Wally Daudrich, owner of the Lazy Bear Lodge in Churchill, will again face Churchill riding NDP incumbent Niki Ashton in the next federal election, which may come as early as this fall, in a rematch of their contest last October.
Daudrich fought off two competitors, James B. Wilson, director of education for the Opaskwayak Educational Authority Inc., at The Pas, and Derick Hilliker, a retired since January RCMP officer who also owns a convenience store and the four-room Hilliker Hotel and Laundromat in Cross Lake that has been operating since 2001. He only has good things to say about the men that ran against him in the race.
"It was hard-fought but it wasn't nasty or mean. The gentlemen that I ran against were very good quality gentlemen. Derek Hilliker is a friend of mine Jamie Wilson has spent many years in the military and learned a lot of very valuable lessons for a man in his position dealing with youth and challenging them in such a way as to bring character and determination into the hearts of these young people, and that's a very important part of my platform as well," he notes.
Daudrich says it was the "most heavily contested" race for the federal Tory nomination in the riding in "over 50 years." The three-way nomination race ended July 25 at
Boom Done Next, a computer store in Winnipeg, with Daudrich coming out on top. The three candidates signed up hundreds of new party members, he said. Earlier nomination meetings were held in Churchill's Caribou Hall and at the Burntwood Hotel in Thompson July 21 and at the Kikiwak Inn in The Pas July 22.
As well as first-term incumbent Niki Ashton, Daudrich will be up against recently chosen Liberal candidate Sydney Garrioch, of Cross Lake, who is grand chief of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO). Former TV star Tina Keeper, a Cree from Norway House, held the seat for the Liberals for a single term from 2006 to 2008 before being bested by Ashton.
The Churchill federal Liberal Riding Association selected Garrioch on July 18 in Cross Lake. He also has experience as a chief of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation, owns the Mistasaneek Gas Station in Cross Lake and is a champion level sled dog racer.
Daudrich has lived in the Town of Churchill for most of the last 30 years, but he lived in Thompson briefly four years ago. He graduated from Keewatin Community College in 1982. Daudrich also has an undergraduate degree from International Baptist College, an independent fundamental Baptist Bible college in Tempe, Ariz. In 2005, Daudrich, while a member of Burntwood Baptist Church in Thompson, briefly wrote a column called "Rightly Dividing" for the Nickel Belt News.
In 1999, Daudrich, and his wife, Dawn, to build Lazy Bear Lodge, started hauling more than 1,000 logs from trees destroyed by forest fire out of the boreal forest to the south by snowmobile and trailered them back to Churchill. Working only in the winter off-season when temperatures can drop below - 40, they finished the lodge in 2000. The couple have five young children, the newest addition to the family being their two-week-old daughter Sadie Lynn.
Daudrich also ran previously federally in the October 1993 election for the old Reform Party, before its evolution into the Canadian Alliance and its December 2003 merger with the Progressive Conservatives to become the Conservative Party of Canada, so this will be his third time seeking the Churchill riding seat in a federal election. He finished a distant fourth in the 1993 race with Liberal Elijah Harper capturing the seat, followed by Rod Murphy of the NDP and Progressive Conservative Don Knight.
Last Oct. 14, Daudrich almost doubled the Conservative percentage of the vote in Churchill riding to 20.48 per cent (with 3,774 votes) compared to just 11.55 per cent for Nazir Ahmad in the January 2006 election.
Ashton won handily collecting 8,735 votes - or 47.4 per cent -- followed by Keeper at 28.83 per cent, and the Green Party's Saara Harvie from The Pas, who garnered 606 votes or 3.29 per cent.
Daudrich says the main issues he will be focusing in the next election are personal freedom, individual rights, aboriginal self-government, healthcare, road building in First Nations communities, and the cost of goods in First Nations communities. He says NDP and Liberal governments have looked at specific complaints about these issues rather than dealing with their root causes, and have dealt with issues on an emotional basis, pitting groups against groups in an attempt to build up their voter base.
Another important issue Daudrich wants to examine in the North is what he calls "soul rot" and issues of the soul.
"Soul rot is what occurs when people have had the incentives to progress in their lives taken away from them. Largely, in Northern Manitoba and particularly our First Nations communities, people have suffered from this because the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has made it so difficult for the individual to survive in those communities because of a lack of home ownership, the lack of private property ownership which inhibits business growth and development on reserves," he says
Daudrich claims the NDP's desire to subsidize lifestyles has created an environment in which people are paid to fail as opposed to challenged to succeed. He says that left-wing politicians have forgotten the need for people to face challenges in their lives.
"What has happened in our society and our culture of ease is that negative reinforcements are constantly being taken awaythis not only happens on a personal level but on a governmental level, where every time we have a need, we bleat like sheep and the government answers that need. What that does, in my opinion, is destroys that ability for the soul to strengthen itself because of hardships. It's those types of challenges that unfortunately - and I put the blame on the left wing spectrum, largely the NDP and the Liberals - they've taken away those challenges so that we have the type of situation that we have," he reasons, saying this problem has caused many suicides in Northern communities. "We used to speak out when evil happened, but now unfortunately evil has masqueraded as good in that as politicians, we should be helping people all the time, whenever the opportunity arises, when in helping them we are actually hurting them, because we are not challenging them."
Another issue he is passionate about is cracking down on child pornography and all crime.
"I'm very sensitive to the issue of child pornography. I have five small children myself and I've seen the issue grow in my lifetime. I'm not blaming any party, but I would say there are some that take a soft approach on crime - the NDP first and the Liberals, secondly."
Daudrich says "the last election saw an outpouring of support not seen since the times of (Progressive Conservative) Cecil Smith who held the post of MP for the Churchill Riding in the late 1970s. It is time for our riding to send a member of the government to Ottawa, someone who can actually get things done. We have had three decades of non-representation culminating with Niki Ashton, ignored in Ottawa, and ready to join with the Quebec separatists who would tear apart our country."
Daudrich says, "Jack Layton and the Ashtons kicked out Bev Desjarlais for representing our small town values. "The federal NDP are out of touch with the values and traditions shared by most Northerners, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal.
"When Niki Ashton speaks, no one listens," says Daudrich. "We need leadership from our riding that will help bring hope to our communities that they can only get from a member in government. The NDP/Liberal leadership only pay lip service to the needs of Northerners, while teen suicide and hopelessness is harming so many communities."
While the Conservative have not won Churchill riding, created in 1935, federally for 35 years since Cecil Smith, late father of Thomson city Coun. Harold Smith, won the seat in the July 8, 1974 election, the three major parties - NDP, Liberals and Conservatives - have shown historically they can win the riding. Bev Desjarlais held it for the NDP from 1997 to 2005, when she began sitting as an independent. Retired schoolteacher Rod Murphy held the seat through four elections for the NDP for 14 consecutive years from 1979, when he defeated Smith, through 1993.
Before Cecil Smith's defeat in May 1979, however, the old Progressive Conservative party had held the seat for a very long run from the June 10, 1957 election, when Liberal incumbent George Weaver, a metallurgical engineer, was defeated by miner Robert Simpson, who was re-elected in the 1958, 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1968 general elections. Simpson did not seek re-election in October 1972 and the seat was held for a term for the Tories by lawyer Keith Taylor, who did not seek the nomination again in 1974 when Cecil Smith ran and won.
