Tories’ leadership ‘race’ more of an uninspired stroll to nowhere important

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2025 (213 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Going into 2025, the No. 1 item on the to-do list for Manitoba Progressive Conservatives was to hold a compelling, competitive race to pick its next leader.

The PC party is struggling mightily right now to re-establish its credibility in a jurisdiction that opinion polls tell us is still enamoured with Premier Wab Kinew and his NDP government.

That’s why the leadership race is so important: a new voice with a new narrative and new ideas to wrestle public support away from Kinew.

Is there any evidence the current race can restore the party to viability?

Unfortunately, to date the battle between former pro football player and MLA Obby Khan and Churchill hotelier Wally Daudrich has looked less like a high-stakes race to restore a leader to a competitive political party and more like a low-key race to pick a high school student council president.

Khan and Daudrich have been traversing the province to sell memberships and attend small “meet and greets” with party members. They have both invited questions, which have allowed them to float a few ideas that could be charitably characterized as deafeningly uninspired.

Khan has said he favours more “public-private partnerships” in the publicly funded health-care system while touting a series of vague conservative priorities for building a more competitive economy, expanding highway and internet networks and reducing red tape and other “Kinew-created” hurdles for businesses.

Daudrich, on the other hand, has promised to increase the influence of “grassroots party members,” tearing down barriers to business and more intensive development of the province’s natural resources.

Taken together, it’s a stunning collection of unremarkable ideas that will do little to attract a new generation of support.

In fact, the only true headline news being generated by the leadership campaign has come when Daudrich allows his lusty far-right sensibilities to come into focus.

In the space of just a few short months of campaigning, Daudrich has demonstrated that he is the candidate for Tories who want the party to veer back towards the offensive election campaign that left the Tories firmly rooted on the opposition benches in the Manitoba legislature. The campaign of no landfill searches and undefined restoration of homophobic “parental rights.”

In apparent ignorance of the fine details of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Daudrich has promised that a government led by him would “guarantee Manitobans the freedom to shop, gather, worship and live their lives as THEY (sic) see fit.” He also promises to “put parents in charge of their children’s education,” a not-so-subtle dog-whistle for the parental-rights activists who seek to erase all mention of LGBTTQ+ issues and modern sex education from school curriculum and libraries.

Recently, in an off-script moment at a public events in Winnipeg, Daudrich suggested releasing 10 polar bears in downtown Winnipeg to cull the homeless population. When his comments were publicly denounced, Daudrich complained that he was only using humour to connect with party members.

For the record, everyone knows it was a joke. Also for the record, it was a stupid joke.

He’s made other gaffes, as well. In 2021, he called a high-ranking transgender U.S. government official “a man dressed in woman’s clothing” who had been “duped by our shallow, decadent pop culture.” In another incident, Daudrich’s campaign re-posted a noxious Facebook entry that urged Manitoba Tories to stop “Muslim Obby Khan” from becoming premier. That post drew condemnation from a wide array of Muslim organizations.

Combine Khan’s oatmeal-flavoured campaign with Daudrich’s inability to read a room, and what do you have? A leadership campaign that is struggling to breathe new life into this party.

Maybe it was unfair to expect only two candidates to generate a high level of excitement.

A leadership campaign can be a great tool for stoking enthusiasm and support, but only if it’s a real race with at least two viable candidates and a smattering of credible dark horses lurking in the wings.

Instead, the PC party is reminding Manitobans that over its long history, hardly anyone has wanted to lead this party.

Since 1919, the Conservative/Progressive Conservative party here has had no more than four candidates in any single leadership race.

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The record is much worse in more recent political history.

After the Tories lost the 1999 provincial election, which triggered the resignation of leader Gary Filmon, the party has had two acclamations (Stuart Murray in 2000 and Brian Pallister in 2012), two races with only two candidates (Heather Stefanson defeated Shelly Glover in 2021, and this year’s campaign) and only one (Hugh McFadyen defeated Ron Schuler and Ken Waddell in 2006) that had three candidates.

Intrigue in the current leadership race could be stoked at the end of the month, when we learn how many new party members have been registered. The PC party is using a point system to limit the weight of constituencies with big membership numbers. The aim is to ensure that the leadership race cannot be decided by a flood of new members in one or two constituencies.

For now, however, the Tory leadership race is unfolding like a gentle, meandering creek. There’s not much there and no one is entirely sure where it’s headed.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.