In a blue-orange election rematch, CPC hopes to steal Winnipeg seat while NDP touts strategic vote
Elmwood-Transcona features rematch between NDP and Conservative byelection combatants
Like many blue-collar workers in the eastern Winnipeg riding of Elmwood-Transcona, Don Gale grew up in an NDP family.
Gale is two months away from retirement after decades of employment as an electrician with Manitoba Hydro. He now votes Conservative because he believes party leader Pierre Poilievre cares more about workers than NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.
"In Transcona, a lot of people don't really look beyond the NDP because it was just built into them that they had to vote NDP. It was in their families as DNA. People need to think for themselves and what's best," said Gale, sitting in his living room in Canterbury Park, Winnipeg's easternmost neighbourhood.
Gale intends to vote for Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds on April 28 in Elmwood-Transcona, the only riding in Manitoba — and the best example in Canada — where the two most competitive parties have been the Conservatives and NDP.
"I'm a journeyman electrician, so we have that in common," Gale said of Reynolds. "I think he's just a common blue-collar, hard-working man that wants to do what's best for Transcona. I think we need to get somebody in there that that has a conservative background."
Reynolds is in a rematch in this federal election with the NDP's Leila Dance, who won a September 2024 byelection in Elmwood-Transcona by 1,182 votes.
In that byelection, held to replace departed NDP MP Daniel Blaikie, the Liberal candidate received less than five per cent of the vote.
Now, polls suggest popular support for the NDP has dipped below 10 per cent, while Liberal support has skyrocketed.
NDP calls for strategic vote
At the doorstep, Dance is courting Liberal supporters with the message that only she can prevent the Conservative Party from winning back a seat it has not held since 2011, when Stephen Harper led the right-of-centre party to a majority.
"When we're thinking about keeping the Poilievre Conservatives out, we need to vote strategically here, specifically in Elmwood-Transcona," Dance, a former business association director, said last week in a Transcona cafe.
"The Liberals aren't going to win here. They've come in third place, historically," she said in a plea to Liberal voters to engage in strategic voting, a practice that often does not benefit her party in other ridings.
"Most of them that are following really closely know that this is a strategic vote and the implications of it if we don't vote strategically here in a blue-orange riding."
The low Liberal support in the 2024 in Elmwood-Transcona suggests strategic voting is already a Liberal supporter practice in this riding. Now, however, unpopular former leader Justin Trudeau has resigned and some Liberals are invigorated by new leader Mark Carney.
A vote for riding, not leader
Mike Poitras is one of them. The Elmwood-Transcona resident said he likes what he sees from Carney — but intends to vote for Leila Dance to ensure the Conservatives don't win the seat.
"If I was in any other riding and Trudeau was still leader, I definitely would not vote. I think he's going to go down as probably one of the worst prime ministers in the history of Canada," said Poitras, who was wearing a blue "Canada is not for sale" hat popularized by Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
"With Pierre Poilievre, there's just too much Trump-like qualities that at this point I'm not willing to risk it. They say 'Canada first' but I'm not really sure about Pierre Poilievre, and I think there's a lot of hard right people in his party that I'm scared of, frankly."
Poitras added he knows the NDP "probably don't have a chance of winning" the election but said he is voting for Dance rather than Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre.
"I'm voting for the person in this riding as opposed to the leader of the party," he said.
The Conservative Party did not respond to CBC News requests for an interview with Reynolds.
Keith Poulson, who ran the Conservative campaign in Manitoba during the 2021 election, called Reynolds a hard-working campaigner who represents what Transcona is about.
"That's the kind of individual that Conservatives want and need and I think they're very lucky to have him in terms of what's what's happening with the NDP," said Poulson, sitting in a coffee shop.
The NDP, Poulson said, have found themselves lost due to leader Jagmeet Singh's supply-and-confidence arrangement with Trudeau, which has allowed the Liberals to claim every new policy piece from that deal, including dental care, as their own.
"What they've done is they've actually made themselves a rump party to the Liberal Party and and makes them less viable in this election," Poulson said of the NDP.
The NDP still have their own supporters in Elmwood-Transcona. Susan Mather, a retiree, said she remains loyal to the New Democrats even though she is tempted to support the Liberals in order to keep the Conservatives out.
"I was second-guessing myself for that same reason. But I still am going to give them a chance because I think back to [former NDP leader] Jack Layton and I love that man," Mather said.
The People's Party of Canada is running Colin Watson as a candidate in Elmwood-Transcona. Nominations for the election close on April 7.
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