Winnipeggers have their say after Liberal win

Winnipeg voters weighed in after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals won a minority government Monday night in Canada’s federal election.

Retired health-care worker Barbara Hill said Tuesday afternoon she expected a minority government — except for the Conservative party.

“(Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre) had all the best policies, I figured everybody would be sick of the Liberals,” said Hill, 75. “Every time you go to the store, everything is so expensive, almost every time you go something’s gone up.”

A voter in Winnipeg South, meanwhile, expected the Tories to be victorious in his riding, and others.

“The south here has got some different sense to who’s in power,” said Justin Duck. “I was expecting a Conservative or NDP to take over, and then something else would have changed.”

He said Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid, who was re-elected Monday and has represented the riding for a decade, leaves some constituents out. He expected others to feel the same and vote Duguid out but he defeated Tory challenger Janice Morley-Lecomte by nearly 11,000 votes.

A second Winnipeg South voter said he voted Liberal because he thought it was the best way to fight trade war threats from the United States.

“Mainly for (U.S. President Donald) Trump,” said Chris Molnar. “If our country’s unified under Carney, who has extensive experience with economics … if we had a majority (government) we’d be a lot stronger to withstand anything else that’s coming.”

Molnar said he would have voted Conservative if Trump hadn’t made so many comments about making Canada the 51st state and the trade war.

“Just because of the overwhelming stuff happening in the south, and the fact that Carney stepped in, I felt a lot more comfortable voting for the Liberals again,” said the 51-year-old web developer, while reading a sci-fi novel inside St. Vital Centre.

A rural Manitoba voter wasn’t surprised to see a Liberal minority government after following Carney’s campaign.

“It just seemed he was a strong enough candidate and it made sense,” Riley Recunyk, a 22-year-old cellphone sales associate from the Rural Municipality of Ste. Anne, said.

The Provencher constituent said he planned to vote Liberal even before Trump’s threats and tariffs started, but that the rhetoric from the U.S. reinforced his willingness to vote red.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca