Can Wab Kinew rise above his past? Experts split on whether Manitoba NDP leader is electable

A few hours before Manitoba's political leaders gathered for Wednesday night's debate, the Progressive Conservative party issued a statement asking whether NDP Leader Wab Kinew would answer questions about his past on live television. 

"Why did he tell one story under oath about assaulting a taxi driver and a completely different one in his 'tell-all' book?" asked the Tory-authored statement, which was emblazoned with the "Wab Risk" branding from the PC attack website of the same name.

"In 2017, did he try to intimidate his ex-common-law wife about the domestic assault allegations she made against him?" the statement asked.

The "Wab Risk" advertising campaign, which also involves YouTube videos and targeted Facebook ads, is very different in tone from the main thrust of PC messaging during this provincial election campaign, which mostly focuses on the NDP's record during the latter party's 17 years in power.

In effect, the PCs are running two entirely different public relations campaigns against Kinew and his party. And the debate made it clear which one the Tories deem more fit for general consumption: given the opportunity to question Kinew about his past on live television, PC Leader Brian Pallister avoided the topic entirely.

"I wanted to talk about the issues Manitobans care about," Pallister told reporters after the debate, suggesting voters actually don't care about something his own party has spent months taking great pains to publicize.

Pallister's statement is disingenuous. The veteran politician knows all too well most voters care quite a bit about the integrity of party leaders — and as a brand-new leader, Kinew and his character remain unfamiliar to many Manitobans.

'Still unanswered questions'

Kinew, who worked as a musician, broadcaster and a university executive before he entered politics, has been open about many sensitive aspects of his past.

He admitted he was convicted for impaired driving and for assaulting a cab driver in his early 20s. He received pardons for both offences.

He was charged with assaulting a former partner in 2003. While that charge was stayed, the former partner maintains Kinew threw her across the room. Kinew was also given a conditional discharge for a 2004 assault in Ontario.

Kinew's book, The Reason You Walk, chronicles his growth from a troubled young man to a thoughtful and remorseful adult.

His critics, including the PCs, argue his autobiography was less than transparent about the severity of two incidents — the assault on the cabbie and the alleged assault on a former partner.

Perhaps the PCs need not have drawn any further attention to this disjunction. Among political scientists and other informed observers, there is no consensus as to whether Wab Kinew is electable as a party leader.

"I don't think he is," said Kelly Saunders, political science chair at Brandon University, who sees the gulf between what Kinew has disclosed about his past and the entirety of the allegations as more of a problem than the events themselves.

"There are still unanswered questions about what he will admit to doing, what he won't admit to doing [and] what responsibility he's taken for those actions," Saunders said.

"When it comes to the actual allegations of domestic assault against his former partner, he's been a little bit more evasive, so I think that that certainly has not helped him, because there's still that big question mark hanging over his head."

Saunders is suggesting that voters may care more about honesty in the present than transgressions in the past, even in an era when the bar for elected officials is especially low.

Americans elected Donald Trump as president even though the reality TV star was the subject of numerous sexual assault allegations. Doug Ford became premier of Ontario in spite of allegations of a drug dealing past. Hungary, Brazil, Russia and the Philippines are led by problematic strongmen.

In all of those instances, voters didn't seem to care. But Wab Kinew is not some unapologetic, right-wing populist who displays no shame about brash or antisocial behaviour.

Kinew's brand is something entirely different: a loving father and a model of personal growth.

'I'm a real person'

Chris Adams, adjunct professor of political science at the University of Manitoba, said it's important to consider that growth.

"There's no doubt some of the things he's been charged with [were] very serious things," said Adams.

"What's helpful for Wab Kinew is that since he's been made leader a few years ago and leader of the caucus of the official Opposition, he hasn't had any problems in terms of behaviour. He hasn't shown anything to cause members of his caucus to publicly raise concerns.

"So I would say he's had a pretty good track record over the past three years."

Kinew has grown accustomed to questions about his past and insists he has learned from it.

"I'm a real person and the life experience that I've led has taught me a ton of lessons," he said in an interview with CBC News earlier in August. 

"Probably most important of them is the importance of compassion and being able to see yourself in someone else's shoes and also the importance of listening — and that includes listening when you got it wrong and figuring out what you need to do to get better."

Kinew also said the NDP conducted a thorough vetting of his past before he joined the party as a Fort Rouge candidate in 2016.

"Throughout it all, the question's always been not whether or not there's some bar that I need to clear. But ... 'Can you talk about this? Can you explain? Can you answer questions? Can you deal with it in a respectful manner?'

"And so my experience over the past few years has just been trying to talk to people and let them know the real me."  

The role of racism

Adams said Kinew has done well enough to be electable — if voters in some constituencies can get past the NDP leader's ethnic background. Kinew is Anishinaabe.

"I think he might have some problems in areas where people don't really interact with with Indigenous Peoples," Adams said, referring what he described as white Winnipeg neighbourhoods.

Saunders said racism will hurt Kinew even more in rural Manitoba.

"I'm not sure if Manitobans are ready for an Indigenous leader. I mean, we still have a long way to go in this province, in this country," she said.

"I think Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples really live in two separate worlds in this province, and that's a tragedy, so I don't think that many Manitobans will embrace someone that is so different from them and their own lived experience."

Kinew's past only complicates the reluctance to elect an Indigenous premier, she said.

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The idea voters would reject a candidate on the basis of their ethnicity may chafe against Manitobans' view of themselves as moderate, logical people who care more about the quality of their candidates than their backgrounds.

This is, after all, a province with a capital city that elected a gay mayor — Glen Murray — in 1998, well before sexual orientation was no longer an insurmountable obstacle in politics.

Pollster Mary Agnes Welch, a principal with Winnipeg's Probe Research, said she doesn't believe Kinew's indigeneity would keep him out of the premier's office.

"I think we have seen a great many prominent Indigenous people in the legislature. I'm not sure it's much of a big leap to take that next step and elect a premier," she said.

A bigger problem for Kinew would be his past, Welch said, "if that really is a sort of an insurmountable thing for some voters — and I'm not entirely convinced that it is, frankly."

Lingering disdain for the NDP after the party's 17 years in government remains the factor most likely to harm Kinew, she added, saying the leader may in fact be more popular than his party.

No hard data on the Kinew question

Welch said no data has been made public on the question of whether voters can get past Kinew's past. Polling data does suggest, however, that women tend to like him better than they do Pallister, mainly because women tend to favour the NDP over Progressive Conservatives, she said.

"This notion that Wab has a women problem? I'm not sure it's entirely accurate, because I don't think women like very many leaders right now in Manitoba," she said. 

James Beddome, the Green Party leader, said he has struggled with the allegations about Kinew, but says it's up to voters to make up their own minds.

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said he, too, wrestles with the Kinew question.

"It's very difficult, because I recognize that we have a justice system which almost goes out of its way to sort of over-arrest and over-jail Indigenous people," he said.

But he added even if he wasn't a Liberal voter, he doesn't think he could vote for Kinew. 

"I don't think I'd be able to do it," Lamont said.

Pallister was not available to conduct an interview with CBC News on this and other topics. But his party's position is clear, given the tenor of the Wab Risk campaign.

Kinew said he doesn't believe there is a racist component to the ads.

"I asked myself, 'Would the Tories be running attack ads like this against me if I was non-Native?' And the answer is yes, absolutely they would be," he said.

Pallister's reluctance to press the issue during the Wednesday debate raises a question: what if the Tories actually want Kinew to succeed, to some degree?

It could serve the Tories well if the NDP win enough seats on Sept. 10 to ensure Kinew survives as party leader long enough to fight another election — where he may once again be encumbered by his problematic past.