High budget hopes for Park centre

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/03/2025 (212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This week’s provincial budget could bring the million-dollar announcement that Brandon’s Park Community Centre members have been waiting on for six years.

“We fought with the city when they were going to tear down the community centre and put in a green space,” said Park Community Centre board member Eldon Schmitz. “It’s always been a dream of the board to build a new structure with a commercial kitchen, and a daycare that could accommodate up to 60 children.”

During the 2023 provincial election campaign, NDP leader and eventual Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew promised at least $1 million in funding for Park Community Centre should he get elected.

The pledge came after Brandon City Council made the decision in February of that year to commit $1.2 million toward the construction of a new facility.

Schmitz said he is hoping that Kinew’s campaign promise comes through when the province’s finance minister, Adrien Sala, hands down the 2025 provincial budget on Thursday.

“It’s the mindset of the provincial government that community centres are important to have weddings, socials, a meeting, yoga classes, indoor soccer in the winter, that kind of thing,” Schmitz said.

“And we’ve had discussions with (Municipal and Northern Relations) Minister (Glen) Simard, our NDP MLA, and he wants to see weekly programming too,” he added.

“So, the provincial government put money on the table and said, ‘This is something we want to move forward with,’ so we’re just waiting for the province to figure out their funding.”

Simard (Brandon East) told the Sun he is working “very hard behind the scenes to make sure that Park Community Centre goes ahead as promised” by his government.

“What I can say is that we’re 100 per cent behind this project, and we are in a budget blackout right now, but in the near future, all of your questions will be answered,” Simard said.

When asked about the status of the proposed daycare, Simard said the project is still being considered but wasn’t able to provide a timeline.

Back in October 2023, Simard stood next to Kinew as he pledged the $1 million for the new community centre and daycare.

“There was a proposal presented to the province a short time ago,” said Simard, “and they’re in the process of evaluating it, and obviously we promised that there would also be a daycare at the Park Community Centre, so we’re continuing to work on that.”

When the budget is released on Thursday, Brandon University president David Docherty said he will be in the legislature in Winnipeg alongside Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett.

Docherty said he has “guarded optimism” about the budget and is not expecting any new funding for the university, even though plans are in place to renovate the Brodie Science Centre to make way for an expanded medical school in partnership with the University of Manitoba.

“I don’t expect them to say, ‘here’s X number of million dollars for BU to build that new building and host a medical school, and here it is right away.’ I don’t think they’ll say that,” Docherty said.

“This is a measured government … It’s an austerity budget, and I’d be shocked if they said we’re going into a massive debt. I would be shocked at those extremes. I suspect that we’ll see somewhere in the middle,” he said.

At Assiniboine College, president Mark Frison said he doesn’t have any preconceived notions about what the budget might hold for the college and that he typically receives any additional funding information “in the days after.”

“I don’t really have a feel for what the tone of the budget will be on Thursday,” Frison said.

“I suspect government will have one eye on keeping things manageable in the short term, and another eye on how do we start investing for the long term.

“Government can’t always be there for every request we have, but in the last few years, it has certainly been more interested in labour market issues,” said Frison.

“So, I’m certainly hopeful that we’ll see some new program money — whether that’s increased investment in nursing or other new health-care programs, where there are not enough trained people that we might need,” Frison said.

“We always remain hopeful that the budget will be a time of year when they see their way clear to support one or more of those (programs).”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

» enviromichele.bsky.social