Latest news with #MartyMorantz
CBC
02-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
5 Manitoba takeaways from the 2025 federal election
Social Sharing With the 2025 federal election in the rear-view mirror, the Liberals remain in power, the Conservatives remain in Opposition and the New Democrats have been reduced to seven seats. Now that these results are clear, it's time to consider what happened in Manitoba on a more granular basis: 1. In retrospect, Marty Morantz didn't have a chance On the eve of the election, Winnipeg West was one of two Manitoba ridings where an incumbent was in danger of losing. This wasn't based on any hunch. Just arithmetic. In the 2021 election, Conservative Marty Morantz beat Liberal Doug Eyolfson by 460 votes, which worked out to a one percentage point margin in a riding then called Charles-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley. This mirrored the national support for their respective parties in that election. Nationwide in 2021, the Conservatives edged the Liberals, 33.7 per cent to 32.6 per cent. The NDP, meanwhile, was the party of choice for 17.8 per cent of Canadians in the 2021 election. The widespread belief going into the 2025 election was any significant swell in Liberal support would allow Eyolfson to overtake Morantz. The Conservative campaign in Winnipeg, led by experienced organizers Michael Kowalson and Tannis Drysdale, was aware it had to run a superior ground game in order to nullify a modest Liberal lead in popular support. On election night, however, the NDP vote collapsed to 6.3 per cent nationally and only four per cent in Winnipeg West, according to Elections Canada. That allowed Eyolfson to blow past Morantz by more than 7,000 votes and a nearly 14 percentage point margin. In effect, two out of every three NDP voters in 2021 jumped ship to the Liberals in Winnipeg West. Even Manitoba's greatest ground game couldn't stop that train. 2. Leila Dance didn't have a chance, either The other Winnipeg incumbent to lose a seat on election night was the NDP's Leila Dance in Elmwood-Transcona. She was hoping to edge past Conservative Colin Reynolds for the second time in seven months. In the September byelection, Dance earned 48 per cent of the vote in Elmwood-Transcona, while Reynolds received 44 per cent. Less than five per cent of the vote went to Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre. Part of the poor Liberal showing in that byelection was the result of the extreme unpopularity of Justin Trudeau's Liberals. Strategic voting likely played a role as well, especially because byelection voters tend to be more engaged and motivated than voters in general elections. In the 2025 rematch, the Liberal nationwide popularity was way up. Despite Dance's overt pleas to Liberal voters to choose her on a strategic basis, MacIntyre more than quadrupled his vote share to 22 per cent of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona. This alone spelled doom for Dance. In terms of raw votes, both Reynolds and Dance won over thousands more voters in the general election, thanks to a far greater voter turnout. But so did MacIntyre, who effectively played spoiler to Dance's attempt to pull off an anyone-but-the-Conservative manoeuvre twice in seven months. 3. Low-name-recognition Liberal helped save Leah Gazan If polling numbers alone dictated election results in every seat in Canada, Winnipeg Centre MP Leah Gazan would have lost on Monday. In 2015, Liberal Robert-Falcon Ouellette defeated NDP incumbent Pat Martin in Winnipeg Centre when nationwide Liberal support was 39 per cent and NDP support was 20 per cent. In 2025, Liberal support across Canada dwarfed that of the NDP, 44 per cent to six per cent. So how did Gazan survive on Monday? A strong ground game likely played a role, as did the professor-turned-MP's strong reputation among her core constituency of left-of-centre voters. But name recognition also played a role. The Liberals nominated 23-year-old Liberal aide Rahul Walia as their candidate in Winnipeg Centre in December, when very few people in politics believed he would be anything but a sacrificial lamb. That changed one month later, when Liberal fortunes began to rise. Walia soon found himself with a genuine opportunity to win. In the end, the unknown Walia came within about four percentage points of knocking off one of the best-known MPs in Manitoba. A name candidate may have pulled off the upset. 4. Low voter turnout belied result in Churchill-Keewatinook Aski There's a belief in politics that low voter turnouts benefit incumbents. The thinking is, if people are not highly motivated to vote, they won't show up in droves to get rid of an existing politician. In Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, voter turnout in this election was only 37.5 per cent on Monday. Nonetheless, voters in Manitoba's largest, least accessible and northernmost riding tossed out 17-year NDP incumbent Niki Ashton in favour of Liberal Rebecca Chartrand. While that result made sense considering the divergent national support for the two parties in question, it remained curious due to the apparently low appetite to vote in this riding. 5. NDP collapse has implications for Kinew Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is on holidays this week and did not share many thoughts about Canada's election. He was unavailable to comment Thursday. He won't be able to avoid the topic for long. The resignation of Jagmeet Singh as federal NDP leader has left a door open for a politician ambitious enough to take the reins of the federal party. As a popular provincial premier, Kinew is an attractive leadership prospect for the NDP. The reverse is not the case: it's unclear why a sitting premier would be interested in reviving a federal party with flagging popularity. As well, it is unlikely Kinew is considering going anywhere before his NDP government secures a second term. Even then, Kinew may have greater ambitions. He could be interested one day in another party or another form of public service. After all, when his mentor Gary Doer resigned from his job as Manitoba's premier in 2009, he went to serve as Canada's ambassador to the United States, not seek another form of elected office.
CBC
29-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
'Still had butterflies,' says returning Winnipeg West MP Doug Eyolfson
Doug Eyolfson is going back to Parliament Hill, after winning the Winnipeg West seat back for the Liberals. He lost it to Conservative Marty Morantz in 2019, and then lost a rematch with Morantz in 2021. Though Eyolfson said he felt optimistic, he still had some nervousness on Monday's election day.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Early Manitoba results rolling in as CBC projects Liberal government
Early election results in Manitoba have started to trickle in for Canada's 2025 federal election, after a roughly month-long campaign. CBC News is projecting incumbent Conservative candidate Dan Mazier has been re-elected in rural Manitoba's Riding Mountain riding, where he's taken a large lead over Liberal challenger Terry Hayward — the first result projected in the province. Early results are starting to come in for almost all of the province's 14 ridings. CBC News has also projected the Liberals will form Canada's next government. CBC made the projection shortly after 9 p.m. CT, just a little over a half hour after polls closed in most of Canada. You can see the latest on CBC's live election results page. The race in Manitoba will see the province send at least two new members of Parliament to Ottawa, after the incumbent candidates in southwest Manitoba's Brandon-Souris and southeast Winnipeg's St. Boniface-St. Vital ridings announced they would not seek re-election. Heading into the election, the Conservatives held seven Manitoba seats, the Liberals held four and the NDP held three. Supporters of some candidates were campaigning until the very last minute in Manitoba, including in Winnipeg West, where people held up signs for Conservative incumbent candidate Marty Morantz at the intersection of Portage Avenue and Moray Street in advance of polls closing. Supporters of Conservative candidate Marty Morantz wave signs at the intersection of Portage Avenue and Moray Street in advance of polls closing in Manitoba on Friday evening. Morantz is the incumbent in the Winnipeg West riding. (James Turner/CBC)
CBC
29-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Manitoba polls close in Canada's 2025 federal election
Election results are expected to begin trickling in now that polls have closed in Manitoba for Canada's 2025 federal election, after a roughly month-long campaign. Polling stations were open from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. CT on Monday for voters in the province to cast their ballots and help decide who will form the country's next government. Anyone still in line at the end of voting hours will still be allowed to cast their ballot, no matter how long the line, Elections Canada says. You can see the latest on CBC's live election results page. The race in Manitoba will see the province send at least two new members of Parliament to Ottawa, after the incumbent candidates in southwest Manitoba's Brandon-Souris and southeast Winnipeg's St. Boniface-St. Vital ridings announced they would not seek re-election. More than 60 candidates were on ballots across the province's 14 federal ridings. Heading into the election, the Conservatives held seven Manitoba seats, the Liberals held four and the NDP held three. Supporters of some candidates were campaigning until the very last minute in Manitoba, including in Winnipeg West, where people held up signs for Conservative incumbent candidate Marty Morantz at the intersection of Portage Avenue and Moray Street in advance of polls closing.
Winnipeg Free Press
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Record number of Manitobans voted in advance polls
Although Monday is election day across Canada, a record number of Manitobans have already cast ballots. A total of 229,379 people voted across the province over the four-day Easter long weekend — a jump of 22 per cent from the 187,960 who voted at advance polls in the last federal election in 2021. According to statistics from Elections Canada, voters in Winnipeg West were the most eager to vote early; 23,889, or 32.7 per cent, of the people eligible to vote in the riding did so last weekend. The riding, formerly known as Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, is expected to be a two-way race between two-term Conservative incumbent MP Marty Morantz and Liberal candidate Dr. Doug Eyolfson, who was the MP from 2015 to 2019. 'People are responding to the message of our campaign,' Morantz said while taking a quick break from campaigning Friday. 'People are responding to our common-sense Conservative message which is we want to reduce taxes, we want to have homes built in this country to bring back housing affordability in this country, we want some fiscal sanity as to how Ottawa spends their tax dollars, and they are upset about our catch-and-release criminal justice system that has brought crime in their neighbourhood. 'All of these things, we are talking about at the doors, I think people are responding to. I think that's reflected in the higher turnout in the advance polls.' As for Eyolfson, who had just rolled out of bed after working an overnight shift treating patients at the Grace Hospital emergency room — he is working another one overnight into election day — he said the high advance voting numbers 'reflects the amount of engagement we've received at the door. 'They are following the issues. They really care about this election,' he said. Eyolfson said people are telling him they are concerned with what U.S. President Donald Trump is saying about Canada, but they are also worried about Tory leader Pierre Poilievre's promise to impose consecutive life sentences on offenders who commit multiple murders. The Supreme Court has already ruled that would violate their Charter rights. 'He is willing to override the (Charter of Rights and Freedoms) for laws they believe are best,' he said. 'The Charter is to protect everyone and people are concerned a prime minister would be willing to override that.' Health-care worker Dominique Rhéaume voted early for the NDP candidate in Winnipeg West, despite concerns from her family that it could split the vote in the riding. 'It's a really tough decision, actually,' she said. 'As a personal choice, I'd just rather vote for who I really do follow.' MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Across the country, 7.28 million Canadians voted in the advance poll, up from 5.85 million in 2021. University of Manitoba political studies professor Christopher Adams said the advance polls were busy partly because it was a holiday weekend. But he said there is more interest this time. The advance numbers show the level of engagement was higher in more affluent areas of the city, he said, noting Winnipeg Centre, with 11,170 votes (17.5 per cent of eligible voters), had the second-lowest advance turnout in the province. Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, one of the largest ridings in Canada, had the lowest turnout, with 4,168 or 8.7 per cent. 'How do you get out to vote if you're a single parent and your kid is sick?' he said. 'Poverty is a major factor in the turnouts.' Adams said the high advance turnout also means something else. 'This election, a lot of people have made up their minds much earlier in the election than the last one,' he said. Across the country, 7.28 million Canadians voted in the advance poll, up from 5.85 million in 2021. Winnipeg West's results were followed closely by 30.7 per cent (21,740 votes) in Winnipeg South Centre, where Liberal incumbent Ben Carr is battling Conservative candidate Royden Brousseau, and 29.6 per cent in Winnipeg South, where Liberal incumbent — and environment and climate change minister — Terry Duguid faces former provincial Tory MP and cabinet minister Janice Morley-Lecomte. Winnipeg South resident Amie Cowan, 45, said she often votes at advance polls. Cowan said community safety was one of the most important things for her this time. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS A total of 229,379 people voted across the province over the four-day Easter long weekend. 'This area is becoming a lot more unsafe than it has been in past years,' she said. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. Duguid, who is also co-chair of the Liberal national campaign, said seeing almost 30 per cent of his riding's electorate show up to vote already 'is staggering. 'It was just incredible. I'm already pleased — this is good for democracy. It points out that this is an important and consequential election for the country. You hear this at the door that people know this may be the most important election of their lifetime.' In Kildonan — St. Paul, Tory incumbent Raquel Dancho is in a tight battle with Liberal Thomas Naaykens; 21,333 people, or 27.7 per cent, cast their votes last weekend. 'If I can do it early, I'll do it early,' said 42-year-old marketing and business developer Leah Bock. Kevin RollasonReporter Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press's city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin. Every piece of reporting Kevin 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. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
