Daudrich’s departure sign of rift among PCs

Given everything that has occurred within Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative Party the last four years, you have to wonder if disillusioned Tories are pushing for their own Wildrose moment.

Mere days after former Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful Wally Daudrich was barred from seeking the party’s nomination in the Turtle Mountain constituency last month, the Churchill-based businessman announced last week he would run for the Keystone Party in The Pas-Kameesak byelection set for July 21.

Of course, Daudrich is just one man — albeit one who has been a longtime PC supporter, both on the management level and as a political donor. Daudrich has been pushing for the better part of two years to find a way out of the party boardroom and into the party spotlight — first making an unsuccessful leadership run, and then attempting to run for an MLA seat here in western Manitoba.

But the disqualification in Turtle Mountain was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. In a letter to the party leadership in late June, Daudrich said that “while I would never quit the conservative movement, the PC Party has completely abandoned me and all conservatives like me.”

This is a significant rift, the cracks of which were already beginning to show during the last leadership contest in early 2025. That contest effectively exposed a split within the party between hardline conservative populists that tend to draw more rural voters, and the moderate “big tenters” who see the need to appeal to more urban voters in vote-rich Winnipeg.

The fact that Daudrich technically had more votes than Khan but lost due to a weighted ballot point system that was meant to balance rural and urban representation cuts the rural-urban split more deeply.

We have not yet, of course, seen polls reflect a great desertion to the Keystone Party — which at this point remains an ideological rump organization compared to the long-established PC Party. But that can change in a heartbeat, and given the history of conservative movements in this country, this situation should be quite concerning to the PC braintrust.

Between 2008 and 2017, Alberta underwent such a split when traditionalist conservatives who believed the old Progressive Conservatives had become too centrist — too full of Red Tory elitists — abandoned the PCs for the Wildrose Alliance. Like Manitoba’s Keystone Party, the Wildrose Party provided a “pure” conservative alternative that sported grassroots consultation and advocated for fiscal responsibility and smaller government.

Wildrose would rise to official opposition in the Alberta legislature in 2012 under the leadership of Danielle Smith — who now, of course is the premier of Alberta under the United Conservative Party banner. This was a wild time in Alberta politics. The effective splitting of the conservatives into two camps prompted a vote split that allowed the NDP to gain a majority government for four years, before Jason Kenney led a merger in 2017 to form the UCP.

And before Wildrose, there was the federal Reform Party that all but decimated the governing Progressive Conservatives under Kim Campbell down to two federal seats. Yes, Campbell was handed a poisoned political chalice by outgoing prime minister Brian Mulroney, but the conservative split between red Tory and blue hardliners was very apparent.

Daudrich’s description of the decision facing Manitoba conservatives sounds like it was taken directly out of the Wildrose and Reform playbooks. He suggests that anyone who favours watering down real conservatism gain a few more votes is not a true conservative.

“I understand that you are moving away from conservative values in the hopes of a better outcome at the ballot box,” he said in his letter, according to a CBC report “I suggest to you that this direction is wrong and ill advised.”

Daudrich’s chosen constituency — The Pas-Kameesak — was left vacant after the March 21 death of NDP MLA Amanda Lathlin. It’s certainly possible, as Khan told the Winnipeg Free Press last week, that The Pas-Kameesak residents will choose PC candidate Edna Nabess over Daudrich later this month. But the Tories have not held that seat since 1969.

It’s far more likely that the constituency will remain an NDP stronghold under New Democrat candidate Jennifer Flett, particularly now that Daudrich and the Keystone Party could hive off a few more conservative votes.

As we already noted, evidence of a great abandoning of the Progressive Conservatives has yet to materialize. But here remains a serious divide among Tory voters about how to proceed as a party, one that is not being meaningfully addressed by the party brass.

Khan may not see Daudrich as a threat to the PCs, but he shouldn’t take that political threat lightly.

The cracks are really beginning to show.