US embassy cable - 05OTTAWA1947

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