Or maybe not...

A lot seems to have happened since yesterday's post. Andrew Swan's website now has this:

Reports in the Winnipeg Free Press today suggest that The Pas MLA Frank Whitehead and AMC Chief Ron Evans endorsed NDP leadership candidate Andrew Swan yesterday based in part on a promise to reopen the negotiations on the location of the Bipole lll transmission line. According to all three men, this suggestion is baseless.

“The only commitment made by Andrew was an agreement that he would meet with as many First Nations as possible, including all First Nations on the east-side of Lake Winnipeg, during his first year as Premier,” Whitehead said. “As I said at the announcement yesterday, the areas of concern for aboriginal people are economic development and education and training and Andrew underlined strongly that he shares those concerns and will work with us.”

“There was no quid pro quo for our endorsement as it pertains to Bipole III. We chose Andrew because we believe he is the best leader for today and tomorrow.” said Whitehead.”Any suggestion otherwise is incorrect.”

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Ron Evans stated categorically that at no time did he suggest to others that there was a deal on the table to re-visit the location of Bipole III.

“I want to be crystal clear on the Bipole lll issue because I know how important it is to Manitoba’s future, said Swan. “After extensive consultation with stakeholders, the decision on the location of Bipole lll was made. I believed the decision was the right one then, and I believe it is the right one today. I look forward to hearing all ideas about how we can create a better future in all regions of Manitoba, and I am willing to work with all communities to see that happen.”

All pretty benign actually; it seems he wants simply to see what the east side communities think of the process. Which makes me wonder why the Free Press would be so sloppy. Perhaps they want to revisit the issue; that would explain why they dug up this guy at the same time as yesterday's apparently misleading story. He's a fellow with Manitoba Hydro who thinks the west side route is badly misguided. Now I can't comment on the correctness of his argument, but surely he was around when the west side route first was discussed, and my guess is that the concerns he raises have been addressed already. But the paper needs to stir the pot... In any case, so far this morning neither the Free Press nor the Sun seems to have published Swan's clarification.

Swan revisits east-side hydro debate

Whoa... didn't see this coming:

A controversial plan to build a $2-billion hydro transmission line down the west side of the province might not be totally carved in stone thanks to political jockeying in the race to replace Premier Gary Doer.

NDP leadership hopeful Andrew Swan said Friday he would visit the 16 First Nations communities on the east side of the province in his first year as premier to hear what they think of the new power line -- a line many say if built down the east side of Lake Winnipeg will open up a largely forgotten part of the province.

From the Winnipeg Free Press. To be fair, Swan is far from committed to changing the existing plan; he acknowledges that most of the east side communities don't want the Bipole. And given that Newfoundland has backed down on their plans to put a power line through Gros Morne National Park owing to the effect this might have on its World Heritage Site status, I suspect that nothing will come of this. The main effect here is to bring the controversy back into the public sphere, and give Hugh McFadyen the opportunity to talk about it again.

Dan Lett discusses some of the issues involved here. First Nations communities are far from unanimous on the Bipole, and Evans and Whitehead seem to want the east side route to be reconsidered. Hmm.

A big coup for Swan

A couple of potentially significant endorsements for Andrew Swan came in today. One was from Ron Evans, Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. Potentially even bigger, though, is The Pas MLA (and former OCN chief) Frank Whitehead. As previously noted, the recent by-election campaign there led to a large number of members being signed up, which means that the riding is eligible for over a hundred delegates. The thing is, the way delegates are selected is by block voting, which works much the same way school trustees are elected in most places. So if the riding is eligible for, say, 20 delegates, as a voter you would mark up to twenty of the delegate candidates. Since the campaign for each candidate will likely field a slate, the likely result will be a winner-take-all situation, so that all 20 delegates will be supporters of the most popular candidate. It thus ends up being somewhat like the electoral college system for choosing the US president. So this could have a dramatic effect on the outcome of the convention, though not necessarily decisive.

On the other hand, it's far from clear whether they will be able to find as many delegates as they're eligible for, and it's possible that depending on who actually shows up at their delegate selection meeting (you're not likely to get a thousand people to come to the meeting), the members who actually attend might favour one of the other candidates. So while the effect will be significant, it's less clear who this will favour, though the odds probably favour Swan taking that riding.

In future leadership races I'd like to see this changed, perhaps by using the single transferable vote method to elect delegates. That way there'd be more proportionate results. I wonder if there will be any appetite for this at the next provincial convention?

Incidentally, this seems to be the first wrong prediction that Don't Eat Yellow Snow has made so far; here he had picked Whitehead to back Selinger.

Selinger did pick up a couple of notable supporters today as well; according to this article Fort Rouge/East Fort Garry city councillor Jenny Gerbasi and former provincial cabinet minister Muriel Smith have endorsed him.

Edit: Endless Spin Cycle has crunched the numbers, concluding that there will be around 1400 delegates in total at the convention, including the "superdelegates", giving a magic number of 700. So it's unlikely that anyone will win this on the first ballot in any case.