Time for blame game rapidly running out

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/01/2024 (682 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When a new government takes power, a countdown begins to the day when that government can’t keep blaming its predecessor for current challenges. And the countdown isn’t as long as some leaders would like.

Earlier this week, the Free Press reported that the Manitoba government is shelling out a great deal of money to pay for the services of private nursing agencies — $35 million in the first half of the fiscal year, putting it on track to exceed spending on the agencies in 2022-23.

It speaks to the ongoing crisis in health care, which hit a fever pitch during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to settle. It’s also, to be fair, a problem being experienced in other provinces. The pandemic pushed the health-care system to the brink across Canada, and the reverberations of that disruption are still being felt.

Manitoba’s nurses union is understandably angry about how much the province is spending on private agencies. Surely, money spent to hire private nurses would be better used within the provincial system. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara has pointed the finger at the former PC government.

It’s true that Wab Kinew’s NDP government has inherited a terrific mess in the form of our current health-care system. The current government, in power for only a brief time now, cannot be held fully accountable for the system’s long-standing problems.

But it can, and should, be held accountable for failures to act quickly on the file.

When he was elected in October last year, one of Kinew’s central promises was to act swiftly to improve health care in Manitoba.

“Our government is committed to giving you the respect and the resources that you need and that you deserve,” Kinew told health-care workers in an Oct. 24 message, alongside Asagwara.

A few months later, nurses don’t appear to feel very respected, and they’re stretched as thin as ever. Asagwara claims the province is working to change the culture to keep nurses in the public system, and that nurses are indeed returning to the system.

While a culture change is all well and good, it seems like the more obvious solution to solve this problem is to find a way to infuse the system with a large number of new nurses to ease the burden. Some letter writers to the Free Press have made their own pitches: covering the cost of a nursing education, for one; or expediting the process by which foreign credentials are recognized, so newcomers can get to work faster.

At this point, everything seems worth a look.

To lay the state of the system at the hands of the Stefanson government may be fair ball for now, but only for now. As time passes without signs of improvement, the goodwill offered to a new government deteriorates rapidly.

The former PC government was criticized (or mocked) for repeatedly laying the blame for the province’s woes on the Selinger government, even after the Tories had spent years at the helm. It will not do for the NDP to start doing the same now.

In another two, three, six months’ time, if nurses are still at the breaking point, and if Manitobans can’t get into an ER (or even get a health card) for love or money, it won’t be acceptable to look backwards for an excuse.

The time to point at the PCs for their failings was during the election campaign. The time for the new government to show Manitobans what they intend to do about it, is now.