By the time the next issue of the Thompson Citizen comes out Oct. 23, Canadians will know who their next government will be and the residents of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski will know who will represent this regioon in the House of Commons and what role that representative might play.
Recent election projections have the Conservatives under leader Andrew Scheer pulling slightly ahead of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the overall seat count, though still falling short of the 170 seats needed to form a majority government. The Bloc Quebecois seems to be enjoying a resurgence in Quebec that could lead it to be among the top three parties in total number of seats, ahead of the NDP under Jagmeet Singh, who has seen his popularity increase after his performance in English-language debates. Still, it is quite possible that the NDP could be third and the Bloc fourth.
In Northern Manitoba, the election projection website 338Canada.com says Churchill-Keewatinook Aski will likely remain an NDP seat, predicting incumbent Niki Ashton to win about 45 per cent of the popular vote compared to about 29 per cent for Liberal challenger Judy Klassen. The Conservatives’ Cyara Bird is projected to take 20 per cent of the vote and Ralph McLean of the Green party about five per cent. * Basically, it appears that Northern Manitoba will opt to stay with the known quantity in the form of Ashton, though Klassen may make it a tight race.
During an Oct. 8 debate in Churchill in which she and Ashton were the only candidates present, Klassen made a pitch to voters that voting for the Liberals would be a way to ensure a voice for the region within a party that could actually hold power. This might not be as persuasive an argument as it might have been in 2015, but it still hold some validity. It is quite possible that the Liberals will end up with a slight edge in seats over the Conservatives. If not, they will almost certainly have the second-most and, even if that proves correct, there is a big chance that they, rather than the Conservatives, might end up forming a minority government, given that the Bloc Quebecois leader has said his party is not interested in joining any formal coalition, while Singh has dismissed the notion of the NDP forming an alliance with the Conservatives. This could leave the voters of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski as being likely to have considerably more say – i.e. any – in the next Canadian government than they have had in the past four decades. In fact, no matter which of the two front-runners in this riding ends up victorious, the next Churchill-Keewatinook Aski MP could have the ability to shape the legislation and policies of the next government, whether as a member of the party with the most or second-most seats, or as a member of the third- or fourth-place party in a coalition with, most likely, the Liberals.
This sort of opportunity doesn’t come along every day for voters in one of Canada’s geographically largest and also poorest federal ridings. And while this might change the voting intentions of some who were torn between either voting for the Liberals or the NDP, the bright side could be that not as much might be riding on which one emerges as the winner as it would have been had the Liberals or the Conservatives been likely to win a majority. Predictions are not flawless, obviously, and a lot can still change in the week between the day this editorial is being written and the day Canadians vote, but it seems probable that the next Churchill-Keewatinook Aski MP will have more clout than they might have been expected to when this election campaign began.
* This sentence has been changed from the original version to reflect that the percentages reflect expected shares of the popular vote for each candidate, not their chances of winning. The Thompson Citizen apologizes for the error.
