In recognition of February being I Love to Read month, as MLA for Lac du Bonnet and the PC critic for education and early childhood learning, I had the sincere pleasure of taking part at 15 schools, including a daycare, within the Lac du Bonnet constituency. It was a wonderful time spent reading to students and children of all ages throughout our local communities. I want to thank all the teachers and staff who participated in my visits to support I Love to Read month in Manitoba.

The Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology (MITT) has been a post-secondary establishment for well over 40 years, and has made a significant impact on vocational education throughout our province. In January, the Kinew government announced that MITT will wind down operations over the next year. The closure of MITT is another blow to Manitoba’s battered economy that will result in fewer students graduating into high-demand, well-paying jobs. This NDP government is once again creating divisions and hindering job growth with its latest policies. First, the NDP changed the apprenticeship ratio from 2-to-1 to 1-to-1. Then, the Manitoba Jobs Agreement pitted unionized workers against their non-union counterparts. And now, they are reducing the number of skilled trades graduates entering high-demand positions. It’s no surprise that Manitoba’s economy is now ranked last in Canada.

The NDP government recently announced what they claimed to be a global 3.5 percent increase in school funding. But in reality, inflation in Manitoba is 3.7 percent, so the operating funding increase amounts to only 2.9 percent. As a result, if you do the math, schools are actually facing a funding decrease of .08 percent. Manitobans should brace themselves for another round of significant school property tax increases. Our school divisions will still require additional funding to cover operating costs, which will likely be passed on to ratepayers.

Upon taking office in 2023, Premier Wab Kinew chose not to follow through on urgent plans approved by our previous PC government to conduct an external review of Manitoba’s wildfire preparedness. The NDP opted instead to conduct internal assessments that produced no written recommendations regarding improvements to future planning and operating procedures. After experiencing one of the worst wildfire seasons in Manitoba history last year, the PCs are now demanding that the NDP government conduct a thorough external review before the 2026 wildfire season to identify any shortcomings that exist within the province’s wildfire service. Leading the charge on this, Riding Mountain MLA and PC critic for environment Greg Nesbitt stated “this is not about politics. Two Manitobans lost their lives. Thousands were displaced. We cannot afford to let that happen again.” Between 2024 and 2025, the NDP government cut Manitoba’s emergency expenditures budget by $50 million, or 50 percent, as well as slashing the province’s emergency management budget by $1.1 million.

Measles cases are rising in Manitoba. Public health officials are promoting vaccines as the best way to protect vulnerable people from this illness.

Right on cue, the CBC published an article asking whether the provincial government should make measles vaccines mandatory for students to attend school. However, going down this road would be a huge mistake.

We saw during the COVID-19 pandemic what happens when governments go too far with vaccine mandates. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s inflammatory remarks about unvaccinated people and his government’s unnecessary requirement for truckers to get the COVID-19 vaccine were prime examples.

One of the fastest ways to destroy confidence in public health policy is to run roughshod over the rights of those who have a different opinion. We should not be the least bit surprised that vaccine skepticism is higher now than ever before. Instead of increasing confidence in vaccines, overbearing government mandates destroyed it.

Manitoba’s French language school division will continue having vocational programming taught through The Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology throughtout next school year, after the college said it will close its doors.

Administration for Winnipeg-based MITT announced on Jan. 28 it will wind down operations and transfer selected programs to RRC Polytech. The college saw its international student enrolment drop by more than 55 percent, causing unsustainable “financial and operational shocks,” a press release said.

Luc Bremault, assistant superintendent for Division scolaire franco-manitobaine, said the announcement came as a “complete surprise.” DSFM is the only school division in the province without its own vocational programs and has relied on MITT to provide carpentry, electrical and metal workshops for students.

“These exploratory course that lead to more certifiable technical educational courses are indispensable,” he told The Carillon. “They’re very important to us, and we don’t have anything otherwise.”

I recently completed reading 22 Cells in Nuremburg by Douglas Kelley.

Kelley’s observations on the Nazi rise in 1930s Germany remind me of similar patterns with some of today’s political leaders.

Kelley points out the Nazi Party gained power democratically in a time of “moral disengagement” highlighted by the erosion of democratic restraint. Once in power, the party quickly became an authoritarian regime; told “big lies,” suppressed the free press and freedom of speech and basic human rights. The party leadership employed the unchecked process of “executive orders.” With a personality trait of grandiosity Hitler acted without restraint and demanded unconditional loyalty.

Early in his reign he consolidated power and “followership” by promises to make Germany great again. Sound familiar? He used emotional appeal and scapegoating; anti-Semitism, anti-immigrants, homophobia; in other words, rabble-rousing. His position was, everything is broken and only I can fix it.

A Steinbach area man has pleaded guilty to harrasment, wherein during a two-week period he made 364 phone calls to his ex-girlfriend.

Juden Giesbrecht, 19, started dating the victim on Dec. 18, 2024. The two are participants in El’ Dad, where they met. El’ Dad is an organization that helps people with intellectual disabilities with either housing, supports, and/or programing.

On March 4, 2025, the victim called police to report that Giesbrecht had threatened to kill her and harm her friends. She told police she began dating Giesbrecht in December and that she had given him her phone number and since then he had been calling her non-stop. She told him to stop calling so much and that a month prior “things had gotten really bad,” according to Crown attorney Jennifer Neufeld, and that “he began to be manipulative over the phone if she didn’t answer his calls, that he would threaten to harm himself if she wouldn’t speak to him or wouldn’t answer the phone.”

She also told police that on two occasions Giesbrecht had threatened to kill her which led to her breaking up with him and she eventually begin dating someone else. When Giesbrecht found out that she was dating someone else, he threatened to get his friends to attack the new boyfriend and “cut him up into little pieces,” according to Neufeld.

RCMP say the number of reported scams and frauds in Manitoba continues to rise.

In a news release highlighting the issue as part of Fraud Prevention Month, police warn that vigilance is key.

“Fraud is increasingly a problem in Manitoba, across Canada and around the world,” said Staff Sgt. Kevin Cavanagh, of the Manitoba RCMP Major Crime Services Cyber and Financial Unit. “We encourage Manitobans of all ages to remain vigilant and do your research before making payments or sharing banking and other personal information, particularly when individuals you don’t know are reaching out in person or online for any reason.”

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre reports that Manitobans were defrauded out of $31 million in 2024, noting that’s just from scams that were reported. It’s estimated that only five to 10 percent of victims actually come forward to law enforcement.