Balcaen prevails in tight Brandon West race

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This article was published 06/10/2023 (760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two days after the provincial election took place, the hotly contested constituency of Brandon West finally found a winner — by a razor-thin margin, electorally speaking, the city’s west end will remain Tory blue.

Brandon West was among a number of electoral districts to experience slow vote counting — which Elections Manitoba blamed on storms that knocked out power and caused problems with vote-counting machines, new election procedures and technical issues with its website.

Mid-Thursday afternoon, however, Elections Manitoba’s website finally showed that all Brandon West polls had reported and all advance votes were counted, with former Brandon police chief and Progressive Conservative candidate Wayne Balcaen emerging as the winner.

Brandon West was up for grabs after former PC MLA Reg Helwer announced he wouldn’t run for re-election. Helwer held the seat for 12 years, and Balcaen’s win means the constituency will remain in Tory hands.

Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Balcaen described the prolonged wait for results as “nail-biting,” but said he was grateful to NDP candidate Quentin Robinson and Green party candidate Marsh for running a clean race.

“It was nice to be in an election with respectful candidates,” Balcaen said.

The final tally — Balcaen gathered 3,805 votes compared to his nearest rival, Robinson, who had 3,710 votes — only a 98-vote spread between the victor and runner-up. Marsh rounded out voting with 282 in his favour.

Forty-seven voters declined and seven ballots were rejected, making the total number of votes cast in Brandon West 7,851 (a 51 per cent turnout).

Robinson told the Sun on Thursday that he accepts the results — someone will win an election campaign and others will lose — and it was a privilege to participate in democracy, he said.

“The voters have spoken, and of course one respects that,” Robinson said, adding that he’s proud of the effort he and his supporters made. “We ran, I think, a very solid campaign … there were people involved who put their heart and soul into it.”

A retired family counsellor and United Church minister, Robinson said he’s now eager to return to the work he did prior to the election to make Brandon and the world as a whole a better place, pointing specifically to his previous work on the environment and climate change.

While Balcaen said he will make time with his family to celebrate his election win, he said he’s eager to get to work. At first, that will mean finding office space and a residence to stay in when his duties to take him to Winnipeg. It will also mean getting to know members of the PC caucus and the new government, he said.

The defeat of the PCs at the hands of the NDP means that Balcaen’s first stint as an MLA will be as a member of the opposition.

However, he said he expects to have the same opportunity to forward the concerns of local citizens to the legislature that he would if his party had formed government.

In addition, Balcaen said he expects all three MLAs that represent Brandon — the others being freshly elected Brandon East NDP MLA Glen Simard and PC MLA Grant Jackson — will work together for the city as a whole.

“I know that we will be able to work together to benefit Brandon,” Balcaen said.

When it comes to issues to be tackled, Balcaen noted that health care featured prominently in both the PC and NDP campaigns.

“I think that’s the number one area to look at,” Balcaen said, adding that part of his job will be to hold the government to its campaign pledges.

» ihitchen@brandonsun.com