This past week Premier Greg Selinger kicked NDP MLA and former cabinet minister Christine Melnick out of the NDP Caucus. It marked the first time in Manitoba history that a Premier has removed a woman from their legislative caucus.
For those who have not followed the events that led to this rare move, it began in May of 2012 when the NDP held a rally at the Manitoba Legislature. The rally was to protest changes to the immigration settlement services by the federal government. In reality, there wasn’t much change happening at all. Because the federal government already paid 90% of the costs of these services, the change was simply to have the federal government administer the program instead of the province.
As part of this political protest, the NDP invited civil servants to take time off from their work and come to the Legislature to be part of the rally. This is where the trouble really started because inviting impartial civil servants to participate in a political rally is a conflict. At first Christine Melnick said she had nothing to do with the invitation. Later she said she did. Premier Selinger said he and his staff had nothing to do with it either. A claim MLA Melnick publicly contradicted, which led to her ouster from the NDP Caucus. Clearly somebody, or a few people in the NDP, is not telling the truth.
And the entire episode came about because of two things the NDP have done repeatedly since coming to government.
The first is always trying to blame a former government or another level of government for its own problems. Still to this day Greg Selinger and the NDP are trying to blame former Premier Gary Filmon for their mistakes. Mr. Filmon has not been Premier for 14 years. And when not blaming Mr. Filmon, they like to blame the current federal government, as they did at the May 2012 rally. This despite the fact the federal Conservative government provides more financial support to Manitoba than ever before in the history of our province.
The second thing that led the NDP into this mess is their constant meddling with civil servants and crown corporations. Whether directing Manitoba Hydro on where to build transmission lines or telling civil servants to come to the Legislature to be part of a political rally, the NDP consistently treat our professional civil servants like a branch of the NDP Party. It is long past time that the NDP let our professional civil servants and our crown corporations use their expertise to do the jobs they are being paid to do.
The trouble that the NDP has found itself in, the lies and contradictions, and the removal of one of their MLAs, is the result of their own actions and the way in which they have governed for many years. As they are finding, eventually, you run out of people to blame.
