Big three parties all make Brandon-centric promises

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This article was published 06/09/2019 (1839 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After 26 days of provincial campaigning, the big three provincial parties have all made Brandon-specific promises should they be elected on Sept. 10.

Party leaders have also made campaign stops in the Wheat City during the official campaign period, with Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister topping the list at three visits, NDP Leader Wab Kinew stopping in Brandon twice and Manitoba Liberal Party Leader Dougald Lamont making a single stop in early August.

Pallister has been quick to say the party is running for re-election on a “realistic platform.” In a July Q&A with The Brandon Sun, Pallister said the party has “under-promised but over-delivered.”

PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE

The biggest election promise the party is making is to open two new schools in Brandon over the next 10 years. The two new schools are in addition to Maryland Park School, which is currently under construction.

“We know that Brandon has been keeping pace with some of the fastest-growing cities in Canada and future projections suggest that the city will just keep on growing,” Brandon East Progressive Conservative candidate Len Isleifson said in mid-August. “We want to support that continued growth.”

According to the party, the provincial government will sit down with the Brandon School Division to determine exactly where the schools will be. One will be in the city’s southwest end and the other will be a Division scolaire franco-manitobaine K-8 school somewhere in the city.

A re-elected Progressive Conservative government would also open a new economic development office in Brandon, focused on all of rural Manitoba, Pallister said.

He made the announcement on Aug. 30 at the Keystone Centre, saying the pledge is part of a new push to have the province’s economic development agencies collaborate more.

“This is the right community to co-ordinate our economic-development growth opportunities in rural Manitoba because it’s a team community and that’s what we need. … No more silos, no more inter-competition, just build,” he said.

Few details on the new office were available when Pallister first made the announcement last week, including how much the office will cost to run, where it will be located or who will be hired to staff it — all things he said will be worked out in the future.

The Progressive Conservatives’ addictions strategy also includes plans for a Crime Stoppers ad blitz focused on Brandon and Winnipeg.

NDP

The NDP has made the most ambitious promises for Brandon, releasing a list touching almost all major projects in the city.

At a stop on Wednesday afternoon, Kinew committed $6.5 million in new provincial funding for a new recreation complex at the corner of First Street and Veterans Way and a new community centre in the east end. The party is committing $4 million and $2.5 million for the projects, respectively.

He also promised more nurses and doctors at the Brandon Regional Hospital, but couldn’t say exactly how many when asked during the campaign stop. The promise comes in addition to the party’s pledge to offer two hours of free parking at Manitoba hospitals — Brandon included.

During Kinew’s recent stop, he also reiterated the party’s pledge to open 25 chemical detoxification beds in Brandon in the first 100 days of the NDP prospectively coming into office and to open a new long-term drug treatment centre in Brandon in the second year of a mandate. The centre would allow drug users to undergo 90- to 365-day residential treatment.

A press release from the party says the NDP would work with the Keystone Centre, Assiniboine Community College and Brandon University to provide “stable funding” to address capital needs. Kinew said the party would follow up with those organizations if they win the election to plan out exactly what that support looks like.

When asked whether his party would commit to finishing the college’s move to the North Hill, he said he was not. He said though the party would look at expanding nursing training at ACC.

“I don’t think we’re announcing a North Hill project here today,” he said. “Again, I’m very keen to work with the leadership at ACC.”

LIBERAL

The Manitoba Liberal Party has not shied away from Brandon either, party leader Dougald Lamont was in Brandon on July 20 to announce the party’s addictions plan. In the plan, it promises a province-wide public-awareness campaign against meth, to create “drug stabilization units” and to expand harm reduction efforts.

Kim Longstreet, Manitoba Liberal Party candidate in Brandon East, told the Sun her party’s addictions platform is more integrated than other parties and doesn’t leave any section of the province out.

GREEN

Green party Leader James Beddome has not made any stops in Brandon so far during the 2019 provincial campaign. The party has also not made any Brandon-specific promises but pledges to create free public transit and a universal basic income, which would ultimately affect Brandonites.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_