Linda West - Activist and Political Candidate

Activist and Political Candidate

West first ran for public office in the 2003 provincial election, as a candidate of the Progressive Conservative Party. She initially sought the party's nomination for Riel, but lost to former Member of the Legislative Assembly Shirley Render at a nomination meeting in late 2002. During the nomination contest, one PC insider suggested that West's views on private health care would be a liability for the party.

West subsequently convened a public meeting on Manitoba's physician shortage, which was held at Winnipeg's Transcona Inn in early 2003. During the question and answer session, she announced that she was considering a candidacy in the division of Radission. The political overtones of this meeting were noted in a newspaper report, though West denied that it had been called for political purposes. She won the Radisson nomination, but lost to New Democratic Party candidate Bidhu Jha in the general election.

West returned to writing opinion pieces on Canada's health-care system after the election. She reiterated her support for publicly funded private clinics, and criticized the provincial government's approach to the issue. She was also a vocal opponent of Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray's tax policies, which she spoke against at several public meetings.

The Manitoba Nurses' Union criticized West in late 2003, after she led a group of her own fourth-year undergraduate students in a rally outside the provincial legislature supporting an on-the-job training program. The students received 10% of their grade for participating in the rally, leading a union official to charge that West was manipulating the course for partisan ends. She denied this, and said that her students were taught to review both sides of the issue.

West was a supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada at the federal level, and supported its merger with the more right-wing Canadian Alliance to create the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. She ran for the new party in the 2006 federal election, and finished second against New Democratic Party incumbent Bill Blaikie in Elmwood—Transcona.

West challenged Bidhu Jha a second time in the 2007 provincial election, initially centering her campaign around local opposition to a hog-processing plant planned for construction in the Radisson area. The NDP government withdrew its support for the project during the election, and indicated that the plant would not be built. Some NDP insiders nevertheless expressed concern that their early support for the unpopular project had made the seat vulnerable. On election day, however, Jha defeated West by an increased margin.