'Middle guard': Manitoba Liberals choose party organizer for leader

In a race that pitted the old guard of the Manitoba Liberals in Jon Gerrard against the new with Cindy Lamoureux, party members chose what one provincial politico calls the "middle guard" in long-time party organizer Dougald Lamont at their leadership convention in Winnipeg Saturday.

"I'm a little surprised," said Probe Research's Mary Agnes Welch, after the results came in. "I think the common wisdom was that the Lamoureux machine would in the end deliver it for Cindy Lamoureux, on the other hand the two of them were pretty close after the first ballot so all bets were off. 

"I think that this whole race was in some ways a bit of the old guard versus the new in the Liberal Party and maybe that makes Dugald the kind of medium guard — he's not Jon Gerrard but he's not Cindy either."

Welch says she was also surprised by how many delegates left the Victoria Inn Conference Centre, where the convention was held, after the first ballot results were announced, and didn't come back for the second round of voting.

The first ballot saw 363 votes go to Lamoureux, 301 go to Lamont, and 230 go Gerrard's way.

Despite Gerrard's efforts to push his supporters to move their support to Lamoureux, she actually lost 75 votes on the second ballot while Lamont dropped only five votes.

That means a little over 300 delegates who voted in the first round didn't stick around for the second ballot.

"It doesn't surprise me that there was a bit of a drop-off on the second ballot, but… that's a substantial drop-off," said Welch, who couldn't say whether the exodus of delegates led to Lamont's win. "On the second ballot things get pretty murky.

"That's what leaderships are about — it's about getting out the vote, it's about identifying your supporters and making sure they're there." 

Delays plague convention 

Welch says it's also hard to say how many delegates left early not because of the results of the first ballot but because of a series of problems during the convention that delayed the first round of voting and ultimately saw the second round start roughly a couple hours behind schedule.

Manitoba Liberal Party president Paul Brault told CBC News the delays were due in part to a computer glitch that affected the party's voter registration software. Party organizers had to switch to paper registration forms which caused long delays, he said.

Party officials also said an "overwhelming" turnout to the leadership convention — 1,200 Liberals showed up while only 900 were expected — pushed back voting.

Welch said the problems at the convention are representative of troubles the party faces as a whole.

The Manitoba Liberal party, which currently does not hold official status and has just three seats in the Manitoba Legislature, has been without a permanent leader since the resignation of its previous leader Rana Bokhari who quit after she failed to win a seat in the 2016 provincial election. 

Not new to politics

While both Gerrard and Lamoureux have seats in the legislature, Lamont—like Bokhari before him — has never been elected to office.

Lamont has expertise in communications and owns a small digital media company. He is also a part-time lecturer in government-business relations at the University of Winnipeg, a job he said he plans to keep while leader.

But Lamont is not new to politics.

He ran in the last Manitoba Liberal leader race, finishing a distant second to Bokhari in 2013, and Welch says he's been active in the backrooms of Liberal politics for years. He's worked on and managed a number of campaigns, she says, including Robert-Falcon Ouellette's failed bid for Winnipeg mayor in 2014. 

"Does it mean he won't have the public profile that a leader who is in Question Period everyday might have?" she asked. "The flipside to that is, does that give him time to actually do the organizational gut work that's involved in rebuilding the party, getting finances in order, identifying candidates, and wrestling a slightly divided and slightly marginalized party back into good shape?

"I think not being in the house in some ways gives him a chance to focus on that.. his reputation is pretty good as an on-the-ground organizer, so maybe that's not a bad fit for the first couple years."