NDP steals Seine River seat from Tory minister Morley-Lecomte

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This article was published 03/10/2023 (745 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Seine River, which has gone back and forth between Progressive Conservative and NDP representation, changed hands once again on Tuesday as teacher and butcher shop owner Billie Cross became the riding’s latest NDP MLA, defeating PC cabinet minister Janice Morley-Lecomte.

As of 11 p.m. Tuesday night, with 11 of 12 polls reporting, Cross had received 4,251 votes, and Morley-Lecomte, who had served as the minister of mental health and community wellness, had received 3,271.

Cross, who is Métis, is an Indigenous education support teacher in the Louis Riel School Division. She held canvassing blitzes with students and other educators.

She said she is “ecstatic” to take on the new role, and after a short break hopes to focus on advocating for improving Manitoba’s health-care system.

“I’m just so excited to change things for people … (and) I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to serve the people of Seine River,” she said. “I’m so humbled and honoured that they put that trust in me, and I won’t let them down.”

Seine River has alternated between PC and NDP leadership since the electoral district’s creation in 1990. The southeast Winnipeg riding was Conservative from 1990 to 2003, then held by the NDP from 2003 to 2016. Morley-Lecomte had been the MLA for Seine River since 2016.

Morley-Lecomte ran into controversy in the final days before the election, when it was revealed that Ken Lee — a former Manitoba Tory chief financial officer and rejected leadership candidate who was loudly critical of the provincial government’s public-health orders around COVID-19 — had returned to help her campaign. He had previously served as her official agent.

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Liberal candidate and business owner James Bloomfield had received 677 votes as of 11 p.m. Tuesday night.

Seine River had one independent candidate, retired computer engineer Martin Jiri Stadler, who received 106 votes. Stadler ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in the Emerson riding in 1988.

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.