The progressive conservative party leadership candidate, Wally Daudrich, joked against a group of party members this week. It could reduce the lack of housing in Winnipeg by letting polar bears get apart in the center.
A party member who volunteers in a mission of the center that serves homeless people said he does not have fun.
Daudrich, who operates Ecotours to see polar bears east of Churchill, on the coast on Hudson Bay, made the comment like a joke during an appearance at a Winnipeg hotel on Wednesday night.
He made the comment about the lack of housing and the dangerous carnivore of the Earth in a speech at the Park West Inn in the Winnipeg Charleswood area.
“We have a homeless crisis here in Winnipeg. I always say where I come in Churchill, we don’t have homeless people. Does anyone guess why?” He asked, causing laughter.
“When there are serious repercussions for a bad lifestyle, people find out very quickly. Therefore, my plan is to import 10 polar bears and let them go to the shelf,” said Daudrich, referring to the Legislature of Manitoba.
Churchill, who is invoicing like the world capital of the polar bear, sits along with a section of the coast of the Bay of Hudson, where the large mammals that eat seals congregate each fall before the bay freezes.
Daudrich, who operates the Ecotourism company Lazy Bear Expeditions and the Lazy Bear Lodge hotel, said he made it very clear that he was joking.
“I don’t feel that I try to comb my speech or my exact words to be 100 percent closed solid, which I can never be criticized,” said the candidate on Thursday in an interview from his home near Morden, in southern Manitoba.
“If people want to criticize me for that, they have to obviously understand that no one is going to move polar bears.”
Non -funny joke: party member
Thomas Rempel-on, a four-year PC member who attended Daudrich’s speech, said it is not fun to joke about homeless people who become polar food.
“Perhaps there was a time when we thought before speaking,” said Reple-on, which is offered as a volunteer in Siloam Mission’s kitchen, a non-profit organization of the Winnipeg center that provides food and shelter for the Desairado.
Rempel-And also disagreed with Daudrich’s characterization of the lack of housing as a lifestyle.
“From my own point of view, voluntarily in an organization that works with people fighting with that, it is not as simple as saying that they chose to be like this. You know, sometimes it is someone who loses their work or fight with an addiction.”
Daudrich cited addictions when asked to clarify what he meant when he described the lack of housing as a lifestyle.
“The lack of housing to a large extent is the result of drug addiction and we need to deal with the problem of drug addiction in Manitoba, especially in Winnipeg,” he said.
“As a Christian, I love people. I love everyone, and as that type of pro-life, that attitude dictates the value I put to people everywhere, including homeless people.”
Rempel-on said he did not accept that explanation.
“If you are talking to people directly, that’s what you honestly think,” he said. “When a journalist tells you the day later, of course you are going to say something a bit different.”
End Homelessness Winnipeg, a non -profit organization led by indigenous, said Friday in a statement, Daudrich’s comments “trivialize the lack of housing and suggest potentially mortal consequences as a deterrent” are hurtful and perpetuate stereotypes.
These statements “ignore the complex and systemic problems that lead people to the insecurity of the house,” said CEO Jason Whitford.
“The lack of housing is not the result of a ‘bad lifestyle,” he said, but of problems such as the lack of affordable housing, mental health challenges, trauma and systemic inequalities.
“These problems require solutions, not ridiculous,” said his statement.
Lauren Stone, the progressive conservative MLA for Midland and spokesman for the party leadership selection committee, refused to comment on Daudrich’s joke.
Daudrich is competing against Fort Whyte PC MLA Obby Khan to become the next leader of the progressive conservatives of Manitoba, who are looking for a new permanent leader to succeed former Prime Minister Heather Stefanson after his resignation in 2024.
Rempel-on said that he is not working for Khan and that he has not yet decided on his vote. The Silam volunteer also said he enrolled as a member of the PC to vote in the 2021 PC leadership career and had previously supported the Liberals of Manitoba.
He said he changed his party when it became clear that the liberals will not hold a position in Manitoba.
PCs serve as an official opposition to the Government of the PND of Manitoba and are led by interim leader Wayne Ewasko. The party plans to announce its new permanent leader on April 26.
