Glover using anti-vax support as means to an end Tory leadership candidate playing dangerous game with deadly consequences in order to fuel political ambitions By: Tom Brodbeck Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Oct. 22, 2021

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/10/2021 (1229 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The anti-vaxxer crowd supporting Tory leadership candidate Shelly Glover could be in for a rude awaking if the former Conservative MP pulls off an upset victory next week and becomes the next premier of Manitoba.

If Glover does win (she’s not favoured to), she would almost certainly walk back controversial remarks about COVID-19 vaccine mandates, leaving her conspiracy theory supporters in the lurch.

The former Winnipeg Police Service patrol sergeant would have to. As premier, it would be unthinkable to keep pandering to the lunatic fringe and expect to win a general election in two years.

Glover hasn’t fallen completely down the anti-immunization rabbit hole (she’s fully vaccinated). But she has publicly opposed vaccine mandates for health-care workers and questioned proof-of-vaccine policies for public places, such as bars and restaurants.

As premier, it would be unthinkable to keep pandering to the lunatic fringe and expect to win a general election in two years.

That would likely change overnight if she defeats establishment candidate Heather Stefanson, the Tory MLA for Tuxedo. Glover would immediately set her sights on the 2023 general election and attempt to establish herself as a moderate premier who listens to science and follows evidence-based public-health orders. It would be her only path to victory.

The anti-vaxxers would be left out in the cold.

This isn’t Glover’s first rodeo. She’s a political brawler who took down Liberal incumbent MP Ray Simard in the 2008 federal election, ending a 20-year run for the Grits in Saint Boniface. She knows what it takes to win and she’s good at it.

Glover understands politics is a blood sport; if she thinks exploiting anti-vaxxers and COVID-19 deniers is the only way for her to get to the premier’s office (indeed it may be, since establishment Tories appear to be backing Stefanson), she’ll do it.

There is a price to pay for that. Glover is causing considerable damage with her anti-vaccine rhetoric. At a time when Manitoba needs people of influence to stand solidly behind the province’s immunization program (including the proof-of-vaccination policies that are saving lives, protecting hospital capacity and allowing people to resume near-normal living), Glover is throwing shade on it. She is not opposing all aspects of vaccine mandates, but she is undermining them just enough to trick the gullible into voting for her. Some of those fringe Tory voters had no links to the PC party prior to the leadership race; they took out party memberships to vote for an anti-vaccine, anti-public-health order agenda. Many were signed up by failed Tory leadership candidate and anti-vaxxer Ken Lee and are looking for a place to park their vote.

Glover is contributing to vaccine hesitancy and stoking fears about the vaccine. She is causing harm, even if it’s only among a minority of impressionable Manitobans. Instead of educating, she is manipulating, for her own personal gain.

The good news for Glover is few Manitobans are paying attention to this race. Glover and Stefanson have both deliberately stayed out of the limelight. They are targeting party members directly and getting the vote out.

That lack of public attention could help Glover in the long run; the less people know about her flirtations with fringe party members, the easier it will be over the next two years to prove herself as a moderate, progressive premier.

That lack of public attention could help Glover in the long run; the less people know about her flirtations with fringe party members, the easier it will be over the next two years to prove herself as a moderate, progressive premier.

If Glover does win the leadership race, the story would immediately turn to how she would govern without a seat in the legislative assembly (she would run in a byelection soon after) and how she would bring the Tory caucus onside after the entire group opposed her during the race. She would have to assemble a cabinet and hire senior political staff; MLAs would be jockeying for position around the new boss, all singing from the same hymn book about the need to come together for the good of Manitobans.

There would be no support for anti-vaxxers or talk of changing public-health orders (unless the science warranted it). The maskless, placard-wielding “freedom fighters” who delivered Glover a victory would be sidelined, their crusade utterly quashed.

Glover knows that. But they don’t.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019.

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