HAMM: Manitoba Tories need a do-over

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There comes a point when all political parties pass their best-before date.

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On the national scene, we’re seeing it with the Justin Trudeau Liberal party.

We saw it in Manitoba with the Greg Selinger-led NDP when they suffered a historic election loss to the Tories in 2016.

Now we’re seeing what seems to be the end of days for the current incarnation of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba.

On the weekend the Sun reported on Tory CEO dismissing questions from an accountant about a questionable campaign expense.

The invoice in question was issued by a company called Lucid Vitality, which, according to the Party’s documentation, provided car rental services. However, a search for this company in Manitoba’s business registry yielded no results. The website linked to Lucid Vitality, www.chelsbra.com, belonged not to a car rental service, but to an intimacy coach and describes its owner as a Somatic Sexologist.

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The decline isn’t sudden, rather it’s been building for a long time.

The sudden departure of leader Brian Pallister in 2021, followed by a hastily called leadership campaign that was plagued by controversy before winding up in a courtroom was perhaps the beginning of the end.

Heather Stefanson emerged as the party’s leader and Manitoba Premier for a nondescript period until a campaign that you would call anything but nondescript, sewered their chances to remain in government.

You’ll recall the strategy where the party decided to set in policy that there would be no landfill search for the remains of two victims, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, of a serial killer, who’s since been sent to jail for life.

If you don’t remember, their ads went like this: “STAND FIRM: ‘For health and safety reasons, the answer on the landfill dig just has to be no.” The quote was attributed to Stefanson.

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Can you imagine a group of otherwise intelligent people sitting around a meeting table, believing that would be the strategy that would bring undecided voters into their camp on election day?

How they couldn’t see it would only push undecided voters toward the NDP is a mystery and party members went into finger-pointing mode during the aftermath.

Today, we have a party in panic mode and where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

The revelation of sketchy campaign expenses is damning.

It gives us evidence of entitlement.

It shows us that someone, somewhere in the party thought “I deserve this,” and others in the party were happy to go along with that.

The NDP have called on Manitoba’s Commissioner of Elections to investigate, and they should.

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While election expenses are vetted after campaigns, not necessarily every invoice is checked.

We know now, that the Tories’ campaign expenses for 2023 need to be looked at individually, vetted not just on the numbers but the validity of the expenses being covered.

When internal rot like this is found, it seems unlikely to be isolated.

The party’s interim leader Wayne Ewasko told the Sun on the weekend that, “I am not happy to learn about this. I will ask questions and investigate what happened. I have already formed a committee to investigate the 2023 election and the Tuxedo by-election to learn from both and allow the party to move forward.”

It could be a good start if it actually happens.

On Monday, Ewasko told reporters that the car rental expense was legit, so it seems it might not.

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If it does, the PCs need to make sure they let everyone know the results. The only way for the party to start repairing its image is to do this laundry in public. They may have to go through some pain to wash this stink off.

Sadly, it seems many Sun readers weren’t surprised to learn something like this happened.

One commented, “After the gong show leadership contest, you really think they cared what their donors think? It is a cabal of corrupt people in the backroom, and they believe themselves to be our betters, and we’d best remain quiet. Manitoba Conservative Party needs to be dismantled in its entirety and rebuilt with a new name. It is too toxic now.”

That was the major theme of those commenting on the story.

Does this make us question what’s happening with other provincial parties? Their municipal counterparts? What the federal Liberals have done since gaining power speaks for itself.

Can voters trust politicians who spend more time whining about what their opposites have said and done rather than following through on what they’ve promised to do to make things better for the people they represent?

The Manitoba PC party has been in decline for a while now and while it might not be dead on its feet, it could certainly use an overhaul.

Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca

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