So much for openness and transparency from the new NDP government.
Six months after being sworn into office, the NDP is already showing signs that it’s not eager to share information with the public about how it spends tax dollars.
Case in point: the Free Press has been trying to obtain information about a COVID-19 pandemic premium that’s still being paid to some front-line nurses, even though the pandemic has been over for some time.
Health-care workers run tests on a COVID-19 suspected patient at the Health Sciences Centre in 2020. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Pool / The Canadian Press files)
The former Tory government announced in 2021 that it would pay a $6-an-hour premium to nurses working in emergency departments, intensive-care units and personal-care homes. The hazard pay was meant to compensate nurses for being exposed to COVID-19 patients and to help with recruitment and retention.
The policy immediately drew howls of protests from other front-line workers who demanded to know why they weren’t receiving the salary boost, since they were also exposed to COVID-19 patients. Nurses working in urgent-care centres wrote the province to complain that they faced the same pandemic hazards and hardships as nurses in ERs and demanded the same compensation.
Fast-forward almost three years and the pandemic premium is still being paid to nurses in ERs, ICUs and personal-care homes, the NDP government has confirmed. Apparently it’s a sensitive topic, because it took more than a week for the NDP’s cabinet communications staff to answer that question.
Cabinet communications personnel are political staff who act as liaisons between cabinet ministers and the news media. They get their marching orders from the premier’s office.
Providing the public with information about government operations, including how and why tax dollars are spent, is a critical part of maintaining an open and transparent government. It shows respect for the public.
Denying information, without providing a valid reason, displays the opposite trait: a closed, secretive government unwilling to share important information with taxpayers.
The former Tory government was regularly criticized for its secretive ways. The NDP, then in opposition, was among the critics. Now that it’s in government, it’s starting to show the same behaviour.
The only thing government is willing to say on the nurses premium is that it’s still being paid and that it cost taxpayers $25.2 million in 2023-24. Cabinet communications says the province is covering the cost of the premium by providing funding to facilities, including hospitals with ERs and ICUs.
What it won’t explain or comment on is why the premium is still being paid if the pandemic is over or how long will it be paid. If it’s being used to help with nurse retention and recruitment, why not extend it to all nurses? What about other front-line workers, such as allied health-care staff, where there are also personnel shortages? Government refuses to say.
Salaries, benefits and premiums should be part of contract negotiations. While it may have been acceptable during a public health emergency such as a pandemic to offer that premium outside the collective bargaining process, it should revert back to normal contract talks once the emergency is over. It may be that the premium is still necessary to retain nurses. But it should form part of the collective agreement.
Whatever the case, government refuses to discuss any of this or to release any more information about it.
“Unfortunately, we can’t comment on this matter any further at the moment,” cabinet communications staff said in a recent email.
When asked why not, government refused to respond. Apparently it’s a state secret why the province is still paying some nurses a pandemic premium and not others, how long it will continue and whether health-care facilities will eventually be stuck with the bill.
Meanwhile, it was ironic that the NDP government announced plans this week to make public-sector organizations more open and accessible under the Accessibility for Manitobans Act. Among other things, the new policy requires government agencies and other public-sector organizations to “provide information in an accessible format or through a communication support if requested.”
Either the new policy doesn’t apply to cabinet communications and the premier’s office, or the NDP is not following its own edict. Regardless, the troubling signs of a secretive government are already seeping in.
tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
Tom Brodbeck
Columnist
Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019.