Agricultural Awareness Day

This Tuesday was Agricultural Awareness Day, featuring a recognition of the contribution of agriculture to our cities.

At the Legislature there were representatives from many farm groups and farm sectors. It was an opportunity to say thank you to farmers for their contribution to our health and welfare as Manitobans. Many farmers have had challenging times the last several years. This was an opportunity to publicly acknowledge the contribution of farmers and other in the agricultural community. I was one of several to say thank you publicly on the steps inside the legislature and in our legislative chamber (top photo).

One of the agricultural products featured was turf grass used for a variety of purposes - from football fields to golf courses. There was an Invitational Putting Tournament (middle photo). Les Magnusson, Mayor of Steinbach came out ahead of the rest of us (bottom photo).

31 Homicides of Manitoba children in the care of child care agencies

It is a sad and tragic fact that there have been far too many children who have died by homicide, who were in the care of Manitoba Child and Family Services or its agencies at the time of their death or who had been involved with a child care agency in the year before their death.

For the period 2000 to 2005 inclusive, there were 31 children who died in this fashion. For 2005 there were nine such children.

Phoenix Sinclair is one of the children. She has received a lot of attention. But there have been many others including Christopher (son of Val Surbey), Heaven Traverse and Preston Martin.

I weep for all these children. There has to be a better way to look after children who are in care in Manitoba. Today, in the legislature, at my request, we had a minute of silence for all these children.

Wind energy and healthy living

I had a number of meetings in rural Manitoba on Saturday, and I took the opportunity to see the energy generation from wind near St. Leon and to visit at David Lumgair's, Shannondale, ski and tubing site near Thornhill.

David has a wonderful place for cross-country skiing or for tubing down the hills. He also has a good sense of humour, a good sense of fun and he loves to get lots of healthy exercise.

The Manitoba Association of School Trustees

The banquet, Friday evening, of the Manitoba Association of School Trustees was a good opportunity to catch up with trustees from all over the province.

One thing is very clear. There have been lots of studies about how to change the present approach to education tax, but the NDP have basically not paid attention to the reports, and we continue to have a decreasing proportion of education funding coming from the province.

In the photo above, I am with Carol and George from Portage la Prairie.

Supporting Smart Growth for Winnipeg

Friday afternoon at the University of Manitoba campus, Dean of Archiecture David Witty talked about the need to move to Smart Growth principles for the City of Winnipeg. It was a good talk and a healthy reminder that we have a long way to go to improve our approach to growth in and around our capital city.

Supporting our soldiers in Afghanistan

Friday morning at Shilo just east of Brandon, I had an opportunity to talk with soldiers in the second battalion of PPCLI. A number of those I talked to had served in Afghanistan at some time during the last several years.

In each case, the soldiers expressed strong support for Canadian efforts in Afghanistan to enhance the peace and stability of Afghanistan. What I heard was a recognition that it will take some time to train the Afghanistan police and armed forces to the point where they will be able to fully take over from the Canadian and other forces in their country. The process is moving forward but it is not there yet, and it will take some time.

The soldiers expressed the hope that Canadian understanding of the nature of the nature of their efforts to help people in Afghanistan would improve and that Canadian support for our efforts would improve from the current 50% up to at least 70%.