Premier Wab Kinew has yet to make a public visit to Steinbach — the province’s third-largest city — nearly three years into his term in office, despite repeatedly promoting a “One Manitoba” message and emphasizing his ties to communities outside Winnipeg.
Kinew and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara had one meeting in Steinbach in late 2024 as part of a provincewide listening tour with health-care workers, but that was behind closed doors.
He’s made no public appearances. He hasn’t attended community events, visited businesses or met with residents. His government hasn’t held any funding announcements in Steinbach either.
“I understand that a premier’s schedule is busy and so I wouldn’t have put a lot of pressure on that first year [to come to Steinbach], but it’s been three years,” Steinbach PC MLA Kelvin Goertzen said.
Goertzen said it’s great some ministers have toured Steinbach — a city that 20,000 people call home, according to a recent Statistics Canada estimate — but in politics today “so much of the decision-making is concentrated in the leaders of government.”
Under those circumstances, he said it’s critical that a leader attends Manitoba’s biggest communities so he understands their needs. During the two months he served as premier in 2021, Goertzen went to Brandon, Thompson and Churchill, among other communities, he said.
“It is not just a symbolic thing. It is a meaningful thing when the head of government comes and hears directly about the concerns of community,” Goertzen said.
On numerous occasions, Kinew has boasted his NDP caucus is more in touch with rural concerns than the Progressive Conservatives, which have a majority of their MLAs outside Winnipeg.
“Unlike the member opposite, we know that the province extends beyond the Perimeter [Highway],” Kinew said in question period last November.
During his first 33 months in office, Kinew has frequently gone to Brandon, the province’s second-largest city. He’s delivered state-of-the-province speeches, held funding announcements, toured a pork plant and met the survivor of a school sword attack, among other appearances in the city of 62,000 people.
He’s also visited other cities which, like Steinbach, reliably elect Tory MLAs and are located within a 90-minute drive from Winnipeg.
Steinbach still waiting for public visit from Premier Wab Kinew
Kinew has visited Portage la Prairie, a city of nearly 14,000 residents, for a National Indigenous Peoples Day celebration, delivered state-of-the-province addresses and gone to a school.
And last fall Kinew brought his MLAs to Winkler, a city with more than 15,000 people, according to the last census, for a planning retreat. While there, the premier and his caucus held meetings and joined a community dinner with a few hundred people.
Steinbach coalition looks to Winkler’s wisdom on small-city transit service
Goertzen said Kinew’s absence from Steinbach was “curious” by the second year of his premiership. Now, it’s “concerning.”
Other premiers, from the NDP’s Gary Doer and Greg Selinger, to Tories Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson, all spent time in Steinbach while in office.
“It really is about fulfilling a promise that there’s one Manitoba, ” Goertzen said, invoking Kinew’s oft-repeated message of unity, “and you should be seen and be knowledgeable about every part of the province — and sometimes being knowledgeable means showing up.”
Some Steinbach residents have recently expressed feeling they’ve been treated differently than other Manitobans, after the province promised rural residents affected by this year’s floods wouldn’t be left behind, even though Steinbach was denied disaster financial assistance in 2025 after it was hit by 135 millimetres of rain.
The city wrote a letter to the province asking it to reconsider its denial. The mayor declined an interview on this story.
After being denied financial relief for 2025 flooding, Steinbach asks province to reconsider
Despite Kinew’s absence, some members of his government have made stops in Steinbach.
The Steinbach Chamber of Commerce has hosted six NDP cabinet ministers for tours and meetings. The visits are part of a new strategy for the chamber to prioritize advocacy with all levels of government, president Eugene Warwaruk said.
“If they can find a day to come out or an afternoon to come out, we’ve been successful,” he said.
Warwaruk said he recently extended a personal invitation to Kinew to visit Steinbach, after the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce breakfast in Winnipeg in June.
“He definitely is wanting to come out,” he said, explaining the premier brought up the new $75-million sports and concert venue during their conversation.
Warwaruk said he doesn’t know why Kinew hasn’t visited yet, but said he likely has many competing priorities as Manitoba’s premier.
“We just keep the door open, build those relationships with his departments and the other MLAs will hopefully show the entire provincial government that we want to work together with all levels of government.”
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor in political science at the University of Manitoba, said he doesn’t know if Kinew has “much of an affinity” for Steinbach.
The traditionally conservative city has never voted NDP, and has been the site of high-profile debates around LGBTQ acceptance.
“That’s another thing that would make one less willing to, as an NDP leader, be in that area,” Adams said, “but at the same time, Wab Kinew has not been shy of going to different parts of the province.”
More stories from Southeast Manitoba
Even if time spent in Steinbach doesn’t help him politically, Adams said a visit should be added to the premier’s calendar soon because the growing city is vital to Manitoba’s economy and a hub for agriculture and manufacturing.
He acknowledged, though, that Kinew is likely busy dealing with flooding, wildfires and new tariff threats at the moment.
“Right now, he’s metaphorically and literally putting out fires. We’ve got a lot of things in the province going on.”
Kinew didn’t explain why he hasn’t publicly visited Steinbach, but told an unrelated news conference Thursday, after the Council of Federation conference finished in Charlottetown, that he plans to “visit Steinbach for the Pride parade coming up [Sept. 12], and I encourage Kelvin Goertzen to attend with me.”
Goertzen hasn’t attended a Pride event in Steinbach since the event launched in 2016.
In a statement, Goertzen said he’s glad to hear Kinew is planning a stop in the city, and he hopes it’s the first of a number of times where he meets with Steinbach residents, “who I know will welcome him.”
Manitoba farmers build resilience against climate change
Paralympians help Steinbach-area athletes discover community through wheelchair rugby
