Manitoba's premier-designate Brian Pallister has a lot to think about now that he has the province's top job, beyond, that is, how much time he'll spend at home compared to his vacation property in Costa Rica.
It will be much tougher now to avoid the scrutiny of the capital in the dead of winter to escape to his tropical retreat. Unfortunately, he is going to have to simply grin and bear it, much like most of the good citizens of the province he now represents – including its downtrodden indigenous residents.
There isn't a province in the country with a poorer record when it comes to First Nations than Manitoba. In many respects it is a national embarrassment and a tragedy, too. Still lingering in the capital is the sting of a Maclean's magazine profile in 2015, which branded Winnipeg the most racist city in the country. The new mayor, Brian Bowman, a Métis himself, tearfully admitted there was an ugly divide in his city and vowed to tackle racism head on.
This, of course, was shortly after the body of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine was dragged from the Red River, a death that prompted a national outcry and created momentum for a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Ms. Fontaine's case also drew attention to a provincial child welfare system that was largely broken, with teenagers, mostly aboriginal, being housed in hotels with little supervision.
Whether he likes it or not, these are now Mr. Pallister's worries. No longer will he be able to cry from the opposition benches about how awful it is that young aboriginal women regularly meet the fate they do; it is now his job to do something about it. Much of what needs to be done will require money.
Social welfare programs favoured by New Democratic governments such as the one just tossed from office in Manitoba are often viewed with disdain by conservative-minded governments like the one Mr. Pallister will lead. First Nations people in Manitoba need help, in the direst of ways, and it will not be good enough for the province's new provincial leader to say there are no funds or that it is a federal responsibility.
Should a suicide crisis, like the one that hit the northern Manitoba community of Cross Lake a couple of months ago, strike again, it will not be good enough for Mr. Pallister to say this is Ottawa's problem. In fact, one of his first priorities should be establishing a committee to review the government's efforts in dealing with the suicide plague afflicting aboriginal communities in the province. A new plan needs to be hatched.
The fact is 17 per cent of the province's population is aboriginal – the highest rate in the country and four times the national average. Manitoba has some of the worst school attendance records among aboriginal youth of any province or territory in Canada. In 2014, just 28 per cent of indigenous Manitobans living on a reserve graduated high school.
At the Stony Mountain Penitentiary, a medium-security institution outside Winnipeg, 65 per cent of the population is aboriginal.
During the election campaign, Mr. Pallister talked about the need to bring aboriginal graduation levels up. He spoke of including First Nations in the economic advantages others in the province are privy to. But there were few specifics. From his words, he did not give the impression that the stigma that is attached to his province over its sorry relationship with its First Nations peoples is something that keeps him awake at night.
Well, I can guarantee him that at some point during his first term in office, it will. He will not be able to escape the fact that aboriginal issues are forging to the forefront of the national discussion in Canada. And the missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry will only focus more attention on Manitoba's dismal record in this regard.
Mr. Pallister will have to demonstrate that he and his government have some sort of plan to deal with one of the most complex and intractable issues he will face.
And if dealing with this crisis cuts into the amount of time he gets to spend in Costa Rica, well, that's just a hardship he'll have to endure.
Gary Mason