The simple truth is better than these strange fictions

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/08/2017 (2984 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister was so close to a good, simple announcement.

The premier convened media and VIPs on Thursday to announce his first cabinet shuffle. It was a thoughtful, strategically smart move on the premier’s part.

A couple of stragglers were given less stressful jobs, a couple of go-getters were given more responsibility and one new face — Gimli MLA Jeff Wharton — was added into the mix. The net impact of the shuffle was an increase in the total number of full-fledged cabinet members to 14, which includes the premier, who also serves as minister of intergovernmental affairs.

More importantly, Pallister blew up the unwieldy department of Indigenous and municipal relations. It was an enormous, politically perilous department that seemed to overwhelm minister Eileen Clarke at times. Now, Wharton takes over a new standalone department of municipal affairs while Clarke is left to focus on the new department of Indigenous and Northern relations.

This is a brilliant bit of strategy on the premier’s part. The original decision to lump municipalities and Indigenous issues into the same portfolio was not cost-effective. As well, the decision to excise any mention of “the North” in departmental monikers seemed profoundly politically tone deaf. Creating two new departments out of one unwieldy one was the obvious move.

In fact, the whole idea of expanding cabinet was the right call. Pallister’s original decision to cut cabinet to just 13 portfolios — trumpeted by the Tories as evidence of their devotion to fiscal prudence — was penny wise and pound foolish. The awful truth, now 16 months into the job, is that the Pallister government has demonstrated a chronic inability to keep up with the torrent of challenges that all provincial governments face.

The legislative agenda has been light and, for the most part, uninspiring. Important policy and funding decisions are routinely left in limbo and the premier seems either unwilling or unable to pull the trigger on his biggest initiatives, which include introducing some form of carbon tax, creating a regime for the legal sale and taxation of recreational cannabis and settling a bitter dispute with Ottawa over health funding.

Adding another set of hands to spread out the work was the smart, mature thing to do. It was odd, however, that Pallister refused to acknowledge that he had in fact increased the size of cabinet.

Steady yourself, because the math involved in the premier’s argument is pretty tortured.

According to Pallister and his senior staff, cabinet did not grow by one minister because at the same time that Wharton was being promoted, Tory House Leader Andrew Micklefield was being punted from cabinet.

Many keen political observers will be surprised to hear that Micklefield was, in fact, in cabinet.

Governing parties rarely swear house leaders into cabinet unless those duties are assigned to another cabinet minister. It seems that the whole move was a gesture by Pallister to ease the burden on Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen, who served as house leader before Micklefield.

Last August when the announcement was made, Pallister confirmed that Micklefield would not attend cabinet meetings and would not be paid as a minister. In interviews, Pallister was insistent that even after Micklefield’s appointment, his cabinet was still only 13-strong.

Now, however, in a silly bid to save some political face, Pallister has elevated Micklefield to full cabinet status to cover for his decision to increase the size of cabinet. The premier’s efforts are confusing and — ultimately — immature.

The decision to cut cabinet was one of the more metaphorical policy decisions made by the new Tory government when it first came into power last April. Pallister really had no idea how hard it was to govern, or how much work there was to do, when he appointed a cabinet that was one-third smaller than the last NDP cabinet.

But the savings that were produced by cutting ministers and ministries — estimated at $5 million annually — aren’t much of a bargain when you consider how badly the government is at getting things done. Expanding cabinet by one capable minister is a logistically, politically and fiscally defensible decision.

On the other hand, the premier’s desperate efforts to disguise what he is doing is quite indefensible.

The premier suffered through a miserable spring and summer where the opposition was able to point to several instances where he had been dishonest. Pallister has never lied about anything important, but on several occasions he refused to confirm simple details about his vacation habits and personal finances. These low-level fibs have tarnished Pallister’s reputation.

Make no mistake, Pallister has increased his cabinet by one minister. His decision to do that does not erode his commitment to fiscal prudence and should not be a concern for either militant supporters or the general public. But his strident efforts to deny what is so utterly obvious helps to build the theory that Manitoba is currently led by a man that cannot admit the obvious truth.

All Manitobans should wish the new, expanded Tory cabinet the best of luck in its work. There is a very long ‘to-do’ list waiting for all the new ministers.

And while they’re at it, perhaps they could wish for a premier that has a greater affinity for the simple truth.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca