ER doctor takes back Winnipeg riding from Tories
Doug Eyolfson will again leave the emergency room and head to Parliament Hill after taking down Marty Morantz, the Conservative incumbent in Winnipeg West.
'In 2019 when I lost, I vowed that I was going to be back one day, and I never really gave that up,' Eyolfson, 61, told the Free Press at his campaign party event at the Portage Avenue Holiday Inn.
'I always kept working at this while doing my day job, and I had a feeling that one day it was going to happen again. It was worth every moment.'
JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS
Liberal candidate Doug Eyolfson greets supporters at his campaign party after winning the Winnipeg West riding, Monday.
The doctor, who often spoke to media on the state of Manitoba health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, was the MP for the area for one term, from 2015 to 2019, but lost to Morantz in both of the subsequent elections.
Over at Morantz's campaign office, the mood was gloomy as polling results rolled in. Supporters, many of whom were young, wiped away tears.
Morantz was not at his campaign office by 11 p.m., but his campaign manager said he planned to speak with supporters and media.
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Morantz and Eyolfson appeared to take different approaches on Election Day. A small convoy of trucks and sign-twirlers on sidewalks carried blue placards that called on voters to cast their ballot for Morantz. Eyolfson stuck to the bus benches and lawn signs that had been in place all month.
Morantz, 62, a lawyer before entering politics, was the city councillor for Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood from 2014 to 2018, serving on then-mayor Brian Bowman's executive policy committee.
In 2023, the name of the riding was changed from Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley to Winnipeg West and gained Conservative-leaning Tuxedo and the rural municipality of Rosser.
The change was made to improve voter parity and balance the scales tilted due to low population growth in the original riding compared to elsewhere in Manitoba.
malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
Malak AbasReporter
Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg's North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.
Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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