Manitoba’s 43rd general election is in the books and voters in the Dauphin constituency were truly engaged in the process.
A total of 64 per cent of the 15,358 voters registered in the constituency - 9,969 voters - cast ballots in the Oct. 3 election.
When everything was counted, NDP candidate Ron Kostyshyn received 5,097 votes and PC hopeful Gord Wood earning 4,765 on top of 63 declined and 44 rejected ballots. The votes were cast at 46 polling places within the electoral district on election day and 56 outside or advance polls.
Provincially, the NDP will form government with 34 candidates elected, while the PCs will move to the opposition side of the house with 22 MLAs and the Liberal Party of Manitoba failed to achieve official party status with just one candidate elected.
And while he does not know the exact date, Kostyshyn is looking forward to heading into Winnipeg to take part in a fall sitting of the Legislature as the MLA-designate for the Dauphin constituency.
“There’s a process of the present government has to clean out their offices and move forward, so probably the earliest would be the 20th of this month that will probably kick into gear of shuffling over. I don’t know when the swearing in ceremonies are going to happen. That will all be discussed. Obviously, the fall session will be happening. Traditionally it’s November and usually goes for two to three weeks,” Kostyshyn said. “There’s got to be a fall session to do some of the things we promised like the gas tax, the freezing of the hydro rates and let’s start getting things in gear about the health care, talking to the health care workers.”
Addressing health care issues was the number one campaign plank for the NDP and Kostyshyn said the message he was hearing at local doors reflected the concerns of the rest of the province.
“It was a good tight election and I think everybody that Gord or I talk to, I think we heard the concerns from the local constituency,” Kostyshyn said, looking back at the campaign. “Health care was obviously the top concern.”
The first step in healing the system is to talk to the people on the front lines, the ones who live it every day, he added.
“I’m not an expert as a doctor, or medical professional, or a home care worker, but they are. We all strive to support the health industry and there is no better way to do that than to talk to the people in it, face to face,” Kostyshyn said. “We are government and we represent a geographic area along with our premier. In no way are we the solution. The solution is talking to the people that are in the various categories, whether it’s health care, the teachers, agriculture culture producers. We are there to carry the message forward and to work with those suggestions they bring forward because we all need to work together rather than be adversarial of what is being brought forward.”
The other main issues Kostyshyn heard at local doors was the need for economic development and some lingering anger over the closure of the Dauphin Correctional Institute.
The latter, Kostyshyn said, was addressed directly by NDP leader and new Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew early on in the campaign when he promised to begin construction of a Dauphin Centre for Justice in the first year of an NDP government. The facility, he added, will help to address crime in many ways, from incarceration to providing offenders an opportunity and assistance to change their ways.
“With our proposal to build the justice facility, it is kind of an opportunity to end and deal with the offenders and spend time with them to correct the unfortunate circumstances that they’re in,” Kostyshyn said, adding the approach has been used successfully in other jurisdictions. “It resonates so obviously when you spend time thinking about it. There’s a domino effect. Repeat offenders will end up going to Stony Mountain or Headingley and that’s just the university of how to be more professional as a criminal. We need to stop that.”
When is comes to economic development opportunities, it will, again, take a collaborative approach to tackle the issues.
“I would love nothing more than to sit around with a lot of entrepreneurs in the geographic area and discuss what’s it going to take for us to create the appetite of businesses and opportunities to expand into the geographic area. We, as people in this geographic area, the more opportunity of business developing, it just creates that additional dollars coming in and then we can grow,” Kostyshyn said. “It’s a starting point to talk to the Parkland Chamber of Commerce, talk to some entrepreneurs in the area. We want to talk to people, like what do you need, what are you thinking about?”
For Kostyshyn personally, the issues surrounding Crown lands will command a lot focus.
“We’ve made a commitment on the Crown lands issue. I’ll take part in the discussion to carry our mission through as we’ve been committed to revisiting the Crown land unit transfer,” he said. “But not only Crown lands just agriculture issues period. We need to grow the agriculture economy locally for the benefit of all agriculture sectors in our province.”
Kostyshyn is not new to the duties of an MLA, or a member of cabinet , having been elected in the Swan River riding in the 2011 election and serving as Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives Minister from 2012 to 2013, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development from 2013 to 2016 and Infrastructure and Transportation Minister from 2014 to 2015.
What role he will play in this administration is yet to be determined.
“It’s really not what I want, it’s up to the premier and his executive to make that decision,” he said, adding the one thing he is sure of is he will work hard for the good of the constituency, including those who voted for his opponent on Oct. 3.
“Give me four years and maybe I can, next election change your voting on the ballot. Because I am determined to work for all citizens in the Dauphin constituency and the province of Manitoba.”
