Politicians are usually unimpressive people, often dislikeable while in office, and easily forgettable when they leave it. Still, some politicians buck this trend, and Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew is among them.
In fact, Kinew might be Canada’s most interesting politician, and for far more than just being the first premier from a First Nations background.
Manitoba’s New Democratic premier since last October, Kinew has brought refreshingly conventional politics to his province, despite leading a party lately known for appealing to online activists and university student unions. He won a resounding victory in the 2023 provincial election with straightforward promises to cut taxes and to focus on balancing the budget, alongside pledges to boost health care spending.
Kinew has displayed how making promises he can keep is a winning formula in Canadian politics, and demonstrated an awareness of what the government can achieve, and what it cannot.
His own personal life story is compelling. He has owned up to his mistakes as a younger man, proving past mistakes should not lead to cancellation in the present. When Kinew’s political opponents have tried to drag him into the muck for those mistakes, he has persistently refused to be pulled along.
The rookie premier has also broken the near-monopoly on Canadian patriotism enjoyed by conservative politicians in recent years. By displaying his love for the flag, Kinew rejects the idea that Canadian pride is out of style in the NDP.
Given the state of left-of-centre politics, Kinew’s progressivism is a breath of fresh air, and it has paid off in spades, earning him praise across the political spectrum. He is the most popular premier in all of Canada, and it is hard to identify why he does not deserve that spot.
Kinew’s simple pragmatism eschews left-wing populism
The NDP has a terrible tendency to spout distinctly unoriginal rhetoric. Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has tried to pretend he is Canada’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez since he assumed that role in 2017. Singh has pursued a sort of populist politics inspired by trends on X (Twitter), like railing against corporations and big business, despite supporting the Liberal government’s $57 billion in subsidies for international electric vehicle manufacturers.
During the 2021 federal election, Singh’s NDP promised a vast program that was mostly devoid of details and full of predictable promises like “tax the rich” and pushing for “guaranteed livable income,” as well as making post-secondary schools “part of our public education system.” His party gained one seat, largely because it had a documented and understandable credibility gap.
Compare that to Kinew in 2023. His platform was highlighted by just how plain its core promises were. The Manitoba NDP promised to slash the provincial gas tax, balance the budget, shrink classroom sizes and boost health care spending.
These promises were attractive, digestible and, most importantly, credible for middle-class families in Manitoba. A month after winning a majority in the 2023 provincial election that fall, Kinew’s government gave Manitobans a gas tax holiday. It was originally scheduled to last until the end of June, before being extended a further three months in April.
Kinew is also opposed to the federal carbon tax, reasoning that Manitoba has its own plan to fight emissions without making life more unaffordable in the car-centric province.
The premier happily reminded Manitobans before the Canada Day weekend that they enjoy the cheapest gas in Canada amidst the cost-of-living squeeze. He has also suggested that the gas tax will never be as high as it was under the previous Progressive Conservative government, and that is not all Kinew is offering on fiscal matters.
The Royal Bank of Canada reported in April that Manitoba is on track to more than halve its $2 billion deficit to $796 million by the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year. It is not projected to return to balance until 2027, and the province’s debt burden is still projected to grow, but a shrinking deficit is far better than a bloating one.
A $104.2 million chunk of that remaining budget will be used on public and independent schools, reducing class sizes and providing food for students. Whether one prefers independent or public schools, education is still a bread-and-butter issue, and far from the worst use of public money.
The NDP generally have a well-deserved reputation for being irresponsible money managers. Bob Rae spent just five years as Ontario’s NDP premier from 1990 to 1995, and managed to grow the province’s debt-to-GDP ratio from 13.4 per cent to 30.4 per cent, to the tune of $60 billion in borrowed money, and little to show for it. It is perhaps why Ontarians have never dared to return the Ontario NDP to office, and why their federal counterparts’ seat count cratered in the 1993 federal election.
In British Columbia, David Eby has tirelessly rolled out big-ticket item promises designed to dramatically upscale the province’s housing density and power capacity. The B.C. NDP also doubled down on a disastrous addictions policy that included a full-on drug decriminalization pilot project which lasted less than two years before the government humiliatingly backed off.
Now the B.C. NDP has found itself in the midst of an election campaign with an ascendant B.C. Conservative party closing the polling gap, and Eby’s government has almost nothing to run on. Its signature big policies on power and housing have not borne fruit for the general public, all while driving up the provincial debt, with the latest budget deficit coming in at nearly $8 billion.
There is a lesson to be learned from Kinew’s measured brand of progressive politics, which is that keeping it simple with deliverable programs will generate fewer headaches during an election cycle.
Making the left patriotic again
It is fashionable in progressive circles to compete to see who can denigrate Canada in the most aggressive fashion.
This ridiculous phenomenon of champagne subversion is easily observed on the social media feeds of dyed-hair undergraduates on Canada Day, each doing their best to convey their disgust with fellow citizens who dare to celebrate their country’s birthday.
They might have been rather offended that Kinew, the first premier of Indigenous heritage in over 100 years (Manitoba’s premier from 1878 to 1887, John Norquay, was Metis) made a heartfelt tribute to the Canadian flag just before July 1.
Kinew remarked how he had been impacted by a trip to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He talked about the memory of Indigenous soldiers who fought and died to defend the free world from fascism, even if they were not allowed to vote at the time.
“The trip to Normandy put into very clear terms the shared project that is our country and the role that we play in the world, and Indigenous peoples are part of that,” Kinew told the Winnipeg Free Press last month.
“I cannot tell you what it feels like, the patriotism that you feel in your heart when you sing our national anthem in a cemetery surrounded by 2,000 white tombstones commemorating our soldiers who gave their lives in the name of democracy.”
It was a statement that reflected the same reasons why millions of Canadians were never comfortable with the post-national push to redefine or lessen Canada Day. Many other Indigenous Canadians have ancestors who fought and died in conflicts like World War II, which has had a profound impact on Canada’s culture and sense of self.
Modern Indigeneity is sadly often associated with rejecting Canada, but Kinew made it clear that history need not be ignored for Canadians to wholeheartedly embrace the country.
“My pride in who I am as a Canadian, as a Manitoban, as an Anishinaabe person, is not a denial of any of the challenging parts of our past,” said Kinew. “It’s a recognition of the fact that people have sacrificed so much for somebody like me to have the opportunities that I do today. It’s an embrace of the hope that we’re going to continue moving forward, as a province and a country, to advance the journey that we’re on to make this the best place that it can be in the future.”
His personal redemption
Kinew’s own Anishinaabe heritage was crucial during his turbulent youth, and he credits traditional spiritual healing methods for helping him reform his life. He has never shied away from his past struggles with alcoholism, which led to run-ins with the law. Kinew was also charged, though never convicted, for domestic assault.
To his credit, Kinew has owned up to it all on multiple occasions, and today is a dedicated husband and father.
Like many of us, he also made regrettable, crass social media posts over a decade ago, the sort that led to attempts at cancellation. Once again, Kinew did not try to cover it up, and carried on with his political career, leaving it up to voters to judge him based on his past mistakes or life in the present.
The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives dredged up Kinew’s past legal troubles in both the 2019 provincial election, in which Kinew’s NDP failed to unseat them, and again in 2023 when he ousted them from government. Both times, Kinew handled the personal attacks with grace and never hit back in kind, preferring to stay away from ugly politics and keep to the high road.
It was a decision that at the very least did not hurt Kinew’s campaign, as his party won a strong majority government when the voting finished. The fact that Kinew is premier should reflect how making mistakes in one’s past life should not turn the present into a dead end, or deter someone from participating in public life.
The most interesting politician in Canada
Much fanfare broke out when Kinew became Manitoba’s premier, as it was a historical milestone.
The election of Canada’s first provincial of First Nations heritage should be celebrated, but there are also many other reasons why Kinew is the most interesting politician in Canada. His rejection of pop culture, champagne leftism driven by hashtags and campus politics is as groundbreaking in 2024 as was his choice to run on a balanced, fiscally prudent platform in 2023.
Kinew is certainly not the first NDP premier from the prairies who appears and sounds nothing like his more radical counterparts in Ontario and Ottawa. He is sometimes compared to Gary Doer, a former Manitoba NDP premier who governed as a centrist with a sharp eye for the budget, and remains well-regarded to this day.
Unfortunately, the federal NDP has seemingly decided that the United Kingdom’s Jeremy Corbyn is a better role model than Doer, and has seen its support stagnate under Singh as a result. At a time when voters are becoming exhausted with that brand of left-wing politics, Kinew is paving the way for a new type of progressivism.
Kinew’s unabashed affection for Canada should bring some quietly patriotic left-wingers out of their shells, having hidden there due to the aggressive spread of post-nationalism in the past decade.
If he keeps it up, he will keep earning plaudits from across the political spectrum.
For now, Kinew is probably happy to keep governing Manitoba, and being Canada’s most interesting politician, whether he knows it or not.
National Post