Less than two weeks from today, Manitobans will know who will govern them for the next four years and right now, it looks like it will either be the Progressive Conservatives or the incumbent NDP again – and if polls are accurate, it will likely be the PCs, who had 42 per cent of voters’ support in an April 4 poll, compared to 22 per cent for the NDP.
The Liberals, who were being touted as having an opportunity to bring the party – which hasn’t formed a government in Manitoba since the 1950s – back to a position of strength and relevance, sat at 15 per cent in the poll. Sixteen per cent of respondents in the Insight Manitoba poll were undecided.
The Liberals were facing long odds of forming the government as candidate nominations closed, since they didn’t have candidates in all of Manitoba’s 57 ridings and have lost six in the meantime due to improper paperwork, violation of elections rules and a resignation due to the revelation of having had a criminal conviction in the past. The party has also had some missteps, including a candidate suggesting the province has too many hospitals and a $20 million plan to open a supermarket in downtown Winnipeg, possibly operating as a Crown corporation. As the longest shot to form the government, some of this can be expected. The Liberals don’t have a lot to lose and can afford to swing for the fences. Even if they fail to elect a single candidate in the whole province, it will only be a net loss of one seat from what they have now.
The Progressive Conservative party, on the other hand, is adopting the play-from-ahead strategy of many a professional soccer team by concentrating on keeping what they have and not letting their opponents catch up to them. This makes sense for a party in their position. As the official Opposition for the entirety of the NDP’s long reign in Manitoba, the PCs are the natural government-in-waiting and, sometimes, when a party has been in power as long as the NDP has, voters opt for change and all the frontrunner needs to do is play it safe and keep their heads down and let the general sense of dissatisfaction do the job for them.
Conversely, the NDP are in full-attack mode, accusing Brian Pallister and the PC party of having plans to slash spending and government jobs and endlessly repeating the Progressive Conservative leader’s statement that “there are no sacred cows,” when it comes to spending cuts. This strategy is also sound, because promises of new legislation and policies often ring a little hollow when a multi-term incumbent party proposes them. If they are such good ideas, why weren’t they implemented before? And if they weren’t brought in before, why should anyone believe that they will be if the party is given another chance to hold the reins of power?
Unfortunately, the combination of these factors makes for a bit of a dull race in Thompson. NDP candidate Steve Ashton, who has been the MLA since 1981, captured 68 percent of the votes in October 2011, more than twice as many as Progressive Conservative challenger Anita Campbell. His position is as secure as any other NDP incumbent. The nature of parliamentary politics means that debates between any candidates other than the parties’ respective leaders are more or less a philosophical exercise so Thompson voters may not see their candidates square off against each other before going to the polls on April 19.
Theoretically, something could happen in the next 10 days or so that would drastically affect the fates of the parties, but a wise gambler probably wouldn’t lay money on it. Then again, polls have sometimes proven wrong in the past and may do so again. Only 13 more days until we can determine whether they were accurate.
