Former Conservative MP Steven Fletcher is planning to run for the Manitoba Tories in the April 2016 provincial election, the Winnipeg Sun has learned.

Fletcher, who lost his Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley seat in October's federal election, is planning to seek the Progressive Conservative nomination in the provincial riding of Assiniboia, Tory sources have confirmed.

Fletcher did not return phone calls from the Winnipeg Sun Friday.

Assiniboia, which overlaps part of the federal constituency Fletcher held for 11 years, is seen as a winnable seat for the Tories after NDP incumbent MLA Jim Rondeau announced in April he won't seek re-election. Rondeau won the west Winnipeg riding from the Tories in 1999 by only three votes. But the popular MLA turned the riding into an NDP stronghold, winning subsequent elections by wide margins.

With Rondeau's exit from politics, though – and the NDP's overall decline in public opinion polls – Assiniboia is seen as fertile ground again for the Tories.

Fletcher, who spent almost five years in former prime minister Stephen Harper's cabinet, including as minister of state for transport, won four straight elections in his federal riding. He increased his vote count in each election until he was defeated by Liberal MP Doug Eyolfson last month.

Meanwhile, it's unclear when the Tory constituency association for Assiniboia plans to hold a nomination meeting to pick its candidate for the April 19 election. A meeting was held earlier this month where two candidates – Michael Bailey and Robert Harper – were vying for the nomination. However the Nov. 4 meeting was abruptly cancelled with few details given by party brass as to why.

The constituency association has scheduled a general meeting for this weekend.

Fletcher, who is paralyzed from the neck down, has been a role model for catastrophically injured people. He was the first quadriplegic MP to sit in Parliament and has been a leading voice on the issue of doctor-assisted death.

Fletcher tabled a private members bill that would give doctor's the legal right to help people end their lives under certain conditions. The bill was never adopted by government. But his bill, or parts of it, could be used by the new Liberal government to draft legislation after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled earlier this year that adults with enduring, intolerable suffering have the right to ask a doctor to help them die.