Cutting Snow Plowing In Manitoba?

This last week provided a reminder, for anyone that has forgotten, that Manitoba gets its fair share of winter and it gets its fair share of snow. Perhaps the first blast of winter will help to remind the NDP government that snow, and the dangers that it creates on our roads, is a way of life in Manitoba for a good part of the year.

You may wonder why the government actually needs reminding of this fact. It’s because Premier Greg Selinger, very quietly during the summer, approved a cut to the province’s snow clearing budget of $2.3 million dollars. Essentially what the Premier did is  eliminate the overnight snow-clearing shift that worked from 11:30pm to 7:30am on major routes such as the Trans-Canada Highway, PTH #75 and PTH # 59 to name a few. Those routes will no longer be patrolled and cleared by this overnight shift.

This of course seems to defy common sense and would seem to put the safety of motorists at risk. The Manitoba Trucking Association rightly raised concerns that their drivers need to have safe driving conditions. As well, there is an economic impact if those drivers are not able to rely on safe and cleared routes to move their cargo.
CAA Manitoba also raised concerns noting that in Manitoba, ‘less plowing can mean less safety.’

It is hard to understand what the NDP is thinking cutting a service as vital to living through a Manitoba winter as snow clearing off of highways. After all, it was only in the spring that the NDP brought in the largest tax increase to the province in 25 years and they tried to justify it by saying that the millions in new taxes were needed to protect important services. It seems that this isn’t an important service to the government.

And yet, the NDP have managed to find money for a whole host of other things, including new taxpayer funded jobs for former NDP MLAs and a new taxpayer funded subsidy for their political party. I doubt that either of these things would rank ahead of snow-clearing when it comes to the priorities of Manitobans.

In the end, it is questionable whether this move will even save money. While the NDP have eliminated an over-night snow-plowing shift, the reality is that when the snow flies, as it often does in Manitoba, they are going to be forced to call out the daytime shifts to work at night and that is going to result in significant overtime costs. And if they don’t, safety is going to be compromised.

And just as worrisome is this question; if the NDP doesn’t consider snow clearing in Manitoba to be a priority, what services are they prepared to cut next?