I didn’t intend to write any more about the Tuxedo by-election. Enough already.
Last week in this space I told readers that if I were a Tuxedo resident, I would vote NDP. Those words always spring from my conscience. And for someone who has spent most of the past 40 years in Manitoba, my conscience came as a surprise.
Since last October, I have been mentally munching on the cob of corn that many relatively reliable PC voters eat.
Matt Dunham/Associated Press file
A statue of Winston Churchill is silhouetted against the Houses of Parliament and early morning sky in London.
We wanted to confine the PCs to the penalty box for now and were prepared to vote for the party led by Canada's most popular provincial premier, Wab Kinew.
So this week I thought I'd turn the page and write about something completely different.
However, something happened on the night of the by-election that surprised me and forced me to change my mind.
The PC candidate, who lost by more than 600 votes, likened himself to the lion of democracy who, more than anyone else, saved civilisation from fascism in the 1940s.
If British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had not been able to persuade the United States to join the coalition in defeating Hitler, Nazism might have become the most dominant force in world politics for generations.
“We're not going to let you down,” PC candidate Lawrence Pinsky told a group of disappointed supporters in a tuxedo as he conceded victory to the NDP on June 18.
“What do Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Lawrence Pinsky have in common? We all lost first.”
I have no interest in attacking losers or hurling one-liners at defeated candidates for comparing themselves to Conservative superstars.
It would be better to focus on one of the conservatives mentioned by the candidates, who might provide a much-needed message to a demoralized PC party.
Winston Churchill meant many things to many people. Many of you reading this article are of South Asian, Middle Eastern or African descent and may find a columnist praising him offensive.
Certainly, to many in the Global South living under the hegemony of the British Empire, Churchill's language was racially offensive. I am not here to excuse or justify Churchill's role as a loyal subject and staunch supporter of British colonialism. But I am here to tell you that Churchill was a prince of tenacity.
Failure was not a part of his vocabulary.
With the rudderless Conservatives losing one of Winnipeg's safest seats, it's tempting to forget 2016, when just eight years ago the Conservatives swept away four New Democratic Party terms.
The landslide victory gave Brian Pallister's Progressive Conservatives 40 of 57 seats, their highest number in recent history. Three years later, the party lost four provincial MPs but still maintained an overwhelming majority with 36. Four years later, however, Pallister's successor, Heather Stephenson, became the face of the Progressive Conservatives' most disastrous election campaign in their history.
It's one thing to lose, but quite another to embarrass your party, your supporters, your core voters and the general public.
The election was so bad that thousands of PC supporters who had never voted for the NDP before voted for the NDP instead. The NDP returned to power, giving the PCs 22 seats. A Tuxedo by-election four days ago reduced their number to 21. The NDP has 35 seats.
The most hellish statistic for the PCs is the number of seats in Greater Winnipeg, home to two-thirds of Manitobans, where the Winnipeg PC caucus has just two members.
It's hell on earth for the Conservative Party today, with many of its members feeling irrelevant.
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At this point, no one knows when the party will be competitive again, but one thing is clear.
If they don't build their brand in Winnipeg, they'll never be able to govern again. Winston Churchill would tell the Manitoba PC Party to hang on, despite having no clear identity, message or vision and barely any seats in Winnipeg.
Churchill told the Tories to “never surrender”.
This column is dedicated to the memory of my former radio colleague and friend, Larry Updike, who passed away two days ago from cancer. He was 69 years old.
Charles Adler is a longtime political commentator and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com
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