Month: April 2018

Child-care spaces created in Rivers and Minnedosa
Because strong families are the foundation of Manitoba’s future, our government continues to improve child care in our province.
For years, families in Manitoba have had to struggle with a shortage of licensed, affordable and safe child-care spaces while wait lists have climbed into the thousands. We are listening to them. And as we recently announced, we are adding 780 new licensed child care spaces supported by $22.8 million in funding for construction in areas most in need across the province.
In the constituency of Riding Mountain, Riverdale Community Daycare will receive an estimated $900,000 in capital grant funding for the renovation of three classrooms in Rivers Collegiate. This expansion project will create 32 new child care spaces, including eight infant and 24 pre-school spaces.
Minnedosa Community Child Care Co-operative will receive an estimated $180,077 in capital grant funding for the creation of four new spaces for infants.
In addition, we have allocated $2.3 million annually in new operating funding over three years for 621 existing spaces at 63 child-care centres. This funding ensures these facilities will remain affordable for families and financially stable, so they can continue to offer early learning and child care in their communities.
These developments amount to a total of 1,400 new or newly funded child-care spaces with a $47-million investment over three years, through the recently announced Canada-Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.
The 780 new childcare spaces are being created through 20 major capital projects in communities such as Rivers and Minnedosa where access to affordable child care has been challenging and with consideration of lower-income, lone-parent or French-language families. The new centres will serve as community hubs with 10 projects at schools or on school properties, and another 10 projects at active community locations.
Manitoba families know the importance of affordable child care. Working with the federal government, we are vastly improving access to affordable and quality childcare while reducing families’ wait times and meeting the needs of diverse communities. At the same time, our work is continuing on a broader provincial early-learning and child-care strategy.
Our government was elected on a promise to repair the services Manitobans depend on, and improvements to child care are among our highest priorities. It’s exciting to see the ongoing expansion of early-learning and child-care facilities and spaces across the province as part of our work to reduce wait times and meet the needs of Manitoba’s communities. We are taking significant steps to meet these goals.
Greg Nesbitt is the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Riding Mountain. He can be reached at 204-759-3313, toll-free 1-844-877-7767 or by email at gregnesbittmla@mymts.net.

Promise made, promise kept: ambulance fees further reduced
Manitobans in potentially life-threatening situations should not have to worry about whether they can afford an ambulance before calling for one. Our government is continuing to address this concern by further reducing ambulance fees by $85, as we work toward our goal to cut the fees to half of what they were under the previous NDP administration.
This latest reduction, which took effect on April 1, 2018, has brought the fee down to $340 from $425 – a decrease of 20 percent on the bill Manitobans pay for ambulance service. Customers now pay either $340 or the service provider’s pre-existing base fee, whichever is lower.
The new price is also part of our government’s average total ambulance fee reduction of $182 since 2016, when the average price for ambulance service in Manitoba was $522. This is a total decrease of 35 per cent in the fee in the past two years, bringing us more than halfway to our goal of reducing it by 50 per cent in our first term. Manitoba Health, Seniors and Active Living will continue to work with regional health authorities across the province to further reduce the fee during the next two years.
The fee reductions are part of our government’s commitment to more affordable and better, more-timely emergency medical services (EMS) for families throughout Manitoba. We are not only well on our way to lowering ambulance fees to half of what they were under the NDP, but we hired 29 new paramedics in 2017 and have created 60 more full-time paramedic positions across the province as part of our 2018 budget.
As our government moves forward in implementing the recommendations of the 2013 EMS Review, we will be able to better locate these services and match resources to get ambulances where and when they are needed.
We will also continue to work with our partners in the regional health authorities and with paramedics, as well as with other ambulance providers including municipalities and First Nations communities, to ensure consistent, reliable and affordable EMS care for Manitobans. Everyone in Manitoba deserves predictable and reliable ambulance services, right across the province.
Greg Nesbitt is the Member of the Legislative Assembly for the Riding Mountain constituency. He can be reached at 204-759-3313, toll-free 1-844-877-7767 or by email at gregnesbittmla@mymts.net.