Pallister goes on offensive over respectful workplace case

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This article was published 23/02/2021 (1656 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PREMIER Brian Pallister held a news conference Monday to blast the Manitoba NDP for not censuring a caucus member found in breach of the province’s respectful workplace policy.

“It’s a matter this government takes very seriously,” Pallister said of the issue of harassment and bullying in the workplace. “On Friday, we saw that Manitoba’s official Opposition doesn’t share that attitude.”

A private PR company acting on behalf of the complainant — Pallister’s senior adviser, Paul Beauregard — reported Friday that NDP MLA Adrien Sala had breached the legislative assembly’s respectful workplace policy.

It said an “expert, independent investigator” found Sala in breach of the policy for “disseminating false or alternatively misleading information, engaging in a repeated pattern of harassment and bullying and a severe form of disrespectful behaviour, as well as engaging in repeated humiliation and intimidation causing lasting, harmful adverse effects on his (Beauregard’s) physical and psychological well-being.”

Beauregard joined the Pallister government in 2017, after working in senior positions with the former Manitoba Telecom Service and BCE/Bell Canada.

The premier’s key adviser was given responsibility for negotiating contracts with outside suppliers, informing institutions and unions of government cuts — and created headlines last year, when Sala revealed Beauregard had warned senior officials at Manitoba Hydro not to bid on a lucrative provincial contract.

Instead of censuring Sala, the NDP critic for Hydro, members of the Opposition signed a letter Friday, saying they reject the findings of the investigation “which amounts to nothing more than a partisan political process.”

Sala and NDP Leader Wab Kinew said Beauregard’s complaint was directed by the premier and was an attempt to silence questions about Hydro.

On Monday, Pallister said the NDP has made it a partisan process by not accepting the findings of the investigation or acting on them.

“These policies were developed and agreed upon by all parties,” Pallister told reporters. “They were designed to be non-partisan.”

Beauregard’s complaint was not to prevent questioning about Manitoba Hydro, the premier said. “That’s a phoney allegation.”

Beauregard was doing his job communicating the decisions of the cabinet, and was found not to be in any conflict of interest by the Manitoba conflict of interest commissioner and the Civil Service Commission, the premier said.

“The only people attacking Mr. Beauregard are the NDP,” Pallister said.

Kinew maintained his stance Monday that the premier is trying to distract from the Tory government’s interference in the Crown corporation’s operations.

“We know this government interfered to raise rates, sell off a profitable subsidiary, and close down another piece of Hydro,” the NDP leader said.

“We’re going to keep pushing on Manitoba Hydro, for sure.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca