NDP recaptures Brandon East

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This article was published 04/10/2023 (744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba NDP gained some major ground in the Wheat City Tuesday night, with Glen Simard reclaiming Brandon East for his party for the first time since 2016.

Simard, a teacher from École Harrison and local minor hockey coach, managed to knock Progressive Conservative incumbent Len Isleifson out of his seat by capturing more than 55 per cent of the vote.

This NDP victory in Brandon East was part of a broader orange surge that spread across Manitoba on Tuesday, as the party managed to form a majority government by winning 33 seats to the PCs’ 23.

The Manitoba Liberals only held onto a single seat in the legislature, with party leader Dougald Lamont not even managing to win his seat in St. Boniface. Brandon East Liberal candidate Trenton Zazalak only captured around 4.4 per cent of the vote in his district.

The enthusiasm of NDP voters throughout the province was matched by party supporters in Brandon East, many of whom gathered at Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 3 to watch the results come in.

While this election crowd started the night out cautiously optimistic, they grew more and more jubilant as the hours rolled by, reaching a crescendo around 10:30 p.m. when Simard’s victory was all but guaranteed.

Talking to his supporters after the call was made, Simard thanked them for their enthusiasm throughout his lengthy campaign, which began in December 2021 when he originally announced his candidacy.

Since then, Simard has been busy knocking on doors throughout Brandon’s most hotly contested riding, putting issues like health care, education and affordable housing at the forefront of his messaging.

Leading up to Tuesday’s election results, Simard said he was extremely proud of the way his team, and the Manitoba NDP more broadly, ran this campaign by not resorting to some of the divisive tactics that began to crop up in the PCs’ messaging.

“We weren’t down in the dirt and we weren’t down in the mud,” he said on Tuesday night. “When they went low, we went high. And it resonated with everyone throughout the city.”

Talking to the media directly, Simard described his campaign as the “longest job interview ever,” although he is more than willing to get down to work at the legislature in Winnipeg to fix some of the issues that have persisted in Westman over the past seven years.

“I think people were just ready for change,” he said. “There were some issues that were at the top of everyone’s tongues. The health-care agenda that we presented towards Manitobans resonated, but also an overarching feeling of being somewhat isolated from government. And that’s something that we want to work towards reversing.”

Regardless of Tuesday’s election results, Isleifson’s political legacy is already set in stone, having successfully flipped Brandon East blue in 2016 for the first time since the constituency’s inception.

Speaking to the Sun following his election defeat, Isleifson congratulated Simard for his victory and Brandon West NDP candidate Quentin Robinson (a retired United Church minister) for overperforming in the polls.

“Their platforms I don’t agree with, but you know, they’re just people out there putting the name on a ballot, and I gotta give them credit for that,” he said.

Isleifson’s 2016 victory was part of a broader PC party sweep in the Brandon ridings that included Cliff Cullen (Spruce Woods) and Reg Helwer (Brandon West).

Now that all three men are no longer sitting as MLAs, with Cullen and Helwer deciding not to seek re-election this year, Simard told the Sun that the time is right to carve a new path, even if Brandon East is still a single orange riding in a sea of blue districts.

“Reminding the government, whether in opposition or in power, that we exist I think is very important for anyone who represents this riding,” he said.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com, with files from Ian Hitchen