Manitoba byelection called in traditional Progressive Conservative stronghold

The sculpture titled "The Golden Boy" on the exterior of the Manitoba Legislature is seen in Winnipeg, Nov. 6, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

WINNIPEG — Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called a byelection Friday that will test whether his NDP government’s popularity can spread to a longtime Progressive Conservative stronghold.

Voters in the Spruce Woods constituency will go to the polls Aug. 26 to choose a replacement for Grant Jackson, a Tory who resigned in March to run federally. Jackson garnered more than double the votes of his closest opponent in 2023, and the Tories normally get well above 60 per cent of the vote in the area.

The New Democrats have been riding high in opinion polls, however, and have made a series of spending announcements in and around Spruce Woods in recent weeks. One political analyst said the byelection could be a race.

“I would say right now that I think the (Progressive) Conservatives probably still have a bit of the upper hand, given that history, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the NDP can win it,” Kelly Saunders, a political science professor at Brandon University, said in an interview.

The outcome of the vote won’t affect the NDP’s majority in the legislature, where the party has 34 of the 57 seats to the Tories’ 20. There is one Liberal and one Independent.

But a win in Spruce Woods would give the NDP, whose seats are concentrated mainly in Winnipeg and the province’s north, a breakthrough in the rural southwest corner of the province. The riding contains a part of Brandon, but most of its area consists of small towns and farmland.

“If (Kinew) can pull that off, then I think that would be a huge symbolic win for (the NDP) to show that in fact they are the government that can speak for everybody in this province,” said Saunders, who lives in Spruce Woods.

Kinew announced spending on highways, housing, doctor training and other items in the lead-up to the byelection call. He told supporters in the area Thursday that the NDP is being more proactive than in past contests, when some areas of the constituency didn’t have lawn signs.

The Tories have also gone on the offensive. They have criticized Kinew for not calling the byelection earlier and have accused him of leaving the area without a voice. When Kinew pushed back against a reporter’s questioning about the ongoing vacancy, the Tories turned it into social media fodder.

The Tories have chosen Colleen Robbins, a longtime party volunteer for the race. The NDP have nominated Ray Berthelette, a former real estate agent who recently worked as an executive assistant to cabinet minister Glen Simard. The Liberals have selected Stephen Reid, a teacher in Brandon.

The Tories have been in rebuilding mode since losing the 2023 provincial election. The NDP pulled off a major upset last year in winning a byelection in the Tuxedo seat in Winnipeg, which had always voted Progressive Conservative and had been the seat of two former Tory premiers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2025.

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press