Absolutely. After seven years of cuts, freezes, and losses to attrition, Manitoba’s public service must be shored up and rebuilt. After working in government for five years, we know firsthand that many departments were cut to the point that they could no longer service the public.

We are committed to rebuilding Manitoba’s public service as professional, non-partisan and effective. We are also focused on security of employment as well as stable wages, employment and funding.

We have also committed to modernized benefits for public sector workers. For example, we have committed to making mental health part of medicare.

Manitoba Liberals have been extremely concerned about some of the trends in the way public pensions are managed.

We do not currently plan any changes and if any needed changes were to arise, we would consult with MGEU and other stakeholders before doing so.

Manitoba Liberals record on protecting the rights of workers and protecting pensions is solid.

We were the only opposition party to support MGEU when it called for the passage of a bill that would secure the future stability of the pension fund.

We also successfully passed a bill that finally won the Retired Teachers Association of Manitoba a seat on their own pension board, a change they have been seeking for more than a decade that was rejected by previous NDP governments.

The issue of children in care is the most important political and moral issue we face. We want to ensure that workers have safe workloads, for the sake of the children and the workers.

Our long-term goal is to work to markedly reduce the number of the children in the child welfare system, by supporting families and communities and finding ways to keep them together.

We want to make it clear, this is not for the purpose of cutting costs or reducing employment: we want to address the societal issues that are driving apprehension and reduce them. We would like to see a shift towards more family support workers.

We are also aware that at the Link, many workers face challenges and made complaints. Manitoba Liberals were the only party to speak up for those workers, whose reports were largely confirmed by Deloitte Investigators.

Absolutely. This is one of the most shameful areas of neglect in Manitoba, where workers who care for the most vulnerable receive low pay and little training for the incredible responsibilities they have.

We have committed to improved pay and benefits for recruitment and retention, as well as multi-year budget guidance and realistic funding so agencies can plan service delivery.

As Leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party, I ran on a platform of no privatizations. It was in our 2019 platform, and it is in our 2023 platform as well.

This is not just an ideological position – it is a centrist, progressive, economic idea. Manitoba Liberals want an effective, responsive public sector, and an innovative, growing private sector, so that we are growing the economy as a whole.

Some – conservatives especially – have argued that Manitoba’s public sector is too large compared to the private sector. This is exactly the same thing as saying the private sector is too small compared to the public sector.

There is no benefit in just taking jobs and business that already exist in the public sector and shifting to the private sector.

Manitoba Liberals want to rebuild and reform our public health care system, with a new emphasis on prevention, community care so that we are keeping people out of hospitals and emergency, by ensuring they have a family doctor or nurse practitioner to see them.

We have committed to attraction and retention bonuses across the health care system. A “thank you” bonus to encourage people to stay of up to $10,000 for nurses and health care professionals and up to $5,000 for all other members of health care teams, so long as they were dealing with patients.

We do commmit to higher and stable funding for RHAs. We will also require them to report annually and publicly to the legislature, along with Shared Health and Public Health, which has never occurred since these organizations were created.

Our goal is to reduce crisis costs in the system by supporting prevention. Family physicians and nurse practitioners in local clinics are a major part of that.

Home-care workers and long-term care workers have faced extraordinary challenges. Home-care worker have never had sick leave since 1974.

Our focus always has to be on the quality of care, and permanent employees are important because they help ensure continuity of care for seniors and patients. They can tell if there has been a drastic change and react appropriately. It also requires a supportive environment for the worker – proper pay, proper compensation for travel and benefits.

We have committed to modernized benefits for workers. We believe that security and stability are important in health care, government and society, and we will invest to make it happen.

Yes. During the pandemic, it was mentioned that our health care system could not function, at all, without the University of Manitoba. Doctors, nurses, research, training for all other positions that are needed and that are opening up. Our post-secondary institutions are generally excellent, but have been underappreciated and underfunded for decades.

We will commit to predictable multi-year funding for colleges and universities, and work with them to expand their capacity while respecting their autonomy.

We are rejecting the PCs property tax rebates. In three years, they have increased Manitoba’s debt by over $1-billion - $453-million just this year - for rebate cheques, many of which were sent out of province.

We will repeal 80% of the rebates  as it is fiscally reckless to do what the PCs have done. Manitoba Liberals are the only party in the legislature proposing this change, which we see as the fiscally responsible thing to do.

We are also committed to progressive income tax cuts that provide relief to the people who need it most. We will do this by providing people who make less money a higher Basic Personal exemption, and then gradually reducing the amount that people can claim as tax-free, the more money they make. At an income of $300,000 and up, for example, the exemption would be zero.

We are proving a tax break to lower and middle income earners, and an increase on the top.

To our knowledge, Manitoba Liberals are the only party who are shunning austerity.

We will certainly do every thing we can to ensure that correctional officers and inmates are safe. That has to be everyone’s first priority. We will work with Corrections and MGEU to develop recruitment programs.

We are also aware that many inmates are in the system on remand. Our goal is to work to drive down crime and incarceration rates. Specifically, we will create provincial halfway houses, which do not currently exist, so that when people are discharged they are not immediately made homeless, or arrested and reincarcerated. We want to break that cycle with half-way houses for men and women.

Our goal is to reduce the burden with programs that reduce recidivism. This is not about cost-cutting or job reduction. If people in corrections can find ways to reduce costs, our goal is to keep people employed, and find them new work.

We have opposed privatization and contracting out. In an emergency, temporary contracting out of services may be necessary, but only in an emergency.

The privatizations by the PCs of MTS and air ambulances were all mistakes, and so was the NDP’s privatization of Land Titles.

Again, this is more than just an ideological position. As Manitoba Liberals, we recognize there is a role for the private sector and a role for the public sector. It is critical that public services are robust and that we have the capacity to serve and protect anyone in the public, especially in an emergency.

Absolutely. All employers need to meet their obligations to keep workers safe. We have also committed to ensuring that burnout is covered by Workers Compensation.