A few clues about the 2023 election

Opinion

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This article was published 06/01/2023 (675 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hopefully, 2023 will turn out to be relatively boring compared to the last few years. But there will be at least one source of excitement in the coming year: the upcoming provincial election here in Manitoba, scheduled for Oct. 3.

Expect the parties to ramp up their campaign machines in the months ahead. The challenge facing Premier Heather Stefanson is to lead the Progressive Conservatives to a third consecutive electoral victory. The task is daunting, but not insurmountable; after all, Gary Filmon led the Tories to three straight wins between 1988 and 1995.

But Stefanson is indisputably swimming against the tide.

Last year saw four developments that provide clues about the shape the coming election will take, and how Stefanson might approach the campaign. Two are negative for the incumbent PCs, but two are positive.

First, the PC government and Stefanson continue to be low in the polls, especially in seat-rich Winnipeg where the election will be won. Further, Stefanson continues to bring up the rear in the Angus Reid Institute polls that rank Canadian premiers on the basis of their public approval.

The exercise of comparing premiers by approval is ultimately pointless, but these polls have been an embarrassment for Stefanson.

2022 marked Stefanson’s first full year as PC leader, after her razor-thin victory over former MP Shelly Glover for the leadership. The hope in the days following the outcome was Stefanson would be able to rebrand the PC Party and government after the departure of the unpopular former premier Brian Pallister.

Stefanson has brought a more open and consensual approach to governing, which has produced some tangible policy results. But this has not translated into a boost in popularity for either the premier or the party. The PC party seems to have been wounded by its performance during the COVID-19 pandemic and has not yet found a way to recover.

The party has also been impacted by a number of Tory MLAs — nine, at last count — announcing they will not be running for re-election.

It is normal in the lead-up to any election for a certain number of incumbents to opt out, and the departing PC MLAs have been quick to declare their loyalty to Stefanson. But as the number of retiring MLAs climbs, it sends a signal they are nervous about the party’s chance of maintaining power and their own re-election prospects.

Anyone who has ever run for public office or volunteered on a campaign is familiar with the staggering personal, emotional and, sometimes, financial costs of running for public office. Few people are willing to put their names forward when the chances of victory are slim.

But there were two developments in 2022 that were positive for the Tories, and which may help provide a path forward for the party.

First, Stefanson has occasionally shown some feistiness in the past several months. This was particularly true on the issue of crime.

Law and order is a top-of-mind concern for Manitobans and Winnipeggers after the particularly lawless and violent summer of 2022. It is also an issue on which voters traditionally trust parties of the right such as the Tories. Further, crime is a difficult issue for the NDP and its leader, Wab Kinew, to manage, as a sizeable component of the party’s activist base is suspicious of both police and anything resembling tough-on-crime politics.

In 2022, Stefanson appeared to be willing to capitalize on concern over public safety. “We are no longer going to put up with the heinous acts of crime committed by the most violent criminals in our society,” she declared in November.

But Stefanson’s head-turning rhetoric has, apart from an initial investment in the Winnipeg Police Service, not been followed up by much in the way of concrete policy. With respect to communication, the government has had little success keeping the issue front and centre on the province’s political radar screen.

If the party is hoping to run on a classic law-and-order platform against the NDP, then actions will matter more than words. Stefanson is quickly running out of time to actualize her anti-crime rhetoric.

Finally, 2022 saw two Winnipeg byelections in which the Tories won despite low approval ratings within the city. Both former Blue Bomber Obby Khan and former city councillor Kevin Klein clinched victories for the PCs.

The most important reminder from these byelection wins is that a political party is more than its leader. The PC party will benefit in the next election, just as it did in these byelections, by working to ensure high-quality, high-profile candidates with name recognition and perhaps even a record of local public service put their names forward.

Obviously, this is complicated by the party’s low standing in the polls. But if Stefanson can snag high-quality candidates to replace departing MLAs and they are matched by comparably low-profile NDP competitors, then the party might find itself in a much better position to, seat by seat, score a third election win.

» Royce Koop is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Centre for Social Science Research and Policy.