Sleepy summer byelection has heat for at least 2 parties
Liberal leader needs seat while NDP needs to show it still has game
As byelections go, the one in St. Boniface this Tuesday means more than a modest restructuring of the seating chart at the Manitoba Legislature.
The Progressive Conservative government's huge majority isn't at risk and the ruling party hasn't challenged in this constituency for generations.
Mamadou Ka is running for the Progressive Conservatives, Dougald Lamont for the Liberals, Blandine Tona is the New Democrat candidate and Françoise Therrien Vrignon is representing the Manitoba Green Party.
St. Boniface is a battleground of the Liberals and NDP historically, with the parties flip-flopping results over decades, ending with a political lock on the property for the New Democrats with Greg Selinger's incumbency starting in 1999.
Both sides have something to prove this week as Liberal Leader Lamont needs to go from watching question period from the gallery to getting in on the fight, and the NDP have to stem the bleeding from a bruising election loss more than two years ago.
The Liberals could desperately use another seat and the official party status and funding that comes with it.
The NDP was hammered in the 2016 election under Selinger's leadership, leaving the former premier and finance minister still with a seat, but with a bruised party, a mismatched caucus and a clear mandate for the Tories.
Selinger sat in a back row of the House for two years, saying little and looking, doubtlessly, for a graceful way out.
Instead he was all but forced out by revelations of sexual harassment by one-time NDP minister Stan Struthers.
- Former MLA dubbed 'Minister Tickles' apologizes after 5 women allege years of unwanted touching
- Kinew asks Selinger to resign in wake of allegations former MLA Stan Struthers inappropriately touched women
Unlike the 2017 byelection in Point Douglas (an NDP stronghold for lifetimes), where Bernadette Smith won (albeit with near-record low turnouts), the party of the official Opposition this week faces a Liberal Party with its leader's political ambitions on full display and strong candidates from both the PCs and the Green Party as well.
If there was a test of political temperature for the NDP, this is as good a one since the 2016 campaign and rookie-ish leader Wab Kinew needs a win.
'Can he survive?'
Probe Research pollster and former reporter Mary Agnes Welch sees a more robust question period with either Tona or Lamont across from the government, saying both candidates would add something to the mix.
Welch does smell a greater sense of urgency, however, in the Liberal camp and it's around whether Lamont could live to fight another day as leader if he loses on Tuesday.
"Only in the Liberal Party would it be a question — can he survive?" Welch said.
With the NDP still smarting from their election loss and the Tories making both dramatic changes to health-care delivery and a tightened fiscal plan, Welch opines it should be "a Liberal heyday."
After years of watching politics, Welch wonders "if there is oxygen left" for the Liberals in a small province with two dominating parties?
Political scientist and author Chris Adams calls the challenges for victory this week "a double whammy."
"It's a byelection with typical low turnout and it's in the depths of the summer, so the key here will be getting the vote out from the identified voter list," Adams said.
Adams says co-operation between the federal and provincial Liberals would help Lamont's effort. Federal MP Dan Vandal could provide some ground game the provincial Grits could really use, Adams believes.
Ground game, or "boots on the ground," is key for the NDP as well, Adams thinks, and the Opposition party's performance could hinge on getting their volunteers out in force to bring in the vote.
Adams sees the byelection, despite it falling smack-dab in the middle of the summer, as one to watch, if only because the political fortunes of the NDP and of Liberal leader Dougald Lamont are so much at play.
Polls will be open at 27 locations from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Voters will have to bring identification to the polling station on election day. In the past, that was only required during advanced polls.
Advance polls, by the way, had a strong showing last week, with more than a thousand of the 12,000 eligible voters casting a ballot.