If Pallister is guilty of anything, it’s poor judgment

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/04/2016 (3462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

As a former school teacher, Brian Pallister is undoubtedly familiar with that quote and its many variations. The meaning is simple: Lies beget more and more lies until the truth is a mangled mess.

As recent news reports revealed, the Conservative party leader appears to have had a hard time explaining why he was absent from Manitoba for so long over the last few years and where exactly he goes when he disappears from public view. In particular, he was mistaken about his whereabouts during the summer flood of 2014. His office initially refused to answer questions about his location, but then Mr. Pallister provided an off-the-record explanation about being at an out-of-province wedding. Subsequent reports, however, said he was in Costa Rica, where he owns a vacation property. He initially denied those reports, but recanted this week. He described his initial statement that he was at a family wedding as “an oversight, an unfortunate lapse in memory.”

And there’s more, including misleading statements about the amount of time he spent out of the country and where. It turns out he has spent 240 days in Costa Rica since he was elected an MLA in 2012.

How could such an intelligent, experienced man become ensnared in a web of his own making? And one that is particularly petty and trivial. He claims the deception was an attempt to protect the privacy of his family, but there may be other reasons, too.

In a province that tends to like its leaders a little bit on the rumpled side, Mr. Pallister may be worried that his image is just too high society for local tastes.

The fact he owns a $2-million home on Wellington Crescent, for example, caused a minor media stir following the purchase in 2012. It wasn’t the typical home of a Manitoba political leader. The idea of a party leader in a middle-of-the-road province living in a home with a seven-car garage seemed incongruous and even incompatible with the normally modest habits of Manitoba politicians.

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Look at Premier Greg Selinger.

He doesn’t present as a particularly opulent figure. He lives in a remodelled home in old St. Boniface. And like all Manitobans, he owns a cottage on an island in Lake of the Woods. Just joking. Actually, most Manitobans do not enjoy that kind of luxury. It’s safe to assume the premier’s wealth and properties, as well as his PhD in social work, put him in elite company in every sense. And yet, that is not the impression of most Manitobans, who tend to see Mr. Selinger, not as an elitist, but as a sort of everyman, standing on guard for society’s outcasts and downcasts.

In any event, if Mr. Pallister is guilty of anything, it’s poor judgment. As Opposition leader, he was not expected to be behind his desk as long as the premier, who has a full-time job running the affairs of state. He did have an obligation, however, to be forthcoming about his whereabouts, particularly when the time he spent out of the country started to become an issue and even made it difficult for him to be truthful.

If he should become premier, Mr. Pallister will be entitled to visit his vacation home without alerting the media. Unless, of course, he spends so much time out of the country that it becomes an issue. He need only look to the questions surrounding former Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz as a cautionary tale.

Mr. Pallister has not lost the right to be premier, but he has not followed the highest standards of public office. This is the man who has targeted Mr. Selinger for being untrustworthy on his tax-hike turnabout, while thundering on about the need for honesty, integrity and transparency in office. He will have to do better if he wins the election.