Premier blasted for changing stance on pipelines

PREMIER Wab Kinew is defending his government’s support of a proposed pipeline to Hudson Bay amid a wildfires crisis, arguing a trade war with the U.S. has changed the province’s economic course.

Chris Wiebe, former vice-president of the Manitoba NDP who ran unsuccessfully in the 2023 provincial election, said Kinew’s message during the run-up to the campaign was clear — pipelines were not an option for the government.

“There was no discussion of pipelines other than Wab Kinew stating at an all-candidates’ meeting in 2022 that that’s where his line in the sand was: no new pipelines,” Wiebe said in an interview Monday.

“Other than that, then there was no discussion.”

Wiebe lost to Progressive Conservative incumbent Bob Lagasse in Dawson Trail by about 500 votes, but the NDP went on to form a majority government.

“The province is burning and we’re talking about building pipelines up north, and I just don’t see how a New Democratic Party can be discussing that,” said Wiebe, who resigned from the executive and the party earlier this year.

“All Manitoba NDP candidates in the 2023 provincial campaign were told that we cannot be pro-pipelines and run for the party … But with the province burning, here we are,” Wiebe wrote on social media Saturday. The post came after the premier told reporters a day earlier that his government would consider a pipeline to carry oil or gas to Hudson Bay.

The province has been battling a wildfires crisis for weeks, with more than 20 communities evacuated amid a provincial state of emergency.

Kinew didn’t deny changing course on pipelines and paraphrased an English economist whose ideas influenced governments during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“I’m a big fan of John Maynard Keynes and his famous quote, ‘When the facts change, you know, you change your opinion on something.’ Right now we’re in an economic war that’s been provoked by the Trump administration and it demands that we work together to build Canada,” he said after an unrelated news conference Monday.

Last week, Kinew met with Prime Minister Mark Carney and his fellow premiers and territorial leaders in Saskatoon to discuss nation-building projects, including how to get natural resources to tidewater to ship overseas, rather than relying on the U.S. as a trading partner.

“In our goal to create a ‘have Manitoba’ instead of our traditional ‘have-not’ status, I think it’s time that we entertain serious investments in northern infrastructure investments in the port. I think there’s a way that we can do that while maintaining our leading status as being a climate-friendly jurisdiction,” Kinew said Monday.

Wiebe, a University of Winnipeg chemistry professor, said he’s remained a “social democrat” but said his principles no longer align with the Manitoba NDP.

“They run a very progressive platform with few details, but they govern more as conservatives — where we’re seeing that is they kept the Tory tax cuts, health care is in a shambles, our education system isn’t doing great and we’re talking about building pipelines. So I have issues with that,” said Wiebe.

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Wiebe said the party doesn’t have much input in policy change.

“It’s all coming from the premier’s office and we’re informed which policies are being accepted. I think that most Manitoba NDP members would not be for pipelines, for example.”

Kinew and the NDP continue to be popular with Manitobans. The most recent Free Press-Probe Research poll in March found the NDP had the support of 57 per cent of voters.

The non-profit Angus Reid Institute’s quarterly approval ratings released March 25 had Kinew in second place among Canada’s premiers, next to Newfoundland’s Andrew Furey.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.