Tories blast sobering centre funding cut
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/04/2024 (947 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives are blasting the NDP for cutting $1.25 million in funding for Brandon’s sobering centre.
In Tuesday’s budget, the province committed $250,000 to the sobering centre for operating funding in the current fiscal year. In 2021, the previous PC government provided $2 million toward the creation of a sobering centre and followed up with a commitment of $1.5 million in annual operating funding last August ahead of the pre-election announcement blackout.
The facility, which has not been built yet, will be part of the the John Howard Society’s transitional housing project at 353 16th St. North.
“As budget 2024 shows, the NDP doesn’t take addictions recovery seriously,” a PC caucus spokesperson said in a statement to the Sun.
“The NDP cut $1.25 million from the Brandon sobering centre, and failed to deliver a plan that protects Manitobans and provides the supports they need to recover and rebuild their lives,” the statement said.
“Now that the budget has dropped for all Manitobans to see, it’s clear that in fact the NDP did claw back this commitment. PCs would have kept it.”
In an email to the Sun, Shannon Saltarelli, the city’s housing and wellness co-ordinator, declined to comment, saying she was waiting to hear from the province for details on the funding and that the operating budget had already been approved.
Saltarelli had said last month that the new NDP government “has not touched or altered” the previous government’s commitment since being elected last October.
“That was a really big win for us and something that we needed to secure in order for us to move forward with the work, was getting the confirmation of that operating funding,” she said.
When asked how the $250,000 will be disbursed, a spokesperson for the justice minister’s office said the money will be “spent throughout the fiscal.”
Though the John Howard Society is building the sobering centre as part of its transitional housing project, Saltarelli previously told the Sun that the society will not be operating the centre.
The city, the Canadian Mental Health Association and the province are currently working on an expression-of-interest tender to find an operator.
» gmortfield@brandonsun.com
» X: @geena_mortfield