NDP ramps up Spruce Woods campaign

BRANDON — Liberals and Progressive Conservatives can’t help but throw their support behind the NDP’s byelection candidate, Premier Wab Kinew told supporters Friday.

Kinew was in town to campaign alongside Spruce Woods candidate Ray Berthelette, who will attempt to become the first NDP candidate to win the constituency later this month.

“We’re obviously a governing party here in Manitoba, but we also know that we share a lot of values with people who voted Liberal over the years,” Kinew said at Spruce Woods Housing Co-op on Brandon’s North Hill, which the NDP announced $500,000 in funding for last month. “We share a lot of values with people who are maybe Conservative supporters, but are maybe in the more centre-right part of the political spectrum.”

Michelle Budiwski, who ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in Spruce Woods in 2023, said her values haven’t changed and she hasn’t switched parties, but she believes in the NDP and its candidate.

“Ray and this party are fulfilling the promises that they made during that (2023) campaign,” she said at the news conference. “They’re working for our families and they’re working for our communities.”

A PC MLA has represented the riding since its inception in 2011. Grant Jackson, elected in 2023, stepped down earlier this year to run for the federal Conservatives in Brandon-Souris.

“This riding always has elected a conservative MLA and yet this housing co-op, our communities, our health care, were being ignored,” Budiwski said.

PC party member Ted Dzogan also endorsed Berthelette.

“I came to see Ray as living the very same values and care for the community that I hold dear,” Dzogan said at the podium behind the co-op building. “Yes, we do have some differences of opinion, but they are small compared to what we share. I believe Ray is an excellent human being, an excellent candidate and will make an excellent MLA.”

He urged voters to talk and meet with all candidates ahead of every election and not to just vote based on the party candidates represent.

“Ray and I share many of the same values, even if we hold memberships in different political parties. That’s not strange. That’s healthy,” he said.

Berthelette said he was excited about the possibility of joining Kinew at the Manitoba legislature.

“It’s exciting to see the number of first-time NDP voters in Spruce Woods this time around, I think people are seeing that Wab Kinew’s government is treating rural Manitoba the way we deserve it to be treated.”

The news conference, billed in a news release as “PCs and Liberals in Spruce Woods lending their vote to Ray and the NDP” was called “silly” by Tory candidate Colleen Robbins.

“I’m surprised that you would make a news (conference) on it,” she said. “That to me is just hilarious.”

Robbins said she recently spoke with a former NDP supporter who would be voting for her this time around.

“That happens all the time,” Robbins said. “It doesn’t matter who you are and what party you belong to.”

Liberal candidate Stephen Reid said the event confirmed the governing party is worried about him.

“One thing that’s happening, I think, is they’re seeing the momentum I’m getting, and I’m stealing votes from them, and they’re a little nervous,” Reid said.

In the 2023 provincial election, the NDP spent $168 in campaign expenses in the riding, compared to $13,313 from the PCs and $6,413 from the Liberals.

The NDP received 24 per cent of the vote, compared to more than 61 per cent for the PCs.

Advanced voting for the byelection begins Saturday.

— Brandon Sun