Last year’s crop of new leaders-Trudeau, Alberta’s Rachel Notley and Newfoundland and Labrador’s Dwight Ball-all rode in on waves of public enthusiasm. Pallister won his seat in the Winnipeg constituency of Fort Whyte.
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“Selinger didn’t have the pros that had run the 2011 campaign backing him up”, said Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba.
“A lot of the frustration and angry stems from the NDP raising the provincial sales tax from 7-to-8%. They’re going to look up and the sky’s going to be blue”.
Manitoba’s NDP failure was easier to predict than the federal party’s lackluster performance in October’s national election.
Some of Selinger’s candidates echoed that sentiment – Healthy Living Minister Deanne Crothers and Children and Youth Opportunities Minister Melanie Wight said voters were in the mood for something different after so many years of NDP rule. “If he’s misled Manitobans about that simple issue, what else is he hiding from [them]?”
For the last three years, Selinger’s approval rating averaged just 25 per cent, his disapproval averaging 64 per cent. Discontent with his government began with the increase of the provincial sales tax to eight per cent from seven, going against a promise Selinger had made in the previous election campaign.
He also lost voters’ trust during the campaign over misstatements.
“I think the unpopularity of Mr. Selinger is much more important to understanding the outcome than Mr. Pallister’s popularity”.
April 15: Pallister defends his time out of the province after the CBC obtained travel logs which show he spent 240 days either travelling to or in Costa Rica since being elected in 2012. Instead, the two men fought for over a month in a campaign filled with personal attacks and hyperbole.
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NDP party volunteers and supporters react to the results coming in Tuesday night. Since [a] breakthrough election in 1969 the NDP has built a broad coalition and they’ve become in their mind the province’s natural governing party. Documents posted on the college’s website say Warraich, who is featured on the party’s website wearing a white coat and stethoscope – was restricted as to where he can practise, how many patients he can see and how he documents encounters with his patients. “The number we would like is a majority government”, he said when asked whether he has set himself a minimum number of seats in order to stay on as leader. And now the collection of women, environmentalists, aboriginals, tradespeople and the working poor who once voted solidly orange have moved on. He has also said the PCs will raise income tax brackets with inflation and join the New West Partnership trade agreement with other western provinces.
