Out of his comfort zone and into the hot seat

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This article was published 29/12/2009 (6080 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FIVE months ago, Greg Selinger was comfortably tucked away in a first-floor Manitoba legislature office as finance minister, a job he’d held for 10 years.

The recession was about a year old, but Manitoba’s economy was humming along compared with other provinces.

Coming off a summer break, Selinger’s only focus was staying the course.

Then, on the morning of Aug. 27, everything changed.

Gary Doer stunned almost everyone by announcing he was stepping down as premier. (A day later, he was appointed Canada’s ambassador to the United States.)

Within seconds, the methodical Selinger felt that tingling in the gut you get when a big decision has to be made.

It took him a while — it’s his style, he never rushes into things — but the former university associate professor of social work decided to throw his hat into the ring. It was a three-way race for premier, but looking back, few had any doubt Doer’s second-floor office was Selinger’s for the taking.

Now, more than two months into the job, the 58-year-old sat down with the Free Press to talk about what’s ahead. Here’s an edited version of that discussion:

 

FP: What have you learned about being a premier that you didn’t know before?

Selinger: I’m not sure there’s something I’ve learned that’s new. But the reality is it’s always different actually doing it versus being close to the person doing it. In my case, I’ve just been out more, less in the cabinet room doing, say, the nitty-gritty work of budget and more being out around Manitoba visiting various communities and various groups.

FP: Is perhaps that your greatest challenge, introducing yourself to Manitobans, getting them to know you?

Selinger: You know what? A lot of them know you already, but it’s actually been enjoyable to have more direct contact with Manitobans and all the various communities I’ve visited. It’s been quite positive. The bottom line is I will be out more interacting with various communities around things that we can do together.

 

FP: Some people within the opposition are still talking as though you will go to the people in 2010. Will you rule that out now?

Selinger: As I’ve said, we plan to serve out the mandate (until October 2011), I plan to serve out the mandate. There’s lots of worthwhile things to do. There’s lots of challenges. And that’s my plan.

 

FP: In your throne speech you said you want to have an economic summit in the new year. Why?

Selinger: We did it 10 years ago. It just seemed time to do it again. It’s just a good time to take a look at where we want to go in the future. There has been a very significant jolt to the global economy. It has impacts on all of us. We’ve always said we’re not immune to that. We’re starting to see some of the effects of that in terms of issues around Manitoba and different workplaces. We think it’s a good time to take stock and refocus where we want to go in the future.

 

FP: At the same time you also want to create a premier’s advisory council on poverty and education. Why?

Selinger: We do have an opportunity in Manitoba to improve the way we work together, to get educational outcomes, to address issues of social housing, to address a variety of issues, many of which we’ve taken initiatives on. But we’ve heard from people in the community that they’d like to have more opportunities to dialogue with the government on that and this is one way to do it. We’d like to get that up and running early in the first quarter of 2010.

 

FP: When are we going to be sitting in the new football stadium?

Selinger: As you know, the proponent for the new stadium asked for a year delay on that. The reality is that we will be having conversations with all the proponents and see what’s possible to move that project forward.

 

FP: Is there a chance Mr. (David) Asper could have ownership of the Blue Bombers prior to a new football stadium being built?

Selinger: That hasn’t been proposed by anybody at this stage of the game, that I’m aware of. But the reality is that I think we would want the idea of a new stadium to have some solid possibilities. As I understand it, the existing arrangement was that he has to build the new facility before he gets ownership of the team.

 

FP: The Queen is coming (in 2010). Are you looking forward to that?

Selinger: Absolutely. It’s Manitoba’s 140th birthday. It’s a great honour to have the Queen here. It’s a recognition of the province’s role in Confederation. She’s coming to three provinces. We’re glad she’s chosen us to be one of them.

 

FP: Have you met her before?

Selinger: Yes, when she was here last time (2002).

 

FP: One of the things you prided yourself on as finance minister is that you used to walk to work every day. Are you still walking to work?

Selinger: Not as frequently. I’ve been a little busy travelling around to various locations, so that routine has been broken by a necessity to be out and around more.

 

FP: Is there anything in your first 50 days as premier where you’ve asked yourself, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’

Selinger: You know what? I think we knew we are in a global recession. This places challenges on governments. Governments have unique roles in recessions. They have greater demands for spending to solve a variety of issues and they have less revenue. That creates some unique challenges for a government. All governments are experiencing that right now. Our challenge is to keep the momentum going, to build and grow the economy, and at the same time address the essential service needs of Manitobans. That is a big challenge for every premier in the country right now as well as the prime minister.

 

FP: So you made the right decision?

Selinger: Absolutely. We all knew that there were going to be challenges. If the job was easy, why would you want to do it, quite frankly?

 

FP: What specific challenges do you see in the year ahead?

Selinger: We had a pandemic this fall and we’ll see what the outcome of that is. So far, Manitoba has been able to respond in a pretty organized fashion in providing the (H1N1) vaccine to people, but there are always new surprises coming down the pipe. I think the economy will remain central, keeping the economy going and stimulated. There is a broad consensus among all the premiers and the prime minister that we have to continue the stimulus program well into early 2011, maybe all the way through 2011, depending what happens with the American economy. One thing that I think is good is that the country is working together on that. There’s been good co-operation for the most part between the federal and provincial governments to make things happen to keep the economy buoyant.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

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