Manitoba Tories should take a hard look at B.C.

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This article was published 24/04/2024 (869 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives have given themselves another full year to choose a new leader. They should use that time wisely and think long and hard about the future of their party in a province that is undergoing complex changes. And they might gain some important insights by looking at what has happened to their counterparts in British Columbia since they lost power to the NDP in 2017.

The B.C. Liberals occupied the centre-right position carved out by the Social Credit Party, first elected in 1953 under W.A.C. Bennett and holding office for most of the next four decades. Like the Manitoba Tories, the Liberals got much of the rural and middle-class urban vote and were seen as being “good for business.”

After some 16 years in power, the Liberals managed to win a plurality of seats under Christy Clark in 2017, but it was the NDP that formed government by inking a confidence-and-supply agreement with the third-place Greens.

Though it didn’t seem so at the time, that was essentially the end of the Liberals. They were decimated by the NDP in the 2020 election and now sit in third place in the polls, 20 points behind a previously fringe Conservative party. The right-leaning B.C. voters’ new preferred option is led by John Rustad, a former Liberal cabinet minister under Clark who was later booted out of caucus for suggesting online that carbon dioxide emissions do not cause climate change.

The Liberals have now rebranded as BC United, but the voters aren’t buying it. Nor apparently are their MLAs, as another one crossed the floor to join Rustad late last year. Meanwhile, the NDP keep winning byelections and hold a comfortable lead in the polls as another general election looms.

What happened in B.C. could happen in Manitoba. The expectation was that voters would swing back to the safer and more moderate Liberals once they got tired of the NDP’s spendthrift ways, their catering to the fringes and the inevitable screw-ups that all governments commit. But it didn’t happen and instead has gone the other way. It’s like the political pendulum broke, or is in the process of resetting.

So what exactly happened?

First, many voters grew to detest the Liberals as pay-to-play crony capitalists who cared not a damn about the average guy. They were written off as elitist and sleazy, and not particularly competent — a lethal combination when it comes to re-election. Whether this was a fair assessment is debatable, but it was a widespread perception, some of it definitely earned, and politics is all perception.

Second, the NDP built trust in their early years as the new governing party with a capable and affable leader in John Horgan. Even the personal baggage he brought to the role — he had a somewhat “hot-tempered” history — endeared him to voters as he clearly overcame those impulses and governed with calm assurance and self-deprecating good humour. His successor, Premier David Eby, was a star in Horgan’s cabinet and conveys intelligence and compassion — qualities that voters want in their leaders.

Third, the demographics have changed. Part of it is generational, part of it is economic and part of it is cultural, especially in B.C. with huge immigrant communities and increasingly powerful First Nations. At the moment, the NDP seem better positioned to flourish in this climate, while the conservative movement appears to be in a state of flux and confusion.

Fiscal responsibility remains a primary focus for the centre-right, but on social issues they are all over the map, knowing that populist positions and attempts to champion more traditional values appeal strongly to underrepresented voters, but can also backfire badly, both in the media and among urban voters.

This was the dilemma Manitoba Tories faced in last October’s election, and the general consensus is that they made lousy decisions. They may now be on a parallel track with their ideological cousins on the West Coast.

If that is the case, business as usual is not a smart strategy. Waiting for the pendulum to swing back might be a very long wait indeed.

» John Gleeson, night editor