Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger has admitted his government was wrong to accept free NHL tickets and some of his ministers who were not up front about the freebies will apologize.
“I’ve always believed that Manitobans expect their elected officials to uphold the highest possible standards for public life. Clearly we didn’t get it right here and I accept responsibility for that, ” Selinger said recently.
“Several ministers have either repaid these tickets or made charitable donations in the amount of those tickets. I’m directing that all ministers and government MLAs do the same.”
You can read more about “Ticketgate” on this page in a well-written piece by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
What we want to note here is that Selinger doesn’t appear to have a very firm grip on his cabinet.
You see, as of late last week, Energy Minister Dave Chomiak refused to admit he did anything wrong.
And the veteran minister of the Crown last week steadfastly refused to apologize when grilled on the scandal by reporters at an unrelated media conference — while standing beside the very oil company officials who were his hosts at the February Jets game.
The Winnipeg Free Press reported the minister didn’t apologize for his actions or admit that he was wrong to have accepted the oil company’s invitation.
Chomiak’s haughty sense of entitlement does nothing but dim any ray of hope coming from the premier on correcting what was at the very least a horrible lack of judgment by senior NDP politicians and staff.
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition May 29, 2012
Sort by: Newest to Oldest | Oldest to Newest | Most Popular 0 Comments
You can comment on most stories on brandonsun.com. You can also agree or disagree with other comments. All you need to do is register and/or login and you can join the conversation and give your feedback.