Next Manitoba Premier

The Free Press is reporting that Swan will be endorsed by current cabmins Stan Struthers, Nancy Allan and Theresa Oswald, as well as backbenchers Sharon Blady and Erin Selby. The Sun adds Pat Martin to the list of endorsers. As noted above, Mackintosh is said to be leaning toward endorsing Swan.

Still no word from the Selinger or Ashton camps but it's almost certain they will throw their hats into the ring. It's possible that backbenchers Bidhu Jha and Jennifer Howard could step up, but so far it's shaping up to be a three-horse race.

Apparently Swan is also being endorsed by St. James MLA Bonnie Korzienowski. Former Brandon West MLA and cabmin Scott Smith was also in the crowd at the kickoff but it's not clear whether he's endorsing Swan or not (although you'd have to think so).

Steve Ashton is in. He will launch his campaign during a news conference tomorrow at noon at the Union Centre.

According to the Sun, word got out after Alex Forrest, president of the Winnipeg firefighters union, posted on his Facebook page that his union would be endorsing Ashton at tomorrow's news conference.

Historically the firefighters' union has not had a lot of sway in the Manitoba NDP (at least not compared to heavy hitters like the MGEU, UFCW, CUPE, etc), but they were a very active and visible part of the NDP campaign in 2007, largely I suspect in appreciation for the government's workers comp reforms which expanded coverage for firefighters suffering from cancer and other job-related ailments (one of the first jurisdictions in North America to do so). No doubt the endorsement will be a boost as the firefighters are generally quite well-organized, that being said, some other candidates they've endorsed did not do so hot (eg Garth Steek for Mayor, River Heights council candidate Geoff Currier, ousted St.B councillor Franco Magnifico). And don't think for a second that this is about some great ideological crusade, either - the majority of the UFFW's municipal endorsements have been of the, shall we say, distinctly right-wing variety. Finally, Swan apparently has the backing of Bob Dewar, who is no slouch in the organized labour movement.

In addition to Ashton, Portage resident John Boehm, runner-up to James Kostuchuk for the Portage NDP nomination in 2007, has announced his intentions to seek the leadership.

So does anybody have any preferences? I was impessed to hear Ashton on the radio this afternoon.

I'm keeping an open mind as well. If it comes down to these two, I think that may bode a little better for the party. They're both scrappers. Swan coming in a little short on the age & experience factor, Ashton perhaps not youthful enough? I'm still not convinced either of them are really well-equipped to connect with the mainstream, although I suppose they could surprise us.

Totally personal perception. I don't know any of them. 

I'm surprised that Ashton hasn't been endorsed by any of the other MLAs from northern Manitoba.

Swan, I would imagine. Which leaves me scratching my head at why some armchair pundits in Manitoba seem to think that if Selinger demurs, Ashton will run away with it (see the Curtis Brown post linked above). Ashton is wisely running as the candidate of 'experience' to try to point up one of Swan's perceived weaknesses (although we all know how well that strategy worked out for a certain HRC south of the border).

I tend to think that Selinger and Swan would each be the other's second choice (rather than Ashton) so if Selinger takes a pass, I would think most of his likely supporters would gravitate to Swan rather than Ashton in a head-to-head race. Assuming that to be the case, if both Selinger and Swan are in the race, Ashton needs a strong first-place finish on the first ballot so that he only needs a few dribs and drabs from the other candidates' camps to put him over the top. In a three-way field that seems unlikely, but then again, Ashton could very well come up the middle as a compromise candidate if Selinger and Swan decide that they don't really like each other all that much (a la Rae, Ignatieff and Dion in 2006).

Updated endorsement scorecards here and here. Assuming that Doer and Speaker Hickes will remain officially neutral, there are six cabinet ministers whose endorsements are still up for grabs (seven if you include Mackintosh), five backbenchers, and two MPs (Maloway and Wasylycia-Leis).

I would have to say that Selinger's backers are overall probably somewhat more to the left than Swan's, and there is more of a mix of pre-Class of '99 MLAs (Dewar, Martindale, McGifford, Robinson and Wowchuk) and newer blood (Altemeyer, Brick, Saran, Howard).

Of those cabinet ministers and MLAs who have not yet declared a preference, I will be most interested to see who Blaikie and Chomiak endorse. Both have deep roots in the party and I would expect their endorsements to carry a lot of weight. Chomiak was a pretty significant backroom operator before being elected as an MLA, and in particular was a key player (along with Eugene Kostyra) in Len Harapiak's oh-so-close bid for the leadership in 1988.

All right, I've held back in this thread long enough and I'm just going to come out and say it.

Swan and Selinger are inner circle hacks who won't be any different from Doer.  It's just a matter of whether you want an old white male Blairite or a young white male Blairite.

Ashton's campaign is going to be the death spasm of any sort of progressive or social democratic ideas in the NDP.  He's the last holdout from Old Labour in a New Labour Party.  Not that he's a radical or shares my political views, political views which simply aren't found in the NDP, but he would be the best of the three, and the only one who remotely resembles the ideals that NDPers tell me they believe in.

Out of the three candidates, I'd like to see Ashton win just because he's the only one who might break with Doer-style government and be a little aggressive on some issues, although it would be hard with a caucus full of Doerites.  Just look at the campaign - who is the only candidate saying what progressive things he'll do as premier?  Who is the only candidate talking about fighting privatization?  Of course, as the only person with a shred of principle, that pretty much disqiualifies him as a serious candidate in the NDP.

But, this contest is going to be style over substance - case in point, the MYND is endorsing Swan, when Ashton has far better policies on tuition fees (I've spoke with both Ashton and Swan on the issue in the past, and Ashton was far, FAR more supportive) and student issues, you know, actual issues that affect young people.  IIRC, Swan voted against the MYND motion on keeping the tuition freeze, while Ashton supported it at convention.  But, I guess a leadership campaign is no time to discuss serious issues, it's a time to ingratiate yourself to the designated candidate of the party hacks.

(I suppose someone will now come along and say how I secretly want McFadyen as premier because I want a departure from the center-right path in my government, and how Ashton, a man who won eight straight elections, going from less than 100 votes back in 1981 to 80% majorities, doesn't know how to win an election because he's not a Doer-clone)

Also, now that Wyatt finally got shitcanned from the EPC, maybe he'll start being a bit better on council.  He's already blasting Katz.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Which brings me to Ashton. What's interesting is that instead of running on the government's record, he's putting his own ideas out there. Did someone forget to tell him that he's running to lead the incumbent governing party, not the opposition?

I don't know, maybe I'm coming at this differently as someone who is not an NDPer, but an activist who is incredibly frustrated with the NDP, but I would rather see this whole thing take on some sort of ideological dimension as well instead of being decided on style and an argument about "electability" followed by a round of "rah rah, go orange".  Maybe if pressed to put their money where there mouth is, self-styled progressives might back someone who shares the views they claim to have (Ashton) instead of third way types like Doer or the two other Doer clones.

Maybe I'm biased because I'm incredibly frustrated with Doer and far from the typical New Democrat (in fact not a New Democrat), but if Ashton talks about how he'll do things differently, that's a plus in my books.  He won't get much support from the brass, but it's no big secret that he isn't the most popular figure among Doerites, brass and hacks anyways.

Although, not being OMOV makes this less of a grassroots thing.  It might be difficult for some of these self-styled progressives if their voice isn't directly heard through OMOV.  From what I hear, one of the reasons why the whole convention is being run this way (short sign up period - it took the ONDP like 9 months to decide a leader, and the whole delegate instead of OMOV) is to give advantage to the brass instead of grassroots progressives, which will only disadvantage Ashton even more.

Well, Ashton and Swan made comments on post-secondary education today.

I found Swan to be a Doerite tool, and Ashton to be very underwhelming.  See Devin Johnston's post here, I pretty much agree with him on this one.

What does BC have to do with the next premier of Manitoba again?

genstrike wrote:

What does BC have to do with the next premier of Manitoba again?

That's Liberal BC, and, since when did Manitoba become an independently wealthy country? Sheesh!

I support a tuition freeze as proposed by Ashton, but the province also needs to put its money where its mouth is and start increasing funding to the universities to cover expenses. The problem right now is that the universities are being slowly starved for cash because their expenses are increasing but the province won't let them generate additional revenue by increasing tuition fees. One of the knocks against the tuition fee freeze in BC was that the government did not follow through with promised increases in post-secondary funding, which forced universities to reduce class sizes and course offerings, which in turn inhibited access and in some cases cost students more in the long run as it took longer to fulfill prerequisites for graduation due to the fact that some classes would simply fill up too quickly. IMHO, freezing fees without increasing funding to the universities is not a sustainable policy, so while I applaud Ashton for proposing a tuition freeze, there needs to be a commitment to increase funding too.

ghoris wrote:

I support a tuition freeze as proposed by Ashton, but the province also needs to put its money where its mouth is and start increasing funding to the universities to cover expenses. The problem right now is that the universities are being slowly starved for cash because their expenses are increasing but the province won't let them generate additional revenue by increasing tuition fees.

How do we know that the universities will use the additional funds for what they're supposed to? I have absolutely no confidence in the university administrators at any of the 3 universities, especially since the U of M has a history of labour disuptes while top-level administators live lives that are not too shabby.

How much is the average tuition in Manitoba out of curiosity?  Here in NS, I believe it's close to $6,500.

Québec had the lowest average tuition fees in Canada in 2008-9 for Québec students: $2,167 for undergraduates and $2,488 for graduates.

Fidel wrote:

NDP Manitoba with the lowest cost of living when everything else is factored in. Very impressive. Babble needs a clapping hands emoticon for occasions such as this.

[center]

[/center]

[center]

[/center]

Good French effort - just missing the little squiggle on garçon, but worth applause anyway!

Fidel, that announcement by Greg Selinger strikes me as one of the more cynical statements I have seen in a long time:

Quote:

NDP leadership candidate Greg Selinger vowed Wednesday to help lighten the financial burden for post-secondary students by fast-tracking income tax refunds on school tuition.

Selinger said, if elected party leader, he would let students collect rebates on tuition fees while they were still attending classes. Now, those rebates are paid after graduation to students who remain in the province.

[b][i]"... IF ELECTED PARTY LEADER!!??"[/i][/b]

Hasn't he just spent [b]the last ten (10) years as Minister of Finance[/b]!!??

Creative juices only start flowing when he's running for the top job????

What a clown.

Well someone just hopped out of a really tiny car in centre ring and announced that PQ has the lowest tuition fees in the country. It says nothing about the overall affordability of PSE in Quebec - nothing of actual enrollment rates as I replied to you with earlier. And lower enrollment rates is not necessarily such an awful thing as I mentioned. There could be legit reasons as to why that is, and I'm considering enrollment rates in countries where PSE tuitions are anywhere from very affordable to free for citizens of those countries.

I'm not wild about front end or "front door" costs being so high for PSE across Canada either. Tens of billions of federal dollars were removed from social transfers and PSE, housing etc in 1995. That's the root cause of the problem with underfunded PSE and education in general today. There is a lack of interest-free money circulating in the economy since 1991. That's another immutable and difficult to ignore fact. It could even be the elephant in thr room. But there are ways around the elephant even. Other countries have done it, and so can Canada. But we need strong federal government to make this and other equally important things happen.

[url=http://www.torontocitysummit.ca/urban_challenges/post_secondary/articles... years in Manitoba buys a free education[/color][/url] 2006

Manitoba's initiative will likely make it the cheapest place to study in Canada

I believe the tax rebates now apply to students studying out of province and who return to Manitoba to work and live. It's not free PSE upfront, but it's not bad either.

Unionist wrote:

Excuse me - how can Selinger promise tax breaks to students "if elected leader" when he has been the chief financial officer of Manitoba since October 1999?

Is the Winnipeg Free Press (and the Students' Union for that matter) brain dead?

Well CSF, Canada's largest student union does give highest marks to the federal NDP for their lowest tuition fees policy among all parties, including the Greens. And it looks like Manitoba's student union rep is impressed with Selinger.

And it looks like just a part of his get to know Greg Selinger better running conversation with the press and students. He's not promising a folks wagon in every driveway and chickens in every pot, just to frasttrack tax rebates for PSE students while they are still in school. 

Fidel wrote:

Well CSF, Canada's largest student union does give highest marks to the federal NDP for their lowest tuition fees policy among all parties, including the Greens. And it looks like Manitoba's student union rep is impressed with Selinger.

The Canadian Sederation of Fudents (at least get the acronym right if you want to pretend to be the voice of students in addition to "don't criticize The Party" hacks) also produced banners that said "Stop NDP Lies" for the last Manitoba Day of Action

Have you ever considered heading up your own single issue political party in Manitoba? You could call it the, We Have No Idea What We're Talkin' Aboot, But Vote For Us Anyway Party, or simply, WHNIWWTABVFUAP.

Doer is still Premier until a successor is chosen, so of course he has not resigned his seat yet.