We are heading into the weekend, where the Manitoba PC Party delegates will consider changes to the leadership rules; these rule changes are, in my opinion, rushed, unnecessary, and underlining the impression that PC members had from the last leadership race that the playing field is tilted to benefit certain candidates and not others. More importantly, we have other priorities that we need to be addressing as a party.
The election campaign we ran in 2023 was poorly managed and without a clear strategy. We know we can do better than this as a party. The campaigns we ran in 2016 and 2019 under Brian Pallister were some of the most professional we have ever seen in this province.
There are insiders in this party who want us to move on from this without studying what happened, but there are important lessons to learn from every failure, and in this case, we have a surplus of failures to learn from in many aspects of the campaign and leadership race. We need to study the decision-making process in terms of both communications decisions (for example, was there research that supported any of what we were doing?) as well as organizational, human resources, and spending decisions.
More than just the failures of the last election, we need to review party operations and finances. The Party was also incapable of managing the 2021 leadership race in a satisfactory manner, leading to thousands of PC members and others losing confidence in the Party, and even a lawsuit.
Financially, the party is in a tough position due to the debt left from the 2023 campaign but continues to spend money maintaining an aging building as well as significant staff overhead. Our party is not in a position to continue spending money like this, and frankly, given the performance of our party over the past 2.5 years, we are not receiving good value for our money.
I recall a story from Brian Pallister, one of the first things he was asked to do as the new PC leader in 2012 was to sign a document approving a third mortgage for 23 Kennedy, but through hard work, a team approach, and leadership, he brought the party back from the brink of financial ruin. So we know this is a solvable problem, we just have to work to solve it.
I support a full and transparent review of both the 2023 election campaign and PC Party operations, as well as a new interim management team to oversee the upcoming Leadership Race as well as changes at PC Headquarters to ensure competence and financial stability.
If you would like your voice heard or would like to express your thoughts and opinions about the PC Party or the upcoming leadership contest, please feel free to respond to this email or message me on Facebook, Instagram or X. You can also renew your PC Membership here (every PC Membership has expired as of January 1st) https://pcmanitoba.com/become-a-member/ and call the PC Party to express your opinion at (204) 594-4080.