Voters waiting to be convinced

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/03/2016 (3813 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Uninspired. Fearful. Inarticulate. A small list of political flaws, any one of which could be fatal to aspirations for office. But what if that’s all there is to choose from? Nearing the midway mark of the race to April 19, there’s not much more than that on offer for Manitobans.

Uninspired? NDP Leader Greg Selinger has studiously stuck to a tightly scripted message that drips with desperation: the Tories have a hidden agenda, aiming to cut your job and slash critical services. Don’t get sick; the sacred cow’s on the butcher’s block, too. The party, to date, sent out some 15 news releases on campaign promises, including reannouncements of old pledges. It has also sent out more than 10 releases attacking the competition, primarily Conservative Leader Brian Pallister, the guy “running with scissors.”

And the strategy has worked, to a degree. Mr. Pallister, carrying the weight of the Filmon years on his back, is working hard to avoid looking scary. But the fear of looking scary has produced a policy paralysis of sorts because the Tory platform is looking a little anemic. Mr. Pallister has promised to protect front-line jobs, reserving the sting of a pledge to cut millions from government spending for management positions. Their conservativism is decidedly clipped. Tax reform extends to increasing the basic personal exemption — the amount everyone can earn before getting taxed — and indexed tax brackets. There’s no longer any talk of getting rid of the school-board tax on property, something once offered by a former leader, yet even the school boards themselves are talking about getting rid of this regressive tax.

This timidity leaves a lot of open ground for the Liberals, who rolled out much of their platform before the writ got dropped. Alcohol will be cheaper, and liquor sales will be left to the private sector.

The St. Norbert bypass gets scrapped, redirecting that $100 million to fixing Winnipeg roads. The payroll tax on businesses, long derided as a tax on jobs, will be gone once the budget is balanced.

First-time homebuyers will not have to pay the expensive land-transfer tax. In five years, all schools will offer full-day kindergarten. These are things that get people talking, and you can see why Manitobans are eyeing the Liberals as an alternative.

So, the party that rarely has had more than a couple MLAs is out-socializing the NDP while taking a page from the Conservatives’ playbook at the same time. The party’s big weakness is leader Rana Bokhari, herself. The leader is looking woefully inexperienced, ill-prepared and inarticulate. Voters are forgiving of political inexperience; in fact, recent political campaigns have shown it can work as an advantage. Ms. Bokhari’s problem is she struggles with the details and how her promises would work on a practical level (what qualifies as a low-emission car for public subsidization?). And her stunning accusation the media are giving the government a free pass in order to protect their advertising dollars was perfectly mystifying (we’re pretty sure Mr. Selinger is perplexed). But, well, that’s what a lot of people believe, Ms. Bokhari said, and so, she does, too.

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Time to get serious. The election campaign this week enters the point when parties traditionally cost out their promises. The NDP’s plan is backstopped by deficit-funding, as outlined in the March 8 mini-budget. The Tories have the $500-million spending cut to account for, and many of the Liberals’ promises have carried no price tag at all. Some 20 per cent of the electorate is undecided still, and many are “leaning,” but waiting to be convinced. That’s a lot of votes open to the party with a solid platform capable of staying afloat in choppy economic waters.