Financial blueprint puts mines in mix for Manitoba

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This article was published 07/04/2022 (1290 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government’s green-growth budget received mixed reviews from Manitoba, as questions linger around health-care spending and the role of energy workers.

“Some of the commitments here are too vague, and we need to get a better sense of how this is going to work,” Elmwood—Transcona MP Daniel Blaikie said Thursday.

As NDP finance critic, Blaikie is helping shepherd the four-year deal his party signed to prop up the minority government Liberals, which he argues caused them to pledge dental care and higher taxes for banks.

“There’s more that could be done, but what we talked about in the context of the agreement was honoured in the budget.”

The financial blueprint focuses on a growth strategy meant to boost productivity, to pay off COVID-19 debts and maintain social programs.

Part of that is a ramp-up in mining across Canada, to take advantage of soaring demand for the components meant to build everything from electric vehicles to smartphones.

A map in the budget points out potential Manitoba mines in areas near Thompson, The Pas and the Whiteshell, and the plan specifically references uranium from the Prairies to ramp up nuclear energy.

“Western Canada is rich in certain critical minerals and the fact that the government sees this as part of our economic growth strategy is good for us,” former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan said from Edmonton.

McLellan co-chairs a non-partisan coalition aimed at getting Canada to focus on its sagging economic productivity, and said the budget sets out clear rules around carbon capture, and programs to ensure minority groups are part of job-creating industries.

“Those are the kinds of specific measures that the public sector needs to make those big, green investments.”

The Liberals argue carbon capture will help the Alberta oilsands gradually ramp down production over the long run, which the NDP decried as taking a lax approach to climate change. The Conservatives countered it wasn’t enough to support oil and gas.

“It’s an irresponsible budget,” interim Tory leader Candice Bergen told reporters.

The MP for Portage—Lisgar said the budget ought to have cut taxes and ramped down large spending programs she fears will take decades to pay off.

“The numbers are so huge, it’s like we’re the frog that’s being slowly boiled. We’ve been so accustomed to these huge numbers, we don’t realize how bad they are.”

Ottawa is also planning a review of all government expenditures, though a senior official was cagey about the details Thursday, hinting only at reforming public servant travel and work-from-home spending, which could suggest the sell-off of unused buildings.

That’s a concern for the Canadian Labour Congress, as is the lack of a clear plan for how oil and gas workers will fit into Canada’s net-zero pledges.

“Workers in every single province, it doesn’t matter whether they voted Liberal or not, are worried about what the jobs of the future are going to look like,” said congress head Bea Bruske, who lives in Winnipeg.

“There is a significant nervousness on behalf of workers who are seeing their particular industries having to transition, and whether there’s going to be well-paying jobs with benefits and a pension plan.”

Bruske echoed the NDP’s praise for dental care and housing, but was troubled by how few health-care promises made it into the Thursday budget, such as mental health, pharmacare and a ramp up in doctors and nurses.

The Liberals also appear to be turning away from their campaign commitment last fall for $6 billion in new cash for provinces to deal with health-care backlogs. Thursday’s budget only allocates $2 billion for the coming five years.

“On health, (we’ve made) very meaningful commitments,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said, in response to questions from the Free Press, noting the Liberal-NDP deal clocks out in 2025.

“We are building, and this is the first of four chapters.”

Thursday’s budget predicts only a slight boost to health-care transfers based on the existing formula, due to economic growth caused by soaring commodity and oil prices.

However, the Liberals eschewed any mention of the premiers’ long-standing demand for a formal meeting to make the health-care transfer more generous.

“This is something we have to work hard, together with the provinces and territories, to get right,” said Freeland, arguing it’s not about how much money Ottawa spends, but how to best use that money.

That explanation didn’t go over well at the Manitoba legislature.

“It’s time that we get help from the federal government on a permanent and ongoing basis, to be a much bigger partner when it comes to helping that situation,” said NDP Leader Wab Kinew said.

The Stefanson government did not have an immediate response to the budget.

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont feared his federal cousins relied too much on real estate to prop up Canadians’ incomes in Thursday’s budget.

“We’ll have to see how that all shakes out, because I think there is storm clouds brewing in the Canadian real estate industry.”

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman praised more cash for affordable housing, and said he was glad to see promises for a strategy to combat hate crimes and racism.

“Greater leadership at the national level is welcome and needed during this time in our nation’s history,” Bowman wrote.

He was disappointed to not see the continuation of a temporary doubling of a gasoline surcharge for city roads, nor new public transit cash.

— with files from Danielle Da Silva

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca