Aboriginal MLA to helm beleaguered Liberals

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This article was published 21/10/2016 (3564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rookie MLA Judy Klassen has become the first indigenous leader of a major political party in Manitoba in more than a century.

Klassen was appointed as the Liberal party’s interim leader Friday and will guide the party to a leadership convention next fall.

Klassen, who became the first Liberal to represent the vast northern constituency of Kewatinook by defeating longtime NDP cabinet minister Eric Robinson, is believed to be the first indigenous party leader since John Norquay, who was Métis, served as premier from 1878 to 1887.

“I am humbled and honoured,” the 44-year-old Klassen told a news conference. “We need to start building our Liberal party.”

Klassen, a member of St. Theresa Point First Nation who lives in Steinbach, said her voice can now be heard provincewide.

“It’s fantastic. It’s historic, for sure,” Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson said.

Klassen is the first indigenous woman to head a major party and one of only a handful of female leaders, North Wilson said.

“The profile and perspective Judy brings is very important. She has a perspective that is very real. It’s a good thing for the rest of society to hear.”

Klassen wouldn’t say whether she is considering a run for the leadership next fall; that would require her to step down from the interim leadership by June 20.

“That’s not off the table,” she said.

The Liberals, with just three MLAs, are one seat short of official party status, which would mean funding for staff and research. Officially, the MLAs are considered Independent members of the legislature.

“There is always hope for a vacancy, and we would hope our party would take that seat,” Klassen said.

The other two MLAs are former party leader Jon Gerrard and rookie Cindy Lamoureux.

Klassen said the Liberals have already contributed to the legislature: “I think we’ve been doing that very effectively by being the calm middle ground.”

Klassen said her job is to build the party and to develop strong constituency associations throughout Manitoba. She acknowledged the party’s finances are in poor shape, evidenced by the lack of resources in the April 19 election: “We know we’re in a deficit position.”

She established and operated a laundromat at St. Theresa Point so she could understand what it’s like to run a business, Klassen recently told the legislature. Her family lives in Steinbach, where she’s an accountant.

Since being elected, Klassen has held her colleagues’ attention, speaking calmly and straightforwardly about tragedies and horrors of which many in the south have no experience.

Speaking for the first time last spring, Klassen said when the day’s sitting ended, she would join her relatives at the hospital, where her brother would be taken off life-support.

She spoke about her niece’s suicide during the spring election campaign.

One day, Klassen told the house she had received permission from elders to talk about why she and other people on her reserve carry box cutters — so they can cut down people who have attempted or who have carried out suicide by hanging.

“She has a very gentle way,” North Wilson said.

“There’s awe about this person,” said Christopher Adams, a political scientist based at St. Paul’s College.

“She really did build a name on election night. Many southerners thought it was a safe seat for Eric Robinson,” Adams said. “Everyone was quite taken by Klassen’s story that she was (campaigning) on ice roads and sleeping in the cabs some nights.”

Adams said Klassen has established a second regional base that she can develop as a strength for the Liberals: “The Liberal party might be able to build another regional base outside middle-class Winnipeg.”

Klassen said she tries to be humble in the legislature and acknowledged she’s aware that, “I come off as a very kind and caring person.”

The most unexpected part of being an MLA, Klassen told reporters Friday, is, “I didn’t think it would be this much fun.” But, she emphasized, “There are a lot of heartbreaking issues.”

Klassen singled out former leader Rana Bokhari for having asked her to become the candidate in Kewatinook. “It shows what the Liberal party is all about, inclusiveness,” Klassen said.

Klassen wouldn’t talk Friday about what went wrong in the election campaign, when the party entered the campaign with polls suggesting it could become the official Opposition.

The Liberals had no discernible ideology, policies were vague and Bokhari had difficulty explaining them to voters, while there seemed to be no central campaign structure or funding.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca