Nomination News!

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 7^th – Fort Garry Riverview

Feb 8^th – Charleswood

Feb 17^th – Wosley

Feb 18^th – Swan River

PC

Feb 24^th – 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?

Updated Nomination Board!

Riding	NDP	PC	Liberal
Agassiz	.	Stu Briese (i)	.
Arthur-Virden	.	Larry Maguire (i)	.
Assiniboia	Jim Rondeau (i)	.	.
Brandon East	.	.	.
Brandon West	.	.	.
Burrows	.	Rick Negrych	Twyla Motkaluk
Charleswood	Paul Beckta	Myrna Driedger (i)	.
Concordia	.	.	.
Dauphin	.	.	.
Dawson Trail	.	.	.
Elmwood	.	.	.
Emerson	.	Cliff Graydon (i)	.
Flin Flon	.	.	.
Fort Garry-Riverview	James Allum	Ian Rabb	.
Fort Richmond	Kerri Irvin-Ross (i)	.	.
Fort Rouge	.	.	Paul Hesse
Fort Whyte	.	Hugh McFadyen (i)	.
Gimli	Peter Bjornson (i)	Jeff Wharton	.
Interlake	.	.	.
Kewatinook	.	.	.
Kildonan	Dave Chomiak (i)	.	.
Kirkfield Park	.	Kelly de Groot	.
La Vérendrye	.	Dennis Smook	Monica Guetre
La du Bonnet	.	.	.
Lakeside	.	Ralph Eichler (i)	.
Logan	Flor Marcelino (i)	.	.
Midland	.	Blaine Pederson (i)	.
Minto	Andrew Swan (i)	.	.
Morden-Winkler	.	.	.
Morris	.	.	.
Point Douglas	.	.	.
Portage la Prairie	.	Ian Wishart	.
Radisson	Bidhu Jha	.	Shirley Robert
Riding Mountain	.	.	.
Riel	Christine Melnick (i)	Rochelle Squires	.
River East	.	Bonnie Mitchelson (i)	.
River Heights	.	Marty Morantz	Jon Gerrard (i)
Rossmere	Erna Braun (i)	.	.
Seine River	Theresa Oswald (i)	.	.
Selkirk	Greg Dewar (i)	.	.
Southdale	Erin Selby (i)	Judy Eastman	.
Spruce Woods	Cory Szczepanski	Cliff Cullen (i)	.
St. Boniface	.	.	.
St. James	.	Scott Gillingham	.
St. Johns	.	.	.
St. Norbert	.	Karen Velthuys	Marcel Laurendeau
St. Paul	.	Ron Schuler (i)	.
St. Vital	Nancy Allan (i)	.	.
Steinbach	.	Kelvin Goertzen (i)	.
Swan River	Rosann Wowchuk (i)	.	.
The Maples	.	Jose Thomas	.
The Pas	.	.	.
Thompson	.	.	.
Transcona	.	.	.
Tuxedo	.	Heather Stefanson (i)	.
Tyndall Park	.	.	Roldan Sevillano Jr
Wolseley	Rob Altemeyer	.	.

Rocco Rossi: From Blue Liberal to Red Tory?

Is there a big difference? I don’t see a big one. His tie is a different colour today... 

Former Toronto Mayoral candidate and former Liberal National Director Rocco Rossi announced today that he was going to run for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party in Eglinton-Lawrence.   

There was the predictable unfavourable reaction from many places but I was especially struck by Warren Kinsella’s vicious reaction to the news.  While I understand why some people, such as Kinsella, feel betrayed and will react negatively to the news, I see very little difference between the right edge of the Liberal Party and the left edge of the Conservative Party. I think this is true of provincial and federal parties.

If you want to call us Blue Liberals and Red Tories, both parties have members with centre-right ideologies that can “fit” in either party. In reality, there isn’t much difference in terms of policy or ideology between the two. And I understand perfectly how one could be a supporter of one at the provincial level and the other at the federal level.