By Lynne Fernandez
It will take more than one budget – hastily prepared – to fully appreciate the Conservatives’ master plan, but the Throne Speech, a fiscal update and Ministerial mandate letters tell us what we should be keeping our eye on.
Finance Minister Friesen’s dire warnings about the size of the deficit (at just over $1 billion) cause him to blame the NDP for overspending. But the $366 million difference between the Conservatives’ estimate and the NDP’s relate to expenditures that appear unavoidable, including flood disaster assistance and environmental liability costs. There’s also $143 million in federal compensation for the 2011 flood that the province has yet to receive, but is forthcoming.
By Lynne Fernandez and Nicole Smith
Each year up to 400 mostly Mexican workers come to Manitoba under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) to work on local farms. They perform physically strenuous work on vegetable farms and in greenhouses for up to eight months, year after year. Workers regularly toil twelve hours per day, six to seven days a week, and they live socially isolated from Canadian society.
Social enterprises fill an important gap in Manitoba’s economy for those struggling to enter the workforce. The provincial government has seen the value of investing in social enterprises through funding training and procuring housing retrofit services. This in combination with financing from the Manitoba Hydro Pay As You Save (PAYS) program is producing great results. For instance, 194 people are employed in the six social enterprises involved in this study.
By Lynne Fernandez
Throne speeches typically are run-of-the-mill exercises that say very little while evoking lofty ideals such as prosperity, innovation and “establishing an open principled government that reflects the values and priorities of Manitobans . . .”. Pretty hard to argue with any of that.
But in case you’re wondering who gets to decide what Manitobans’ priorities are – because let’s face it, we’re a pretty diverse group with different ideas – the answer is quite clear: business gets to decide what Manitobans’ priorities are.
By Cora Morgan
Children need to feel and see they are important members of their communities and treated as such. A new study out Tuesday finds that Manitoba has the highest number of on-reserve First Nations children in poverty in the country at 76 per cent and the highest indigenous children in poverty off-reserve at 39 per cent. This number is rising and the situation is getting worse. There is no excuse for this in a wealthy country like Canada — this is a state of emergency.
The recently elected Progressive Conservative (PC) party in Manitoba ran on a call for change. But change for the sake for the sake of change can cause more harm than good, especially for Manitoba’s most marginalized. While there are many policy areas to monitor, here are four to watch as they begin their mandate.
By Fletcher Barager
The Manitoba Employers Council (MEC) recently released a report that delivers a damning indictment of the Manitoban economy. Fortunately for the province it is the report, not the economy, that deserves the failing grade.
Deploying a selective set of economic indicators, the report compares Manitoba’s economic performance not to that of the other nine provinces, nor even to the national average, but to a select group of four―a group that not coincidentally contains the four wealthiest provinces, and four of the six largest.
With this realignment, Manitoba moves from its accustomed mid-level placing in the national rankings to a slot at the bottom of this handpicked group. A Free Press editorial (April 5, 2016) then claimed that the report “shows Manitoba failing in almost every key economic indicator”. A strong claim, but not an accurate one. And certainly not a sufficient foundation to support the MEC call for smaller government and lower taxes.
Assessing economic performance, admittedly, is not straightforward. Different indicators highlight different aspects of the economy and also different economic outcomes.
The Syrian refugee crisis has attracted unprecedented political attention and, arguably, corresponding political will in Canada. In November 2015, the Province of Manitoba publicly stated it could welcome 1,500 to 2,000 of the 25,000 Syrian refugees that the federal Liberal government promised to resettle in Canada over a short period of time. According to Welcome Place, the housing arm of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council (MIIC), between November 4, 2015, and March 17, 2016, 928 Syrian refugees arrived in Manitoba. To put matters into perspective, the total number of refugee arrivals to the province in 2014 was 1,495. On March 21, 2016, Welcome Place claimed on its Twitter account that since November 2015 it has provided settlement support to over 630 Syrian refugees.
By Lynne Fernandez
At the end of 2015 The Conference Board of Canada predicted that in 2016, Manitoba’s economic activity would be second only to BC, with strong performance expected in the service, manufacturing and constructions sectors. The CBOC thinks we’ll see even stronger output in 2017. The Manitoba Bureau of Statistics (MBS) report, The Review 20141 , explains that “Manitoba’s labour market performance has been a strong indicator of its robust economy”. According to the report, Manitoba had one of the strongest labour markets in the country.
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