Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 11, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A2 A 2 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2020 ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM VOL 150 NO 33 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2020 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 Publisher / BOB COX Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an in- dependent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 OFFICER ? FROM A1 POLL ? FROM A1 F OR anyone who makes a living in politics, this is what an existential crisis looks like. For the past month, Premier Brian Pallister and his government have been on the wrong end of a series of unflattering, even alarming public opinion polls. The latest is a Free Press-Probe Research survey that shows, only a year into its second majority mandate, the Pallister Tories are trailing the NDP on a province- wide basis by a small, but significant, gap greater than the margin of error. In Winnipeg, the Tories trail the NDP by a remarkable 16 points. On the same day the Free Press- Probe poll surfaced, Angus Reid released a national survey on provin- cial pandemic responses. It shows the Pallister government has less support (31 per cent) for its pandemic response than any other government in Canada. These results come on the heels of a Probe poll in November that showed a profound collapse in support for the Pallister government's pandemic response, and an earlier Angus Reid poll that showed Pallister was the least popular premier in the country. It's at this point we must mention the caveats. Polls ebb and flow. (After disastrous results in a Probe poll in June, the Pal- lister government's support rebounded in a September survey.) A poll that is closer to the last election than it is to the next election rarely serves as an accurate predictor of a party's fortunes. It should be mentioned that Mani- toba is certainly not the only province where citizens appear to have lost faith in their premier and government. Angus Reid noted that while a majority of respondents outside of Alberta and Manitoba approved of their govern- ment's handling of the pandemic, sup- port for just about all governments had dropped "precipitously" since June. That said, it is rare to see a gov- erning party sink low enough in the first quarter of a new term that it is trailing another party. For that reason alone, you can bet that whatever effect this poll has on the public, it will have a much greater effect on the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba. Senior party sources confirmed that concerns about the party's fortunes in Winnipeg and in swing ridings in rural Manitoba is amping up sig- nificantly, even with an election years away. Already, long-serving Tories are talking openly about the ridings they may very well lose in the next election if Pallister cannot turn things around. Others are musing aloud about whether they should pursue political opportunities at other levels, or leave politics altogether. While Pallister is widely believed to be contemplating retirement before the next election, there is increasing interest among opinion-leading party members about whether someone should ask Pallister to set a date for his departure. Not that Pallister will listen to any of that chatter. Ambivalent about advice from all but a handful of like-minded cabinet min- isters and staffers, the Tory govern- ment's pandemic response has evolved into "the Brian show." Apart from senior public health officials, and with very few exceptions, Pallister has eclipsed all others in his government when it comes to daily briefings or an- nouncements. When new enforcement measures are announced, it is Pallister and not Justice Minister Cliff Cullen at the microphone. When rapid COVID-19 testing was to be made available to teachers, Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen was nowhere to be seen. When a new small business grant pro- gram was announced, no one seemed to be able to find Finance Minister Scott Fielding. However, dominating live appear- ances is not the only problem. Right now, the odds are very high that any time the premier makes himself available to the news media, he will create headlines for all the wrong reasons. Whether it is his repeated, deliber- ate attempts to misrepresent statisti- cal data, or inflaming racial tensions with his inadvisable comments about Indigenous Manitobans pushing non- Indigenous Manitobans to the back of the line for COVID-19 vaccines, Pal- lister has shown a remarkable capacity for political self-harm and an aversion to political accountability. Throughout the fall, as Pallister has been soundly criticized for the quality and quantity of his pandemic response, he has attempted to reframe his plung- ing popularity as a reaction to unpopu- lar restrictions. Remember, he tearfully described himself as the man who was stealing Christmas from people. Other polls have told us pretty clearly, however, that Manitobans were less concerned with the restrictions he introduced as they were with his reluc- tance to introduce them sooner. The big question for Tories is whether a competent vaccine distri- bution will be the game changer that erases the fear and loathing that an increasing number of Manitobans have for the premier. The slow pace at which the vaccine will become available is actually a blessing to all provincial governments; it gives everyone time to test out logistics, identify problems and intro- duce remedies long before the gross majority of vaccine supply arrives in Manitoba. We also have the benefit of watching and learning from larger, more expedited vaccine rollouts in places such as the United Kingdom. A timely and competent vaccine distribution would heal some of the wounds Pallister has inflicted on himself and his party. Whether it's enough for Manitobans to forgive him is another question. The worst-case scenario for a grow- ing constituency of Tories is that Pallister may insist on waiting around long enough to answer that question before deciding to leave. dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca Will 'Brian show' linger so long people change channel? DAN LETT OPINION "I think we really have hit the bot- tom of where support would be for the government, and I would be very surprised if this downward trend con- tinued," Adams said. He noted that right-leaning premiers in Quebec and Ontario had high num- bers of COVID-19 cases, but held on to relatively strong support, thanks to their messaging to spare no expense to help people endure the pandemic. In Manitoba, Adams said, "it was seen by many people that COVID was the opportunity to take it out on the public sector." He argued Pallister would have been in deep trouble if he had stuck to the scheduled election date of October 2020, instead of calling the vote one year earlier. Raymond H�bert, a political science professor emeritus at Universit� de Saint- Boniface, said there are numerous factors driving down the pre- mier's popularity. "The main problem with the Tories is Pallister; everyone knows that he tends to be a one-man show," he said. Health-care workers have com- plained about insufficient protective gear, while doctors had their motives questioned when they asked for stron- ger restrictions, which polling shows most Manitobans wanted as well. Pallister's obsession with curtailing public spending and his reflexive lack of transparency gave Manitobans the impression the province's difficult second wave could have been a lot less severe, H�bert said. "The government really blew it this summer," H�bert said. "He (Pallister) was the wrong kind of premier, at the wrong time. We would've needed a big spender, quite frankly, and not a stingy premier because this is a once-in-100- year crisis." The poll shows that in Winnipeg, the NDP has a 16-point lead, at 46 per cent support, compared with the PCs at 30. "That's a very large margin," Adams said. "That bodes very ill for the Pro- gressive Conservatives." Adams and H�bert both say the shift in polling has more to do with the PCs than the NDP under Wab Kinew, whose messaging has not changed since be- fore the pandemic. Neither could account for the Liber- als losing their slight rise in popularity over the summer; their support in and outside the Perimeter highway is the same as it was in March. The last time the PCs had such low support provincially was in late 2017, following a credit-rating downgrade and revelations about the premier's long vacations in Costa Rica and the use of his wife's cellphone for govern- ment business. On Thursday, in response to the poll, Pallister told the Free Press he's focused on fixing long-term health funding, instead of his popularity. "I don't really care about polls. I care about people and I care about get- ting health care to people in a timely way," the premier said, moments after the premiers met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. MacKay noted the PCs are losing support from part of their base: people who don't have a post-secondary educa- tion. Among Manitobans with a high school diploma or less education, just 48 per cent support the PCs, down from 62 per cent three months ago. That could mean the provincial Restart campaign, which focused on an early economic recovery, was better received by the business community than working-class Manitobans, both of whom are key supporters of the PCs. "There is some tension within the Progressive Conservative party that wouldn't be present at this time in centre-left parties," said MacKay. He believes the drop in support started in the early fall. "The public was very anxious and agitated, and they were kind of ahead of the government in wanting restric- tions faster," MacKay said. MacKay notes the polling took place in a gloomy period, just after restric- tions were imposed on retailers, the army had been called in to northern reserves battling outbreaks, and an anti-mask rally in Steinbach was roundly criticized. "We shouldn't write off the Con- servatives; they're hardly into their (four-year) term... and we expect this pandemic will be over during this term. So, maybe this is a blip," he said. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca The 27-year WPS officer has previ- ously faced misconduct allegations but has never been criminally charged. He has been sued at least eight times in Manitoba for allegations including excessive force, wrongful arrest and destruction of video and photographic evidence. Krause disputes Norman's character- ization of events, saying he didn't try to flee before he was pepper sprayed. "I had no reason to run from the cops," he said Thursday. After waiting more than a year- and-a-half for the IIU investigation to conclude, Krause expressed disap- pointment in the decision not to lay charges. "It's really upsetting, and just kind of indicative of how toothless, I guess, the IIU is, and the Crown, when it comes to disciplining police officers that have used excessive force or were in the wrong," he said. He believes his initial Facebook post was more effective than complaining to the police watchdog. "I think that the use of social media in this scenario did more good than the... investigation that the IIU has done." In the Criminal Code, police officers have protection from facing criminal charges for carrying out their lawful duties. Officers are allowed to use reason- able force while doing their jobs, as long as that force is not excessive. The WPS policy on pepper spray use states it's not meant to be a first option. It's considered an intermedi- ate weapon, to be used when an empty hand either doesn't work or doesn't make sense, and when lethal force is not an appropriate response. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay 'It's really upsetting, and just kind of indicative of how toothless, I guess, the IIU is, and the Crown, when it comes to disciplining police officers that have used excessive force or were in the wrong' - Thomas Krause (left) Methodology PROBE Research heard from 1,000 Manitoba adults online, of whom 277 were randomly selected from an existing panel and the rest were recruited through random phone calls. The results were taken between Nov. 24 and Dec. 4 and Probe applied minor demographic weighting. These results would normally have a 95 per cent certainty within a 3.1 per cent margin of error, though this metric is not applied to online surveys. Premier Brian Pallister 'If a provincial election were held tomorrow, which party's candidate would you be most likely to support?' A_02_Dec-11-20_FP_01.indd A2 2020-12-10 8:52 PM ;