Brandon West up for grabs

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This article was published 23/09/2023 (913 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With the retirement of its incumbent, the race to become Brandon West’s next MLA is a different animal compared to Brandon East.

Early this year, Progressive Conservative MLA Reg Helwer announced he would not be seeking re-election after three terms and 12 years in office for the electoral district that covers all parts of Brandon south of the Assiniboine River and west of 18th Street.

Though Henry Carroll represented the region in the Manitoba legislature from 1981 to 1985 first as an NDP MLA and then as an independent and then Scott Smith held the seat for the NDP from 1999 to 2007, Brandon West has reliably voted Tory since it was created in 1966.

Edward McGill served from 1969 to 1981, James McCrae from 1985 to 1999, Rick Borotsik from 2007 to 2011 and Helwer has held the position since — all sitting as Progressive Conservatives.

Helwer’s 2019 victory saw him earn 58.4 per cent of the vote share compared to 23.8 per cent for NDP candidate Nick Brown, 10.1 per cent for Green Party candidate Robert Brown and 7.7 per cent for Liberal candidate Sunday Frangi. Overall turnout was 51.3 per cent.

While Helwer isn’t looking to retain his position, the PCs have recruited a high-profile candidate to keep the constituency — former Brandon Police Service Chief Wayne Balcaen, who took an early retirement to enter politics.

Looking to flip the seat to NDP orange for the first time in 16 years is Quentin Robinson, a retired family counsellor and United Church minister.

Brandon West is the only district in the Wheat City that does not feature a Manitoba Liberal candidate, but it’s also the only district to include a Green Party candidate. That’s Bill Marsh, a retired teacher and school principal.

Robinson says he’s hearing from prospective voters that they’re worried about Manitoba’s “prized public services” — health care and education.

“I hear from lots of people, teachers and parents, about the state of schools and the insufficient staffing to deal with the needs of the diverse populations that are now within schools,” he said.

While the amount of money spent on education by Manitoba continues to rise, Robinson said it amounts to a decrease in real-dollar terms because those increases are under the rate of inflation.

The voters Marsh has spoken with are looking for change — whether it’s a change from the seven and a half years of Progressive Conservative or the state of party politics in Manitoba.

“They want us to sit down as politicians and discuss an issue, welcome all kinds of ideas and work together to get the best possible solution,” he said. “I feel like people of middle to high income have a lot of influence on what the government does, and people on the fringes have very little.”

Three issues have been dominating Balcaen’s doorstep conversations: crime, affordability and health care. Lately, he said, affordability has been top of mind.

“I think it’s a totality of everything,” Balcaen said about what people say is unaffordable right now. “Just how expensive life is for everyday chores and tasks.”

While none of the candidates have the advantage of incumbency in a wide-open race, the former police chief said he has experience dealing with government.

“I think it makes it easier in the fact that we’ve had a great MLA in this area, and he’s worked very hard for this area,” Balcaen said. “I have very big shoes to fill, and it’s a role that I’m not familiar with … I really have to gain people’s trust and confidence moving forward in this position as I have in my previous position as chief and as a police officer.

Marsh was the first person to be officially nominated in Brandon West and at first, he said he believed there was an opportunity for him to win with Helwer not seeking re-election.

“And then I started seeing signs go up, I started seeing media focus on the PCs and the NDP both provincially and locally,” he said. “I got this feeling like I don’t know if anybody’s gonna really notice me much, and that’s fine … the biggest thing for me is to make a difference.”

If he gets the sense that there’s an interest in him or his party in Brandon West, but he doesn’t win, Marsh said he’ll stay active in politics and seriously consider building momentum the next time Manitobans go to the polls.

Despite going up against a candidate with local name recognition in Balcaen, Robinson said that won’t be the only factor for voters because they’ll be considering whether they’ve been satisfied with the government that has been in charge for the last two terms.

“To not have an incumbent feels to me like it gives us a level playing field, and that’s really the best-case scenario within a democracy,” he said. “We have a level playing field where the candidates can be measured on their own intrinsic worth and the plans of their parties.”

When the issues that affect Brandon are discussed, a lot of attention is paid to the city’s downtown. However, downtown Brandon lies entirely within Brandon East.

The Green candidate said he doesn’t think Brandon West gets enough attention in the political conversation.

“I think a lot of us in Brandon West probably don’t face a lot of issues,” Marsh said. “We kind of live normal, mainstream lives and other than health care and health-care problems, I don’t know if we suffer a lot of what other areas will.”

Despite that, he said some of the issues he’s passionate about, like the climate, affect the entire country and the entire world.

Balcaen said a “disproportionate amount of time” goes to talking about downtown issues because they need to be discussed.

“I don’t let 18th Street divide us,” he said. “I’m going to be for Brandon and what we can do for Brandon as a whole, but I certainly want to represent Brandon West.”

Important issues for Brandon West, Balcaen said, include the future of Brandon University and economic development.

Robinson said he doesn’t want to minimize the issues faced in downtown Brandon because people from Brandon West visit and work downtown. But there are issues that specifically affect the west side.

“We’re in this situation now where … development has really been happening in the west and the southwest,” Robinson said. “We need to be thinking about the services that are there and not there.”

He said, for instance, that Brandon West has roughly half the city’s population, but it only has one medical centre, and it would be nice if people in the district had easier access to health care.

There are just 13 Green Party candidates running this year, meaning that if Marsh is elected, it won’t be as a member of the governing party or Official Opposition.

“They would get an MLA sitting in the legislature who’s very dedicated to Brandon West,” Marsh said. “When an issue comes up in the legislature, I’m not pro-Green, Pro-PC, Pro-NDP, whatever — I’m pro Brandon West, the citizens of Brandon West.”

If Robinson hopes to get elected next month, he’ll have to convince an area that has heavily favoured the Tories to switch their votes.

Historically, he said, Brandon West has been seen as the white-collar or professional part of town, while Brandon East is thought to be more blue-collar. He said doesn’t think that’s quite true anymore.

“When I go to the some of the old, persisting myths are easier to debunk,” Robinson said.

“For instance, the idea that the NDP are spendthrifts and the Conservatives are responsible. I talked to people on the doorsteps here since Gary Doer pledged to come on our team if we form government, and as soon as people hear that — NDP or Conservative — they say ‘yes, I remember’ NDP government has this history, which is not spendthrift. It is fiscally responsible government that still provides social services in a good way.”

When Balcaen was police chief, he championed alternative policing methods like the hiring of non-sworn cadets. Though the Progressive Conservatives have pledged to be tough on crime, he doesn’t see that as being in conflict with his previous work.

“The Conservatives are tough on crime, absolutely, where it needs to be,” he said.

“But I’ve got tremendous support from this government when I was chief and when I was deputy chief and looking at these alternatives … there’s a small percentage of people that, I believe, aren’t going to be easily rehabilitated. That’s what incarceration is for, to protect the public and to send a message to other people about denouncing the crimes, but there’s so much more that we can do.”

Advance voting for all constituencies begins today and runs until Sept. 30. In Brandon West, voters can cast advance ballots at the Elections Manitoba office at 2010 Currie Blvd., Shoppers Mall and Brandon University.

Election day is Oct. 3.

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