Vaughn Palmer: Selina Robinson decision more about politics than principles – Vancouver Sun

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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby tried this week to rationalize why he abandoned his support for Selina Robinson, and instead insisted that she resign from cabinet over her ill-advised comment on Palestine.

He told reporters that Robinson had violated his standards for cabinet ministers by attacking a vulnerable community.

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He had initially thought that she could repair the damage by reaching out and trying to placate those she had hurt.

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But after taking further soundings over the weekend, Eby felt she had too much repair work to do. He believed she couldn’t also fulfil her responsibilities as minister of post-secondary education.

“The math doesn’t add up,” he claimed.

But there are good reasons for doubting the premier’s version, starting with his insistence that he has established standards for behaviour for cabinet ministers that will be enforced consistently.

Take the case of Mitzi Dean, until recently Eby’s minister of children and family development.

Starting last June, she was under fire over the “house of horrors” case. Two Indigenous children were repeatedly tortured by their foster parents to the point where one died and the other endured severe injury.

Dean’s ministry failed to do its duty to check up on the children for months at a time.

There were multiple calls for Dean to accept responsibility for her ministry’s failings and resign. Critics also questioned her competence to carry on.

“We’ve heard from the minister herself,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, whose wife Joan was the newly elected NDP MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant. “She (Dean) has about three or four speaking points and pretty much every time she responded that yes, it was a terrible situation.

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“She will not acknowledge that it was a homicide or anything like that. She just keeps repeating that it is a terrible situation and she’ll do better. That’s not good enough. A child has died here needlessly.”

If there’s a more vulnerable group in the province than Indigenous children in the care of a ministry that neglects to care for them, I can’t think what it would be.

Still, Eby stood by his failing minister and her failing ministry.

“She has my confidence,” he told reporters. He pleaded that Dean herself was “profoundly affected” by the case, as if she were some sort of victim.

Eby’s stance was in keeping with the rule of “no trophies” in politics. Premiers fear that to dump a minister means conceding that the critics are right, whetting appetites for more and acknowledging that the appointment may have been a mistake in the first place.

The premier stood by his beleaguered minister of children and family development through the summer and fall, letting her twist slowly in the wind while under fire in the legislature.

Not until last month did Eby finally remove Dean from the ministry. Even then it was merely a demotion to a junior ministry of state, not an outright firing. So much for the notion that Eby demands high standards of ministers and disciplines them accordingly.

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The premier characterized the Dean downgrade as “a reluctant decision” that he and the MLA “reached together.”

He made the same claim Monday regarding the outright ouster of Robinson: “We reached the conclusion together.”

Alas for the premier, the supposed willing partner in this exercise in joint decision-making, Robinson, was nowhere to be found.

The New Democrats can’t make it through a news conference without lining up a half-dozen stakeholders to thank the government and attest to the wisdom of the day’s announcement.

But there was Eby, justifying one of the tougher decisions of his time in office, and having to do it solo because the minister he had pushed out the door declined to be present to validate it.

The third dubious aspect of Eby’s presentation was his explanation for what changed between Friday — when he was still standing by Robinson — and Monday when he decided she had to go.

Over the weekend, a dozen-and-a-half Muslim leaders announced that New Democrats would no longer be welcome in their communities so long as Robinson remained in cabinet.

The New Democrats were also forced to cancel a fundraising dinner in Surrey, an all-hands-on-deck event in a community critical to the NDP in this election year.

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The mosque boycott and the cancelled fundraiser showed Eby the political stakes of standing by Robinson. It was a “math” problem all right, but one of votes and dollars, not time management.

Eby maintained Dean in her ministry for seven months because it was not in his political interest to hand a trophy to the relatively powerless critics calling for her resignation.

He abandoned Robinson after one weekend because the NDP couldn’t afford the political hit in a community whose votes and financial contributions it needs in an election year.

The premier frames himself as a leader of principle, governing with high standards.

But with the cases of Mitzi Dean and Selina Robinson, he looks more like a politician who makes the decision that suits his political interest, then rummages around for some principles to justify it.

vpalmer@postmedia.com 

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