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This article was published 17/3/2018 (919 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Editorial

Of all the attributes we want in our political leaders, pragmatism should be at the top of the list.

No matter how strongly you feel about a particular politician or party, you should want a government that does the right thing, and not just the thing that fits best with a preconceived ideology.

Case in point: the Progressive Conservative government revealed in its budget this past week that it will not employ a public-private partnership (P3) financing model to build five new public schools. Instead, the schools will be built using a more conventional approach, which will see the government design, build and finance everything directly.

In confirming the change in policy, Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said that, after careful analysis of all available delivery models, it was decided that a P3 approach would have been more expensive. For a government that has been, at times, stubborn and resolute on its policy positions, this is no small change.

It is a surprising triumph of pragmatism over ideology. And for that, Premier Brian Pallister and his government should be applauded for making an objective decision on school construction. For most of the last year, the premier gave every indication he was fully and completely infatuated with the whole idea of P3s in general, and P3-built schools in particular.

Last May, Pallister appeared at a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce conference co-sponsored by a P3 lobby group at which he lauded public-private financing, a process by which a private consortium builds public infrastructure and then leases it back to government. Although he did couch some of his language to allow for other outcomes, he was clear that P3s in general seem to be a way to "get better value for (taxpayer) money."

Less than a year later, however, this P3 financing has been ditched.

At his annual budget news conference, Friesen said careful review of the school projects, plus some concerted effort to use bulk purchasing and design, had created cost efficiencies. In short, the province will build five schools in cookie-cutter fashion, eliminating individual design and customization that often drove up the costs of similar projects.

Some may lament the loss of site-specific design, but the communities are getting their schools. The Pallister government is certainly willing to wager that a ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new school will erase any concerns about customization.

Turning his back on P3s for these projects — the province is still committed to using P3 financing whenever it makes economic sense — is no small event in the life of the Tory government.

Public-private financing of government infrastructure is a staple policy of conservative political ideology all over the world. P3 activists argue that putting projects completely in the hands of the private sector — from the design stage all the way through build — is more efficient and less likely to suffer from cost overruns. As soon as government hands touch an infrastructure project, P3 proponents argue, inefficiencies and incompetence rule the day.

The reality is a little less definitive. There have been good P3 projects — where the quality of work and cost certainty were established — and there have been bad ones. You don’t have to look far to see P3 projects that collapsed under the weight of their own incompetence and poor execution.

The bottom line? It is impossible to say that P3s are either totally good or totally bad; execution, whether by public or private entities, is still the element that determines success in public infrastructure.

There are some within the Tory government who will shudder at the premier’s decision, but in doing so they will reveal a lack of political vision. Making decisions against character pays political dividends that could be incalculable to this government.

The premier’s apparent love affair with P3s last May did little more than convince his foremost critics, which include the New Democratic Party and big public-sector unions, that he was an ideologue. Labour and labour-oriented political organizations reject outright the whole idea of P3 financing, portraying it as a dodge to deny work to unionized workers and reward private-sector friends with lucrative, long-term deals that benefit contractors way more than taxpayers.

At the very least, backing away from that decision now leaves the government’s foremost critics unsure of what to say. Attacking P3 financing was an easy hit for the NDP and the Manitoba Teachers’ Society; the decision to abandon the P3 model in this instance was applauded by the MTS, while the opposition NDP was left speechless.

It also sets the stage for the province to get the benefit of the doubt when it wades into similar policy decisions, like the budget announcement that the province is looking at privatizing its fleet of 22 aircraft. This includes provincial water bombers and air ambulances.

The province said it is still studying the possibility of privatization, but noted the government already has to hire private aircraft for nearly half of its air-transport needs. At issue as well is the fate of 91 pilots and mechanics who work directly for government.

With unionized jobs on the block, it wasn’t surprising to see the NDP and the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union express concern. Pallister immediately returned fire.

"Ideology doesn’t guide this government," Pallister said. "We’re practical people on this side of the house... getting value for money."

And here’s where public schools and air ambulances become connected: having shown a propensity to park ideology on school construction, the premier has earned some consideration on the issue of the air-services fleet. Every story will be judged on its own merits, but the government’s record on fiscal decisions has been altered, somewhat.

It’s important to note that the Pallister government hasn’t always been so pragmatic.

Early on, it arbitrarily cut middle managers in the provincial civil service on the theory that there were too many. However, when all of the numbers were put on the table, including unfilled jobs through vacancy management, the Tories could not prove their decision was based on solid analysis. It was, however, ideologically consistent with a government that wants to be smaller and doesn’t particularly care how it gets there.

From now until the 2020 election, demonstrating unabashed pragmatism will not only create the benefit of the doubt for the premier and his government, but might also reflect something more important: a government that is quite possibly maturing and coming into its own.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca