Heading into a federal election, here’s a look at Manitoba’s political landscape

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This article was published 23/03/2025 (223 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Take a change in Liberal leadership, throw in an American president hell-bent on a trade war while threatening to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, and you get an election campaign few could have predicted just weeks ago.

What appeared as a coronation of Tory leader Pierre Poilievre right up until the Christmas holiday season — while the Liberals were saddled with the burden of the Justin Trudeau legacy — is shaping up to be a barn-burner.

Newly crowned Grit leader Mark Carney has entered the political boxing ring and triggered an election Sunday.

A Free Press-Probe Research poll released last week found the Liberals have leapt up 24 per cent to sit at 54 per cent support among decided and leaning voters in Winnipeg.

Manitoba, with its 14 ridings, isn’t a make-or-break battleground for the national parties, but the new dynamics are expected to play out here as well.

While Winnipeg’s eight seats, for the most part, can swing between Liberal red and Tory blue, with a couple of NDP seats added to the mix, the rest of the province usually stays true to its conservative history.

From the small, high-density riding Winnipeg Centre to the massive Churchill-Keewatinook Aski riding that takes up four-fifths of northern Manitoba, MPs and their opponents are gearing up for a race during a pivotal time in Canada’s history.

Here’s a look at the ridings.

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Elmwood-Transcona

This riding in east Winnipeg has working-class credentials as it’s home to the Canadian National Railway Transcona Yards and the NFI Group, a bus-building factory. It has mostly carried the NDP banner throughout its history.

Its current MP is New Democrat Leila Dance, who was elected in a byelection last fall after her party-mate Daniel Blaikie jumped ship to work for the Manitoba government under Wab Kinew.

Before Blaikie was elected in October 2015, the riding was held by Conservative Lawrence Toet for one term, beginning in 2011, and New Democrat Jim Maloway for one term before that. Bill Blaikie, Daniel’s father, was MP from May 1979 to October 2008. This time around, the Conservatives have chosen construction electrician and union member Colin Reynolds to carry their standard.

Liberal – Ian MacIntyre

Conservative Party of Canada – Colin Reynolds

New Democratic Party (NDP) – Leila Dance (incumbent)

Green – unknown

People’s Party of Canada – Collin Watson

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Kildonan-St. Paul

This 22-year-old riding has been painted Tory blue for 18 years.

First by Joy Smith, a former Manitoba cabinet minister, from 2004 to 2015, and by Raquel Dancho, who defeated one-term Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk in 2019.

Dancho is running her third campaign, while the NDP’s Emily Clark is running again after finishing with a strong third in 2021, just behind the Liberal. As current polling shows many people who planned to vote Conservative are switching to Liberal, Thomas Naaykens, an accountant, hopes to catch that momentum for the Grits and steal the seat from Dancho.

Liberal – Thomas Naaykens

Conservative – Raquel Dancho (incumbent)

NDP – Emily Clark

Green – Unknown

PPC – Scott Bouska

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St. Boniface-St. Vital

This riding of slightly less than 100,000 residents has been held by former Liberal cabinet minister Dan Vandal since he was elected in 2015 after two-term Tory MP Shelly Glover decided not to run again. Vandal decided to bow out this time around.

The riding has been a century-long Liberal stronghold, with the Tories only defeating them five times in the 29 elections held since 1925. The NDP has come second only once, in 1997, by only five votes over the Reform Party. Usually, it comes in third.

This time around, the Liberals have nominated former Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain director Ginette Lavack, while the Conservative party is putting forward Shola Agboola, a provincial corrections worker, who came second to Vandal last time. The NDP’s hopes are pinned on Thomas Linner, the former director of the Manitoba Health Coalition.

Liberal – Ginette Lavack

Conservative – Shola Agboola

NDP – Thomas Linner

Green – Unknown

PPC – Peter Vandermeulen

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Winnipeg Centre

This riding’s NDP roots run deep. In 1921, in an earlier version of the riding, James Shaver Woodsworth, a Methodist minister and labour activist, was elected. He had a hand in forming and being the first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which later became the New Democratic Party.

Since it was reconstituted in 1997, the riding has been painted orange except for a single term when Robert-Falcon Ouellette knocked out veteran New Democrat Pat Martin during the Liberal red wave that brought then-prime minister Justin Trudeau to a majority government in 2015.

If that red wave surges this time around, two-term NDP MP Leah Gazan could be knocked out by Rahul Walia, who has been a regional adviser for Transport Canada and a constituency assistant to Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid, a cabinet minister in the short-lived Carney government.

Liberal – Rahul Walia

Conservative – Unknown

NDP – Leah Gazan (incumbent)

Green – Gary Gervais

PPC – Donald Grant

Other – Debra Wall

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Winnipeg North

This riding is one of only two in the province where the major ethnic origin isn’t European (24,855). Here, based on the 2021 federal census, it is Southeast Asian (35,175) with 31 per cent of the riding made up of people with Filipino heritage.

The riding, with a population of more than 95,000, has traditionally been an NDP stronghold: NDP MP David Orlikow held it from 1962 to 1988. That stronghold was breached by Liberal Kevin Lamoureux in a byelection in 2010, when it became one of only two seats won by the Liberal party on the Prairies. Lamoureux has held it since then.

Liberal – Kevin Lamoureux (incumbent)

Conservative – Rachel Punzalan

NDP – Unknown

Green – Unknown

PPC – Christopher Perkins

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Winnipeg South

This has been a bellwether riding over the years.

Whether it was Tories Rod Bruinooge and Dorothy Dobbie or Liberal Reg Alcock, the riding has elected members of the governing party since it was created in 1987.

Terry Duguid, who has won the riding three consecutive times and was recently appointed as environment and climate change minister by Prime Minister Mark Carney, is facing off against former provincial Tory cabinet minister Janice Morley-Lecomte.

Liberal – Terry Duguid (incumbent)

Conservative – Janice Morley-Lecomte

NDP – Joanne Bjornson

Green – Unknown

PPC – Filippo Palmisani

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Winnipeg South Centre

Following the death of Liberal MP and cabinet minister Jim Carr, his son Ben Carr was elected in a byelection in 2023. He is now competing for his first full term in office.

Since being created in 1988, the riding has been mostly Liberal starting with party stalwart Lloyd Axworthy, then Anita Neville, the current Manitoba lieutenant governor, and in recent years by the Carrs. In between, for a single term during Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s reign, Tory Joyce Bateman was elected (2011 to 2015).

The riding has changed throughout the decades, losing Tuxedo and gaining Linden Ridge and Whyte Ridge in the last redistribution.

Liberal – Ben Carr (incumbent)

Conservative – Royden Brousseau

NDP – Unknown

Green – Unknown

PPC – Christopher Fox

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Winnipeg West (formerly Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley)

The clunky name of the riding is gone, and an entire rural municipality has been added, but it remains to be seen whether its representative in Parliament changes.

Since being created in 1997, the riding has switched between Conservative and Liberal MPs. In the early years, Liberal John Harvard, a former CBC broadcaster, represented it and later became Manitoba’s lieutenant governor. Tory Steven Fletcher had a lock on the seat from 2004 to 2015.

Now, two-term Tory incumbent Marty Morantz, elected in 2019, is squaring off against emergency room physician Doug Eyolfson, whom he has bested in the last two elections. Eyolfson was Liberal MP here from 2015 to 2019.

Liberal – Doug Eyolfson

Conservative – Marty Morantz (incumbent)

NDP – Unknown

Green – Unknown

PPC – Levi Anger

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Brandon-Souris

This has been the safest Tory seat in Manitoba since 1952 — the only time they lost it is when they defeated themselves.

That was in 1993 when Conservative votes were split between the Progressive Conservative party and the Reform Party, leaving the PCs with only two seats across the country and putting Reform just two seats behind the Bloc Quebecois, which became the official Opposition. Together, this riding’s constituents cast more than 19,000 votes for the Reform and PC candidates, but it allowed Liberal Glen McKinnon to come up the middle and win a single term.

The PCs and the Conservative party have won every election since then.

But as of Sunday, Conservative MP Larry Maguire announced he would not seek re-election due to a health concern.

Liberal – Unknown

Conservative – Unknown

NDP – Unknown

Green – Unknown

PPC – Jim Oliver

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Churchill-Keewatinook Aski

This is the only riding in the province where the dominant population is Indigenous (61,455 out of 81,258 residents).

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, this was a Progressive Conservative stronghold, but since 1979, the massive northern Manitoba riding has voted orange, except for one term each by Liberals Elijah Harper and Tina Keeper.

The NDP’s Niki Ashton has been elected five times in a row since defeating Keeper in 2008. She has run twice for the party’s leadership, but she has been dogged by controversy in recent years.

She lost her critic roles in 2021 because she failed to tell her party’s leadership she had travelled to Greece during COVID-19 travel restrictions in 2020, to visit her sick grandmother.

Last year, Ashton paid back $2,900 of more than $17,000 in expenses for a Christmas trip. She said she was on government business when she, her husband and their two children flew from Thompson to Ottawa and then Quebec. After she was called out for expensing the trip, she said she had conducted MP business and met with stakeholders, but she refused to identify them.

Liberal – Unknown

Conservative – Unknown

NDP – Niki Ashton (incumbent)

Green – Unknown

PPC – Dylan Young

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Portage-Lisgar

This seat is Tory through and through.

Branden Leslie, a former Conservative party political staffer and a policy and government relations manager with Grain Growers Canada, was easily elected in a byelection — necessitated after five-term MP Candice Bergen stepped down in 2023 — with 65 per cent of the vote.

While PPC Leader Maxime Bernier received 17 per cent of the vote, both the Liberal and New Democratic candidates were left in the dust with single percentages. In fact, in past elections, it’s not uncommon for the Tory candidate to get more than 70 per cent of the vote. Running for the PPC this time is Kevin Larson, an automotive and agricultural shop supervisor, and the nephew of former Reform and Canadian Alliance MP Deb Grey. Grey was the first woman to serve as leader of a federal opposition party.

Liberal – Unknown

Conservative – Branden Leslie (incumbent)

NDP – Lisa Tessier-Burch

Green – Unknown

PPC – Kevin Larson

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Provencher

This riding, in the southeast corner of the province, is one of the original four ridings dating back to 1871, just after Manitoba became part of Canada.

Voters first elected Tory Pierre Delorme, but for decades after that, the riding swung back and forth between the Conservatives and Liberals, before settling into being more or less a Tory bastion by 1957.

Tory MP and cabinet minister Jake Epp won six consecutive elections and, after Liberal MP David Iftody won two elections, owing, in large part, to vote-splitting between the Progressive Conservatives and Reform Party, former provincial cabinet minister, and now Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Justice, Vic Toews, ran and won a half dozen elections. The incumbent, Ted Falk, has represented the riding since late 2013. It’s the third time Trevor Kirczenow, the first openly transgender candidate nominated by a major Canadian political party, has run in the riding.

Liberal – Trevor Kirczenow

Conservative – Ted Falk (incumbent)

NDP – Unknown

Green – Blair Mahaffy

PPC – Noel Gautron

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Riding Mountain

Riding Mountain, nestled in western Manitoba, was formerly called Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa.

It has sent Conservative MPs to Parliament in the three elections that have been held since being created in 2015.

Dan Mazier is vying for a three-peat this election.

Liberal – Unknown

Conservative – Dan Mazier (incumbent)

NDP – Unknown

Green – Unknown

PPC – Donnan McKenna

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Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman

This riding has become so consistently Tory-leaning that even when New Democrat Ed Schreyer, who decades ago was the local MP before becoming Manitoba premier and then Gov. General, returned to run in 2006, he lost handily to Conservative MP James Bezan.

Bezan, a rancher who has seven successful elections under his belt starting in 2004, hopes to rustle up his eighth victory.

Liberal – Unknown

Conservative – James Bezan (incumbent)

NDP – Unknown

Green – Unknown

PPC – Byron Gryba

 

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca