Lone Liberal MLA Lamoureux looks to replay party’s greatest hits

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This article was published 20/10/2023 (687 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The only provincial Liberal MLA west of Toronto took her oath of office Friday in a small ceremony at the Manitoba legislative library.

Tyndall Park MLA Cindy Lamoureux won a third term in the Oct. 3 election, the only Manitoba Liberal to retain their seat. The provincial party’s newly appointed interim leader is undaunted about being its lone voice in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly.

“We’ve been in this situation before,” said Lamoureux, recalling the 1980s, when the Liberals went from having just one MLA elected to forming the official Opposition. “We built up.”

In a speech before taking the oath, she thanked her family, a group of constituents, volunteers and party faithful, including former River Heights MLA Jon Gerrard and Dougald Lamont, who resigned as leader after losing his St. Boniface seat to NDP candidate Robert Loiselle.

Lamoureux hearkened back to Sharon Carstairs, who became Liberal leader in 1984, when the party had no seats in the legislature, her winning the lone seat for the Liberals in 1986, then leading the party to 20 seats in 1988 in a Progressive Conservative minority government.

“It was Sharon Carstairs going from one person, as I am now, to 20 people,” the Tyndall Park MLA said in an interview. “I’m pretty sure we can do that again.”

The lone MLA said she hasn’t yet decided if she’ll seek the leadership of the Manitoba Liberal Party.

In the meantime, she’s been getting advice from Carstairs herself.

“I’m having coffee with her on Tuesday in Ottawa,” Lamoureux said.

“When she was leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party, one of the things she did was she had a caucus of critics,” she said. “I’ve started developing my caucus of critics — a lot of them are past candidates — to help me with a lot of the legislation that is going to be introduced.”

Lamoureux said she also plans to speak to Lamont and Gerrard about the caucus of critics that would also help out at Liberal events.

“I recognize I’m one person. I can’t be everywhere. That’s what the caucus of critics is for,” the MLA said. “That is a page right out of Sharon Carstairs’s book.”

While provincial Liberal parties in Western Canada have tried to distance themselves from an unpopular federal party with new names (B.C. United, Saskatchewan Progress Party), the daughter of federal Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North) is not interested in renaming or rebranding.

“I’m a Manitoba Liberal to my core,” Lamoureux said. “I’m not planning on changing the party name.”

One of Lamoureux’s constituents and supporters at the swearing-in agreed talk of renaming the provincial party is overblown.

“Personally, I don’t think there is an overall problem from the grassroots,” said Farzana Kochai, whose political experience and devotion to democracy runs deep.

She served as a member of parliament in Afghanistan in 2019, prior to the Taliban takeover of that country in 2021.

“It’s not such a big problem that they have to split ways,” Kochai said of the federal-provincial Liberal relationship. “It should be OK.”

Meanwhile, Manitoba’s other 56 MLAs are being sworn in Monday at the legislative building.

The 22 PCs will take the oath of office at 11 a.m.; the 34 NDP MLAs will do the same at 1 p.m.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca