Highlights of the Manitoba Throne Speech

Manitoba's NDP Government's Throne Speech was read in the Manitoba Legislature on November 20. The following are some of the highlights from the speech.

Green and Growing

- A $206-million investment for the upgrade of all three waste-water treatment plants in Winnipeg as part of tri-level negotiations to address the City of Winnipeg's capital requirements.

- A $150-million commitment for rural and northern water and waste-water projects.

- New legislation to set out Manitoba's Kyoto target.

- A phasing down of the Brandon coal plant and requiring the capture of methane emissions from large landfills.

- A commitment to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions in Manitoba below 2000 levels over the next two years.

- A new provincewide program to help lower-income Manitobans make cost-effective, energy-efficient home improvements.

- A new fuel mandate for biodiesel.

- New restrictions on household use of dishwashing detergents and lawn fertilizers to help protect lakes and rivers.

- New measures to address cottage and residential septic fields.

- A new strategy to conserve water.

- A commitment to plant one million trees a year for the next five years in partnership with the Manitoba Forestry Association and other groups.

Innovation and Competitiveness

- An additional 4,000 apprenticeship spaces through a four-year plan.

- Expansion of the University College of the North.

- Further capital investments for university campuses in Winnipeg and Brandon.

- Enhancement of the Manitoba Bursary Fund to provide direct support for students.

- Additional labour market services for immigrants.

- A new Qualifications Recognition Strategy.

- Expansion and entrenching of the highly-successful Sector Council Strategy in legislation.

- New measures to reduce red tape.

- An enhanced driver's licence as an affordable and secure form of identification for travellers, to be offered beginning in the fall of 2008.

Addressing the Challenges of a Rapidly Rising Dollar

- Starting Jan, 1, 2008, beginning the phase-out of the province's corporate capital tax and making the Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit 70 per cent refundable;

- Establish a rapid response team to expedite the resolution of issues faced by individual sectors or companies.

- Introduce a new timber-pricing policy.

- Increase the farmland tax rebate to 70 per cent.

- Launch the Road to 2010 tourism promotion strategy with a goal of reaching $2 billion in annual tourism revenue by 2010.

- Make an immediate, two-year investment in the equity investment program for local filmmakers while enhancing the incentives for foreign film productions to hire local personnel.

Tax Reductions

- A commitment to implement Budget 2007 tax reductions, subject to the requirements of balanced budget legislation, including:

. farmland school tax rebate increase to 70 per cent in 2008;

. middle income bracket tax rate reduction to 12.75 per cent from 13 per cent, effective Jan. 1, 2008;

. basic personal amount increase of $200, effective Jan. 1, 2008;

. corporate income tax rate reduction to 13 per cent from 14 per cent, effective July 1, 2008;

. small business tax rate reduction to two per cent from three per cent, effective Jan. 1, 2008; and

. beginning a Corporation Capital Tax phase-out with reduction of the rate to 0.4 per cent from 0.5 per cent, beginning in January 2008.

Healthy Families

- Expansion of child-care spaces by another 2,500 over the next two years.

- New measures to further improve school retention rates.

- A new partnership with First Nations and the federal government to improve graduation and retention rates.

- A new Safe Child Care Charter to provide parents with further confidence that their children are being looked after in a safe environment.

- New legislation that builds on anti-bullying initiatives.

- Mandatory physical education every year for students entering high school this year.

- New legislation to ban the sale of foods containing trans-fats in school vending machines and cafeterias.

- A new bicycle trail to be built, to be named the Duff Roblin Trail, extending 40 kilometres from the floodway inlet to Birds Hill Park.

Health

- New nurse training spaces to be added at Manitoba's universities and colleges.

- New training spaces to be added at the University of Manitoba school of medicine.

- A new primary-care paramedic program to be introduced at Red River College.

- Additional nurses and aides to be hired in personal-care homes.

- More dieticians, respiratory therapists and occupational therapists to be added as part of a long-term strategy to improve quality of care for seniors.

- A new hospital in Selkirk.

- New operating facilities at Ste. Anne Hospital.

- Redevelopment of the emergency ward at Steinbach's Bethesda Hospital.

- Additional dialysis treatment facilities to be added in Winnipeg and Gimli, and in the First Nations communities of Berens River, Norway House and Peguis.

- Consultations to begin on constructing a new Women's Hospital at the Health Sciences Centre.

- A new South End Birthing Centre to be managed by the Women's Health Clinic.

- Redevelopment of the maternity ward at St. Boniface General Hospital.

- A new MRI and a cardiac catheterization lab at the Children's Hospital.

- A new asthma and allergy clinic for children at the Health Sciences Centre.

- A new pediatric ophthalmology program at the Health Sciences Centre.

Safer Communities

- Hiring of more police officers as the first step in a new commitment to add 100 officers.

- Expanding the Lighthouses program to provide more places for young people to play sports, study or go online in the evenings.

- Expanding the Turnabout program to provide more monitoring and alternative outings for children under 12 who come in conflict with the law.

- Adding a new anti-gang Crown attorney in the Brandon region.

- Adding two new investigative teams to assist communities in tackling organized crime.

- Introducing new legislation to provide protection for witnesses who testify against gangs.

- Dedicating a justice unit to enforce a new criminal property forfeiture law.

- Dedicating a Crown attorney to work exclusively on child exploitation cases.

Inclusion and Citizenship

- An increase in the minimum wage based on previous public consultations.

- An increase to the child benefit to provide support to working families.

- An expansion of the popular Safety Aid program to provide security to low-income seniors.

- Changes to election laws to increase democratic participation and improve accessibility and transparency for citizens.

- Appointment of a new privacy commissioner with the power to issue orders under Manitoba's freedom of information and protection of privacy legislation.

- Introduction of amendments to the Employment Services Act to protect workers who are not covered by existing labour law protections.

Northern Manitoba

- Enhance the University College of the North's main campus facilities in The Pas and Thompson.

- Provide additional satellite university campuses in remote communities.

- Begin work on a tripartite partnership to strengthen primary and secondary education in the north.

- Expand training of health professionals for northern areas.

- Further expand the successful Northern Healthy Foods Initiative with the development of a commercial greenhouse at Grand Rapids.

- Establish a new round table to allow youth in east side communities to discuss challenges and work towards solutions.

- Begin work on the first leg of the all-weather road from Hollow Water to Bloodvein with the building of two new bridges.

- Continue route selection now underway for the second leg to Berens River.

Rural Manitoba

- An increase in the farmland tax rebate to 70 per cent.

- A $95-million commitment through the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization (CAIS) program to support farm income including the livestock sector.

- A commitment to negotiate a new federal-provincial safety net package.

- Begin work to extend the successful Bridging Generations program to rural small businesses and fishers.

- Consult with the co-operative sector to enhance support for co-ops.

- In partnership with the federal government, launch Value Chain Manitoba, an innovative business model to promote formal partnerships between producers, processors and suppliers.

Urban Centres

- Continue work on the Eastern Access project in Brandon.

- Expand Neighbourhoods Alive! to five new urban centres: Flin Flon, The Pas, Dauphin, Portage la Prairie and Selkirk.

- Provide support for Brandon's newly-announced Renaissance Brandon project.

- Construct new affordable housing in urban centres across the province as part of the HOMEWorks! program and revitalize over 13,000 public housing units.

- Begin implementing a plan to double funding for recreation facilities across the province including support for proposed facilities in Winnipeg, Brandon, The Pas, Portage la Prairie and the Selkirk Library.

- Provide funding to add four firefighting positions each in Brandon, Thompson and Portage la Prairie to increase public safety and fire response.

- Provide $3.8 million to the City of Winnipeg to support 20 new firefighting positions and other priorities of the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service.

- Finalize agreements to be signed for the Museum for Human Rights that will trigger the establishment of the first national museum outside Ottawa.