Municipalities meeting questions fate of former Pineland Nursery

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This article was published 21/11/2021 (1131 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Provincial cabinet ministers faced tough questions at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention Monday in Winnipeg.

A councillor with the Rural Municipality of Reynolds asked the province to restore the former Pineland Nursery, a Crown corporation that was shut down and sold to a private hemp firm (B.C.-based Botanist Organic Growers Corp.) for $1.43 million — a deal that went bust and killed jobs in the area.

The former tree nursery near Hadashville was supposed to have been sold after Manitoba issued a request for proposal when it was deemed no longer viable as a provincially operated entity. The buyer didn’t follow through, its lease was terminated in September, and it owes the province $500,000.

Central Services Minister Reg Helwer said the province is evaluating what to do next with the site — whether to issue another RFP or work with Manitoba Hydro or provincial forestry services to “see what the best path going forward is.”

Municipality representatives also asked about increased training requirement hours for licensing volunteer emergency responders. The number of required training hours are increasing to 360 hours from the current 120, and municipalities are concerned they will lose volunteer emergency responders and have difficulty recruiting new ones as a result.

Former health minister Cameron Friesen (now justice minister) said the Tory government has moved toward the professionalization of paramedics in the province, and the new training requirements are set by the College of Paramedics of Manitoba, the regulatory body established in 2018. He said he would convey the concerns to Health Minister Audrey Gordon.

“We don’t want to be unsympathetic to communities,” he said.

The lack of cellphone service in parts of Manitoba was another noted concern.

RM of Mountain Reeve Rob Hanson asked Helwer why, in 2021, there are communities in Manitoba that still lack such service and if he will change that.

“Are you going to be the guy who makes history and gets cell service for all of Manitoba?” Hanson asked.

“Stay tuned,” responded Helwer. “We have announcements coming forward very soon that I think you’ll be quite pleased with. It won’t happen overnight… (but) over the next couple of years.”

Municipalities also wanted to know when the majority of provincial department staff will be returning to in-person work in their offices.

“It seems like everyone is working from home and we don’t get answers in a timely fashion,” said one representative. RM offices are open and trying to serve people but often have a hard time getting answers from provincial departments that aren’t open, and have staff working from home, the representative said.

Helwer said during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 5,000 core civil servants were working from home. Now there are closer to 4,000, he said, adding if RMs are having difficulty getting answers, they should contact a minister’s office for assistance.

However, Helwer couldn’t say when the number of civil servants in offices might return to pre-pandemic levels. “It’s a very unpredictable environment right now.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca