Federal New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh was back in Winnipeg on Saturday for a final push to help his party’s candidate in the Elmwood-Transcona byelection on Monday.
Singh, at a rally to fire up about three dozen campaign volunteers as they prepared to spend the final weekend of the campaign door knocking, said the NDP are the only choice for voters in the riding.
“People are just fed up with, they’re frustrated with, they’re done with the Liberals,” said Singh at the rally in Elmwood Park.
KEVIN ROLLASON / FREE PRESS
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh (centre) spoke to supporters at a rally in support of Elmwood-Transcona candidate Leah Dance (left) Saturday.
“The choice is, who is going to replace Justin Trudeau and the Liberals? On one hand, you’ve got the Conservatives who want to cut and gut the things that you need. Pierre Poilievre wants to cut your pension — we want to restore it. He wants to cut health care — we want to fix it. He wants to let his corporate buddies rip you off even more, meaning high grocery prices (and) high rent. We want to lower the price of your groceries.
“I think the choice is clear in this byelection. The choice between the cuts of Conservatives and New Democrats who want to lower your bills. And, in this riding, Elmwood-Transcona, the choice is Leah Dance.”
The riding has traditionally been a NDP stronghold in recent decades, save for a single term held by Tory Lawrence Toet between 2011-2015.
It became open after NDP MP Daniel Blaikie resigned to take on a role as a senior advisor to NDP Premier Wab Kinew.
Singh said they will continue campaigning hard in the hours left of the campaign.
“Every byelection is a fight,” he said.
“We have a fight ahead of us. We are not taking anything for granted. We’re not taking the voters for granted so we are fighting really hard so that they know we’ve got their back.”
Dance herself said she was feeling confident about her chances in the byelection on Monday.
“This is my community and I’m super excited to have the opportunity to represent that community,” she said. “To make sure that they have lower grocery prices, affordable housing, and the health care that they can feel that they can go to the hospital and get the assistance that they need.
“We know that we are not going to get that with anyone else and so I’m going to fight hard, I’m going to continue to fight hard in the next two days. I’m going to fight hard and put myself in front of as many people as possible to be able to describe that message and then hopefully Manitobans in Elmwood-Transcona will choose me on Monday.”
Conservative Party candidate Colin Reynolds could not be reached for comment.
Others running for the seat are Ian MacIntyre for the Liberals, Nicolas Geddert for the Green Party and Sarah Couture for the People’s Party of Canada.
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Kevin Rollason
Reporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
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