Budget delay threatened
MANITOBA opposition parties have issued an ultimatum to Premier Gary Doer -- fire the finance minister or the legislature will be immobilized.
Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen and Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard hand-delivered a written warning to the premier's office on Tuesday.
Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen and Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard delivered an ultimatum to the premier.
They issued their threat even though it was also revealed Tuesday that they were wrong a day earlier in accusing Finance Minister Greg Selinger of withholding a cabinet briefing note from the Crocus Investment Fund audit. The note warned of an impending cash crunch in the fund.
Selinger slammed the opposition leaders on Tuesday over the false allegation.
"If they have any decency at all they'll apologize," said Selinger. "We in no way interfered with the auditor's investigation. We gave them full access to everything including cabinet documents."
Former auditor Jon Singleton -- who actually did the Crocus review -- said Monday he had no memory of the briefing note. But current auditor general Carol Bellringer checked the files and wrote to Selinger Tuesday to let him know the briefing note was in fact among the documents compiled for the Crocus audit, which took place in the first six months of 2005.
McFadyen said Selinger's credibility has been damaged by the very existence of the briefing note, regardless of whether he supplied it to the audit. McFadyen said any budget Selinger introduces will also lack credibility.
"We wanted to put the premier on notice at the earliest opportunity that he has an opportunity to change his finance minister without any disruption to budget preparation," said McFadyen. "We very much hope we won't have to take any steps. He's got five weeks."
McFadyen and Gerrard said they will stay within the rules as they delay government business, but they wouldn't say whether they would ring the bells again.
It will be the second time the Crocus fund halted government business. Last spring, the Tories and Liberals held up the budget for more than seven weeks by repeatedly challenging the Speaker and ringing the legislature's bells for hours every day.
At that point they were demanding a public inquiry into Crocus. They've now added Selinger's job to their list.
The briefing note -- made public last weekend after it was leaked by an anonymous source -- outlines a request by Crocus management to alter the fund's governing legislation to address a looming cash-flow problem.
In the note, Selinger said the request was in effect asking to use money from new investors to pay off old investors.
The opposition parties allege the note is proof the government could have acted to protect Crocus shareholders four years before the fund eventually collapsed.
McFadyen laughed off Selinger's request for an apology and Gerrard said he needed to see the letter from Bellringer before saying anything further.
But both of them said the fact that the auditor had the briefing note doesn't change the fact that Selinger failed to warn investors the Crocus fund was in trouble despite knowing it was facing cash problems four years before it collapsed.
More than 33,000 investors lost money when the Crocus fund halted trading in December 2004.
Singleton laid most blame for the Crocus fund's problems on poor management and out of control spending by the fund's executives, but he also slammed the government in his report, saying they failed to properly monitor the fund and missed a series of "red flags" warning the fund was in trouble.
A spokesman for Selinger said the opposition parties threats to delay the budget shows they are willing to play petty politics with taxpayers dollars.
University of Manitoba politics professor Paul Thomas said they are likely hoping to crystallize public opinion against the NDP on one example of the government being "asleep at the switch."
But Thomas said it's unlikely Doer will sacrifice Selinger at this point because doing so would make the premier and the government look weak.
And an endless delay in government business will upset voters, who are already disengaged and distrustful of politicians.
"Up to a point the public will tolerate these tactics," said Thomas. "People are turned off by the negative theatrics of it all and they don't want to see it."
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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