Frantic activity in tight ridings

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This article was published 03/10/2011 (5118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Doors took a pounding, hands galore were shaken, hail-fellow-well-met abounded, but nary a promise was made Sunday.

The party leaders worked desperately to firm up the vote in tight ridings Sunday.

Premier Greg Selinger spent the day the very same way he’ll spend today — campaigning in Winnipeg to shore up his party’s support going into voting day.

Manitobans head to the polls Tuesday.

“We’re going to be visiting as many folks as possible,” Selinger said, while door-knocking in south Winnipeg with NDP Radisson candidate Bidhu Jha.

“We’re just trying to cover as much ground as possible in the dying days of the election,” he added.

Most of that ground will be in south Winnipeg where the NDP is fighting off the PCs and their bid to steal seats away from the New Democrats.

Selinger also said this week’s unseasonably hot weather will hopefully get more people out to the polls tomorrow.

“Whoever they want to vote for, just get out and participate,” he said. “Democracy only works when people take advantage of it.”

Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen has identified five target ridings in Winnipeg for his last-minute push — he spent all of Sunday afternoon in Assiniboia with candidate Susan Auch, and today he’ll be in St. Vital, Rossmere, Radisson, and St. James.

“We’ve got a lot of good shots,” he said.

Crime remains his top issue, said McFadyen, who conceded more police are not the entire solution: “We’ll have to do a review of our social programs to identify those that are working and not working.”

McFadyen said the New Democrats are desperate, and he’s seeing “Liberals lined up to stab their leader in the back.”

Noting that interim federal Liberal Leader Bob Rae is in town, McFadyen mischievously asked which party Rae is touting. Rae was once Ontario’s NDP premier and served several terms as a New Democrat MP.

Former Liberal MPs Anita Neville and John Harvard, as well as past president of the Young Liberals of Canada Richard Diamond, reiterated their unconditional support Sunday for provincial leader Jon Gerrard in River Heights.

They’ve been under Liberal fire all weekend for advising Liberals in the Seine River riding to back NDP Health Minister Theresa Oswald, in tough against the Conservatives’ Gord Steeves, a former city councillor.

Rae wouldn’t go near that one.

“Everyone has to make up their own minds. That’s an issue that’s got to be settled by Manitoba Liberals,” said Rae, campaigning in Tyndall Park with candidate Roldan Sevillano.

While reaffirming their fealty to Gerrard, Harvard, Neville, and Diamond urged River Heights New Democrats to vote for Gerrard and stop Tory Marty Morantz.

“We can’t let vote-splitting take place there. Jon Gerrard has been an outstanding MLA and community advocate for the last 12 years and it is essential he be re-elected.”

Harvard noted that “while we support Theresa Oswald, who is running against a former Liberal, and now Conservative, Gord Steeves, we endorse Manitoba Liberal candidates and most particularly Jon Gerrard.”

Back at Tyndall Park, Liberal Sevillano handed out brochures that also contained the names, phone numbers and photographs of his opponents, New Democrat Ted Marcelino and Tory Cris Aglugub.

Voters need to know their choices, said Sevillano: “It’s a victory for democracy.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca