Health, affordability cornerstones of Manitoba throne speech By: Carol Sanders Posted: 2:11 PM CST Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024 Last Modified: 6:54 PM CST Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024 Updates

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The Manitoba government has signalled it’s sticking to its plan to tackle problems in health care, including long wait times for surgeries, and will try to keep life affordable, as it devises a plan to pay for its agenda by boosting the economy.

“We’ve been listening loud and clear, hearing about the cost-of-living pressures and inflation crisis and interest rates that have been weighing on everybody,” Premier Wab Kinew told reporters Tuesday as the NDP unveiled its second throne speech since taking office last year. “We’ve also heard from you there’s much more to do, that you’re still feeling the pinch.”

Critics said the challenge will be to find the money and staff to achieve those targets.

The government promised to freeze hydroelectric rates in 2025, a fulfillment of one of its election promises; introduce legislation to address anticompetitive contracts that make groceries more expensive; increase access to MRIs and hip and knee surgeries; and release a long-awaited economic development strategy.

Lt.-Gov. Anita Neville read the aspirational document in the legislature, where the gallery was packed with business and union leaders as well as representatives from the health and education sectors.

The throne speech outlined plans for a strategy to reduce emergency-room waits and to perform an additional 800 hip and knee surgeries at Selkirk Regional Health Centre, thanks to the recruitment of two surgeons from outside Manitoba, as well as an anesthesiologist.

Only half of the hip and knee replacements in Manitoba were completed within the recommended guideline of 26 weeks, as per the latest the Canadian Institute for Health Information report.

Doctors Manitoba president-elect Dr. Nichelle Desilets said Selkirk is well-equipped and a good choice to perform 800 hip and knee surgeries.

“Selkirk has a beautiful operating room,” said the Neepawa family doctor who attended the speech. “I’m always excited about providing patients care close to home.”

The Tories countered that they deserve credit.

“That’s a great initiative that started under our government,” said Wayne Ewasko, interim leader of the Progressive Conservatives, who announced a new operating room in Selkirk when Heather Stefanson was premier.

The doctor applauded the promise for a mobile MRI in the north to lower wait times and allow those in need of a scan to receive one closer to home.

“It’s better for safety, better for accessibility and it’s better for the economy. Those people are taking less time off of work and we have huge wait times for CTs and MRIs. We need the staff to support it,” Desilets said.

Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals president Jason Linklater said an MRI technologist who was lined up for the northern mobile MRI was hired away by Saskatchewan.

“When you don’t have enough people to fill those positions, what it means is spreading people more thin than they already are,” he said.

His union is in contract negotiations as the province tries to staff up the entire health-care sector, with 870 new positions created towards a goal of 1,000.

In addition, the government said a new plastic health card featuring the northern lights will be rolled out in December. It proved to be the most popular design as per public feedback.

As for affordability, the NDP campaigned on a promise to freeze electricity rates, and the premier told reporters he expects that to happen, but the Public Utilities Board will have the final say.

Keeping hydro rates affordable is Manitoba Hydro’s top priority and “Hydro’s telling us we can freeze rates,” Kinew said about the new board and leadership put in place after the NDP formed government. It passed omnibus legislation on Nov. 7, allowing it to adjust fuel taxes and hydro rates at the cabinet table.

“I think it’s a little bit of double-speak right now,” Ewasko said, referring to the promise to freeze rates while respecting the authority of the PUB to oversee rates.

A coalition that represents the Manitoba branch of the Consumers Association of Canada, Harvest Manitoba and the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg said it is “deeply concerned” about a rate freeze after Manitoba Hydro told the PUB in 2023 that rate increases would be required to meet the province’s energy and capacity needs over the next decade.

“Today’s commitment creates a significant risk of higher-than-necessary rate increases in future years,” the coalition said in an email.

The measure will delay Manitoba Hydro’s next rate application and a Public Utilities Board hearing needed to ensure hydro is effectively controlling its costs and that rates are based on evidence and a best estimate of Manitoba Hydro’s costs rather than political considerations, the coalition said.

Kinew didn’t promise a third extension of the 14 cent per litre gas tax holiday in 2025, but said, “We’re looking at a mix of things.”

He referred to the plan, mentioned in the throne speech, to bring in legislation that would ban covenants that allow grocery chains to limit nearby competition.

“We’re making good on the attempt to make grocery prices more affordable,” he said.

The premier wouldn’t provide details and couldn’t point to an example of another jurisdiction that has taken such measures.

Business leaders and the Tories said they couldn’t comment owing to insufficient information.

“We’re big fans in terms of competition and free enterprise,” Manitoba Chambers of Commerce president and CEO Chuck Davidson said, but “you have to look at it from both sides — from the perspective of the companies that run these grocery stores — before you provide comment on what we’re trying to achieve with this.”

The throne speech announced a new economic development strategy outlining the next phase of growth in Manitoba with a focus on productivity.

“We would’ve liked to see a little bit more in terms of how are we going to address some of these workforce challenges,” said Davidson, who said he’s pleased to hear about an economic development strategy guided by the premier’s business and jobs council.

“There’s a commitment we need to have that strategy, going together,” Davidson said.

In addition to health and affordability, the government made a gesture toward reconciliation.

It plans to erect a bison and calf monument at the front of the legislature facing Memorial Boulevard, where the statue of Queen Victoria stood before it was pulled down by angry protesters on Canada Day in 2021.

It will be a reminder of the “sacred bonds of family that were harmed by the residential school era.”

The government plans to create a new honour to be bestowed upon Manitoba veterans; details will be announced at a later date.

The legislature is scheduled to sit until Dec. 5 and break until March.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Throne speech