Premier defends trip to Ottawa, a COVID hot spot

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This article was published 23/09/2020 (1557 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While his office has repeatedly refused to produce an itinerary, Premier Brian Pallister says his recent week in Ottawa was productive and he made “maximum use” of his time while there.

“I had meetings for five working days… and they were productive and positive and important,” he said when asked about his trip Thursday.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew said the premier doesn’t seem to have accomplished a whole lot during his more than one week in the nation’s capital.

“I don’t really see that there was a whole lot of effectiveness behind this trip to Ottawa.”

He noted the premier was unable to meet face to face with the prime minister and others, but Pallister said the information gathering and relationship building he undertook was important to the province.

Pallister arrived in Ottawa late on Sept. 15 and returned to Winnipeg on Wednesday.

While in the nation’s capital, he said he met with the Conference Board of Canada, the Institute of Fiscal Studies at the University of Ottawa, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Labour Congress as well as with various senior officials in government departments.

He also met with Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and, through teleconference, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Some of these meetings were changed to virtual at the last minute,” Pallister noted, as Ottawa is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases.

On Thursday, Ottawa had 82 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases, which was the city’s second-highest daily tally of the pandemic. Ottawa is close to 1,000 new cases in September.

Last Friday, Pallister participated in a news conference in Ottawa with fellow premiers Jason Kenney (Alberta), Doug Ford (Ontario) and Francois Legault (Quebec), at which they called for the federal government to vastly improve its share of health care funding.

“I’m very careful about making sure I make maximum use of my time when I travel and when I’m here,” Pallister assured reporters. He noted that some provinces maintain offices in both Ottawa and in Washington, D.C. to do outreach, while Manitoba does not.

In early July, Pallister spent several days of personal time in the Ottawa area before cramming in meetings with six organizations on the final two days.

The trip made news when bystanders at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport photographed him without a face mask, speaking with Andrew Scheer, then the federal Conservative leader, who also didn’t wear a mask. The airport requires the wearing of face coverings inside its terminals.

During that trip, he met with some of the same groups he visited on his most recent trip, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the Conference Board of Canada.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca