Right in the centre -Big changes, please

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Published on Thursday, February 9, 2017

By Ken Waddell

The Neepawa Banner

It’s ironic how government rules aren’t applied uniformly or fairly. The City of Winkler’s mayor is pretty ticked with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation (Highways Department), as MIT turned down a request from Winkler for a speed reduction. MIT did the same thing to the Town of Neepawa a while ago. 

The irony is really rich, as MIT clearly says one thing and does another. They say the city or town is “the local traffic authority” which is absolute nonsense. If the local authority idea was true, then the cities or towns could set their speed limits without even having to apply to MIT. Those two recent cases are just another couple of examples where we have bureaucrats who really shouldn’t be making rules for situations where they really have no right to do so. It goes without saying that you get the best decisions by the people who are closest to the situation. If a town or city wants to slow down traffic, then God bless them. What difference does it make to MIT? One has to wonder why we have so many bureaucrats to tell us what to do and how to do it? 

The relatively new Pallister government is starting to swing the axe on civil servants, Hydro workers, crown corporations, RHAs and school boards. Pallister easily explained why it has to be done; Manitoba spends about $3 million a day more than it takes in. Is that figure small enough to make it understandable? $3 million a day down the tubes, in the toilet, thrown to the wind, used to light cigars. No matter how descriptive one makes the comparison, it’s a lot of money, every day, every single day.

Manitoba has to get its spending under control. Canada does as well. The downgrades in credit ratings cost the province a lot of money in interest costs. We have some very tough decisions ahead and it is long overdue. Maybe a few less bureaucrats at MIT would be a good start.

Many more hospitals need to be converted to community care facilities. The idea that every town can maintain an emergency room is long gone. Some hospitals haven’t seen an emergency room functioning for years. The move to have paramedics cover emergencies is a good move. 

Health care has to absolutely open up to private funding for diagnostic testing, for capital expansion and replacement and for many other areas of health care. All options have to be on the table for health care.

I would really like to know what it costs to graduate a doctor. I would also like to know if we can tie the funding of medical schools to doctors staying in Manitoba for a fixed number of years in exchange for their education. If it were to come to a bidding war, Manitoba can’t compete with the dollars available in larger Canadian centres and in the U.S. New solutions have to be found.

Some very tough decisions have to be made in education as well. The problem with government is that changes come so very slowly. By the time the ship turns around, it’s out of fuel. Manitoba should be divided into geographic areas. Logically that would be south-western Manitoba, Central Manitoba, Parkland region, Interlake, Eastern Manitoba, Winnipeg and northern Manitoba. All education should be under the provincial jurisdiction including First Nations schools. The feds should get out of secondary education entirely and send a cheque to the provinces so that a per student amount can be sent to the schools. It obviously cost more to educate a student in the north than in central Manitoba, so the rate per student should be set accordingly. The cost per student should contain an operational component and a capital replacement component. That way, a school would know with assurance how much funds they would have going forward, for both operational and capital needs. The current crap shoot of waiting lists for school expansion capital is very inefficient.

Education funding should be taken off residential and farm land. It should also be taken off commercial property if the land owner files income tax in Manitoba. Taxing homes, farms and Manitoba tax paying business on their property taxes for education is very unproductive.

Few people like the methods employed by U.S president Donald Trump. His ways are crude at best but he does make decisions. Manitoba and Canada have to make some very tough decisions or we will bankrupt ourselves. A massive overhaul is needed at all levels of government.