Orange faithful come out for NDP barbecue

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This article was published 12/08/2022 (1290 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Party leader Wab Kinew was among the 60-plus NDP supporters who turned out for a barbecue for Brandon East candidate Glen Simard Thursday evening.

With intermittent rain falling on the city, supporters gathered inside the Park Community Centre to eat burgers and hotdogs before going doorknocking later on.

It was the second barbecue held by a Brandon East constituency association this week, with MLA Len Isleifson from the Progressive Conservatives having served up hotdogs at the Green Acres Community Centre on Tuesday.

Despite the presence of Winnipeg Blue Bomber-turned-MLA Obby Khan and Health Minister Audrey Gordon at Isleifson’s barbecue, the NDP’s event was more focused on politics, featuring live music and speeches from Simard, Kinew and Notre Dame MLA Malaya Marcelino.

“This summer’s been about going out and meeting people, connecting and introducing myself to neighbours and listening what they have to say,” Simard told the Sun. “Getting the membership together and having the barbecue at the same time the PCs were having one is just coincidence, I think.”

With Manitoba’s fixed-term elections legislation, the province is guaranteed a provincial election next year. With candidates nominated in more than half the province’s ridings, Simard and Kinew said the NDP is ready to go whenever an election is called.

With Brandon East having been a longtime NDP stronghold before the 2016 election, the party is hoping the constituency is part of the path back to forming government.

Simard said in talking with the people of the constituency, he has heard them express fears about the length of time it takes to get treatment and that they want themselves and their loved ones not just to be looked after but cared for.

As a teacher, Simard expressed several concerns of his own for Manitoba’s education system.

He said Manitoba has the lowest ratio of specialists to students in the country at one specialist for every 5,000 students. After the Brandon School Division had to cut 11 full-time equivalent positions from its most recent budget, teachers and education workers are now having to do more with less help.

“That’s my motivation for doing this — I think I can be a voice to uplift those people and say ‘we’re here for you, we understand how you feel, we will do everything we can to help you,’ because we’re in the people business,” Simard said.

“As a leader, I can tell you that we have many candidates like Glen who are educators and leaders who put their name on a ballot in large part because of work that we want to put in on education,” Kinew said. “It may have started with the opposition to Bill 64, but I think it will continue to building an education system that meets kids where they’re at and prepares them for the future society that we all want to live in.”

One of the people attending the barbecue was Emmanuelle Shakotko, a student at Brandon University going into her second year of studies this fall. She said she was excited to participate in her first provincial election where she’s eligible to vote and contribute to the NDP’s campaign.

“Something I’ve been really passionate about recently is access to health care for everybody and affordable living,” she said. “There’s a lot of pressure on [health care] right now. There aren’t enough resources and not enough funds to care for health-care professionals and everything going on with abortions and making sure they’re accessible to everybody.”

She said abortion issues have really entered the spotlight after the United States Supreme Court struck down the Roe v. Wade decision that had previously protected Americans’ right to abortion.

However, not everyone there was a dyed in the orange wool NDP supporter.

Catherine Leslie, who said she became a Canadian citizen earlier this year, was invited by a friend to learn more about the NDP ahead of her first opportunity to participate in her new home’s democratic system.

“It’s the first year I can vote, so I need to start listening to what platforms people have and work out who I’m going to vote for,” she said.

She listed accessibility for people with disabilities and facilities for people with addictions as two issues important to her.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

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