Province will help fund $65-million Inuit Art Centre: sources

Opinion

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This article was published 13/12/2017 (2324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the end, it was a deal he couldn’t refuse.

After months of sometimes difficult deliberations, sources confirmed Premier Brian Pallister has decided the province will contribute money to the construction of the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s $65-million Inuit Art Centre.

The decision, which has not yet been made public, ends nearly two years of anxious uncertainty for the art gallery, its other private and public funding partners, and key opinion leaders in the business community and the Progressive Conservative party, all of whom lobbied long and hard to get the province involved.

Even though a decision has been reached, the Manitoba premier has remained aloof about the fate of the project.

In a year-end interview Thursday with several news outlets — his last before he is expected to take a vacation during the Christmas break — Pallister was asked about the proposed Inuit Art Centre. His government had already promised a decision would be revealed by the “end of the year.”

Pallister would only tell reporters to “stay tuned” for a formal announcement. His reluctance to use his year-end chat to confirm the final decision could have been a product of the stress he has been under lately, or it could just be a reflection of the fact this is — and will remain — a politically delicate matter.

In the end, the sources said, the premier accepted the argument the return on the province’s investment — $50 million through a combination of private donations and funding from both the City of Winnipeg and federal government — made the WAG’s project too good to pass up.

Under normal circumstances, the best deal available to a province on infrastructure is a three-way split of the final costs. The WAG’s new Inuit art gallery includes substantial sums of private money, which provided Pallister with a better cost-sharing formula.

At a time when the business community and construction trades are concerned about cancelled provincial infrastructure projects, this one amenity stood out as a solid investment for taxpayers.

Still, when all of the political complications associated with the project are stacked up, at this point in the Pallister government’s mandate, a case could easily be made for not funding it.

First, there was concern high up in the Tory government that by supporting the Inuit Art Centre, it would be helping to build a legacy project for former premier Greg Selinger and his NDP government.

Selinger made the first commitment to provide provincial money for the art centre in November 2015. But _ like so many marquee funding pledges made by the NDP in its last two years in power — no money changed hands.

Not making good on that pledge right away could be interpreted in two rather unflattering ways for Selinger: it could have been a reflection of a desperate leader of a desperate government trying anything to stave off defeat, or it could just as easily have been a last-ditch effort to build a few pyramids by a first minister who knew the end was coming.

Either way, sources confirmed Pallister was none too pleased about the fact he was being asked to write cheques to support a wide range of projects approved by the former NDP government that fell well outside the context of core, strategic infrastructure. Some of those projects have been put into funding limbo or spiked outright.

CancerCare Manitoba’s $300-million expansion was delayed indefinitely. The future of an enormous flagship Liquor Mart to be located on the main floor of the glitzy True North Square is uncertain. The Pallister government also cancelled plans to renovate a downtown Winnipeg office building on Kennedy Street to serve as a consolidated headquarters for the Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp.

The WAG project was also considered awkward because it comes at the same time as the Pallister government making some tough-love decisions on expenditures in core departments such as health and education. Sources said there remains abundant concern some within the Tory grassroots will resent “any money going to a museum when Winnipeg emergency rooms are being closed.”

However, while those factors might have discouraged the premier, there were others that helped convince him to proceed.

First and foremost, Pallister’s reluctance to sign off on projects (along with decisions to cap investments in core infrastructure) was becoming increasingly unpopular with influential parties under the Tory banner, particularly those members in the business community and construction trades.

In October, Don Leitch, president of the Business Council of Manitoba, contributed a commentary to the Free Press that expressed the business community’s growing concern about the trimming of infrastructure investments. Strategic infrastructure investments are, Leitch argued, part of the business of government.

In the end, however, Pallister’s decision is a win in almost every sense of the word.

Governments that make promises but don’t get around to writing cheques do not get to claim credit when a subsequent government delivers.

For example, look at the lack of credit given to federal Liberals in Manitoba when the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was finally green-lighted.

Liberal prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin did make early commitments to the museum’s funding, but it was Tory prime minister Stephen Harper that finally delivered the cheque. As for political credit, you need only ask the prominent Liberals seated in the back row of the audience at the groundbreaking event in 2007 what it feels like to watch a political opponent take the ball across the goal line.

Pallister will not, however, be able to escape the criticism from naysayers who only want government to build hospitals and repair roads. Visionary politicians understand the business of government, as Leitch put it, involves so much more than health care and potholes. Although Pallister has not always demonstrated that kind of vision, he should be congratulated for seeing the long-term benefits of this decision.

No spite. No tantrums. No political posturing.

At the end of a difficult year, where his mettle as a politician has been constantly tested, the premier delivered the best of all possible holiday presents: a fiscally and politically defensible decision.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca