Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Wally Daudrich doesn’t seem to mind that some Tories might think his claim Manitoba schools are promoting acts of bestiality and incest is impossible to believe.
He isn’t courting their vote when ballots are cast to pick a new leader.
Instead, Daudrich, one of two people vying for leadership of Manitoba’s Official Opposition, is going after the thousands of social conservatives who worry about what kids are learning in school, and are happy to reignite the debate over parental rights.
If enough of their support is spread throughout the province, it could be enough for Daudrich, a self-described outsider, to become the new leader of the Manitoba Tories, rather than Obby Khan, a two-term sitting MLA considered the choice of the party establishment.
More than 16,400 people voted in the last PC leadership race in 2021, which used a one-member, one-vote system. This time around, the Tories are using a weighted system that caps the influence of constituencies with large numbers of party members. It requires the leadership hopefuls to seek broad-based support.
To some of the social conservatives Daudrich is trying to woo it won’t matter that he’s produced no evidence that books describing bestiality and incest exist, after bringing it up at Wednesday’s leadership debate. Nor does it matter how inconceivable it appears that any library, yet alone ones in school, would carry literature describing and promoting criminal activities.
And news coverage of Daudrich’s explosive allegation probably isn’t a death knell to his campaign. In fact, it might help him sell memberships.
WATCH | Daudrich claims pornographic books in schools, but provides no evidence:
Wally Daudrich, a Manitoba Tory leadership candidate, alleged books describing bestiality and incest are found in schools throughout the province, but he didn’t say where, or name the alleged books.
Daudrich, a Churchill hotelier and ecotourism operator, is “tapping into a very rich vein within the psyche of the Progressive Conservative Party of people who are right of centre, who feel they should have control over how their kids are taught,” said Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba.
Such rhetoric might not resonate in a general election, Adams said, “but it might be a good strategy on his part to shake things up and find a large base of support that’s separate from Obby Khan’s support.”
Daudrich and Khan only have until Friday to sign up new members. Voting starts in March and the winner will be announced on April 26.
Daudrich’s wooing of the party’s right-wing flank is happening as conservatives are feeling emboldened.
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is finding success in the polls, all while being unapologetically conservative and railing against the “radical woke agenda.” Many conservatives also support U.S. President Donald Trump, who’s targeted illegal immigration, diversity initiatives and cut thousands of jobs in his first month on the job, though his disrespect of Canada has soured some people’s opinion of him.
Perhaps influenced by the current receptiveness to right-wing ideas, Daudrich hasn’t shied away from controversial opinions.
He’s refused to apologize for his joke about letting polar bears loose to solve Winnipeg’s homelessness problem.
He hasn’t expressed regret for sharing a social media post that stated in the end, “We must stop Muslim Obby Khan from becoming Conservative leader.” His campaign deleted the post after it became aware of the line, it said, but Daudrich said afterwards “there’s nothing to apologize for.”
Adams, the political scientist, said it’s important to note Daudrich’s actions aren’t the ones of a politician trying to charm all Manitobans: “We have to remember this is a leadership race, not a campaign for being premier.”
For his part, Khan, who served as the face of the Tories’ vague 2023 election commitment to defend parental rights, has run a more middle-of-the-road campaign in a bid to prove he can unify the party and has the chops to win an election in a somewhat centrist province.
Khan tried during the recent debate to argue Daudrich is actually the party insider since he’s sat on the PC board longer than Khan’s been an MLA, but Adams disagrees. More than half of the PC caucus publicly back Khan’s leadership bid, while none have endorsed Daudrich.
If Daudrich ultimately wins the party leadership, Adams believes it would signal a new level of polarization in Manitoba.
Already, the governing NDP caucus is almost entirely urban, with seats in Winnipeg, one in Brandon and the rest in northern strongholds. Under Gary Doer’s premiership, the NDP also had MLAs in some rural areas around Winnipeg, such as Selkirk and Dawson Trail.
Party might shift right
A Daudrich-led PC party would remain predominantly rural, but Adams figures the Tories would veer “even more” to the right.
He sees Manitoba politics more closely following Alberta and Saskatchewan, where the urban-rural divide is deeply entrenched.
“There is a sense that people within the party supporting Daudrich really want this party to go back to the roots of conservatism and small government and low taxes and tough on crime, and not be the red Tories,” Adams said.
A further shift to the right might prove challenging for the party electorally.
Khan may prove better at persuading Winnipeggers to vote Progressive Conservative, which should work to his favour in the leadership race, though he’s not prepared to cede the social conservatism wing to Daudrich.
At Wednesday’s debate, Khan received one of his loudest ovations when he said there’s no such thing as a safe consumption site.
He also said he’s proud to have publicly led the Tories’ parental rights campaign in the 2023 election.
“We have great values. We believe in all the same thing,” he told the debate crowd. “It’s how do we message it to win Manitobans back to us?”
This leadership contest is demonstrating that winning over Tories and winning over Manitobans are two distinct challenges.
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