Brandon Sun - PRINT EDITION
For anyone in the audience who expected a few ground-breaking, earth-shattering announcements from Manitoba’s First Minister yesterday, they would have been sorely disappointed.
In fact, there was nary an announcement at all.
During his third State of the Province speech to members of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce, Premier Greg Selinger yesterday offered up some nice praise for the city of Brandon, defended his government’s 2012 budget, expressed his concern over the potential loss of control over settlement services, and counted off a laundry list of previous NDP expenditures and construction projects in the region.
“I always feel that Brandon is an excellent place to live and work,” Selinger said. “It’s a dynamic community. There’s lots of public debate going on here. Everybody seems to be involved, not only in what they do for a living but a couple other volunteer organizations as well.”
This is, perhaps, not that surprising. Premier Selinger has not made much use of the State of the Province address in Brandon to make policy or program announcements, though last April he announced a then-pending announcement regarding a feasibility study into how Brandon University could offer medical training for physicians.
At that time, he said that a committee to manage the study would be chaired by BU president Deborah Poff, with the vice-chair being the University of Manitoba’s faculty of medicine dean Brian Postl.
It was about as close to an actual announcement that he has made in any of his State of the Province speeches.
As a matter of course, his third speech was reminiscent of his very first speech in Brandon as premier, where, as yesterday, he rattled off a list of already completed or funded projects in Brandon.
The State of the Province, it seems, is fast becoming a great way for the NDP leader to tell Brandon that we have little to complain about. Selinger played the same tune on Wednesday when we asked him if, among the other ongoing road repairs this year, Highway 10 south of Brandon would also be seeing some improvements.
“My notes show that more investments are going north on Highway 10,” Selinger said. “There have been substantial investments on it going south. And when I have been on that road, it’s a very excellent road.”
Apparently the premier hasn’t been past the junction of Highway 2 and Highway 10 much because if he had, he probably might understand why we would ask. As anyone in the region will tell you, the section of Highway 10 leading to Boissevain is in pretty bad shape, and, like many other highways in the province, could really use some repair crews.
Yet perhaps we’re being a bit harsh on Mr. Selinger. It’s not like he has to break out the chequebook every single time he rides into Brandon or greater Westman. Besides, he has just taken a drubbing for increasing spending and taxes in the 2012 budget and is likely not in a very giving mood.
As premier, he’s entitled to take a few hours to visit, chat up the locals, take in the local culture and attend the odd ground-breaking ceremony. Besides, we’d be decrying his lack of Brandon support if he ever decided to spurn Brandon’s State of the Province address. Poor guy can’t catch a break.
But we’re news junkies — that’s why we’re in this business — and we want to be able to report more than just: he came, he spoke, he left.
And the only thing he said during the luncheon that was remotely newsworthy — and then only after his speech during a media scrum — was the fact that he has written a letter of support to the City of Brandon in its bid to land passenger air service at McGill Field.
“We’ve obviously written a letter of support for it, and we’ve invested in the landing strip with the new lighting,” he told media following a Brandon Sun question. “We think that positions it as being an attractive place to bring that kind of service.
“Nobody has asked me for a letter of support other than Brandon.”
Well, that’s not much, but we’ll take it.
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition April 26, 2012
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For anyone in the audience who expected a few ground-breaking, earth-shattering announcements from Manitoba’s First Minister yesterday, they would have been sorely disappointed.
In fact, there was nary an announcement at all.
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For anyone in the audience who expected a few ground-breaking, earth-shattering announcements from Manitoba’s First Minister yesterday, they would have been sorely disappointed.
In fact, there was nary an announcement at all.
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