My Speech to the Association of Manitoba Municipalities

Wednesday November 29: Below is the text for my speech to the Association of Manitoba Municipalities. Though I did not follow the text precisely, my speech was close enough to the text that it is worth putting on my blog.

President Ron Bell and Members of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities.

It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you today. Like you, I am firmly committed to building in Manitoba successful, livable communities in an economically strong, environmentally sustainable province.

Many have wondered why I, as a physician, would give up such a respectable profession as a physician to become of all things a politician. Well, look at it this way, I didn’t really leave my practice, I just expanded to include all of Manitoba.

If so, Gary Doer sure has left a heck of a lot of patients for me to see…

Seriously, like you I know it takes dedication, personal commitment, some knowledge and expertise, and often a little luck, to make meaningful change and improvements in our province.

Today, I want to speak briefly about four areas where we need to make meaningful change and improvements: agriculture, infrastructure, health care and education taxes.

You folks know that we have some of the very best soil anywhere in the world here in Manitoba, and we have knowledgeable and committed farmers who are trying to make a living providing some of the best quality food that it is possible to produce.

Yet we have governments at both the provincial and the federal levels which seem hell-bent on creating economic uncertainty that undermines a lot of the hard work and planning that farmers have done.

At the provincial level, there’s the NDP which had once supported the hog industry, even to the extent of putting up $27 million of taxpayer money to support a new Olywest Hog Plant inside Winnipeg.

Then, all of a sudden, without warning or consultation, without even a hint to the industry, this same government slaps a moratorium on hog barn expansion.

Sorry, I mean “pause” – the NDP is calling it a brief “pause” in expansion. So brief that the NDP can’t even tell us when the end date is.

Some even say this is a backhanded attempt to get itself out of the political box they put themselves in with the Olywest Plant. Facing all the political opposition from the local community, the moratorium might be a desparate attempt to save the skins of the NDP MLAs in Radisson and Transcona in Winnipeg.

This is a misguided policy. There are better ways to reduce the phosphorous going into Lake Winnipeg, as I will discuss in a moment. Not only has the moratorium sent shivers and shakes throughout the hog industry, it attacks anyone who earns a living from agriculture. When you have a government which implements a sweeping policy change like this without any consultation, without any warning and without a real scientific basis – you have to ask – what cockamamie scheme will this government cook up next?.

It is painfully clear we need governments which will really listen to farmers, not pretend to listen the way the NDP pretends to consult municipalities. Just as cattle producers need to be able to vote when mandatory levies are imposed, so too do wheat producers need to be able to vote on major changes proposed for the Canadian Wheat Board.

It is my position, my belief, that farmers in Manitoba not only should be able to vote at the same time on barley and on wheat, but the two votes must happen together. It is vital that a clear result and decision be made on the future of the single-desk if we are going to minimize the uncertainty that has been created by the federal government. It is important that farmers have input in a way that minimizes the economic costs of any proposed change.

When it comes to the concerns over Lake Winnipeg and other lakes facing ecological damage from phosphorus-loading, I know there are better approaches than the NDP’s eleventh hour Hail Mary of a hog marotorium. We Liberals have right now before the Legislature a bill to ban phosphorous in dishwasher detergents – a move than would reduce the amount of phosphorous going into Lake Winnipeg by 2% - compare this to the 1% contributed by all of the hog industry in Manitoba. So ask yourself which would costs Manitoban’s more, ending unnecessary phosphorus in detergent or shutting down all expansion in the hog industry?

I also believe, as Herm Martens, the Reeve of the R.M. of Morris has suggested to me – that we should move towards ending the winter spreading of hog manure, and that we require injection of hog manure rather than spreading it on the surface. These two measures alone would likely have more impact that the government’s misguided moratorium – a moratorium that I am worried may never be lifted while this government is in power.

Agriculture is not the only area where we need to see better leadership from the provincial government. Take transportation infrastructure – our many miles of roads, highways and bridges that are the arteries of the province. Never in the history of Manitoba were there as many problems with infrastructure as this year.- from the horrendous washboards that the province calls provincial highways to the bridges which have not been maintained. For weeks this fall, the government was forcing huge trucks through the middle of Portage La Prairie – all because they did not have the basic good sense to pay attention to a deteriorating bridge along the Trans Canada Highway, waiting instead to the last minute when it was so bad that it was no longer usable.

Or how about Highway 2? The stretch between Elm Creek and Winnipeg is so full of craters, it looks like a moon-scape. Take a moment and visit my blog where I have uploaded so many posts on this government’s infrastructure maintenance it is mind-spinning. Take a look at the photos I have collected of collapsed bridges and washouts while this provincial holds up disaster relief payments to municipalities. I see some nodding of heads in the audience, folks who know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s time for this government to live up to its commitment to provide disaster repair funding as they agreed to with municipalities.

But it’s not just our physical infrastructure in our communities that has paid the price of neglect.

When it comes to health care, the sad reality is that the present government is operating a system which is has become so dysfunctional, so poorly coordinated that medical tests often have to be repeated because the results are unavailable to family physicians. Family practitioners, the local community physicians who should be at the centre of the whole health care system, are kept so far out of the loop that they have to learn about the death of one of their patients in hospital by reading about it in the newspaper. This is no way to run a health care system. And it is exactly this type of top-down, command-and-control NDP-way of doing things that has given us poor health care outcomes, uncertainty in agriculture, and a crumbling infrastructure.

In terms of education property taxes, we Liberals wholeheartedly agree with the members of the AMM, that current levels are far, far too high. We will again be campaigning in the next provincial election on our commitment to reduce educational property taxes by half, while increasing the provincial contribution to education to 80%. Beyond that, however, reductions simply become unsustainable – and anyone who promises you instant 100% relief on education taxes is either divorced from reality or deliberately leading you on.

It is significant that the meeting which you have here today is occurring at a historic moment for our province. There is no doubt that we have a province of unlimited opportunity – opportunity which is being squandered by an out-of-touch and indeed arrogant provincial government. I am here today, to offer you a different vision – a vision of a Liberal government which believes we can clean up Lake Winnipeg, and build the industrial base of our province. – A vision of a Liberal government which believes that farmers need to be involved and supported as we develop new and forward-thinking opportunities in agriculture and rural Manitoba. – A vision of a Liberal government which believes in consultative planning for a high quality sustainable infrastructure – A vision of a government ready to make the changes so necessary to sort out our present dysfunctional health care system, and to improve the educational opportunities for Manitoba.

I look forward to hearing from you on your thoughts about this vision and how we can work together to make such a Manitoba possible.

Thank you – Merci – Meegwetch.