NDP fail to support positive vote on resolution to support an alternative to the 16 month closure of the Disraeli Freeway

On Tuesday, May 12, a resolution was presented to the Manitoba Legislature that "The Manitoba Legislature support the provincial government in taking a leadership role to work with and pressure the City of Winnipeg and Government of Canada to find an alternative to a 16 month closure of the Disraeli Freeway during reconstruction."

In spite of the MLA for Elmwood, Bill Blaikie, acknowledging that members of the house had worked together to "change the day on which it was debated in order to facilitate my participation". In spite of the MLA for Elmwood, Bill Blaikie, acknowledging that there was a "non-partisan spirit of the motion and the debate", when it came to the final few minutes of the hour allotted for the debate, the MLA for Elmwood left the chamber, and let his colleague, Greg Dewar, the MLA for Selkirk, talk the motion out of time so it would not come to a vote and could not be voted on and supported by all MLAs.

The tragedy in what happened, is that this is an urgent issue, and should have been addressed and voted on by all MLAs rather than have it wait until some unknown future time. Indeed, the motion may now never come to a vote. This is too bad, because the passage of this motion would have clearly signaled to both the City and the federal government the urgency of resolving this issue. Now, both the City and the federal government can say to Gary Doer and Bill Blaikie - well you did not even care enough about this to vote to support this resolution and let us know all MLAs are behind treating this in an urgent fashion.

A second sad aspect of this "non-vote" was the fact that Mr. Blaikie continues to play the blame game, and blame the City when he said "this [planning to close the Disraeli Freeway for 16 months] is something that the City did on its own." In my experience, it is very important for Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislature to in front of problematic situations and contributing to solutions. In this case Mr. Blaikie was a Member of Parliament representing north-east Winnipeg for many, many years and should have been engaged with what was happening at the civic level and contributing to make sure the Disraeli closure disaster did not happen before it became an "eleventh hour" issue. Why Mr. Blaikie was not engaged earlier is still not clear.

A further disappointment in the debate was the acknowledgement by Mr. Blaikie that he does not have a concrete plan, but rather he is only waiting for "concrete proposals from the City". It is now two months after Mr. Blaikie was elected in the by-election, and it is disturbing, to say the least, that he still does not have a concrete proposal to put forward, and indeed was not even ready to make sure this reasonable, and badly needed resolution, was supported and voted on so everyone would know he was 100% behind the resolution.

During the debate, I spoke in favor of the resolution. But after the debate, I was so incensed at the NDP's failure to allow this to come to a vote that I brought the issue up in Question Period.

I asked, in Question Period:


"Mr. Speaker, the Premier is doing everything he can to try to avoid taking the blame for the shameful action of his party this morning. The Premier says he wants to support people in northeast Winnipeg. Why didn't the Premier support this resolution? Hey, by killing this resolution, by not allowing a vote to occur, the Premier is making what was a non-partisan effort–even the MLA for Elmwood acknowledged this resolution was crafted to be non-partisan, but now the Premier is making it an intensely partisan issue. There should have been urgent action on this file. Why was the Premier not supporting a vote on this file? Why was the Premier not there to support a vote on the file? "

But instead of the Premier bringing the resolution back for a vote, he went on to attack me. This is typical for the Premier. When he does not have the answer that he should have, he launches an attack on others. Too bad for the resolution. Too bad for the people of north-east Winnipeg. I had hoped for better.