Khan touts health-care P3s, Daudrich warns of Tory schism as PC leadership candidates face off
Portage la Prairie, Man., forum marks 2nd meeting of candidates since 182-day race began in October
Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan advocated for more private delivery of public health care, and Churchill hotelier Wally Daudrich warned of a splintering of the conservative vote in Manitoba, as the two provincial Progressive Conservative leadership candidates faced off Tuesday night in Portage la Prairie.
In the second candidates' forum since the October start of the six-month-long race to lead the opposition PCs, Daudrich and Khan addressed approximately 50 party members in a meeting room off to the side of the Stride Credit Union Arena.
The first forum, held in Winnipeg on Oct. 30, did not allow the candidates to interact and only made time for a handful of questions from party members. Tuesday's forum in Portage was a far less scripted affair in which questions and answers — none of them vetted beforehand and most directed at both Khan and Daudrich — took up most of the 70-minute program.
When Portage la Prairie Coun. Colin Doyle asked the candidates what they would do to combat crime, Daudrich promised to grow the provincial economy while Khan welcomed the prospect of Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party forming the next federal government.
Daudrich also said economic growth, fuelled by the expansion of mining, would improve provincial health care, while Khan promised to explore more public-private partnerships within the health-care sector.
"We have to bring innovative ideas to health care," Khan told the PC members in attendance.
After the forum, however, he declined to identify a single aspect of publicly funded health care that could benefit from more private delivery.
"For specifics on that, you have to wait 'til after the leadership, until I become the leader of the PC Party, and we can move forward on what that looks like," Khan said in a scrum.
The two leaders were also quizzed about their conservative bona fides. Khan dismissed a 2019 Instagram image of him standing alongside Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by describing it as a chance encounter with the federal Liberal leader outside the Exchange District location of Shawarma Khan, the MLA's restaurant chain.
Daudrich said he repeatedly refused to rent rooms at his Lazy Bear Lodge hotel in Churchill to Trudeau and noted he twice ran for office in Churchill as a federal Conservative.
The hotelier then suggested if the Manitoba PCs choose a leader with progressive values, conservatives in this province may form parties to the right of the Progressive Conservatives.
"If we don't keep it conservative, guess what? There's going to be one or two or three other parties that are going to start up, and we're going to see conservative votes splintering all over the place, and we won't get in for the next 20 years," Daudrich told the forum.
After the event, Daudrich said this is not conjecture.
"There will be other people waiting in the wings of this province that want to start new parties," he said in a scrum. "I've heard it, I've talked to people, the rank-and-file people across Manitoba, and that is what they'll do if we don't have a successful race based on conservative values."
Throughout the campaign, Daudrich has painted himself as the sole true conservative in the race. Khan, meanwhile, has stated that only he can increase the number of PC seats in Winnipeg and has repeatedly noted he is the only candidate in the two-person race who currently has a seat in the Manitoba Legislature.
While the Tuesday night forum was a relatively small gathering, organized by the Portage la Prairie PC constituency association, it was attended by four sitting PC MLAs as well as Portage-Lisgar Conservative MP Branden Leslie.
At least two more leadership forums are planned before the party announces its new leader on April 26.
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