Without firing a shot, PC government sets tone for its tenure

If politics has seasons, summer is definitely over for Manitoba's Progressive Conservatives.

But the rookie government of Brian Pallister didn't fire the opening salvos of the fall. Those chores were left up to newly-minted board chairs at Manitoba Hydro and Liquor and Lotteries.

In the crosshairs weresome of the legacy commitmentsof the previous NDP government.

In short order Manitoba Liquor and Lotteriesboard chair Polly Craik and Manitoba Hydro chair Sandy Riley skewered a couple of social and financial engineering projects of the previous NDP government.

• Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries scraps $75M relocation plan

There would be no downtown Liquor and Lotteries HQ. The mandarins of sin will continue to be dispersedaround the edges of Winnipeg. The$75-millionprice tag, inreturn for400 or soemployees in downtown, was deemed too high a price in anew Manitoba that is happening before your eyes.

In short, clipped sentences, Craikfinished off any chance of a downtown headquarters."We don't need it," she told reporters.

Sandwiched in between Liquor and Lotteries and Hydro announcements this week was a pretty scathing auditof the nowdisbanded East Side Road Authority.

• East Side Road Authority poorly managed, auditor general finds

When asked if therewas sloppyaccounting at the agency, ManitobaAuditor GeneralNorm Ricardstruggled with the question for minutes before settling on the phrase "weak administrative practices."

Ricardwasn't injeopardy of ruffling feathers at that point. The PC government had already ripped apart the Authority and pulled the operation of building the road into the Infrastructure department.

Manitoba Hydro is the big one

The nowcompletedreview of a hydro transmission line Bipole IIIwas a far deeper exercise, with much greater implications.

• Bipole III route a mistake that can't be changed, Manitoba Hydro board says

A glance ata Manitoba map dotted with two route options for BipoleIII would get themost modestlyobservant to wonder about choosing the west side ofLake Winnipeg . It isn't the direct route. Full stop.

But environmental issuesand complex politics made the previous government get behind the west-side route, and by the time the saws started cutting and the anchors for the poles were going in,this was a force of nature hard to stop.

Pallister and his partymade some pre-election noise about reviews by the Public Utilities Boardand moving the line east, but once ingovernment thatquickly dissolved to calls for asoberreview of the route by a new Hydro board. A Hydro board populated by people who read balance sheets for breakfast.

Despite promises,with$2 billion already committed to Bipole III west-side, the routewas never, ever going to change. That part of Hydro chair Sandy Riley's presentation was, or shouldn't have been, any surprise.

What was surprising, or perhaps evenunsettling, was Riley's surgical dismemberment of years of Hydro strategy and the direction it was given by the former NDP government.

On the massive Keeyaskdam project, Riley wasted few words:"If we had been the board at the time we would have not proceeded with it, but the fact is we have."

Follow the red ink on Keeyaskand Bipole III and all of Hydro'sfinancial statements, and it was not a surprise to hear Finance Minister Cameron Friesen assertit hasmade bond buyers and credit-setters take a second look at Manitoba and not with favourable eyes.

Selinger isn't here to sell anymore

In year-end interviews and even in casual interviews in the corridorsof the Legislature, then Premier (and one-time finance minister) GregSelinger maintaineda consistent line on growing deficits andmounting debt.

The cost of borrowing is low, Selinger would assert. This is the timeto take advantage of cheap rates and build legacy infrastructure, hewould say.

But Selinger isn't around to address these issues now. His role in the new NDP opposition is to answer question about Francophone Affairs. Instead, the job felltwice this week to TyndallPark MLA Ted Marcelino.

Tory accusations that ManitobaHydro was awash in red ink at the behestof the previous NDP government were greeted by Marcelino'sassertion that history would be the judge.

"We could not now second guess,look in the rear view mirrorand say, 'Wow,you said $1billion and it's now $4 [billion].'" said Marcelino. "Well, it's part of the decision-making process. You decide on the basis of the evidence."

Brace yourselves

Manitoba Hydro's huge capital spending requires both favourable weather to keep the water flowing through its dams, plusconsistent and ever growing rate increases for electricity consumers. Board chair Sandy Riley wouldn't pin down where those increases will be, but a good wager is more than the projected 3.95 per centplanned for the next two years.

• Manitoba Hydro rates jump by 3.36% in August

Manitoba Public Insurance is also looking for increases in premiums and there are rumblings the rates to insure your vehicle will go higher.

• MPI wants to hike Manitoba vehicle insurance by $17 for the average owner

These are the kind of charges the PC government can step back from and claimare not tax increases.

Like the bad news at Hydro or the reversal of the Liquor and Lotteries headquarters project, theseare decisions where the new government claims it has no control over the process.

However, there are now literally dozens and dozensof decisions waiting to be made on hundreds of millions in spendingthat can't so conveniently dropped on some semi-autonomous board or body.

Manitoba isnow very close to the time where voters will see exactly what kind ofPC government is in power.