Manitoba’s new Liberal leader says he’s hoping to make the party a viable option in the next provincial election.
Willard Reaves, who won the Liberal leadership race Sept. 29, said his first goal is to rebuild the party, which currently has only one seat in the legislature, belonging to Tyndall Park MLA Cindy Lamoureux.
Lamoureux served as interim leader after Dougald Lamont, who lost his own seat in the 2023 election, resigned.
Reaves, a former star running back for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, was defeated in the Fort Whyte constituency in a 2022 byelection as well as the 2023 race, both times by Obby Khan, now leader of Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives.
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“We don’t want to be one of those reactive parties like we have in the past,” Reaves told Global Winnipeg.
“We’re going to be proactive on everything that we do, and the people are going to know that we’re ready to actually govern.”
Reaves said he knows he has his work cut out for him as the leader of a party with only one MLA in the legislature.
“The plan is to build the party from within,” he said, “to build it up to a status where we will compete for seats in the next election.”
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