Manitoba needs to aim higher… higher than one…

Manitoba’s opposition parties need to aim higher. 

Pallister’s slogan to “Aim Higher” is particularly apt to today’s lackluster state of provincial politics.  Over the past few days I had been thinking that the PC leadership race really needed to have more than one candidate.  So today, I was really happy to please that Dan Lett at the Free Press had tackled this specific issue.

The Progressive Conservatives Party needs to aim for a greater number of candidates in its leadership race. As Dan pointed out, it is impossible to talk about a grassroots renewal with simply one candidate.

The 1000 membership rule could have been a great renewal tool and encourage a greater number of candidates, if it had been implemented differently.  A two-step process should have been instituted in its place.

Rather than make selling a thousand memberships across the province a requirement for becoming a certified candidate, and thus be allowed to spend and raise money. The rule should have been put in place as a final requirement to appear on the ballot for the convention. Candidates should have been able to become certified candidates with 50 party members supporting them.

This would have made it easier for a lesser known candidate to step up, start raising money and a media presence in order to reach that 1000 membership threshold; thus enabling a real grassroots renewal.  Less known candidates would have been able to publicly raise money and use the longer leadership period to their advantage.

The Liberal Party of Manitoba needs to aim for more than a couple dozen people to vote on the future of the party. The Party “grassroots” voted 25 to 17 to reject formal talks of merger with the greens.  While the party said it still has 1000 paid members, the fact that less people that come to my family Christmas party voted on the future of the party speaks volumes.  

The Liberals are in a dangerous position of being replaced by the Greens as the third place party.  Green Leader James Beddome proved himself a capable communicator during the last campaign and if the new Liberal leader fails to articulate a clear ‘raison d’être’ for the party, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the 2015 election there are no Liberals on the ballot.

If Manitoba’s opposition parties fail to get it right, the province risks becoming a one-party province like Alberta.  Let’s hope they don’t fail so that Manitobans can have the choice of aiming for something more than a higher deficit and higher taxes….