The Gerrard Report

It is the evening before the by-election in St. Boniface constituency which is tomorrow from 8 am to 8 pm.  Thank you to MaryAnn Mihychuk and Dan Vandal and Judy Klassen and everyone else for coming out to help this evening.  This photo was taken just before Judy arrived so she is not in it.  But Judy did good work going door to door with the rest of us.  Thank you all.

Yesterday afternoon Dan Vandal and many, many more people joined the door to door campaign to elect Dougald Lamont in St. Boniface in the by-election this Tuesday July 17th.  If you live in St. Boniface, and have not yet voted, be sure to get out to vote for Dougald Lamont on Tuesday.  Thank you.

Friday July 13th Councillor John Orlikow, Mayor Brian Bowman and Councillor Mike Pagtakhan were present to announce the site for the new Bill and Helen Norrie Library in River Heights.   It will be located at the corner of Grant and Cambridge near the Pan Am Pool.   

Wednesday July 11 Disability Matters and Barrier Free Manitoba staged a rally on Provencher Boulevard to bring attention to the need to improve access in Manitoba for people with disabilities.  There is much that is needed to be done.  Dougald Lamont and I were out to show our Manitoba Liberal Party support for this important cause.  My friend David Weremy was very involved with the rally.   

Yesterday, Kevin and Cathy Lamoureux joined the team in going door to door in St. Boniface.    My wife Naomi was particularly pleased to see Cathy as well as Kevin.  Naomi has been stalwart in coming out to help and it was nice to see other family members joining in as well.

Yesterday, Dougald Lamont released his full platform for the by-election campaign in St. Boniface.  It is below:


Dougald Lamont, Leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party and candidate for MLA in St. Boniface, released the major policy planks of his St. Boniface platform today. The commitments build on Lamont’s 2017 leadership platform - creating a Manitoba Business Development Bank, dismantling RHAs, and a study into rail relocation, as well as specific commitments to French language education and culture: restoring the Bureau de l’éducation française and making St. Boniface a creative “hub” for arts, culture, heritage and tourism, is an idea that came from the community, and it is by listening to and working with the people at the grassroots level that we will move forward. “For St. Boniface voters, this by-election is your opportunity to elect a leader who shares your progressive values and will add strong new opposition to Pallister, right from the front bench in the legislature,” said L…

Terry Duguid and Doug Eyolfson were out last night to support Dougald Lamont in his bid to be the next MLA in St. Boniface and to help with our efforts going door-to-door to have a conversation with people in St. Boniface. Thank you Terry and Doug. 

This afternoon, Bidhu Jha and Jim Bear came out to show their support for Dougald Lamont in his campaign to become the next MLA in St. Boniface.   With election day coming soon - on July 17th, this was an important show of support.  As Bidhu Jha, a former NDP MLA for Radisson indicated to the Winnipeg Free Press press recently he " is no longer a party member and laments its leadership at both the provincial and federal level."   Today, he showed his support for our Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont.  Thank you Bidhu Jha for your support.  Chief Jim Bear served for many years as the Chief of the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, and is highly respected as a leader in the Indigenous community in Manitoba. Thank you Jim Bear for your support.  To have endorsements and support from two such leaders is impressive and shows the breadth of the support Dougald Lamont is building during this election campaign.

I have put forward strong reasons for having a province-wide preventative health care services plan.  This plan is essential to improve the health of our population and to decrease health care costs in our province.  Sadly under the NDP and so far under the Conservatives such planning has been very limited and we currently lack a province-wide preventative health services plan.   As a result, we are continuing to see increases in the number of Manitobans with conditions like diabetes,HIV and addictions problems - as with the current methamphetamine epidemic.  I have raised all these concerns in the Manitoba Legislature. Increasing evidence now supports the fact that well designed investments in prevention can improve health and decrease health care costs starting in the first year.  It is is of great concern that we are well into the third year of the current Pallister government and yet we still do not have a province-wide preventative health services plan, or even a commitment to pu…