Longtime Manitoba politician Bill Blaikie dead after long battle with cancer

Bill Blaikie, a longtime Manitoba New Democrat whose political career spanned more than three decades and included terms in both the House of Commons and Manitoba’s legislature, has died. He was 71.

Blaikie died on Saturday in Winnipeg, following a battle with metastatic kidney cancer, according to a Facebook post by his son, Daniel Blaikie.

Blaikie was first elected in 1979, as the member of Parliament for the riding of Winnipeg-Birds Hill. After that riding was dissolved in 1987, Blaikie won four elections in the new riding of Winnipeg-Transcona, and two more after it was renamed Elmwood-Transcona in 2004. He did not seek re-election in 2008.

The following year,