While there are plenty of initiatives in the NDP government’s first budget to make all Manitobans smile, there is extra reason for rural Manitobans, to be optimistic, says Dauphin MLA and Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn.
Budget 2024 invests in rural families, Kostyshyn said, giving young farmers a fighting chance by lowering their upfront costs, freezing Crown lands and investing $200,000 to reopen two Manitoba Agriculture Services Corporation (MASC) centres.
An investment of $146.9 million will made be made toward Business Risk Management Programs including AgriInsurance, AgriStability, AgriInvest and Wildlife Damage Compensation, including increased funding for the Livestock Predation Prevention Strategy.
“We’ve been hearing a lot of challenges from producers with animal predation. So we’re working on some increased funding to address the predation problem that exists in our Parkland area,” Kostyshyn said.
The budget also provides $135,000 for implementation of a veterinary strategy to help address a shortage of veterinary professionals in Manitoba and makes investments at Assiniboine Community College to support sustainable horticultural practices.
Another highlight for Kostyshyn is a planned increase in the loan amount eligible for the Young Farmer Rebate.
“We increased the lending limits through MASC from a $200,000 limit to $300,000. Plus that provides a 10 per cent rebate based on age of individuals,” he said.
“So I think that really makes things interesting.”
Kostyshyn is also particularly proud of work advancing on the Crown Lands file.
“I talk about that a lot. We’re going to continue to have that 55 per cent discount for this year and we’re massaging the changes that were made,” he said.
“There is definitely going to be some good news in the future. We’re still working on the Crown lands policies and procedures.”
When it comes to his constituency in particular, Kostyshyn is pleased that the Community Justice Centre promised for Dauphin at the kickoff of the election campaign last fall, is included as a budget line item.
Work this year, he said, will include scoping, designing and consulting to ensure the centre provides culturally appropriate supports and vocational training when people are ready to turn their lives around.
“The design of the blueprints, the pre-engineering, everything has to be done,” he said.
“And whether we’re going to have shovels in the ground this fall or this winter . . . definitely by the following year we’ll have some action going, for sure.”
Finally, a lifting of the seven-year freeze on municipal funding will give communities an opportunity to thrive and grow with sustainable annual funding increases and key investments in water and wastewater treatment.
All of the rural-specific initiatives come in addition to the overall themes of healing health care, improved affordability and unity, Kostyshyn said, and come despite the government dealing with a $2 billion deficit and rising costs of work left undone by the previous government.
“It’s one of these things that you just assume you don’t have to deal with it, but reality set in is that it’s a $1.9 billion deficit. Historically, that’s the largest in the province of Manitoba of a new government taking over from a previous government,” he said.
“It’s one of those give and take, you know the Robin Hood scenario, but we have to get our house in order. I think we’ve done great things based on our budget and estimated a balanced budget approach in our four-year term. I feel very confident that we’ll meet those targets.
“It’s going to take a lot of work and it’s going to take a lot of partnerships and understanding with the taxpayers of the province of Manitoba. Based on our budget that was delivered, I think we’ve done a lot of things over and above what people anticipated were going to be done.”
Budget 2024’s other rural investments include:
• over $22 million in the expansion and improvement of medical transportation services across the province;
• restoring the Rural Doctor Recruitment Fund;
• expanding the nurse float pool to allow nurses to work at multiple health-care facilities throughout rural and northern Manitoba;
• training and creating positions for advanced care paramedics to work in rural and northern Manitoba;
• continuing to support innovative health delivery with nurse practitioners through QDoc;
• providing for rural capital investments such as the design of a new Eriksdale Emergency Room;
• constructing a new personal care home in Lac du Bonnet;
• increasing policing grants by $13.7 million for rural and urban communities;
• investing more than $4 million more in new, annual and sustainable funding for sport and cultural organizations;
• building the Lorette arena;
• investing $635 million in capital projects for the health sector, which includes a one-time investment of $110 million for health system capacity expansion including a new hospital, the Neepawa Regional Health Centre, a new Portage Regional Health Centre, a Community Service building and new beds for the Boundary Trails Health Centre and a Western Manitoba Cancer Centre expansion;
• providing a historic $24 million, a $4-million increase, to support the Manitoba Water Services Board for the development of safe, affordable, and sustainable water and waste-water infrastructure in rural municipalities;
• providing a $730,000 increase to support the Urban and Hometown Green Teams, which provides funding to non-profit organizations, education authorities, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) councils and municipal governments that create summer jobs for youth aged 15 to 29;
• investing $1.2 million to implement a new public libraries funding model;
• increasing funding by $1.1 million for Integrated Youth Services, which brings total support to $3.2 million, a 52 per cent increase from last year, which co-locates mental health supports, addictions services, primary care, cultural and spiritual care, social services, and housing resources for youth aged 12 to 29;
• funding to finish construction of new schools in Morden and Steinbach; and
• investing $5.3 million in funding for ATV Manitoba and Snoman for off-road trail maintenance, safety and rehabilitation to make trails more accessible.