Right in the centre - It never ends

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Published on Thursday, October 29, 2015

By Ken Waddell

The Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Is there no sanity or accountability in our country? 

The Investors Group football stadium in Winnipeg hardly has the paint dry on it and now it needs $35 million in repairs. Our very generous NDP government is going to back the loan. All that and The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have had a horrible year on the field. It’s no secret that I get very tired of “stupid” when it comes to government at all levels. We have invested (or wasted depending on your viewpoint) in major public works in Manitoba. It’s been mostly in Winnipeg and has been somewhat coupled with private money. Let’s count the ways. The stadium is one such project. The MTS complex is another, the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is another. The convention centre is gobbling  up lots of money. All the projects may be  great ideas, but don’t we have our priorities bent a bit in this province? The above mentioned facilities are nice, when they work, and they are beautiful, but are we really doing what we should be doing?

Consider these scenarios. We have closed around 20 emergency rooms in Manitoba hospitals. We are short of staff in every facility in Manitoba. Some are operating at half staff. Dozens of communities don’t have clean water, that’s right, dozens. The Shoal Lake First Nation doesn’t have a road. Winnipeg has had clean water for 100 years but SLFN, where the water comes from, doesn’t have a road because the aqueduct isolated the community. Winnipeg’s streets are a mess. Rural towns have crumbling infrastructure. Many of our highways are in terrible shape.

Spending huge amounts of money on museums, stadiums and such would be OK if the other higher priorities were fixed first. Maybe it’s a cathedral complex. For centuries, churches of all denominations have built huge churches and the people have often lived in poverty. That practise by churches is frowned upon now but, as a society, we have readily transferred the cathedral complex to our public buildings.

Winnipeg has all these great facilities but they can’t even count how many homeless people they have. They have no idea how many nurses they are short of. People are looking for change. That was obvious in the recent federal election. It was obvious in the Alberta provincial election as well. The changes that came were way beyond what anyone thought might happen. Forty per cent of the voters elected governments that 60 per cent of the people didn’t want. While there was a huge appetite for change, and an even greater need for changes in Canada, we have to re-align our priorities.

Governments at all levels should declare a moratorium on all public buildings until we get the basic human rights issues solved. What are those basic rights? The highest priority should be clean water, proper sewage treatment, adequate housing and a minimum annual income. The minimum annual income should be based on the regional poverty level. All social assistance programs need to be phased out and a minimum income needs to be implemented. After those priorities are provided for, then governments can build roads and streets. Then, maybe then, they can go back to building these vanity edifices such as the stadium in Winnipeg.

The damage is done, we have wasted tons of money on many facilities, mostly in Winnipeg. That money is gone. Can we not change the direction of our society? I do believe that Canada is the best country in the world. Many might  argue we are no longer the best country in the world and that may be true too. I am certain, though, that if we don’t get our priorities straight, we certainly won’t be the best country in the world 10 years from now.

People want change but will it be the change we need? Let’s get our priorities figured out and defined before it’s too late.