Kirkfield Park byelection candidates push hard into last days of campaign – Winnipeg | 24CA News
In an electoral district that’s primarily been held by the Progressive Conservatives, Manitoba’s opposition events are pulling out all of the stops to swing Kirkfield Park one other path.
Voters of the west Winnipeg using will once more have a voice representing them on the Manitoba Legislature after polls shut Tuesday.
The PCs have dominated Kirkfield Park since its creation greater than 50 years in the past, besides from 2007 to 2016 when the New Democrats occupied the seat.
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The incumbent PCs have chosen former Winnipeg metropolis councillor Kevin Klein to switch cupboard minister Scott Fielding, who stepped down in June. Klein faces stiff competitors from correctional officer Logan Oxenham with the NDP and longtime nurse Rhonda Nichol with the Liberals.
Information know-how specialist Dennis Bayomi is the Green Party’s choose.
The Tories have some floor to make up within the subsequent provincial election scheduled for October 2023, pollster Mary Agnes Welch with Probe Research mentioned Thursday.
Premier Heather Stefanson ranked final once more amongst Canada’s provincial leaders in a current Angus Reid ballot, and the Conservatives trailed second behind the NDP in a Probe Research ballot this fall.
“The popularity of the Tories has been really stable and really low for a really long time, and I think it’s pretty tricky to … pull those numbers out over the next year,” Welch advised 680 CJOB’s The News.
It’s a spot the now MLA hopeful Klein says he can shut.
“I am going to be different. I am dedicated to the constituency,” he mentioned Saturday, telling Global News he thinks the race is much less about which social gathering a candidate represents and extra about who will greatest characterize Kirkfield Park.
“I want to make sure that we have a voice at the legislature. I want to make sure that our needs are being met at the legislature. No matter what party is saying what, we have to make sure that our voice is heard.”
His rival, Oxenham, is taking intention on the PC’s well being care document.
“The number one thing I’m hearing is our health care system and how much it’s in disarray,” Oxenham mentioned Saturday. “Our plan — we’d love to hire more nurses, obviously, and incentivize nurses to come back and and work in Manitoba.”
Last weekend, the NDP requested Liberal voters to behave strategically and forged a poll for Oxenham as an alternative, promising to rebuild the province’s well being care system.
“The math is clear: we can’t defeat the PCs in Kirkfield Park unless we come together,” Oxenham mentioned in a Dec. 4 news launch.
With well being care prime of thoughts for constituents, Liberal candidate Nichol mentioned she hopes they think about her 33 years of expertise as a nurse as the best choice to assist clear up the staffing shortages inside Manitoba’s hospitals.
“If you’re an MLA that’s never set foot in a hospital or a care home as a worker, you truly don’t understand what’s going on on the inside at the grassroots level. I do have that understanding,” Nichol advised Global News on Friday.
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Green Party candidate Bayomi is focusing a part of his marketing campaign on electrical automobile incentives and free public transit, together with a assured fundamental revenue.
“We’d see a savings in our health care costs. We’d see a savings in our social justice and criminal justice systems,” Bayomi mentioned.
As of midday on Saturday, 2,146 constituents out of a preliminary record of 17,412 had taken benefit of advance voting.
Anyone who missed the final day of advance voting on Saturday can head to the polls on Tuesday from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m.
— With information from Shane Gibson
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
