Selinger gets good marks at Council of the Federation

Manitoba's premier has impressed his guests:

So how did Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger do in hosting this week's annual premiers meeting in Winnipeg?

By most accounts, not bad.

Of course, he had a bit of help from Burton Cummings.

As host, Selinger chaired the closed-door meetings of the Canada's premiers, collectively known as the Council of the Federation.

And on Thursday night, before Cummings impressed the out-of-towners with an hour-long solo show at Kelburn Farm, Selinger was the guy almost every delegate and guest wanted to shake hands with and talk to.

Labour, business and aboriginal bigwigs all wanted a little face time with the premier of almost one year.

Selinger barely had enough time to grab a bite -- and he'd been up since 5 a.m. doing the early-morning TV and radio circuit.

He ducked out early during Cummings' show to get some much-needed shuteye, and was back at it with a vengeance early Friday.

Today will be one of his first real days off since Christmas.

What came out of the confab is Selinger chairs a crisp meeting. He doesn't waste time and the other leaders seemed to appreciate that. Each has their own agenda, their own political reality back home. And while Selinger obviously appreciated that, he still kept things on focus. The goal being to keep everyone on the same page even if some didn't agree with it.

From the Free Press. He still has to become better known among the public over the next year, but he's making a good go of it so far.

An unnerving poll result for the Manitoba NDP

This Angus Reid poll (h/t Curtis at Endless Spin) shows a commanding lead for the McFadyen Conservatives -- they have 48% support, compared to 36% for the NDP, 12% for the Liberals, and 3% for the Greens. I'm not 100% sure what to make of it; the last Angus Reid poll looked like an outlier, but this is an even more dramatic rise for the Tories. One aspect of the poll's methodology does make me wonder -- it was a poll of 800 randomly selected members of Angus Reid's panel. Presumably they make an effort to make the panel reflective of the electorate, but there may be limits to this (perhaps someone more conversant with modern polling methodology could enlighten me). On the other hand, Angus Reid is a respected pollster and it would be foolish to dismiss this out of hand. To someone like me, McFadyen's crowd look like a bunch of idiots, while Selinger carries an air of calm competence. However, I freely admit to not being the average Manitoban. We'll have to see if this trend continues with the next poll.

What's the deal with this "New West Partnership"?

If you've been following the proceedings of the Manitoba legislature you'll no doubt have noticed this question that Hugh McFadyen asked of Premier Greg Selinger (scroll down to "Western Provinces Partnership Agreement"):

Mr. Hugh McFadyen (Leader of the Official Opposition): Western Canadian provinces are working together to build the economy of the future, and the focus in Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. is to work together in order to create more jobs and more income for their people to support health care and other initiatives going forward.

I want to ask the Premier if he can confirm that he'll be in Regina tomorrow for this exciting announcement regarding co-operation among western provinces.

Well, of course he wasn't (if he was going to be, Hugh wouldn't have asked the question). But is this the horrible thing that Hugh thinks it is? Erin Weir at Progressive Economics doesn't seem to think this agreement is such a good thing:

Saskatchewan had rejected TILMA because it empowers business to directly challenge a broad range of public policy, without identifying or solving actual problems. In addition to implementing that flawed model, the New West Partnership also hoses Saskatchewan in several specific respects.

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The New West Partnership’s core is the “New West Partnership Trade Agreement” (NWPTA). If you do not want to read the whole thing, check out the five-page backgrounder.

The first page describes it as “a comprehensive agreement to remove barriers to trade, investment and labour mobility [that] covers all public sector entities, including government ministries and their agencies, boards and commissions, Crown corporations, municipalities, school boards, and publicly-funded academic, health and social service organizations.”

The second page provides for “financial penalties of up to $5 million if a government is found to be non-compliant with its obligations.” In case the reader still doubts that NWPTA replicates TILMA, page four helpfully notes that “British Columbia and Alberta fully comply with the agreement” already and then lists a series of “Saskatchewan-Specific Transition Measures.”

There is no quid pro quo: only Saskatchewan has to change its tendering system, regulations and standards. There is no compromise: Saskatchewan must harmonize to the existing Alberta-BC model.

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Third, since Saskatchewan has a much wider array of Crown corporations than Alberta and BC, it is committing much more. For example, Alberta and BC businesses will gain a legally-enforceable right to access SaskTel’s procurement. But Saskatchewan businesses will have no parallel right to access procurement by Telus, the main telephone company in Alberta and BC.

Sounds like a neocon's wet dream to me. Selinger does well to stay the heck away from this.

Some comments on those green shoots

We're hearing everywhere that the economy is now recovering. Hugh McFadyen and his motley crew are using this as ammunition against the Selinger government, saying that there's no reason to run deficits any more, because the recession is supposedly over. Now technically that may well be true, since recessions are generally defined solely in terms of the overall growth rate of the economy. And there have been gains in jobs lately, too -- but what sort of jobs are they? Armine Yalnizyan at Progressive Economics has some comments:

Forget total employment numbers, it’s the types of jobs coming back that count.

There is a shadow side to this recovery that may undo it in the end. Uncertainty is fast becoming the new normal in the labour market, and that has long-term implications for aggregate demand, household indebtedness, and the rate of defaults on mortgages and credit cards.

The latest Labour Force Survey results show that — though there are still 253,000 fewer jobs than when the recession began in October 2008 — employment growth continues its slow path upward. As Erin Weir noted on Friday, this month’s rising head count is driven by part-time jobs.

By March 2010 there were 47,800 more part-time jobs than when the recession began, but we are still down 300,000 full-time jobs. That mirrors another shift from stable to unstable jobs: more temporary jobs, fewer permanent ones.

And that's based entirely on "pure" economics, and doesn't take into account the fact that oil is likely to get a lot more expensive soon. Throw in that element and things could get quite unpleasant indeed.

Manitoba NDP back on top: poll

A new Probe Research/Free Press poll puts the NDP back at the top of the polls by a narrow margin:

NDP 42 per cent

Tories 39 per cent

Liberals 11 per cent

The province-wide omnibus telephone survey was taken between March 8 to 25 among a random and representative sampling of 1,003 Manitoba adults. The results are considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Thing is, the margin of error appears to be greater than the gap between the parties (though rounding might figure in the published results), so the NDP can't rest easy just yet. And another thing stands out:

Probe found that outside Winnipeg, fully one-half of rural voters back the PCs (51 per cent, up from 49 per cent in December), while support for the NDP has slipped from 39 per cent to 32 per cent.

In vote-rich Winnipeg, the NDP continues to have the support of 49 per cent of decided voters (down slightly from 52 per cent in December), while the PCs now sit at 32 per cent support (up two per cent from December) and the Liberals remain unchanged at 13 per cent. There are 57 seats in the Manitoba legislature: The NDP has 36 seats, the PCs 19 and the Liberals two.

In the short term, this is good news for the NDP, since a decline in rural support won't cost them very many seats (they don't hold very many of those seats anyway). However, if the Liberals start to surge back, things could change considerably. Fortunately, I doubt Jon Gerrard is the guy to do that.

Also, the timing of the poll is unfortunate, since it straddles last Tuesday's budget. I'd be interested to see the results of a poll conducted entirely after the budget came down, to see if it had an impact on public opinion.

Budget notes

The new provincial budget introduced by Finance Minster Rosann Wowchuk is not particularly shocking. Like the federal government and virtually every other province, Manitoba is going to be running a deficit until 2014. Several governments, including the feds, will be running deficits for longer than that, so overall we're doing pretty well, and all efforts are being made to maintain front line services. To do this the government will need to amend Manitoba's balanced budget legislation to make it more flexible. The provincial Tories and their ilk will whine, but considering that the federal stimulus would not have been possible if the feds (you know, the folks Hugh McFadyen would presumably like to emulate) were constrained by similar legislation, I don't think they don't have a whole lot to complain about.

Interestingly, U of M economist Fletcher Baragar thinks that the balanced budget legislation should be scrapped entirely. I'm inclined to agree, though it might be hard to sell the public on the matter.

Manitoba Conservatives show lead for first time in years

Too soon to say what this means, but an Angus Reid poll shows the PCs substantially ahead of the NDP:

An Angus Reid poll released Thursday -- on the eve of the release of the new provincial budget -- shows Hugh McFadyen's Progressive Conservatives out in front of Premier Greg Selinger's New Democrats.

"This sets up Tuesday's budget," said the University of Manitoba's Jared Wesley, an assistant professor of political studies. "This is when Manitobans will have a first real look at the premier."

Wesley said Selinger and Finance Minister Rosann Wowchuk have to make a good impression on Manitobans to take any momentum away from the PCs.

"Anybody who's in politics has to take it seriously because it's coming from Angus Reid," Wesley said of the poll.

It found 44 per cent of decided Manitoba voters say they would support the Progressive Conservative candidate in their constituency if a provincial election were held tomorrow. The governing NDP is second with 37 per cent followed by the Liberal Party with 13 per cent and the Green Party with three per cent.

Brian at Just Damn Stupid dismisses this out of hand based on the poll methodology. I'm no expert, but I'm not prepared to dismiss these results, much as I might like to. While it is an online poll, it's a far cry from those worthless polls you seen on every media website; Angus Reid is a respectable firm and they make a serious effort to ensure a sample is representative. However, another factor may be in play here:

The NDP is ahead of the Tories in Winnipeg (44 per cent to 36 per cent), but the opposition party holds the upper hand in rural Manitoba (55 per cent to 28 per cent).

Some of the government's policies in the last few years have been unpopular in rural Manitoba. In particular, the new wastewater regulations and the moratorium on new hog operations have been spun by the Tories and various interest groups as an attack on the heart of rural Manitoba. The thing is, though, most of the rural constituencies are already held by the Tories; it does a party no good, from an electoral point of view, to gain popularity in constituencies it already holds.

47 per cent back NDP with Selinger at helm

Let's hope they can maintain this:

Provincial New Democrats have a new skipper, but their popularity among Manitoba voters -- especially younger ones -- remains high.

According to a Probe Research/Winnipeg Free Press poll, 47 per cent of Manitobans would support an NDP candidate if an election were held today, compared with 37 per cent for the Tories and 11 per cent for the Liberals.

And, the NDP is even further ahead among Manitobans 18-34 years old, with 53 per cent support versus 29 per cent for the Conservatives and 12 per cent for the Liberals.

From the Winnipeg Free Press. Pretty impressive, all things considered. And the support under the 18-34 crowd is particularly promising.

It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future

Actually, I think I did very well, in that I didn't make too many concrete predictions (except to predict that Blaikie and Howard would be appointed, which they were). Some highlights:

Steve Ashton has been transferred to Infrastructure and Transportation... with significant chunks of his portfolio (Emergency Measures has moved with him). This kind of makes sense, especially given that his finest hour as a minister was during this spring's flooding.

Dave Chomiak, who many thought would retreat to the backbenches, has taken on Innovation, Energy, and Mines (formerly Science, Technology, Energy, and Mines).

Rosann Wowchuk, to nobody's surprise, has been confirmed as Minister of Finance (the first woman to occupy that post, incidentally).

Eric Robinson, again not surprisingly, is now officially Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs (he'd been acting minister since Oscar Lathlin's passing).

Ron Lemieux takes over the Local Government portfolio (formerly Intergovernmental Affairs, but with some responsibilities carved off).

Stan Struthers got Agriculture. No surprise there; with Wowchuk out of the picture, there's precious few rural MLAs, and Struthers is at least as good as any of the other possible choices.

Nancy Allen is now in charge of Education; a good fit given her past experience as a school trustee.

Jim Rondeau has been moved back to his original position at Healthy Living. Having spent the last five years in a higher profile portfolio, that's gotta hurt! Meanwhile, Kerri Irvin-Ross has been given responsibility for Housing (no word on whether she's responsible for cat detector vans, though).

Andrew Swan is the new Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. No great shock there; there aren't too many lawyers in caucus, and he's as good a choice as any of them. His old portfolio (under the new name of Entrepreneurship, Training, and Trade) goes to Peter Bjornson.

The new ministers include Bill Blaikie in Conservation, Jennifer Howard in Labour, and Flor Marcelino in Culture, Heritage, and Tourism. Unfortunately, Marcelino's appointment was marred by this, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Diane McGifford, Christine Melnick, and Theresa Oswald have retained their old jobs.

And for their sake I hope Erin Selby and Drew Caldwell didn't buy into all the predictions that they'd get posts...

Overall, it's hard to say how this will change things. Nice that the inner city, as well as women, have a bit more representation in Cabinet now, at least, with the appointment of Howard and Marcelino. And Howard in particular has always impressed me as someone destined for great things.

Shuffle day?

It's looking like today is the day of the big shuffle. And it's going to be a big one, apparently; it won't be just a matter of filling the finance portfolio. After all, Aboriginal and Northern Affairs is technically vacant too (Eric Robinson has been filling in since the untimely death of Oscar Lathlin), and rumour has it that one or two current ministers want to return to the backbench. Yellow Snow has a reasonably plausible set of predictions; on the other hand the Free Press' Bruce Owen has some different ones. Interestingly, Owen suggests that Selkirk MLA Greg Dewar might take over Agriculture, something I'd never heard suggested before. Expect to see Bill Blaikie and Jennifer Howard get noteworthy posts as well.

Lett on the Hydro issue

This article by Dan Lett sums up the Hydro situation pretty well, I think. Not only is Selinger not in a panic over the allegations, he's going out of his way to clear the air:

As a former finance minister who was also responsible for Hydro, no one in this government knows more about Hydro than Selinger. One of his first acts as premier was to ensure the audit would be completed well before the next election in 2011.

That is either a foolish and reckless move, or the new premier knows something we don't know.

In other words, if he had anything to hide, do you think he'd be so eager to have the audit completed before the election? Somehow I doubt it.

As one of the comments to the article points out, it's also rather telling that the Opposition has been awfully quiet about this issue of late. They raised it in the fall session of the legislature, but that was before the mystery consultant made her most outlandish claims. If this issue had real legs, the Tories wouldn't shut up about it. Just imagine how Rick Borotsik would rant and scream, for instance, if there was anything to it.

Note to the mystery consultant -- Even Tom Brodbeck thinks you're full of it

Yes, really:

I don't know where this so-called whistleblower is coming from who says Manitoba Hydro is at risk of going bankrupt.

But somebody may want to tell this New York consultant -- whose allegations have triggered an auditor general review of Hydro's operations -- it's virtually impossible for a Crown utility with a monopoly selling electricity in Manitoba to become insolvent.

The consultant, who refuses to disclose her identity or the name of her consulting firm, claims Hydro has mismanaged its financial affairs so badly, the Crown corporation could be in jeopardy of going belly-up.

She doesn't give specifics on how that could possibly happen, but insists it could happen.

It can't.

From here. Anyone still think this is possible?

So what's this Hydro business?

For a while now there've been murmurs about this mysterious consultant who alleges that Manitoba Hydro is facing huge problems in the near future. The linked story is recent, but it's not the first; the Tories were making these claims some time ago. Thing is, you have to wonder about her claims when you see this:

The matter has been exasperating for Brennan, who said it's difficult to ask another expert to verify the whistleblower's findings because she won't waive the confidentiality clause and allow another consultant to review her work.

Hmm. "There are huge problems, honest! I'd prove it, but I don't believe in showing my work". Admittedly, Hydro has also been accused of secrecy in the matter. However, other consultants have come to entirely different conclusions:

MANITOBA Hydro is doing a reasonable job of managing drought and export risks, according to consultants hired to investigate allegations raised by a whistleblower.

"We conclude that Manitoba Hydro's risk mitigation strategy related to an extended drought is adequate and helps meet a key goal of avoiding rate shocks," said ICF.

The firm, which is based near Washington and has a Toronto office, was hired in April, a few months after another risk management consultant expressed concern that Hydro could face blackouts and bankruptcy and had mismanaged its affairs to the tune of $1.1 billion.

The consultant says her findings were ignored and she was fired the day after presenting some of them to Hydro President Bob Brennan. She filed a complaint under the province's new whistleblower protection law late last year, alleging gross mismanagement and threats to public safety.

But Brennan points to the ICF report as proof the whistleblower's concerns were taken seriously but are unfounded.

In any case, the issue is serious enough to warrant further investigation, and Rosann Wowchuk has asked the Auditor General to do so. A reasonable move; we'll have to see where it leads.

The cynic in me wonders if this isn't a completely unfounded story from a disgruntled former consultant, which the Opposition sat on until Greg Selinger, who had responsibility for Hydro in his former portfolio, was running for the leadership. Perhaps they hoped this could damage his chances. If so, their scheme has failed.

So it's over...

... and Greg Selinger was sworn in as the new Premier today. The convention went smoothly, with no shenanigans, and Ashton gave a gracious concession speech.

The next order of business will probably be a cabinet shuffle. Mary Agnes Welch has some speculations on the matter; many of them make sense, but there's a problem:

Rosann Wowchuk: Word is, she could be finance minister. As agriculture minister, she sat beside Selinger for years at treasury board meetings and took over all his files when he resigned to run for leader. And she holds a rural seat, which the NDP needs to keep.

Makes perfect sense, and Wowchuk is highly competent, but who would replace her in Agriculture? The most likely candidates are Stan Struthers and Ron Lemieux. Between the two, Struthers is probably the most likely choice... but Welch has picked him for Education. An oversight, or does Welch know something we don't?

NDP youth back Ashton

The MYND delegate selection process (which, unlike the constituency meetings, used a proportional system) has narrowed the gap between the contestants:

Young members of Manitoba's New Democratic Party have voted decisively in support of Steve Ashton — and his unabashed commitment to freeze tuition fees — to be the province's next premier and party leader.

More than 300 enthusiastic Manitoba Young New Democrats members packed a basement hall and cast ballots at the University of Winnipeg in the city's downtown on Tuesday evening.

Ashton won 67 delegates to rival Greg Selinger's 40, with a single delegate going to former leadership candidate Andrew Swan.

Swan dropped out from the leadership race on Sept. 28 and is supporting Selinger's bid to become premier.

The vote for Swan was mailed in from rural Manitoba weeks before Tuesday night's meeting.

Selinger still leads the overall race by 117 delegates.

From the CBC. The margin here does not include those backing Swan (most of whom will likely switch to Selinger). Endless Spin Cycle has a complete tally of the constituency delegates; now we have to wait to see who organized labour supports, as this will now likely decide the outcome.

Ashton wins The Maples and Fort Whyte

Steve Ashton took two big constituencies over the weekend. After winning most of the 138 delegates in The Maples on Saturday, he also got all 43 Fort Whyte delegates on Sunday. On the other hand, Selinger took 43 delegates in several rural ridings, so he remains ahead by a significant margin. Ashton is also playing up the Hydro strike, marching with picketers today in front of the Manitoba Hydro building downtown, and reiterating his support for anti-scab legislation. No doubt he hopes to pick up enough labour support from this to put him over the top.

For some reason the timing of the Hydro strike has raised paranoid alarm bells in my mind, making me think of the electrical workers' strike in A Very British Coup which is orchestrated by the enemies of the government. But maybe I should take off my tinfoil hat and take a breath...

Selinger scores big in Inkster

One of the largest constituencies, by delegate count, went largely to Greg Selinger last night. This gives him a fairly comfortable lead, but as Never Eat Yellow Snow points out, the contest is not over yet. With approximately 50% of the delegates chosen (from constituencies and otherwise), this leaves Selinger with 65% of declared constituency delegates, and Ashton with 35%. Yellow Snow has calculated that Ashton could still have a chance of winning. To do so, however, he must sweep Interlake, The Maples, and Fort Whyte, as well as picking up a substantial amount of the labour and MYND support, and a few more constituencies.

Perhaps the biggest story, though, is this:

Premier Gary Doer's pending address change hasn't made a dent in the NDP's popularity with Manitoba voters, a new Probe Research/Free Press survey says.

The ruling New Democrats remain the most popular political party in the province with 45 per cent of Manitobans saying they would vote for the NDP in the next election.

For the NDP -- which chooses its new leader Oct. 17 -- this means their commanding lead hasn't changed since Probe's last poll conducted in June.

"We always talk about the equity that Doer brings to the party and to the electorate," Probe Research president Scott MacKay said. "Does his departure leave this big hole and this hollowness? There was nothing.

"What does this mean? He leaves and the air doesn't go out of the tire. It just stays where it is."

This is extremely good news for the NDP, of course. I suspect that Hugh McFadyen will soon be under pressure to step down if this pattern holds.

Selinger is the most popular candidate with the public

A poll conducted for the Free Press by Probe Research suggests that Selinger is the most popular candidate among the general public. The poll was conducted prior to Swan's concession, and concluded that Selinger was the favoured candidate for 27% of Manitobans, compared with 12% for Ashton, 9% for Swan, and 3% for poor John Boehm (remember him?) That leaves a lot of respondents unaccounted for, of course. On the article there's a comment by "wolfrom" saying this means Selinger comes second to "none of the above", but this is unfair; looking at the details on Probe's own site (hat tip to Endless Spin Cycle for the link) we see that only 8% said "none of these", with the remaining 41% simply saying "don't know" or refusing to answer. Big difference.

Nonetheless, it remains the case that the general public is not selecting a leader; the NDP membership is (via delegates, of course). It does, however, mean that Selinger, if he wins, has a good chance of winning the public owner, contrary to some fears. Looking further at the results from the Probe site, Selinger is the favoured candidate among supporters of all the major parties; interestingly, Swan and Ashton do slightly better among Liberal and Tory supporters than among the general population. Furthermore, Selinger came out on top in every demographic category examined in the poll (broken down by sex, age, income, and education).

Of course, the $64,000 question is how this will sway people in the remaining delegate selection meetings (and in uncommitted delegates). It can't hurt Selinger's chances, at least.

Swan out of race

It's over for Andrew Swan. Until the results from The Pas came in yesterday, Swan had reason to fight on, since if Frank Whitehead had managed to bring his supporters with him, that would have been some 120 delegates, which would have brought him within striking distance of Ashton. It would still have been an uphill battle, but he might have been able to at least hope to overtake Ashton and see what happened on the second ballot. That hope has now evaporated, and Swan has, quite sensibly, decided to wait till next time. And I don't think we've seen the last of Andrew Swan by any means; as a (relatively) young MLA in a secure constituency, he potentially has a long political career ahead of him.

So what does this do to the race? Well, in one sense his resignation obviously helps Selinger... but he wouldn't have quit if he'd won The Pas, and Ashton winning The Pas helps him considerably. According to this article, the count prior to the meeting in The Pas was 319 for Selinger, 224 for Ashton, 70 for Swan, and 33 undeclared. I don't have the exact numbers from The Pas yet, but I think it was pretty much a sweep for Ashton, so assuming he gets all 120, and all the Swan delegates go to Selinger, this puts it at 389 for Selinger and 344 for Ashton. Given that there are a couple of huge ridings yet to come, as well as a significant number of delegates selected by the labour movement, it would be foolish to count Ashton out at this point.

Super Thursday preliminary results

Andrew Swan is now on the board in a significant way, having reportedly taken all 23 delegates from Seine River, all 19 from St. Vital, and 21 of the 23 from Southdale (the other two in that constituency went to Greg Selinger). Meanwhile, Selinger has swept St. John's (20 delegates), Carman (20), Morris (5), St. James (12), and Lakeside (15). Ashton has won River East (19 delegates), Rossmere (41), and Springfield (8 out of 10 delegates, with the other two going to Selinger). Most interesting, though, is Concordia, for which 25 out of 30 delegates came from a slate described in the Free Press as a "non-aligned" slate. The remainder of Concordia's delegates support Ashton, which allows a reasonable guess as to who the other 25 won't support...

So the margin has narrowed somewhat, but I'd still put money on Selinger winning this contest on the 17th of October.