The leaders of Manitoba’s NDP, Progressive Conservative, and Liberal parties faced off on-air Monday morning.
680 CJOB hosted a live, 90-minute, commercial-free radio debate between Wab Kinew, Heather Stefanson, and Dougald Lamont.
This marks the first time the leaders have appeared together since a leaders’ forum last Tuesday hosted by the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association.
The debate was moderated by 680 CJOB’s Richard Cloutier and focused on a number of key election issues including health care, affordability, and crime.
Economy
Affordability has been a major concern for many Manitobans struggling with the impact of inflation post-pandemic.
Wab Kinew: “We want to cut the provincial gas tax while inflation remains high. If you drive a pickup truck, that’ll save you $14 every time you fill up at the gas station. We also want to freeze Hydro rates. That will permanently reduce the cost of energy going forward in Manitoba.”
Heather Stefanson: “There’s more Manitobans working now than ever before — 22,000 over last year. We’re the third-fastest growing economy in Canada, and our manufacturing and labour income lead Canada. Those are exciting figures — we need to keep the momentum going. If we do that, it means more jobs for our young people, it keeps them here.”
Dougald Lamont: “Coming out of this pandemic, people are in enormous amounts of debt, so we’re offering new tools for credit counselling and debt relief. We would bring back a tuition rebate program to make sure that students who graduate from university stay here in Manitoba. And the other thing is really pushing on genuine, progressive income tax relief, and jobs.”
Mental health and addictions
Thousands of Manitobans continue to struggle with addictions and mental health issues.
Stefanson: “(We will be) providing for more funding for more police officers in downtown Winnipeg, but we also recognize that we need to be proactive on the other side of this — that is more money for treatment spaces, more money for the RAAM clinics.”
Lamont: “These are people who need mental health and addiction support that isn’t there for them right now, so making sure we have thoe teams who can either sit with somebody in an ER — so it’s not a police officer — or making sure you get them to a stablization unit where they can detox is a huge priority for us.”
Kinew: “One of the proposals we’ve made is let’s add 100 mental health care workers across the province who can work to support law enforcement. Then we’re going to target a more appropriate response in some of those situations… where maybe someone’s going to have to head to a crisis stabilization unit.”
Parental rights
The PC party is promising to enhance “parental rights” if they are re-elected. It’s a similar promise to recent legislation out of Saskatchewan which requires parents to be notified if their kid asks to go by another name or pronoun.
Stefanson: “What parents want is the right to be informed of what is going on — whether it has to do with pronouns or whatever it is… bullying, whatever it is in the schools. Parents have a right to know.”
Lamont: “Our job should be to make sure that every single kid makes it through to Grade 12 without killing themselves. There are people who kill themselves because of the way they’re treated, and that is something we need to recognize.”
Kinew: “I’m never going to stand in between you and your child, but I’m also going to stand up for the rights of trans children in our communities, every single day and every time it’s required.”
Emergency rooms
The closure of three Winnipeg emergency rooms in 2017 by the PC government, and the NDP’s pledge to re-open them if elected, has been a controversial topic on the campaign trail.
Kinew: “This past weekend, at the Grace Hospital, one of the remaining ERs, the waits in the ER were 17 hours. You could get in a car and drive to the Rocky Mountains and be seen by a doctor over there more quickly than in west Winnipeg.”
Stefanson: “We don’t want to go back to the days where people are travelling by ambulance between hospitals in Winnipeg to get diagnostic and surgical procedures that they need. We want to make sure that they get the health care that they need when they arrive at the emergency rooms.”
Lamont: “The plan to close ERs in Manitoba was justified by the PCs because it was an NDP plan, and the NDP are promising ERs that aren’t going to happen for years… so it’s not about dealing with the issue right now.”
Energy
Lamont: “Making sure that we’re paying for green energy retrofits, helping people switch to geothermal. And that’s what the $300 million green fund would do — it would actually be grants to help individuals and institutions. It could be an RM, it could be the City of Winnipeg — to do everything from retrofitting for energy efficiency to planting new trees and fighting climate change that way.”
Kinew: “The thing that we’re proposing is let’s stand up a hydrogen facility that uses the buses, hydrogen buses constructed in Transcona at (New Flyer Industries), that are already on order by the City of Winnipeg. That missing piece is a proponent that’s going to turn the electricity from our Hydro grid into the hydrogen that’s going to go into the bus — that’s where we want to make the investment.”
Stefanson: We are already investing through Efficiency Manitoba, providing incentives for Manitobans to reduce their consumptions. That will increase the capacity within the system as well. We have invested in electric buses as well, New Flyer Industries, one of the best companies in the world located right here in Manitoba.”
Searching the landfill
The growing calls to search a Winnipeg area landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women have become a major issue for many Manitobans leading up to this provincial election. Stefanson has stood by what she calls a difficult decision, and has consistently refused a search due to health and safety concerns.
Stefanson: “We need to focus on providing the supports to prevent this from happening this in the first place. We are doing that now but we recognize there’s more work to be done. I don’t want to see one more woman end up in a river or a landfill. I want to make sure that we’re investing.”
Kinew: “I think we need to build a province for everybody. So yes, I’m running to fix rural health care, I’m running to open an emergency room in south Winnipeg, and I will search the landfill.”
Lamont: “If there’s a problem with toxic chemicals in that landfill, it means that our landfill shouldn’t be that way either. This is about fundamental justice… saying that First Nations are a federal jurisdiction — they’re also Manitobans.”
A second, televised debate will be broadcast on Global News on Thursday evening.
Voters go to the polls Oct. 3.
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