Gordon targets grassroots in Fort Rouge battle

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This article was published 06/04/2016 (3706 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

She’s not received the notoriety of her two main challengers in Fort Rouge but that’s OK with Progressive Conservative candidate Audrey Gordon.

While Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari and Wab Kinew of the NDP are operating “at 40,000 feet” and attracting lots of media coverage (both good and bad), Gordon says she’s been on the ground — where the people are.

“This is a community where you will go to the door and individuals will know the issues that are being debated,” said Gordon, a 53-year-old mother of two with a master’s degree in business administration and a three-decade career as a public servant.

“So, yes, they’re aware of the Liberal leader and Wab Kinew but they’re also aware of me. They’re aware of me because I have spent time at the grassroots here.”

The contest in Fort Rouge is a wide-open affair, with all three major parties having a shot at success. A recent poll raised some eyebrows when it showed Gordon in a statistical tie for the lead with Bokhari and Kinew.

Jennifer Howard, a former NDP cabinet minister, won the Fort Rouge seat in 2007 and 2011 but did not seek re-election this time, instead taking a job in Ottawa. The constituency has not voted Tory since 1973, trading hands between the Liberals and the NDP ever since.

But Gordon, who exudes energy and is frequently at party leader Brian Pallister’s side during campaign announcements, is pumped. “I’ve developed an acronym for the campaign: GAF — great, awesome, fantastic.”

Born the seventh of eight children to Jamaican parents who moved to Manitoba when she was eight, Gordon worked as a provincial civil servant for 24 years, mainly in immigration and multiculturalism. Currently, she is on leave from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. She has managed several large projects for the WRHA, including the innovative Hospital at Home program which has reduced the reliance on emergency rooms for elderly patients with chronic diseases, allowing them to remain at home longer.

Although she lives in south Winnipeg, she says her work career in government and the health sector, and the connections she’s made in business (she also operates a transportation company with her husband) have opened doors for her in the high-density central Winnipeg constituency.

Gordon is a relatively recent convert to the PCs. Her first taste of provincial politics came in 2003 when she volunteered to work on then-NDP hopeful Theresa Oswald’s first campaign in Seine River at the urging of St. Vital NDP MLA Nancy Allan. (Gordon knows Allan because their kids were playmates, she said.)

“I’m all about growth and development, and if I’m going to do a good job here (she was a civil servant at the time) and the NDP are currently in power, I should know more,” Gordon said Tuesday in explaining her first foray into politics.

A check of political party financial returns to Elections Manitoba reveals Gordon donated between $286 and $457 to the NDP in 2007, 2009 and 2010 before switching allegiances — and financial support — to the Tories with a $550 contribution to her current party in 2011.

Gordon said she quickly grew disillusioned with the NDP and felt the party was not as cohesive a team as it should be.

“I didn’t find them to be progressive. I’m a very progressive thinker. I love innovation. I’ve studied innovation in the (University of Manitoba’s) Asper School of Business. And I thought they weren’t open to new ideas coming from the grassroots,” she said.

Gordon said her continued donations to the NDP were made more in the spirit of supporting the political process than an agreement with party principles.

“I want a government that is focused on the priorities of the people, that’s focused on ensuring that money is spent on front-line services, that our debt is kept in check so it doesn’t impact the lives of future generations,” she said of the PCs.

“I’m concerned about the provincial outflow of our young people. One in three people living in poverty is unconscionable. It is wrong.”

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Gordon unsuccessfully sought the Tory nomination in the Seine River constituency, where she lives, saying she did not get an early start in that contest. She’s been the nominee in Fort Rouge since August.

She said she feels an affinity for ethnically diverse, south-central Winnipeg area, and promises to move there if elected April 19.

Kinew, a broadcaster, and University of Winnipeg administrator, was introduced earlier this year as a star candidate for the NDP. He’s since had to respond to sexist and homophobic tweets and controversial song lyrics from his days as a hip-hop artist.

Bokhari has been criticized for her performance as party leader thus far in the campaign. The Liberals have been accused of failing to vet candidates properly and failing to present a realistic fiscal plan.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca