Pallister defends Costa Rican retreats, subterfuge; Selinger, Bokhari not buying it

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This article was published 15/04/2016 (3486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brian Pallister is defending his lengthy absences in Costa Rica as private time with his family, and insists his wife and children have the right to privacy.

Pallister said Friday that even though he spent 240 days since 2012 in Costa Rica, the time there was dominated by his work as Opposition leader.

Pallister acknowledged that he had been at his vacation property in Costa Rica during the 2014 flood. But he would not apologize to the people of Manitoba for having claimed to be elsewhere during some of the time he spent on holiday.

Pallister said he promised his father that he would protect his family’s privacy when he went into politics.

“Like all working people, I wrestle with the balance between working time away from my family, and time with my family,” he told a news conference called to discuss the Conservative plan to provide better public services.

Asked about being in Costa Rica during the flood — Pallister had said at the time that he didn’t want to politicize the crisis by visiting the flood-fighting epicentre and that he was at a family wedding in Alberta — the Tory leader said, “It’s a fair question. I struggled with the balance between the media’s need to have information and my family’s need for privacy. It’s the balance between people’s right to know and the family’s protection. It’s an obligation to protect my family.”

Reaction Friday from both Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari and NDP Leader Greg Selinger was swift.

“You’re lying to people. There’s no two ways about this. You’re lying,” Bokhari said. “People need to trust their leadership.”

She said Pallister’s long absences from the province are “quite astounding” and show he’s been a part-time Opposition leader and would be a part-time premier.

“If you’re not in the legislature, you really should be in your constituency, making sure that the people of your constituency know that you’re working for them. He’s done neither,” she said.

Selinger said Pallister should have told the truth.

“He shouldn’t have covered up about where he was. He had more than one opportunity to be transparent about that and he refused to do it until this came out this week,” the NDP leader said, adding Manitobans pulled together during the flood, doing all they could to protect affected communities while Pallister was on vacation.

“Volunteers were showing up in droves. People from Hutterite colonies (were) filling the sandbags. Civil servants were busing out there after they finished work to help out. The prime minister (Stephen Harper) came in. I talked to him about bringing in the troops and the troops came in.

“It was obvious to everybody that this is the time when you step up when you’re a leader to show that you’re there for people.”

Selinger said he understands that politicians want to protect their family’s privacy, but it’s not a reason for misleading the public about their whereabouts.

“It indicates to me that he knew there was something wrong with what he was doing, and he wasn’t prepared to disclose it,” he said.

During the flooding state of emergency in 2014, Milton Sussman, then clerk of the executive council, the province’s chief bureaucrat, sent a bulletin to all government employees urging them to join the flood-fighting effort.

Bokhari said Manitobans would have a “very tough time stomaching” an explanation that being there for people in crisis would be seen as a purely political act.

“When the people of our province are in crisis, that means no partisanship. That means every member of the legislature, that means everyone gets together and works towards helping the people of our province. That’s leadership,” she said.

Pallister said that he would “probably not” spend nearly that much time in Costa Rica should he become premier. He acknowledged that 240 days at his vacation property since 2012 sounded accurate, and told the assembled media that he didn’t question their right to be asking him about his time in Costa Rica.

“I respect the work you do, deeply. I also am a dad and a husband,” Pallister said. “Finding that balance is really a challenge.”

Pallister said he does not conduct any form of commercial business while he is in Costa Rica, and there is no public money involved in his time there.

He said his family saved up for 30 years for the Costa Rican vacation property they hope will be their retirement home. Going there was an opportunity for Pallister and his wife to spend as much time with their children as possible while they were young, he said.

Pallister said he works 60-hour weeks on the public’s behalf. He has never been in Costa Rica while the legislature is sitting, he pointed out, and works as Opposition leader while he is away, for far more hours than his wife likes.

“I’m probably a workaholic; I work every day,” he said, adding that ethic helped him rise from poverty. “Most people work regular hours — I don’t.”

Pallister said he writes speeches while in Costa Rica, and he researches to familiarize himself with the details of government.

Pallister did offer an apology to one person — Free Press reporter Bartley Kives. In a recent interview, Pallister told Kives he was last outside of Canada in 2015 when he went to North Dakota, but had taken two trips of 24 and 15 days to Costa Rica since then.

“I got it wrong; I got the dates wrong,” Pallister said. “I owe Bartley Kives an apology.”

Myrna Driedger, the Tory candidate in Charleswood and a longtime MLA who would likely be a member of a Pallister cabinet, said Friday that she has never been unable to get hold of Pallister when she needed to talk to him.

“It’s not like we track each other,” she said. When the legislature isn’t in session, “We all go about what we’re doing, any given day. I have never actually wondered where he is, because he works so hard.”

Driedger said voters would accept that Pallister is in Costa Rica to enjoy family time:

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“I think the public can relate to that,” she said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

Nick Martin

Former Free Press reporter Nick Martin, who wrote the monthly suspense column in the books section and was prolific in his standalone reviews of mystery/thriller novels, died Oct. 15 at age 77 while on holiday in Edinburgh, Scotland.