Manitoba.

• Author: Recksiedler, Greg
• Position: Legislative Reports

Fifth Session of the 42nd Legislature

The Fifth Session of the 42nd Legislature commenced on November 15, 2022 with the first Speech from the Throne delivered by Anita Neville, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba. An Indigenous drummer once again played an Honour Song while the Lieutenant Governor and the official party entered the Chamber, a ceremony initiated during the Speech from the Throne from the Fourth Session in 2021.

The address outlined a series of initiatives to be implemented in order to strengthen the province's health-care infrastructure and to take aim at violent criminal behaviour while supporting efforts to tackle mental health, homelessness and addiction issues and identified the following priorities and commitments: *

* Helping Make Our Communities Safer

* Helping Families Make Ends Meet

* Strengthening Health Care and Reducing Surgical and Diagnostic Backlogs

* Helping Make Manitoba More Competitive

* Helping Protect Our Environment, Climate and Parks

* Helping Build Stronger Communities

* Advancing Reconciliation

During his contribution to the Throne Speech debate on November 17, Wab Kinew, the Leader of the Official Opposition, moved a motion expressing nonconfidence in the Government. He highlighted several areas he believed the Government failed to address in the Speech from the Throne, including:

* refusing to reverse its cuts to public health care and instead pushing through further privatization of Manitoba's public health care system, bringing the province closer to a costlier and inequitable American-style two-tier health care system;

* failing to address the current health care crisis in Manitoba that is putting intense strain on front line health care workers and patients waiting in pain in emergency rooms, especially in pediatric facilities such as the Health Science Centre's Children's Hospital;

* continuing to cut northern healthcare and mental health services in the north;

* failing to fill widespread staff vacancies in homecare so that seniors and vulnerable Manitobans have access to quality and timely care;

* refusing to call an independent public inquiry into Manitoba's pandemic response to learn from its mistakes and bring forward changes to improve the lives of Manitoba families and strengthen the health care system;

* continuing to cut and underfund K-12 education in Manitoba as class sizes keep increasing, while offering no real plans to support adult education; and

* refusing to address the addictions...