Making amends for my grievous error

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/06/2024 (674 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’m willing to bet you have no memory of a newspaper columnist chowing down on a bowl of crow.

Most people who make mistakes including writers, don’t put them in the shop window. It may instinctively feel better to plant one’s reputation in the dark pit of denial.

There are experts in public communications who tell communicators to never publicly admit to making a mistake. It can be viewed as weakness.

This is advice I have never taken seriously. My moral compass tells me that public life should be guided by the same principles as private life.

How much do I respect anyone who will never admit to a mistake? The accurate number is zero.

None of us is superhuman.

Grounded people know that we all make errors. Those of us who learned from our elders that honesty is the best policy know that admitting to a mistake is the right thing to do.

Denying it, excusing it and spinning it are dishonest.

So here we go.

Last week at this time, I wrote that the new PC candidate in Tuxedo did not win a contested nomination.

I wrote that Lawrence Pinsky was named by the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives as its nominee, just as the NDP named Carla Compton as its nominee.

But the truth deserves to be painted in bright colours. Pinsky won a contested nomination, defeating two other contenders on the first ballot, at a meeting attended by some 500 people in Tuxedo.

I don’t wish to pretend that my transgression was among the biggest mistakes in the history of publishing.

Much of the damage was mitigated because this modern newspaper corrected the record in the online edition. That spared me a bushel of email blasts.

But the people who read the Free Press print edition deserve better. So I won’t offer rationalizations, excuses and spin. That would surely disappoint my late grandmother Elizabeth, who gave me my moral compass. Please consider this meal of newspaper crow, my unqualified apology.

The Manitoba PCs made no mistake in holding a nomination meeting. It’s the best way of getting momentum for any election campaign. Unlike most byelections, this one is very important for a PC party that recently found itself back in opposition.

If they cannot hold Tuxedo, it will be dim the party’s prospects in the near term. By next year at this time, the Manitoba PCs will have elected a new leader. For the sake of Manitoba democracy, there need to be a vigorous leadership contest with a minimum of two strong candidates.

It’s too early to say whether the newly minted PC candidate in Tuxedo will be one of them. There is a lot of work he needs to do first. He must rally as many supporters as possible to win the June 18 byelection. After that, anything is possible for the Winnipeg family lawyer who was appointed as a human rights adjudicator by NDP and PC governments.

History tells us the Tuxedo seat has cachet for Conservatives. Two former PC premiers have held it, Gary Filmon and Heather Stefanson. Lawrence Pinsky could become the third.

In introducing himself to voters in Tuxedo, Pinsky talks about his roots. “My father was a Holocaust survivor and my mother was the daughter of an immigrant blacksmith and farmer from Saskatchewan. My parents instilled in me a deep respect for the rights and freedoms that Canada gave our family and taught me the skills of hard work, community service, and leadership.”

If Pinsky drives a campaign focused on what most of us would call a “red Tory” agenda, fiscally conservative, socially moderate, he has a good chance of getting traditional Tuxedo PC voters on side. If he wins, it will be a huge service to his party, which has been delivering mixed messages of late.

Last year’s losing campaign saw the PCs steering a social conservative course which did not resemble the public record of their leader, Heather Stefanson.

Only days ago, there was a political fight in the Manitoba legislature which passed a bill to designate every March 31 as Two-Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility.

The NDP caucus unanimously voted for Bill 308. Four PC MLAs opposed.

If Manitoba PCs want to burn political stubble on these kind of fights, it may support their rural base, but it will destroy their opportunity to mend fences where two out of every three Manitobans vote, in Lawrence Pinsky’s Winnipeg.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster.

charles@charlesadler.com