Pallister’s past complicates power struggle

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This article was published 23/03/2018 (2775 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This is one of those moments that involve chickens coming home to roost.

The sudden en masse resignation Wednesday of most of Manitoba Hydro’s board of directors created a political firestorm the likes of which has not been seen in Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative party since, well, perhaps ever.

The facts surrounding the abrupt departure of chairman Sanford Riley and eight other board members (only Progressive Conservative MLA Cliff Graydon opted to retain his seat) are still being sorted out. Rumours of a looming board walkout had been circulating for several days, related to speculation that Mr. Riley was about to be removed from his position because Premier Brian Pallister had lost confidence in the man he hand-picked to lead Hydro’s board less than two years ago.

Mr. Riley and his board colleagues assert that they had not been able to secure a meeting with the premier for more than a year to “resolve a number of critical issues” afflicting the deeply indebted Crown utility. Mr. Pallister countered that the board revolt was rooted in the province’s decision to veto a planned Hydro payment of $70 million to the Manitoba Metis Federation, aimed at keeping the organization onside with a proposed Manitoba-Minnesota transmission line.

The truth surely lies somewhere in between. It most definitely did not help matters, however, when Mr. Pallister described the vetoed payment as “persuasion money” and referred to the federation as “a special-interest group.” The federation’s president subsequently accused the premier of “playing the race card” in an effort to deflect attention from his own failings in the Hydro board meltdown.

By late Wednesday, the departed board’s assertions had been met by Mr. Pallister’s rebuttals, which in turn had been answered by a terse counter-rebuttal in which Mr. Riley dismissed the premier’s version of events as “cynical, offensive and wrong.”

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What we’re left with, then, is a classic he said/he said situation, with the public left to decide which set of statements is closest to the truth. And this is where things get sticky for Mr. Pallister.

Two prominent Progressive Conservatives, two very different descriptions of what went wrong between the provincial government and its deliberately chosen Hydro board. One of those prominent PCs, however, has a documented history of being less than forthright in describing his personal and political activities. Who is the public more likely to believe?

Two powerful Manitoba groups — one a ruling political party and one a cultural advocacy organization — and two very different opinions on the role of Manitoba’s Métis people in the still-unravelling Hydro affair. One of those groups, however, has a leader with a documented history of intemperate remarks about Indigenous hunting rights and the potential for tensions over night hunting to spark a race war. With whom is the public more likely to sympathize?

It’s entirely possible that the departure of Hydro’s board of directors has more to do with Mr. Riley and his colleagues misunderstanding their relationship with government and overstepping their authority, thereby forcing the premier’s hand. And it was a simple inevitability that in this Crown corporation showdown, the appointers were going to stay and the appointees were going to leave.

But that doesn’t make this situation any less embarrassing for Mr. Pallister and his government. It’s a mess. And the premier’s past fudging of facts makes his current job of setting the record straight much more difficult than it needed to be.