Countdown to the vote

It is time to make up your mind and vote for Heather Stefanson and her team. Never has a decision been so critical and I will tell you why. 

No, it is not because I think Wab Kinew is a bad leader or an incompetent – we have no way of knowing either and I have heard he is smart, but what I do know is that Heather Stefanson is the right person for the time.

For the first time in the last 50 years, I feel that we have a leader who sees the future clearly and understands what it will take for Manitoba to once again realize its potential. We need a reset. We need new blood, new ideas and new enterprise – all the things that made us once the leading province in the west, second and third only to Ontario and Quebec and behind them only because of their greater numbers and longer history.

I believe it was the early mixing of heritages that contributed to our early success. The resilience of the local First Nations had so much to overcome living in the hard environment where only the toughest survived, and they passed those skills on to the newcomers. 

Then the Metis carved a unique way of life out of Manitoba, combining three cultures – First Nations, French and British – to make them all stronger. Later, all this energy and talent was bolstered by the Irish, Icelanders, Chinese, Finnish, Swedes, Ukrainians, and the early Jewish settlers who so enriched our intellectual culture, all re-enriched by all the others who came later. 

Manitobans have been a lovely melting pot of peoples who came together in respect and merged into something greater while each admiring the best things of the other and celebrating together. 

We were strong and united and had a can-do attitude. We cooperated to help each other get through the tough times, a lesson learned from Chief Peguis who saved the Selkirk settlers. We could do anything, and we did. 

But somewhere, over the past four decades or so, we have lost that sense of can-do-it-ness. 

We have begun to look to the other guy to make our beds and all we want to do is lie in them. There is a collective feeling is that having a good life at the expense of others is a “right”, but everything that is a right is also an obligation, an obligation to live and contribute the best you can, and this imparts a duty to help your neighbour – help him, not feed him for life.

So how does all this philosophizing bring you to vote for Heather Stefanson? It is her ability and her attitude. She knows what must be done and she has the inner steel and confidence to do it. She is not afraid to be compassionate and to spend money to help those in need while encouraging the strong to be stronger and build the provincial coffers with their success.

Her vision for 2030 gives us hope. It makes me feel that living another 10 years is worth the effort. Building our economy will help us find the way to a better health care system – but she is also open- minded to ideas such as the need to digitalize the system, as suggested by Wab, which would remove some of the burden from physicians and nurses. She is always open to new ideas – what a refreshing notion.

I have had great fun taking the mickey out of Wab because so much of his platform seems to have been taken from Heather’s play book, but maybe that is just a symptom of his willingness to learn – and a subtle admission that he still has much to do in that regard. Nothing wrong with that. Four years in opposition to an intelligent and far-seeing leader may be just what he needs to cement his own positive future. But the difference is that Heather Stefanson is ready NOW! And we cannot afford to wait for Mr. Kinew to catch up.

So here is the plan:

1. Encourage northern development to increase jobs and opportunity but, just as important, to create economic opportunities for the First Nations who currently live in isolation without hope. (Now is our time to repay the generosity of Chief Peguis and his colleagues of the day.)
2. Grow the population to provide a larger tax base to sustain our talents in manufacturing, in medicine, in the arts and technology – not to mention our all-important agricultural base.
3. Overhaul our health system, bringing it up to modern standards and rationalizing how we deliver it so we set the standard for the country and attract the best and the brightest.
4. Improve education so that we can compete within Canada and around the world.
5. Let you keep more of your own money. Reduce taxes while improving services – which is why we need to grow the economy and the population.

We cannot keep doing the same old things that have brought us failure and a lower standard of living in the past few decades. We need to be bold and fearless, while including citizens and ensuring that they are part of the improvements.

If we do the five things above, we will have the ability to end homelessness, to reduce crime and to bring prosperity to every Manitoban. If, on the other hand, we rely on recycling and redistributing the limited amount of money that is currently in the system, we can only fall farther behind. Even Wab knows that, and he says so with his slogan of the “The economic horse pulls the social cart.” Great slogan, but we need more than a slogan. We need the experience of Heather Stefanson who, I have to tell you folks, has a rod of steel in her backbone that will amaze you.

Please vote early and vote for a bright future. Vote PC and watch the magic of a regenerated team and a fearless, intelligent open-minded leader.