‘Performance’ leaves plenty to consider

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2011 (5244 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

She took no sides, made no demands and walked away from the microphone with an answer that provided little specific help.

But when Brandon Mayor Shari Decter Hirst stood before a room filled to the brim with municipal delegates who came to query a forum of provincial ministers, she offered up possibly the most interesting performance of any councillor, mayor or reeve yesterday morning.

And we say performance because we’re of two minds on her statement to NDP Premier Greg Selinger regarding the perils of the ongoing strike at Brandon University. The speech felt very carefully crafted — as if it were done for the benefit of the premier and herself, as much as for anyone else in the room.

Don’t get us wrong. She said a lot of what the rest of us have been saying and thinking for weeks now — that the increasing “bitterness and vitriol” of the last 45 days of the labour dispute has been corrosive to the city, and divided our community unnecessarily.

And she contrasted that divide with this spring’s one-in-300-year flood, an event that prompted a huge community response of compassion and volunteerism when homes and businesses were in danger from the rising Assiniboine River.

“This strike is more threatening to our community than that flood,” Decter Hirst told the premier, who listened intently from his spot on the ministerial panel. “We need you to be here for us now. I need you to reassure the community … that there is value in a Brandon University education, not risk.”

On every single point she made, we found ourselves in agreement with our mayor, as did many of the delegates in the room who gave her a loud round of applause when she was finished speaking.

And that’s no surprise. A great many young people from western Manitoba municipalities attend Brandon University and the Assiniboine Community College for their educations. If their young people up and leave for another university, there’s a much greater chance that those students will choose to live elsewhere rather than return to Westman.

However, it was what Decter Hirst left unsaid that caught our attention. She used the strongest possible language to condemn the strike, without strongly criticizing the government for its pro-labour position or for its decision to force a faculty vote on the university’s last offer.

She was passionate and eloquent about her fears for her city, yet she did not ask the province to intervene and end the strike before Dec. 10, when either side can ask for arbitration.

She noted that the effect on the community would be long lasting and difficult to repair, yet she did not cast aspersions on either the university administration or the striking faculty members and call them petulant or greedy.

In short, she stayed on the fence.

And at the end of it all, Decter Hirst lobbed the premier a softball when she requested that the government be there to help pick up the pieces of the university’s tattered reputation in the aftermath of the strike — if and when it finally does end.

Without any hesitation, the premier said his government will follow the Labour Relations Act — he and his ministers have had lots of practice saying that — and further noted that any new money for universities in next year’s budget will help Brandon University too.

“You have our assurance we will work with you, Shari,” Selinger said.

Perhaps we’re being a bit truculent — we are a media organization, after all — but we hardly think this was the first time Decter Hirst has spoken with Selinger about the Brandon University strike. In fact, we’re sure it wasn’t.

So why put on such a well-choreographed and beautifully articulated dog and pony show?

In our opinion: To allow both the premier and the mayor to deflect any public anger away from themselves. No one wants to wear this thing, least of all our politicians.