Gary Doer,
leader of the New Democratic Party

Gary Doer should have many reasons to flash his toothy grin during this election.

His majority government has made few mis-steps over the past three-and-a-half years, and the ones they’ve made haven’t really stuck as reasons to toss them out. Neither opposition party is in a position to provide much opposition.

“They’re a centrist government, somewhat like the Liberals,” Scott MacKay, of Probe Research, says. “I think they can be criticized for inaction more than for anything they’ve done.

“This is a good time, strategically, for them to call an election.”

The NDP is sitting at 44 per cent in a pre-election Probe Research poll, 13 points ahead of the Progressive Conservatives. MacKay says he thinks they’ve topped out, as far as increasing that lead.

Doer waited a long time to be sitting where he is – after a brief stint as urban affairs minister in the Howard Pawley government, starting in 1986, his party went to the polls two years later following a non-confidence vote.

Elected party leader before that vote in 1988, he lost the next three elections – 1988, 1990 and 1995.

But the smooth, well-dressed former union leader hung on and was victorious on his fourth outing in 1999, defeating the Tories after their decade in power by winning a majority government of 32 seats.

Doer campaigned hard on health care, promising to end “hallway medicine,” a message that resounded with voters. The fallout from the Tory vote-rigging scandal didn’t hurt their efforts either.

Doer also moved the party to more central political ground, which helped sway some in the business community, although it caused internal party backlash.

It’s a path Doer has not strayed far from during his first term, keeping to the middle ground and giving the Tories little room to manoeuvre.

While health care is still a hot button issue, the NDP has managed to move quickly to at least appear to be addressing problems.

Doer has managed to secure federal funding for an expanded floodway, protecting the City of Winnipeg in the event of a flood larger than 1997.

He’s pushed back the start of the school year to after Labour Day and survived a visit from Queen Elizabeth, although after she was briefly stalled on the Red River the province took some heat from the British tabloids.