People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier plans to run in an upcoming byelection for a federal seat in Portage-Lisgar, Manitoba, the same riding as former interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen.
Martin Masse, a spokesperson for the PPC, told The Epoch Times on May 11 that there is “a strong possibility” that Bernier will run in the Portage-Lisgar byelection and that the party will make an official announcement tomorrow. Masse noted the riding is where the PPC received its best score in the 2021 election at 22 percent of the vote, and is also where the largest rally of the campaign was held.
“It’s a riding with obviously a lot of voters who share the PPC’s conservative, libertarian and populist approach to politics, and one where we have the best potential to elect a member of Parliament,” he said.
Back in 2021, Bergen won 50 percent of the vote in the Portage-Lisgar riding, while the People’s Party of Canada candidate came in second with 22 percent.
Bernier will be running against Bergen’s former campaign manager Branden Leslie, who won the nomination to run under the Conservative banner. The Conservatives have held the riding since 2004.
Bernier had said previously that he was considering running in one of three ridings; Portage-Lisgar, his former riding of Beauce in Quebec, and the Northern Ontario community of Timmins-James Bay.
“I’m looking at these ridings because, if you look at the past history in these ridings, we did well in 2019 and we did very well in 2021. We have a strong organization in these ridings,” Bernier said in a previous interview, adding that there is a large francophone community in northern Ontario and southern Manitoba, which is “a plus for me.”
Bernier represented the Quebec riding of Beauce from 2006 until 2019, when he lost to Conservative MP Richard Lehoux, who gained 38 percent of the vote to 28 for Bernier. The latter ran again in the riding in 2021, where he received 18 percent of the vote to Lehoux’s 48.
Bernier ran for leadership of the federal Conservatives in 2017, finishing a close second in the 13th and final round of voting, with 49 percent of the vote to Andrew Scheer’s 51 percent. He left the Conservative Party in 2018 to form the PPC.
The Liberals have not yet nominated a candidate for the byelection.
