WINNIPEG – A Manitoba politician who resigned from cabinet over controversial remarks by former premier Brian Pallister says she is planning to retire.
Eileen Clarke, 68, mentioned Sunday she’s going to serve out her time period however is not going to search re-election when the subsequent vote — presently scheduled for Oct. 3 of subsequent 12 months — is held.
“It’s a very full life. I find most weeks, I work seven days a week, and there comes a time when one has to think about the future,” Clarke mentioned.
“I just feel that I have to look at life from a different side other than full-scale work.”
Splitting time between her rural Agassiz constituency and her duties in Winnipeg has additionally been demanding, she added.
Clarke resigned from the Indigenous relations portfolio final 12 months, days after Pallister made controversial remarks about Canadian historical past.
Pallister condemned the actions of demonstrators who had toppled two statues on the legislature grounds to protest the deaths of Indigenous youngsters at residential faculties.
Pallister mentioned individuals who got here to Canada, each earlier than and after it was a nation, didn’t come to destroy however to construct communities, farms, companies and church buildings. The feedback had been broadly condemned as a defence of colonialism, which Pallister denied.
In an interview Sunday, Clarke mentioned there have been issues earlier than that incident. Pallister didn’t hear to his ministers, Clarke mentioned, and he or she felt unable to do what she thought was obligatory in her portfolio.
“I was feeling a huge sense, a burden of guilt, for not being able to do better for the First Nations and Métis people of this province. They needed a voice and my voice wasn’t being heard.”
Clarke didn’t reveal particulars of her disagreement with Pallister however hinted at variations over the federal government’s insurance policies towards Indigenous individuals.
“I had promised myself that I would not change who I was to be a politician, and I just found myself really feeling compromised — not by my hands but by the leadership.”
Clarke was introduced again into cabinet in January of this 12 months by Pallister’s successor, Heather Stefanson. This time, she was appointed to municipal relations — a pure match for Clarke, who served as mayor of Gladstone, Man., for eight years earlier than getting into provincial politics in 2016.
Clarke has, on multiple event, made a level of claiming Stefanson listened to her Progressive Conservative colleagues and different Manitobans.
Clarke is the second cabinet minister in current months to announce a departure from politics. Scott Fielding resigned as pure assets minister in early June and left his legislature seat a quick time later.
The Progressive Conservatives have seen their help in opinion polls drop because the fall of 2020. Stefanson has to this point not prompted a reversal within the polls, and the Opposition New Democrats have been constantly registering above the Tories in Winnipeg, the place most legislature seats are.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Aug. 21, 2022.
