Keep Morley-Lecomte incident in perspective

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2021 (1127 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HERE is the rundown on l’affaire Morley-Lecomte:

Last week, Progressive Conservative MLA Janice Morley-Lecomte (Seine River) met with a group at the Oakwood Café to celebrate a friend’s birthday. When the server asked her for proof of vaccination, she provided a sheet of paper that indicated she is double vaccinated but did not include a QR code.

When it was clarified that she would need to produce proof of vaccination with a code, Morley-Lecomte disputed this, saying she had used her printoff in other restaurants without any problems, and noting in the process that she is an MLA. But the server appropriately held firm, so Morley-Lecomte left the restaurant.

The owner of the Oakwood Café, Wendy May, took it upon herself to write Premier Heather Stefanson to complain about the incident. Liberal leader Dougald Lamont, who was copied on the letter, then tweeted out, with May’s permission, part of the email.

The Seine River MLA clarified in response that she is indeed double-vaccinated and had since downloaded the QR code app onto her phone, and she apologized.

And that’s it. That’s the scandal currently captivating Manitoba politics watchers.

Of course, other things happened in the meantime. Lamont called on Morley-Lecomte to either resign or be fired for failing to follow the government rules. There were op-eds published condemning her failure to provide a “good example” for the people of Manitoba. The front page of media websites featured her face above critical headlines.

And, as always, there was the mob on social media attacking Morley-Lecomte in the harshest possible language, which is the only language Twitter speaks.

If someone wants to be outraged — the legions of Twitter pitchfork-wielders want nothing more — then the story was easy to read in such a way to achieve that goal. My first impression after viewing some comments on social media was that Morley-Lecomte had bullied the server and tried to pull rank, and had otherwise been a veritable Morleyzilla rampaging through South Osborne.

In fact, May admitted that Morley-Lecomte had been courteous in the interaction: “She wasn’t rude, she wasn’t unpleasant.”

People can be justifiably perturbed about politicians using their positions to seek unfair advantage. NDP Leader Wab Kinew raised the possibility that Morley-Lecomte was seeking “preferential treatment” by providing a printout rather than a QR code.

I think that is an uncharitable interpretation of what happened, but the phrase “I’m an MLA” will likely haunt Morley-Lecomte for some time to come.

So here’s an alternate assessment of the situation: Morley-Lecomte appears to have made a mistake and has apologized for it. All the outrage and condemnation and tut-tutting are disproportionate to the original error. After all, not everything is worth being outraged about.

That then raises some questions, such as what exactly is the point of Lamont and then Kinew assailing a backbench government MLA in this way? Will it change anyone’s vote in the next election? Surely not; indeed, it will likely be forgotten by next week. Perhaps the goal is to fire up the base and keep people motivated, especially online.

Or perhaps there is no strategy, and these opposition politicians think it’s their job to attack anyone in the government whenever given the slightest opportunity to do so. If so, that’s an error. Kinew, in particular, has been very effective at keeping focused on bread-and-butter NDP issues that resonate strongly with Manitobans, particularly health and education, when criticizing the government.

Being distracted by outrage-of-the-day episodes such as this serves only to distract attention from the many issues on which the government should be held accountable.

Meanwhile, our politics is further degraded. The truth is Manitoba politics is following other jurisdictions in becoming more adversarial, intense and unpleasant as time goes on. One does not need to spend much time on Twitter to see this in action, but the real-life reactions to the Morley-Lecomte “scandal” demonstrate how that platform’s culture of perpetual outrage and grievance is, tsunami-like, washing over our politics.

Our leaders should stand up to this, not be led by it. We should do whatever we can to stop the Twitterfication of Manitoba politics, as the take-no-prisoners approach can only further alienate Manitobans.

The PCs, especially their former leader, must shoulder their share of the blame for the current atmosphere of politics in this province. Nevertheless, in their haste to extract what will amount to minuscule political benefit, Lamont and Kinew have lost the opportunity to show some much-needed grace to a political opponent.

This week, Kinew announced that, despite being double-vaccinated, he had contracted COVID-19. Both Stefanson and Lamont took to Twitter to express their support and hope that he will get well soon. While this is obviously a low bar, it reminds us that politics doesn’t always have to be a blood sport, and that political opponents can show one another kindness.

Now, more than ever, we need to be forgiving of one another’s mistakes. That’s a virtue our leaders could model for us.

Royce Koop is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Centre for Social Science Research and Policy.