Liberals decry communication breakdown

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This article was published 17/12/2021 (1729 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If there’s one thing Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont thinks the provincial government has failed at during the pandemic, it’s communication.

On Thursday, Lamont and the other two Liberal representatives in the Manitoba legislature — River Heights MLA Jon Gerrard and Tyndall Park MLA Cindy Lamoureux — visited the Sun’s offices for a sit-down interview during a two-day tour of Westman that included a stop at the Brandon Chamber of Commerce and a visit to striking CUPE workers in the Rolling River School Division.

“[The government has] to be enforcing the measures and not be allowing people to gather in barns,” Lamont said, referring to a recent Winnipeg Free Press article about clandestine church gatherings in the Southern Health region.

But more than that, he said, people need to understand why this rule is in place and why it’s being enforced.

“What they are doing by gathering together at all is dangerous.

“We’re in a state of emergency, and being in a state of emergency means the things you regularly do and are a part of your life can be incredibly dangerous. The reason people are being stopped from going into churches is for the same reason you would be stopped from going into a church if there was a poisonous gas leak, if it were about to fall down, if it were on fire.”

The Sun published an editorial on Thursday calling for Justice Minister and Morden-Winkler MLA Cameron Friesen to resign from his portfolio for not adequately enforcing consequences for people in the area he serves who are breaking public health orders.

Lamont said it’s unfortunate that Friesen, a cabinet minister, isn’t being the kind of messenger the situation requires him to be when he makes excuses for rule-breakers.

He credited Kyle Penner, an associate pastor at Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach, for being the kind of messenger Manitoba needs by explaining to his parishioners that to get vaccinated and to act in ways that minimize health risks to others is an act of grace.

That kind of message, he said, might get through to people more easily than being told to respect the fundamentals over and over again. Another thing that could be done is to see what measures might motivate people to go get vaccinated.

The Liberal leader said he believes it has become harder to get through to people because they’re rooted in their positions, whatever they might be.

“I think there could have been a better communication approach,” Gerrard said. “Not a punitive approach, but friendly communication.”

Another aspect Gerrard criticized the Tories for was its approach to vaccinations.

“It’s important that we be vaccinated, but it’s also important that we consider the people who are not vaccinated and help them,” he said.

In June, the federal government approved the use of monoclonal antibodies — proteins used to replicate or stimulate the body’s ability to fight off disease — to treat COVID-19. Gerrard said they should be more widely used in Manitoba’s health-care system.

A Liberal government would have put a treatment site using monoclonal antibodies in the Winkler-Morden area. It would have also emphasized the use of rapid COVID tests like other provinces have successfully done, whereas the Tories have downplayed the efficacy of the tests, Gerrard said.

“People are reluctant to go in now to get tested,” he said. “You make it easier for people to get tested on their own without having to tell anyone else they’re going in to get tested.”

Addressing the province’s nursing shortage, Lamoureux said the government needs to make it easier for people with foreign credentials, especially for people with medical training, to be certified to work in Manitoba.

The provincial government recently announced it was going to make that process easier, but the Liberal MLAs expressed doubt that any substantive changes have been made.

In summer, the government introduced the Internationally Educated Nurses in Manitoba project, which sought to support foreign-trained nurses in their licensing application processes. Shortly after the program was launched, it reported applications were in high demand — there were 1,210 online submissions in the first week.

“I think there are a lot of established programs that we can be using, but when you’re a new immigrant coming to Manitoba, you need to get a job right away, you need to hit the ground running,” Lamoureux said.

The current programs, she said, make immigrants choose between making a living or going back to school to earn credentials so they can eventually earn a livelihood.

With slightly less than two years until Manitoba’s next provincial election, Lamont said his party has been working hard since 2019 to make sure it’s in a position to be competitive.

Though he said the process of finding new candidates in Westman has begun and some intriguing people have expressed interest, he didn’t want to name them before the party has been able to vet them.

This vetting process also extends to the party’s three incumbents, who all said background checks were being performed on them ahead of reannouncing their candidacy.

A recent Probe Research poll showed the PCs have not gained much ground since Heather Stefanson became premier, perhaps opening the door for one of the province’s two opposition parties.

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