Kevin Lamoureux
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Kevin Lamoureux (January 22, 1962) is a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He is currently a member of the Manitoba Liberal Party and is a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the provincial constituency of Inkster in Northwest Winnipeg. He has been elected MLA for Inkster four times, and made two unsuccessful bids for the leadership of the Manitoba Liberal Party.
Lamoureux was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was educated at the University of Winnipeg. He worked as a store manager and Air Traffic Control Assistant, and served in the armed forces for three years.
Lamoureux first campaigned for the Manitoba legislature in 1986, running as a Liberal in the north-end Winnipeg riding of Logan. The Liberal Party was a rising political force in Manitoba during this period, and Lamoureux received only 502 votes, against 3765 for the winning candidate, New Democrat Maureen Hemphill.
Between 1986 and 1988, the Manitoba Liberal Party experienced a great increase in popularity as many centre-left voters abandoned the increasingly unpopular New Democratic Party government of Howard Pawley. In the election of 1988, Lamoureux scored an upset win over Don Scott of the NDP in Inkster, another north Winnipeg riding. The NDP, led by novice leader Gary Doer, were reduced to third party status with 12 seats.
The Manitoba Liberal party faces the challenge of having unconcentrated support while both the NDP and the PC's have concentrated support. Historically, the NDP has support in Northern Manitoba and northern Winnipeg, while the PC's have greater support in rural areas. However, over the past six elections under the leadership of Gary Doer, the Manitoba NDP have increased their seat count in all areas of the Province. Currently, 25 of the 29 seats in the City of Winnipeg are held by the NDP and they have seats in all regions of the province.
In the 1990 election, there was less than a percentage point difference in the popular vote between the NDP and the Liberals. Doer's NDP bounced back to over 20 seats, while Liberals fell to seven seats in the 1990 election. Lamoureux, who was known as a good constituency worker, nevertheless managed to improve his majority in Inkster.
Lamoureux ran for the party's leadership in 1993 following the resignation of Sharon Carstairs, but was defeated by Paul Edwards. Lamoureux was seen as an "anti-establishment" candidate in this race, representing north Winnipeg interests against the party's south Winnipeg base.
The Liberals were leading in polls in 1995, only to see their support collapse over the course of an election campaign that coincided with the potential departure of Winnipeg's NHL franchise, the Winnipeg Jets. The Liberals received 25% of the popular vote but were reduced to only three of 57 seats in 1995. Lamoureux again managed to increase his majority in Inkster (this time defeating New Democrat candidate Poy Gomez by over 1,700 votes). Edwards was defeated in the Winnipeg riding of St. James.
When Edwards announced his resignation as party leader in late 1995, Lamoureux again stood for the position. He was once again regarded as an "anti-establishment" candidate, facing Ginny Hasselfield who was supported by the party's leadership.
This leadership race was incredibly divisive, and its ending was controversial. The voting was conducted by a "weighted" vote of all party members by constituency (i.e., all members could vote in their home riding, with the votes in each riding averaged out to provide an equal number of "points" to the total). It was widely believed that Lamoureux received a greater number of total membership votes than Hasselfield; because his support was concentrated in north Winnipeg, however, Hasselfield won the weighted vote by 21 points.
During the leadership race, Lamoureux suggested that a company run by Hasselfield may have received an untendered federal grant by dubious means, through the intercession of south Winnipeg Liberal MP Reg Alcock (later a federal Cabinet Minister). No criminal wrongdoing was alleged, but the incident was typical of the hostile personal relationship between Hasselfield and Lamoureux. After the leadership race, Hasselfield threatened Lamoureux with a lawsuit for publicly questioning her ability to lead the party.
After the federal election of 1997 and a by-election in Portage la Prairie in which Hassifeld did not attempt to run for a seat, Lamoureux and Gary Kowalski announced that they would sit in the legislature as "Independent Liberals" (leaving Neil Gaudry as the only official Liberal MLA in the legislature). These divisions were quite obviously hindering the party's chances to regain voter support, and Hasselfield was prevailed upon to resign as leader on February 4, 1998. Jon Gerrard was subsequently elected leader, and the party was reunited.
The provincial election of 1999 was the low-water mark for the Manitoba Liberal Party. Years of cutbacks to health care and education under the Filmon Conservatives, together with a vote-buying scandal involving one of PC Premier Gary Filmon's most senior advisors had turned voters against the Conservative Party. The polarization of the electorate arose from a widespread fear that voting Liberal meant risking a Progressive Conservative government.
The divisions of previous years had turned many voters away from the party, and heightened polarization between the NDP and Progressive Conservatives meant that fewer voters were willing to risk "vote-splitting" by supporting the Liberals. The party dropped 10% in support from 1995, and Lamoureux was narrowly defeated by New Democrat Becky Barrett.
In the 2000 federal election, Lamoureux ran as a Liberal candidate in the riding of Winnipeg Centre, and finished a respectable second against New Democratic incumbent Pat Martin.
In 2003, Lamoureux was again elected to the provincial legislature for the riding of Inkster. His win marked a turning point for the Manitoba Liberal Party. For the first time since 1988, the Party gained seats instead of losing them, in an election where the opposition Tories lost several seats to the NDP, the Liberals gained one.
Following the election, Lamoureux and Jon Gerrard were the only Liberal MLAs in the 57-member legislature. Both were re-elected in the 2007 provincial election, although the party did not make any further gains.
In late 2006 and early 2007, Kevin Lamoureux claimed that the Premier's Chief of Staff, Brad Balagus, improperly interfered in the NDP nomination for the constituency of The Maples. Lamoureux promised to resign his seat if the allegations of wrongdoing were proven false. In August of 2007, Elections Manitoba declined to lay charges against Balagus.
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