Cablegate: Bio -- Gary Filmon
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
271833Z Jun 05
UNCLAS OTTAWA 001947
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
FOR WHA/CAN AND INR/B
APP WINNIPEG MSG 2005/03
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PINR PGOV CA
SUBJECT: BIO -- GARY FILMON
1. (U) Canadian Prime Minister Paul Mrtin recently named
Gary Filmon as Chairman of the country's Security
Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which oversees the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Filmon had served
on the committee for about four years before his
appointment at chairman. APP Winnipeg offers this short
bio of Filmon.
2 (SBU) Filmon was Manitoba's last Progressive
Conservative premier, serving from 1988-99. He remains
quite well respected locally despite engaging in some
pretty tough cost-cutting in the early to mid 90's and
the privatization of the provincially-owned phone
company. His signature achievement was balancing
Manitoba's budget in 1995 and bringing in Balanced Budget
legislation that was touted as the toughest of its kind
at the time. It has since become the "holy grail" of
Manitoba politics. After initially bucking it, the NDP
in 1999 accepted the legislation and has not touched it
since being elected (although they've found a few
loopholes in the legislation that give them some
flexibility). Filmon remains synonymous here with
competent fiscal management and is generally governed as
a moderate conservative on social issues.
3. (SBU) Although his reputation remains strong, there is
a consensus that he stayed on as Premier a couple of
years beyond his "best before date". In the late 90s,
his government's reputation was touched by scandal when
his chief of staff was found to be complicit in the "vote-
rigging" scandal in the 1995 election. Essentially the
Tories bankrolled four or five aboriginal candidates in
swing ridings, in the hope that these candidates would
siphon off enough NDP votes to let the Tories come up the
middle and win (it didn't work). Filmon was not
implicated in the maneuver, but it tarnished what had
been a squeaky-clean reputation and added to Manitoban's
fatigue with his regime that led to the PCs defeat him in
the 1999 election. Since retiring as leader of the PCs
in 2000, he has been nearly invisible from politics,
except to engage a bit in the federal Conservative Party
leadership (for Stronach), and recently to chastise her
for crossing the floor. The BC Government commissioned
him to write a report a couple of years ago on the forest
fire disaster.
4. (SBU) Filmon is a straight-shooter. Interlocutors
will find him sensitive to U.S. interests and very
serious about Canada's national security. If he chairs
SIRC anything like how he ran the GOM, expect a low-key,
workman-like atmosphere with an absence of histrionics
and hyperbole (think the opposite of Carolyn Parrish).
Filmon can be expected to consult quite widely to access
the best advice from a wide range of views, and take his
responsibilities very seriously. We expect he would
welcome appropriate overtures from the USG. Filmon has
the reputation of being a consensus builder and is not
particularly partisan. Don't expect him to do anything
to publicly embarrass the Liberals who appointed him, but
neither will he whitewash a problem he has identified.
Any criticisms he offers will be done constructively and
to improve the system, rather than to target specific
individuals.
5. (U) APP WINNIPEG SENDS.
DICKSON