Today’s NDP - Six Years Too Late

Last weekend, The Winnipeg Sun had an “informational” ad from the government about the Province’s increased infrastructure expenditures. When I moved back home from Toronto in 2000 I was astounded at the realization that my daily commute of 17 kilometres along Route 90 often took LONGER than my previous daily 35 kilometre commute from Toronto to Mississauga along Canada’s busiest highway, the 401.

While Gary Doer was in Texas back then trying to sell Winnipeg as a transport hub, he was simultaneously telling the citizens of Winnipeg that the Kenaston underpass was “not a strategic priority.” I present to you a Letter to the Editor that I sent to both daily papers six years ago. After six long years, apparently infrastructure is FINALLY a strategic priority for the NDP. Although we did get catchy billboards saying “Train make you late? Thank Gary for the wait!” from the Tories of the time to help add some levity to Doer et al’s oversights.

Keep in mind Constant Reader (the Hack should know who I borrowed this moniker from) that my musings on NDP fiscal management were BEFORE the floodway cost overruns, pension electioneering and the Crocus fiasco. Looking back, my rhetoric was decidedly heated. Waiting at countless train crossings (my record was three LONG trains in one day!) has a tendency of doing that to someone.

Thanks for the infrastructure ad complete with resplendent bar graphs, Premier Doer. If your government truly thought Manitoba Means Business, you would have addressed many of our critical infrastructure deficiencies earlier in the course of your administrative tenure. Everything you said and did for your past two terms is a signal to voters about what truly is and ISN’T important to you and your party. The election goodies coming on April 4, 2007 coupled with the recent glut of public advertising won’t change that fact…



Without further ado let me take you back to a time that shows exactly how serious the NDP is about infrastructure:


February 24, 2001


The provincial NDP government has once again proven their ineptitude in the management of the Province of Manitoba’s affairs in their stance on the proposed Kenaston St. bridge. One of the City’s precious few North-South arteries remains clogged and Gary Doer will have nothing to do with the possible alleviation of this problem. This is a shameful lack of support for a city that is trying to position itself as a major transportation hub in the eyes of the global marketplace.

The proposed infrastructure improvement is more than just a convenience to the citizens of Linden Woods and Whyte Ridge, two communities not known as staunch NDP supporters in the first place. Manitoba is home to and the head office of many trucking companies. While their trucks remain stopped at the Kenaston rail crossing burning the gasoline that fills the provincial coffers with tax revenue, Premier Doer refuses to support one of the few industries that has elected to retain their vital presence in the province.

The NDP government has proven frivolous and petulant with the province’s purse strings. While they refuse to have intelligent discourse to help an already beleaguered trucking industry, they pander to their usual special interest groups. Throwing all the money in the world into health care and downtown Winnipeg will not solve the underlying systemic problems of these two issues. It only scores the NDP brownie points with some of their constituents. Unfortunately, these political points come at the expense of making Winnipeg a more efficient place to do business.

Winnipeg once had the proud moniker of “Chicago of the North,” complete with all the promise inherent in that comparison. In the early part of the 20th century, industry and people flourished. The NDP government seems determined to move us as far from this part of our past as possible. If they continue to pander to special interest groups instead of nurturing the infrastructure for industries that add jobs and relevance to our City’s business community, Winnipeg is sure to be relegated to nothing more than a backwater community while cities such as Calgary continue to profit at our expense. Is this how Mr. Doer would have himself written into the annals of provincial history?

Conversely, I feel Mayor Glen Murray deserves to be lauded for his attempts to find solutions to this critical infrastructure weakness. It is my belief that the civic history books will depict him as an individual who strove to make this City a better place to be for both people and industry even if people did not agree with him 100% of the time.


Name Withheld
Winnipeg, Manitoba