One candidate all over media, other quiet ahead of byelection

WINNIPEG — With a federal byelection days away, one Winnipeg candidate has been pulling out all the stops with news conferences and photo-ops, while another has ignored the spotlight completely.

Leila Dance, NDP candidate for Elmwood-Transcona, spoke to reporters Friday outside Concordia Hospital, where she warned about what would happen if the Conservative Party of Canada candidate were elected Monday night.

“Families can’t afford any more cuts to our health care,” said Dance, who was flanked by New Democrat MPs, Manitoba MLAs, labour leaders and health-care workers.

“We need to stop the Conservatives and privatizing our system,” the former Transcona BIZ manager said as an elderly man riding by on a sidewalk scooter heckled “Go Conservatives, go!”

The Conservative candidate, Colin Reynolds, has not held any media availabilities or responded to repeated requests for interviews. He has campaigned on social media and at party events.

“It is a style which the Conservatives have opted for on occasion and it seems they’re going back to it again,” said University of Manitoba political studies Prof. Christopher Adams, saying it reduces the possibility for candidates to go off script.

“In a national campaign, you have directives from the top: ‘these are the talking points, these are our policies,’ said Adams.

“To have some yahoo in some part of the Prairies or the Maritimes sounding off on a certain issue, suddenly, that can derail your national campaign.”

Avoiding questions may be a safe campaign strategy, but it’s a danger to democracy, said the leader of the fledgling Canadian Future Party, whose candidate Zbig Strycharz is running in Elmwood-Transcona.

“We’ve got to stop thinking that politicians are the only key components in a democracy,” Dominic Cardy said Friday. “We need independent courts. We need the rule of law and we need journalism.”

Cardy, a former New Brunswick PC cabinet minister, left provincial politics to start the centrist federal party. He was visiting Winnipeg to campaign with Strycharz in the byelection that’s a trial run ahead of “the main event” — next year’s general election.

“If we don’t have journalists poking holes in what our politicians tell us, then we’re going to get bad government,” said Cardy.

Three other candidates — Ian MacIntyre for the Liberals, Nicolas Geddert for the Green Party and Sarah Couture for the People’s Party of Canada — are vying for the Elmwood-Transcona seat vacated this spring when NDP incumbent Daniel Blaikie resigned to work as a senior adviser to Premier Wab Kinew.

The Conservatives have won the riding only once, when Lawrence Toet held the seat from 2011-15. Jim Maloway and Bill Blaikie represented Elmwood-Transcona prior to Toet. Blaikie held the seat (with the riding originally called Winnipeg-Transcona) from 1988 until he left politics in 2008.

While considered a safe seat for years, the NDP’s grip on it may be slipping, Adams said.

He noted Transcona is home to a lot of new housing and condo development. The people who were the lower-income, blue-collar, union shop workers and traditional NDP supporters are becoming a minority while those with a more “conservative profile” are becoming the majority, he said.

“That blue ring around Winnipeg gets denser and denser as you get further out.”

The NDP are counting on brand recognition to help them Monday.

“Families in Elmwood-Transcona have trusted New Democrats like Daniel Blaikie,” Dance said. “Manitobans have trusted New Democrats like Wab Kinew and the team here. Families can trust us because we make it easier for families — we give them the relief they need,” she said.

Throughout the campaign, the Conservatives have railed against the NDP supply and confidence agreement with the governing Liberals, calling it a “costly coalition.”

Next to some of Reynolds’ blue Conservative lawn signs are ones showing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in a handshake with the caption “Sellout Singh.”

“I’m hearing over and over again that people were frustrated with some of the choices that Justin (Trudeau) was making,” said Dance of her party ending its deal with the Liberals.

“I think Canadians and people in this riding saw that it was probably a good time for us to separate and move forward as our own party,” she said.

Adams doesn’t think the NDP break with the unpopular Liberals will affect the outcome of the byelection. Typically, byelections don’t generate a lot of enthusiasm, with voter turnout as low as 25 to 35 per cent, he said.

About 14 per cent voted in the advance polls, with 10,032 eligible voters casting their ballot.

In a strip mall close to Concordia Hospital, an employee at African Varieties Inc. said she wasn’t sure if she’d have time to vote on Monday but wants to because it is important.

“I should. I will try,” said the woman who didn’t offer her name.

» Winnipeg Free Press

At a jewelry store at the other end of the riding, Holly Knight was also undecided. She said she voted for the first time in last year’s provincial election. She’s uncertain which candidate she will vote for Monday but is 100 per cent certain that she will vote because she wants a say in how her tax dollars are spent.

“Now my money is going towards things that are important in my life.”

A woman at Henderson Burgers & Subs who’s lived in the riding for decades and didn’t want to give her name said she never misses an opportunity to cast her ballot.

“If I don’t vote, I can’t complain about who gets in.”

» Winnipeg Free Press