Daudrich changes political colours, will run under Keystone banner in northern byelection

Almost immediately after quitting the Progressive Conservative party, right-wing populist Wally Daudrich has secured the nomination to run for the Keystone Party in The Pas-Kameesak July 21 byelection.

“We’re going full gas pedal ahead here,” Keystone Party Leader Kevin Friesen said Tuesday, confirming the controversial and socially conservative Daudrich will be the candidate running under the small-government, balanced-budgets, parental-authority-over-children’s-education party’s banner.

“Wally has come around to realize that you can’t fix the way politics is in Manitoba on the (PC) front,” Friesen said.

Daudrich, a Churchill tourism operator, narrowly lost the PC leadership to Obby Khan in 2025 and was disqualified by the Tories from seeking the nomination in Turtle Mountain, a PC stronghold. The Tories said he violated their constitution.

Daudrich said he sold hundreds of memberships and was on track to win the PC nomination and a seat in the legislature, where he wasn’t wanted.

“You can’t fix the way politics is without a new party, is what we believe,” said Friesen, who in 2022 founded the Keystone Party, which fielded five candidates in the 2023 provincial election.

Daudrich faces an uphill battle in The Pas-Kameesak, which was held by the late NDP MLA Amanda Lathlin before her March 21 death.

He’s running for a different party with just three weeks until the byelection, and he’s up against a strong NDP ground game led by popular Premier Wab Kinew, said Paul Thomas, University of Manitoba political studies professor emeritus.

Turning out the vote in northern ridings is a challenge, Thomas said. “This is especially true in a summer byelection, when turnout will be even lower than in a general election.”

The voter turnout in the Oct. 3, 2023 general election was 53 per cent.

Daudrich and the Keystone Party are up for the challenge, its leader said.

“We’re not just running him for the profile,” said Friesen, a Manitou-area grain farmer. “We’re actually going to run Wally Daudrich because he knows a lot about the North. He’s knocked on so many doors, all over the North.”

In the 2025 PC leadership race, Daudrich received 10 of the 14 votes cast in The Pas-Kameesak. Provincewide, Daudrich received more votes than Khan, but lost because the ballots were weighted by constituency.

Daudrich knows most of the Tories who’ve run in northern elections over the years, and can hit the ground running in The Pas-Kameesak, Friesen said

“We’re basically moving from inventing-the-party stage to a building-the-party stage, and Wally’s going to be an important part of that, especially running in this byelection,” he said.

On Tuesday, the PCs announced Edna Nabess will run against the NDP’s Jennifer Flett, a former vice-chief and councillor for Opaskwayak Cree Nation, and the Liberals’ Dan Quesnel, a bank branch manager and former president of The Pas/Opaskwayak Cree Nation Chamber of Commerce.

Nabess is a Mathias Colomb Cree Nation elder, entrepreneur and a founding board member of Indigenous Tourism Manitoba.

The deadline for nominations is Monday.

Daudrich demonstrated strong communication and organizational skills in signing up hundreds of new members in Turtle Mountain before he was rejected by the PCs, Thomas said.

He will draw some votes away from the PC candidate, but not enough to win, Thomas predicted.

“I think that he broadcasts his messages on a narrow bandwidth, which reaches only a small segment of the electorate on the right of the political spectrum,” he said.

“Not many northerners want less government — they want major public projects to create opportunities for them and their kids.”

The unemployment rate in the The Pas-Kameesak was 16.5 per cent in 2021, with the biggest employers in the education, health and social services sectors, according to the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics.

Nearly 80 per cent of the constituency’s 20,695 residents identify as Indigenous.

If the NDP wins big and Daudrich finishes second, it would be “another setback” for the PCs with just over a year until the next provincial election that’s due by Oct. 5, 2027, Thomas said.

“The PCs are in serious trouble politically, with internal divisions and a leader who is unable to make a strong connection with voters,” he said. “Recruiting candidates, building local constituency associations, raising money and motivating supporters to undertake a winning effort are all challenges for Mr. Khan.”

Friesen said preserving the status quo in a legislature that’s been called out repeatedly for its lack of decorum and toxic behaviour isn’t serving Manitobans or their faith in democratic institutions.

“Wouldn’t it be awesome if you were to show up at question period and we actually had a debate rather than the name-calling session?” Friesen asked.

“Nine out of the 10 Manitobans that I talked to, they don’t think we can change it and there’s no point in even trying.… We’ve got to change that. We have to give them hope and a future.”

» carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca