The biggest challenge facing whoever becomes the next leader of Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative party will be to gain public trust on health care. It is by far the top issue in Manitoba politics.
Tory MLA Obby Khan was the first to throw his hat into the PC party leadership ring this week. There’s little doubt the MLA for Fort Whyte will be the front-runner in the race. There has been little, if any, talk of a big name from outside caucus entering the contest. Which means the race is likely Khan’s to lose.
He’s a good pick for the party. Khan has all the elements of a promising leader: he’s smart, articulate, and has good presence in front of a camera. He’s still learning — he won a byelection in 2022 to replace former premier Brian Pallister — but has caught on quickly to the political process. He has roots in the community, including a successful career as a Winnipeg Blue Bomber, and can easily go toe-to-toe with any of his political opponents in the Manitoba legislature.
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MLA Obby Khan has one blight on his record: his role in the Tory’s toxic election campaign last fall will not be easily erased in the minds of Manitoba voters.
Khan has one blight on his record: his role in the Tory’s toxic election campaign last fall will not be easily erased in the minds of Manitoba voters. Khan agreed to be the face of the party’s anti-LGBTTQ+ “parental rights” campaign, something he will have to reckon with in the months ahead.
Where he and his party will have the most work to do is on health care. The Tory’s disastrous record on hospital reform, including funding cuts to acute care facilities and staff layoffs — all of which led to soaring wait times in emergency departments and operating rooms — is still linked to the Tory brand. It will take years and a lot of hard work to reverse the damage that caused.
Much of the Tories’ success or failure in the next few years will depend on the NDP’s performance on health care. If the Kinew government cannot bring down wait times and improve access to primary care, it will neutralize, at least to some degree, the advantage it has over the Tories. If the province makes progress in those areas, it will be exceedingly difficult for Khan, or whoever becomes the next Tory leader, to chip away at the government’s popularity.
Opposition parties don’t usually win elections. Governments tend to defeat themselves over time. Their lifespan is determined by their performance and their ability to maintain public trust. When those falter, a time-for-a-change dynamic sets in and the government of the day is usually defeated. Whoever is in opposition gets to take over.
The job of any opposition party is to try to hasten that cycle, which will be difficult for the Tories to do if the NDP demonstrates tangible improvements in health care. The contrast between that and what the Tories did with health care between 2017 and 2023 — when they consolidated hospital operations, closed ERs and forced a mass relocation of front-line staff — would be stark.
People will not easily forget the chaos that was created during consolidation, nor how the former Pallister government simultaneously cut funding to front-line services. The impact of that will be felt for years.
That is the challenge facing the Tories.
The PC party will have to find ways of distancing itself from those policies, the same way NDP Premier Wab Kinew distanced himself from the failings of former NDP premier Greg Selinger.
The new Tory leader would be well served by denouncing both the party’s toxic provincial election campaign platform as well as its failed policies in health care. It’s the only way to try to regain the public trust that was lost after only five years in office (the Tories served seven and half years in government but began to fall out of favour with voters in the summer of 2021).
It’s unlikely the NDP will have much trouble getting re-elected in 2027. Most new governments in Manitoba are virtually guaranteed a second term in office unless they fail so spectacularly that the public tosses them out early (the one-term government of former Tory premier Sterling Lyon, 1977 to 1981, comes to mind).
If the Tories want a legitimate shot at defeating the incumbents in 2031, they have to hope for a series of NDP failings while also reckoning their own past with Manitoba voters.
There is a path to victory for the Tories in 2031, but only if they start doing the right things today.
tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
Tom Brodbeck
Columnist
Tom Brodbeck is a columnist with the Free Press and has over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.
Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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