Liberals acclaim candidates for Westman ridings

The Liberal Party of Canada named two election candidates for western Manitoba on Tuesday, one of them a business owner in the lakeside community of Ninette.

Ghazanfar Ali Tarar, who owns and operates The Grocery Box and Domo gas station, has been acclaimed as the Liberal candidate for Brandon-Souris.

Terry Hayward, the Manitoba Election Readiness chair for the federal Liberals, was acclaimed as the Liberal candidate for the newly created constituency of Riding Mountain. The party posted his acclamation to its website late Tuesday.

When reached by the Sun at his grocery store on Wednesday, Tarar said he applied to be the candidate four months ago and only learned on Tuesday via email that he had been acclaimed.

The sudden green light for his candidacy nearly three days after the start of the election has left him scrambling to get his team together.

“Yeah, I am starting (my) campaign on this Sunday,” Tarar said. “I need to make some poster … my campaign manager, everything, I am trying before till Sunday. I have a time to make a manager and everything. Thus I do it three or four days, then I start regularly campaigning after Sunday.”

He said he plans to attend the Eid al-Fitr prayer in Brandon on Sunday that will mark the end of Ramadan for the city’s Muslim population.

“I’ll be going there and attend there, and ask the people, then I start from there.”

Tarar first waded into politics for the Manitoba Liberal Party during the 2023 Manitoba provincial election in Turtle Mountain in an unsuccessful campaign against Progressive Conservative incumbent Doyle Piwniuk.

He has lived in Ninette for a little more than 10 years and fell in love with life along Pelican Lake, which is a strong tourism draw for the region.

“It is a very excellent community. Nice place living in the valley. Beautiful valley. Fishing. Everything in the summer is very beautiful.”

Originally from Pakistan, Tarar immigrated to Canada about 20 years ago, and spent nearly a decade living and working in The Pas as a Fas Gas owner. After selling that business, he moved further south and spent some time in Brandon before purchasing the business in Ninette.

He says his motivation to run for the federal Liberals stems from the party’s support for immigrants like himself, and the opportunities they have provided for newcomers.

In his conversation with the Sun, Tarar emphasized his personal focus on senior care, job creation for area youth, improving health care in western Manitoba and enhancing the Brandon Municipal Airport to boost connectivity with other provinces.

“I will try to bring more funds from Ottawa, and then make more facilities,” he said.

The Sun reached out to the Brandon-Souris Federal Liberal Association’s local Electoral District Association riding chair, Laurie Jackson, for comment this week.

In an emailed statement, Jackson said that the decision to acclaim Mr. Tarar was made by the party’s green light committee in Ottawa without consultation with the local EDA.

“We are unfamiliar with this individual,” Jackson wrote. “You (telling) me he is from Ninette is more information than I had.”

For further information on the candidate nomination process, the Sun was directed to speak with Hayward.

Hayward said that if there had been two approved candidates, there would have been a nomination meeting. But that decision is ultimately made by the party’s green light committee.

“The EDA role … is to find potential candidates,” Hayward said. “And if they’ve been unable to find one who’s picked up the papers, gone through the vetting process and is approved, then they won’t know about it until either a nomination meeting is called or there’s been an acclamation.”

Look for a story on Hayward’s candidacy later this week.

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