No action without a leader

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/09/2009 (6164 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Now that he has announced his intention to leave office, Premier Gary Doer — no, he is not Mr. Ambassador quite yet — should recognize and abide by the limitations that his premature resignation imposes on him and his New Democratic Party government.

Mr. Doer’s action should in good conscience reduce the role of the government to housekeeping, a caretaker’s job of looking after daily business, fixing things that break, until a new leader is chosen at the leadership convention on Oct. 17.

After Mr. Doer has left his office to take up his new position in Washington, the new premier and his or her new government will be free to embark on any initiative they choose, but the outgoing premier, who is not just the dominant but perhaps the only effective force in the cabinet as it is currently constituted, should not be implementing any new programs or policies, especially ones that might be controversial so that his successor can be relieved of any heat they might generate, and that should fall on the new government, not the old premier.

An outstanding example of this is Mr. Doer’s proposal to harmonize the provincial and federal sales tax. This is a contentious issue, on which the government never campaigned and on which Finance Minister Greg Selinger has waffled over the years. The public, even the opposition parties, have been singularly ill-informed about it by Mr. Doer. The HST — any major innovation — should be debated by candidates for the leadership and implemented by Mr. Doer’s successor.

Who that successor will be is anybody’s guess at the moment. Three of the perceived front-runners — former federal MP Bill Blaikie, Health Minister Theresa Oswald and Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh — have already declined to enter the race.

With the exception, perhaps, of Greg Selinger, who has not declared one way or the other, that leaves a pretty lacklustre field of potential candidates. One of the disadvantages for a political party in having for such a long time such an extraordinarily powerful leader as Mr. Doer is that other talents tend to wilt rather than blossom.

Still, six weeks in the sunshine of a political party leadership campaign offers enough bright light to kill or make credible any candidate. This convention enables the NDP to emerge from under the shadow of Gary Doer, as it will eventually have to do, but it cannot do that now unless it uses the opportunity to address not just party members and delegates but all the people of Manitoba. The candidates need to address issues that are on Manitoba minds rather than simply seek a coronation as keeper of the Doer legacy.

There are questions to be answered by anyone who wants to be premier: Why, after 10 years, are there still emergency ward patients lined up on beds in the hallways? Why does the government force school boards to keep open almost-empty schools, if not for purely political reasons? What will the NDP do to end Manitoba’s "have-not" status and wean it from the federal funds on which it is utterly dependent?

There are questions that need to be answered, but also one promise that needs to be made: that this government will serve out its full term until October 2011. Subsequent governments will be subject to four-year fixed terms, but Mr. Doer was never one to completely close political doors and he left the election option open for himself. It should be closed now to give Manitobans two years to evaluate what kind of government they will be judging in the next election.