Waiting for Tories to make the call

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This article was published 04/09/2019 (2381 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Don’t call them, they’ll call you.

People who want to participate in one of the Progressive Conservative party’s telephone town halls need two things: a publicly listed phone number (or one that’s in the party’s database) and some luck.

Otherwise, voters won’t be on the receiving end of one of the supper-time calls in which PC candidates field questions for around an hour.

The Tories have been criticized for not attending many public debates and forums during this election campaign. Leader Brian Pallister decided to participate in only one leaders debate, which was televised last week.

Instead, they’ve opted to pound the pavement — Pallister is scheduled to visit all 57 constituencies by Saturday — and talk to voters face to face.

The Tories have put up several candidates to host calls, including Pallister, Health Minister Cameron Friesen, Finance Minister Scott Fielding and Families Minister Heather Stefanson.

Greg Elmer, a professor in communications at Ryerson University, said parties use telephone town halls to gather voter information more quickly and with voters’ consent. Door-knocking has its place, he said, but a telephone town hall can allow the party to scale up their operations relatively cheaply.

“People both on the phone and on the internet will say things that they would never say in person, face to face. Often they will say very critical things or very sharp things, and that’s incredibly helpful information for political campaigners and political parties,” Elmer said.

He said parties have to balance being publicly accountable and shying away from the spotlight.

“If you’re only as a political party, as a candidate, going to face the electorate from a distance, behind a screen, behind a telephone, then I think there’s a great danger that the electorate is going to see you as out of touch, as perhaps trying to hide from voters or from communities,” Elmer said.

The Tories refused to let a spokesperson be interviewed about the telephone town halls, but did answer some questions by email and let the Free Press listen in on a live call with Pallister and Stefanson on Wednesday evening.

The party said around 10,000 people listened in on Wednesday’s call. After six electronic town hall forums this campaign, the Tories said they had reached approximately 50,000 Manitobans.

Pallister and Stefanson took calls from 10 Manitobans during the hour-long call Wednesday. Nine of them had questions on topics that included health care and education property taxes, as well as whether Pallister would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, as the NDP and Liberals have promised. Pallister said he wouldn’t.

The questions were largely softballs, except for one woman who described her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis and the “horrendous care” he received before his death in May 2018.

“I believe in change. I voted for you last time, we both did, because we believed that our health-care system needs to be fixed. But what I would, in retrospect, what I would like to have seen was some compassion in the process. I don’t think there was any.”– caller who described her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis and the “horrendous care” he received before his death in May 2018.

“I believe in change. I voted for you last time, we both did, because we believed that our health-care system needs to be fixed. But what I would, in retrospect, what I would like to have seen was some compassion in the process. I don’t think there was any,” she said.

Pallister began by offering condolences, but did not apologize for the lacklustre care.

“I’m really saddened that you would feel the experience could have been handled far better, but I am motivated by the call,” he said, before launching into descriptions of some ways the Tories’ plan will improve health care by “super-sizing” ERs in Winnipeg and starting new initiatives, such as the nurses ideas fund, to gather ideas from front-line staff.

Later in the call, another woman, who described herself as a front-line health care worker, thanked Pallister for making tough choices when it came to changes she felt were overdue.

Twice during the call, Stefanson (who acted as host while Pallister fielded questions) asked listeners to dial certain numbers to answer questions about whether they would support the PC party with their vote on Sept. 10 and what their top election issues were: crime (1), taxes (2), health care (3), the environment (4), Manitoba’s finances (5) or “unsure” (6).

At four other points in the conversation, Pallister spoke at length about PC policies and criticized the NDP.

“The question is who do you trust to solve this thing? The people who did what they said they’d do — and we said we’d lower the PST and we kept our word. Or the people who said they wouldn’t raise the PST and went ahead and did it?” he asked.

“Look, I wish Mr. Kinew well on his road to personal recovery. But my concern, and our party’s concern is Manitoba’s recovery. And we’re focused on making sure that Manitoba becomes a stronger province.”

Those who didn’t get to ask questions on the call were asked to stay on the line and leave a message for the party after the town hall had ended, which Stefanson noted the PCs would “do (their) best to respond (to) in the next few days.”

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @_jessbu