Finance minister delivers new work shoes to hospital staff in preview of Tuesday’s health care-heavy budget

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This article was published 28/03/2024 (581 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a twist to a long-standing Canadian tradition and a clear signal of his government’s spending priorities, Adrien Sala had new shoes Thursday, but he wasn’t wearing them.

Manitoba’s finance minister, who will deliver the NDP government’s first budget Tuesday, presented the fresh footwear to five health-care workers at Victoria General Hospital.

“What we want to do is really honour the the work that health-care workers do and to recognize the importance of the work by instead of buying myself a pair of shoes I want to buy you some shoes,” Sala told the employees, who included an urgent-care nurse, an occupational therapist and a health-care aide.

“We think it’s important because the budget we’re bringing forward Tuesday is going to be very much focused on health care.”

He acknowledged the province won’t be able to deliver right away on all of the promises the NDP made during last summer’s election campaign.

There were a lot of them, including hiring hundreds of doctors and other front-line health workers, building a new personal-care home in Lac du Bonnet, getting a mobile MRI to serve northern Manitoba, establishing a universal school lunch program, converting 5,000 Manitoba homes from electric to geothermal heating and offering rebates on electric and hybrid vehicle purchases.

“This budget is going to show progress on the commitments we made in the election,” Sala told reporters. “It’s going to show responsible progress. We know we have to balance our fiscal needs with priorities that we were sent to the legislature to deliver on and that’s what Manitobans can expect here.”

Last week, the finance minister announced the province is in worse fiscal shape than anticipated and on track for a $1.9-billion deficit — more than five times the size of the $363-million shortfall anticipated in the Progressive Conservatives’ 2023 budget.

“We know the last government left a big fiscal mess,” Sala said.

Critics have said there’s no way the government can keep its promise to balance the budget in its first four years without cutting programs or raising taxes.

Sala said the NDP can and will stay on a “path to balance” in their first term.

“I think we’re going to show that we can find that path, and it’s about responsible decision-making, responsible budgeting — something that unfortunately we haven’t seen in some time,” he said.

“We’re going to be bringing that forward. Its going to be a budget about health care, about making life more affordable in Manitoba while we ensure we take care of our fiscal needs.”

The significance of his giving new athletic shoes to the hospital staff was “really important,” the minister said.

“We feel that for a long time, health-care workers in Manitoba haven’t been shown the respect that they deserve. We know how important of a role they play in delivering health care to Manitobans. Today is about honouring them.”

What Sala called a “simple gesture” Thursday was a break with the uniquely Canadian practice of finance ministers wearing new shoes while delivering their government’s budget.

More recently,some have purchased footwear for others before budget day as an indication of what’s in the document.

In 2023, Progressive Conservative finance minister Cliff Cullen bought two pairs of winter boots for members of the Downtown Community Safety Partnership to distribute to people without proper cold-weather footwear. He went on to announce $3.6 million in funding for the non-profit organization in the Tories’ budget.

In 2022, his predecessor, Cameron Friesen, filled shoeboxes with personal items to be donated to Ukrainians in Manitoba who’d fled their war-torn homeland.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca