Manitoba Tories nominate raft of candidates

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This article was published 01/11/2022 (1388 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Progressive Conservative party has announced a flurry of candidates in recent days amid speculation Manitobans may go to the polls sooner than the fixed election date — the fall of 2023.

On Tuesday, the Manitoba Tories confirmed that Health Minister Audrey Gordon — who was non-committal about running for re-election when asked this summer — will run again in Southdale.

Environment Minister Jeff Wharton will seek re-election in Red River North and Agriculture Minister Derek Johnson will run again in Interlake-Gimli. PC MLAs James Teitsma (Radisson), Janice Morley-Lecomte (Seine River) and Bob Lagasse (Dawson Trail), will also run again. On Saturday, the PCs announced their candidate in Midland is Lauren Stone, rejecting McPhillips incumbent Shannon Martin, who campaigned for months to get the Tory nod in the safe PC seat. Martin has said he’s undecided about running again in McPhillips.

Other long-serving Tories have said they’re not running again. Blaine Pedersen (Midland), Eileen Clarke (Agassiz), Ralph Eichler (Lakeside) and Dennis Smook (LaVerendrye) are retiring.

The Tories have yet to pick a candidate to run in the Kirkfield Park byelection, which must be held by mid-December after PC MLA Scott Fielding resigned in June. The party will announce a nominee on Nov. 14, a spokesperson said this week. Former city councillor Kevin Klein is seeking the PC nomination after unsuccessfully running to become Winnipeg’s mayor.

A provincial election must be held no later than Oct. 3, 2023, and Premier Heather Stefanson has not ruled out going to the polls earlier.

One veteran Manitoba political observer doubts that will happen.

“My best guess is that the premier will hold off calling an election at this time,” said University of Manitoba political studies professor emeritus Paul Thomas.

“If there is an early election, it would more likely happen in the spring after a budget which contained some positive initiatives that were intended to draw back some party loyalists and independent voters, as well as give party activists some motivation to campaign aggressively.”

Delaying the election would give the PC party a longer period to try to show that a Stefanson government is acting more on the basis of consensus rather than following the unilateral, often confrontational style of her predecessor Brian Pallister’s administration.

Successive Probe Research polls have shown that were an election held now, the NDP would form government.

Whether it’s a spring or fall election, the top two issues for voters will be the health-care crisis and affordability concerns, Thomas said.

“These issues will not disappear; however, delay might lessen the intensity and anger attached to them,” he said.

The NDP says all of its incumbents plan to run again in their constituencies, with 36 candidates nominated to run in the provincial election.

The Manitoba Liberals, with just three seats in the legislative assembly say they’re getting ready to run.

“We have been recruiting and nominating candidates, doing platform preparation, fundraising, and are set to nominate more candidates,” leader Dougald Lamont said Tuesday.

“That being said, we still have a fixed-date election law in this province. I do not understand why the PCs think they can ignore an election law that they called for themselves.”

It’s not clear the PCs plan to call an early election, though.

“Given the preoccupation with governing in challenging times, the poor polling numbers, the turmoil within the party over leadership, and the generational turnover in a governing party that often occurs after two terms in office, I am not surprised that sitting MLAs are having second thoughts about running again and that organizational preparedness seems to be delayed compared to the NDP,” Thomas said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca