Premier accused of playing ‘race card’

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This article was published 21/03/2018 (2777 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister must apologize to Manitoba’s Métis for trying to use them as a distraction to divert attention away from his own lack of leadership, NDP Leader Wab Kinew demanded Wednesday.

He said the mass resignation of the Manitoba Hydro board came about because Pallister is a one-man team who refused to listen to his own hand-picked board, which is running Manitoba’s most important asset.

He said Pallister is trying to deflect attention away from his leadership failures by blaming the federation over what the premier is packaging as a $70-million payment to persuade the federation not to block a transmission line to Minnesota.

“First of all, the premier should apologize to the Métis people of the province,” Kinew said. “Time and again, he has tried to divide Manitobans.

“This is a disaster of the premier’s own making.”

Hydro board members, who are staunch Tory party members and supporters, quit because Pallister wouldn’t meet with them or listen to them, Kinew said.

Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand accused Pallister of playing ‘the race card’ to divide Manitobans against Indigenous peoples to divert attention from his own failings.

Chartrand said the proposed payment is part of a 2014 Turning the Page agreement coming out of the Truth and Reconciliation process. It’s not a $70-million lump sum, but rather $67 million paid out over 50 years, the Métis president said.

“He doesn’t see us as a rights-bearing people,” Chartrand said in an interview. “We’re being used as a scapegoat because he didn’t do his job.

“He wouldn’t meet with Sandy (Riley) for a year — that’s what the issue is,” Chartrand said.

“His comments are right on,” Kinew said. “The premier shouldn’t be trying to blame the Métis to get away from his own bad day on Hydro.”

Kinew said the payment to the Métis shouldn’t be allowed to distract attention from Hydro’s problems and Pallister’s failures.

“The honour of the Crown is at stake,” Kinew said. “He’s opening up the province of Manitoba to a legal challenge. The agreement should be honoured,” Kinew said.

For the first time since the Tories were elected in 2016, question period was dominated by just one issue. Pallister was far more forthcoming with reporters in a scrum than he was in the house during question period.

“Hydro is a life-and-death issue. Today, there was a blackout of leadership,” Kinew told the house. “Why would the premier not listen to his own hand-picked board?

“It would appear this premier is a team of one,” the opposition leader said. “Why can’t he find one hour, one half-hour, 10 minutes, to sit down with the board? We’re seeing a desperate premier trying to change the channel.”

Pallister acknowledged that, “This is an unhappy day for me on a personal level.”

But he avoided talking about the substance of the Hydro board’s reasons for resigning or about Chartrand’s accusations throughout the 40-minute question period.

Instead, Pallister reminded Kinew that the former NDP government had five cabinet ministers quit. He urged Kinew to “get away from trying to reconcile his personal life.”

Pallister said that the former NDP government couldn’t even protect its own staff from sexual harassment. “He’s throwing stones from a glass house.”

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont called the day’s events shocking: “This is a vote of non-confidence in the premier,” Lamont said. “This is absolutely political interference in Hydro, again, which is the last thing we need.”

Lamont predicted Pallister will appoint a compliant board that does his bidding. Kinew called for the public utilities board or some other independent body to take over cabinet’s job of appointing the Hydro board.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca