Manitoba's political landscape sees little change following election

WINNIPEG -

Following the 44th general election, Manitoba’s political landscape remains relatively unchanged.

Results from the election show that most of the province’s members of parliament were re-elected, including Niki Ashton, Raquel Dancho, Ted Falk, Candice Bergen, Terry Duguid, Dan Vandal, Jim Carr, James Bezan, Daniel Blaikie and Kevin Lamoureux.

Chris Adams, adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, said these results are similar to what occurred from 1963 to 1965.

Adams explained that in 1963 Lester B. Pearson’s Liberals won a minority government, but wanted a majority. Then in 1965, in a similar situation to Justin Trudeau, they ran hoping for a majority, but only won two additional seats.

Adams noted there was a lot of angst in the country about what took place.

“Trudeau is going to have to be dealing with the other parties very much like he had to do before, but I think the NDP will know the Liberals really do not want to go to an election,” Adams said.

“The Liberals were wanting to go to an election over the past two years, and the NDP didn’t want to be the fall guy to cause it, the government to fall. So this time around, the NDP has a higher hand because the Liberals really don’t want to go to an electorate again so soon after calling what I consider a foolish election.

“The NDP can pull a lot of strings in this coming parliament.”

As of Tuesday morning, the Manitoba riding of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley is still too close to call, with the race between Conservative candidate Marty Morantz and Liberal candidate Doug Eyolfson.