NDP fearmongering on MPI fizzles

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/07/2019 (1904 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In order for a scare tactic to work in politics, there has to be a kernel of truth to it.

Which is why NDP Leader Wab Kinew’s attempt to convince Manitoba voters that the Pallister government plans to privatize Manitoba Public Insurance will never work.

Kinew held a news conference outside a North End MPI service centre Friday to reveal a “secret” document he says proves the Tories are getting ready to sell off the Crown corporation. The document was, in fact, nothing more than an internal report that includes a wide range of policy options related to automobile insurance. It’s the kind of analysis that regularly circulates within government to provide decision makers with the information they need to do their jobs. Politicians and bureaucrats routinely examine alternative ways of delivering services and running government. And they need well-researched options before them to make informed decisions.

Just because there’s a briefing note to a minister that lays out the pros and cons of a policy option, though, doesn’t mean government plans to move in that direction. There are all kinds of ideas and options that circulate among civil servants, political staff and elected officials that never see the light of day. In fact, most don’t.

The internal analysis — obtained by the NDP through a freedom of information request — lays out six service delivery models government could pursue with respect to MPI services. One of them is to disband MPI and have independent brokers handle all aspects of insurance sales, licensing and vehicle registration.

Kinew calls that model a move to “privatize MPI.” However, it’s not clear in the briefing material whether that model would even allow private insurance companies back into the car insurance market.

Either way, it’s neither a recommended course of action nor a serious proposal. It’s flagged as “highly unlikely” in the document and includes no modelling for decision makers to consider. In other words, it’s not something anyone is seriously contemplating, much less the premier and cabinet.

But this is politics. And politicians often engage in scare tactics to try to paint their opponents in a negative light. Sometimes it even works.

To be effective, though, it has to have some semblance of reality. This one has none. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Manitoba politics knows that even a whisper of privatization when it comes to MPI is political suicide. MPI is easily the most sensitive and problematic file in the provincial government folder. Politicians who mess with it do so at their peril. When MPI sought to spend millions of ratepayers’ dollars on university infrastructure under the former NDP government, there was a massive public backlash, forcing then-premier Gary Doer to reverse the decision almost immediately.

When the MPI board, under the same government, tried to give its top executives salary bonuses, the minister responsible for MPI at the time, Gord Mackintosh, nixed it within days of it becoming public.

When former city councillor Gord Steeves ran for the Tories in Seine River in 2011 and suggested MPI should be privatized, the PC party immediately distanced itself from his comments and assured voters it was not party policy.

Politicians wouldn’t touch the idea of privatizing MPI with a 10-foot pole. No matter how ludicrous it is to force people to buy their car insurance from a government monopoly, you won’t find a single elected official from any party suggesting the model should be abandoned. It’s simply not worth the fight.

There is no plan to privatize MPI. There is no evidence that government is even considering it. If it were, and if the Tories were actively promoting it, it would result in almost certain defeat for the Pallister government in the Sept. 10 election.

Kinew’s assertions are fiction. They’re completely made up. There isn’t even a kernel of truth to them. Which means he will mostly face ridicule if he pursues the tale further in the upcoming election (which he said Friday he will). These things tend to backfire on politicians over time and end up causing more damage to the accuser than the accused.

It’s something the rookie leader is still learning about.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca