Manitoba's 2024 budget has been revealed, and as expected, it focuses heavily on improving the provincial health-care system.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Manitoba's premier described the budget announcement as 'good news today.'
Wab Kinew referred to the budget as a significant document that outlines a very positive future. He stated that they are fulfilling a large number of promises made during the recent provincial election.
“On a personal level, it is a great honor to present this to the people of Manitoba… I just want to acknowledge that today is a significant day.”
Health care
Enhancing health care was a major part of the NDP government's election campaign, with commitments to reopen closed emergency rooms, hire more staff, and reduce wait times across the province.
In his first budget as finance minister, Adrien Sala stated that the government aims to fulfill many of those promises, with a record $8.2 billion allocated for health spending, representing a 13.5 percent increase.
“For years, we've heard about the frustrations and burnout from patients and health-care workers,” Sala remarked.
“The previous government took advantage of this hopelessness. They wanted Manitobans to believe that the best they could do is the best we could do. We are proving them wrong.”
The budget includes the hiring of 1,000 health care workers, including 100 doctors, 210 nurses, 90 paramedics, and 600 health care aides. Kinew expressed the province's desire to exceed these numbers if possible.
The budget also allocates an additional $309.5 million for recruiting, retaining, and training more health workers, which includes $66.7 million to increase bed capacity and decrease wait times in local ERs, and an additional $635 million for capital investments, including the design of a new emergency room at Victoria Hospital.
The province has also committed $22.3 million to seniors’ care, which includes funding for the office of an independent seniors’ advocate, as well as providing more hours of care for seniors in personal care homes.
Sala mentioned that people in northern and rural parts of the province will also benefit from improvements to the health system.
“For families in rural and northern Manitoba who have watched, over the last seven years, as their health-care services have become fewer and farther away… no more waiting for the ambulance to finally arrive.
“No more medical mystery tour, wondering which hospital has a doctor and when you’ll finally get the care you need.”
The budget proposes training more advanced care paramedics to serve rural and northern areas, as well as increasing the number of available ambulances.
CancerCare will also receive a boost, with $112,000 of a total $6.9 million allocated for initial work on a new headquarters, as well as increased research capacity and access to medications.
Additionally, the province will make prescription birth control free for all Manitobans and support families seeking fertility treatments by doubling the maximum fertility treatment tax credit.
The province is also getting tougher on vaping, with a planned doubling of the federal excise duty on vaping substances made in or sent to Canada, starting on January 1, 2025.
The budget contains over $11 million for mental health and addiction services, including hiring 20 mental health workers to collaborate with law enforcement, more detox beds and sobering sites, as well as $2.5 million toward a supervised consumption site.
Gas tax
As expected, the province has committed to extending the gas tax holiday for an additional three months. Initially implemented on Jan. 1, the finance minister said the tax holiday was extended partly due to the temporary impact on fuel availability for Winnipeg and the surrounding area caused by the Imperial Oil pipeline shutdown last month.
Using the province’s example of an average single-vehicle family, that equals a saving of $187.50 over the entire nine-month tax holiday, or $375 for a family with two vehicles.
“With our cut to the gas tax, we’re saving Manitobans 14 cents per litre every time they fill up their tank,” the minister said.
“For us it was an easy decision. And it made a real impact. It drove down inflation in Manitoba, it lowered inflation for Canadians across the country. It helped working people.”
Additionally, the province is emphasizing a five per cent decrease to auto insurance rates, a $4,000 rebate for new electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, and a $2,500 rebate for used EVs and plug-in hybrids.
Kinew called the move “a significant step toward electrifying transportation in Manitoba.”
Housing
The province aims to help middle-class families with the introduction of a $1,500 homeowners’ affordability tax credit, as well as an increase to $575 for the renters’ tax credit, as well as an increase to the seniors’ top-up.
Starting in the 2025 tax year, the homeowners’ affordability tax credit will replace the existing school tax rebate and education property tax credit, which the province says will reduce the complexity of the current system of school tax-related credits, as well as providing relief to a greater number of Manitoba households.
The new model, the province said, effectively eliminates education property taxes for homes with assessed values of $285,000 and lower, while homes on the higher end of values — $850,000 and up — will be negatively affected.
An additional $116 million is planned to build and maintain affordable and social housing, an increase of almost 30 per cent over the previous budget, Sala said.
“We’re building more housing than the previous government created over an entire term, and we’re keeping rents low with stronger rent control.”
The government is continuing its goal to end chronic homelessness in Manitoba within two terms, with $8 million in the 2024 budget set aside to help families at risk of homelessness to afford clean and safe housing.
Education
The province is increasing funding for K-12 schools across the province by $104.2 million.
School funding includes $30 million for a universal school nutrition program, $51.5 million in operating costs for public schools, and $10.9 million to independent schools.
There are plans to build two new K-8 schools – Ecole Mino Pimatisiwin in the Seven Oaks division and Ecole Sage Creek Bonavista in the Louis Riel School Division. More money will also be available to complete the construction of new schools in Morden, Steinbach, and Sage Creek.
Changes are coming to child care, with $2.5 million set aside to expand $10-a-day care to cover non-school days, such as in-services and spring and summer breaks.
An extra $15.9 million will be used to support new child-care spaces and their operating costs, including the previously-announced funding of 4,947 new school-aged spaces. The budget allocates $5 million for increased funding for child-care worker wages and workforce capacity.
The province plans to start building over 40 new child-care centres, which will be located in schools and post-secondary campuses.
Landfill search
The province is allocating significant funding for protections and support for Manitobans affected by gender-based violence, as well as $20 million for a search at the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of three women believed to be there.
The search for the remains of homicide victims Marcedes Myran, Morgan Harris, and an unidentified woman known as Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe — or Buffalo Woman — has been a contentious issue, sparking numerous protests in recent years.
During the fall 2023 election campaign, Kinew and the NDP promised to support a search, while incumbent premier Heather Stefanson and the PCs were firmly against it. Several studies have been conducted on the feasibility of a search and the associated health concerns.
Sala described it as a “challenging” topic that needed to be dealt with.
“There are three murdered Indigenous women in a Manitoba landfill. They are loved. Their lives were sacred. They deserve respect, no matter what the billboards say,” he said, referring to PC campaign ads opposing a search.
“Their families deserve closure. This is about who we are: one people with one future. Manitobans don’t leave anyone behind.”
