Skip to main content

Manitoba government needs to better support local organizations and local professionals on the front-lines of the battle against Covid-19


Today, Manitoba Liberals put out a press release calling for the provincial government to better support local organizations in Manitoba in the effort to address the Covid-19 pandemic.  Our press release is below. 

More Half-Measures: PCs Ignoring Local Mental Health Providers in COVID-19 Crisis
WINNIPEG - The Pallister Government is making a mistake by offering $4.5-million to an Ontario based HR company to provide mental health services to Manitobans instead of funding qualified mental health providers in Manitoba. 
Today at a press conference, Premier Brian Pallister announced the Manitoba Government will spend $4.5-million to Morneau Shepell, an Ontario-based HR company, for a hotline that won’t be ready for weeks.  
“That $4.5-million would be better spent to fund community mental health supports - like Aulneau Centre, KLINIC, MATC, St. Boniface Street Links, and other Manitoba service providers. They could be providing mental health services by phone in days, not weeks,” said Lamont. 
Lamont said the mental health announcement is just the latest in a series of half-measures announced by a PC government that has to date done nothing to reassure workers and businesses that the Manitoba Government will act to spare them from economic devastation.  
Every other province has announced significant measures to help workers and businesses alike. The Pallister Government has done nothing. 
Lamont said the Manitoba Government needs to step up and address the issues that are making Manitobans anxious and depressed: lost income, lost jobs and lost business.  
“Let’s be clear: one of the reasons that people are feeling stressed and anxious is that they are facing losing their jobs and their businesses. The government needs to step up and say ‘we are going to make sure you get through this.’ Pallister is the only Premier in Canada who hasn’t done that,” said Lamont.
Manitoba Liberals have called for the PCs to release an economic update; called for a suspension of evictions; called for a return to 90-day prescriptions to keep Manitobans out of pharmacy line-ups; called for the Province to support small business and Early Childhood Education workers. 
To date, the PCs have suspended evictions, but little else. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dougald Lamont speaks at Meth Forum last night to present positive ideas to address the epidemic, while exposing the lack of action by the Pallister Conservatives

Last night at the Notre Dame Recreation Centre in St. Boniface, at an Election Forum on the Meth Crisis in Manitoba, Dougald Lamont spoke eloquently about the severity of the meth epidemic and described the Liberal plan to address it.  The Liberal Plan will make sure that there is a single province-wide phone number for people, or friends of people, who need help dealing with meth to call (as there is in Alberta) and that there will be rapid access to a seamless series of steps - stabilization, detoxification, treatment, extended supportive housing etc so that people with meth addiction can be helped well and effectively and so that they can rebuild their lives.  The Liberal meth plan will be helped by our approach to mental health (putting psychological therapies under medicare), and to poverty (providing better support).  It will also be helped by our vigorous efforts to help young people understand the problems with meth in our education system and to provide alternative positive
3 comments
Read more

Manitoba Liberal accomplishments

  Examples of Manitoba Liberal accomplishments in the last three years Ensured that 2,000 Manitoba fishers were able to earn a living in 2020   (To see the full story click on this link ). Introduced a bill that includes retired teachers on the Pension Investment Board which governs their pension investments. Introduced amendments to ensure school aged children are included in childcare and early childhood education plans moving forward. Called for improvements in the management of the COVID pandemic: ·          We called for attention to personal care homes even before there was a single case in a personal care home. ·            We called for a rapid response team to address outbreaks in personal care homes months before the PCs acted.  ·          We called for a science-based approach to preparing schools to   improve ventilation and humidity long before the PCs acted. Helped hundreds of individuals with issues during the pandemic including those on social assistance
Post a Comment
Read more

The Indigenous Science Conference in Winnipeg June 14-16

  June 14 to 16, I spent three days at the Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference.  It was very worthwhile.   Speaker after speaker talked of the benefits of using both western or mainstream science and Indigenous science.  There is much we can learn from both approaches.   With me above is Myrle Ballard, one of the principal organizers of the conference.  Myrle Ballard, from Lake St. Martin in Manitoba, worked closely with Roger Dube a professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, and many others to make this conference, the first of its kind, a success.  As Roger Dube, Mohawk and Abenaki, a physicist, commented "My feeling is that the fusion of traditional ecological knowledge and Western science methodology should rapidly lead the researchers to much more holistic solutions to problems."   Dr. Myrle Ballard was the first person from her community to get a PhD.  She is currently a professor at the University of Manitoba and the Director of Indigenous Science
Post a Comment
Read more