Activist first to run for NDP leader, calls party ‘unrecognizable’

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This article was published 10/03/2017 (3435 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The NDP is unrecognizable today to party members whom it betrayed, provincial leadership candidate Michelle McHale said Friday.

McHale became the first person to announce her candidacy for the party’s Sept. 16 leadership convention.

She told about 50 supporters she is the candidate who will listen to party members and unite the party again.

Beyond that, McHale staked out few policy positions, was unsure Friday where she would fit on the party’s political spectrum, and said she was too new in politics to speculate what the party’s biggest mistake was in the disastrous election campaign last April.

“Our society must change from one based on competition to one based on co-operation,” said McHale, who became a public figure last year when she organized the first-ever Pride parade in Steinbach, which was successful.

A 37-year-old mental-health counsellor who grew up in Niverville, McHale works as a representative with the United Food and Commercial Workers. The leadership race marks her first foray into elected politics.

“Many of you feel betrayed by a party you believed in,” McHale said. “Almost all of you have shared that the party… is unrecognizable to you now.”

She said Premier Brian Pallister and his caucus “don’t know what it means to work 60 hours a week and still struggle.”

McHale was introduced by Winnipeg School Division trustee Lisa Naylor. The only NDP caucus member present was Wolseley MLA Rob Altemeyer. He neither offered an endorsement nor was photographed with her.

“The learning curve is steep,” McHale told reporters. “Maybe I don’t know what I don’t know.”

McHale said she took out an NDP membership a year ago; before that she was involved in Pride and considered it appropriate to be non-partisan.

Her goal is to listen to party members and then see what she needs to do to bring the party back together. “I’m not looking for endorsements at this part,” she said.

McHale was uncertain — if she becomes leader — where she would run in the next general election in 2020 or if she would contest a byelection should a riding open up.

The NDP already has a candidate nominated in the Point Douglas byelection.

“It would need to be a place that would be good for my family” and shares her values, McHale said.

Her family is awaiting a human rights hearing into a complaint filed while living in Steinbach against Hanover School Division over the school board’s refusal to allow discussion of same-sex families in schools.

The NDP will hold its annual general meeting next weekend. It is expected to be dominated by debate over the rules for electing a new leader next fall.

McHale could not say Friday if she would favour a traditional election by delegates from ridings and labour organizations, or the one-member-one-vote process.

“I don’t have all the information now,” she said.

Naylor told the rally that McHale was in care as a teenager and was a single mother in her teens.

“Michelle knows first-hand about poverty and marginalization,” Naylor said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca