Manitoba Minute: Issue 121

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

📅 This Week In Manitoba: 📅

• Manitoba's health-care system has provided roughly $40 million in care, without being repaid, to non-Canadians over the past five years, according to Shared Health figures, released through a freedom of information request filed by SecondStreet.org, a free-market think tank. The losses averaged about $7.9 million a year and peaked at $18.7 million in 2023-24, and are mostly incurred by tourists, transients, and study permit holders, who do not qualify for public health coverage in the province. SecondStreet.org president Colin Craig said the money could have eased pressure on the system, estimating it would have covered roughly 3,400 hip replacements. The organization recommended requiring visitors to pay upfront for any non-lifesaving medical expenses, mandating travel insurance for entry, and barring re-entry for people with outstanding bills. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the government takes the figures seriously but wants a better understanding of what they include, adding that health authorities are responsible for billing and collection. Doctors Manitoba said the true cost is likely higher because the data excludes unpaid physician services, while some health-policy analysts called the sum a rounding error against a provincial health budget set to reach $10.6 billion in 2026-27.
  
  
• Grain will move through the Port of Churchill again this summer for the first time in five years, the port's owner Arctic Gateway Group announced on Wednesday. Chief Executive Chris Avery said at least two grain shipments will leave the Hudson Bay port, the first in late August or early September, in what he described as the most diverse shipping season since Arctic Gateway acquired Manitoba's only seaport. Avery declined to identify the seller, the buyer, the commodity, the destination or the volume, describing the buyer only as a major global player in agriculture. Konrad Narth, the Progressive Conservative agriculture critic and a grain farmer, said the lack of detail raises questions and noted he was not hearing of any private investment behind the shipments. The provincial NDP government declined an interview, though Business, Mining, Trade and Job Creation Minister Jamie Moses said in a statement he was pleased to see grain return to Churchill. Higher future volumes would require rebuilding the Hudson Bay Railway to carry heavier railcars, and the port remains central to Premier Wab Kinew's larger goal of one day shipping liquefied natural gas through Hudson Bay.
  
  
• Manitoba Hydro is heading into six weeks of public hearings to defend a multibillion-dollar plan to expand the province's power supply, after Manitobans set a summer electricity-use record of 3,751 megawatts on Monday. The Crown corporation's long-term plan, unveiled in December, would build and/or free up 1,760 megawatts over 10 years through a combination of energy-saving measures, three new natural gas turbines near Brandon costing $3 billion, and new Indigenous-led wind farms. Hearings before the Public Utilities Board, which can amend or reject the plan, begin on July 27th. Two energy watchdogs, the Public Interest Law Centre and the Climate Action Team, argue the utility has run a "closed-loop analysis" that favours gas and wind while sidelining options such as battery storage and neighbourhood geothermal heating. Manitoba Hydro is already carrying about $25 billion in debt and estimates its deferred infrastructure maintenance at closer to $30 billion.
  
  
• Manitoba's Election Commissioner has dismissed three complaints against the Progressive Conservative Party related to the 2023 provincial election, ruling the party broke no rules. Commissioner Bill Bowles rejected two anonymous complaints alleging campaign manager Marni Larkin's work should have been declared as a non-monetary contribution rather than volunteer labour, finding that services provided by individuals count as volunteer labour under the Election Financing Act. He also dismissed a New Democratic Party complaint over a $3,800 expense for a vehicle rented from Lucid Vitality, a company whose owner was described online as an intimacy coach, concluding the payment was for a legitimate car rental. The party had rented a 2018 Jeep privately and later requested a corrected invoice once staff learned the nature of the company's business, Bowles said. PC party president Peter Smith said he was satisfied with the decision and dismissed the former employee who first raised concerns as disgruntled. New Democratic Party official Evan Krosney countered that the investigation had uncovered questionable invoicing and paperwork that was not corrected until months later.
  
  
• The provincial government has launched a new one-time Manitoba Flood Recovery Program for residents of communities hit hardest by June's flooding, including those who were uninsured or underinsured for their losses. The grant covers homeowners and tenants in parts of the Parkland, Western, Interlake and Eastern regions after storms dropped more than 200 millimetres of rain between June 6th and July 1st, and it sits on top of three existing Disaster Financial Assistance programs. The Province has also committed to matching Canadian Red Cross donations dollar for dollar, up to a maximum of $15 million. As of the announcement, about 250 people from 101 households under mandatory evacuation orders had applied for Emergency Social Services, with nearly $15,000 distributed so far. Officials said damage assessments are ongoing and the full extent of the destruction to homes, farms and infrastructure is not yet known. Winnipeg homeowners will also be offered a rebate to install backwater valves to guard against future flooding.

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