Tempers flare as Tories eye changes to committee meetings

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This article was published 23/10/2016 (2740 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Progressive Conservatives want to change the rules of the legislature so Opposition MLAs no longer get to ask the vast majority of questions at committee meetings, but the NDP won’t hear of it.

The issue flared up on Friday when a PC committee chairwoman, Colleen Mayer (St. Vital), announced that Opposition and government members would take turns questioning officials from Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp., appearing before the standing committee on Crown corporations.

The ruling interrupted questioning by NDP MLAs of Tory-appointed board chairwoman Polly Craik and acting CEO Peter Hak about the corporation’s decision in September to abort plans locate Liquor & Lotteries employees to a new downtown headquarters.

After an angry outburst by NDP MLA Ted Marcelino, who accused Mayer of “arrogance” and violating long-standing legislative practices, she relented and allowed sustained questioning by Opposition MLAs.

Pallister said the present rules need to be examined.

“It isn’t fair that one-quarter of all the members of the legislative assembly get to ask all the questions,” he said Monday, referring to the fact that NDPers account for 14 of the 57 members of the legislature. (There are 40 PC members and three Liberals.)

But Pallister may have trouble getting the changes he’s seeking, and the NDP says the premier should know better.

“He knows that the tradition of the last 50 years is that it’s Opposition time in committees, that Opposition critics ask nearly all of the questions. It doesn’t matter which government is in power,” said NDP house leader Jim Maloway.

“He’s living in some kind of dreamland here, and he’s certainly not going to get his way in this at all.”

Maloway said the only way to change the rules is through the unanimous consent of the house rules committee, and that’s not going to happen.

“To me, he just sounds very confused, considering that he’s been around legislatures for many, many years,” the Elmwood MLA said.

When the PCs were in Opposition, they took full advantage of the rules to grill the heads of Crown corporations, for instance, when they appeared before legislative committees.

Before Mayer relented and followed past practice on Friday, PC members asked mainly easy questions of the Liquor & Lotteries leaders, while the NDP tried to get the corporation to justify its decision to abandon the headquarters project.

Outside the legislature on Monday, Pallister disputed the notion that conventional practices serve Manitobans very well at committee.

He said the current crop of NDP members “aren’t really that interested in asking deep and probing questions about a number of issues around our Crowns’ operations and decision-making processes over the last number of years that we might like to see asked.”

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca