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and his thoughts. He has learned over the years to talk about himself, but it doesn’t come naturally. Tat lends a hint of awkwardness to how he presents. Like most rurally-raised kids, he views life through the


eyes of realism, but his view is coloured by a certain idealism. He has strong views, strong ethics. He believes in hard work and in excellence, meaning that you always strive to do the very best you can. He feels deeply. He’s an achiever. Tat comes from his mother, Anne (Poy-


ser), a school teacher, perfectionist and the indefatigable driver of the family fortunes, even though she suffered with arthritis from her late thirties onward. It also comes from the necessity of rising early to milk the cows before school. Hard work brings rewards. “Tere is no substitute for honest hard work,” he says. Brian’s father, Bill, had polio at an early age, leaving him


with a severely withered leg, but he steadfastly farmed the half-section homestead settled by his own grandfather near Edwin, where Brian started school in a two-room school- house. Te Pallister work ethic was instilled in all three kids, two boys and a girl, of which Brian is the oldest. “We never went hungry,” said Brian, “but there was nothing extra.” His sister Peggy is now a teacher and his brother Jim is a suc- cessful bean farmer – one of the biggest in western Canada. It wasn’t only work ethic that drove the Pallister family.


Tey were governed by the principles of life-long learning, of being readers, of loving music (Brian plays the piano, sings and is a jazz lover – at university, he minored in music and history) and of playing to win at sports. Playing to win is a lot of what he is about. Brian was a fastball player in his younger years. He pitched


in a couple of dozen national championships and also played and won internationally. He is a curler and a basketball player. Tese are all team sports and he feels that being a team player and team leader defines his style. “I learned though sports how teamwork and collaboration works,” he says, and he has focused on instilling a team spirit among his colleagues since taking on the leadership. He also has definite views about leadership, ideas he honed


over the years as a business person and later a politician, working his way from the bottom up. He started Pallister Financial Group 35 years ago, in 1980, from the front seat of his car. Today, he has been successful enough to afford a house on Wellington Crescent, an achievement in which he takes justifiable pride. He also likes to be the boss and is perfectly capable of making a decision when the chaos of conflicting views are in play. He learned to be aggressive to protect himself and that


showed in the early days of his political career when he had a reputation for aggression. Still tough and determined at 60, he has mellowed, demonstrating more patience, more will- ingness to listen and learn. He says he has learned to laugh at himself, a talent that often comes to super achievers as they get older. He has developed more empathy toward political foes and he sent Greg Sellinger a letter of sympathy during the recent NDP caucus revolt. Nor did he place his foot on the neck of the injured premier, remaining quiet during the whole debacle. Tat is not to say that he pulls any punches when it comes to attacking government policy. He decries the Bi-Pole III Hydro deal, he is appalled by the state of social services under a government that claims social policy as its forte, he is quick to point out that the province’s finances are out of control and in spite of the extra $500 million injected by the PST increase, the government is still running a deficit. Basketball, Brian says, requires diligence and persever-


ance, and he loved the game. It intro- duced him to Esther Johnson, his wife, a beautiful 6-foot-3 woman who has a quiet presence reminiscent of Michelle Obama. He says, with obvious pride, that she is “artsy and outdoorsy”. Tey met at a basketball game in 1984, and he has never looked back. Brian says she is his closest adviser, but then that is natural for a man whose greatest influences growing up were his mother and his grandmother. “I loved my Dad and my grandfather, but my mother and especially my grandmother were the people I admired most,” he says. Tis positive attitude about women


Brian Pallister is, in many


ways, a Renaissance man – someone with many and


“


and his respect for them and their contributions colour his political life. He is making a very strong effort to ensure that women form at least half of his caucus in the next election. Tere is long list of very strong, well-qualified women on the PC nomination roster. Carrying on the tradition of strong women in the family are


his daughters Quinn, 23, graduating from the Asper School of Business at University of Manitoba this year and working as an actuary for Great West Life, and Shawn who is just 18 and still at the University of Winnipeg, where her parents met 30 years ago. Everyone is the sum total of their experiences, good and


bad. Growing up, it wasn’t hard work or deprivation that formed Brian Pallister: it was his height and what he calls his “geekiness”. In grade six, he was six feet tall, a foot taller than the average 12-year-old, and his interest in music, math and reading set him apart. “I didn’t have a lot of friends,” he confesses. Early on, he had to come to terms with being different and while he was figuring this out he was bullied


6 Smart Biz


diverse talents and interests. He is poised to lend those talents to the leadership of our province.


later as an Alliance member and then as a Conservative mem- ber after the merger. Troughout his political lifespan, he was an active and sometimes controversial member, whose forte was always in the financial realm, although he was once ruled out of order in the House of Commons for singing a parody of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two” when he adjusted the lyrics to attack the spending habits of David Dingwall and the Liberal Party. He is sometimes unorthodox, and although he is a con-


”


servative, he says he is not a “blue-blood” conservative. He may be referring to the fact that his grandfather was a Douglas Campbell liberal. (Doug Campbell told the writer that he was “never a Liberal”. He governed as a member of the Progres- sive Party of Manitoba and in his later life was involved with the Confederations of Regions Party, the Reform Party and Sid Green’s Progressive Party). Perhaps, like his grandfather, there is a streak of the original thinker in Brian. Tat is not a bad trait for a leader in a province which is desperately look-


www.smartbizwpg.com


Meet Brian Pallister: Te man who will be premier B


By Dorothy Dobbie


rian Pallister, the 6-foot-8 leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba, is not shy, but he is private, even though he seems willing to share his life


Brian Pallister and his wife Esther Johnson. Photo by Stu McKay.


by his tough farm school mates. Subjected to bullying, some kids become shy and withdrawn; Brian became a sports star. “Music and exercise became my escape,” he says. For a time as a young adult, he also cultivated a beard and let his hair grow. Graduating from the University of Brandon in 1976, Brian


taught school in Gladstone for a time, taking on what today seems as an odd role as the local union rep. In 1979, he went back to university to take a teaching degree although he soon turned his attention to finances when he started sell- ing insurance. His return to university marked a way of life that continues to this day. “I am a lifelong learner,” he says, and he has been taking courses, mostly financial, for the past 20 years. Brian Pallister is a thinker. He is a doer. He grabs life with


both hands and gobbles it up. His intensity can sometimes astonish people. He reads voraciously – right now, mostly politics and books on governance. He has written financial columns. He has sung at weddings – many, many of them. He studied poetry as a kid. He says he got into politics to make


a difference, stimulated by the payroll tax bill and because as a small busi- nessman and a member of the chamber of commerce, he believed in fair taxes and fair regulation, two issues he felt were being abused. He got elected to the Manitoba


legislature in 1992 when Ed Connery stepped down. He ran against Joe Clark in Joe’s second bid for the leadership of the Federal Progressive Conservative Party in 1998. He was later elected as an MP, in 2000, serving though the tumul- tuous years of the Reform-Alliance- Conservative party battles. He served first as a Progressive Conservative and


ing for new ideas. Brian himself fell in love with Progressive Conservative Leader Robert Stanfield when his 4-H leader took him to his first political debate. He calls himself a professionally trained planner, but he


admits that “people don’t follow plans, they follow visions”. His vision is for a Manitoba where excellence, as in always being the best you can be, is rewarded. He doesn’t understand the rush to the middle, to mediocrity. His vision includes a caring society, where people look after each other, offering a helping hand up rather than a demeaning hand out. He believes that Manitobans epitomize that kind of society and he says that helping is not just about spending, “It’s about making sure that the spending actually works.“ Brian has tremendous “pride in province”. “Manitoba is unique,” he says, citing the energy and


creativity of our people, the way we work together, the tre- mendous resources. “We are a microcosm of Canada and we offer endless opportunities.” It hurts him that we have such a national black eye in Canada right now, with the media paint- ing us as racists. “Racism is there,” he says, “but if anyone can rise to the challenge of overcoming it, we can in Manitoba.” He resents Winnipeg being called the poverty capital. “All great cities attract people coming for opportunity and that creates pockets of poverty as they adjust. But the opportunity is here and that’s why they come.” He thinks the PCs have to reach out to newcomers, to women, to urban dwellers. He believes that leadership is about empowerment. If we


create the right environment, Manitobans will respond with the vigour and creative leadership they have always shown and we can move ahead and return to being first, instead of dead last on so many lists including education and health waiting times. He doesn’t understand why government would want to be in competition with non-profit organizations that do so much good in the city and the province, citing the troubles encountered by the Osborne Women’s Centre and the Manitoba Jockey Club in dealing with the current NDP government. He is eager to hear what people think and he quickly links what he hears to his endless supply of anecdotes. A natural raconteur, he has the rural Manitoba flair for a good story well told. As Brian talks, you can see him winding up. His eyes spar-


kle. He flashes a natural grin. His excitement is contagious. Talking about what Manitoba could and will be if his PCs win the next election clearly moves him. Known as ‘Pally’ to his friends, Brian Pallister is gregari-


ous and focused. His early childhood had a profound effect on his character today. Moving from the angry young man stage into the thoughtful, self-aware person he is today is a journey that many never make. And he is determined to keep getting better. “You never stop growing,” he says. “If you stop growing,


you start dying.” He hopes to take that energy to the top job on Broadway next year. Meanwhile, he intends to keep on growing.


June 2015


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