Contrasts start to take shape in leadership race for Manitoba's Opposition Tories

Manitoba PC MLA Obby Khan speaks at a Ministerial Bear Pit Session during the Progressive Conservative Party's annual general meeting at the convention centre in Winnipeg on Saturday, April 15, 2023. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods)

The battle for the leadership of the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives is three months from being decided, and the two men vying for the role are laying out different paths to try to reignite the party voted out of office in the last election.

Obby Khan, a former pro football player, cabinet minister and business owner from Winnipeg, has pitched himself as the experienced candidate with a seat in the legislature who can build a "big tent" of urban and rural members. Khan's Fort Whyte seat is one of two the Tories still hold in Winnipeg, where 32 of the 57 legislature seats are located.

Wally Daudrich, a longtime party board member and hotel owner from the northern town of Churchill, has promised to bring a more conservative approach if he wins. He has said the Tories have lost their way in recent years and become something like a Liberal party.

Khan, who has received endorsements from some high-profile Tories such as longtime former cabinet minister Kelvin Goertzen, would normally be considered a very clear front-runner, one political analyst said, but anything can happen under the party's system that allows every member to vote for the leader.

"The right-of-centre, the rural part of the party -- will we see that coming forward and doing a serious challenge?" Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, said.

The last leadership race in 2021 saw Heather Stefanson receive many big-name endorsements and be considered the establishment candidate. But thousands of people signed up as members before the vote and Shelly Glover, a former federal cabinet minister who had left politics in 2015, came a very close second with 49 per cent of the votes.

Daudrich's promises are somewhat akin to those of some Republicans in the United States, Adams said. Daudrich has said he would shrink the size of government and eliminate the provincial fuel tax. He calls himself pro-life but would let grassroots members set policy on abortion and other issues. And he says some supporters have joined him because the education system has become "an indoctrination system."

Daudrich has also said, in the context of recent protests and vandalism targeting Jews in Canada, that people from other countries who don't "respect our laws and our traditions" should be deported.

Daudrich said in an interview he was referring to hate speech and threats of violence.

"Those people who want to participate in that kind of rhetoric, if they're not citizens of our country, yes I believe that they have vocally chosen to return to the country of origin," Daudrich said.

Khan may be viewed as the more urban and progressive candidate, Adams said, but he has faced criticism for campaigning on parental rights in schools during the 2023 election.

The campaign promise was vaguely worded and included a parent's right to be involved in addressing a student's behavioural changes. Some critics and activists said the Tories were making a coded threat to transgender rights.

Khan said in an interview he is reaching out to all members and has been touring rural Manitoba

"I will continue to grow the party the way I've always done, and that's through bringing everyone together in a big-tent party. And we can do that within our conservative values," Khan said.

The race so far has been fairly tame, with only the occasional verbal volley being fired.

Daudrich has said he is the only conservative in the race. Khan has said Daudrich's messaging is very different from his big-tent approach.

"Where other people might want to divide us, I want to unite us."

Party members will choose the next leader via mail-in and drop-off ballots, with the winner to be announced April 26.

Unlike the last leadership race, the party's one-member-one-vote process will incorporate a point system to limit the weight of constituencies with big membership numbers. The aim is to ensure that the leadership race cannot be decided by a flood of new members in one or two constituencies.

A constituency with 100 voting members will get 100 points in the leadership vote. One with 400 member votes would get 200 points, and no constituency would get more than 500 points. The candidate with a majority of points wins.

The contest started last July when nominations opened. The months-long campaign gives leadership hopefuls more time to meet members, a party official said.

"It gives the candidates an opportunity to get out into communities and towns and cities that they otherwise wouldn't be able to," Brad Zander, chair of the leadership election committee, said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 12, 2025