Leaders spar at Chamber debate

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This article was published 27/09/2023 (890 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the only time in this provincial election campaign, all three major party leaders faced off against each other in Brandon in front of almost 400 people during an early morning debate hosted by the Chamber of Commerce.

Progressive Conservative Leader Heather Stefanson, the NDP’s Wab Kinew and Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont squared off over health care, economic development in the Wheat City, gender identification in children and funding for Brandon University and Assiniboine Community College.

Earlier this year, the three universities in Winnipeg received double-digit funding increases from the provincial government, while Brandon University did not.

The University of Winnipeg received a 20.2 per cent increase, the University of Manitoba’s share was 10.8 per cent, and 10 per cent went to the Université de St. Boniface.

Brandon University received a 3.9 per cent increase in the provincial grant, which puts the post-secondary institution in a projected deficit of $3 million.

Each leader was asked what their party will do to create adequate and fair operational funding for Brandon University and Assiniboine Community College.

To hear that BU has a $3-million shortfall was simply not acceptable, said Kinew.

“When post-secondaries are adequately funded, it means that tuition is going to be more affordable and that helps your child, your grandchild be able to pursue that post-secondary degree or diploma certificate program,” he added. “It also helps to ensure that you if you’re helping to pay that tuition, you are going to be able to get by.”

There has been inadequate funding “for decades,” said Lamont. “That’s the kind of neglect that we’ve seen in this province under these other two parties.”

“We need to make sure that we’re competitive because if we’re competitive, we can attract more students, not just teach our own students from Manitoba, but attract people from around the world,” Lamont said.

When the funding challenges at BU and ACC were brought to Stefanson’s attention, she said her party acted right away.

“Where there was a shortfall at Brandon University, we invested $5 million in capital funding for the dormitories.” Stefanson said.

BU president David Docherty said he doesn’t want to make funding an election issue. It’s an equity issue, he added, with rural students getting less funding than those who live in Winnipeg.

“We have a projected deficit of $3 million based on a series of assumptions we’re making. We’re assuming no increase in a government grant, we’re assuming a certain per cent of tuition increase, but all that could change. We don’t get our letter from the province typically until the end of January, and then we’ll have a better sense of where we are,” Docherty said.

One issue that all three party leaders agreed upon was their support for the completion of ACC’s Prairie Innovation Centre for Sustainable Agriculture for their campus on the city’s North Hill.

Lamont pointed out that it’s an enormous challenge and an obstacle for young people to get into farming, and reminded the Brandon crowd how his party proposed a Manitoba Business Development Bank “which would be politically independent, to make sure that farmers would have access to patient capital. So, it would actually be equity funding, not debt.”

Kinew said in addition to building the centre, his team would be “responsible stewards of the provincial economy, and that means making sure that the ag industry can continue to flourish and grow.”

The PCs announced a commitment at the beginning of 2023, and Stefanson said Tuesday “we invested $10 million towards the Prairie Innovation Centre, and we will continue to make those investments in our post-secondaries.”

ACC president Mark Frison was thrilled with the unanimous support.

“They can recognize that this is bigger than partisan politics, and it’s a project whose time has come,” he said.

An issue that divided each leader was the question about parental rights. One of the debate moderators asked if teachers should notify parents if children show evidence of altering their gender identification, or their sexual orientation.

In August, the PCs released a plan that would give parents more rights over their child’s education.

“This is about doing what is in the best interest of the kids and working with teachers, working with those in our schools who are looking after them during the school hours,” Stefanson said. “But parents need to be informed.”

Kinew said it is a divisive issue much like the PC lockdowns and vaccine cards were, and added: “We will never stand between you and your child. I also will commit to you that I will stand up for trans kids every time they’re being picked on, including when they’re being picked on by politicians.”

Parents already have rights, said Lamont, and insisted the issue is creating an impression that children are in danger when they are not.

“It’s all about fear-mongering, and it’s completely irresponsible because the people who are being put at risk are teachers, and teacher librarians. It’s being suggested that they are somehow complicit in something sinister going on when nothing’s going on. And it’s really, really shameful,” Lamont said.

The Brandon breakfast debate began at 7:30 a.m. and was wrapped up shortly after 9:30 a.m.

Tonight, the three leaders will face off against each other one last time in a town hall on health care, hosted by Doctors Manitoba.

It will be streamed live online and is open to the public. For more information, visit bitly.ws/VEQm .

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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