Tories, Tuxedo and timing

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/06/2024 (460 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’m not particularly fond of it, but after years of public service and now as an opinion columnist, I’ve become familiar with its taste.

Eating crow, a popular idiom for being proven wrong after taking a strong position, was most hilariously featured by the Washington Post after incorrectly speculating the outcome of the 1948 presidential election. Once President Harry Truman had defeated his opponent despite widescale predictions to the contrary, the newspaper’s editor proposed a “crow banquet” where all political reporters, pundits, and pollsters would be served a “breast of tough old crow en glace”, while the victor dined on turkey.

With the esteemed Washington Post as good company, I’m going out on a limb to offer speculation that the Tuxedo byelection will go to the Tories.

I predict this, even as many others believe my old teammates are down for the count.

Why do I think the seat will remain blue?

For starters, despite last year’s hugely disastrous provincial election where nearly every other Winnipeg PC MLA lost their seat, and despite there being hardly any campaigning done at all within the Tuxedo constituency, the voters still offered up a Tory win.

Sure, the margin had shrunk to an unfathomable degree, but it held even though the ‘ground war’ had been practically non-existent and the ‘air war’ was embarrassing, uninspiring, and damaging. With hardly any motivation and barely any canvassers pulling out the vote, enough PC voters still found their way to the polls and marked a ballot for the blue team.

Going back even further, in 2019, when former MLA Heather Stefanson was also the deputy premier and in a seat considered an easy win, she wasn’t in her constituency much because the needs of other ridings fell on her. She spent much of her time helping fellow colleagues.

Now, for the first time in 24 years, Tuxedo voters with PC leanings have someone new to get acquainted with. Previous constraints are non-existent for newcomer Lawrence Pinsky. He’ll likely work non-stop to introduce himself to the voters and ask for their support. Further, every Tory in town will likely pitch in, knowing that a loss would be devastating to the future of the party. The ground game will be stronger than ever, while the ‘air war’ will be relatively quiet considering blackout rules and limited resources allocated to byelections.

I also believe Pinsky will resonate with many voters. I’ve never met the candidate, but he is a well respected lawyer in the community and someone who served as an adjudicator on the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

Lastly, through a stroke of good fortune, there’s both a Liberal candidate (Jamie Pfau) and a Green candidate (Janine Gibson) on the ballot, helping see to it that all the left-leaning support doesn’t congregate around NDP Carla Compton.

Having said that, even if they get a win in the Tuxedo byelection, the road ahead will not be easy for the PCs as they rebuild after 2023. Money is short, citywide support is low, and there won’t be a permanent leader at the helm for another ten months. The troubles don’t stop there, because unless the new leader comes from within caucus or there’s another resignation, the PCs could find themselves with an unelected leader heading into the next provincial election.

Not only is it a bad image, creating a platform without the advantage of being on the inside would be a monumental task with potentially disastrous outcomes. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of policy development and issues management strategy would emerge in that kind of vacuum.

Worse, almost unimaginable, would be the task of trying to attract a leader and mount an exciting leadership campaign if Tuxedo doesn’t stay Tory blue. Motivation to win, I would imagine, is at an all-time high.

Without the insight of any polling data at the time of this writing, it’s also easy to see the NDP hot on the Tory heels. Still enjoying a honeymoon, the NDP government has had no major catastrophes or screw ups in their first eight months, and Premier Wab Kinew seems to be resonating with even the unlikeliest of voters. Undoubtedly they are as motivated as the PCs for a victory that might be within closer range than even I could predict.

If that is indeed the case, and NDP pull out a win, you will find me seated at the head of the table at the crow banquet on June 18.

Rochelle Squires is a recovering politician after 7 1/2 years in the Manitoba legislature. She is a political and social commentator whose column appears Tuesdays. rochelle@rochellesquires.ca