Stormy weather cuts legislature session short

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This article was published 10/10/2019 (2403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The early snowstorm cut short an already abbreviated session of the legislature Thursday — and prompted Opposition questions about potential job cuts at Manitoba Hydro.

The first session of the 42nd Manitoba legislature was to wind-up around 7:30 p.m. — a day earlier than scheduled — due to the storm moving in on southern part of the province.

The two-week session was called to pass the 2019 provincial budget, which was introduced March 7. It had yet to be approved by the legislative assembly when Tory Premier Brian Pallister called an early election.

Progressive Conservative house leader Kelvin Goertzen said there was concern some rural MLAs, particularly in western Manitoba, may find it difficult to get home for the Thanksgiving weekend if the session did not wrap up early.

The storm was also on the mind of NDP Leader Wab Kinew, as he used it as a pretext to ask the premier about potential government-mandated job cuts at Manitoba Hydro.

Noting thousands of Winnipeggers were without power Thursday, Kinew suggested any cuts could jeopardize Hydro’s service reliability and possibly jeopardize public safety.

“We are concerned about the steps that this government is taking to undermine those workers and their jobs,” he said.

Pallister, who has only talked about wanting to see further reductions in senior management positions at Hydro, denied trimming from the top would put the public at risk.

“Hydro remains very top-heavy in its structure, and protecting front-line workers is what the people on this side of the house are about,” the premier said in question period.

Pallister said more trimming at the top of the Crown energy corporation would see the organization be more in line with what it had been when NDP premier Gary Doer was in power in the early 2000s.

“We believe a well-run Hydro organization would be a strength to the people who work in it and a strength to the people of Manitoba,” the premier said.

Afterwards, Kinew said he didn’t believe any mandated job cuts at Hydro would be restricted to senior management.

“What we’ve seen from Mr. Pallister is that when he makes cuts, as with health care, it’s not management that’s getting cut. It’s front-line services that we’re losing,” he said.

“With this storm over Manitoba right now, it just makes it so top of mind that when that Crown corporation is already telling us that if they lose any more jobs the grid is going to be unreliable… then we should all be concerned,” the NDP leader said.

A new session of the legislature is expected to begin Nov. 19.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca