A fledgling “centrist” party is campaigning to make strides in next month’s Elmwood-Transcona byelection.
The Canadian Future party, which signed its formal registration papers last week, is putting up federal public servant Zbig Strycharz as its candidate. He hopes to be the choice for the “politically homeless.”
“Hopefully with my voice, maybe Canadians will have somebody to voice their discontent with the status quo that we’ve had for the last 20, 30 years,” the Winnipegger said Monday.
JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS
Zbig Strycharz, Canadian Future Party candidate in the upcoming Elmwood-Transcona by-election.
Strycharz, who doesn’t live in the riding, said the cost of living is out of control and is looking to stabilize the economy.
“We are here to support Canadians and their needs, and that means making sure that our funds aren’t being used recklessly,” he said.
Strycharz is running against Transcona BIZ director Leila Dance for the NDP, union electrician Colin Reynolds for the Conservatives, former teacher Ian MacIntyre for the Liberals and Green Party candidate Nic Geddert. The byelection will be held Sept. 16.
Elmwood-Transcona has been without a member of parliament since April, when three-term MP Daniel Blaikie stepped down to serve as special adviser on intergovernmental affairs for the Manitoba NDP.
Interim Canadian Future leader Dominic Cardy, who serves as an independent New Brunswick MLA, said he has helped to balance budgets and increase spending on education and health care but has became increasingly uncomfortable with a rightward social drift on issues surrounding personal freedom.
Cardy served as leader of the New Brunswick NDP between 2011 and 2016 before being elected as the Progressive Conservative MLA for the constituency of Fredericton West-Hanwell in 2018. In 2022, he left the party to sit as an independent MLA.
“I’ve always spent my life looking for a party that’s socially liberal and fiscally responsible,” Cardy said by phone Friday. “It’s always been that the left has a trouble with the fiscal responsibility side, and increasingly on individual liberties, and the right is a little bit too prone to trying to tell people what to do and they’re not particularly great with finances these days.”
The new party, formerly called Centre Ice Conservatives, touts itself as “not left, not right, but forward.” Its platform includes addressing climate change, personal freedoms, the need for an open government, hitting military spending targets laid out by NATO and helping the single-payer health-care system by introducing competition.
University of Manitoba political scientist Royce Koop is skeptical of any chances the party might have at getting more than a handful of votes.
“This whole idea of invading from the centre … it’s almost kind of incoherent,” Koop said. “I wouldn’t give this party really any shot at success.”
Cardy and Strycharz believe they can pull votes from both NDP and Conservative households, while Koop is keeping an eye on the Tories due to leader Pierre Poilievre’s high ranking in political polls.
Mark Khoury will also run for the the Canadian Future party in the Montreal district of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, which has a byelection also slated for the same day.
nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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