There's one less dog in yellow dog country, and the Tories are hopping mad about it.
The Manitoba Electoral Divisions Boundaries Commission released its latest recommendations last week. If accepted, there would be changes to the boundaries of 54 of Manitoba's 57 ridings, one (Minnedosa) would be eliminated altogether and a new capital region seat (Tache) would be created.
Now, trying to figure out the winners and losers in electoral boundary changes is a pretty complex game. Strategists for the mainstream political parties are pouring over maps, adding and subtracting polls to figure out if they've gained friends, or inherited enemies.
Fellow Free Press columnist and blogger extraordinaire Curtis Brown calls this process "Risk for geeks," which is a good description although it suggests that those who spend a lot of time playing the real war-simulation board game are, in fact, somehow cool. The point is that with changes to 54 ridings, there are going to be a lot of ebbs and flows in fortunes for both parties.
And yet, the Progressive Conservatives are livid. The Tory with the biggest beef is Leanne Rowatt, the MLA for the soon-to-be-eliminated Minnedosa riding, one of the stalwart seats where people joke that the Conservatives could run a yellow dog and still win. Rowatt must either fight another Tory MLA for a nomination, or leave politics altogether. Rowatt says the boundary changes are an insult to rural Manitobans. She also complained the new ridings will be too big for a single politician to serve effectively. However, Rowatt is fighting for her job, and so it's understandable she would go down fighting. What is less understandable is the reaction of Doug Schweitzer, chief executive officer for the PC Party of Manitoba, who has in essence accused the boundary commission of deliberately strengthening the NDP's position for the next election.
Schweitzer concluded the boundary redistribution had only served to reinforce "Fortress Winnipeg" for the NDP, a reference to the vice-like grip the ruling party has on seats in the capital city. Schweitzer went on to suggest the boundary commission had ignored the inevitable growth in population expected in southwest Winnipeg around the Waverley West development, and instead tinkered with seats in other parts of the city.
Overall, Schweitzer concluded the redistribution punished Manitobans in the western part of the province, who vote mostly Tory, and cheapened votes in southwest Winnipeg where not surprisingly there are many Tories.
There is much that is wrong about Schweitzer's analysis. Mostly it is politically unseemly.
No party with designs on forming government should spend any time whining about a genuinely objective process to redistribute electoral boundaries on the basis of 2006 census data. It had been 10 years since the last boundary redistribution, so it was clearly overdue. This is about shifts in population, not about punishing voters or building fortresses. Schweitzer is certainly experienced enough in politics to understand this and if he isn't, then leader Hugh McFadyen certainly is.
With his comments, Schweitzer has only succeeded in exposing his party's Achilles heel, the inability to win seats in Winnipeg. In the last year's provincial election, the Tories took back a seat in Brandon but then got thumped in Winnipeg, losing two long-held seats to the NDP.
Opinion polls show that Premier Gary Doer and his New Democrats continue to rule in Winnipeg, and remain the overwhelming choice now for voters across demographics. And the population is growing in Winnipeg, not quickly but steadily raising the prospect that sometime in the future, more seats will be added to the capital region at the expense of rural areas.
It would have been refreshing, and a sign the Tories were well on the way to a much-needed rebranding, if party officials had spent a few seconds lamenting the loss of Minnedosa and then moved quickly to reassure Manitobans the PC Party wasn't concerned about the new boundaries because it had planned on competing head on with the NDP in all areas of the province in the next election.
The indisputable fact is that the Tories desperately need to win seats in Winnipeg to form government. Complaining that Winnipeg has become a fortress for the NDP doesn't inspire party faithful or voters. It re-enforces the idea that you don't know how to win seats in Winnipeg.
With the NDP's solid core of support in Winnipeg, the last provincial election was pretty much over in the first 72 hours. Those of us who like a good political fight hope the Tories find a way into the NDP's Fortress Winnipeg, and soon.
dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
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