Dauphin bank manager named PC candidate

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives have nominated Kayla Gillis as the party’s candidate in Dauphin for the next provincial election.

Gillis, who works as a branch manager at RBC and has a background in agribusiness, said she is “excited” to make a run for the provincial office, currently held by MLA Ron Kostyshyn, the NDP’s agriculture minister.

“I’m very happy to start the journey, and I think it’s going to be an incredible one,” said Gillis, 38.

Gillis, who grew up on a farm and currently lives in Dauphin, said health care, community safety and affordability are her main concerns ahead of the election, which will take place no later than Oct. 5, 2027.

“I look at affordability for everyone: families, seniors, farmers, small businesses. We’re all feeling that pressure with everything with the higher costs. So, I want to bring that rural perspective into conversations,” Gillis said.

The party announced Gillis as a candidate on Wednesday. No nomination meeting was held, a party official said.

Gillis has served as the board president of Canada’s National Ukrainian Festival, vice-chair of the Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference and on the boards of other local organizations.

She said that experience would help if she were to be elected to the legislature.

“Being firsthand in the community and living and experiencing everything that everyone else is going through, I feel that I can bring that to the table to be able to make a difference,” Gillis said.

She said when something needs to happen in those local organizations, someone is always there to step up and help.

“I think that’s definitely something that I’m going to carry with me as a mindset (in) being a candidate,” she said. “But I do think that being involved in all those organizations has made me stronger, has made me more confident to take this next step.”

Her time growing up on the farm, and continuing to help her family on their farms, will also help her represent the largely rural riding, she said.

“I know the generation changes that need to take place. The costs, the inputs are also increasing within agriculture, but Dauphin and surrounding area is a huge agriculture community, and having someone that has the knowledge and the base and that’s living it every day is truly going to go a long way.”

Kostyshyn, a farmer, was first elected MLA with 52 per cent of the vote in a two-person race in 2023 and is running for re-election.

The Tories’ Brad Michaleski won the riding in the 2016 and 2019 elections, but those were the only times the party represented the Dauphin constituency since 1981. The NDP won the riding in every other election since then.

Gillis said she doesn’t think the election is about party colour, but instead about who the correct person for the job is.

“I think it goes with what your focus is going to be — right? — and what the leader’s focus is,” she said.

“The PCs, we’re looking at health care. We want to talk about crime and public safety, affordability when it comes to families, as well as growing the economy.”

Gillis mentioned increasing provincial income-tax exemptions on the first $30,000 people earn, which PC Leader Obby Khan unveiled earlier this year as a campaign promise for the party. The proposed increase was part of a 30-hour marathon legislature sitting in May when the PCs unsuccessfully attempted to hold up the NDP’s budget bill in order to raise the exemption.

Last year, Gillis was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for her work with Canada’s National Ukrainian Festival, 4-H and Dauphin’s Countryfest.

The Sun reached out to the NDP to speak with Kostyshyn, but no interview was granted. In a statement, the NDP said while the PCs have a new candidate, the party “made life more expensive for families in rural Manitoba” while it was in power.

» alambert@brandonsun.com