Kevin Lamoureux
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Kevin Lamoureux (January 22, 1962) is a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He has 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 minor 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 in Inkster, another north Winnipeg riding.
The rise in Liberal support turned out to be temporary, and the party was reduced 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 reduced to only three seats in 1995, but 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, 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 a disaster for the Manitoba Liberal Party. 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. He may have benefitted from the fact that Gary Doer's New Democrats won a landslide majority in the rest of the province; with voters certain of the election's outcome, the perceived risks of voting for a third-party candidate were lower. (Lamoureux also benefitted from the fact that Becky Barrett did not run again).
Following the election, Lamoureux and Jon Gerrard were the only Liberal MLAs in the 57-member legislature.
