Premier backs adviser in workplace complaint

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This article was published 02/12/2020 (1387 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister has defended the action of a top official in his government who filed a harassment complaint against an NDP MLA.

“When the Opposition resorts to unprecedented efforts to attack civil servants personally, with false, poorly researched accusations, I think that’s exactly what anti-harassment, anti-bullying legislation was designed to prevent,” Pallister told a news conference Thursday.

Paul Beauregard, treasury board secretary and a close adviser to the premier, recently filed a workplace harassment complaint against MLA Adrien Sala (St. James).

It followed accusations by Sala that Beauregard had improperly directed Manitoba Hydro on a number of business issues.

In the legislature Wednesday, Sala revealed he is subject of a formal investigation under the provincial government’s respectful workplace policy.

“(Beauregard) alleged I failed to display respectful behaviour toward him, that I harassed him and bullied him, that I offended and embarrassed him, and acted in a way that reflects negatively on this legislature by asking questions of the government and the premier in the legislature,” Sala said in raising a point of privilege.

Sala said the complaint was an attempt to intimidate the NDP from digging into the relationship between Beauregard, Hydro and Bell MTS.

The use of a workplace harassment complaint to contest an allegation made in the legislature may be unprecedented in Canadian politics, but Pallister defended the move, saying Sala had made false accusations “damaging” to the reputation of a civil servant.

“I can only say that I’m going to stand up for our civil servants at every level,” the premier said Thursday.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew said public servants who have seen job losses and their wages frozen during Pallister’s term in office may take umbrage with the premier’s comment.

He said Manitobans “should be very suspicious” about Pallister’s agenda regarding Manitoba Hydro.

The Opposition has alleged the government is looking to privatize subsidiaries of the Crown corporation.

Recently, the government raised consumer electricity rates through legislation, bypassing the Public Utilities Board of Manitoba’s rate-setting process.

“It’s very clear that he’s trying to use this civil servant argument as a shield to hide everything he’s doing with Manitoba Hydro,” Kinew said of Pallister.

Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Manitoba, said he’s never heard of a senior government official making such a complaint against an elected official.

“I question its appropriateness, because it should not be part of the role of a deputy minister to become engaged in political controversies,” he said.

Thomas also noted Beauregard is a relatively recent appointment and not a career civil servant like many other senior bureaucrats.

“He’s more political than he is a professional civil servant,” Thomas said. “I see him very much as serving the premier’s ideology and short-term political purposes.”

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca