Liberals’ rebuild brings them to Brandon

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This article was published 12/02/2024 (584 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just over four months after an election that brought the Manitoba Liberal Party down to a single representative in the Manitoba Legislature, party leaders visited Brandon as part of their rebuilding efforts.

Speaking to the Sun at the Victoria Inn Friday afternoon, interim leader Cindy Lamoureux and deputy leader Willard Reaves said they’d met with Mayor Jeff Fawcett, the John Howard Society of Brandon, Brandon University and Assiniboine Community College, and spent time at the Manitoba Beef Producers’ annual general meeting.

“We came to learn from people living in Brandon what to bring back to Winnipeg and to the Manitoba Legislature,” said Lamoureux, the MLA for Tyndall Park.

“My biggest takeaway this trip is really recognizing … how Brandon the city services over 200,000 people. We have a lot of close-by neighbourhoods and that’s why we do need to better invest in Brandon — we need to create more opportunities for working, for studying.”

Despite being Manitoba’s second-biggest city, the Liberal leader said Brandon is frequently not viewed as such and the province needs to do a better job of investing in it, especially when it comes to local post-secondary institutions.

Asked about the city’s fiscal situation, which has seen its administration call for financial aid from the province, Lamoureux said the province needs to assist all parts of the province.

“We need to make sure that by Brandon doing well, the rest of Manitoba will do well,” she said.

Part of making trips like this one, Lamoureux said, is to build up the party’s relationships across Manitoba ahead of the next provincial election.

Though the party only has a single elected member, the Liberals have still appointed a portfolio of critics, including Reaves, a former Winnipeg Blue Bomber, as deputy leader and former Kirkfield Park candidate Rhonda Nichol as health-care critic.

By doing so, Lamoureux said it allows for the party to send representatives to events she can’t attend herself and be briefed on important topics.

Reaves said the party has to do some soul searching after the last election and has to figure out what it needs to do that it wasn’t doing before.

“It’s my job to get out there, sign people up, make our presence known, not by email, not by pictures on social media, but physically being there out meeting the people,” Reaves said.

He said by the time the next election hits in 44 months, the Liberals will have candidates in all 57 constituencies. Several constituencies like Brandon West did not have Liberal candidates during the latest election in October.

During meetings in town, Lamoureux said she’d heard a lot about housing, Crown land, immigration and seniors.

The Liberals’ campaign platform last year included a pitch to bring a medical school to Brandon. Assiniboine Community College president Mark Frison advocated for that idea during a budget consultation session with Finance Minister Adrien Sala last week.

According to Lamoureux, the idea was raised during conversations with both ACC and BU this week and it will likely be discussed at the party’s annual general meeting in April.

At the beef producers’ meeting, Lamoureux said her team heard concerns about Crown lands.

Chiming in, Nichol said some producers had expressed worry about having enough feed for animals to graze on and that agricultural Crown land might be repurposed for housing or other projects.

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