Provincial Election 2023

Advance polls opened on Saturday, September 23 and there has been a fairly brisk turnout ever since. Tens of thousands have voted using the new scanner equipment instead of the old pencil and paper system. It remains to be seen if it can be counted sooner that the old way which was consistent and reliable but could take time.

TV stations, as we saw in the last civic election, can grow impatient and call and election so they can resume regular programming. And get it wrong.

The election has not suffered from a lack of debate. No matter what happens, the result will likely be something different in that the first elected premier will be a woman or indigenous man. And possibly a return to party status for the Liberals. It it is probable that two of those those things will not happen.

There are only so many competitive ridings of the 57 in Manitoba. Some are stalwart Progressive Conservative or NDP seats. Maybe only one can be said to be a steady Liberal seat in River Heights. This leaves suburban seats in Winnipeg as the focus of much attention as they have histories of voting different parties. 

In this election the Progressive Conservatives have a new leader as premier in Heather Stefanson. It is her first election after serving in cabinet including as health minister. Wab Kinew is a veteran in the house after building the NDP back up after the leadership of Greg Selinger. The Liberals also have a veteran leader in Dougald Lamont who won his seat in the former NDP leader Greg Selinger's riding in St. Boniface.

In recent decades, the attention on politics has been solidly on the leaders although no one directly votes for the leaders, they only vote for their MLA which may or may not be the leader. Local candidates can matter but aside from door to door, there are not a lot of ways to get noticed as not too many local debates are available nor profiles in community news papers which are rapidly disappearing. Podcasts is the only way I generally hear anything that is about individual candidates. Otherwise, I read their campaign websites.

Lots of MLAs/ministers stepped down this year so no matter what there will be a lot of new faces. And given the amount of promises made in the election there will also be a different direction that the province is going, presumably. It is worth noting that all of this is dependent on the economy. A recession could change all those tax cuts and program spending.

Some late polls have indicated a NDP lead. The lack of any Liberal or Green candidate in some ridings will make it harder for PCs to win in close ridings that they won in squeakers last time. The lack of incumbents in many PC ridings means more campaigning at home rather than helping other candidates as has happened in the past. As for the NDP, they have made direct appeals to past Liberal voters to vote for them to defeat the PCs. If the polls are any indication, it might be working. However, it will be hard to beat the Liberals in the three ridings they already hold.

Tuesday, October 3 is official election day. Voter turnout and which party motivates their voters could be a factor. Campaigns do matter and over the course of the election, momentum might have moved the electorate, especially in Winnipeg.

We'll find out soon enough how it turns out.

Windsor Hotel Burns Down and Demolished

It was only in March that the Windsor Hotel was boarded up for safety and health reasons. This could have been far more tragic than losing a 120 year old building with an interesting history. Built in 1903 as the Le Clair apartments, it became the Windsor Hotel in 1930. Linked to Charlie Chaplin during the Vaudeville days, it found new life later on as a blues and jazz club. Now, it is rubble. How long it is rubble will be determined if there is asbestos within the wreckage.

Any chance of turning it into housing, boutique hotel or anything is gone. It will be a parking lot. And so it goes with any downtown building. It is always a rush to turn the spot into parking.  Given the continued slow return to work downtown, the question has to be asked: parking for whom?

The fire department has said a record 100 vacant building's have burned down so far in 2023. The cause listed is arson.  Many occupied buildings have had arsons as well. Even as the provincial election continues through to the vote October 3, there does not seem to be a concerted effort as there was in the 1990s to eliminate the threat. Moreover, the painfully slow process to remove rubble only grows with every fire.

Drug deaths are soaring and the desperation of addicts for shelter, money and resultant impulse control is seeing violent crime and property crime increase. Winnipeg is not unique in this. News from all over North America has reports of the harm that opiates in particular have wrought. The potency and overdoses keep going up and available law enforcement, health and addiction services are strained.

While we have not heard a definitive answer on what caused the fire, the officials on site seemed to lean towards arson. The Windsor Hotel will not be the last place building to end in fire. However, if there isn't a concerted effort to reduce arson, insurance companies could look at not insuring certain areas as we saw in the 1990s. Even now with a summer of fire in the forests, some insurance companies are evaluating the risks of their policies.

As the weather grows colder, the fear of more fires has to be in the minds of emergency services. If the bulk of the fires are limited to a few people, let's hope they are identified and removed as a risk factor for buildings and people.

"After the Big One: Nuclear War on the Prairies" (1983) Cold War Film