PC leader motivates supporters in ‘yellow dog’ Spruce Woods

SOURIS — Manitoba Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan says Tory voters can’t sit on the sidelines during the upcoming byelection, as he urged them to show up at the polls and keep Spruce Woods blue.

Khan and several Tory MLAs accompanied PC candidate Colleen Robbins to a campaign launch at the Victoria Park Campground in Souris Friday afternoon.

“It’s not the days of the past where we could say it’s a ‘yellow dog riding’ and we’re going to win it,” Khan said to a crowd of about 50 party supporters.

The term refers to a riding so dominated in popularity by one party that it can run any candidate, even a yellow dog, and still win the seat.

The PCs have been the only party to hold Spruce Woods since it was created in 2011, and have never received less than 60 per cent of the vote.

Khan urged supporters to help campaign in the weeks leading up to the Aug. 26 byelection.

“We can’t take Spruce Woods for granted. We have to get out and work the phones and work the doors,” Khan told the crowd.

“Look at how much money (the NDP) is announcing in this riding,” he said, arguing that much of the funding Premier Wab Kinew announced for projects in Spruce Woods and Westman in the past few weeks had been earmarked when the PCs were in power.

The announcements include just under $17 million for the Oak Lake Dam, more than $2 million for Spruce Woods Provincial Park, $500,000 for the Spruce Woods Housing Co-op, $95,000 for an aeration project in Oak Lake, and two announcements worth $189 million and $115 million for highway upgrades in Westman, much of it in the Spruce Woods constituency.

“Residents can see through that, constituents can see through that,” Khan said. “I think they’re putting a lot of smoke and mirrors and trying to confuse the residents and deceive the residents of Spruce Woods.”

It’s important for the PCs to match the level of effort the NDP is putting into the byelection, he said.

Brandon real estate agent Ray Berthelette is running for the NDP and Brandon school teacher Stephen Reid is the Liberal candidate. Advanced voting starts Aug. 16.

Robbins, who lives in Souris and has worked as a nurse, said she will advocate to keep criminals behind bars if she’s elected to the legislature. She said the “catch-and-release system” isn’t working.

“We need to keep (criminals) in jail,” she told the Brandon Sun after her speech.

Robbins, who has served on the Manitoba Crime Stoppers board, said she lived in Vancouver for two years and decided to move back to Souris so her daughter would be able to live in a place where she can ride her bike around town and feel safe.

“(When we moved back) I never feared that she wasn’t going to make it to school, or anything could happen to her. Today, it’s gotten very scary.”

She said Souris is facing a drug problem, which needs to be dealt with.

“We have a problem across Canada, across Manitoba, but we all need to work together to be tough on crime,” she said. “Because it shows and proves that if you’re going to be tough on crime and you’re going to get a punishment, you (have) less chance of doing it.”

Health care is another area she will focus on, and she said the NDP hasn’t done enough for rural ERs.

The PCs won 22 seats in the 2023 provincial election, down from 36 in 2019.

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The Tuxedo constituency — held by two former PC premiers — also flipped to the NDP in a byelection last year, after being held by the PCs since it was created in 1981.

Khan said the party is in a “new era” that will end the downward slope it has been on. He said that includes him as the new leader and Robbins as a candidate.

“You have a new candidate and a new MLA coming forward in Spruce Woods that creates a new energy, a new vision for this party, for this province, for the residents of Spruce Woods,” he said. “I think the residents of Spruce Woods and Manitoba will see that and we’ll win back the seats we need to win to get back into government.”

The byelection was triggered after Grant Jackson vacated his seat in March so he could run in the federal election. Jackson is now the MP for Brandon-Souris.

— Brandon Sun