Right in the centre - Maybe there is a chance
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- Published on Thursday, November 24, 2016
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
The Manitoba government’s speech from the throne highlights priorities within three thematic areas – Fixing Our Finances, Repairing Our Services and Rebuilding Our Economy. At first glance, the themes should strike a common chord with most Manitobans.
The Province of Manitoba is in a precarious position, largely worsened by the ineptness of the former NDP government. When they took office in 1999, the economy was on a bit of an upswing. You may remember that in the 1990s (the era that the NDP loved to remind everyone about and how bad it was) the then Progressive Conservative (Filmon) government came to the end of their term at the same time the economy was recovering.
In fact, Premier Gary Filmon promised he could increase government spending and economic growth would generate enough revenue for the government to be able to afford it. He was ridiculed by the NDP and much of the media and was defeated. The problem, in retrospect, was two fold. One, Filmon was right, the economy did grow and well beyond even his predictions. The second part of the problem was that a few years later, the NDP didn’t recognize the downturn when it started to come, as it always does. They made things even worse by trying to force growth with even more government spending. Public sector wages accelerated well beyond private sector. Unions, which largely control the NDP, had their way for 16 years.
The problem with the NDP isn’t that they aren’t nice people, many of them are. The problem isn’t that they don’t care, many of them care deeply. The problem is that they are socialists! And worse yet, they are very unimaginative socialists. To a modern day socialist, only governments can solve problems. Only governments and boards and commissions are smart enough to run the place. Businesses, large and small, farmers and tradespeople are all annoyances that get in the way of the socialist. Today’s NDP doesn’t even have a grand vision, they only want to plod through the months and years, just getting by.
In contrast, what is needed is imaginative change, progressive thinking and a strong, growing, sustainable economy. Health care and education are the two biggest departments. As health minister Kelvin Goertzen has indicated, if the trend continues, in a few years there will only be two departments, health and education.
For the demands on the health system to be met, both on the operational and the capital side, there has to be more than government, tax based involvement. The NDP were almost totally against any private health care but that was a myth. In other provinces you can buy a MRI or a Catscan. Not so much in Manitoba. Many of our hospitals were built and run by private organizations, something that has largely been forgotten or ignored. Dental care, eye care, massage therapy, physio and chiro are mostly private. Drugs, vitamins, supplements and health equipment are largely privately purchased.
The socialists have us cowering in the corner, waiting our turn in the line-up when a lot of health care bottlenecks could be eliminated with a combination of determination, planning and private investment.
On another matter, that being doctor shortages, we seem to have a problem. Reportedly, there are too many doctors in urban centres and not enough in rural areas. The answer has been to limit the number of doctors entering and graduating from med schools. That doesn’t make sense. If doctors can’t make their desired level of living in Toronto or Winnipeg for that matter, that isn’t our problem in rural or remote Canada. Maybe they should get off their backsides and move to where there is work. Moving to a job is a time honoured tradition. My grandfather moved from Scotland to Canada in 1911. Millions of his generation did. Thousands of people have moved to Canada in the modern era, hundreds to Neepawa. If a doctor can’t get work in one part of Canada then they can move. If they don’t want to move, then we should graduate more doctors here in Manitoba.
For docs and any other post secondary education field, the taxpayers pay a huge percentage of the tuition. In return for that, we should be requiring grads to work for two to three years in Manitoba. We invest hundreds of millions into educating people and then we export them. It makes no sense. If a province pays for your education, then you should stay for a while.
We will see if the new government can be tough enough, fair enough and wise enough to revitalize our province. If they listen to individuals and not a bunch of stale group thinkers, there is a chance.
