Tory makes gains as star candidates battle

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This article was published 28/03/2016 (3814 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With so much media attention focused on the race between the NDP and the Liberals in Fort Rouge, the Tory candidate has gone somewhat unnoticed.

Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari is seeking her first seat in the legislature, and New Democrat candidate Wab Kinew is trying to retain the seat for his party following the departure of Jennifer Howard, a cabinet minister who quit in 2015 and called for the resignation of party leader Greg Selinger. But the intensive ground game being fought by PC candidate Audrey Gordon, manager and business analyst for the renal program of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, has been mostly ignored. A recent poll suggests she is the candidate to watch.

A Mainstreet/Postmedia poll found while Bokhari has 26 per cent support among decided voters, both Kinew and Gordon are at 24 per cent.

It also pegged the undecided vote at 20 per cent.

Around Osborne Village, all the signs are in place for a heated race: Kinew’s campaign office at 11 Evergreen Place is covered with signs on the west side of Osborne Street, facing a giant Bokhari billboard to the east side. Gordon’s ads are plastered on recycling signs.

Bokhari opened her campaign office on the weekend, decorated in Liberal red, with photos of herself and candidates. A shot of her with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in the window.

The Free Press spoke to several people in the area and most said they hadn’t yet decided who to vote for.

Twenty-five-year-old Callie Morris, who has lived in the area for about three years, said she believes having a strong indigenous representative is important for an area in which homeless people often wander the streets.

“With the amount of displaced or homeless people that we see through the Village, it is not quite the same as downtown,” Morris said. “But people drift through, and people who are homeless are of all races, but primarily indigenous in our situation. It would be nice to have an indigenous MLA here, because maybe there would be more compassion,” she said, adding she doesn’t know much about Bokhari or Gordon.

“I am never closed off to any political party. Even if a Conservative wants to have a conversation with me, I will have that conversation.”

Riley Slominski said he has been watching the campaign, but is undecided.

“I’ve always leaned toward Liberal, just because of family-wise, but I haven’t quite decided where I am leaning yet,” Slominski said.

Slominski said he heard of Kinew’s past misogynistic and homophobic remarks on social media, but said it wouldn’t affect his vote. Instead, Slominski said he still wants to learn more about Bokhari before he casts his vote. This is the first election for Bokhari, who was elected leader of the party in 2013.

Slominski does not want to see NDP Leader Greg Selinger re-elected as premier.

“I want someone who will get us out of a deficit or at least try,” he said.

Royce Koop, an associate professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, said New Democrats don’t want the Liberals or Tories to take Fort Rouge, which they’ve held since 1999.

“An old party like the NDP has this entrenched activist base that do the literature drops, the door-knocking, most importantly get the vote out on election day,” Koop said.

“NDP activists are not going to sit around while Brian Pallister elects a candidate in Fort Rouge.”

Bokhari hasn’t strayed far from the constituency during the first two weeks of the campaign.

Koop said that’s a smart strategy for a small party. “They are a small party trying to break into the system. It only makes sense to concentrate your efforts on certain areas where you think you can win.”

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Most of Bokhari’s announcements have been made close to downtown or her own constituency.

Selinger and Pallister are running in safe seats, so they have the luxury of taking their campaigns on the road.

Selinger is running in St. Boniface and Pallister is running in Fort Whyte.

“The leaders don’t have to worry about it. So it frees the leader to travel around, go to more marginal ridings,” Koop said.

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca