Tory leadership candidates offer contrasting views

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This article was published 19/03/2025 (202 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The two men vying to lead the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba laid out different visions for the future of the province at a debate Wednesday night in Winnipeg.

Close to 160 party members attended the Caboto Centre where Wally Daudrich, a lodge owner from Churchill, and Obby Khan, the MLA for Fort Whyte and a former cabinet minister, addressed five topics, ranging from U.S. President Donald Trump, tariffs and trade to health care and violent crime.

Daudrich said, half in jest, that Manitoba should annex North Dakota, which would benefit from being able to ship its exports through the Port of Churchill.

“We own oceanfront property,” said the business owner, who joked he’d have the first Fargo, Man. T-shirt made. “It’s a gift of God,” that could and should be used to ship resources from Saskatchewan and Alberta, Daudrich said. Rather than making use of the port, Manitoba and its western neighbours have become “slaves” to north-south trade, he said.

Khan said the tariffs imposed by the U.S. will hurt Americans and Canadians and the pain will be felt very soon.

“We need to have a serious conversation — not about annexing other states,” countered Khan.

The party’s main objective should be winning the next provincial election, he said.

The Winnipeg MLA called for PCs to unite under a “big tent” to win the next election. To do that, it needs to win back the seven Winnipeg-area seats it lost by a total of 3,000 votes to the NDP in the 2023 election.

“You don’t have to always agree,” Khan said. “Our goal must be to win back government,” said Khan who was first elected in a 2022 byelection after former premier Brian Pallister resigned from his Fort Whyte seat.

Daudrich said the party can win Winnipeg and the province if it sticks to conservative principles. He took a swipe at NDP government policies such as providing free prescription birth control to Manitobans “to be more sexually active,” and for the reason it needs to provide a free school nutrition program — because “this generation is so poor they can’t feed their children.”

He scoffed at Premier Wab Kinew’s analogy of the economic horse pulling the social cart: “the economic horse is starved half to death.”

As for violent crime, Daudrich said the province needs to build a bigger remand centre to house people charged with violent crimes and bail violations, and hire more police, crown attorneys and judges.

Khan said municipalities have been crying out for more funding for services such as policing, and that he’d consider directing a portion of provincial sales tax revenue to municipalities. He said he’s met with leaders around the province who say the current funding model doesn’t work.

“What’s a good thing for municipalities is going to be good for the province,” Khan told reporters after the debate.

Daudrich explained after the debate that the PCs would have done better in Winnipeg if they’d been more conservative.

“A number of people have come to me and said ‘we didn’t vote last time because everybody looked the same,’” he said.

“There is nobody who is contrasting as a conservative.” He pointed to new Canadians in Winnipeg suburbs “who are more conservative than my grandparents.”

When asked about his comment that the NDP government shouldn’t provide free prescription contraceptives, he said that’s not the role of government.

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“Government should concentrate on what government does: on policing, on order, health care, our infrastructure. Why are we doing all these other things? We’ve never asked them to do those things,” said Daudrich, a longtime PC party board member.

The winner, to be announced April 26, will step into the job that was held by Heather Stefanson. She resigned after the PCs lost the 2023 election to Kinew and the NDP who formed a majority government. Lac du Bonnet MLA Wayne Ewasko has acted as interim leader since Stefanson departed.

The last time Daudrich and Khan took part in a leadership debate was in Brandon on Feb. 20.

The party, which had just 2,200 members when it kicked off the leadership campaign last summer, reported nearly 11,000 people had purchased memberships as of Feb. 28, the deadline to be eligible to vote for leader. Ballots must be mailed in or dropped off at designated locations by April 22.

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.