Goertzen looking forward to leadership race in 2025

Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen is looking forward to the leadership race for the provincial conservative party in 2025.

“There’ll be a leadership election coming up in just a few months now for our party and that also sets a course for the future. In terms of the last year, it was heartening for me to see the PC caucus in really the finest light in terms of an official opposition and hopefully use that to build the government after the next election,” he said.

Goertzen is supporting Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan for the leadership race against business man Wally Daudrich. He said Khan has experience working in government, holds the current government to account, and has proven he can win votes in Winnipeg which could be critical in forming a Conservative government in the next election.

“He’s also shown that he has a strong connection and understanding of rural Manitoba so I think he’s well equipped to not only be a strong leader but hopefully a premier in the province, and hopefully members feel the same and I only have one vote, as every member has, and so we’ll see what the result is.”

Goertzen said he would give a failing grade to the NDP on fiscal responsibility as they have gone $500 million over budget in 2024 and a failing grade when it comes to health care as ER wait times have not improved, nor have surgical wait times.

Regarding the Southeast, Goertzen said ongoing projects in 2024 such as the Southeast Event Centre, expansion on the Bethesda Regional Health Centre, and the Parkhill School are projects started by the previous Conservative government and that the NDP have not invested any money in the Steinbach area. The NDP did however invest an extra $5 million into building the Taché Community Centre in Lorette, that’s on top of the $4 million already pledged by the previous PC government. That project is estimated to cost almost $30 million.

He was also critical of the end to the Grunthal School expansion and that current infrastructure projects were greenlit under the PC government and that no new projects are in the works under the NDP for 2025 in the Southeast.

Goertzen noted the upcoming federal election and that a stable federal government can work with premiers on the expected 25 percent tariffs that will be imposed by the Trump administration in the United States on Canadian goods. He said that Americans need to be reminded “that those tariffs would hurt them as well.”