A farm kid at heart

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/04/2016 (3461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The second-last Saturday before election day, Manitoba Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari is knocking on doors in a Wellington Crescent apartment building, hoping to shore up support in her own riding, Fort Rouge.

It’s a quiet morning, and few tenants are home. Her entourage, which includes federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr, makes quick work of the upper floors.

Bokhari finally hits pay dirt at the door of Marge Hudson, the first indigenous woman in Canada to become an RCMP officer, who receives an embrace from a Liberal leader who hugs voters, volunteers and pretty much anyone else within an arm’s reach as casually as other politicians shake hands.

“Being brown and being female is not easy,” Bokhari tells Hudson during a short, warm conversation. “I know what it feels like to be the first female anything.”

Then the 4-11 ball of energy is off to canvass other doors, offering low-fives behind her back to Carr after voters indicate they’ll favour Bokhari in her Fort Rouge race against Progressive Conservative Audrey Gordon and the NDP’s Wab Kinew.

This effervescent, amiable Liberal leader is the Rana Bokhari the party probably wishes Manitobans envision as they decide how to vote April 19. Compared with incumbent Premier Greg Selinger and PC Leader Brian Pallister — a pair of white, male baby boomers who are fond of sweater vests and tailored suits, respectively — the 38-year-old former farm kid appears completely genuine and is always upbeat.

But this is not the Rana Bokhari most voters have seen over the course of what even she describes as a rough rookie campaign. For starters, the Liberals failed to field a full slate of candidates, falling victim to faulty paperwork, poor vetting and a rare disqualification. A scattershot Liberal policy platform has prompted accusations of shameless populism and little attention to financial detail.

Worst of all, Bokhari has often appeared unable to articulate her ideas or defend her positions. She was chastising reporters in scrums even before her communications director, Mike Brown, launched an email broadside against CBC Manitoba and attempted to freeze out Free Press reporter Nick Martin.

She insists she does not believe the media are out to get her, though she does suggest political journalists don’t understand her.

“There’s nothing malicious about media or about me. This isn’t a malicious issue happening here,” Bokhari said Saturday during an interview at the back of her constituency campaign office, a vacant retail storefront in Osborne Village.

“You are very used to two guys who have been there for a long time. They have their styles. They have their way of doing things. They do have their 30 years of experience. This is my second year in. I can’t change that. So of course there’s differences, and I think those differences sometimes get perceived as a weakness, and they shouldn’t be perceived as a weakness.”

Bokhari contends Selinger and Pallister also had a rough time during their second years as politicians. But she dismisses the notion she suffers from a lack of polish, claiming voters are mistaking folksiness for an inability to be articulate.

“Listen, I’m a farm kid from Anola, Man. I’m not a born politician. I’m not Sharon Carstairs. My dad wasn’t a pol (politician). That’s not my world. That’s not who I am. I’m sorry. Like, I don’t know what people want me to do,” she says. “I’m not saying that as a negative thing. That’s just who I am. I don’t want to be polished.”

In any event, Bokhari says people under the age of 40 don’t care about the way she speaks. “What’s really positive, and this is what makes me feel good about it, is that when I go to talk to my world, my generation, they don’t even know what people are talking about. They just say, ‘Don’t we all say that?’ Yeah, we do. OK, so what’s the issue here? Are we all wrong? It definitely is a generational thing,” she says.

“What is not to be questioned is my integrity. What is not to be questioned is my competency. What is not to be questioned is my ability to not only build this party, but lead with 51 fantastic candidates, above-average candidates, and get into this game and still be fighting and still be motivated and having everyone come around and believe in the vision.”

Not every member of the party feels the same way. Liberal supporters, including one candidate, have expressed embarrassment with Bokhari’s performance, as well as concern their leader has undermined the party’s provincewide campaign.

Bokhari takes personal responsibility for her party’s failure to field a full slate of candidates.

“I keep kind of going back in my head and reflecting,” she says. “I just wanted great candidates, and maybe I should have just gotten everyone in place early on, (and) not keep looking for better, not keep looking for better, not keep looking for better. I was too picky. My bad.”

She also defends a Liberal platform she describes as taking shape as a result of a team effort involving herself, fellow lawyer Cory Shefman, communications director Brown and others with the Liberal campaign. Policies that have been criticized as unsubstantial — such as a pledge to exempt salon services from provincial sales tax — matter to Manitobans who would benefit from having another $50 in their pocket, she says.

But Bokhari declined to consider a question about whether she will remain as leader if she loses in Fort Rouge. “I have no intention of losing my seat. I’ve put blood, sweat and tears into this for the past two years. There’s never been an easy day,” she says.

Those days have become more difficult, as Liberal support has slid in popular-opinion polls. Fewer media are attending her announcements, and there are indications voters may be looking past Bokhari.

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Last Friday at the RBC Convention Centre, where the Manitoba Trucking Association was holding a meeting, she fielded only one question from the audience. To be fair, she had to rush out to a Fort Rouge all-candidates forum at Kelvin High School, where not one student directed a question her way. If that bothered her, she was unfazed. Minutes later, at her campaign headquarters on Osborne Street, she was hugging volunteers and candidates with her usual, irrepressible zeal.

“I feel I haven’t seen your face in, like, hours!” she beams as she embraces Johanna Wood, a former staffer in Mayor Brian Bowman’s office who’s now running for the Liberals in Fort Garry-Riverview.

To be anywhere in Bokhari’s vicinity is to be hugged. She even wraps her arms around a crusty reporter who insists he does not want to be embraced by the leader of a political party.

“I’m a hugger,” she says. “I’m just a genuine person. When I see a smile on someone’s face or I’m happy to see them, I want to hug them. I’m just not so boxed into this role that I don’t want to be me. That’s who I am as a person. I’m an affectionate person and an outgoing person. I’m doing me.”

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca