Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger got an early start on election campaigning – kicking off his New Democratic Party’s bid for re-election one year before election day.
Selinger and a crowd of cheering NDP supporters gathered in a theatre at The Forks in Winnipeg at noon for the event marking exactly 12 months before voters go the polls in a provincial election.
The opposition Progressive Conservative leader, Hugh McFadyen is planning a similar one-year-to-the-election event for Tuesday; but Selinger launched a pre-emptive strike Monday, accusing McFadyen and the Tories of plotting $1.5 billion cut in government spending that would gut health, education and social services.
“We need to protect (Manitoba) families from the reckless whims of Hugh McFadyen,” Selinger is quoted in a release sent to media shortly before the rally began. McFadyen met with reporters later in the day to shoot back that a billion dollars could be saved by cancelling the NDP’s controversial plan to run a new hydro line along the western side of the province – a move meant to avoid a Boreal Forest on the east side, but which will result in a much longer and more expensive line.
Selinger also resurrected a theme from the last campaign, accusing the Tories of plotting to sell off the publicly-owned Manitoba Hydro.
The NDP has been in power in Manitoba since 1999, but this will be the first campaign as leader for Selinger, who took the reins of the party last October following the retirement of popular former leader, Gary Doer, who stunned the province last summer by suddenly quitting to become Canada’s ambassador to the United States.
Since then, the NDP has seen its fortunes fall – several recent polls have shown the opposition Tories pulling ahead of the NDP – and suggesting a tough election fight to come for key ridings in the city of Winnipeg which is currently an NDP stronghold.
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