Right in the Centre - Yes, there are ways to save money

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Published on Thursday, March 26, 2015

By Ken Waddell

The Neepawa Banner

Whenever our current government is challenged about its ridiculous spending habits, they throw it back at their opponents face. They always challenge, “Well if you are so smart, where would you make the spending cuts?”

The answer is quite simple and there are many places the province could save money.

The biggest one of course is to cancel the Bi-pole III west route. That would save Manitoba Hydro and the people of Manitoba over a billion dollars. The next step would be to truly evaluate if we need new hydro dams. Hydro dams cost billions of dollars and the market for hydro is very questionable. The United States is not going to buy our power if they can create their own. It’s obvious that with the increased supply of natural gas and with cleaner burning coal plants that the U.S may well produce their own electricity and not buy from us at all. New investment in Hydro is a very sketchy deal right now.

In health care, private clinics should be allowed to provide MRIs, Cat Scans and many other tests at a fee like they do in other provinces such as Alberta and Quebec.

The province should be encouraging towns to build and expand medical clinics like Neepawa has done. It’s an absolute outrage that Neepawa and area paid for their own medical clinic and the province is paying for the one at Swan River. That’s outrageous, almost criminal.

The province should not be funding ad hoc and random lump sum payments to communities for health care facilities or sports facilities. There should be annual, predictable capital budget funding and it should be given to all municipalities on a per capital basis so communities can leverage whatever facilities they deem to be the priority in their community. 

If the province deems that they need to be involved in housing, that money should be sent to communities on the same basis. If a community decided it needs rec facilities or housing or health care facilities, they should be allowed to decide how to utilize their annual grants from the province.

We also have hundreds of people working for the province running around deciding what’s best for us and that needs to end. We don’t need environment staff telling us how to mix pancakes at the local fair. We don’t need RHA staff running around telling us to stop smoking. We don’t need civil servants telling us a lot of things from how to spread manure to how dark a car side window can be. Do we still have people checking for purple fuel? Do away with purple fuel and apply a lowered tax rate to all fuel.

Our per capita civil service rate is very high. The province should cap the civil service hiring and by way of retirement and attrition shrink the size of our civil service. 

In education, the province should modify the class size limit. If 15 or 20 students per teacher is the goal, what does a school division do if they have 22 kids in a grade. It doesn’t make any sense to have two classrooms with 11 each. That’s simply silly but silly is the call of the day when the province makes many of their rules. 

When the province makes a feeble attempt at tax relief for seniors or farmers, they force everyone to apply for the rebate and that employs a bunch more people to review the applications. It’s like the purple gas deal. Why not just lower the taxes for everybody and at the source.

The province is at a crossroads with school boards and school divisions. The boards either need some real power or they should be disbanded. If the province really wanted an innovative education system that delivered good results in the most efficient way, they would take the per capita cost of education and issue parents a voucher to be used at a licensed school. Then our very capable teachers and administrators could show their stuff and advance the cause of education unfettered by a lot of very stupid and restrictive rules.

Manitoba has no plan for economic growth. The debt is increasing by about $500 million a year. It will skyrocket further with new Hydro spending. The debt is already at $32 billion. Manitoba is like a house or a farm with a mortgage far higher than its income will cover. Because Manitoba debt is already so high, it’s nigh unto impossible to afford or justify new projects that are sorely needed.

Manitoba needs to do more than save money so we may save ourselves and the current government has proven it self incapable of doing either.