Tories step up to take credit

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This article was published 28/12/2024 (264 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — As Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives head into a new year when they’ll choose a new leader, they’re patting themselves on the back for “the many ways in which Manitobans have continued to benefit in 2024 from investments and initiatives launched by the previous PC government.”

In a press release Friday, the Tories highlighted measures they initiated before losing to the NDP in October 2023.

“The biggest thing was to basically remind Manitobans that (Premier) Wab Kinew is the beneficiary of the previous PC government planting all these trees and they’re now bearing fruit for Manitobans … and he’s taking credit for it,” interim PC leader Wayne Ewasko told the Winnipeg Free Press.

The PCs say their government is the one Manitobans can thank for: lower taxes in 2024; expansion of the Selkirk Regional Health Centre; more health-care training seats and rapid access to addictions medicine clinics; the opening of a new school in Morden; and work on a new personal-care home in Lac du Bonnet.

As well, Ewasko took credit for Winnipeg Transit safety officers, infrastructure at the Port of Churchill and the Canadian Premium Sands project; he said the Tories laid the groundwork for it in 2019.

“Making sure every Manitoban is benefiting from the basic personal exemption increase — that’s going to put more dollars in absolutely everyone’s pockets,” he said, referring to the tax bracket thresholds increasing for the 2024 tax year by 28 per cent to $47,000 and by 26 per cent to $100,000.

“Wab Kinew and his government continues to pat himself on the back for the new health-care workers,” he said, referring to the oft-repeated 870 net new hires.

“They don’t just pop off from the post-secondary institutions overnight. You had to plant those seeds, and the trees don’t grow overnight.”

The province has known for 20 years about the looming staffing crisis but did nothing to prepare for it, said Ewasko.

“Under our government, we did something about it, and now Wab Kinew is able to reap the rewards,” he said.

The PCs’ year-end messaging is also meant to counter the common NDP government refrain that any shortcomings in its performance — especially in health care — is the result of underspending and policy mistakes by the Tories, said University of Manitoba political studies professor emeritus Paul Thomas.

“After a controversial, divisive campaign leading to a sizable electoral defeat — and still trailing the NDP badly in the polls, the PCs need to achieve some positive publicity, enhance their image in the public mind, and improve morale among their supporters,” said Thomas.

Claiming credit for the positive benefits of programs and spending after losing the reins of power is “not a regular occurrence,” he said.

“In this instance, it is meant to remind Manitobans that not everything about the (former premiers Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson) period was negative,” Thomas said.

Both Pallister, the fiscally conservative PC premier who won the 2016 election and Stefanson, who replaced him in 2021 then resigned as leader after the party lost the 2023 election, were deeply unpopular when they left office.

The April 26 PC leadership race between Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan and Churchill business owner Wally Daudrich has attracted little publicity and appears to have generated little excitement among party members,” Thomas said.

“Clearly, the party would like to generate some momentum going into the new year as the political recovery efforts get seriously underway,” he said.

A provincial government cabinet spokesperson dismissed the Tories’ claim to any success in 2024.

“The former Stefanson government failed Manitobans on a number of issues, from health care to affordability, leaving behind a $2-billion deficit, a crumbling health-care system, and fewer social housing options,” the spokesperson said in a statement Friday.

“Their legacy also includes running the most disgusting, divisive campaign in Manitoba’s history.”

The party vowed to “stand firm” on Stefanson’s refusal to search a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women who were the victims of a serial killer. Police believe they are buried there.

“While (the PCs’) record is full of empty promises, we are the government that is actually implementing the policies and getting the work done for Manitobans by continuing to fix health care and making life more affordable for families,” the cabinet spokesperson said.

One organization chided the Tories for describing government spending as “PC investments” and “PC measures.”

“These are measures of the duly elected government at that time, paid for by Manitoba taxpayers,” said Molly McCracken, Manitoba director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The PCs’ press materials omitted the $1.6 billion in taxes slashed by the Pallister/Stefanson government, bringing Manitoba’s own-source revenue relative to GDP to the lowest level in almost 20 years, McCracken said.

The tax cuts left the Manitoba government with the largest deficit in history outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said

“The loss of this tax revenue makes Manitoba vulnerable to economic shocks or changes in federal equalization payments,” she said.

However, McCracken accused the NDP government of doing too little for the people who are struggling the most.

» Winnipeg Free Press