Manitoba Minute: Issue 122

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

📅 This Week In Manitoba: 📅

• Premier Wab Kinew says he is open to a west-east pipeline being pitched by his counterparts in Alberta and Ontario. Speaking at a meeting of premiers in Charlottetown, Kinew said he is "willing to entertain" the proposal announced earlier this month by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, arguing the pipeline could make Canada stronger and that there are workers in Manitoba who would be eager to help build it. He cautioned, however, that major projects such as pipelines need to be built the right way, by addressing environmental concerns and bringing Indigenous governments on board. The proposed line would run 3,300 kilometers from Hardisty, Alberta, to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario, passing through Saskatchewan and Manitoba without crossing into the US. Smith and Ford say the pipeline would move 500,000 barrels of crude per day and reduce Canada's need to import refined oil, and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has previously said he is on board. Ontario is expected to complete a feasibility study, including a price tag and a building schedule, before the end of the year.
  
  
• Speaking of major construction projects, some Manitoba contractors are pushing back against the Manitoba Jobs Agreement, a labour policy the provincial government signed last year that sets wage, benefit and apprenticeship standards for contractors bidding on provincially funded construction projects worth at least $50 million. The Government and the Manitoba Building Trades, a coalition of trade unions, argue the agreement guarantees high-paying local jobs, but several contractors say it largely duplicates standards they already meet while adding union dues, an administrative fee of 85 cents per worker per hour, and heavy reporting requirements. Chris Precourt, who owns the non-union firm Econo Wall and Ceilings, estimates the conditions would raise his costs by 18% to 22%, and industry associations claim the framework could push up the price of new hospitals and schools by around 20%. The associations also contend the policy disadvantages the 88% of construction workers who are not unionized and say they were not consulted before the first agreements were finalized. Tanya Palson, Executive Director of the Manitoba Building Trades, called the 20% figure unsubstantiated and said the standards simply set a common floor that established contractors already clear. Darryl Harrison of the Winnipeg Construction Association said officials have recently signalled a willingness to revisit parts of the agreement, and he wants the $50-million threshold raised sharply.
  
  
• A fibre cable cut knocked out 911 service across almost all of Manitoba for several hours on Wednesday, July 22nd, leaving every part of the province except Winnipeg unable to reach emergency operators until the service was restored in the late afternoon. Bell Canada said a third party severed the cable, disabling the Brandon dispatch centre, one of the province's two primary 911 hubs, which handles calls for police and fire agencies across rural Manitoba. Premier Wab Kinew called the outage unacceptable and said he raised it directly with Prime Minister Mark Carney, who committed to speaking with the telecom companies' chief executives about the failure. Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said the outage "knocked down the integrity of the system" and argued that redundancy must be built in so a single point of failure cannot cut off emergency calls. Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk raised similar concerns about rural communities being left vulnerable, and Manitoba's Emergency Management Organization issued a public alert during the outage directing residents to call local police lines instead.
  
  
• Manitoba's NDP has held the northern riding of The Pas-Kameesak, with Jennifer Flett winning the July 21st by-election called after the death of MLA Amanda Lathlin, the first First Nations woman elected to the province's legislature. Flett took 74.8% of the vote, or 2,635 of 3,547 ballots cast, well ahead of Progressive Conservative candidate Edna Nabess at 17.5%, Liberal Dan Quesnel and the Keystone Party's Wally Daudrich, a former Progressive Conservative leadership contender. Turnout was 36.28%, down from 53.5% at the 2023 general election but higher than the 21% recorded at the last by-election in the riding, in 2015. The seat has been an NDP stronghold for roughly six decades, though both Premier Wab Kinew and Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan campaigned in the constituency. Flett's win keeps the NDP at 34 seats in the Legislature, to 20 for the Progressive Conservatives, 1 for the Liberals and 2 held by Independents.
  
  
• Manitoba's provincial government says it wants grocery giant Empire Company Ltd, the parent of Safeway, FreshCo, IGA and Sobeys, to completely scrap real estate restrictions that keep competitors from opening nearby, rather than merely promise to stop enforcing them. Empire said it would voluntarily stop using the restrictions, known as restrictive covenants, after the federal Competition Bureau broadened its investigation into the practice through a Federal Court order in June. Public Service Delivery Minister Mintu Sandhu said he is not satisfied, warning the company could still choose to enforce a covenant the moment a rival tried to move in. All 43 such agreements registered in Manitoba belong to Empire, covering 25 locations, and were grandfathered in under a 2025 provincial law that otherwise bars grocers from blocking competitors. The Province will press ahead with municipal board hearings on the first four of those covenants, at stores in Winnipeg, Steinbach and Brandon, and plans to challenge the rest afterward. The Government argues that opening the market to more grocers, including independent stores, would help bring down food prices.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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