NDP lethargic when it comes to re-writing the Insurance Act

A slothlike NDP government has taken five years to do a re-write of the Insurance Act.

Today, over lunch various Members of the Legislative Assembly, including myself, met with members of Advocis Winnipeg, The Financial Advisors Association of Canada. To help get their message across, they brough their heavyweight, President and CEO of Advocis Steve Howard CA, from Ottawa. During his talk he spoke about the five years it has taken since the NDP government started its effort to re-write the Insurance Act. The Act, written many years ago, badly needs updating. In fact, we were told that the terms are now so out of date that members must find ways to get around the old act if they are to operate effectively in Manitoba.

When I asked Steve Howard after his talk, why it had taken so long to re-write the Insurance Act, he did not know the answer - but suggested it may be held up by the responsible Minister - probably the Minister of Finance.

It has taken five years, and the revised Insurance Act has not even been presented to the Manitoba Legislature. Indeed, it seems that the government, on this act, may have been working at the fast pace of one word per week - so we have no idea yet when it will be presented to the Manitoba Legislature.

As Liberals, Kevin Lamoureux and I find it very frustrating to deal with the present NDP government. They take five years or more to get legislation to present to the Legislature, and then they want to ram the legislation through quickly. Well, Mr. Premier, we have news for you. It is the Manitoba Legislature which is responsible for carefully reviewing provincial legislation in our democratic society and we Liberals are going to do our job. It is about time you did your job - and got legislation presented to the Manitoba Legislature much more quickly so there is adequate time to review it. Indeed, we are ready to have much longer legislative sessions to get the work of the province done.