Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative Party has lost its way and needs an “internal cleansing,” said long-time loyal Tory and leadership contender Wally Daudrich.

“We’ve been moving from our Conservative roots trying to become the de facto Liberal party for the last two or three years,” said the owner of Lazy Bear Lodge and Expeditions in Churchill.

“There’s a spring cleaning that needs to happen before Manitoba trusts us again with government. I’m not disloyal. But I’m also not stupid. I want to change the party… We need to throw the garbage out, where the garbage is, in the garbage can.”

Nominations recently closed for the April 26 election. It's a race between Daudrich and Fort Whyte PC MLA Obby Khan, former cabinet minister and pro football player. Interim PC leader Lac du Bonnet MLA Wayne Ewasko isn’t running.

For Daudrich, this is bigger than a leadership campaign. It's a fight for the party’s “heart and soul” damaged by an “insurgency of progressivism,” disunity, weakness, and compromise.

“We can see some of the dirty laundry, I hate to say, as coming out into the public because it’s there. We need an internal cleansing. We need a rebirthing of our conservative roots. Frankly, if it was up to me, I think we would drop the term progressive.”

Daudrich noted every western party “has gone through some kind of rebooting of the Conservative movement.” It happened with the Alberta UCP and the Saskatchewan Party. The Conservative Party of BC emerged from the “ashes of what we saw for years of a compromise between Liberal and big C conservatives.”

“Manitoba’s the only jurisdiction west of the Ontario border that has not gotten there. I want to be the catalyst for that.”

Under his leadership, there’d be limited government, sensible spending, and an understanding that the role is to “serve people, not rule over them.” Parents, family, independence, and hard work would be “honoured.”

“Principles that make us Conservatives, those are the things that bind us together as Canadians. You know, family, being smart with a dollar.”

He wants a party that refuses to compromise on core values.

“It’s the strangest thing. When compromise happens its always Conservatives going to the dark side. Rarely, it’s the dark side coming to our side.”

“When we’re supposed to have meaningful dialogue and meaningful compromise its always us giving up our values, and never the other side giving up theirs. They’ll always say that we’re doctrinaire, that we’re stubborn and we are closed-minded. It’s the exact opposite.”

Compromise led to shattered trust by a base feeling abandoned, even betrayed.

“We lost the faith of the people because of throwing dollars at special interest groups and not keeping a focus on what government does best.”

“Government is supposed to keep law and order, it’s supposed to make things as fair as possible — not equal but fair to everybody. That’s a Canadian trait. We believe in fairness.”

“Government is failing in the few things and main things that government is supposed to do. In the meantime, it’s doing everything that it’s not supposed to do.”

For example, the attack on parental rights is an attack on the family which is the “foundation of our existence.”

“Here in Manitoba as it is in other jurisdictions, the government is trying to take parental rights away. These are fundamental things, building blocks of our society. The family is the building block. We don’t screw around with the family because when you screw around with the family you destroy yourselves.”

His government wouldn’t tolerate any bullying PC values.

“What I’ve experienced, and what you can see when you see the protesters in the streets, the defund the police movement and these radical organizations — when a government sides with them they’re fighting against the values that built our society.”

“Why would you want a government that is there to destroy us? Why would we tolerate a news media that is there to destroy us?”

He doesn’t appreciate federal government handouts to media to help it do that.

“That’s why when the opportunity came to buy part of the Winnipeg Sun I said, ‘I’m in and I’m in big.’”

The Winnipeg Sun, bought by the Klein Group in early 2024, takes “advantage of tax loopholes” but doesn’t accept federal Liberal bribe money. Daudrich said the paper that “drifted into a left-wing rag five or six years ago” has done a “complete 180.”

Meanwhile, he’s determined to eliminate the notion of Manitoba being a “have-not” province.

“We need to change that attitude. We need to say, ‘We have.’ Because we do have the resources inside our boundaries to make Manitobans wealthy and rich.”

“Frankly, Manitoba needs to move out of Ontario’s basement, and we need to think big. We need to get on our own and put our big boy pants on and start building Manitoba again the way it’s supposed to be.”

“There’s been too many tepid leaders that just want to say a few things so that they can stay kind of stay in power but not really with much of a mandate.”

“I say ‘Screw that. We need to tell Manitobans this is the direction we’re going in and we can build Manitoba.’”

For business, there’s too much red tape, too many levels of bureaucracy.

“We can see this on the federal stage. Trudeau’s done a masterful job at stifling business and distorting reality.”

“I love small businesspeople. I love the camaraderie of businesspeople. That includes farmers, the people in buy and sell businesses, the type of business I’m in, tourism and such. They know what their clients need, and they’re firmly rooted in reality. That’s what we need to be as Conservatives.”

Manitoba doesn’t have any money. Yet infrastructure, the health care system and the justice system are “crumbling.”

“We need to grow a revenue. That’s what I did with my company. We increased it 50% through a stressful time (COVID-19) when governments were keeping borders closed and oppressing small businesses.”

Businesses, targeted by government overreach “had to wrap ourselves around like a pretzel to make money.”

“The government expected us to shut down and to comply 100%,” said Daudrich who was determined to stay open.

“During that time, we were spending money on a multi-million-dollar boat (the Matonabee.) In the end it cost us $7 million. It’s the pride of Churchill.”

“That’s the business skill I can bring to the office.”

The key is to think big.

“I want to talk about mega projects … The NDP like to talk about mosquitos in Winnipeg. I’ve always said the NDP, one thing they’re good at, if they were to tax mosquitos, we’d no longer have mosquitos because they’d all leave.”

“Let the NDP deal with the little things. We’re gonna come in and we’re going to deal with the big things. That’s infrastructure. That’s growing our economy. We’re going to make Manitoba a have province.”

Daudrich served as a party board director for 12 years. He ran for federal office as a Conservative candidate, losing to NDP Nikki Ashton in 2008 and 2011 in what was the Churchill riding, renamed Churchill–Keewatinook Aski.

He's been mulling over taking a run at the leadership for some time.

Daudrich knows it’ll be an uphill battle to regain trust.

Manitobans had high hopes when former premier Brian Pallister ended a 17-year NDP reign in 2016 and led the PCs to victory again in 2019. By June 2021, the authoritarian was ranked the least popular Canadian premier. He stepped down from the leadership, then resigned from his Fort Whyte constituency seat.

Former premier Heather Stefanson led the PCs to defeat in last October’s election. Premier Wab Kinew’s NDP formed a majority government.

Manitobans detested Stefanson’s handling of COVID-19 and viewed her too weak to stand up to Trudeau.

Stefanson, who had won the leadership by 363 votes, stepped down as party leader and from her MLA seat in Tuxedo.

The party was fractured over how the 2021 leadership race between Stefanson and Shelly Glover — who unsuccessfully challenged the result in court — was handled. Some members allege vote counting and irregularities impeded Glover’s chances.

Daudrich said he was disappointed in how Glover was treated.

“I was there … I heard all the stories from three different corroborating sources.”

Glover, like Daudrich, believed the party was going in the wrong direction.

Khan eked a 187-vote win in Pallister’s riding in a March 2023 byelection. Many believe his leadership bid will be a coronation.

Daudrich isn’t worried.

“I’ve got a lot of friends in the party that are legitimate, good people … I have good people in the party that support me, and I would think to some degree protect me. That’s where my advantages are.”

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