COLUMN: View from the Legislature – Manitobans starting to demand results, not excuses from NDP

Even a casual observer of politics will have seen and heard it. After the election of a new government, a great deal of the new administration’s time is spent blaming the previous government. This is fairly standard political stuff. This is not always without some explanation. For example, if a new government is elected halfway through a budget year, there is clearly some shared decision making between the two administrations.

But as time goes on, it becomes more difficult for a government to blame those that came before them. That’s because, naturally, the longer you are government the more time you have had to either set a new course or to reject entirely decisions by a previous government. And while the public at some point starts to demand results and not excuses from a government, it is often hard for elected officials to stop blaming those that came before them.

Take for example the current Manitoba NDP government. It has now been almost a year-and-a-half since the NDP were elected. Manitobans likely remember that they came into office promising to improve things like healthcare, justice and the economy with some quick and easy fixes. What those quick and easy fixes would be were not well explained, but the NDP simply said “Trust us.”

Now, after months and months in government, “Trust us” has been replaced with, “Don’t blame us.” Far from there being improvements to these specific areas as the NDP promised, things have gotten worse and there doesn’t seem to be any plan to make them better. It’s unclear at this point whether the NDP ever had a plan to address these issues or whether they are just struggling to implement it. Either way, it is Manitobans who are paying the price.

On the issue of healthcare, statistics for the last year show that Manitobans waited record times in emergency rooms and that wait times for key surgeries got worse not better. When the NDP came to power one of the first things they did was cancel the out of province surgical program without increasing local capacity. Not surprisingly, the wait times for Manitobans began to grow. And despite it being the NDP who cancelled the surgical program for Manitobans, they were quick to blame the former PC government for the increased wait times. Cold comfort to those waiting for a hip or knee replacement.

In the area of justice, during the election the Manitoba NDP said that high rates of violent crime, such as homicides, were the responsibility of the government to address. Yet, statistics show that under the NDP violent crime has only gotten worse. In 2024, Manitoba recorded the highest number of homicides, 99, in its history. And despite the NDP promising to be able to quickly make communities safer, they are now telling Manitobans they have no control over community safety.

Just last week, Statistics Canada published its monthly jobs report. It showed that every province except one increased employment in December. The one that didn’t? Manitoba, which Statistics Canada said lost 7,200 jobs in December and which saw its unemployment rate increase. That was the worst economic performance in Canada.

Worsening healthcare, higher crime, fewer jobs. The response by the NDP to all of this is that it isn’t their fault, and that Manitobans shouldn’t have been fooled by their promises of easy fixes to hard problems. For the NDP, what they will find is that every day they get further along in government, the more Manitobans will be demanding results, not excuses.