The risky business of a major cabinet shuffle Demoting Wishart, moving key ministers could backfire By: Dan Lett Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018

Opinion

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This article was published 31/07/2018 (2343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government gathered in the ornate ballroom on the north side of the legislative building Wednesday to mark a significant shuffling of cabinet responsibilities, there were three kinds of politicians in attendance.

There were the cabinet ministers, including those who were being shuffled or promoted.

Then, there were the MLAs who were not tapped to serve in cabinet.

And then there was Ian Wishart.

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When this week started, Wishart was the education minister in the Pallister government. When he arrived Wednesday for the cabinet shuffle, he had been stripped of his responsibilities and demoted back into the ranks of the caucus. And then, with the wound from the demotion still fresh, he joined his Tory colleagues to pay tribute to the shuffled and newly promoted ministers.

Wishart was the picture of quiet calm as the cabinet appointments were made. Showing no emotion of any kind, he applauded as each minister was called forward. He even heartily applauded after St. Vital MLA Colleen Mayer, whose promotion into her first cabinet post precipitated Wishart’s demotion, recited her ministerial oath.

It’s easy to demonstrate dignity when you’re the one being applauded. It’s a lot tougher to show that same dignity when you’re being asked to applaud the person whose success came at your expense. But that’s what Wishart did.

Afterwards, Wishart could not have been more elegant in his comments to reporters. He talked about the strength of the Tory cabinet, and how he wished them nothing but success. He confirmed he will run again in the next election, while declining to elaborate on the reasons for his demotion.

“(Pallister) has a great pool of talent to draw on,” Wishart said. “He needs to do that.”

It’s not clear why Wishart was demoted. Journalists and even critics in the education system know him as a knowledgeable, affable and otherwise capable politician. Certainly, he was considered to be among the better cabinet performers during a period in which many of Pallister’s ministers struggled with the learning curve.

It should be noted that outward performances do not always reveal the truth in politics. There could have been internal struggles that were kept out of public view, things that made it necessary to ask him to step aside. One can only hope the premier had good reasons for making this move because, at first blush, it’s going to make more than a few diehard Tories uncomfortable.

Wishart’s demotion is just one of a number of moves that make this among the most unusual, and most perilous, cabinet shuffles in Manitoba political history.

In a party that suffers from a profound rural-urban split, the decision to remove Wishart will not play well among the party’s rural supporters.

Despite that, inside the rarefied confines of the premier’s office in Winnipeg, it may have made perfect sense to push out Wishart and replace him with Mayer, a rookie MLA who is considered a rising star in Tory ranks.

Given that Winnipeg will decide the winner of the 2020 election, there is some logic to replacing a rural, 60-something man holding a safe Tory seat with a younger woman from what will be a hotly contested riding in south Winnipeg. But that logic doesn’t mitigate the risks of dumping Wishart.

A fourth-generation family farmer, before entering politics Wishart served as president of the Keystone Agricultural Producers and sat on the executive of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. All that makes him farming royalty in a party that holds agriculture and the families that depend upon it very close to its heart.

And that is not his only point of vulnerability. Pallister reassigned the ministers for the four biggest and most complex departments: health, finance, justice and families. The premier runs the risk of derailing some of the progress he and his cabinet have made since being elected in 2016.

Yes, it’s certainly possible the transitions will go smoothly. Cameron Friesen’s move to health from finance is not a quantum leap. The same could be said for Kelvin Goertzen’s move to education from health. Less certain are the outcomes of other moves, including Heather Stefanson, who is going to families from justice, Scott Fielding (families to finance) and Cliff Cullen (Crown services to justice).

Pallister may want to remember that his first year in government was marked by profound growing pains, as ministers tried to scale the steep learning curve that comes with governing, and staff struggled to manage issues and communications. Although many of those early problems have been ironed out, assigning ministers to new roles does start the learning process over again.

Yes, Friesen likely gained valuable insight into health while overseeing finance. And there are few concerns that Goertzen, who was a quick study in health, will be able to get up to speed in education. But it’s a lot of change, all at once.

There is a reason why governments do not make a habit of regularly shuffling all of their top ministers at the same time. It is disruptive, not only to the management of individual departments but also to the inner dynamics of cabinet itself.

Most successful governments have strong cabinet ministers that can provide checks and balances to the premier. Traditionally, the job of holding premiers to account has fallen to the finance minister, often seen as the second-most important role in cabinet. It’s also why finance ministers tend to have long tenures; it takes time to build up the expertise and credibility necessary to challenge a premier.

Whatever the working theory, Pallister has put his government in a challenging position. To ensure that his government is at least as strong, if not stronger than it was before, he’s going to need a cabinet that can demonstrate a lot of dignity, courage and discretion.

Ironically, the exact qualities that Wishart showed in spades as he was being shown the cabinet door.

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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