Clarence Pettersen says he will attend a government caucus retreat next week, but it’s still unclear when or even if Flin Flon’s legislative representative will regain full MLA privileges.
Whether the April 9 retreat outside Winnipeg qualifies as a caucus meeting – Pettersen has been barred from those since November – may be a matter of semantics.
“It’s a retreat,” Pettersen said by phone on Wednesday. “Now whether it’s a caucus meeting or not, but all the caucus is going to it and we’re [he and other MLAs barred from caucus meetings] invited to it.”
Pettersen said he “had a great talk” with Premier Greg Selinger, whom he said wants all of his MLAs “back in the fold.”
Pledge
Pettersen, who was with family in Calgary this week, had no comment on a “pledge of solidarity” NDP MLAs now have the option of signing.
The pact, written by southern backbenchers Rob Altemeyer and Dave Gaudreau, is designed to “patch up the Humpty Dumpty remains of the fractured-eggshell NDP caucus,” as the Winnipeg Free Press put it.
According to the Winnipeg Sun, the declaration, unveiled Tuesday, states that each signatory has “not been the source of any leaked information, nor will be in the days to come.”
The pact also says each signatory will report any information related “to suspect leaks” to the premier’s chief of staff, the Sun reported.
“We need to build our team again,” Altemeyer told CBC, though he would not say if Selinger supports the pact or intends to sign it.
Selinger spokesman Paul McKie told the Sun that Selinger will not force caucus members to sign the declaration.
“The premier has said repeatedly that he wants everyone back in caucus, working in the same direction, as soon as possible,” McKie said. “If there are staff or MLAs who wish to sign the pledge, they are welcome to do so, but certainly there is no requirement from the premier or caucus that they sign.”
Plagued
Leaks – and outright subversive comments – plagued the NDP government throughout a months-long leadership campaign in late 2014 and early 2015.
Last fall Pettersen surprised some constituents by granting media interviews in which he called on Selinger to step down.
Pettersen has said he only went public after the caucus rift over Selinger had already been publicly exposed.
After Pettersen and five cabinet ministers openly suggested Selinger quit, all six were locked out of caucus meetings. A seventh MLA is barred over an unrelated controversy.
Now that Selinger has retained his job as premier and NDP leader, the question of what happens to the dissidents has been the most talked-about political issue in the province.
Veteran political analyst Paul Thomas doesn’t believe the solidarity pact will heal the divisions within the NDP.
What’s needed, he told CBC, is for Selinger to sit down privately with each of the dissidents.
The Free Press described the fractured NDP caucus this way: “The Selinger loyalists don’t trust the former rebels. The party veterans are as quiet as voles. And the rebels still show up to work every day wearing the dazed look of the defeated.”
