The Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba ran 38 candidates in the 1953 provincial election, under the leadership of Errick Willis.
Twelve of these candidates were elected, and the Progressive Conservatives formed the official opposition in the legislature.
This decision split the party, and a number of Progressive Conservatives either retired or chose to remain on the government side.
After ten years of coalition government, the Progressive Conservative Party's provincial machinery had largely fallen into disrepair.
The party was not able to field a full slate of candidates, and had difficulty mounting effective campaigns in some regions.
In Kildonan—Transcona, the local Progressive Conservative association endorsed independent candidate Steve Melnyk.
Harry Shewman, an Independent candidate in Morris, also seems to have been at least tacitly endorsed by the Progressive Conservative Party.
The party also did not field candidates in Carillon, Emerson, Fisher, Gimli, Gladstone, La Verendrye, Mountain or The Pas.
Fournier was born in Winnipeg, and was an employee for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) for thirty-one years.
He received 957 votes (30.82%), losing to Liberal-Progressive candidate Francis Bell in a straight two-candidate contest.
He first campaigned for the Manitoba legislature in the 1936 provincial election as a Conservative candidate in Cypress, and narrowly lost to Liberal-Progressive incumbent James Christie.
He ran against Christie again in the 1941 election as an independent coalition supporter, and lost by an increased margin.
Venables first campaigned for the Manitoba legislature in the 1949 provincial election, as a Progressive Conservative coalitionist.
He received 1,237 votes, and finished a close second against Liberal-Progressive candidate Charles Shuttleworth.
Liberal-Progressive candidate Douglas Campbell, the Premier of Manitoba, won the constituency on the first count.
He defeated a young insurance executive named Ralph B. Clarke for the nomination; a third candidate, Percy Coutts of Newdale, withdrew before the vote.
His transfers gave an unexpected victory to Social Credit candidate Gilbert Hutton, who had finished second on the first count.
He was nominated in 1953 to challenge Wallace C. Miller, a provincial cabinet minister who had been elected as a Progressive Conservative, but crossed to the Liberal-Progressive benches after the coalition government came to an end.
Thiessen made the following comment: “We have no desire to run down our present representative, but we feel it is the democratic right of the citizens of Rhineland to express their wishes at the ballot” (Winnipeg Free Press, 6 February 1953).
Miller subsequently died in office, and Recksiedler once again campaigned for the legislature in a by-election held on November 26, 1959.
He campaigned for the House of Commons of Canada in the 1949 federal election, and finished third out of three candidates with 2,557 votes.
Note: The Progressive Conservatives nominated Scott and Stepnuk for Winnipeg Centre on December 1, 1952, and indicated that other candidates might follow.
Carrick was a councillor in Winnipeg for many years, serving with the centre-right Civic Election Committee.
He first ran for the Manitoba legislature in the 1949 provincial election, as a Progressive Conservative candidate supporting the governing alliance with the Liberal-Progressives.
Carrick was nominated for the 1953 election as the lone Progressive Conservative candidate in Winnipeg North, defeating challenger John F. Kubas.
He ran for the legislature a third time in the 1958 election, after Winnipeg's multi-member constituencies had been replaced with single-member divisions.
He finished second in St. John's, losing to David Orlikow of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation by 1,200 votes.
Evans was declared elected to the fourth position on the seventh and final count.
Shortly before the election, she was one of five councillors to oppose a bill outlawing racial discrimination in the workplace.
McCreery was the first woman to run for provincial office in Manitoba as a candidate of the Progressive Conservative Party.