Right in the centre - Throne speeches are built on consultation
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- Published on Thursday, November 23, 2017
Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner & Press
As this is being written, the PC Manitoba government is about to present their third Speech from the Throne. The speech will outline the government’s plans for the future. It happens every year or so.
Early Tuesday morning there was an interesting quote in the Winnipeg Free Press. It said, “The Opposition NDP questioned why the government felt the need to hire a consultant in the run-up to the throne speech to advise it on the funding of future economic initiatives.
Deloitte LLP won a competition to do that work earlier this fall. Its first report to government was due Nov. 10.
“The delivery of a report like this right before a throne speech suggests that Pallister’s brought in a private consultant to do their work for them, and paid them $150,000 to do it,” NDP finance critic James Allum said Monday. “This government spends their time talking to backroom accountants and private consultants instead of the Manitobans that are relying on them.”’
As is often the case, that NDP quote was pretty funny. If in fact, the government could get a financial analysis for only $150,000 it would be a good deal. The criticism is also funny as the NDP hired the same firm at times over their years in government to do the same kind of review.
Not only did the NDP hire the same company, they did consult Manitobans as Allum suggests a government should. They also based their policies largely on inputs from the unions as the unions contribute a large amount of delegates to the NDP conventions.
The PCs did consult Manitobans at meetings all over the province. At those meetings, the people of Manitoba repeated their election night opinion, namely get the spending under control. At the current rate of income and expenses, Manitoba is not sustainable. Plain and simple!
Manitoba finds itself in a situation that most provinces are in, that is expenses are higher than income. It’s called deficit financing and the annual deficit adds to the debt every year. In fairness to all governments, past and present, it is difficult to provide all the services people want or need at the current income levels. With five per cent GST, eight per cent PST and both personal and corporate income taxes deemed to be high, it is difficult to squeeze more money out of the Canadian taxpayer.
The problem for every government is to maintain health and education levels at the expected standards of the day. Health care alone, as has been written here and elsewhere takes up 40 per cent of the government’s income. The PCs, or more precisely, Premier Pallister, floated the idea of a health care premium. Many provinces have one and it is directed income targeted to health care. It was shot down by people of all political stripes. We will see if it emerges in the Speech from the Throne but if it does it will be in the face of fierce public opposition. Misplaced anger in my opinion as the money will have to come from somewhere for health care. Regional Health Authorities can only cut so far it seems before the public outrage begins to rise up.
Public outrage is on the rise already as certain rural ambulance stations are being closed. Newer larger ones are being built but the outrage is mounting. In the southern half of south-western Manitoba, there are several small town hospitals. The emergency room portion of those hospitals will be regionalized by default and design. By default as rural region populations drop and by design as RHAs cope with aging facilities and ongoing staff shortages.
So the Speech from the Throne is the design. We will have to see how much it and the ongoing plan is affected by the stark reality (the default portion) and how much can be planned as Manitoba goes into its future.
