From Christmas cheers to jeers

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This article was published 05/12/2024 (331 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba politicians politely delivered messages of goodwill and holiday cheer during the last sitting before the Christmas break, which quickly degenerated into heckling and accusations.

It got so bad, the Speaker delivered his own message: behave and show some respect for one another.

“The standard set in 2024 was, quite simply, not good enough.” Tom Lindsey admonished MLAs on both sides of the chamber before the start of question period as he called out their disrespectful behaviour.

“Manitobans deserve better.”

The bad behaviour involves members from both sides of the house, even though each party has called for MLAs to join forces and work together on key issues.

On Thursday, just after proceedings recessed for lunch, cabinet minister Tracy Schmidt crossed the floor and confronted the Tories.

The Tories accused her of aggressively accosting one member, standing over him and pointing her finger down at him while telling him he should not be in the chamber.

“The language that was used, from a minister of the Crown, I’ve never seen anything like it. It was awful,” said Grant Jackson, the Tory education critic. He did not provide details or identify which of his colleagues was confronted by Schmidt.

Schmidt, the environment minister who is acting education minister, told reporters she went over to the Tory side because she had heard what she considered a racist comment toward the end of the morning debate.

“I walked over to the member… and said to the member that I felt that his comments were racist and I encouraged him sincerely to apologize,” Schmidt told reporters.

Schmidt did not say what the comments were or identify the Tory she confronted.

“I was immediately surrounded by several male members of their caucus who started shouting at me and telling me to get out of there, and so I got out of there.”

Mark Wasyliw, an independent legislature member who was kicked out of the NDP caucus earlier this year, posted on social media that an NDP cabinet minister “lost control” and had a “face-to-face rage-filled direct confrontation” with a Tory.

Any hope of the NDP government and opposition Progressive Conservatives working together to address issues seems like wishful thinking, said a veteran observer of Manitoba politics.

“Hyper partisanship has become a serious problem,” Paul Thomas said after observing question period this week and comparing it to earlier times.

“Games playing in QP always occurred, but there were more more moments of exchanges that elicited information and achieved meaningful accountability,” said the University of Manitoba political studies professor emeritus.

Premier Wab Kinew said in the house Thursday that the PCs need to apologize for their 2023 election campaign that was based on refusing to search a landfill for the remains of Marcedes Myron and Morgan Harris. “You have not atoned for attacking the families of a serial killer,” he said.

Progressive Conservative interim leader Wayne Ewasko has accused the premier and government house leader Nahanni Fontaine of creating a toxic workplace in the legislature.

The NDP called for an all-party committee to explore the challenges facing communities across the province with local journalism under threat as media outlets struggle to survive in the Internet age.

The PCs have requested an all-party committee to take a “Team Manitoba” approach in responding to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threat of 25 per cent tariffs on all goods imported by the U.S.

Neither party’s calls to work together on behalf of all Manitobans went anywhere despite all the time and oxygen they were given in the legislature.

“It may be a sign of the times that the PCs cannot agree to an all-party committee on potential supports to rural media to preserve all kinds of coverage of local communities,” Thomas said.

“Meanwhile, the NDP cannot agree to a Team Manitoba approach to develop understanding and support for policy and administrative responses to the Trump threat,” he said.

Thomas, a retired academic and columnist, has proposed all-party committees to work together when the house isn’t in session to study issues that aren’t subject to a deep partisan divide.

“My hope was that working alongside one another and relating to the evidence could be the starting point for the development of a less toxic culture within the institution,” said Thomas, who’s seen it work in the past.

“Back in the early 1990s, an all-party committee with a neutral chair in the person of professor Wally Fox Decent, did valuable work in educating Manitobans and bringing the parties together in the constitutional debates taking place at that time.”

In 2024, both parties say it’s the other side that isn’t willing to work together.

NDP MLA Robert Loiselle said the PCs blocked the government motion for an all-party committee to consider public support for journalism. He said in a news release that the PCs are preventing good local jobs in journalism in their own constituencies.

PC house leader Derek Johnson said the NDP isn’t genuinely interested in working together to benefit Manitobans.

“What we are witnessing is the NDP creating one-party committees and inviting the opposition as an afterthought instead of as partners,” Johnson said in a statement. “We are ready to get to work — now we are left waiting on the NDP.”

The session resumes March 5.

— with files from The Canadian Press

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca