Quotes of the Year, Part I

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This article was published 29/12/2023 (999 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Like it or not, local and provincial politics have played an enormous role in our lives as Manitobans this year.

Continued controversy coming out of Brandon City Hall over spending and taxation habits, ongoing questions of banning books at the school board level, and a disastrous election campaign by the Progressive Conservatives that led to a new NDP government under Wab Kinew have dominated headlines in 2023.

With this in mind, I have gone through our archives of the past year to give you part one of the top — and mostly local — political Quotes of the Year. Look for part II of our annual Quotes of the Year in a coming edition.

» Matt Goerzen, editor

“I think it’s a cop-out. This government has clearly had plans to close rural EMS and emergency departments for years, and they’ve starved many of these health-care workers’ wages in those same many years. You can’t all of a sudden put your hands up and say ‘oh, this is a nationwide problem’ when the root cause has been provincial political decisions made here in Manitoba by Premier Stefanson going back to her time as health minister.”

— Then-Manitoba Opposition Leader Wab Kinew

“It’s basically a pause on the Liberals’ attack on law-abiding hunters and farmers that use hunting rifles across this country. It’s attacking the rural way of life for many of us. We need these firearms, they’re tools of our occupations and where we live.”

— Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa MP Dan Mazier, celebrating the withdrawal of an amendment to a federal guns bill that offered a new definition of an assault-style weapon.

“I spent 44 years in the real estate industry in Brandon. My experience is that if you have high interest rates … the first area that gets affected is new construction.”

— Ray Brownlee, stating his opposition to Brandon taking on a huge debt load during a public hearing, Jan. 24

“I know that Coun. Desjarlais is happy we did a [second public hearing], but Coun. Chaboyer, Mayor Chrest, they were in there for 10 years, eight years, they understood why we’re doing this. It was a decade ago that we said ‘we’re going to run out of capacity, we gotta start putting things in place so developers can help pay for this going forward.’”

— Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett, Feb. 23 during discussion on the southwest lift station borrowing bylaw.

“We were the only ones who had heard that. We heard that from administration at special meetings of council and the rest of the city found out on July 18, 2022.”

— Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Ward 2), on Feb. 23, answering the mayor’s comment.

“We do know that our reserves have been getting low. We do know that we’ve run a very modest budget over the last number of years, for a decade-plus. We don’t want everything spiking on people. We can maybe put some things in place so that we can leave the next council in a better place than this.”

— Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett, during an impromptu State of the City speech, on April 20.

“My bill is not intended to stop anyone from running. It’s just to provide that level of transparency that you’re not going to be surprised by electing someone into a position and then finding out they have a criminal history. Knowing ahead of time, you have the ability to make an educated choice.”

— Former Brandon East MLA Len Isleifson upon passage of his private member’s bill.

“It’s pretty sloppy, quite frankly, on [the Tories’] part not to think through about how this is going to be verified. For something like this, if you truly want to improve accountability and transparency, you can’t rely on the honour system because that is not accountability.”

— BU political science professor Kelly Saunders, after the first test of Isleifson’s legislation raised concerns about verification processes during municipal elections.

“People are leaving or just giving up on health care altogether and trying a different profession. We’ve had so many leave, and so many are waiting to see what the government does with the contract. And if it’s not where it needs to be, you might see a more of a mass exodus.”

— Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals vice-president Tanya Burnside

“The biggest drawback from what I’m hearing from the doctors themselves is our weather. Beautiful summers, but you know, when new doctors come to Canada, they want to go to the West Coast, where it’s a little bit warmer. Even my doctor said he’s got a line on a bunch of physicians, and that’s the number-one problem. He says he just needs to get them here because once they get here, chances are they won’t leave.”

— Former Brandon East MLA Len Isleifson

“We appreciate and value the work of the RCMP in Manitoba. However, municipalities were not consulted nor were they involved in the negotiation of the back pay that the federal government negotiated in the RCMP contract. Simply handing the bill to municipalities isn’t good enough and will significantly impact local municipalities and their residents.”

— Manitoba Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen

“If I as a trustee am asked my opinion by a member of the public or the media about my opinion on that decision, all I can say is ‘go look at the video of the meeting. I’m not allowed to say anything,’ which is ridiculous … we are elected by the public for our opinions on matters that this board looks at. How can we claim to represent to the public if we can’t give our opinion on a decision that we’ve made?”

— Brandon School Division trustee Duncan Ross

“The trust that we have in our administration builds the trust that we should have as mayor and council with our residents and the public. And when that trust is questioned or broken, it creates a lot of issues. Probably more than anything else, my concern here is that if, in fact, there was information not provided to council on this particular item, it hurts that trust relationship we should have with our administration, and in particular our city manager, which is mayor and council’s only employee.”

— Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6)

“All this is political — both provincial, and with the City of Brandon, because some of councillors were dead against it in the beginning, but some have softened a little bit now. And I don’t like politics, and I don’t like being in the limelight either, but things have to happen, and somebody has to push it.”

— Park Community Centre board member Eldon Schmitz, in August.

“It would be nice if we felt welcome. Most towns — Dauphin, Thompson — they’re begging us to come. But here, I almost feel that we’re not wanted.”

— Redwood Inn owner Michael Bruneau, during a city council debate on the future of the Aurora Family Reunification Centre.

“I get it, I get that we need to have those increases. It’s frustrating that it’s taken five years because if they had gone up by two or three per cent per year, we might have been able to work out something in our community. This is going to kill us.”

— Eva Cameron, chair of the Spruce Woods housing Co-op, on proposed water rate hikes

“This money should have been put into reserves four months ago. We should have been dealing with the deficit at that time because we knew there were some deficits coming. We’ve dealt with it before, we can deal with it again. We don’t start the year with a deficit … We start the year at a zero balance. We accumulate deficits throughout the year. We get into a danger zone, we need to start dealing with it right away.”

— Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7) on the use of a portion of $2.3 million in extra provincial operating funds to cover an unexpected $1.46-million budget shortfall.

“We’re going to see benefits that are going to range far and wide across our downtown area. We’re going to have teams responding to non-emergency non-violent community safety concerns.”

— Acting Brandon Police Service Chief Randy Lewis during a political announcement by Progressive Conservative Leader Heather Stefanson during the provincial election campaign that promised $2 million to the Downtown Community Safety Partnership in Brandon.

“Manitoba now has a Jewish lieutenant-governor, an Anishinaabe premier, a gender-balanced cabinet and a government MLA team that represents many walks of life from so many regions of this great province.”

— Newly sworn-in NDP Premier Wab Kinew

“This is not hate speech.”

— Lorraine Hackenschmidt, shortly before her anti “LGBTQ agenda” presentation to the Brandon School Division board was cut short in October.

“I’ve given you the chance to prove that it’s not.”

— BSD board chair Linda Ross, who officially ruled Hackenschmidt out of order and demanded she stop her presentation.

“Regular rate reviews, submitted every three years as per the board’s guidelines, protect the financial position of the utility and may reduce the need for significant rate increases in one year. In this case, the additional cost of a rate rider is required to recover 11 years of operating deficits and replenish the utility’s working capital. Had the city been diligent in making rate applications to the board every three years, the operating deficits incurred by the utility may have been mitigated or avoided entirely.”

— Text of a report by the Manitoba Public Utilities Board criticizing the City of Brandon’s handling of water rate increases.

“The love of our community, in general, really shone through. I think a lot of times, Brandon gets kind of shown in a different light. We get shown as a kind of old boys club type of city, and we’re not … this election showcases that we aren’t that.”

— Kirk Carr, who along with Lorraine McConnell, was elected during a divisive byelection vote to serve as a trustee in the Brandon School Division. Voters rejected “parental rights” candidates who also ran during the byelection.

“Are we looking at revitalization or are we a social hub? It’s hard to be both.”

— Coun. Tyson Tame (Ward 10), after the BNRC’s variance application to operate a downtown shelter on Rosser Avenue was defeated. The project faced significant pushback from local businesses.

“When we stand together, we become a strong nation. Or we’re going to keep falling and we don’t want that to happen. Let’s pick ourselves up now. Tell that to your households, your families, your friends. They need to know we’re heading into something that’s serious. It’s taken lives over the years. Me too, I lost a niece because of addiction. She left little children behind.”

— Sioux Valley Board member and Elder Eleanor Elk, during discussion of a new law that allows for the banishment of people deemed dangerous to the community.

“You’ve heard the big chains, the billionaires owning these big chains talk about ‘Oh, it’s transportation costs that are the reason why grocery prices are going up. Well, guess what? We’re calling their bluff. Transportation costs will be reduced for the big grocery chains starting on Jan. 1 and if they don’t pass the savings to you, then we will take further action to follow up with that.”

— Premier Wab Kinew during the final day of the AMM fall convention in Brandon.

“$1.612 billion is the single-biggest non-pandemic deficit in this province’s history.”

— Finance Minister Adrien Sala, while accusing the previous Stefanson government of poor fiscal management.

“I think some councillors were under the assumption that if you borrow this money to pay for growth, the development charges and all the taxation that you’re going to receive from all those additional properties will easily offset any overwhelming tax increases. I think they’re realizing that’s not the case.”

— Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Ward 2), after city administration released a 10-year sustainability report by MNP calling for steep property tax increases and boosts to other fees for the city to maintain its current level of services, operations and infrastructure.