Manitoba Progressive Conservatives have selected Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan to serve as the party’s new leader in another close contest between an established member of the party caucus and a populist conservative outsider.
In a vote conducted by mail-in ballot, Khan defeated Wally Daudrich, who owns a hotel and ecotourism business in Churchill, Man., winning 2,198.8 points under a weighted ballot system to Daudrich’s 2,163.2, party leadership selection committee chair Brad Zander announced Saturday at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Winnipeg.
Khan’s victory gave him 50.4 per cent of the available 4,362 points, while Daudrich received 49.6 per cent of the available points. The close result arrived following a six-month leadership race.
Khan said after the announcement he was paying more attention to the result of the race than he did to the small margin of his victory.
“I think my previous life in football really prepared me for this. It was really back into game-day mode,” said Khan, a former offensive lineman in the Canadian Football League.
The PC leadership contest was sparked by the resignation of former Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson, who stepped down as party leader in early 2024, months after her PCs lost the fall 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 disputed 2021 leadership race between Stefanson and former Conservative MP Shelly Glover.
That race was also close — Stefanson won by 363 votes.
Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen, who served as Manitoba’s interim premier for two months in 2021, said he doesn’t believe the small margin of victory for Khan means very much.
“The reality is, I think these days in politics every election seems to be close,” said Goertzen, who endorsed Khan’s campaign. “Now it’s up to Obby to prove that he can bring the party together.”
Khan endorsed by 10 caucus members
Khan, who was first elected to the Manitoba Legislature in a 2022 byelection, was endorsed by 10 out of 20 members of the PC caucus ahead of Saturday’s vote.
During the lengthy leadership race, he positioned himself as better able to lead the opposition party out of the political wilderness on the basis he already has a seat in the legislature.
Khan made few policy announcements during the campaign. He promised to pursue more public-private partnerships within the health-care system and provide municipalities with an undisclosed portion of provincial sales tax revenue.
Khan becomes the first Muslim as well as the first Canadian from a South Asian ethnic background to lead the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives.
The new leader said one of his first tasks will involve reaching out to all party members, including those who voted for Daudrich, to ensure the party is ready to defeat the New Democrats in a provincial election expected in 2027.
“Wab Kinew — we all know him well with that smile — is an actor. He places priority on staging grand announcements. He loves the applause, but when it dies down, nothing follows,” Khan said of the current premier.
“I, we, your PC team, your PC elected members, will hold them to account and that starts again today.”
Daudrich accepts results
Daudrich did not address reporters following the announcement of the leadership vote result. Mike Patton, Daudrich’s campaign manager, said he accepted the results.
According to party figures, Daudrich received 53 more raw votes than Khan: 3,387 to 3,384. A total of 29 ballots were spoiled.
The party utilized a weighted voting system that prevented candidates from stacking votes within a single constituency association. Patton said the process and the system were fair.
Prior to the vote, Daudrich said he planned to run in the forthcoming Manitoba byelection in Spruce Woods. Patton could not say whether that remains the case.
Daudrich did not receive endorsements from any members of the PC caucus. Early in the campaign, he described some PC MLAs as lazy but declined to name the elected officials in question.
During the campaign, Daudrich positioned himself as the more conservative of the two candidates and mused about removing the word “progressive” from the party name.
Daudrich 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.
Patrick Allard, who supported Daudrich’s candidacy, shook hands and exchanged contact information with Khan following the decision. Allard said he now supports Khan because he is a PC member first.
“We have the same goal and that’s winning in 2027, getting rid of this disastrous NDP,” Allard said. “Having multiple voices at the table is never a bad thing. So we might have a different way to get there, but we will get there.”
The Progressive Conservatives currently hold 20 seats in the 57-seat Manitoba Legislature, while the governing NDP holds 34.
Minutes after Khan’s victory was announced, the New Democrats published an attack website called Obbythankstrump.ca.
A total of 10,999 PC members were eligible to vote in the 2025 leadership race. Zander said 7,108 members completed ballots and 6,750 of those were verified by party officials. The 6,750 ballots cast fall short of the 16,807 ballots submitted in the 2021 PC leadership race.
