There has been lots of news in relation to nominations in the past week or so. Two long serving MLAs announced they won’t be seeking re-election, a former Olympian announced she was returning to the province to run for the Tories and two former Liberal candidates have been re-nominated.
Yesterday we heard that Len Derkach, who has been an MLA since 1986, won’t be seeking re-election. This decision avoids a potentially nasty nomination battle in the riding with Minnedosa MLA Leanne Rowatt . As mentioned in the Brandon West post, Leanne is losing her Minnedosa seat to redistribution.
The PCs made a big splash in nomination news last week when Susan Auch, former Olympian, announced she would be seeking the nominations in Assiniboia. There are two other declared candidates in the running. Kudos to the Tories for attracting a big name, the Auch announcement is sure to energize the Tory base. They have also nominated Rick Negrych in Burrows. Rick ran for the PC in 2007.
Long-time MLA and current Minister for Advanced Education and literacy, Diane McGifford also announced she won’t be seeking re-election. She has been an MLA for 16 years. Nominated in Fort-Garry-Riverview is James Allum, party executive and teacher at the University of Winnipeg and Kerri Irvin-Ross, current MLA for Fort-Garry, was nominated for the new riding of Fort-Richmond. St-Vital and Radisson MLAs, Nancy Allan and Bidhu Jha were also re-nominated.
The Liberals have re-nominated two candidates from the 2007 election. In La Vérendrye, Monica Guetre from La Broquerie will run. She ran for the Liberals in Emerson in the last election (La Broquerie was in Emerson before the redistribution).
Paul Hesse will be the candidate in Fort Rouge. Hesse finished second in 2007 and is probably the Liberal with highest name recognition, other than Gerard and Lamoureux, in the province. They have also nominated Shirley Robert in Radisson.
List of nomination meetings this month
NDP
Feb 7th – Fort Garry Riverview
Feb 8th – Charleswood
Feb 17th – Wosley
Feb 18th – Swan River
PC
Feb 24th – Selkirk
Liberal
Feb 9th - Burrows
P.S. Does anyone have any information as to whether or not the rumours going around about Steeves wanting to jump to Broadway are true?
Steeves could also be sniffing around the Manitoba Liberal leadership. Why? As thankless as it is, it tends to lead to some money gigs after.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous...I somehow believe that more than jumping to the PCs...
ReplyDeleteI could see him using the provincial Liberals to raise profile a bit then make jump to the federal Liberals.
Just to note this is pure speculation and I have no basis at all for this, other than having too much time on my hands to think about these things...
If Steeves goes to the PC's and wins, what's the most he has to gain?
ReplyDeleteSo he goes with the Tories, they win government, how big a portfolio do you get? Is being intergovernmental affairs enough for him? Or is Hugh dangling Finance at him? Or he goes with the Tories, and they don't win government? Is it really worth giving up a chance to run and win for Mayor in 3.5 years, in order to be a backbencher in opposition? That's a risk. But his big risk would be that he switches parties and loses. He's not a councilor, it hurts his chance at running for Mayor, and he burns every bridge he had with the Liberals and his not so quiet desire to one day run for MP.
It's a risk. I'm interested to see what happens?
I wonder if the Manitoba Liberal party could just dump their leader in the next few weeks, organize a quick spring convention and have Steeves in place to run in River Heights by the fall. Could Steeves get them from their 12% under Gerrard to 20% and instead of 1-2 seats, maybe 4-7 seats?
Or maybe all this is just Steeves drumming up some speculation and he just stays where he is.