I’d like to take a few precious moments to talk about what’s going on in the Manitoba legislature these days.

First of all, I do have to applaud Gary Doer on his timely departure from the premier’s office. Talk about a cushy promotion. He gets to go to Washington as the Canadian ambassador to the most socialist president the United States has had since Bill Clinton.

Doer gets the big pay raise and the ideal job for someone who’s made a career in a socialist political party, while Manitobans get stuck sorting out the mess he leaves behind. Our provincial government has to elect a new leader and probably isn’t all that concerned with whether we want a new provincial election or not.

Well, I demand a new election! Are we really supposed to buy into the idea that that the NDP is the same party without Gary Doer? I’m sure not buying it.

The fact is that when you change the leadership, you change the party.

Just look at what happened years ago when Brian Mulroney stepped down as prime minister. The Conservatives elected Kim Campbell as their leader and only managed to secure two seats in the election. As far as I’m concerned the Manitoba NDP selecting a new leader is all well and good – as long as Manitobans get to vote on whether or not the new man or woman is worth suffering for for the next two to three years.

Personally, I think the only way to pull Manitoba’s provincial government out of the crapper, is to resurrect the provincial Liberal Party. I know that seems more than just a little biased, since I’m a raving Liberal myself – or as some people call it these days, desperate for votes – but seriously.

We have a parliamentary style government in Canada for a reason. The whole idea is that with a parliamentary government, we shouldn’t have to be stuck with a two party system like they have down south. We need at least three major parties to take power away from the ruling government and the official opposition.

Otherwise the whole thing turns in to a battle like Pepsi vs. Coke, where both sides refer to the other as the only other option. Personally, I’m a fan of Pic-a-Pop. So why should I be screwed over by what has pretty much turned into a two party system?

To get back to the NDP leadership debate, Gary Doer was considered by many – including myself – to be a very conservative NDP leader. That is the NDP that was voted into office. Now, for all we know, we could end up stuck with a premier who barely falls short of being a communist.

The bottom line here is that if you change the leader of a party, you are bound to change the very face of the party itself. It’s wrong to force voters to tolerate a leader that they didn’t vote for. Sure the new leader will be an elected official, but we still deserve the right to decide if we want this person to represent our province.

Otherwise we could just end up with another Kim Campbell.

Alexander Kavanagh is a University of Winnipeg student.

Published in Volume 64, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 17, 2009)