Costa Rican sunset beckons, but COVID criticism remains

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This article was published 02/04/2021 (1849 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There was never any doubt Brian Pallister would step down as Manitoba’s premier before the next provincial election.

A year-and-a-half into his second term, the only question remaining is when — not if — he’ll leave ahead of a scheduled 2023 vote.

Pallister was not expected to be in this job for long. After a ho-hum career in provincial and federal politics (he was largely shunned by caucus colleagues provincially in the 1990s, and never made it into federal cabinet), the idea of becoming premier was Pallister’s chance to finally capture the brass ring.

It was an easy path. After Progressive Conservative party leader Hugh McFadyen stepped down following the NDP’s fourth consecutive election win in 2011, Pallister saw an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.

With no opponents in the PC leadership race (and the near-certainty of an NDP defeat in the next election), he was a shoo-in to become Manitoba’s 22nd premier.

It was evident during his first term Pallister had no intention of sticking around for the long haul. He called an early election in 2019, a full year before Manitoba’s fixed election date.

There was no political advantage to doing so. The only reasonable explanation, which he denies, was to knock a year off a two-term stint as premier.

At 66, Pallister — who has spent the better part of the last 29 years in politics — probably wants to get on with his life. He is wealthy, enjoys good health, and has a spectacular vacation home in Costa Rica.

There’s no reason for him to spend another winter in Manitoba (he hates the cold), especially after the hell he’s been through trying to navigate the province through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like most politicians, he would prefer to leave office under favourable conditions. That won’t be easy to do, especially with a recent public opinion poll showing his approval rating in a free fall.

A Probe Research/Winnipeg Free Press poll released this week suggests a majority of Manitobans (62 per cent) disapprove of Pallister’s job performance, including 46 per cent who strongly disapprove. Probe president Scott MacKay called it “intense disapproval.”

Pallister is his own worst enemy. He doesn’t just rub people the wrong way with a combative style, he is disconnected from them. His political antenna is tuned to the wrong frequency and he has no interest in learning how to turn the dial.

In the midst of a pandemic, when people are concerned for the well-being of loved ones and anxious about Manitoba’s frustratingly slow vaccine rollout, Pallister set up a “kitchen table” at the foot of the grand staircase at the legislature Thursday and offered people tax cuts.

It doesn’t get more tone deaf than that.

Pallister has not managed the second wave of the pandemic well. That’s the main reason for his plummeting approval rating. He knows it, which is why he’s trying to rewrite history almost every time he steps in front of a microphone.

It wasn’t his government’s failure to prepare for the second wave in areas such as testing, contact tracing and protecting personal care homes that drove up deaths and hospitalizations. Manitobans simply forgot the “fundamentals” and allowed COVID “to make a comeback,” Pallister repeats every chance he gets. (Honest self-reflection is not a strong suit.)

Pallister’s best hope now is to turn Manitoba’s troubled vaccine rollout program around and use it as an exit strategy.

If he has any chance at all of shoring up his political fortunes before he sets off into the Costa Rican sunset, it’s going to be through a happier, vaccinated electorate.

Getting the vast majority of Manitobans fully immunized by late summer or early fall, might allow him to leave under a “mission accomplished” banner before Christmas, two years into his second term.

Pallister could become one of the shortest-serving, two-term premiers in Manitoba history. Considering that was likely his plan all along, he’s probably fine with it.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca