Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives are slated to announce a new party leader following a six-month campaign that was overshadowed during its home stretch by the federal election.
On Saturday afternoon at downtown Winnipeg’s Radisson Hotel, the Official Opposition party is slated to reveal whether it will be led by Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan or Wally Daudrich, who owns a hotel and ecotourism company in Churchill.
This race will determine the full-time successor to former Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson, who stepped down as party leader months after her PCs lost the 2023 provincial election to Wab Kinew’s NDP.
Following her departure, the party appointed Lac du Bonnet MLA Wayne Ewasko as interim leader and decided on a lengthy contest to select a new permanent one.
The party gave prospective contestants six months to sign up for the race and another six months to campaign, partly to avoid a repeat of the party’s 2021 leadership contest between Stefanson and former Conservative MP Shelly Glover.
Plagued by voting irregularities, that race led to a court challenge from Glover, who has since vowed to form an alternative party to the Manitoba PCs.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says the length of the PC leadership campaign may not have benefited the party, despite the good intentions behind it.
The federal election likely sucked up most of the political oxygen in this province, he said.
“I think people sort of forgot that there is a race going on,” Adams said in an interview this week. “I think people were lulled by the very long leadership campaign.”
Adams said Ewasko “did a fairly decent job” as interim leader, but it was a tough ask of him to serve 15 months in that role.
“The Opposition is supposed to be challenging the government, and it’s a little bit more difficult to do that with an interim leader,” he said.
Challenges for new leader
The selection of a new leader will not immediately solve every woe for the PCs, who currently occupy 20 seats in the 57-seat Manitoba Legislature.
As leader, Khan or Daudrich will contend with an NDP government led by Kinew, who remains one of the most popular premiers in Canada, according to recent polling.
The new Opposition leader will have approximately two years to prepare for the next provincial election, assuming Kinew chooses to trigger it after the standard, but not compulsory, four years in office.
Khan said he is better prepared to lead the PCs in the next election by virtue of the fact he already has a seat in the legislature and is one of only two sitting PC MLAs in Winnipeg (along with Roblin’s Kathleen Cook).
“For us to get back in government, we have to win seats in the city of Winnipeg. I think that gives me a huge upside,” Khan said in March during an interview at the Caboto Centre in Winnipeg.
Daudrich, who plans to run in the forthcoming Spruce Woods byelection, argues he is better positioned to improve the fortunes of the PCs, saying he espouses more conservative views than Khan. Daudrich said newcomers to Canada, who are driving population growth, tend to be more conservative than other Canadians.
“I would argue that actually being more conservative is going to attract more voters to our party,” Daudrich said in an interview in March at his home in the rural municipality of Stanley, outside Morden.
Early on in the campaign, Daudrich advocated for removing the word “progressive” from the party name but now says that is something he believes will happen on its own.
“I think it’s actually a movement inside the party that is tired of using the term ‘progressive’ as if it’s an apology for being conservative,” he said.
“If you look back at the history, how the term progressive got inserted, it’s not a big deal. We can remove that word. We’re still the same party. We are still a centre-right party — not extremist, but a centre-right party.”
Khan has been endorsed by 10 out of 20 PC MLAs, including Kelvin Goertzen, the MLA for Steinbach, who served as interim leader and premier before Stefanson.
Daudrich did not receive any endorsements but insists he has support among the PC caucus.
“I believe that I will have significant support once I win this,” Daudrich said.
Khan would not commit to supporting Daudrich if the hotelier is named leader.
“It really depends on the policy direction that my opponent wants to take the party, and from there, we’ll make a decision and see how we go forward,” Khan said.
Controversy during campaign
Despite the long leadership campaign, the two candidates have not deluged party members with many policy positions.
Khan has promised to pursue more public-private partnerships within the health-care system and provide municipalities with an undisclosed portion of provincial sales tax revenue.
Daudrich has promised to fast-track the development of Manitoba mines and build a second port on Hudson Bay, claiming European customers would foot the bill for the proposed megaproject.
Both candidates have also courted controversy during the campaign. Daudrich described unnamed members of the PC caucus as lazy, claimed Manitoba schools are promoting incest and bestiality and joked at a campaign event about using polar bears to reduce the ranks of homeless people in Winnipeg.
Khan, meanwhile, declined to support an Ewasko apology on behalf of the party for the Stefanson government’s refusal to search the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of missing Indigenous women.
While Khan said the former PC government displayed a lack of empathy and compassion in the way it communicated that decision, he refused to call it a mistake, saying it was based on information the former government possessed at the time.
The PCs are expected to announce the winner of the contest at 5 p.m.
Approximately 11,200 party members were eligible to vote and a majority of them did: the party received somewhere in the vicinity of 7,000 completed ballots, said Brad Zander, chair of the party’s leadership selection committee.
In the 2021 leadership race, 16,807 party members completed ballots.
“It’s more common for ruling parties to draw larger membership numbers,” said Adams, the political studies professor. “Parties that have been defeated and are on the outside have more trouble garnering support.”
