The post-election celebratory period for Manitoba’s NDP unofficially winds up this weekend with a party convention in Winnipeg.
Just over six months after Wab Kinew was sworn in as Manitoba’s premier, members of the provincial NDP will spend the next three days at the Fairmont Hotel for a convention that functions mainly as an extended victory lap, said Christopher Adams, a political studies professor at the University of Manitoba.
Recent polls suggest Kinew is the most popular premier in Canada and his party is in firm control of the Manitoba Legislature, where the Opposition Progressive Conservatives are under an interim leader, Wayne Ewasko.
The PCs are not slated to choose a permanent leader for more than 11 months.
“The NDP in some ways isn’t facing really fierce opposition right now, but that’s probably around the corner,” Adams said.
The party also faces few financial headaches. According to an annual return filed with Elections Manitoba on April 17, the Manitoba NDP finished its latest fiscal year with a modest deficit of $150,000.
The party has since erased that deficit, said Emily Coutts, Kinew’s principal secretary, and the party coffers will be filled further over this weekend.
More than 1,000 tickets were purchased for the NDP’s Saturday night gala at RBC Convention Centre, selling the event out, Coutts said.
Gross sales from the gala alone should total at least $250,000, as the least expensive tickets sold for $250.
There is also little controversy in the convention agenda itself. The resolutions slated for debate this weekend include uncontroversial motions to expand child care, diversify clean-energy options and promote economic reconciliation.
“I don’t see a huge amount of conflict,” Adams said. “Sometimes these conventions have conflict between the left wing and the middle wing of the party. I don’t see any of that happening.”
Adams said the party is vulnerable to a split over the Israel-Hamas conflict, but no resolutions regarding the Middle East are on the convention agenda.
The leader of the federal NDP, Jagmeet Singh, campaigned in Winnipeg on Friday in advance of a byelection in Elmwood-Transcona.
Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and David Eby, the NDP premier of British Columbia, are slated to address the convention.
Singh was already in Winnipeg Friday, spending part of the day campaigning in northeast Winnipeg’s Harbour View South neighbourhood in advance of a byelection in the federal Elmwood-Transcona riding.
Former NDP MP Daniel Blaikie resigned in April. A byelection in the riding must be held by Sept. 29, according to Elections Canada.
Singh told reporters he thinks Kinew is doing a great job.
“He’s been able to do a lot of things — not just changing tires, but I also saw that he’s putting bannock into the oven. He’s been helping milk cows. He’s been doing everything,” the federal NDP leader joked — a reference to an April photo of Kinew changing a stranded motorist’s tire that became a social media meme.
Adams said he believes Singh is in Winnipeg to raise the federal NDP’s profile among Manitoba party members. All three major federal party leaders have met with Kinew in recent months, Adams said.