Churchill-Keewatinook Aski NDP MP Niki Ashton announced May 16 via social media that she has been renominated as the party’s candidate for the vast Northern Manitoba riding in the next federal election.
Ashton described herself in a tweet regarding her renomination and asking for campaign donations as a “champion of the working class, of First Nations, & anyone else ignored by this govt.”
The daughter of former Manitoba NDP MLA and cabinet minister Steve Ashton, who represented Thompson in the legislature for 35 years from 1981 until finally being defeated by Progressive Conservative candidate Kelly Bindle in 2016, Niki Ashton is in her fourth term as MP for the riding, the boundaries of which were changed slightly prior to the 2015 federal election, at which time it was renamed, having previously been known as Churchill since its establishment in 1933.
Niki Ashton finished second the first time she ran for election as Churchill’s Member of of Parliament in 2006, garnering 7,103 votes, about 3,000 behind Liberal candidate Tina Keeper. Former Churchill NDP MP Bev Desjarlais finished third as an independent candidate after losing the party nomination following her being the only NDP MP to vote against the Civil Marriage Act, which legalized same sex marriage.
Niki Ashton was first elected as MP in 2008, defeating Keeper by about the same margin she had lost to her in the 2006 election. In 2011, she beat Conservative candidate Wally Daudrich by just over 5,000 votes. Her closest re-election race was in 2015, when Liberal candidate Rebecca Chartrand finished just 912 votes behind Ashton. In 2019, Ashton more than doubled the vote total of Liberal candidate and former Manitoba MLA Judy Klassen, finishing about 6,300 votes ahead.
Ashton has twice run unsuccessfully to become leader of the federal NDP, finishing third behind current leader Jagmeet Singh in the most recent contest in 2017.
She was stripped of her critic roles by the party in January after she announced on Twitter that she had left Canada after Christmas to visit her ailing grandmother in Greece.
