Manitoba Minute: Issue 125

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

📅 This Week In Manitoba: 📅

• Premier Wab Kinew has called on Winnipeg Councillor Russ Wyatt to step away from his duties at city hall while he faces criminal charges, and has raised the question of whether municipalities need a power they currently lack. Council can remove a member who has been convicted of a crime, but it has no mechanism to remove one who has only been charged. Kinew said the province should look at whether municipalities need tools to temporarily remove members of council accused of crimes, but that he will not act on it until after Winnipeg's election in October. Wyatt was charged this week in relation to an alleged 2023 incident, having been charged in March over a separate alleged incident in 2025. His lawyer, Evan Roitenberg, says Wyatt is innocent and will contest the charges in court, and none of the allegations have been proven. Mayor Scott Gillingham and several other members of council have also asked him to step aside.
  
  
• Manitoba will pitch its Port of Churchill expansion to private investment firms and sovereign wealth funds at a federally hosted summit in Toronto next month. The project was shortlisted by the federal government last year as one of a set of transformative national projects, though major improvements would be needed before it could carry the traffic proposed. Premier Wab Kinew said the province has a good offer to put in front of investors, and expects some friendly competition with neighbouring provinces pitching their own projects. The port and the railway serving it are operated by Arctic Gateway Group, which is owned by 29 First Nations and 12 remote northern Manitoba communities. The province also plans to put about six mining and natural resource projects in front of the same summit.
  
  
• Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara has expanded the scope of practice for Manitoba pharmacists, allowing those who complete approved training to assess for, prescribe and administer prescription contraceptives. The change, announced on August 7th, follows the provincial government's earlier move to make prescription birth control free through the Manitoba Enhanced Pharmacare Program, and the Government believes it removes a remaining barrier by letting patients get an assessment, a prescription and an injection at a single pharmacy. Manitobans with a valid health card can receive up to three pharmacist-provided contraceptive assessments and up to four pharmacist-administered injections each benefit year at no cost. The training requirement is being built into the curriculum for pharmacists studying in the province. Pharmacists Manitoba vice-president Jennifer Hlynsky welcomed the change as recognition of the training pharmacists already have. Availability will vary by location, and the Government is telling Manitobans to contact their local pharmacy to confirm whether the service is offered.
  
  
• Premier Wab Kinew has also launched a 90-day feasibility study into moving freight rail traffic out of Winnipeg's urban core, chaired by former federal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy. The proposed bypass would run east to west along Manitoba Hydro's southern transmission corridor near the Perimeter Highway, on Crown land the Government says is already cleared and serviced, which would avoid expropriations. Kinew said on Wednesday that relocation would take at least 20 years and confirmed the cost would run into the billions, though the study itself will not produce detailed engineering or financial estimates. Axworthy, whose study group was given $200,000 by the Province in 2024, says about 60% of the rail traffic moving through Winnipeg neither starts nor ends in the city. CPKC has warned that relocating rail infrastructure is enormously complex, would invariably require significant public dollars to rebuild infrastructure that already exists, and said it has generally cautioned governments against such proposals. Progressive Conservative economic development critic Konrad Narth says he welcomes the idea but is disappointed by the lack of a tangible plan, calling it "a study for another study".
  
  
• The provincial and federal governments say 1,075 new child-care spaces have opened in Manitoba since late 2025, across infant, preschool, nursery, and school-aged categories. Start-up and operating funding for expansions at 88 existing centres produced 728 of the spaces, and the province created a further 347 school-aged spaces. Education Minister Tracy Schmidt put the running total at more than 12,700 spaces for children aged 12 and under since the autumn of 2023, but that figure counts spaces the government has "opened or committed to" rather than spaces now actually operating. Only about 3,700 new licensed spaces are open, with more than 6,250 still in planning and development. 

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

🪙 This Week’s Sponsor: 🪙

This week's sponsor is you! We don't have big corporate backers, so if you like what you're reading, please consider making a donation or signing up as a monthly member.

Having said that, if you are a local business and are interested in being a sponsor, send us an email and we'll talk!