House Leader Nahanni Fontaine reflects on 2019 and the year ahead. 

As we begin a new year, I want to take a moment to look back at the important work your NDP caucus has undertaken since the 2019 election.

Community is at the heart of all our work as NDP MLAs, and that’s why Bernadette Smith, MLA for Point Douglas and I helped organize a community forum to address the issue of violence, safety and drug and addictions issues that impact so many in our province. Hundreds of regular Manitobans turned out to offer real solutions. Read more here. 

We took those community driven solutions to the Legislature and have been constant in our demand for the Pallister Government to address the root causes of crime in our communities.

Our caucus has also proposed an ambitious legislative agenda to hold the Pallister Government to account.

Our Health Critic Uzoma Asagwara introduced groundbreaking legislation that would ban mandatory overtime for nurses in our Emergency Rooms and health care facilities across our province. This bill would help our overwhelmed front line health care workers and enable them to better care for their patients. This is the first step in alleviating the damage caused by Pallister’s health care cuts. Read more here.

Uzoma also introduced an important bill to amend the Vital Statistics Act and provide Manitobans the option to select a gender-neutral identifier on their Birth Certificate. Read more here.

Our Environment and Climate Change critic, Lisa Naylor introduced a bill that would make sure Manitoba lives up to the commitments of the Paris climate accord, cutting our emissions in half by 2030. The bill would hold ministers to account if they failed to meet those important and necessary targets. Read more here.

We know education is next up on Pallister’s chopping block that’s why our MLA for Fort Garry, Mark Wasyliw, introduced legislation to require school principals to be teachers. We want to make sure people in charge of our schools are educators who know our kids, not accountants who are only interested in numbers. Read more here. 

And our leader Wab Kinew introduced legislation to recognize Louis Riel as the first Premier of our province on the 150th anniversary of Manitoba. Read more here.

This is just some of the work your caucus is doing at the Legislature.

Looking forward to the year ahead, we have an ambitious agenda to push through as we work to protect and improve our education system, fight for affordable and accessible child care, and create an alternative progressive vision of our province.

This is important work and we want you to be a part of it by actively participating in your local NDP constituency associations and your community. We’ve begun launching petitions on our website for you to speak out about relevant issues. Please check them out here. 

I look forward to the work ahead of us in 2020. Together we will build a better Manitoba.

    Meegwetch,

   Nahanni Fontaine
   Manitoba NDP House Leader