Stefanson leaving helm of lost party

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This article was published 15/01/2024 (874 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I believe, and I still believe, that we’re going to be the best party to govern this province and I think we have an opportunity after this leadership (contest) of being back in government.”

— Manitoba Progressive Conservative Leader Heather Stefanson

To flip a long-abused aphorism on its head, that may be a healthy conceit, but it’s still a conceit — one that will, in part, depend on the character of the person who takes the reins of Manitoba’s flailing PC party.

Heather Stefanson has been the Leader of the Opposition since her party lost last year’s election to Wab Kinew’s NDP. Within days of that loss, the party had issued a press release that initially seemed to indicate she would stay on until her successor was chosen at a leadership convention, some 12 to 18 months later.

But in mid-November, the former Manitoba premier started her long, slow goodbye, telling media that she would possibly step down as PC leader sooner than expected.

On Saturday, Stefanson confirmed that decision when she told party delegates who were in the midst of devising the rules for the next PC leadership race that she would be stepping down as party leader sometime today. She said she intended to keep her seat in Tuxedo for the time being, but did not promise to finish out her term as an MLA.

The timing of her announcement is certainly curious. Only one day earlier, NDP caucus chair Mike Moyes asked Manitoba’s ethics commissioner to investigate the Progressive Conservatives regarding accusations that one or more outgoing Tories attempted to rush approval of the Sio Silica mining project following the Oct. 3 election.

Moyes has filed two complaints with the ethics commissioner — one against Wharton, and another against Ms. Stefanson.

Two weeks ago, former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Rochelle Squires wrote in a column published by our sister paper, the Winnipeg Free Press, that efforts were made after the Tories’ election loss to ram through approval for a controversial sand-mine project, in contravention of the so-called “caretaker convention” that restricts defeated governments from making significant policy decisions during the lead-up to a new government’s swearing-in.

Squires, who was acting environment minister in the waning days of the Stefanson government, corroborated a claim made by Wab Kinew of this post-election push for certification of the mining project by saying she had received a call on Oct. 12 from then-economic development minister Jeff Wharton urging her to approve the project.

According to Squires, Wharton described the project as being of significant interest to defeated premier Heather Stefanson, who, because of a conflict, could not herself issue the directive needed to trigger the approval.

Squires refused the request, describing it in her column as “unconscionable.” It was subsequently reported that former environment minister Kevin Klein also received such a request from Wharton on Oct. 12; he, too, declined.

After confirming this weekend that she was stepping down today, Stefanson told media that she was not aware of Wharton, or anyone in the party, trying to push the project through during the post-election period.

“I don’t know. You’d have to talk to (Wharton) about that. I don’t know what conversations he may have had,” she told reporters. “But all I know is that we didn’t — we respected the caretaker convention and we didn’t move forward with a licence.”

She also disavowed having any conflicts of interest regarding the mining project, and said no licence was issued during the so-called caretaker period.

Considering the allegations, there is a need to investigate the various interests involved — and any potential conflicts — and the behaviour of those men and women who were entrusted with the public good but may have failed to live up to that responsibility.

No party is immune from ethical lapses, particularly those that have been in power for more than a single mandate. But for an organization that just came out of a caustic election in which, for example, it campaigned against searching a Winnipeg landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women — a highly questionable tactic that ultimately lost the party both votes and voter respect — these allegations are yet another blow to the PCs’ attempts to rebuild.

This is a party that seems to have lost its way. The election of a new leader may help the Tories forge a new direction, but it will do little good if divisive, hard-right policies and politics become the driving force.

But then, Manitobans already told them that last October.

— The Brandon Sun, with files from Winnipeg Free Press