The acclamation of Brian Pallister to the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in July left Manitobans asking one question: “That’s it?”

That his ascent resulted from being the only person to show up underscores the scarcity of strong economic conservatism in the Keystone Province. And Pallister has yet to prove his own cred as a strong conservative.

In one month of leadership, he has taken just two jabs at the reigning New Democrats we can construe as “specific”: one calling for a freeze on hydro rates before their plans to expand the utility are reviewed, and one calling the timing of a child care funding announcement “more than coincidental.”

Um ... burn?

You’d think Pallister would make an effort to live up to his “Aim Higher” slogan. Last year, the NDP won four more years in power by insisting then-leader Hugh McFadyen and ex-premier Gary Filmon were the exact same person — that McFadyen had designs on firing nurses and privatizing Hydro.

“That’s not true,” McFadyen mewled before boldly standing up for his preferred route for Bipole III — the only thing for which he boldly stood up.

Yes. We should have aimed higher. But with Pallister at the helm of the PCs, refusing to call out the NDP for its campaign of fabrication or present Manitobans with an alternative agenda, we haven’t.

(Don’t tell me he’s been busy with his Fort Whyte run. An aspiring premier needs to learn to think about two things at once.)

Our neighbour to the west faced this problem. Years of an ineffective, spendthrift NDP government rendered Saskatchewan a laughingstock, the economically stagnant province its kids couldn’t leave sooner. While changes to Saskatchewan’s potash royalty regime led to its economic boom were made by then-NDP premier Lorne Calvert in 2005, current Saskatchewan Party Premier Brad Wall has gone further, refusing to base lavish spending promises on projected resource revenues, unlike Dwain Lingenfelter, Calvert’s successor as NDP leader.

Wall has passed the largest single-year income tax cut in the party’s history and gotten rid of rent control. And just last week, he announced plans to cut its spending even further. Saskatchewan is off the equalization dole, the only province in the country with a budget surplus and enjoying a fourth straight year of migration gains.

Saskatchewan’s example shows us two choices: Wait for a Manitoba NDP leader who can get one important thing right, like Calvert, or hope Pallister will get all the things right. Which one is more improbable? We shouldn’t wait and see.

It’s time for a real alternative. I’m talking about a party that will prevent Manitoba from remaining the one-party state it has been since the Filmon years. One that will stem the tax-and-spend tide long enough to attract serious industry and keep our kids at home. One that, after four years of failed public safety policies, say “Let’s not try four more!” And most of all, one with the guts to tell the NDP’s lemmings “conservative” isn’t code for “slash-and-burn bigots who love firing nurses.”

Either Pallister can remake his party in that fashion, or someone else can make a new one. It’s his call.

— Chapman is a Winnipeg-based producer for Sun News Network.