Manitoba Minute: Issue 115

Manitoba Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Manitoba politics.

📅 This Week In Manitoba: 📅

• Premier Wab Kinew says a large AI data centre pitched for a 141-hectare tract of farmland south of Winnipeg, near Ile des Chenes, will not go ahead. Kinew pointed to the project's environmental footprint, including the natural gas that would be burned to power the roughly 500-megawatt facility, and argued that most of the economic benefit would leave the province, leaving only a temporary construction-phase boost. Consensus Core CEO Wayne Lloyd countered that the project would create well-paying union jobs, generate and store its own energy rather than draw on Manitoba Hydro, need no public investment, and deliver millions of dollars in annual local tax revenue, adding that the company has not given up. Kinew said the decision does not rule out all data centres in Manitoba, but argued that scale matters, noting the government itself uses about 1 to 1.5 megawatts of compute. An Ile des Chenes resident who launched a petition against the centre welcomed the outcome. University of Manitoba economist Fletcher Baragar questioned the long-term benefits and suggested AI demand could prove to be a bubble.
  
  
• Manitoba's ombudsman has criticized the provincial families department for lacking privacy and security safeguards after a 2024 cyberattack exposed the personal information of vulnerable people, including adults living with an intellectual disability. The compromised data included legal names, addresses, social insurance numbers, personal health identification numbers, income sources, and medical information, accessed through a community-based service provider whose virtual private network was the likely point of entry. The ombudsman found the department set no minimum cybersecurity standards for its providers, had no structured oversight mechanism, and never used its legal authority to audit the provider before the breach. The affected provider, a non-profit, had minimal funding available for cybersecurity. People affected were notified on November 24th, 2024, a month after the department confirmed a risk of significant harm, a delay attributed in part to the forensic investigation and a Canada Post strike. Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said she accepts the recommendations and that work to update privacy policies is already underway.
  
  
• Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith has announced $1 million to address Manitoba's toxic drug crisis, including $802,000 for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service to run a three-month pilot mobile overdose response team in the city's downtown. The pilot, beginning this month, would deploy a two-person paramedic team available around the clock in high-need areas. The package also includes $150,000 to Main Street Project for 20 oxygen delivery devices and $100,000 shared between St. John's Ambulance and the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network for overdose response training. Mayor Scott Gillingham said he supports getting care to vulnerable people quickly but warned the initiative must not compromise citywide emergency coverage, noting any dedicated unit would only be staffed after regular ambulance shifts are filled. He described the city's paramedic shortages as acute and said temporary overtime funding cannot replace permanent staff and ambulances.
  
  
• Manitoba's trade representative Richard Madan said the Province's first delegation to Washington was given no advance warning of a surprise US tariff announcement that landed a day after his group met senior US trade officials to push for border predictability. The proposal would add a 10% tariff on Canada and other countries following an investigation into forced labour in supply chains, though it would not apply to goods compliant under the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement, leaving much of Manitoba's exports unaffected. Agriculture dominates those exports, which totalled more than $7 billion between January and June last year. The six-person delegation included the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, the Manitoba Pork Council, Keystone Agricultural Producers, and the Business Council of Manitoba. Premier Wab Kinew said the Province wants the Trump administration to back down and warned that Manitoba has to push back if it is attacked. Former New Flyer CEO Paul Soubry described the tariffs as noisy and messy but not disastrous, though his company now employs more people in the US than in Canada.
  
  
• The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives have barred former leadership candidate Wally Daudrich from seeking the party's nomination in Turtle Mountain, a southwestern constituency the party currently holds. Daudrich declared his interest in the seat in December, after MLA Doyle Piwniuk, who has represented it since 2014, said he would not run again. The party gave no reason, saying only that nominations follow its constitution, rules, and candidate review processes. Daudrich, who owns a hotel and ecotourism business in Churchill, lost a narrow 2025 leadership race to Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan, then remained publicly supportive of the party and bought its former Kennedy Street headquarters in a move that helped stabilize its finances. The next Manitoba election is scheduled for 2027.

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