Province appoints replacement deputy ministers in two departments

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This article was published 23/03/2023 (951 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s former acting Children’s Advocate is now deputy minister of Indigenous reconciliation and northern relations.

Ainsley Krone’s political appointment took effect March 17, according to a Manitoba government order in council.

In her work with the Children’s Advocate, Krone dealt with many issues impacting Indigenous children in Manitoba, including advocating for those in care, the majority of whom are Indigenous.

She replaced Jeremy Akerstream as deputy minister.

Another major change among the province’s top bureaucrats is the departure of longtime deputy health minister Karen Herd, who is leaving her post after a decade.

“I thank Karen Herd for her dedication and long service as the deputy minister for Manitoba Health,” Health Minister Audrey Gordon said Thursday in an email. “It was an absolute pleasure working with her. I wish her the best in her retirement and hope she enjoys time with her family.”

Herd let staff know earlier this year that she was leaving but her departure was made official by an order in council earlier this month.

The chartered accountant joined the civil service in 1992. She was appointed the provincial government’s top health bureaucrat in 2013 and served during tumultuous times. She was in charge of making sure former premier Brian Pallister’s austerity measures were in place after the Progressive Conservatives formed government in 2016.

On Feb. 17, 2017, for example, Herd wrote to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority with instructions to find $83 million in annual budgetary savings — about three per cent of its budget — by March 31 that year. She oversaw multiple health-care crises, from the COVID-19 global pandemic to ongoing nurse and doctor shortages and backlogs in surgical and diagnostic procedures.

On Monday, Scott Sinclair took over as deputy health minister. Sinclair is the former deputy minister of government services. In June, he told a legislative assembly committee that a massive backlog in processing applications for birth, marriage and death certificates was the result of stagnant bureaucracy within the Vital Statistics agency.

“The organization got to a place where the processes were simply no longer efficient, effective, meeting the needs of citizens,” Sinclair told the public accounts committee reviewing the agency’s 2020 annual report.

— Staff