Manitoba premier talks election preparation at NDP convention

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew speaks at the Assembly of First Nations annual meeting in Winnipeg on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

BRANDON - Manitoba New Democrats, riding high in opinion polls and taking in large amounts of money in donations, were urged by Premier Wab Kinew to start preparing for an election still almost two years away.

“We have seats that we would like to be able to put the work in, over the next few months, to be able to count as our base and then go on to the march into communities next door,” Kinew told more than 300 party faithful.

The message, he later said, was about staying hungry.

“We do have to keep that hunger and that motivation, to do the fundraising, to start our nomination process and to look ahead to the next election,” Kinew told reporters after his speech.

“In that way, we’re not taking anything for granted.”

Recent opinion polls suggest support for the NDP has grown since the party captured 34 of 57 legislature seats in the October 2023 election.

The party has also had strong showings in byelections -- taking a longtime Progressive Conservative stronghold last year in the Tuxedo constituency in Winnipeg and finishing 70 votes shy of winning another Tory seat in the Spruce Woods constituency.

The New Democrats have also been raising a lot more money than the Opposition Tories. They garnered more than $1.8 million in contributions and fundraising in 2024 -- roughly triple the Tories’ amount.

Kinew told delegates that trend has continued, with the NDP raising $625,000 in a three-month period around the recent byelection in Spruce Woods.

Kinew said he wants to ensure work continues toward the October 2027 scheduled election date. The party has just nominated its first candidate for the vote -- Glen Simard, the incumbent in the Brandon East seat -- and is hoping to make inroads into rural areas.

Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Manitoba, said the NDP has not experienced too much trouble in its two years in office.

“I would say that the party is in fairly good shape and there don’t seem to be any major conflicts within the party,” Adams said in an interview.

Delegates at the convention were to debate dozens of resolutions over the weekend, many of which aligned with government goals such as measures to increase food security and affordability in northern communities.

One exception was a resolution that calls for a sharp increase in the minimum wage, which is currently $16 an hour.

“If you work full-time, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty, and that’s the reality for far too many Manitobans today,” Kevin Rebeck, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour, told the meeting.

Rebeck was applauded by other delegates as he pushed for a “living wage”, which would be close to $18.75 an hour in Winnipeg.

Both Kinew and Malaya Marcelino, the labour minister, were noncommittal.

“It’s definitely a live conversation -- something that our members have a lot of interest in -- but there’s different viewpoints,” Marcelino said.

Manitoba’s minimum wage is currently adjusted in line with inflation. The provincial advisory committee on labour-management relations is not currently looking at any changes to the formula, Marcelino said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2025.

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press