COLUMN: View from the Legislature – Manitoba needs premier’s full attention

It’s not unusual for provincial leaders to comment or be engaged with issues that go beyond their provincial borders, most often involving other parts of Canada or in some cases other parts of the world. But engagement is different than obsession. And it seems that at a time when there are enough challenges in Manitoba to keep any premier fully occupied seven days a week, Manitoba’s NDP Premier Wab Kinew seems far more interested in commenting on things beyond his borders and well beyond his control.

Last week in question period, the focus of questions was rightfully on the most recent provincial budget which offered little in the way of relief for what is an affordability crisis. There were also questions about the ever-increasing wait times in Manitoba emergency rooms and for surgical procedures. Questions were also asked about the continued rise in violent crime in our province and what resources are being used to try to reduce it. These are all pressing issues facing our province that deserve both serious attention and answers from the provincial government.

Instead, Manitoba’s premier spent much of question period, in addition to press conferences last week and a speech at the federal NDP convention, talking about Donald Trump, the war in Iran and the Epstein files. Now it is true that it is hard many days to have any conversation in which some or all of those topics don’t come up, but what Manitobans expect the leaders of the provincial government to do in their day to day jobs, is work on the problems and opportunities that are within the grasp of their authority. Despite the fact that every day there are stories of soaring prices, people waiting for care and concern over violent crime in our communities, the NDP seem to only want to talk about geopolitical problems of which there are many, but none of which can be solved in Manitoba.

Some have suggested that this is a deliberate strategy. That if the NDP can fill the newspapers and the airwaves with comments about things they cannot control, that Manitobans will be less likely to wonder why they are not fixing the problems that they can do something about. If that is the strategy, it is one that will only result in worse outcomes for Manitobans.

It is made all the more strange by the fact that Premier Kinew hired a U.S. Trade Envoy (former CBC reporter Richard Madden) to go to Washington to make connections and advocate on behalf of Manitoba. In fact, Mr. Kinew is giving Mr. Madden $500,000 per year of Manitobans taxpayers dollars to do this job. And while there has yet to be any indication of what Manitobans are receiving for this half a million dollar salary, the job of making Washington inroads is surely made harder when back home the premier won’t stop talking about things that are happening in Washington and overseas.

Just as Mr. Madden has a full-time job, that pays handsomely, the premier also has a full-time job. And that job is about addressing the challenges that exist in Manitoba. And those challenges are real and they are plentiful. If it is the strategy of the NDP to talk about anything else other than those challenges, it will not only be to the detriment of Manitobans, ultimately it will be to the detriment of the NDP as well. Because Manitobans are well aware of the problems that exist both around the world and right in their own backyard. And the full-time job of the premier is to deal with the ones that he has the greatest control over, not to try to divert people’s eyes in another direction.