Is Stefanson up to the challenge?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/08/2021 (1508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Matt Goerzen: “You’re saying that you’re not a minister who wants to be in the spotlight, but you are now searching for that spotlight. And I’m curious how you will change the way this province is governed.”

Heather Stefanson: “I don’t know that I agree with the premise of your question, that I’m searching for a spotlight. I’m really not. I think that, you know, I’m trying to get out and meet and see as many people as possible. And I just don’t think I’m searching for that spotlight. I think I take a different approach. I want to hear and listen to Manitobans, take that conciliatory approach. So, yeah, I don’t agree with that.”

— During a conversation in the Brandon Sun boardroom

on Thursday morning.

 

Heather Stefanson has been involved in politics — in some form or another — for most of her professional life. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science in Ontario, and worked as a special assistant to the office of the Canadian Prime Minister during the Brian Mulroney administration.

She moved in 1993 back to Manitoba as an assistant to federal agriculture minister Charlie Mayer shortly before the Progressive Conservative government under then-prime minister Kim Campbell fell to the Liberals after voters decided to turf the federal party they had grown to hate — thanks to Mulroney. 

Stefanson was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in a byelection held in 2000, and has been re-elected to her south Winnipeg constituency of Tuxedo under the Progressive Conservative banner in every provincial election since then. 

She has held several roles and portfolios under the current Pallister administration, including that of deputy premier, minister of justice and Attorney General, minister of families, and lastly the role of Manitoba health minister, in which she largely stayed out of the spotlight before stepping down from the role this week to run for the party leadership.

Yet it’s her role as health minister that has particularly defined her time in government over the last several months — and not because she excelled within it. I well remember when Premier Brian Pallister and Stefanson, who had just been appointed to her new health portfolio in January of this year, came to Brandon for the official announcement of the vaccination supersite at the Keystone Centre. 

It was quite clear she was new to the role — and that Mr. Pallister was running the show — as the only question she answered during the entire media scrum was from me, and I asked it of her directly. While her apparent reluctance to put her own stamp on the role would be understandable for a rookie with a difficult portfolio to wield, she was already a long-serving MLA with decades of experience. It felt even then that she was either being overshadowed by her own boss — or that she refused to embrace the job. 

The singular press conference she held with Manitoba’s chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, last May was memorable for all the wrong reasons. She seemed unprepared, evasive and unsure of herself. She could not answer reporter questions without falling back to talking points as a crutch. After more than four months as health minister, she should have had a better handle on the situation, particularly at a time when patient numbers in ICUs were rising.

And since then, aside from a medical operation she had that took her out of the health portfolio for a month, her time as the minister has been nearly spectral. She couldn’t even find it within herself to meet with federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu, who spent three days in Winnipeg last month and was looking for a meeting with her. 

“Sadly, no, we haven’t been able to arrange a time that works for Minister Stefanson. We’ve given the minister a number of opportunities to meet and certainly are completely open to meeting with her at her convenience,” Hajdu told the Winnipeg Free Press in July.

Earlier this week, on the day she announced her candidacy, Stefanson was literally backed up by nearly two-thirds of the PC caucus, who all came out to publicly support her bid. No doubt this was a signal for other potential candidates to make way for a coronation, and prevent them from challenging her campaign. That would be particularly true of the current Minister of Families, Rochelle Squires, an urban MLA who has shown herself to be a capable minister in a hard-to-handle portfolio — and whose name has also been bandied about for the Tory leadership.

I would argue that Stefanson needs to be challenged, and so too this desire for an easy win for the leadership of the party.

While she may do well behind the scenes, we need a premier who takes on difficult challenges and rises to meet them. For there is a lot riding on good leadership — not merely for her party’s bid to retain control of the legislature, but rather for the health and welfare of this province. And we have not seen her show those leadership skills publicly in any abundance — not as deputy premier, nor in any role she has taken on. Certainly not as health minister. 

She is clearly wanting to make some history here — first woman premier of Manitoba with her portrait hung in the Manitoba legislature. Yet from my vantage point, it appears that she has been trying to steer clear of embracing difficult portfolios that might hurt her chances of achieving that goal. To that end, her public performance has been underwhelming.

And somehow I wonder if the next role she takes will be that formerly played by Kim Campbell: scapegoat.

» Matt Goerzen, editor