‘Critical’ for woman to lead Tories, province: party strategist 'Machinery' in place for convention; new premier-designate could be in place by Christmas By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021 Last Modified: 8:53 PM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021 Updates

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Brian Pallister’s resignation has raised hopes that a woman will make Manitoba history by becoming premier before the end of the year.

Several current and former high-ranking politicians are being considered to take over the helm of the battered Progressive Conservative party.

Veteran PC strategist Barbara Biggar says the party has the “machinery” ready to conduct a leadership race, along with several possible candidates. She’s optimistic the winner — who becomes premier-designate — will be a woman.

“One-hundred per cent,” Biggar said Wednesday, declining to speculate on who it will be.

“Before Christmas, we very well could could have a new leader.”

Health Minister Heather Stefanson, Families Minister Rochelle Squires, Conservative MP Candice Bergen, former MP Shelly Glover and former mayoral candidate Jenny Motkaluk are some of the names provincial and federal party members have bandied about.

Glover, a former Winnipeg police officer and St. Boniface MP from 2008 to 2015 who trained as a health-care aide during the pandemic to volunteer at understaffed personal-care homes, is considering it.

“I love Manitoba and would do anything to help make my community better, so I can’t completely rule it out,” Glover told the Free Press.

“I am surprised to have received so many messages, calls and emails from Manitobans who are encouraging me to run, so I am doing some soul searching right now.”

Glover has publicly criticized the Pallister government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis and its departure from legislative norms, including tabling 19 bills without providing the text or any details.

Whether or not she runs for leader, Glover said she wants a seniors advocate for Manitoba to ensure they get the resources and care that the pandemic revealed was lacking in many long-term care facilities.

She said the party needs to apologize for the comments made by members regarding colonialism and residential schools, and commit to finding unmarked graves of schoolchildren who never returned home. Glover also wants the province to put a halt to Bill 64 and conduct “proper consultation” with teachers and local governments.

Biggar, who describes herself as a “Red Tory,” said Manitoba needs a woman leading it right now.

“I think it’s critical that the leader is a woman. I’ve been advocating for female leadership in our party for at least three decades,” she said.

The first Manitoba Tory to publicly announce interest in the leadership, however, is a man.

“I’m very seriously considering it,” Finance Minister Scott Fielding said Wednesday afternoon, a day after his boss announced he’s stepping aside.

The MLA for Kirkfield Park said he will be consulting with his family and friends and make a decision in the coming days.

“I stand a good chance beating (NDP Leader) Wab Kinew in the next election,” Fielding said, citing his experience in city and provincial politics, and being able to garner votes in areas that haven’t been “overwhelmingly conservative.”

The “hockey dad” with a “common-sense approach” and experience as finance minister said he’s equipped to steer Manitoba through an economic recovery.

“I think I bring a lot of strength with that,” he said.

The next party leader needs to be able to reconnect with Winnipeg as well as First Nations, Indigenous and Métis communities, said RM of Morris reeve and former Association of Manitoba Municipalities president Ralph Groening.

“A good candidate is more important than whatever their sex,” said Groening.

“The new leader must be conciliatory,” said the reeve, who has been a card-carrying member of the three main provincial parties.

“The ability to build bridges is really essential, and so is an understanding of contemporary social challenges. Social justice has to be part of the next leader’s understanding, and it has to be part of his or her priority and to know how to respond and how to be sensitive to that. Because that matters to many people. It matters to almost all younger people, so that’s a big challenge.”

The NDP, who are well ahead of the Tories in the polls — especially among women in Winnipeg — historically win elections when they have a majority of women voters on their side, according to political analysts.

That’s helping to create a lot of the buzz around the prospect of a woman leading the Tories.

“‘We need for the next leader of the party to be a woman from Winnipeg’ — that’s a direct quote I heard from a number of people,” said Groening, adding he heard folks in his municipality wondering if area MP Bergen would take a run at provincial leadership.

A spokesperson for Bergen said she was acclaimed as the Conservative candidate for Portage-Lisgar in January and will be running in the upcoming federal election.

Former Indigenous relations and northern affairs minister Eileen Clarke said on social media Wednesday that she won’t seek the leadership, nor will former leadership hopeful Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler, who tweeted that he’s not interested this time around.

While Biggar thinks “the time is right” for a fresh perspective and approach with a female leader, “at the end of the day, our party members will decide, with one member, one vote. That’s the beauty of this democratic process,” she said.

Whoever wins, the leader will have to distance themselves from Pallister’s record, according to the Winnipeg polling firm that has tracked the party’s plummeting popularity.

“Even with a new leader the Tories have a pretty big hole to climb out of,” said Mary Agnes Welch, a principal at Probe Research.

Biggar said the sooner the party chooses a new leader and premier, the better its chances are of winning the 2023 election.

“I think it’s really important that we act quickly, that we act decisively and that we get on with the job of moving positively forward… to give the party time, and whoever becomes the next leader and premier the opportunity to get to know Manitobans to establish themselves across the province.”

— With files from Dylan Robertson, Canadian Press

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca