Nearly half of Manitoba election candidates live outside constituencies

Nearly half of the candidates in the April 19 provincial election don't live within the boundaries of the constituencies where they're running.

CBC News analyzed the declared home addresses of nearly all of the 223 official candidates and compared those locations to the boundaries of each of the 57 constituencies in Manitoba.

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Of the addresses that could be precisely pinpointed on a map, the homes of 47 per cent of candidates (93 of 199) were outside the constituencies in which they are running.

Manitoba's Election Act requires the chief electoral officer to publish the name, residential address, political affiliation and official agent for each candidate. However, under Section 59(2), candidates may request that their home address not be disclosed for personal security reasons.

In total, the addresses of five candidates — including that of Liberal Party Leader Rana Bokhari — were not made public by the chief electoral officer.

Elections Manitoba spokesperson Alison Mitchell confirmed in an email that the agency has "received several requests from candidates not to publish their addresses."

Manitoba Liberal Party spokesperson Mike Brown said in an email that Bokhari`s home address was unpublished for safety reasons.

NDP has highest proportion of outsider candidates

In total, 19 rural candidate addresses could not be accurately mapped due to rural area address conventions. Excluding these, the analysis shows that close to 63 per cent of NDP candidates declared a home address located outside the constituencies in which they are running.

In contrast, the Manitoba Liberal Party has 44 per cent non-resident candidates, while the Progressive Conservatives have only 26 per cent. The Green Party of Manitoba and the Manitoba Party stand at 32 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively.

Asked for comment, NDP spokesperson Andrew Tod pointed out that "unlike the Manitoba Liberal Party, we are running a full slate of 57 candidates."

"[Our candidates] come from all walks of life, and our team looks like Manitoba. Our team includes 24 women, nine people of colour, and seven indigenous candidates," said Tod.

Fort Whyte home to more candidates

Although there are only five candidates running in Fort Whyte — including the incumbent, PC Leader Brian Pallister, who himself lives in another constituency — there are 10 candidates who call this electoral division home.

In contrast, Keewatinook — Manitoba's most northern electoral district — is without a single local candidate. The Liberal candidate, Judy Klassen, lives in Steinbach, while Edna Nabess (PC) and Eric Robinson (NDP) both live in Winnipeg.

Living cities away

The addresses published by Elections Manitoba show notable cases in which candidates live hours away from the voters they are attempting to woo.

Among the examples:

• The PC candidate for Point Douglas, Marsha Street, lives in Brandon.
• Liberal candidate Inez Vystrcil-Spence is running in Thompson but lives in Lorette.
• Brandon West Liberal candidate Billy Moore resides in Portage la Prairie.

See if the candidates for your constituency live within its boundaries:

Notes on methodology and analysis:

• In order to establish constituency of residence, candidate home addresses were mapped and analyzed against the official digital constituency files provided by Elections Manitoba.
• Twenty-four of the 223 candidates could not be mapped either because their addresses were withheld or because the rural address format could not be geocoded.

Analysis and calculations performed by Jacques Marcoux, CBC News.