Battle over parliamentary privilege obscures potential conflicts of interest By: Dan Lett Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Mar. 12, 2021

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/03/2021 (1288 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Even as we suffer through trying times, it’s a comfort to know some within Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government have kept their sense of humour.

To wit: this past week, a senior member of Premier Brian Pallister’s inner circle sent a memo to all deputy ministers, ministerial support staff and political staff, warning them of the perils of real or perceived conflicts of interest.

The March 9 bulletin was written by Elliot Sims, deputy minister of legislative and public affairs. The subject, emphasized by bold letters and all caps, was: “COMPLIMENTARY TICKET POLICY.”

Complimentary Tickets Policy

Why would Sims distribute a memo about the perils of accepting complimentary tickets to concerts or hockey games that people, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, currently are not allowed to attend?

The only reasonable explanation is it isn’t really about complimentary tickets. The first two sentences make it clear this about is a bigger issue.

“Public servants and political staff must place the public interest first in carrying out their duties,” the memo states. “This involves avoiding or effectively resolving conflict of interest situations where private or personal interests improperly influence, or could be reasonably perceived to improperly influence, the performance of their duties and responsibilities.”

It is an interesting message, given the Pallister government is amassing a lengthy list of ethically questionable moves.

This is a government headed by a premier who refused to recuse himself from a cabinet directive to Manitoba Public Insurance to pay private insurance brokers a share of profits from online Autopac transaction– despite the fact he continues to hold a licence as an insurance broker.

This is a government headed by a premier who refused to recuse himself from a cabinet directive to Manitoba Public Insurance to pay private insurance brokers a share of profits from online Autopac transaction — despite the fact he continues to hold a licence as an insurance broker.

This is the government that authorized then-Treasury Board secretary Paul Beauregard to do business with Bell MTS — a company whose predecessor employed Beauregard for more than a decade before he came to government — after Pallister publicly promised his senior mandarin would recuse himself from any dealings with the telecommunications company.

This is the government that allowed Beauregard to misuse a policy designed primarily to protect women from unwanted sexual harassment to stop the Opposition NDP from raising concerns about his continued involvement in Bell MTS business.

In this government, writing a memo now for senior officials to warn them about real or perceived conflicts of interest is like sending instructions on how to properly use a life jacket long after the ship has sunk.

Adding to the irony: the message was delivered the same week the Pallister government was handed an unprecedented rebuke, by Speaker Myrna Driedger, on matters related to Beauregard.

Driedger is a Tory MLA, elected by the Tory-dominated legislature to serve as Speaker. As such, she was handed a very difficult task when Pallister lodged a complaint his parliamentary privileges had been violated by NDP MLA Adrian Sala, when Sala raised concerns about Beauregard’s involvement in Bell MTS business.

In response, Sala lodged his own complaint, arguing his privileges as an MLA had been breached by Beauregard’s attempts to use the respectful workplace policy to stop him from fulfilling his duties as a member of the legislative assembly.

(Although the full decision has not been made public, an outside review concluded Sala had violated the respectful workplace policy by raising concerns about Beauregard’s alleged conflict of interest.)

In her decision, Driedger cautioned MLAs from dragging the name of any specific senior civil servant into debate in the legislature. She nonetheless found, by employing the respectful workplace policy to stop the NDP from raising conflict of interest concerns, Beauregard had “intimidated (Sala) and attempted to obstruct him in his duties.”

Neither Beauregard nor Pallister have commented on Driedger’s ruling. It wouldn’t be surprising, however, if black smoke was still billowing out of the premier’s second-floor office in the Manitoba Legislative Building.

Pallister is a politician who relishes conflict and doesn’t take losing well. He also hates to defer to any authority, let alone a Tory MLA employing the powers of the Speaker’s chair.

However, it’s important to remember all his histrionics about Beauregard and the NDP are, in the end, just a diversionary tactic.

The Pallister government has already handed Bell MTS a multimillion-dollar untendered contract renewal for the management of government data networks. Steps have been taken to position the company to play a major role in the private-sector development of Manitoba Hydro’s broadband fibre optic network — a public asset valued conservatively at more than $1 billion.

Pallister did not like being rebuked by the Speaker, and there’s every reason to believe he deeply resents continued efforts by the NDP to bring Beauregard into the political debate.

But, remember: more attention on a debate on the arcane minutiae of parliamentary privilege means fewer questions about this government’s ethical practices.

While Pallister may have lost the battle over privilege, he may still win the war to help his friends.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Born and raised in and around Toronto, Dan Lett came to Winnipeg in 1986, less than a year out of journalism school with a lifelong dream to be a newspaper reporter.

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