When it comes to last week's announcement on Manitoba's 2025 provincial budget put forward by the NDP government, MLA for Turtle Mountain, Doyle Piwniuk says it raises a number of concerns.
"You know, this is the second budget that they came out with and at the same time we're facing tariffs south of the border especially Turtle Mountain. We actually straddle across 2/3 of Manitoba and it's going to be a big impact for us, but it just seems like nothing was ever mentioned in the budget for the Westman," shares Piwniuk.
"Brandon wasn't mentioned. The Westman wasn't mentioned. And that was a real concern to me," he adds.
Piwniuk is also the caucus whip for the PC Party of Manitoba. He says the 2025 budget all too familiar to him from his early years of provincial politics.
"It's no different than the previous NDP government that kind of ignored us, and that's why I decided to run, let's say 12 years ago, because the fact is we were ignored by this government and especially in Westman and that's a big factor here that I'm concerned about this budget."
In addition to this, Piwniuk says healthcare wasn't addressed either, this being a crucial subject across the province.
"That was their promise, and it seems like when I talk to health care individuals who work in the industry, they really feel like it's getting worse than getting better based on after the 18-months of this NDP government."
The good and the not so good about waiving provincial park passes for 2025:
Back in the day Manitobans and visitors to our province were challenged when it came to reserving camp sites and purchasing park passes to Manitoba's provincial parks. The Province tendered out to secure a reservation/purchasing program to streamline the process, which worked fairly well.
"It was a particular system that was used so people could book and pay for these things and then the money would go right into the general operations of the parks," explains Piwniuk. "So, we would be the recipients of the money. A small percentage was paid to the computer system, but the majority of the money would be paid into the parks' revenue."
In last week's budget it was announced the provincial government waived park passes for provincial parks for 2025. However, the budget for parks services has been cut and so due to park fees being waived, Piwniuk is wondering how will that affect the maintenance and upgrades of our provincial parks going forward?
Rural Manitoba is seeing rising crime:
When it comes to the rise in rural crime and the fact that the provincial budget designated funds to support 12 new hires for the Winnipeg Police Services, but nowhere else in the province, Piwniuk says this too sounds familiar.
"That's no different than the last NDP government. They really focused on Winnipeg, their own constituents like the ones that they represent. And the fact is they don't look at how important rural Manitoba is. But we need each other. We do provide a lot of revenue in our province, like agriculture and mining and lot of these everything outside of Winnipeg at the end of the day, we're all one big province."
"And the fact is, we need to make sure that we get funding for every police service that are in this province because crime is not isolated, it's not isolated to the city of Winnipeg," he adds. "It's not isolated to our regions. If you talk to any RCMP, they have to work with the other detachments out there because the fact is, it's all one."
"So we got to have making sure that we allocate police services proportionately throughout the whole province because at the end of the day we all have to protect the whole province here and we just can't have winners and losers when it comes to funding for policing, because we provide a lot of revenue for the province and I tell you this much, we provide more revenue in the oil industry than all the mining put together for royalties for the province of Manitoba," adds Piwniuk.
Please listen to more with Doyle Piwniuk below as he explains more on the summer of construction season of highway repair and maintenance, free park passes, and what's coming up in the Manitoba Legislature for our provincial leaders.
"I just have to say that I'm so honored to represent Turtle Mountain," shares Piwniuk. "I'm a voice and I want to make sure that we, especially when it comes to Western Manitoba, that we're not ignored because it's important. We're not part of the Red River Valley, where a lot of commerce, population is, but I've always been an advocate to make sure that we get our fair share. Because we do provide a lot of revenue for the province and the current government is accountable for what gets done and how the money gets spent, especially in our area, that we get our share."