Liberals looking to next election

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This article was published 10/02/2018 (2810 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rolling into Brandon on Thursday as part of an ambitious yearlong tour of all 57 of the province’s electoral districts, Manitoba Liberal Party Leader Dougald Lamont is looking to establish his party as a viable option.

It’s part of a rebuilding effort, which he said has been gaining momentum throughout his tour, the most recent leg of which included 11 electoral districts in 10 days.

Meeting with not only existing Liberal supporters but also community leaders in order to gain insights as to specific community issues and needs, Lamont said that he’s increasingly optimistic about their chances, looking at 2020.

Lamont sat with The Brandon Sun editor Matt Goerzen and reporter Tyler Clarke for a broadly reaching interview approximately a half-hour in length.

Both questions and answers were edited for brevity and clarity.

• Brandon Sun: What have been your key takeaways from those you’ve met within Westman thus far in your tour?

• Dougald Lamont: Health care is the No. 1 thing people are worried about. It’s the pressing issue, both in terms of cuts that have already happened and the change to pick an Ontario (pharmaceutical) supplier over local pharmacies (for personal care home services) is another frustration. I talked to a young nurse who is facing graduation … and she doesn’t know if a position is going to be there when she graduates in a few months. Those are the major, major frustrations. And in some cases, people can’t get a meeting with the health minister.

• Sun: For a government that’s trying to cut costs and there are programs that need money, where do you stand on the province’s meth crisis? What would a Liberal government do?

• DL: We do have specific demands that we’ve made. We basically said … we want 40 drug stabilization units. That’s actually a safe place for somebody who’s in meth psychosis to go where they can’t hurt themselves and they can’t hurt anyone else. And then, transitional housing, where they have mental health support. Some of that exists but there needs to be more of it. And finally, more housing.

One of the things we’ve said, there are no awareness programs. You’ll see some posters up that warn people about opioids, but there’s no anti-meth advertising campaign.

• Sun: What’s your take on the province’s proposed EMS services overhaul (23 “low-volume” rural EMS stations are slated for closure and five new strategically placed stations will replace them, offering 24-7 paramedic coverage)?

• DL: My frustration with all of this is that there’s much more to making a decision to cut health care or to cut education than just the singular focus on health care or education as a line item.

Health care and education underpin the economy of a community and whether that community can do well or not. People want to know they can live and have access to the health care they depend on, and if you have a family you want to know your children can go to school and get a good education, and if you’re undermining that and taking away from a community it undermines the viability of those communities, especially rural areas.

That’s what I think is so appalling about what they’re doing. They’re not just political decisions, they’re also economic decisions about the future of a community … and the PCs are following in the footsteps of the NDP by centralizing and centralizing and centralizing.

• Sun: That ties into today’s education announcement (the province is only allowing a two per cent education property tax increase and is increasing public education funding by 0.5 per cent provincially) …

•DL: There’s nothing strategic or sensible about that, right? That’s why it keeps translating into bad cuts that end up costing more.

There’s an example with health care; the CPAP machines, which are for people with sleep apnea (and which the government cut funding for to save a reported $5 million annually). It’s $500, it’s a life-saving device, and if somebody can’t afford it, they might have a $100,000 heart attack. It’s absolutely ridiculous that that’s the kind of cost-saving they’re looking at.

• Sun: This is the launch year of the carbon tax. Do you agree with the federal Liberals’ carbon tax, and what is your take on the province’s Green Plan?

• DL: We’re trying to develop a policy right now that’s a response to both. As far as the carbon tax is concerned, we’re having a policy meeting (later this month) where we’re saying ‘what would it take to make Manitoba carbon negative? If we could, as a province, bank more carbon than we emit, would we then be able to ask the federal government to give us money for doing that … rather than pay a carbon tax?

• Sun: How might you meet that challenge, because that’s quite the ambitious plan.

• DL: It’s a mix of things, but there are ways to bank carbon through agriculture and through plant means. You could turn the Red River Floodway into a carbon bank, essentially. There’s a plan to do it where we turn it back to native grassland … and you’re returning carbon into the soil.

Then, it’s how do you shift from carbon energy as much as possible to hydro.

As far as the province’s plan, it’s a lot of ideas but it doesn’t actually have a strategy at all. It’s not entirely clear to us who’s paying because a whole bunch of people were exempted, it’s not entirely clear how it’s going to be spent and they don’t have any benchmarks.

• Sun: The Liberals haven’t resonated too well with Westman voters in past elections. What are some of the messages and efforts to drum up support, and how has building up a local team been coming along?

• DL: Good, I mean it’s slow. We sold lots of memberships during the leadership race, which was good and it was across Manitoba. I have to be patient and deliberate about it, but one of the things that’s resonating is that we want a government that works for everyone, and that’s part of what’s been missing and we don’t want to take anyone for granted.

• Sun: What did you learn from the last provincial election?

• DL: Good policy really matters in terms of credibility. You need a good policy that resonates with all people, and that’s a way to bring people together. If you can find ideas and policies that really do respond to what people can broadly respond to, that matters.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB