Marsh carries Green banner in Brandon West

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This article was published 07/06/2023 (1032 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Green Party of Manitoba has nominated the first candidate in the race to replace retiring Brandon West MLA Reg Helwer in this fall’s provincial election.

Retired teacher and school principal Bill Marsh is making his first run at public office this fall, telling the Sun in a Tuesday interview that it’s time for a change in Manitoba politics.

Helwer announced in early January he would not be seeking re-election after 12 years in office that included stints as minister of labour and minister of infrastructure, among other portfolios.

Though he said he has only lived in Brandon itself for the last two years, Marsh is familiar with the city from stops in Waskada and Dauphin during his 30-year career as an educator.

He moved to Brandon from Selkirk in 2021 to be closer to his son, who lives in Brandon, as well as his daughter and two grandsons who live in Saskatchewan.

Since moving to the city, he has spent time in various jobs like driving for Brandon Access Transit, briefly teaching physical education at Earl Oxford School and acting as a rink attendant at West End Community Centre.

A former dedicated conservative voter, Marsh said he got tired of the partisan aspects of politics in recent years.

His feeling was that Manitoba politics were becoming stagnant.

Marsh said he was seeing the same candidates getting re-elected easily in rural constituencies without having to make much effort and he was wondering what those people were doing to reach out to those who had different or non-mainstream ideas.

As a result, he said he saw some people losing their interest in politics because of a sense that no matter how they voted, things would never really change.

“I see the Green Party as the party closest … to the way I like to think, and yet at the same time, I can argue that party politics but at the same time I can argue that party politics (aren’t) going to work,” he said. “But for me to stand as an independent, I don’t know if people are ready for that, either.”

As a school administrator, he recalls going into classrooms and being frustrated by teachers with messy desks. However, when asked to retrieve a specific item, they were able to locate them quickly.

Being a leader, you must work with people who accomplish tasks in different ways. He said he thought that would be a helpful quality in a politician.

On the environmental front, Marsh said it seems to him that Manitoba has mostly been keeping the status quo on climate change.

While he supports the federal carbon tax — which the provincial Tories have not — he said the money collected by it should be more directly targeted at improving the environment.

No matter who was in power during the COVID-19 pandemic, Marsh said it’s unlikely that any government would have been prepared for what occurred.

What needs to be done now in his mind is to learn from the experience to improve the decision-making process the next time something unexpectedly goes wrong.

On reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, Marsh said he had the opportunity toward the end of his teaching career to learn about communities and cultures in the Portage la Prairie area.

“I found when I was learning about Indigenous culture that if you go into things with an open mind and an open heart, things are a lot more clear in terms of understanding people at various levels of income, various levels of societal action,” he said.

He said politicians and community members would be better off if they went into situations with more open minds.

“I think we have a world that is so incredibly beautiful that we don’t understand a lot of what is out there because it wasn’t a part of our world,” he said. “I think we need to provide opportunities for kids to become part of our world and that we can’t discriminate against anybody in any way because of the perception we have of them.”

Marsh said he doesn’t envision himself doing a lot of campaigning, but he is interested in getting his name and ideas out there. If he gets some support from voters, he’ll consider stepping up his political efforts.

Former Riverbank Discovery Centre and Brandon Tourism executive director James Montgomery announced his candidacy for the Progressive Conservative nomination in Brandon West in February.

However, the party has yet to call a nomination meeting for the riding yet. Montgomery told the Sun by phone on Tuesday that he doesn’t yet know when one will be held.

The provincial Tories have two nominees in Brandon so far.

Brandon East PC MLA Len Isleifson is the only incumbent in the Wheat City running for re-election, while former legislative staffer Grant Jackson has been nominated in Spruce Woods in a bid to succeed retiring deputy premier Cliff Cullen.

Last week, a party spokesperson told the Sun by email there was no news on further nominations.

Elsewhere in Westman, the Progressive Conservatives have nominated Jodie Byram to run in Agassiz, while Riding Mountain MLA Greg Nesbitt and Turtle Mountain MLA Doyle Piwniuk are running for re-election.

The Manitoba NDP’s Westman candidates to date are Glen Simard in Brandon East and Lorna Canada-Vanegas Mesa in Turtle Mountain.

The Manitoba Liberals have yet to officially nominate any Westman candidates, but local entrepreneur Michelle Budiwski told the Sun earlier this week that she will be running for the nomination in Spruce Woods.

About to contest its first provincial election, the Keystone Party of Manitoba lists two Westman candidates on its website: Paul Hoeppner in Agassiz and Darcy Ketsman in Turtle Mountain.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark