7/26/2023 0 Comments New mad maxLeslie, who organized pro-freedom rallies and is well-equipped to talk the libertarian talk, is a potent opponent for Bernier. However, when the final results were announced, Friesen was left behind in the dust of Branden Leslie, Bergen’s former campaign manager. When you’re campaigning on an anti-government platform, being arrested by the Deep State is priceless political marketing.Īnd yet, even with all those positive signs, there is evidence the voters Bernier needs to win this byelection are already comfortable tucked into the folds of the Conservative party.įor evidence of that, you need only look at the results of the recent Conservative nomination in Portage-Lisgar to see how successful the federal Tories, behind the hard-right leadership of Pierre Poilievre, have been at recruiting far-right voters.įormer Tory MLA Cameron Friesen - a health and finance minister in the Progressive Conservative government who was considered to be a thought-leader for the far-right and ultra-religious sects within the provincial caucus - was considered to be a strong option for the nomination to replace Conservative MP Candice Bergen. It is a brilliant coincidence that on Tuesday, just four days after he announced his Portage-Lisgar candidacy, Bernier is scheduled to make a court appearance to contest his June 2021 arrest and charges for violating pandemic restrictions. Manitoba is also a province where Bernier got great headlines for being charged two years ago with breaching pandemic restrictions. Manitoba is also a province where Maxime Bernier got great headlines for being charged two years ago with breaching pandemic restrictions. With arguably the lowest vaccination rate in the country, it was not surprising the PPC and candidate Solomon Wiebe were able to collect some 9,790 votes in the 2021 election. So, by default, that leaves us with Portage-Lisgar.īernier knows full well that southern Manitoba has become a hotbed of far-right, libertarian activism, the core attributes of PPC supporters. Even with anti-vax and anti-mask sentiments running hot across Canada, MacKenzie was still able to collect nearly 30,000 votes, overwhelming the PPC result. Oxford is considered a Tory stronghold and the PPC captured a respectable 6,500 votes - 10 per cent of the total - in the 2021 federal election.īut a right-of-centre voter in southwestern Ontario is perhaps not the same kind of right-of-centre voter likely to flock to the PPC. That leaves the Ontario riding of Oxford, which has been left open thanks to the departure of Conservative MP David McKenzie. The PPC ran a candidate against the elder Carr in 2021 and received only two per cent of the total votes cast. Winnipeg South Centre is as inhospitable a riding for Bernier as Notre-Dame-de-Grace. Ben Carr, son of the late Jim Carr, who held the riding for many years and served in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, is hoping to keep the seat in the Grit fold. The same predicament faced Bernier in Winnipeg South Centre, one of the longest-held Liberal seats in Canada. Maxime Bernier, the People’s Party of Canada leader, announced last week he was going to be a candidate in the June 19 byelection in Portage-Lisgar. The thought of competing for a seat in a Liberal stronghold in ultra-urban Montreal was, in the final analysis, not all that appealing. However, he tried twice (in 20) to recapture Beauce and in both instances, he finished comfortably in second place. Bernier is, after all, a native Quebecer and represented the federal riding of Beauce (south of Quebec City) for 13 years. In theory, Bernier could have run in any of next month’s four byelections, including in Notre-Dame-de-Grace, the Montreal riding held for 15 years by former astronaut and Liberal cabinet minister Marc Garneau. In the final analysis, Bernier’s decision to play the political carpetbagger in Manitoba says a lot about the steep hill facing the PPC as it attempts to become the sixth party in the House of Commons. Will this riding serve as the fertile ground on which Bernier can grow the base of the PPC and make Canadian political history? Or, will his party’s fortunes - which have hovered just short of a breakthrough - wilt like wheat in a Prairie drought? Free Press 101: How we practise journalism.
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