CONSERVATIVE MP Inky Mark skipped another all-candidates debate in Dauphin Monday night but makes no apologies for avoiding showdowns with his rivals.
"My riding is so large, I'd be on the road constantly if I went to all of them," said Mark, who prefers to meet voters of Dauphin-Swan River at the door and in coffee shops. "In my first election, I went to one in the theatre in Neepawa and there were maybe 10 people there, mostly campaign workers. It was useless. It opened my eyes."
Unlike rookie Tories who are being prodded by party brass to dodge debates for fear they'll go off message, Mark is a maverick who doesn't take much direction from headquarters.
It's a different story in Brandon-Souris where Tory MP Merv Tweed is running for re-election. Tweed has tried to attend most of the forums he's been invited to, including three coming up this week in Brandon. And he's toed the party line on issues like crime and the Canadian Wheat Board.
The two ridings, which together cover western Manitoba to the northern tip of Lake Winnipegosis, are fresh off one of the best harvests in recent memory. But farmers are worried about spotty rural health care and the economy, say candidates. Early in the race gas prices topped voters' gripe lists. Now it's Wall Street and what the financial collapse south of the border means to retirement savings.
"Everyone is really nervous about the economy," agreed M.J. Willard, a physician running for the Liberals against Tweed in Brandon-Souris. "We've got savings that look like they might evaporate on us."
The Canadian Wheat Board comes up often, too, and the Tory candidates in the two Westman ridings hold very different positions on whether the agency's monopoly on grain sales ought to be dismantled.
Tweed sides with the prime minister and says farmers ought to have marketing choice. But Mark has gone rogue on the issue. He says two-thirds of his riding supports the Wheat Board and he is duty-bound to reflect their views in Ottawa even if it means voting against his party and earning a tongue-lashing from the leadership.
"I don't mind and I don't care," said Mark.
Both Mark and Tweed are widely expected to win re-election in a week and neither riding is being targeted by the Liberals or NDP.
Mark won virtually every poll in 2006, except a small handful on First Nations reserves that went Liberal. Tweed, who left provincial politics for Ottawa in 2004, represents a riding that has been Tory for at least 60 years, except for 1993 when the Liberal Party swept the country.
Critics have said both incumbents are largely invisible outside their ridings, unlike other rural MPs who have gained a little more profile inside the Perimeter and in Ottawa.
"I'm like the people of Brandon," retorted Tweed. 'They work hard, they're quiet and they get the job done. I might not blow my own horn but people here know what I've done for the riding."
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