{"id":15133,"date":"2025-12-06T01:20:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T04:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/06\/manitoba-tories-enlist-veteran-alberta-strategist-to-help-election-campaign-efforts\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T01:20:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T04:20:45","slug":"manitoba-tories-enlist-veteran-alberta-strategist-to-help-election-campaign-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/06\/manitoba-tories-enlist-veteran-alberta-strategist-to-help-election-campaign-efforts\/","title":{"rendered":"Manitoba Tories enlist veteran Alberta strategist to help election campaign efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Manitoba\u00b7UpdatedManitoba\u2019s Progressive Conservatives have chosen a Calgary political operative, who has orchestrated several come-from-behind election victories, to lead their next election campaign.Stephen Carter says Manitoba Progressive Conservatives \u2018still strong and can be the defining light\u2019Ian Froese  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Dec 05, 2025 5:39 PM EST | Last Updated: 16 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Stephen Carter, who led the mayoral campaign of Naheed Nenshi in 2010 in Calgary, has been tapped to help the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives in their next provincial election campaign. (Sam Martin\/CBC)Manitoba\u2019s Progressive Conservatives have chosen a Calgary political operative, who has orchestrated several come-from-behind election victories, to lead their next election campaign.Stephen Carter will be the Tories\u2019 campaign director, the party confirmed Friday.He\u2019s helped elect Jyoti Gondek as Calgary\u2019s first female mayor, Naheed Nenshi as Calgary\u2019s first visible minority mayor and Alison Redford as Alberta\u2019s premier.In each of those races, his candidates started out trailing in the polls \u2014 and in Redford\u2019s case, remained behind for the entire campaign \u2014 and yet still won.Carter believes the Manitoba PCs \u201cstruck a wrong chord by going in the wrong direction\u201d when the party actively campaigned during the 2023 election on its opposition to searching a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of two First Nations women. But he argues the party now led by Obby Khan is \u201cdoing the right thing now,\u201d and can chart a winning election strategy against the NDP\u2019s Wab Kinew, whom polls suggest is the most popular premier in Canada.Tory path to victory won\u2019t be simple: Carter\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have taken the job if I didn\u2019t think that there was an opportunity and a path for victory,\u201d Carter said.\u201cThat path for victory may not be as simple as some of the PC caucus and some of the PC board members think at this point, right? It may not be just pick up a couple seats here and a couple seats there and everything works out and Bob\u2019s your uncle.\u201dCarter said the Tories have recently refreshed their visual identity with a new logo.The change is nice, he said, \u201cbut I think you need to redo the actual brand. How do people think of you? What do they say about you?\u201dThe Progressive Conservatives held government from 2016 to 2023, when the NDP was swept to power. The Tories lost 13 seats and became the Official Opposition.The next election is slated for Oct. 5, 2027, but Kinew has hinted at calling an earlier vote.Khan has picked a political strategist behind some of the splashiest upsets in Alberta\u2019s recent electoral history.In 2021, he steered Jyoti Gondek\u2019s winning mayoral campaign and later became her chief of staff.Carter led what was hailed as the \u201cpurple wave\u201d of Gondek\u2019s predecessor, Naheed Nenshi, who harnessed social media to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters for an unexpected win in 2010.And Progressive Conservative Leader Alison Redford was re-elected premier in 2012 despite the Wildrose party leading in every reputable public opinion poll released before election day.Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan speaks after question period at the legislature on Oct. 16. (Bryce Hoye\/CBC)While Carter has supported left-leaning candidates in past elections, he considers himself an \u201cold-school Red Tory,\u201d who\u2019s worked with former prime minister Joe Clark and current Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.\u201cI\u2019ve worked with all kinds of right-wing leaders. I tend not to work with the right right-wing leaders. I would never work with Pierre Poilievre. He hasn\u2019t asked. I also have never worked with the NDP, right?\u201d\u201cSo I\u2019m in the middle.\u201dIn the recent federal election campaign, he supported Corey Hogan, who won Calgary Confederation for the Liberals.\u201cIf you ask me, I believe Mark Carney is running a Progressive Conservative government under a Liberal banner,\u201d Carter said.\u201cThat\u2019s why they\u2019re the natural governing party. They move to where the people are \u2014 that\u2019s what we need to do with the PCs.\u201dHe suggested the Tories may shift to the left or right of the political spectrum on certain issues, but what matters is to reflect voters\u2019 views, and give them something to believe in.\u201dObby Khan is the leader that has, I think, the best opportunity to reflect and to lead simultaneously,\u201d he said.\u2019Political agnostic\u2019PC party president Peter Smith said Carter is a \u201cpolitical agnostic\u201d with a record of mobilizing large groups of voters.\u201cWe know we have to build those coalitions and in some cases rebuild those coalitions. We see that he has the right skill set to do that.\u201dSmith said he doesn\u2019t worry if Carter is conservative enough.\u201cI would be more worried if we hired a campaign manager that didn\u2019t pay attention to the voters and paid more attention to ideology.\u201dCarter said he recognizes the NDP government in Manitoba is popular, but he sees weaknesses in the party. He wouldn\u2019t divulge them in an interview.\u201cFortunes change. They go up and they go down. That is the nature of provincial politics,\u201d he said.Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said, in response to Carter\u2019s hiring, the only thing he\u2019s focused on is working hard for the people he represents.\u201cAnd our campaign team is from this province, too.\u201dABOUT THE AUTHORIan Froese covers the Manitoba Legislature and provincial politics for CBC News in Winnipeg. He also serves as president of the legislature\u2019s press gallery. You can reach him at ian.froese@cbc.ca. Twitter: @ianfroeseWith files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manitoba\u00b7UpdatedManitoba\u2019s Progressive Conservatives have chosen a Calgary political operative, who has orchestrated several come-from-behind election victories, to lead their next election campaign.Stephen Carter says Manitoba Progressive Conservatives \u2018still strong and can be the defining light\u2019Ian Froese \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Dec 05, 2025 5:39 PM EST | Last Updated: 16 minutes agoListen to this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,127,1],"tags":[116,126],"class_list":["post-15133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-manitoba","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-manitoba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}