NDP youth back Ashton

The MYND delegate selection process (which, unlike the constituency meetings, used a proportional system) has narrowed the gap between the contestants:

Young members of Manitoba's New Democratic Party have voted decisively in support of Steve Ashton — and his unabashed commitment to freeze tuition fees — to be the province's next premier and party leader.

More than 300 enthusiastic Manitoba Young New Democrats members packed a basement hall and cast ballots at the University of Winnipeg in the city's downtown on Tuesday evening.

Ashton won 67 delegates to rival Greg Selinger's 40, with a single delegate going to former leadership candidate Andrew Swan.

Swan dropped out from the leadership race on Sept. 28 and is supporting Selinger's bid to become premier.

The vote for Swan was mailed in from rural Manitoba weeks before Tuesday night's meeting.

Selinger still leads the overall race by 117 delegates.

From the CBC. The margin here does not include those backing Swan (most of whom will likely switch to Selinger). Endless Spin Cycle has a complete tally of the constituency delegates; now we have to wait to see who organized labour supports, as this will now likely decide the outcome.

Ashton wins The Maples and Fort Whyte

Steve Ashton took two big constituencies over the weekend. After winning most of the 138 delegates in The Maples on Saturday, he also got all 43 Fort Whyte delegates on Sunday. On the other hand, Selinger took 43 delegates in several rural ridings, so he remains ahead by a significant margin. Ashton is also playing up the Hydro strike, marching with picketers today in front of the Manitoba Hydro building downtown, and reiterating his support for anti-scab legislation. No doubt he hopes to pick up enough labour support from this to put him over the top.

For some reason the timing of the Hydro strike has raised paranoid alarm bells in my mind, making me think of the electrical workers' strike in A Very British Coup which is orchestrated by the enemies of the government. But maybe I should take off my tinfoil hat and take a breath...

Selinger scores big in Inkster

One of the largest constituencies, by delegate count, went largely to Greg Selinger last night. This gives him a fairly comfortable lead, but as Never Eat Yellow Snow points out, the contest is not over yet. With approximately 50% of the delegates chosen (from constituencies and otherwise), this leaves Selinger with 65% of declared constituency delegates, and Ashton with 35%. Yellow Snow has calculated that Ashton could still have a chance of winning. To do so, however, he must sweep Interlake, The Maples, and Fort Whyte, as well as picking up a substantial amount of the labour and MYND support, and a few more constituencies.

Perhaps the biggest story, though, is this:

Premier Gary Doer's pending address change hasn't made a dent in the NDP's popularity with Manitoba voters, a new Probe Research/Free Press survey says.

The ruling New Democrats remain the most popular political party in the province with 45 per cent of Manitobans saying they would vote for the NDP in the next election.

For the NDP -- which chooses its new leader Oct. 17 -- this means their commanding lead hasn't changed since Probe's last poll conducted in June.

"We always talk about the equity that Doer brings to the party and to the electorate," Probe Research president Scott MacKay said. "Does his departure leave this big hole and this hollowness? There was nothing.

"What does this mean? He leaves and the air doesn't go out of the tire. It just stays where it is."

This is extremely good news for the NDP, of course. I suspect that Hugh McFadyen will soon be under pressure to step down if this pattern holds.

Selinger is the most popular candidate with the public

A poll conducted for the Free Press by Probe Research suggests that Selinger is the most popular candidate among the general public. The poll was conducted prior to Swan's concession, and concluded that Selinger was the favoured candidate for 27% of Manitobans, compared with 12% for Ashton, 9% for Swan, and 3% for poor John Boehm (remember him?) That leaves a lot of respondents unaccounted for, of course. On the article there's a comment by "wolfrom" saying this means Selinger comes second to "none of the above", but this is unfair; looking at the details on Probe's own site (hat tip to Endless Spin Cycle for the link) we see that only 8% said "none of these", with the remaining 41% simply saying "don't know" or refusing to answer. Big difference.

Nonetheless, it remains the case that the general public is not selecting a leader; the NDP membership is (via delegates, of course). It does, however, mean that Selinger, if he wins, has a good chance of winning the public owner, contrary to some fears. Looking further at the results from the Probe site, Selinger is the favoured candidate among supporters of all the major parties; interestingly, Swan and Ashton do slightly better among Liberal and Tory supporters than among the general population. Furthermore, Selinger came out on top in every demographic category examined in the poll (broken down by sex, age, income, and education).

Of course, the $64,000 question is how this will sway people in the remaining delegate selection meetings (and in uncommitted delegates). It can't hurt Selinger's chances, at least.

More on the suddenly narrowed leadership contest

Today's Free Press has an updated tally, albeit not by riding; this assigns 353 delegates to Ashton, 319 to Selinger, and 105 unaffiliated (including those originally pledged to Swan). I still stand by my prediction that nearly all the Swan supporters will jump to Selinger.

There is also a rather critical column by Dan Lett on Swan's decision to step down. Now I agree that it makes for a less interesting race, but it's a bit harsh to criticize Swan for his choice. I think this comment to the column sums it up admirably:

I think that Andrew Swan should be applauded for his realistic assessment of his situation. It is unlikely he could ever have come up the middle. It is one leadership convention too soon for him. In the process, he has likely curried some serious favour with Mr. Selinger, which isn't a bad thing.

I also doubt that this harms Swan's future prospects as much as Lett thinks it does -- I hardly think he has "closed the book on future leadership bids". We haven't seen the last of Andrew Swan by any means.

Swan out of race

It's over for Andrew Swan. Until the results from The Pas came in yesterday, Swan had reason to fight on, since if Frank Whitehead had managed to bring his supporters with him, that would have been some 120 delegates, which would have brought him within striking distance of Ashton. It would still have been an uphill battle, but he might have been able to at least hope to overtake Ashton and see what happened on the second ballot. That hope has now evaporated, and Swan has, quite sensibly, decided to wait till next time. And I don't think we've seen the last of Andrew Swan by any means; as a (relatively) young MLA in a secure constituency, he potentially has a long political career ahead of him.

So what does this do to the race? Well, in one sense his resignation obviously helps Selinger... but he wouldn't have quit if he'd won The Pas, and Ashton winning The Pas helps him considerably. According to this article, the count prior to the meeting in The Pas was 319 for Selinger, 224 for Ashton, 70 for Swan, and 33 undeclared. I don't have the exact numbers from The Pas yet, but I think it was pretty much a sweep for Ashton, so assuming he gets all 120, and all the Swan delegates go to Selinger, this puts it at 389 for Selinger and 344 for Ashton. Given that there are a couple of huge ridings yet to come, as well as a significant number of delegates selected by the labour movement, it would be foolish to count Ashton out at this point.

Super Thursday preliminary results

Andrew Swan is now on the board in a significant way, having reportedly taken all 23 delegates from Seine River, all 19 from St. Vital, and 21 of the 23 from Southdale (the other two in that constituency went to Greg Selinger). Meanwhile, Selinger has swept St. John's (20 delegates), Carman (20), Morris (5), St. James (12), and Lakeside (15). Ashton has won River East (19 delegates), Rossmere (41), and Springfield (8 out of 10 delegates, with the other two going to Selinger). Most interesting, though, is Concordia, for which 25 out of 30 delegates came from a slate described in the Free Press as a "non-aligned" slate. The remainder of Concordia's delegates support Ashton, which allows a reasonable guess as to who the other 25 won't support...

So the margin has narrowed somewhat, but I'd still put money on Selinger winning this contest on the 17th of October.

The race goes on...

Yesterday Ashton picked up all 31 delegates in Radisson and at least 9 in Transcona. Selinger got 4 from Transcona, while 5 delegates inexplicably appeared on both Selinger's and Ashton's slates. Go figure. Kildonan reportedly went mostly to Selinger as well, though Swan picked up a couple. Unfortunately I don't have detailed numbers on these yet.

Super Thursday results are still pending, but in the meantime some interesting policy announcements came out. The boldest so far has been the fact that Ashton would consider bringing in anti-scab legislation. Interesting idea, and something the Manitoba NDP has taken heat for not introducing; I wonder if he can follow through, though. Ashton also announced yesterday that if he wins he'll move forward with extending bus rapid transit through Elmwood and Transcona. I've got to hand it to him, he's making some good policy proposals. Selinger, meanwhile, has promised extra tax credits for small business and improved training and job opportunities for the aboriginal community and the north, while Swan has announced policies on crime and public-private partnerships.

And the race continues:

Never Eat Yellow Snow has posted the tally of delegates so far, including elected officials (who are automatically delegates apparently). I won't repost all the details (go there if you're interested) but the totals are: Selinger 73, Ashton 18, and Swan 12 (of them, Swan is the only one who hasn't received any delegates at the meetings). He also predicts that Selinger will take both ridings being run tonight. I agree that Selinger will take Fort Rouge easily, but I'm less sure about River Heights; ridings not held by the NDP are often ripe for massive membership campaigns, so Ashton could well grab that riding like he did Tuxedo. We'll have to see.

Edited to add: I should have known better than to second-guess NEYS (who has been right about pretty much everything except Frank Whitehead's endorsement). River Heights, like Fort Rouge, was a sweep for Selinger (24 delegates in Fort Rouge, 21 in River Heights).

Selinger takes early lead

Today's Winnipeg Free Press notes that Greg Selinger is in the lead:

After a painfully chaotic evening of voting, former finance minister Greg Selinger appears to have a very early lead in the race to be premier.

Selinger, who is battling two other candidates for the NDP leadership, won at least 29 out of the 42 delegates up for grabs from three ridings Sunday evening. Steve Ashton won most, if not all, of the rest.

Furthermore, as noted in the story, Selinger has received the endorsement of CUPE president Paul Moist. Swan's got some catching up to do...

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.

Rebates for students, and other leadership campaign news

Greg Selinger advocates making tax rebates for students available when they're still students:

NDP leadership candidate Greg Selinger vowed Wednesday to help lighten the financial burden for post-secondary students by fast-tracking income tax refunds on school tuition.

Selinger said, if elected party leader, he would let students collect rebates on tuition fees while they were still attending classes. Now, those rebates are paid after graduation to students who remain in the province.

He told reporters Wednesday the revisions would give students intending to live and work in Manitoba more money in their pockets when they need it most.

"The bottom line is you get it (the refund) when you need it," he told reporters Wednesday, using the student cafeteria at College universitaire de Saint Boniface as a backdrop.

Sid Rashid, president of the University of Manitoba Students' Union, welcomed the announcement.

"It's effectively turning a back-end tax credit into a front-end grant," he said of the Selinger proposal.

From the Winnipeg Free Press. Meanwhile, Steve Ashton takes a different approach, namely restoring the tuition freeze.

Andrew Swan has picked up a big endorsement from Local 832 of the United Food and Commercial Workers. While some union leaders have made endorsements as individuals (notably United Firefighters of Winnipeg leader Alex Forrest, who's backing Ashton, and MFL president Darlene Dziewit, who backs Swan) I believe this is the first big union to endorse a candidate as an organization.

The endorsements accumulate...

Just a brief update here as it's a busy week for me. Ovide Mercredi, the chief of Misipawistik Cree Nation (and former AFN national chief) has thrown his lot in with Selinger, while Family Services and Housing minister Gord Mackintosh has endorsed Swan (source for both facts). Interestingly, Never Eat Yellow Snow was right in predicting Mackintosh's choice, the second correct choice in as many days (source). Good prognostication!

Meanwhile, Steve Ashton says he'll bring back the tuition freeze if he wins.

A bold pronouncement from the Ashton team

They say they have the numbers to win on the first ballot:

Meanwhile, Steve Ashton's campaign officials announced today that they have signed up or renewed 1,100 party memberships over the past several days and suggested the Thompson MLA is in the lead in attracting delegate support.

Further, they said Ashton could narrowly win the leadership on the first ballot.

Before the leadership race began, the provincial NDP had about 5,500 members, according to party officials. As of Sunday, the party had about 7,500 members.

Ashton campaign chairman Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, who turned over 250 new memberships at NDP headquarters on Portage Avenue this afternoon, said Ashton is selling memberships across the province, with most in the city of Winnipeg.

From the Winnipeg Free Press. Recruiting those new members is no small achievement; those 1100 memberships are worth 110 delegates at the convention under the formula used by the party. Of course, that's 110 out of 750, so it's far from a foregone conclusion. Actually it's more than 750, due to the fact that riding associations and labour are granted a certain number of automatic delegates (who some are calling "superdelegates", following the American example). And in any case, the other candidates have until Thursday to catch up, after which new members are not eligible to be delegates (or to elect them).

I have no idea if Ashton can win on the first ballot. I do suspect that if he can't do it on the first ballot, he won't do it at all; supporters of Selinger and Swan probably have more in common with each other than with supporters of Ashton, and will vote accordingly if their chosen candidate is dropped. I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so.

Meanwhile, from the same article, Swan has taken a clear stance against the HST for the balance of this government's term, though he doesn't explicitly reject the idea of bringing it in afterwards if reelected. Not really that different, in that Selinger, as we've seen, has said that it doesn't seem like a good idea at this time, but isn't prepared to say never either.

And last, but not least, Selinger has picked up another endorsement, this one from Water Stewardship Minister Christine Melnick (same article yet again). Credit is due to Never Eat Yellow Snow for predicting this last week. I notice as well that while his domain name still directs to the caucus bio, Selinger now has a YouTube channel.

More leadership coverage

The Winnipeg Free Press has published a fairly detailed summary of the candidates (except for the hapless John Boehm). Each of them is asked for a "Twitter-length bio", what they bring to the race, their positions on some key issues (building the economy, health care, and social and economic justice), and their ability to win the next election. Looking at the discussion of the issues, we find the following:

Building the economy: Swan and Selinger both emphasize green technology as a way of creating jobs. In particular, Selinger mentions investment in wind power, hydro, and geothermal energy, while Swan speculates that Manitoba, being blessed with large amounts of water as well as electricity, could be well placed to become a major player in hydrogen production. Selinger also emphasizes investment in research and development, while Swan advocates using the recommendations of Manitoba's Innovation Council (which he was involved in creating). Ashton's approach to these matters is focused on infrastructure investments (he cites building roads to remote communities as an example) and that he would "use the province's tremendous ethnic diversity to leverage foreign investment in Manitoba and increase the number of trade missions abroad". Both he and Selinger discuss education in this context as well; Ashton simply states the need for more emphasis on post-secondary education, while Selinger is a bit more specific, citing the need to improve high school graduation rates and increase co-op programs in the post-secondary system.

Health care: All three emphasize the importance of prevention, notably by promotion of better lifestyles through Manitoba's unique Department of Healthy Living. Ashton states that he would increase that department's budget and profile. Selinger also advocates strengthening that department; he also wishes to increase volunteerism on the grounds that people who volunteer tend to have better lifestyles. He suggests that a tax credit for volunteerism might be helpful in this regard. Swan mentions chronic disease as "the biggest enemy we have".

Social and economic justice: All three place considerable emphasis on housing. Swan says that he would create a stand-alone Department of Housing, with responsibility for co-operative housing (which currently is handled with other co-ops under MAFRI). Selinger wants to continue existing investments in affordable housing, while Ashton also wishes to "work with the private sector to increase the number of rental units", perhaps through tax incentives. Selinger also cites his record as co-chair of the All Aboard poverty reduction strategy which was launched earlier this year, which invests in housing as well as employment, mental health services, and other poverty reduction initiatives.

Of the candidates, all three high profile guys have domain names registered, but gregselinger.ca currently redirects to Selinger's caucus bio. Presumably that will change in the next few days. Swan and Ashton both have working sites up (Swan's appears to have been completely redesigned, while Ashton's has plenty of content from before the leadership race began). John Boehm appears not to have a domain registered yet.

Dan Lett seems to think Swan is ahead at this stage due to the support of some labour leaders. Whether this is the case is a bit less clear to me, but the article is worth a read regardless.

Rumours of another candidate?

So it seems the Wheat City Journal is throwing Drew Caldwell's name out there:

A career politician who served on Brandon city council from 1992 to 1999 and then MLA for Brandon East from 1999 to present day, Caldwell told The Journal shortly after Doer’s resignation that he hadn’t ruled out a bid for the leadership. He said a number of people — “mostly from outside Brandon” — had called to urge him to run.

Caldwell could not be reached for comment Tuesday to get an update on his potential leadership status.

All very well, but Curtis from Endless Spin Cycle was able to reach Caldwell for comment before that story ran, and he seemed to throw cold water on the idea:

"I'm not neutral at all- I am a commited and active NDP supporter! ... I am also generally of the view that one should actually listen to what the candidates have to say, assess their platforms, and then reflect thoughtfully on the quality of their positions before making a decision."

Now, after this "story" broke, he says that his "role in this campaign is exactly as we have discussed." In other words, bringing the leadership campaign to the Brandon area as much as possible, but not engaged in it as a contestant.

Curtis interprets this as a definitive no; I don't know if I'd go that far, but it doesn't seem likely that he will run at this stage.

Oops, missed one...

In this story it's mentioned that John Boehm is running as well:

Meanwhile, Portage la Prairie resident and NDP party member John Boehm told the Sun he also intends to take a stab at the leadership. Boehm, a former physical education teacher who runs his own gym, has never held political office, but did make an unsuccessful run to be named the federal NDP's candidate for Portage la Prairie during last fall's election.

Given that he failed to become the guy who failed to defeat David Faurschou, I think I can be forgiven for overlooking him...

Who backs whom...

So with three candidates now officially declared, we have a good idea who each candidate can count on for support based on who showed up at their campaign launches (with one exception, see below).

Greg Selinger seems to have the support of Ministers Kerri Irvin-Ross (Healthy Living), Diane McGifford (Advanced Education and Training), Eric Robinson (Culture, Heritage, and Tourism), and Roseanne Wowchuk (Agriculture, Food, and Rural Initiatives) as well as backbenchers Rob Altemeyer, Marilyn Brick, Greg Dewar, Jennifer Howard, Flor Marcelino, Doug Martindale, and Mohinder Saran (source).

Andrew Swan got the support of Ministers Nancy Allan (Labour), Theresa Oswald (Health), and Stan Struthers (Conservation), as well as backbenchers Sharon Blady and Erin Selby (source). MP Pat Martin is also apparently endorsing Swan.

Steve Ashton got the nod from Bidhu Jha, Tom Nevakshonoff, and Daryl Reid (source). He also seems to have received support from Chief Glen Hudson of Peguis and Chief George Kemp of Berens River. I have a funny feeling that MP Niki Ashton is going to be backing him as well...

Several other MLAs, including a couple of cabinet ministers, have yet to declare their allegiances. A special note must be made of St. James MLA Bonnie Korzeniowski, who reportedly showed up at all three campaign launches. According to this story she said that she "wished to show support for all her colleagues who are running for the leadership" and hasn't decided who to support. To be fair, as deputy speaker she may wish to remain neutral, at least publicly.

It's a three way race now

As expected, Greg Selinger is going to announce his candidacy tomorrow:

Manitoba Finance Minister Greg Selinger is expected to announce Tuesday he's joining the NDP leadership race, CBC News has learned.

A spokesman for Selinger said Monday that the finance minister will make the announcement at 12:30 p.m. CT at the Norwood Community Centre in Winnipeg.

It's expected several provincial NDP cabinet ministers will be at the announcement, the spokesman said.

Source. Anybody's guess who will win, though I think Ashton will have a harder time appealing to urban voters than the others. Swan and Selinger are both likeable and competent, and I think Ashton is too (at least, his handling of this spring's flooding impressed everyone). I'm inclined to think that Swan will be the centrist choice, while Selinger and Ashton will appeal slightly more to the left. Ashton seems to be popular with a lot of the old line labour movement (the Fire Fighters' Association, for instance, is backing him) while Selinger's involvement in inner city issues (he was one of the founders of C.E.D.A., for instance) will earn him support from a lot of urban activists. No question, it will be an interesting race.

And a second...

Looks like Steve Ashton is in:

The race for the leadership of the Manitoba NDP is heating up with a second candidate set to step up.

Steve Ashton, minister of intergovernmental affairs, told CBC News he intends to announce his candidacy officially on Friday.

Source. I suppose when he makes his official announcement we'll find out who's endorsing him...