Much riding on Tuxedo byelection

Opinion

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This article was published 18/06/2024 (447 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s voting day in Tuxedo.

By the time readers peruse this column, ballots will be cast and the successful candidate of the Tuxedo byelection will soon be named. Tonight’s race to replace Heather Stefanson is one that has everyone in all political circles on edge.

Standing with the most to lose are the Progressive Conservatives. So much is riding on a win today that it almost feels existential. If they do not secure victory, the party will signal to Manitobans that they’ve sunk even lower in the polls and are farther from winning back government than they were on Oct. 3, 2023 when we lost several seats and were nearly wiped off the map in Winnipeg.

What’s worse, dreams of a high-profile leadership race will slip away.

That’s because it’s unlikely an outsider would want to jump into the race given there wouldn’t be an easy seat for them to take unless a rural MLA gave up theirs. They would have to think long and hard about the chances of winning any seats back in Winnipeg in the next election, asking, If we can’t even win Tuxedo, what can we win?

If the leadership race then becomes exclusive to those currently sitting in the chamber, winning the trust and vote of most Winnipeggers will be a monumental task because of lingering ill-will created in the ’23 PC election campaign.

Further, they’ll have to bring a divided caucus together. With only two MLAs representing city ridings, and with significant diversity in opinion on socially conservative issues, unity may be challenging for anyone reaching away from a populist bent and towards centrist views.

Unless the party begins walking the walk with centrist voters — meaning with those who believe in advancing true reconciliation with Indigenous people, those who believe in equity of all individuals, and those who believe climate change is a crisis worthy of significant policy, to name a few — they will remain in the political wilderness for some time to come.

I’ve seen the party shift and turn in the past and they can do it again. But it would take the right leader with the right fortitude, and the only way to finding that person is through a strong, well debated, hotly contested leadership race. If the party limps toward a coronation in next year’s leadership, it’s game over for the Tories in 2027.

And what to say about the other parties?

Having a Green candidate on the ballot is garnering excitement for those within that party, although I don’t know how much impact they are going to have in Tuxedo. Yet if they secure enough votes to convince their membership they are not down for the count, perhaps they will get what it will take to pull together a decent campaign in the next provincial election.

The Liberals desperately need to do well in tonight’s byelection as well. They too are facing a leadership contest in the coming year or so, and attracting a vibrant leader is crucial to thwarting extinction. The Tuxedo constituents are no strangers to Liberal candidates and policies, having had strong representation at the federal level for the past decades. Many eyes will be on what they’re able to achieve in tonight’s byelection.

And lastly, the big question on everyone’s mind is whether or not the NDP could actually pull out a win in Tuxedo. It would be unprecedented and monumental. It would signal not just a greater honeymoon with the Wab Kinew NDP government than observers have predicted, but a wholesale buy-in of his approach to handling things from finance to social justice issues. It would mean that voters are going in the exact opposite direction of the Tories in all the way that count: on policy, on style, on issues management, and communications.

Before the sun sets on June 18, a day that is approaching the longest one of the year, all four parties will have a better sense on where they stand, and what they can conceivably hope to accomplish in the next provincial election.

It’ll also give Manitobans a sense whether or not one of the political parties is heading full-swing into summer mode while the other one heads deeper into a dark wilderness.

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