What has the Manitoba NDP promised to do now that they are elected

Now that the Manitoba NDP has formed government in the province, here is a look back at what they have promised to do once elected.

FISCAL PROMISES

• Balance the budget during their first term of government
• Keep the 50 per cent education property tax rebate by removing it off Manitobans' tax bill
• Never raise the PST, a promise NDP Leader Wab Kinew made during a leaders' debate
• Lift the PST for new rental builds
• Cut the ¢14/litre gas tax on clear gasoline and diesel 'while inflation remains high'. The time frame is estimated somewhere between six and 12 months.
• Create a broad middle-class tax cut by indexing tax brackets
• Give the PUB “new powers” to review, investigate and regulate retail gasoline prices
• Freeze hydro rates for one year and keep Manitoba Hydro public
• Ban surge pricing on hydro rates
• Create a $700 renters tax credit, and make legislation strengthening rent control by preventing landlords from applying for unnecessary and large rent increases and prevent them from passing along increases that have not been approved.
• Double the fertility tax credit and the Manitoba Parental Benefit
• Provide the Manitoba film and video production tax credit up front
• End a funding freeze to municipalities to help them pay for policing

HEALTHCARE PROMISES

• Hire 300 nurses and 400 more physicians over four years at a cost of $500 million, and establish a Health Workforce Task Force to lead the recruitment campaign
• Hire 200 paramedics by end of first term.
• Develop plan to end mandatory overtime for nurses
• Reopen emergency departments at the Victoria, Seven Oaks and Concordia hospitals over a period of up to eight years, and only after assurances that there will be enough staff. It will come at an estimated cost of $150 million for each department in capital expenses alone.
• Build a new CancerCare headquarters on the campus of the Health Sciences Centre
• Add 12 additional step-down beds at the Grace Hospital to move higher acuity patients out of the ER. It comes at a cost of $3.6 million.
• Increase surgical capacity at Concordia Hospital by adding six step-down units within six months, with higher nurse-to-patient ratios, enhanced monitoring
• Open four new family medical centres in Winnipeg and one in Brandon.
• Speed up the accreditation process for internationally-educated health professionals, spend $1 million in financial aid for internationally trained workers, and another $1 million create a new government office to help health-care professionals navigate registration
• Create a centre of excellence for cardiac care at the St. Boniface Hospital, at a cost of $5 million a year. Centres of excellence will also be set up for kidney care at Seven Oaks Hospital, joint surgery at Grace and Concordia hospitals, and women's health at Victoria Hospital
• Hire seven new full-time-equivalent nurse examiners to support a sexual assault nurse examiner strategy, costing $2.4 million, to ensure care for sexual assault victims would be available 24/7 in urban, rural, and northern communities.
• Build a new Mature Women's Centre at the Victoria General Hospital in Winnipeg, at a cost of $5 million along with $2 million in annual funding. The NDP have also promised to expand coverage for more menopause drugs 
• Open five neighbourhood health clinics for minor illness and injuries, to be staffed with a team of emergency room doctors, nurses and technologists.
• Make prescription birth control free for all Manitobans at a cost of $11 million a year
• Expand the University of Manitoba Bannatyne campus to train more doctors and nurses
• Improve French-language services in health care starting by restoring the Info Santé phone line
• Include nurse practioners in the Nurse Recruitment and Retention Fund
• Fund critical upgrades to the Women's Health Clinic to improve access to abortion services
• Add a Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet, and introduce a baby and maternal health strategy
• Modernize health records and eliminate paper cards, charts and fax machines

EDUCATION PROMISES

• Expand $10-a-day child care for school-aged children to include holidays, summer months, and professional development days, at a cost of $10 million annually
• Reduce class sizes for the youngest learners so kids get more one-on-one attention, and hire more EAs to help kids with additional needs
• Implement a universal nutrition program in every school across the province
• Strengthen the K-12 curriculum with a specific focus on math and reading
• Increase STEM programming at high schools in coordination with post-secondary institutions
• Create an Assistant Deputy Minister position for Indigenous Excellence and establish more Indigenous language programs in schools, and restore the assistant deputy minister position in the Bureau de l’education francaise
• Increase funding for French-language education at all levels, and develop a strategy to train and recruit more French teachers
• Bring in new P3 accountability legislation
• Repeal Bill 33 — the Advanced Education Administration Amendment Act — which allows the government to issue guidelines on tuition fees
• Provide health coverage for International students at Manitoba post-secondaries, and increase funding for student burseries

SENIORS CARE PROMISES

• Create an independent seniors advocate to give oversight in senior's care
• Build new personal care homes to replace the existing ones crippled during the COVID-19 pandemic, a promise NDP Leader Wab Kinew made during a leaders' forum. The NDP have also promised to add more personal care home beds.
• Hire 100 homecare workers for seniors by offering hiring incentives and mileage increases

NORTHERN AND RURAL HEALTH PROMISES

• Build a new emergency room in Eriksdale
• Create 10 new doctors training seats for medical students in Brandon
• Add a new MRI machine to the Thompson Hospital in order to improve diagnostic services in the north 
• Restoring birthing services to Northern Manitoba, including in Pimicikamak Cree Nation and Norway House 
• Support recruitment efforts for the new Pimicikamak Cree Nation nursing station and add dialysis care for diabetes patients
• Restore and double the rural doctor recruitment fund
• Restore the Northern Patient Transport Program

INFRASTRUCTURE PROMISES

• Implement 24-hour maintenance on highways
• Create a new airport at Wasagamack First Nation
• Support funding for road improvements for PR 280 to benefit Tataskweyak Cree Nation, PR 374 to benefit Pimicikamak Cree Nation and PR 391 to benefit Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation
• Improve safety on Highway 6 with more rest stops
• Build new Park Community Centre in Brandon which includes a new childcare centre, at a cost of $1 million 
• Build a new gym and track at Kelvin highschool
• Renew the main entrance of the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre in St. Boniface

CRIME AND SAFETY PROMISES

• Improve bail measures by implementing the National Police Federation's recommendations on bail reform, including support for better data sharing among law enforcement, investments in rural broadband to improve bail monitoring and introducing standard qualifications for those who conduct bail hearings.
• Establishing a supervised consumption site in Downtown Winnipeg
• Bring in a new Unexplained Wealth Act requiring drug dealers and gangsters to explain how they got their large homes and expensive cars
• Create a $2.5 million rebate program on security updates such as alarms and cameras purchased by families and small businesses.
• Hire 100 mental health workers to work with police while responding to non-violent calls, at a cost of $12 million annually
• End chronic homelessness in two terms by getting people into homes faster, at a cost $20 million annually.
• Develop a public safety strategy focusing on youth crime
• Replace the Dauphin Jail with a Centre for Justice in Dauphin, including addictions recovery and rehabilitation programming
• Fund 40 firefighters at proposed new fire hall in Waverley West once it’s built by the city

ENVIRONMENTAL PROMISES

• Offer a $4,000 rebate for new electric and hybrid vehicles and a $2,500 rebate for used ones.
• Sign federal commitment to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030.
• Restore funding to nine environmental organizations such as the Manitoba Eco-Network that was cut in 2020
• Create an Affordable Home Energy Program to fund the conversion of 5,000 homes to geothermal heating and cooling and hire 1,000 contractors to install the systems, at a cost of $32.5 million per year for four years.
• Work with municipalities and the federal government to launch a rail-relocation study
• Build a low-carbon energy hub to power new low-carbon buses on order by Winnipeg Transit
• Make the province's energy grid net-zero by 2035

MMIWG PROMISES

Support a search of the Prairie Green Landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, though no specific funding amount has been committed

Make Orange Shirt Day a statutory holiday

Enhance and rename the Gender Based Violence Committee of Cabinet to become the 'MMIWG2S and Gender Based Violence Committee of Cabinet' to prioritize MMIWG2S and the implementation of the National Inquiry’s 231 Calls to Justice

Create 24/7 drop-in centres in Winnipeg, Brandon, and Thompson for Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited people

Appoint a Special Advisor on Indigenous Women’s Issues

Create a specific Indigenous Victim Services Unit within the Department of Justice

Initiate a provincial database of MMIWG2S+

Ensure police standards are in place when for MMIWG2S+ cases are investigated

OTHER PROMISES

• Call a 'forward-facing independent' inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic
• Clear the backlog at Vital Statistics by hiring more workers
• Restore the one-to-one apprenticeship ratio and increase the number of apprentices in communities including Selkirk
• Appoint former Manitoba Premier Gary Doer as a volunteer adviser on trade with the United States
• Fund a new Taché community centre, to include a hockey rink, a childcare spaces, a public library and a walking loop
• Build hundreds of units for social and affordable housing with help of the federal government
• Restore Minister's advisory council of Workplace Safety and Health
• Add a tourism portfolio to cabinet so a Minister is focused on the tourism sector
• Create and Implement several strategies, including a province-wide suicide prevention strategy focused on 2SLGBTQ+ youth, a critical mineral strategy, and a strategy for recruiting and retaining early childhood educators and help workers.
• Create various panels and advisory councils including a Blue Ribbon Panel on Infrastructure, a Premier's Business and Jobs Council, a Minister's advisory council of Workplace Safety and Health, an advisory table to consult with commercial fishers
• Increase the number of immigrants staying in Manitoba through the Provincial Nominee Program, focusing on family reunification
• Create a mobile spay and neuter clinic