Tories face period of reckoning, rebuilding

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This article was published 04/10/2023 (756 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After losing the provincial election and being demoted to Opposition from government, Manitoba Progressive Conservatives were lying low rather than answering questions about choosing a new leader to rebuild a divided party.

No one from the PC party executive or caucus responded to requests for comment Wednesday concerning next steps, such as the leadership process to replace Heather Stefanson, who announced her resignation from the top role Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, after losing her seat in Riel, former cabinet minister Rochelle Squires denounced the Tory campaign’s hard-right pivot in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The PC party is in for a period of reckoning and rebuilding that’s expected to give the NDP and premier-designate Wab Kinew a longer-than-typical honeymoon period after taking office, political experts said.

“The centre of gravity of the (Tory) party has shifted more to the right and it’s more rural in its base,” said Paul Thomas, a veteran observer of Manitoba politics. “Yet, the realists in back room are probably saying, ‘We have to have a moderate leader. We don’t want to be perennially shut out in Winnipeg. We can’t win elections that way.’”

A leader who appeals to the socially conservative, anti-government wing of the party won’t win over progressives in Winnipeg, where there are the most seats to be won, the University of Manitoba political studies professor emeritus said.

If a “compromise candidate” is chosen to lead the PCs, they may have a harder time as the Opposition in performing its main function: holding the new NDP government to account, Thomas said.

Former leader Brian Pallister was described as autocratic and dominated his caucus, but that unified approach resulted in a successful, focused opposition, and ultimately led to two PC majority governments, Thomas said.

“All of this will take a lot of time to settle out, which means that Kinew will have a lot of room initially to escape serious criticisms of his performance. The party will spend a lot of time trying to rebuild and get its act back together.”

A former PC campaign manager who helped the party win the 2016 and 2019 Manitoba elections, said time can be a great healer — if it is wisely spent.

“They need to have time to reflect on who they are and what they stand for,” David McLaughlin said Wednesday.

“The campaign was confusing to voters,” said McLaughlin, who now heads the Ottawa-based Institute on Governance. “You’re supposed to be fiscally conservative but you’re spending like crazy and yet, the very last weekend (of the campaign), you’re talking about a balanced budget?

“There is a total cognitive dissonance that is in the party and in its leadership,” said the former clerk of the executive council, who was fired by Stefanson after she became Tory leader in 2021.

As premier, she promised to work at Indigenous reconciliation, then campaigned on refusing to search a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of Indigenous women believed by police to be victims of an alleged serial killer, McLaughlin said.

“(The party) needs to confront these more existential questions about who it is and what it stands for, give themselves some time, and then they’re gonna have to get a whole new crew,” he said.

“This was probably the last gasp of the traditional establishment, conservative corporatists that have dominated the party for many years and has consistently lost elections,” said McLaughlin, who attributed the 2016 and 2019 wins to Pallister’s belief in the meritocracy rather than corporate connections.

Speculation of who’s next to lead the PC party has begun, with names being floated such as former Economic Development Winnipeg president Dayna Spiring, former Portage—Lisgar MP Candice Bergen (who co-chaired the provincial PC campaign) and Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan.

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In 2022, Stefanson described Khan — Manitoba’s first Muslim MLA — as “the new face of the PC party” the night he won the Fort Whyte byelection.

On Wednesday, Khan declined via text message to say if he’s interested in leading the party.

Thomas said campaign ads with Khan touting “parental rights” — which critics described as a transphobic dog whistle — may haunt the former professional football player and entrepreneur, if he pursues the leadership.

“I don’t know what ‘genius’ thought that was the best issue to put forward,” Thomas said. “It may work in some southern states in the U.S., but I don’t think in Canada it goes over well. “

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.

Every piece of reporting Carol 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.