Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver.
After winning a majority government in yesterday’s election in Manitoba, NDP Leader Wab Kinew is set to become Canada’s first First Nations provincial premier.
Kinew campaigned to be Manitoba’s first premier of First Nations heritage. He was born to an Anishinaabe father and non-Indigenous mother and since the time he was elected leader in 2017, he has worked to put his past behind him. His late father was not allowed to vote as a young man under Canadian law at the time.
Mr. Kinew’s past included an assault on a taxi driver and an arrest for refusing a breathalyzer test; domestic-violence charges involving a former partner which were ultimately stayed, and a youth spent struggling with addictions and anger issues. But Mr. Kinew had already carried his party through the 2019 election: Voters, pollster Mary Agnes Welch of Probe Research told Nancy Macdonald, were fully acquainted with his past.
Mr. Kinew’s strategy during the campaign was to deal with that as old news and move as swiftly as possible into his party’s platform, repeating over and over the party’s messaging on its health-care promises, which included pledging to reopen three hospital emergency departments that were downgraded by the Tory government.
His party has also promised more child-care spaces, a one-year freeze on hydroelectricity rates and a temporary suspension of the 14-cent-per-litre fuel tax until inflation subsides.
Still, the Tories wanted voters to remember Mr. Kinew’s youth. They tried to paint the former rapper, broadcaster, author, and university professor as a dangerous choice.
“Don’t gamble on the NDP,” one PC ad said, listing some of the charges Mr. Kinew has faced beside a photo of him with his fingers intertwined, save for his index fingers and thumbs, which are sticking out to form a make-believe gun. “You will be dealt a very bad hand.”
The Tories have promised to hire more health-care workers and build hospital infrastructure.
Leader Heather Stefanson also pledged that a government led by her would introduce major tax cuts to help people with inflation and to boost the economy. Her party promised to reduce personal income taxes and phase out a tax that employers pay on their total annual payroll.
In this campaign, the Tories leaned further right than the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives have traditionally, said Kelly Saunders, a political science professor at Brandon University.
“Our PCs are really borrowing a page from their Prairie cousins” and the Conservative Party of Canada, she said. “They are playing with politics that we’ve never really seen before here.”
She pointed to the PCs’ campaign promise to expand “parental rights” over what children learn in school and their involvement in addressing bullying and other behaviour changes. Ms. Stefanson refused to clarify whether her proposal would prevent teachers from using a student’s chosen name and pronouns without parental consent. Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, which both have conservative premiers, recently introduced controversial policies around names and pronouns, which critics have argued erode LGBTQ+ rights and could put some students at risk at home.
The PCs also campaigned on not searching the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of two missing Indigenous women: Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26. Police in Winnipeg believe Jeremy Skibicki, an alleged serial killer, murdered them and their remains were then transported to the landfill.
“Stand firm against the unsafe $184-million landfill dig,” a PC ad in the Winnipeg Free Press said.
Public opinion on whether to search the landfill is roughly split, according to observers, but campaigning on not trying to find the women’s remains is a “bizarre election plank,” Ms. Saunders said.
She said she expected political strategists across the spectrum – but particularly in conservative strongholds – would be watching closely to see how Manitobans responded to Ms. Stefanson’s strategic shift.
Mr. Kinew has represented Fort Rouge, in Winnipeg, since 2016 and became the leader of the provincial NDP in 2017. Ms. Stefanson was first elected in Winnipeg’s Tuxedo riding in a 2000 by-election and became the PC leader in 2021.
The Liberals did not run a full slate of candidates.
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.