The Manitoba Legislature has broken for the summer and MLAs are returning to their home constituencies.
Premier Wab Kinew says the last week was filled with a lot of procedural businesses, like bills entering the final stages and getting passed into law.
"What does that mean for the average person out there? I think that the big-ticket items in the Budget, like extending the Fuel Tax Holiday through the summer months, that's moving ahead, that's taking effect. We've still got a few stages of the Budget to go through, which means that not every program that we want to do - $10-a-day childcare through the summer months, for instance - that's one thing that was delayed by the Opposition."
A few other bills that were successfully passed through the Legislature have to do with giving law enforcement more tools to crack down on drug trafficking and, noted the Premier, important steps that the ensure Manitoba's economic development can move forward.
"I know that carbon capture is something that some folks in the energy industry and the ag industry and manufacturing are looking at," explained Kinew. "So, we did some kind of legislative amendments to allow us to move forward with some of those economic projects."
And there will be no shortage of work to tackle when MLAs return to the Legislature in the Fall.
"Keeping those priority aspects of our healthcare system moving forward in a good way," noted the Premier. "We've got the money to be able to make those investments over the summer, but there's bills that are going to be held over to the Fall that will make a stronger legislative framework for us to be able to work on supporting emergency departments across rural Manitoba and take other steps to strengthen healthcare."
The Manitoba Legislature resumes October 2nd.