The new session of the Manitoba Legislature began this week and it will be, more than ever, a test of priorities for the NDP government. At a time when other governments, both provincially and federally, are bringing their budgets back into balance and even debating tax reduction, Manitoba’s NDP government continues to run massive deficits and increase taxes and fees.
Much of the reason that Manitoba under the NDP has been unable to achieve what other provinces have is because Premier Greg Selinger and the NDP have been unable to establish priorities. Setting priorities is something that every family and every business does. They establish their financial ability and then go about setting their priorities based on their future plans and financial ability to meet them.
Government also needs to establish priorities. When they don’t, it usually leads to overspending and the inevitable increase of taxes to pay for that overspending. We’ve certainly experienced that in Manitoba recently. Taxes have gone up by record amounts in each of the past two years.
While Greg Selinger and the NDP often talk about setting priorities, the reality has been something different. In the past two years we have seen the NDP commit to taking millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies through a “vote-tax” to fund their political party. Hardly a priority for Manitobans. They have also stubbornly refused to review the billions of dollars of capital spending at Manitoba Hydro even though experts say it’s a risky gamble that could cost future generations of Manitobans dearly.
They have increased the PST with the excuse that the money would go for infrastructure and then under spent the infrastructure budget by hundreds of millions of dollars funneling the money into other areas.
These actions hardly represent the priorities of Manitobans and are costing Manitoba families dearly. The priorities of our province should be reflective of the discussion at the dinner table and not just the discussion at the NDP Cabinet table. This session of the Manitoba Legislature Manitoba Progressive Conservatives will again be reminding the NDP that they need to listen to Manitobans and their priorities.
