With electioneering going full throttle in Flin Flon constituency, voters are being subjected to two campaigns in one.
First, there is the public campaign: yard signs, advertisements, statements in the news media and on social media, and door-knocking.
There is also the whisper campaign, where one party, or perhaps only its supporters, float unprovable accusations about the other candidates’ true intentions.
The most common example seems to be the suggestion that PC leader Brian Pallister would cancel the new Flin Flon ER project despite all the time, money and pending contracts already invested.
Pallister calls this suggestion a scare tactic, promising to protect front-line services in health care and other sectors.
His reply is not universally believed, but it is difficult to imagine a premier yanking the biggest health-care investment in generations out from under Flin Flon because… he’s evil?
What about the New Democrats? Their opponents are quick to assail them on the issue of affordability for the Average Joe, claiming that somewhere deep within the NDP playbook is a plan to basically tax you out of house and home.
It’s true the NDP raised the PST by one cent on the dollar in 2013, eschewing a law that required a public referendum to do so, but does the “our cost of living is spiraling out of control under the NDP” crowd have a leg to stand on?
The biggest factor in cost of living is where each of us chooses to live, and that’s got nothing to do with which party is in power. If you buy a house or rent a suite in Flin Flon, you’re going to spend a heck of a lot less than if you do so in Winnipeg’s wealthy Tuxedo district.
In terms of what government does control, Manitoba is doing pretty well. An independent report released in 2015 found that Manitobans spend $2,100 less per year than the average Canadian on home heating (often electricity, which comes from the publicly owned Manitoba Hydro), electricity and vehicle insurance (from the publicly owned MPI).
In Flin Flon, where decent homes have long sold for under $100,000, affordability is particularly strong – rising property taxes and hydro rates notwithstanding.
Still, many residents of our border community point out that provincial income taxes on the Saskatchewan side are significantly lower than those in Manitoba.
What they may not realize is that while the Manitoba government surely has budgetary love handles it can melt away, Manitoba is not blessed with the same tax-lowering revenues generated by Saskatchewan’s resource sector.
Northern mining is an issue where adversaries of both the PCs and NDP are attempting to find traction.
The supposed knock against the PCs is that they will rape and pillage the environment if there’s even a hint of a new mine; whereas it is claimed the NDP is so environmentally extreme it will prioritize a patch of pussy willows over good-paying jobs.
The PCs are viewed as more pro-business than the NDP, but this idea that they would turn northern Manitoba’s serene wilderness into a hazy, apocalyptic-like work camp is comical.
And the NDP’s environmentalism? Yes, some important people within mining have called the NDP overzealous in “protecting” areas from mining, but don’t forget that when Hudbay’s Reed mine was discovered in Grass River Provincial Park, the New Dems had no problem standing up to environmentalists who wanted the project kiboshed.
And don’t forget that unions are a key NDP constituency. If a new Flin Flon area mine was ready to proceed, would the party really listen to a few extreme voices over unions that would surely lobby for the project?
Emotions run high on all sides during an election campaign, but that’s no excuse for rhetoric to become heated to the point of absurdity. All that does is muddy the waters for serious-minded folks trying to make an informed decision.
Local Angle is published on Fridays.
