Noble sentiments in ignoble defeat

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/06/2024 (659 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I wasn’t planning to write another word about the Tuxedo byelection. Enough is enough.

Last week in this space, I shared with readers that if I were a resident of Tuxedo, I would vote NDP. The words always bubble up from the conscience. And as someone who last lived in Manitoba for most of the last 40 years, my conscience surprised me.

I had been psychically nibbling on the corncob that many relatively reliable PC voters have been dining on since October of last year.

We wanted to confine the PCs to the penalty box for now, and were prepared to vote for the party led by Canada’s most popular provincial premier, Wab Kinew.

So I was just going to turn the page and write about something completely different this week.

But something happened on byelection night that surprised me and forced a change of heart.

The defeated PC candidate, who lost by more than 600 votes, compared himself to a lion of democracy, who, more than any other in the 1940s, rescued civilization from fascism.

Had British Prime Minister Winston Churchill been unsuccessful in convincing the Americans to join the allies in defeating Hitler, Nazism could well have become the most dominant force in politics worldwide for multiple generations.

While conceding victory to the NDP on June 18, PC candidate Lawrence Pinsky spoke the following words to disappointed supporters in Tuxedo.

“What do Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Lawrence Pinsky have in common? We lost the first time.”

I am not interested in dogpiling the defeated, delivering one-liners to a losing candidate for comparing himself to Conservative superstars.

Better to focus on one of those conservatives referenced by the candidate. It could provide a needed message for a demoralized PC party.

Winston Churchill was many things to many people. I know there are many reading this who have South Asian, Middle Eastern and African roots who may resent any columnist praising Churchill.

It’s true that his language was racially raw for many in the southern hemisphere, living under the hegemonic umbrella of the British Empire. I am not here to apologize for or rationalize Churchill’s role as a loyal servant and enthusiastic proponent of British colonialism. But I am here to tell you that Churchill was the prince of persistence.

Failure was not in his vocabulary.

When you look at the rudderless Tories who just lost one of the safest PC seats in Winnipeg, it’s easy to forget 2016. Only eight years ago, the PCs swept away the four-term NDP government.

The landslide victory gave Brian Pallister’s Progressive Conservatives 40 of 57 seats, a modern day record high for the party. An election three years later left the party with four fewer MLAs, but still a robust majority — 36. However, four years after that, Pallister’s successor, Heather Stefanson, was the face of one of the most disastrous campaigns in PC history.

It’s one thing to lose. But it’s quite another to embarrass your party, supporters, core voters and the general public.

The campaign was so dreadful, thousands of PC voters who had never before voted for the NDP, did so. The NDP were returned to power, leaving the PCs with 22 seats. Four days ago, the Tuxedo byelection result shrunk the total to 21. The NDP has 35.

The number that feels the most hellish for the PCs is the seat count in Greater Winnipeg where two-thirds of Manitobans live. The Winnipeg PC caucus has only two members.

For today’s Tories that is the very definition of Hell. It makes many PC members feel irrelevant.

At the moment, nobody has a clue about when the party might be competitive again. But one thing is clear.

If they don’t build a brand in Winnipeg, they will never govern again. Winston Churchill would tell the Manitoba PCs to persist, despite having no clear identity, no message, no vision, and in Winnipeg, nearly no seats.

Churchill would tell Tories to “never surrender.”

This column is dedicated to the memory of my former radio colleague and friend, Larry Updike. Cancer stole him from us two days ago. He was 69.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com