Right in the centre - Can we not learn from our mistakes?

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Published on Friday, January 28, 2022

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

Manitoba has had its share of mistakes and it wouldn’t be so bad if we would learn from them.

Scanning through the decades, we can easily see where we went wrong. Often, the blame can be laid at the feet of our governments. That said, we shouldn’t get too smug, as it is us, we the people, who elected our governments. We get the governments we deserve.

At the very beginning, the Canadian government decided in 1869 to carve out a tiny version of Manitoba from the then Northwest Territories. Having bought a big chunk of land from the Hudson Bay Company, which had pretty much run the place since 1670, the new (1867) Canadian government determined a new province was needed. Great idea! Problem was, they forgot tell the Metis, the First Nations or the other residents. When the survey party showed up, the intrusion and perceived threat to land ownership and way of life was not received well. What ensued has been called many things, but Louis Riel was right to put a halt to the government’s incursion. Manitoba still lives under, and suffers from, the scars that were inflicted in 1870.

How much better it would have been if the government had consulted and actually listened. That’s a lesson that we seem to have to keep learning over and over again.

In the early 2000s, Manitoba Hydro decided they needed a third line to bring power from northern Manitoba to southern Manitoba, to the United States and to other provinces. Good idea! The engineers drew up a Bi-Pole III line route to go down the east side of Lake Manitoba. The line would go through or near about a dozen First Nations communities. It would have provided employment, a right of way for a permanent highway, and to take an alternating current power line back up the road to the communities. The highway alone would have been a huge boon to the eastern side of the province.

The line received some opposition, but mostly failed because then premier Gary Doer would not or could not get agreements from all the FN communities. Not having the courage to face down the opposition, he turtled and opted for the ill-fated and hugely more expensive west line. That was likely the biggest and most expensive mistake our province has ever made.

The extra cost was reported to be a billion dollars. I was talking to an intelligent man who spoke plainly, saying it was worth it to save the forests, a billion well spent. But it didn’t save any forest, it chewed through many miles of forest and farmland. Biggest mistake we ever made and we will be paying for it for 50 years or more and gained nothing from it and lost a lot of opportunity.

The next biggest mistake we made was not looking seriously at funding our care homes. The Long Term Care Association of Manitoba says we have been underfunding care homes for 20 years. I bet it’s longer than that. Care homes have become essential to our Canadian way of life. We often don’t look after our elderly in our own homes in a multi-generational fashion that many countries and cultures do. Governments of all stripes have shortchanged the homes for a long time.

COVID-19 has brought that funding shortfall and lack of attention to a tragic spot in our history. Had we had proper funding, maybe people wouldn’t have had to die so soon from neglect, loneliness, from absence of family and friends. There are many questions that need to be asked, such as why care homes don’t do more medical interventions? Why aren’t care homes attached to or located near hospitals? Are the nutrition levels where they should be? Do care homes have proper vitamin and mineral supplementation in the diets? Lots of questions, but if you expect answers from government, don’t hold your breath. The employees all say “we can’t comment and we just have to obey the rules.”

Obey the rules? Even when we know the rules are wrong? And I don’t just mean a little bit of wrong, but a lot wrong. I, for one, will continue to question every rule they put out there.

Bi-pole was a bad deal, the 1869 survey was botched, the care homes have been badly treated by government. Three different eras and three bad decisions. And yet, we sit here and take it, again and again. A day hardly goes by that we don’t get another bad decision.

It’s no wonder people are talking about civil disobedience, trucker convoys and other protests.

Governments better start listening and consulting or we will eventually see anarchy.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the Banner & Press staff.