NDP government still out front — but has to deliver

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/12/2024 (639 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s NDP government is still flying high in public opinion polls. That should not come as a great surprise. The public usually gives new governments a grace period to settle into office before holding them accountable for their election commitments.

It has been more than a year since Premier Wab Kinew and the NDP were sworn into office after winning the Oct. 3, 2023 provincial election. A new Free Press-Probe poll says 53 per cent of Manitobans would vote for the NDP if an election were held today.

That is down slightly from 56 per cent in September, but still higher than the 45 per cent the party drew in last year’s election.

Support in Winnipeg is even higher for the NDP at 61 per cent. That’s up close to 10 percentage points compared with last year’s election.

The NDP won 28 of 32 seats in the capital city in 2023. It has since added another seat in Winnipeg after winning a byelection in the constituency of Tuxedo earlier this year. It was held to replace former Progressive Conservative premier Heather Stefanson, who retired from politics in April.

The byelection result was especially damaging to the PC brand, since the party had never lost Tuxedo prior to this year.

What the latest polling numbers show is that the NDP has an abundance of political capital to spend before the next provincial election, scheduled for October 2027.

It can afford to make some unpopular decisions, or fail to make good on some election promises, and still be competitive in the next election. That contest is still far away; three years is a long time in politics.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t appear any of the perceived mistakes Kinew and the NDP have made so far have hurt them at the polls, including the expulsion from caucus of NDP MLA Mark Wasyliw in September.

The NDP said it removed Wasyliw, a defence lawyer, because of his affiliation with a law partner who was defending convicted sexual predator Peter Nygard. The NDP was roundly criticized for the move, as it seemed to fly in the face of a person’s right under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms to a legal defence in criminal proceedings.

Similarly, the NDP did not appear to suffer politically after failing to consult with the community prior to selecting a location for the province’s first supervised consumption site on Disraeli Freeway in Point Douglas. The NDP government applied to Health Canada for an exemption under the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act before speaking with area residents and community stakeholders.

These types of political errors do eventually catch up with governments. But it’s still too early in the NDP’s mandate for those missteps to have had a material impact on its popularity.

That will likely change as time goes on, especially if government fails to deliver on some of its key election promises, such as reducing hospital wait times. After a year in government, the NDP has not been able to bring down emergency room wait times, which were largely unchanged in Winnipeg at 3.43 hours (median wait time) in October, compared with 3.53 hours for the same month in 2023.

Meanwhile, wait times across the province for hip and knee replacement surgery are slightly longer in 2024 than in 2023, according to the province’s most recent wait time data.

For now, most Manitobans appear to be satisfied with their provincial government.

But things change. After this poll was taken, the government released that this year’s deficit had jumped by $531 million — something voters might not approve of.

The NDP should not take Manitobans’ support for granted as it enters the second year of its mandate.