Over the years, countless mayors and municipal politicians have told me that in order to glean financial support out of upper government, you need your local MP or MLA to belong to the governing party.
At first blush this may sound like an unfair generalization. The now-defeated Conservative government, after all, put more money into Flin Flon’s Northern Manitoba Mining Academy than did the provincial NDP that basically took credit for the facility.
That said, a June Globe and Mail report found that the Conservatives’ Community Infrastructure Improvement Fund disproportionately doled out dollars to Tory-held ridings. So maybe there’s something to what the mayors and councillors say.
This subject presents an interesting conundrum for voters. Do you vote for an MP who will be part of government so that your riding may reap the presumptive attention and dollar signs?
Or do you support an opposition voice who more closely shares your concerns but who is unlikely to do anything constructive about those concerns?
It seems obvious that during Monday’s election, many northern Manitobans responded to the pending Liberal victory by casting ballots for the party’s candidate, Rebecca Chartrand.
No other Liberal candidate in the history of this riding – including the two who won dating back to 1993 – received as many votes as did Chartrand.
It wasn’t enough to overcome New Democrat Niki Ashton’s stronghold on the riding, though her party must be concerned by the five percentage points and 1,555 votes (with seven polls still to come, as of Wednesday) between Ashton and Chartrand.
In this instance, it wasn’t a simple case of northern Manitobans “voting their conscience” at the exclusion of all else. Even though we all knew the NDP would not form government, there seemed to be a good chance they’d gain legislative clout had there been a Liberal minority instead of a majority.
We also can’t discount the fact that for many progressive types in this riding, the Liberals, not the NDP, were the true left-wing alternative to the Conservatives this election.
While the NDP spent so much time touting balanced budgets and rescuing home mail delivery, the Liberals were talking up issues that have long appealed to progressives, including deficit / stimulus budgeting and pot legalization.
Across the border in northern Saskatchewan’s Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River riding, the NDP’s Georgina Jolibois is poised to become MP with a remarkably low 34 per cent of the vote.
Just below her, Liberal Lawrence Joseph got 34 per cent and Conservative incumbent Rob Clarke took in 30 per cent. Is there a more divided riding in Canada?
In actual fact, the results in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River illustrate just how politically divided Canada remains, despite the massive hoopla over Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau actually earned slightly less of the popular vote than did the Conservatives in 2011 (39.47 per cent to 39.62 per cent).
Trudeau has not magically united Canadians. He’s merely done what Stephen Harper’s opponents used to vilify the now-former PM for: Winning total power with a somewhat narrow slice of the electorate.
But let’s hope Prime Minister Trudeau is a different enough politician that he’ll be as generous to the ridings that voted against him as those that voted for him.
Local Angle is published on Fridays.
