NDP can't adjust to the changing world

August 3, seven weeks ago, we received an urgent call from Marietta Brudy. A born and bred Manitoban, she keeps a Manitoba address, operates her business from our province and pays tens of thousands of dollars in taxes here each year. But she has a business - RV tourism. RV tourism is not a priority for the Manitoba government and so she has little work here. In order to work, she must travel to where the work is. Because her job takes her outside of Manitoba for more than half the year, the NDP have yanked her health insurance.

The reality is that the world is changing, and there are more people, like Marietta, who are being hurt by the old view of the NDP. The fact is Marietta's business means she is not in any province long enough to have health coverage there. She is a Canadian and deserves coverage under our medicare system. She is a Manitoban and she pays substantial taxes here. She deserves coverage under Manitoba Health. Yet the NDP have an old view of the world, that does not include people like Marietta who have employment which means they have to be more mobile. It is time to catch up with what is happening in job and business opportunities and support Manitobans like Marietta who want to contribute to our economy and who pay taxes in Manitoba.

Oh, one more thing. The very day, we got the call from Marietta, I wrote to Minister Tim Sale explaining the situation and urging him to help Marietta. The letter to Mr. Sale was hand delivered August 3. In spite of follow up correspondence and many phone calls to his office, we still, now seven weeks later, have not received a written reply. Only today, in the Free Press, do we learn that Mr. Sale is hunkered down in his old view of how the world operates and is unwilling to help Marietta and her family.