Tory defeat prompts internal finger-pointing By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:15 PM CDT Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023

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The Progressive Conservatives’ electoral defeat has opened the door to internal bickering about campaign strategy that has senior members of the party pointing fingers at each other.

Outgoing justice minister Kelvin Goertzen said he, too, had concerns about negative ads during the PC campaign, but felt calling them out publicly after losing the election would serve no purpose.

On Thursday, the re-elected Steinbach incumbent was asked to comment on former caucus colleague Rochelle Squires’ condemnation of the hard-right turn the Tory campaign took weeks before Tuesday’s election, in which she lost the Riel constituency.

“Nobody said anything during the campaign publicly, and I’m not a big believer that saying things after the fact is the way to go,” said Goertzen. “If there were concerns that you had before, then maybe they should’ve been raised before.

“Did I have concerns about the election campaign? Of course I did. That’s the nature of the campaigns. People have different ideas. I raised those concerns internally on different things, and they’ll stay internal because that’s how election campaigns are.

“I also know that there’s an old saying that ‘Victory has a thousand fathers and defeat dies an orphan.’ That happens a lot after election campaigns,” Goertzen added. “Everybody runs as fast as they can away, saying that ‘None of this was my responsibility,’ where, had we won, everybody would’ve said ‘Those were my ideas.’”

Following Tuesday’s election, Squires has in several interviews condemned the PC strategy of campaigning on a refusal to search the landfill north of Winnipeg where the the bodies of murdered Indigenous women are believed to be buried. The timing of her criticism has riled a prominent former politician.

“Great, you’re doing it now, but where were you before people voted?” Shelly Glover said Thursday. “Why didn’t anybody say anything?”

The former PC leadership candidate, federal cabinet minister and police officer said she quit the party over the Tories’ campaign advertising, saying it targeted and was harmful to Indigenous Manitobans.

Glover, who is Métis, said she stayed quiet until after the election to avoid getting blamed for having any part in the Tories’ expected loss.

On Thursday, she said she was “aghast” watching the Sept. 21 televised leaders debate, when the first issue PC leader Heather Stefanson raised was her refusal to search the landfill.

“It hurt a lot of people,” said Glover. “These poor women are lying in the dump.” The landfill-search refusal became part of the PCs’ advertising, and was so appalling Glover said she expected someone running for the Tories would have the courage to speak up on principle.

“If you’re going to stand up and say you want to be the voice of the people, then there should be no limitation on that, when it’s this egregious.”

Highlighting Wab Kinew’s criminal past and suggesting crime would worsen if he became premier was also a low blow, Glover said.

“When they first started attacking Wab and his history I was crushed,” she said, recalling her late mother’s recovery from a similar past and then, as a counsellor, using it to help young people.

“What do our Indigenous people have to look forward to if you don’t recognize their accomplishment? If someone does something good, you don’t shoot it down for political reasons,” she said.

Squires’ post-election condemnation of the negativity of the campaign isn’t the first time the provincial Tories have summoned the courage to speak up after the fact, Glover said.

“It is a pattern, and it’s disturbing,” said Glover, who ran for the provincial Tory leadership in 2021 after witnessing the staffing crisis in personal-care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

No one in the PC caucus — aside from Indigenous and Municipal Relations Minister Eileen Clarke, who resigned — ever spoke up about the actions of former premier Brian Pallister until after he was ousted in a silent coup when polls showed support for the party tanking, Glover said.

“Every one of them should’ve said something.”

Goertzen is looking to the future, with new MLAs and the party hitting the “reset” button.

“It’s all part of renewal of a political party when you lose government,” said the Steinbach MLA, who was first elected in 2003.

“Now the campaign is over, and I think all of us have to focus on learning from what went wrong and what went right, and rebuilding ourselves so that we’re a strong Opposition and a government in waiting. That’s my focus — not on trying to Monday-morning-quarterback everyone’s campaign,” he said.

“There’s going to be a new leader at some point, which means it’s going to rebrand itself,” added Goertzen, who served as interim premier after Pallister resigned and until Stefanson was chosen as leader and sworn in.

“This shouldn’t be a quick process,” he said of electing a new party leader. “It’s different when you’re in government and you’re selecting a leader, because you’re governing and there’s a little more urgency to that. In opposition, there isn’t the same urgency,” he said.

“The party has the luxury to take the time to make sure they get the rules right, that there’s opportunities for candidates to make decisions. And personally, as a member, I think they should take that time.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

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