Take your pick: budget has something for everyone

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This article was published 02/04/2024 (526 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The NDP is following through on some of its key election promises and laying the groundwork for loftier or long-term ambition in its first budget.

The 2024 fiscal plan, revealed Tuesday, contains a raft of measures intended to ease pressure on front-line health staff or make it easier for Manitobans to get treatment.

The government is also trying to deliver relief to Manitobans who are struggling with cost-of-living increases.

Here are 14 things to know about Budget 2024:

Help for health care

The NDP, which campaigned largely on health-care reform, said it will hire 1,000 new health-care workers this year (100 doctors, 210 nurses, 90 paramedics and 600 aides) via training and recruitment.

It set a goal of opening 151 new acute-care beds, while allocating permanent funding for 30 existing intensive care unit beds and seven new ICU beds for adults and children.

Funds have been set aside to design new emergency rooms at Victoria Hospital in Winnipeg and Eriksdale Hospital in the Interlake, and a new CancerCare Manitoba headquarters in Winnipeg.

Gas tax holiday extended

On Jan. 1, the NDP temporarily suspended the 14-cents per litre provincial tax on gasoline and diesel for six months.

Premier Wab Kinew confirmed the pause is being extended to Sept. 30, after Imperial Oil was forced to shut down a fuel pipeline near St. Adolphe for unexpected maintenance.

Gasoline, diesel and jet fuel is being transported to Winnipeg by truck and train while the pipeline is out of service for about three months.

Single property tax credit

Starting in 2025, the NDP introduce a single $1,500 property tax credit to all homeowners to replace a package of rebates designed by the former Progressive Conservative government.

The 50 per cent provincial property tax rebate and $350 education tax credit will be eliminated.

Some property owners will pay less or no provincial property taxes at all. Owners of homes with higher values will pay more.

Expanded $10-a-day child care

The province plans to spend $2.5 million to extend $10-a-day child care to non-school days, including in-service days and spring and summer breaks.

A further $5 million will go toward improving wages for child-care workers and adding more staff to accommodate the $10-a-day expansion.

Two new schools

Two new schools will be built in Winnipeg — one in Sage Creek and the other in West Kildonan — as part of $160 million in education capital spending.

The province repeated its plans for a $30-million universal school nutrition program.

Rise for renters tax credit

The annual tax credit offered to renters will rise to $575 from $525. The province intends to restore the credit to $700 in its first term. The Tories cut the credit to $525 in 2021.

The top-up for lower-income seniors will rise to $328.57 from $300.

More affordable housing units

The spending blueprint sets aside $116 million to build at least 350 social and affordable housing units, and repair more than 3,000 others.

The provincial sales tax is being removed on new affordable housing units in a bid to speed up construction of new homes.

When elected, Kinew set a goal of ending chronic homelessness in two terms. Budget 2024 includes $5 million for new incentives.

Rebates for electric cars, home security

The province is moving ahead with rebates for Manitobans who buy electric vehicles or security systems.

Rebates of up to $4,000 for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are retroactive to Aug. 1, 2023.

People who purchase or upgrade a home or business security system can apply for a $300 rebate.

Free birth control

The budget also repeats an earlier promise to make prescription birth control free of charge.

The maximum fertility treatment tax credit is being doubled to $40,000.

Manitoba is also doubling the prenatal credit to $162.82, which the government said will be the highest in Canada.

More staff for crisis calls

Last fall, the NDP pledged to hire an additional 100 mental-health workers to work alongside law enforcement officers and assist in some crisis calls.

This year’s budget contains $4 million to hire up to 25 of those workers.

About $1.8 million will go toward a provincewide suicide prevention strategy.

Supervised drug consumption site

Preliminary work for Manitoba’s first supervised drug consumption site is in a roughly $4-million package that includes addiction and harm reduction services.

Kinew confirmed the site in downtown Winnipeg will not open this year.

The government is looking at a proposal from an Indigenous-led consortium and has not yet chosen a location, he said.

24-hour snow clearing for Perimeter

After complaints from some communities, about $8 million more will be spent on provincial highway snow-clearing and maintenance.

The budget pledges a pilot program for 24-hour operations on the Perimeter Highway.

Two rest stops will be piloted on Highway 6 between Gypsumville and Thompson, a 500-kilometre stretch.

MMIWG2S+ strategy

A total of $20 million will be allocated to implement a new MMIWG2S+ strategy in a bid to make Manitoba safer for Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.

Kinew has said the province will provide $20 million to search a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of three slain Indigenous women.

The province will spend more than $4 million on gender-based violence programs.

New vaping tax

A new tax on vaping products will be imposed to match the federal government’s levy.

The base federal tax is $1 per two millilitres for containers with less than 10 ml of vaping liquid, and $5 for the first 10 ml, plus an extra $1 for every additional 10 ml for containers with more than 10 ml.

The doubled rates will likely be introduced Jan. 1, 2025, the province said.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

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