipeg," McFadyen said.

The Liberals had said they were running neck and neck with Blaikie in Elmwood, but wound up finishing third. Their candidate, Regan Wolfrom, said he felt the party has a good base in the riding and that the Grits "know what it takes to win now."

"We can make it happen," he said from his campaign headquarters.

Elmwood had been without an MLA since early September when NDP MLA Jim Maloway resigned to run federally. The vacancy in The Pas occurred last November when longtime MLA and cabinet minister Oscar Lathlin died.

Both constituencies are traditional NDP strongholds. Maloway won 61 per cent of the Elmwood vote in the 2007 general election, while Lathlin polled 68 per cent of those who cast ballots in The Pas.

Whitehead, a former chief of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, finished well ahead of aboriginal craft and fashion designer Edna Nabess, who carried the Progressive Conservative banner, and Liberal candidate Maurice Berens, a Norway House high school teacher.

"I believe this party (the NDP) is the only party right now that will respond to the needs of our constituency," Whitehead said Tuesday night.

"I’m very excited about... being part of a bigger machinery that makes laws and has policies that contribute to all of Manitoba. I’m going to be part of that. And for me that’s the biggest thing I’ll ever do in my life."

Voters outside the Polson School polling station on Munroe Avenue Tuesday afternoon said Elmwood has a tradition of voting NDP and that nothing happened during the campaign to change that.

"The NDP is for the working man," Ralph Anderson said. "The Conservatives are for the guys who try to make people work. The Liberals are somewhere in the middle."

With the two victories, the NDP has 36 seats in the legislature, while the Conservatives have 19 seats and the Liberals two.


bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca
larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

 

 

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27 Commentscomment icon

Far better to have Blaikie and the NDP win than the alternative, which is a right wing Tory who spends his entire career thinking of ways of accumulating wealth and keeping it for themselves their like-minded brethren!

Brian said: "Nine (soon to be 10) consecutive balanced budgets with tax cuts!"

I always find it amusing when people feel the need to trumpet Doer and "balanced budgets". With the NDP, you never know which books are the real ones:
(http://www.taxpayer.com/taxpayer/news-archive?news_id=1885)

And Selinger is bragging about a $316 Million surplus. Not exactly balanced, is it? A surplus means one of two things, either we're overtaxed or under serviced. If you've ever had the pleasure of having to use any of our health care services, having children attend public schools, driven on our roads etc. you'd know what the truth is.

NDP remains an acronym for No Dignity Present, and Manitobans keep voting for what they deserve.

Please! Not premier Blaikie in the future!

Hugh McFadyen should change his name to Alice, because he shure lives in wonderland.

Good job Elmwood! Quite the reward for a guy who totally ignored you when he was your MP. [edited]

What's with all this "double-dipping" rhetoric? I think some people here are just towing their own party line. So, any person who retires from one job after 30 years, should immediately forfeit their pension from their first career if they decide to go back to work in a different job? I think you're calling a lot of retirees out there thieves then. What about just about every former politician who collects a government pension and then goes to work in the private sector? I think this criticism of Mr. Blaike is unfair and should be dropped. The Tories and Liberals both lost by a margin of over 50%. Get over it.

I think what Hugh McFadyen needs to understand is that elections are about winning seats to form government not sliming the NDP victory margins. Unfortunately for him while he's counting sliming margins as victories the NDP are picking off historically Conservative seats like Southdale and Kirkfield Park. So ya Hugh, just keep calling those sliming of margins victories and Gary Doer will just keep working as Canada's most popular Premier. I have no problem with that scenario.

Will switching troughs make a difference to the good folks of Elmwood? Nope. At least they'll feel comforted in the fact they have the biggest representative in the Leg...one who is truely a Double Dipper Nipper.

Why did Mr. Doer call the elections on the 24th and then table his provincial budget the next day? Seems to me that it should have been the other way around. Let us see where our money is going and THEN see if the people like the plan. Ah well, wouldn't have made a difference in these two ridings anyway...

I've heard Blaikie speak at the House of Commons. The man is very passionate, and for all the right reasons. He will perform admirably at the provincial level. We are very lucky to have such a level headed, balanced government in Manitoba. Blaikie, however, will probably find himself at the far left of the NDP caucus, he will have to moderate his views to be successful at his new job.

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