Candidates taking precautions for ‘unnecessary’ vote

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This article was published 15/08/2021 (1131 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitobans running in the federal election are facing an additional adversary this time around. COVID-19 with its fierce Delta variant is the invisible foe, lurking in search of weakness and ready to strike.

“It’s quiet in Manitoba right now, but there’s no question we’re entering a fourth wave nationally,” said Winnipeg critical care specialist Dr. Anand Kumar.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Gov. Gen. Mary Simon to dissolve Parliament, triggering a Sept. 20 election.

“Sept. 20 could be right in the middle of fourth wave — if not in Manitoba, then in other places,” said Kumar, whose earlier predictions about the second and third waves in Manitoba have been fairly accurate.

Manitoba has recorded low numbers of COVID-19 cases in recent days, with a Winnipeg test positivity rate of just 1.9 per cent on Friday. That’s expected to change over the next five weeks, Kumar warned.

“I suspect we’ll see a gradual increase now through Labour Day until people are back in school. Then we’re likely to see a rapid increase,” said the University of Manitoba professor of critical care medicine and infectious diseases.

“It will be significantly noticeable by late September or early October.” When the fourth wave crests, it won’t be as big as the spring’s third wave thanks to so many more Manitobans being vaccinated, said Kumar who offered advice to candidates on the COVID-19 campaign trail.

“Less contact is better — no contact is better, still,” he said.

“If we’re going to be heading into an election and going door to door, at a minimum both parties should be masked.”

On Day 1 of the election, you won’t find Winnipeg Centre NDP incumbent Leah Gazan pounding the pavement — she will be hitting the phones.

“It’s not as exciting,” Gazan says, but with a deadly virus circulating, the fully-vaccinated candidate doesn’t want to risk spreading the virus.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the Liberal government has decided to call an unnecessary snap election in the middle of a pandemic with the risk of a fourth wave we’re seeing in other parts of the country,” she said Friday. “People have lost jobs. People are becoming unsheltered for the first time. People are tired. People are grieving,” said the MP for the inner-city riding with one of the lowest average incomes in the country.

“I think it was a poor decision by the federal government.”

That may be the one thing that her Conservative counterpart in affluent Charleswood-St.James-Assiniboia-Headingley agrees with Gazan on.

“This is a completely unnecessary and unwarranted election that nobody wants,” Marty Morantz said Friday, taking a break from canvassing.

“The last election was less than two years ago,” Morantz said. “It’s been a very stable, minority government and we supported the government on their emergency legislation. They got their budget passed,” the Conservative incumbent said. “There’s really no need for this, especially with everything that everyone has been through the last year. This is, I think, just too much to ask Canadians — to put them through another federal election at this point in time.”

Gazan said she called Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, for guidance on how to safely reach out to the community, and follows that guidance “very strictly” when she meets with folks and canvasses door-to-door in her riding.

“I have already started visiting folks in Winnipeg Centre. The reception has been really positive. I love the community and I’m going to do my part to make sure that we can be safe,” she said.

“I will be wearing a mask. I will be stepping back up from the door, even though I’m double vaccinated. I want to make sure that I can do this as safely as possible.”

In the Conservative stronghold of Provencher, 10-year-old Matthew Kirczenow was cleaning off his dad’s 2019 campaign lawn signs with eager anticipation Thursday.

The sooner the election begins the better, said Liberal candidate Trevor Kirczenow. Having Canadians going to the polls on Sept. 20 — before the first official day of fall with colder weather and people heading indoors — is safer in a pandemic than waiting until winter, said Kirczenow.

“The campaign will happen during the summer when we can do things outdoors quite a bit,” said the candidate who first ran in 2019 against Provencher Conservative incumbent Ted Falk. Of the 14 Manitoba MPs, Falk is the only one who won’t say if he’s been vaccinated for COVID-19. Provencher includes Hanover health district which a vaccine uptake rate of 45 per cent, among the lowest in the province. As of Friday, just over 80 per cent of Manitobans had had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Kirczenow said he’s especially attuned to health and safety since his son Matthew was diagnosed with Type One diabetes right before the last federal election campaign.

“COVID safety is incredibly important,” said Kirczenow who plans to do a lot of canvassing by phone, mailouts and virtual meetings. “I want to make sure my volunteers are safe first and foremost,” he said. Any in-person campaign events will be held in small groups outdoors, and any door-to-door canvassing will involve masks and social distancing, said Kirczenow.

“I think we’ll have to see how people feel about it,” he said. “It’s going to be OK to drop literature off at the door.”

Winnipeg South Liberal MP Terry Duguid said last Thursday that he’d already begun door knocking. “Many of all political stripes are knocking on doors,” he said at a funding announcement in Waverley West.

“I wear my mask. I step away from the door,” said Duguid. “We’re at a pretty good point in Manitoba. We have the highest vaccination rates in Canada. The federal government and province have been working very, very closely together to support the economy and public health measures.”

The last general federal election took place Oct. 21, 2019, which resulted in a Liberal minority government. The Liberals have been in government since 2015.

The Liberals currently have 155 seats in the 338-seat House of Commons, while the Conservatives have 119.

The Bloc Québécois have 32, the NDP 24 and the Greens have two. There are also five Independents and one seat is vacant.

In Manitoba, the Conservatives have seven seats, the Liberals have four and the NDP have three.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca