COLUMN: Report from the Legislature – Reflecting on a busy session

This month’s report from the legislature comes as the Manitoba legislature rises for the summer. Tuesday morning marked the end of the spring 2025 sitting after a final day that lasted more than 24 hours for the MLAs. With many bills needing to pass third reading and royal assent, the final vote of all designated bills happened by 8:30 a.m. the next day.

This session of the legislature was very busy for us in opposition. The second half of the session welcomed Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan into the legislative chamber as the new leader of the official opposition on May 6. This has given our party new life and direction to hold the NDP government to account and move us forward to forming government in the next election. Along with a leadership race the legislature and our party was busy over the past few months with more than 47 different pieces of legislation being brought forward for consideration and debate. Thirty-four of those were government bills that didn’t pass third reading until the final sitting day of the legislature.

The list of bills passed was extensive but included many pieces of legislation that were drafted to increase red tape and regulation for Manitobans making life less affordable and more cumbersome for businesses to succeed. This included bills like Bill 25 the Public-Private Partnerships Transparency and Accountability Act which will now make public private partnerships in infrastructure investment more difficult, showing the NDPs unwillingness to strengthen our infrastructure investment abilities while partnering with the private sector. Along with disincentivizing investment in our province, much of the legislation brought forward does very little other than providing lip service. The title and description of the bill express a desire to increase safety, labour representation or economic growth but the actual substance provides very little value.

A prime example of how our PC team plans for the future growth of our province while the NDP government is more concerned about the media highlights, was the debate around interprovincial trade barriers. We brought forward Bill 227 The Free Trade and Mobility within Canada Act because we realize the importance of eliminating trade barriers within our own country to strengthen our economic position when dealing with the protectionist trade tariffs from the United States. This bill was brought forward early in the session as other provinces were starting to talk about the importance. The NDP voted the bill down and had no other plan in place to work with provinces across Canada to strengthen our Manitoba economy. Then after Kinew and Premier Ford of Ontario met weeks later and positive media coverage was obtained around discussions on free trade within Canada, the NDP came back with their own watered down version for Bill 227 but by that point had missed the back stop date that would allow them to designate it as a bill that needed to be passed by the end of session.

Bill 47 is the NDP version of our free trade bill but instead named as a fair-trade bill which explicitly excludes crown corporations with the claim of protecting them, when in reality was only done to receive recognition for attempting to protect crown corporation jobs. The government then used the intent of Bill 47 as a shaming strategy for the Progressive Conservatives to fast-track its passage along with dozens of other regulation and red tape bills. Although the NDP version of our free trade bill was a plagiarised version of our legislation, we did what is right for the province and country and allowed it to pass, although it could have been held until the fall of 2026 due to the NDPs poor planning and time management.

As always, my time in the legislature is rewarding and I am proud to have a voice for the great people of Southeast Manitoba but I am really looking forward to another summer filled with activity. My calendar is filling up daily with exciting festivals and events throughout the southeast region and I look forward to meeting many new constituents throughout this summer. As always don’t hesitate to drop in for a visit at the Main Street Grunthal office or contact me at info@konradnarth.ca.