Sisson to run for PC nomination in Brandon West

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/01/2023 (713 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon resident Jordan Sisson has worn many hats within the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba — and now he’s looking to add one more.

He has been a local constituency assistant and director of regional cabinet operations here in Brandon. In the administration of former premier Brian Pallister, Sisson worked as director of stakeholder relations, before becoming the campaign manager and eventually chief of staff to current Premier Heather Stefanson. And in recent months, he became Stefanson’s senior strategic adviser, as he stepped away from his chief of staff role.

Sisson announced Thursday he would be seeking the PC nomination in Brandon West, a role that he said has been one of his career goals.

“It’s a super exciting time in my life right now,” Sisson said. “It’s obviously been a longtime goal of mine to make the attempt to run for provincial politics. I have the experience in both government and business. I know what it takes within government behind the scenes to move things.

“You know, I’m a Brandon champion, I consider myself a community champion, and I will continue to do that.”

Sisson is the first candidate to express interest in running in the constituency, following news that current Brandon West MLA Reg Helwer would not be campaigning for another term in office in 2023 and was ready to retire from politics.

Though Sisson is not quite a resident of Brandon West, living just outside the constituency along Grand Valley Road in what is now Spruce Woods, he said much of his youth and adult life has been spent living, working and playing in Brandon West.

“I am technically a few hundred feet from what would be considered Brandon West,” Sisson said. “But you know, Brandon is my home, has always been my home. My kids go to school in Brandon West, hockey in Brandon West. All of our activities are in Brandon.”

Last month, Stefanson ended the year with the lowest approval rating among Canadian premiers at 26 per cent, according to the polling company Angus Reid. She started 2022 in the same position — at the bottom of the premier approval ratings.

Similarly, a Probe Research poll published last December placed party support in Manitoba for the Tories at 35 per cent, well behind NDP popular support of 46 per cent.

As chief of staff and then senior strategic adviser to the premier, Sisson has been a major part of government decisions since Stefanson’s rise to power. When asked whether he takes some responsibility for the party’s poor showing over the last year, Sisson said it would be “disingenuous” to do otherwise.

“I think anyone who’s a diehard member, anyone who invests their own personal time and effort into anything, and in this case, we’re talking about party politics, takes some weight on their own shoulders.

“Looking back, there’s definitely things we could have just done differently, I could have done better … But at the end of the day, I’m proud of what we’ve done.”

His intent as an MLA, he said, would be to fairly represent the interests of constituents and the region. Among his top priorities, should he win the nomination and then a seat in the Manitoba legislature, would be to support the region’s economic and social growth, and to ensure that people in Brandon have access to good-quality health care.

But the health-care portfolio has been a particularly troublesome file for the Progressive Conservative government over the past two years. Both Pallister and Stefanson have been criticized for increasing already long wait lists for various kinds of surgery and failing to improve outcomes, and then relying more on partnerships with private companies to deliver health care in Manitoba — the suggestion being that the party is edging toward a private health-care system.

While Sisson said he would never support the discontinuation of a free and public health-care system for all Manitobans, he was open to considering more private innovation within that public system.

“I don’t support the notion that management should move to a private system. What I do support though, is not closing the door to providers that are publicly paid. [But] when you go to a clinic, the only form of payment that you should have to take with you is your Manitoba Health card.”

In wake of the retirement of Helwer, and several other Progressive Conservative MLAs who have decided not to run again in 2023, Sisson echoed the recent party mantra regarding the need for a wholesale revitalization of the party and its fortunes before the provincial election, which must take place on or before Oct. 3.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Sisson said. “It’s a time of renewal for our party. It’s time of rejuvenation. And I’m gonna work hard to make sure conservatives … from all kinds of scales of the spectrum of being a Tory, are represented and heard. There’s no favouritism, there’s no divide. I want to bring people back together and just be the voice for them.”

To fully focus on the nomination ahead, Sisson said he has taken a leave from his position at the Manitoba legislature.

As of Thursday, Cameron Eason, senior manager of strategic communications for the PC Caucus, said no date has been set for the Brandon West nomination meeting.

» mgoerzen@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @MattGoerzen