The leader of the People's Party of Canada was in Winnipeg on Saturday to promote their candidate in the upcoming federal byelection in Elmwood-Transcona.

About two dozen people gathered at Maple Leaf Park in the Transcona neighbourhood to show support for PPC candidate Sarah Couture.

There are five other candidates running in the Elmwood-Transcona byelection scheduled for Sept. 16: New Democrat Leila Dance, Green candidate Nicolas Geddert, Liberal Ian MacIntyre, Conservative Colin Reynolds and Zbig Strycharz of the Canadian Future Party.

Each candidate hopes to succeed former NDP member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie, who resigned his seat to move back to Winnipeg and work for Manitoba's provincial NDP government.

"That byelection is important for us because we are offering a different perspective, different ideas that the main establishment political parties won't speak about," PPC Leader Maxime Bernier told Radio-Canada on Saturday.

Couture, who has worked in IT, says she's been involved with the party on and off since its 2018 inception.

"With this byelection, we needed a candidate in this area, so I decided to give it a try," she said.

Were Couture to win the riding, it would be a significant victory for the PPC, which has no seats in the House of Commons.

The party got about six per cent of all votes in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in the 2021 federal election. The party's national result in that year's election saw it gather about five per cent of votes — a doubling of support when compared with the 2019 election.

It's a hopeful sign for Bernier.

"This party is growing. We are [here] for the long term," he said.

"We are promoting ideas that are based on individual freedom, personal responsibility, respect and fairness, and all of our policies are in line with these fundamental principles."

Bernier says his party offers a new alternative in Canada's political landscape. (Fernand Detillieux/Radio-Canada)

The byelection is a chance for the party to promote their stance on immigration, Couture said, claiming Conservative and Liberal policies have "opened the floodgates, in a sense."

She says the PPC wants to ensure "that we're bringing in the right people for the right jobs and the people that will adapt into Canadian culture."

Across Canada, the population rose by 1,271,872 between Jan. 1, 2023, and Jan. 1, 2024. Statistics Canada said 97.6 per cent of that population growth was the result of immigration, with 471,771 immigrants settling in the country last year and the number of temporary residents — most of whom are foreign workers — rising by 804,901.

Bernier says his party offers a new alternative in Canada's political landscape, as the PPC wants a moratorium on immigration amid housing and health-care crises across the country.

"We are not anti-immigration. We want to have fewer immigrants," he said.

Bernier also says his party opposes what he calls the "radical gender ideology," characterizing gender transition for kids as "mutilation."

Discussions of sex and gender have been a flashpoint lately between 2SLGBTQ+ advocates and some more conservative politicians.

Bernier says the party doesn't plan to change any of its policies in the future.

"We are not afraid to speak about things that are not that popular today, but we believe that the more we speak about our ideas, the more popular they will become."

The Canadian Future Party, a new federal party that describes itself as centrist and advocates more spending on defence, is running a candidate in the upcoming byelection in Winnipeg's Elmwood-Transcona riding.

Zbig Strycharz, a Canada Revenue Agency employee, has registered to run in the byelection to succeed former NDP member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie, who resigned his seat to move back to Winnipeg and work for Manitoba's provincial NDP government.

The Canadian Future Party, which was officially registered by Elections Canada earlier this month, describes itself as "not left, not right, but forward" on its website. It also prioritizes democracy in its policies, both domestic and international.

"Until the world is safe for democracy, it won't be safe for Canadians; our decisions must push for more trade with democracies and a clean break with dictators," the party states on its website.

Strycharz said he was attracted to the new party because it advocates for small government but is committed to maintaining a social safety net.

"Every year I voted, always voted for what felt like a best-worst choice. No party really represented me properly," Strycharz said Tuesday in an interview.

He said the Canadian Future Party can offer something different to the voters of Elmwood-Transcona, who have elected NDP candidates in all but one election since the eastern Winnipeg riding was formed.

Conservative Lawrence Toet represented Elmwood-Transcona from 2011 to 2015.

"Essentially, we've been voting for the same two parties, and the same two parties seem to have failed on providing results," Strycharz said.

There are five other candidates running in the Elmwood-Transcona byelection: Sarah Couture of the People's Party, New Democrat Leila Dance, Green candidate Nicolas Geddert, Liberal Ian MacIntyre and Conservative Colin Reynolds.

Nominations close on Aug. 26 and the ballot will be set two days later.

Advance voting takes place from Sept. 6 to Sept. 9. Election day is Sept. 16.

As the Canadian Future Party officially introduced its candidate for the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun byelection on Thursday — a day after the party's formal launch — questions lingered about voters' appetite for a new option on the ballot.

Mark Khoury will run for the party in the Montreal riding, while Zbig Strycharzy was added to the ballot Thursday for the Elmwood-Transcona byelection.

Neither of the candidates' biographies on the Canadian Future Party website mention them having run in any previous election or having any prior political affiliations.

And while interim party leader Dominic Cardy told reporters at the launch in Ottawa on Wednesday that "the polls" show Canadians want an alternative to the Liberals and Conservatives, some of Canada's pollsters tell CBC News it's too early to tell if there's a real desire for a new party.

"I'm not sure if we can really see that there's a lot of appetite for another party. Maybe for different leaders," said Éric Grenier, a poll aggregator with The Writ.

"You could say that there's the space for it, but I don't think there's a slam-dunk case that people are desperate for a new party somewhere in the centre."

In May, the Angus Reid Institute released a study that said the leaders of Canada's main three political parties today are less popular than any of their predecessors over the past 50 years.

Dominic Cardy, right, interim leader of the Canadian Future Party, and Tara McPhail, interim party president, speak at a news conference launching their new federal party at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

"It does speak to an enthusiasm gap, or a likeability gap, that may reflect the fact that some Canadians may be feeling politically orphaned," said institute president Shachi Kurl.

"But measuring the true size of that universe, and then understanding the extent to which those voters — however many of them there are — are wiling to get behind a political party led by a relative unknown, not a national household name, I think it's a very long road."

 

Canadian Future Party launches as an ‘alternative’ to the Liberals and Conservatives

The Canadian Future Party interim leader Dominic Cardy is pitching the party as ‘liberal on social questions and responsible when it comes to fiscal issues.’ Cardy tells Power & Politics the party is offering another option to Canadians looking for an alternative to Trudeau’s Liberals who are also ‘really concerned about Poilievre’s drift towards populist extremism.’

'The precedent isn't very good'

When asked to compare the Canadian Future Party to previous efforts to create new federal parties (not including new parties born of splits in older parties, such as the Reform Party), Grenier said Canadian Future benefits from having a sitting legislator in Cardy. That advantage should hold for at least a few more months, until New Brunswick holds its provincial election.

But like Kurl, Grenier questions how much traction the party will have without a high-profile federal name at the helm. The People's Party of Canada, Grenier said, benefited in its early days from the popularity of its leader Maxime Bernier, who recently had come close to winning the Conservative Party leadership.

People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, with his wife Catherine Letarte, speaks from a podium to supporters during the PPC headquarters election night event in Saskatoon on Sept. 20, 2021. (Liam Richards/The Canadian Press)

And in 2014, MP Jean-François Fortin left the Bloc Québecois to form Forces et Démocratie, a party which ran 17 candidates in the 2015 election. Fortin himself earned 11 per cent of the vote in the riding where he was the incumbent. The party's other candidates did poorly; apart from Fortin, the candidate who performed best barely managed two per cent of the vote.

The People's Party and Forces et Démocratie have never won a seat in the House of Commons.

"It is rare for a party to go from nothing to having seats. It usually takes a couple cycles, if it ever happens," Grenier said.

"If you're looking at all the parties that are across the country, provincially and federally, that have seats, virtually all of them are either the national brands — Liberal, Conservative, NDP — or they formed out of some merger or some sort of arrangement of the parties, like the Saskatchewan Party or the United Conservatives.

"It's not common that you have a little party that just makes an impact here. So the precedent isn't very good."

The Canadian Future Party does have some federal experience behind it.

Former NDP MP Denis Blanchette is on the party's national council. The party told CBC News it also has the support of Peter Kent, the environment minister under Stephen Harper, and former Manitoba MP David Bjornson.

Still, given the party's slim current prospects of earning a seat in the House of Commons, some who were once associated with the party's advocacy organization — Centre Ice Canadians — question whether the movement's goal of offering Canadians more centrist candidates could be better served elsewhere.

Initially called Centre Ice Conservatives, the group was formed in 2022 as a home for voters concerned about the direction of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Former B.C. premier Christy Clark was involved briefly with Centre Ice Canadians in its infancy, having been a keynote speaker at the group's debut conference in 2022.

Last year, she told the Globe and Mail the group would be better advised to position centrist candidates in existing parties to achieve its goals.

Former B.C. premier Christy Clark in Victoria on June 29, 2017. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

A year later, Clark still holds that view.

"The impact they're going to have as a political party is they're just going to take away votes from one party or another. The energy would be best directed ensuring both of the major parties have moderate, thoughtful candidates," Clark told CBC News.

"People don't really want a new political party. People want the political parties that we have to be different from what they appear to be. They want them to be focused on sensible issues — bigger paycheques, more jobs, [a] better standard of living — and [to] pay attention to health care and the environment."

And while Cardy said he hopes sitting MPs will join their cause, he told reporters Wednesday the key goal is to inject "ideas" into the federal arena.

"We hope people who are attracted by the values we're putting on the table right now, regardless of their history, will give us a look," he said.

"If they just take our ideas and not our party card, I'm fine with that too."

The Conservative candidate in an upcoming federal byelection in Winnipeg has received an endorsement from the international vice-president of a major union in his bid to unseat the NDP in the riding.

Russ Shewchuk with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Canada, a union representing more than 70,000 members in the country, has endorsed fellow IBEW member and Tory candidate Colin Reynolds.

In a statement on X, Shewchuk says he has known Reynolds for more than 20 years and the Conservative member understands the "dynamics of unions and working people."

The endorsement comes after more than a dozen labour leaders endorsed Leila Dance, the NDP candidate for the party's Winnipeg stronghold of Elmwood-Transcona.

Among those throwing their support behind Dance is the business manager of the electrical worker union IBEW Local 2085, Dave McPhail. Reynolds has said he's a proud member of that union.

The Elmwood-Transcona byelection to fill the seat previously held by New Democrat Daniel Blaikie will take place on Sept 16.

As next month's byelection in the federal Elmwood-Transcona riding nears, the only two parties who've ever won the northeast Winnipeg seat have plenty at stake.

The New Democrats are trying to hold on to a seat they've won in all but one election since its creation. The Conservatives are hoping to build on the momentum achieved by their surprise June byelection victory in the former Liberal stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul's.

An NDP-Conservative battle is the only safe assumption in a byelection where the Liberals, Greens, People's Party and upstart Canadian Future Party are also fielding candidates.

Other accepted truisms about the riding are not backed up by actual data. Let's look at three of them as the campaign intensifies:

Myth: Elmwood-Transcona is a bellwether riding

Elmwood-Transcona is the only federal seat in Manitoba where the two most competitive parties have been the New Democrats and Conservatives, with that dynamic so deeply entrenched it actually predates the creation of the Conservative Party of Canada.

You have go back to 1997, when the riding was known as Winnipeg-Transcona, to find a second-place finish by the Liberals. But even then, the combined support for two conservatives parties — Reform and the Progressive Conservatives — exceeded the Liberal vote in the riding.

But that does not make this a classic swing seat. In fact, the NDP has won all but one election in the history of both Winnipeg-Transcona and Elmwood-Transcona — held by Bill Blaikie until 2008 and Jim Maloway from 2008-11. Blaikie's son, Daniel, won the seat three times, starting in 2015.

The lone exception to the NDP's hold on the seat was in 2011, when Lawrence Toet snatched it for Stephen Harper's Conservatives, who won their sole majority that year.

Toet was a formidable campaigner who almost held on to the seat in the face of a Liberal resurgence in 2015. As a poll-by-poll map of electoral results in Elmwood-Transcona illustrates, that election was a three-way contest between the Conservatives, NDP and Liberals.

(CBC News)

Large swaths of the riding went Liberal red, thanks to the popularity of new leader Justin Trudeau. Both the Conservatives and NDP lost votes to the Liberals that year.

In the end, Daniel Blaikie squeaked past Toet by 61 votes and the Liberal candidate, Andrea Richardson-Lipon, finished a respectable third.

In a 2019 general election rematch between Blaikie and Toet, the Liberal vote all but disappeared. The poll-by-poll results show only orange and blue on the electoral map.

(CBC News)

Yet the NDP managed to outcompete the Conservatives in almost every neighbourhood. In the end, Blaikie expanded his margin of victory over Toet to more than 3,500 votes and re-established New Democratic dominance in the riding.

In the 2021 election, not much changed on the electoral map in Elmwood-Transcona. A handful of Conservative polls moved over to the NDP.

At the same time, Blaikie steamrolled over the Conservatives in the polls he won. With Rejeanne Caron campaigning for the Conservatives instead of Toet, Blaikie won the seat by more than 9,000 votes — the broadest NDP victory since 1997, when the conservative vote was still split between the Reform and PC factions.

 (CBC News)

All of that means Elmwood-Transcona is no bellwether riding that oscillates between the NDP and Conservatives. Rather, it's an NDP seat that can fall to the Conservatives under the right conditions.

Hypothesis: Coming boundary changes favour the Conservatives

There is a theory the 2024 Elmwood-Transcona byelection is a must-win race for the New Democrats because of boundary changes that will come into effect during the next general federal election, expected in late 2025.

The changes include the removal of several residential streets in the Rossmere neighbourhood of North Kildonan from the northwestern edge of Elmwood-Transcona. The riding also expands east across the Red River Floodway into the rural municipality of Springfield, where the new voters include people who live on rural acreages and the residents of Dugald.

The assumption is these changes should benefit Conservatives, given the tendency for rural voters to lean to the right. 

But when you superimpose the new election boundaries over the actual votes in this area in 2021, the advantage for the Tories appears to be modest.

(CBC News)

If the new boundaries were in place in 2021, the NDP would have ended up with 790 fewer votes, according to an analysis of Elections Canada data.

This would not have affected the result, given the margin of Blaikie's win.

The big problem for the NDP is there is no one named Blaikie running for them, either in this byelection or next fall.

Generalization: Elmwood-Transcona is blue collar

In order to compete against the NDP in what has historically been an orange stronghold, the Conservatives nominated a union member, Colin Reynolds, to run in this fall's byelection against the NDP's Leila Dance.

The assumption is a party needs the working-class vote to win Elmwood-Transcona, which maintains something of a blue-collar image.

An analysis of Statistics Canada data suggests this is only somewhat accurate.

According to the 2021 census, almost 26 per cent of the labour force in Elmwood-Transcona is made up of people who work in trades, operate equipment or work in manufacturing or utilities.

Only two of the eight federal ridings that represent Winnipeg — Winnipeg North and Winnipeg Centre — have a higher proportion.

When you look at income, however, the picture becomes less clear. The median income for individual workers in Elmwood-Transcona was $40,800, according to the 2021 census — only slightly higher than in Winnipeg South, which has a more affluent image.

In the same census, the median household income in Elmwood-Transcona was $81,000, which was greater than Winnipeg South Centre, which encompasses a long section of Wellington Crescent.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has driven through some of the newer residential neighbourhoods in Elmwood-Transcona, which include many large single-family homes.

Byelection day for Elmwood-Transcona is Sept. 16. Advance voting begins Sept. 6.