Manitoba throne speech tackles grocery store competition, Hydro rates and health care

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew's second throne speech promises to stop grocery stores from preventing competitors from opening nearby, and to freeze electricity rates for a year despite Manitoba Hydro's historically high debt.

The provincial government will introduce legislation that eliminates the use of restrictive covenants for grocery stores, which limit the kinds of stores that can open near a particular company's location, Kinew said.

Increased competition in the grocery sector will hopefully decrease the cost of groceries, he said.

"The idea behind going after restrictive covenants is to end the practice of large businesses freezing out competition from their geographic area," Kinew told reporters during an embargoed briefing before the throne speech was read Tuesday by Lt.-Gov. Anita Neville.

"More competition has a downward pressure on prices, and that's what we're trying to encourage here."

The premier was light on specific details, but said the legislation will include more information, including whether pre-existing restrictive covenants will be honoured. 

The throne speech — which outlines the government's priorities for the coming legislative session — also says the government will open more than 100 beds at health-care facilities, unveil a new strategy for cutting ER wait times and commission a new statue to replace the Queen Victoria monument that was toppled in front of the Manitoba Legislature.

The one-year freeze on electricity rates, one of the new affordability promises, will start in 2025.

Kinew promised a freeze in the 2023 election campaign, and while in office has maintained the utility can service large new industrial customers in spite of warnings from Manitoba Hydro about a looming capacity crunch and the need to generate more power. The Crown corporation has said its infrastructure requires billions of dollars in fixes.

The premier told reporters Hydro can build the infrastructure it needs in the years to come, while simultaneously saving ratepayers money.

"The thing about running a large corporation like Manitoba Hydro is that you have to be able to implement your long-term plan, while also delivering on your core short-, medium-term objectives."

Kinew added he's confident the independent Public Utilities Board, which has the final say on rate changes, will approve his government's plans.

The premier wouldn't commit Tuesday to extending the gas tax holiday into the new year.

On health care, the province is vowing to increase surgical capacity by conducting another 800 hip and knee procedures at Selkirk's hospital.

The throne speech also commits to opening 102 new staffed health-care beds — though it doesn't indicate where the beds will be — and to develop a new strategy to reduce emergency room wait times, which will include benchmarks, Kinew said.

It will replace a wait times reduction strategy the former PC government commissioned in 2016, its first year in office.

"And how did that one go?" said Kinew, who then proceeded to speak about the PCs consolidating emergency departments and wait times trending upwards.

PC health critic Kathleen Cook said she's surprised the NDP is only now talking about a wait time strategy.

"I think for a party that campaigned solely on health care [in the last election], I think Manitobans could expect that they would have a strategy in place and be already implementing it."

Beginning in December, Manitobans can apply for a new plastic health card. The cards will feature an image of the northern lights, the design that got the most votes in a government-run contest.

The throne speech states a new statue will be commissioned for the front lawn of the legislative building, replacing the Queen Victoria statue that was torn down by protesters in 2021 during a demonstration over the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools.

The new monument will feature a mother and child bison that will be "a symbol of all Manitobans" and acknowledge how the history of residential schools harmed the bonds between parent and child, the throne speech states.

"I think there's an opportunity here to send a values message about who we are as Manitobans," Kinew said.

The previous statue, which the former government said was beyond repair and will not be restored, will be displayed and honoured in some fashion, the throne speech vows.

The statue "carried great historical, cultural and emotional significance to Manitobans," according to the speech, and a group of cultural institutions, museums and history and heritage experts will decide how best to display it.

Kinew is also vowing to create a new honour for veterans that consists of a physical component and an official ceremony.

On education, the throne speech commits to requiring all Grade 9 students to complete a unit on financial literacy and to introduce a new program that sends high school students to the battlefields of the First and Second World War.

The province will establish an all-party committee tasked with protecting local journalism in light of shrinking advertising revenues and the growing influence of misinformation and polarization.

The government will also speed up the process of hooking up new buildings to the power grid, which the throne speech says will ensure new homes and businesses get built faster.