Manitoba’s NDP government is vowing to hire 1,000 new front line health-care workers this year while offering up to $5,000 in tax breaks to families and an extension of the fuel-tax holiday in its first budget.
The 2024 provincial budget released Tuesday mirrors the party’s key promises from last year’s election, focusing largely on efforts to shore up the ailing health-care system and ease the cost-of-living crisis, while running a deficit of nearly $800 million.
“We’re staffing up the health-care system with tangible, achievable targets this year. You are going to start to see the improvements to health care in this budget year,” Premier Wab Kinew said at a news conference, alongside Finance Minister Adrien Sala. “The challenges that we face in terms of the health-care staffing crisis — the addictions issues, trying to tackle inflation and making life more affordable for people… we can’t just flip the switch and have it done overnight.
“But, we have a comprehensive, well-thought-out plan.”
Kinew and Sala said an earlier pledge to balance the budget later this term is achievable.
“We made a commitment to the people of Manitoba that we will put Manitoba on a positive path forward by rebuilding health care and by bringing in lower costs for you and your family,” Sala said. “Today, we are delivering on that promise.”
The NDP is introducing a single $1,500 property tax credit for homeowners, starting in 2025, to replace a package of rebates designed by the former Progressive Conservative government.
The 50 per cent provincial property tax rebate and $350 education tax credit are being eliminated.
Under the new system, some owners will pay less or no provincial property taxes at all, while homes with higher values will pay more. Owners of homes valued at $250,000 will get a rebate of $308, those with values of $437,000 will see no change, and people with homes worth $850,000 will pay $1,088 more, the province said.
The province said the reform of school tax-related credits and rebates will bring in more revenue.
“This is going to help those who need it most — 83 per cent of Manitobans are going to be doing a lot better under this approach than they did under the previous government,” Kinew said.
The suspension of the 14-cents-per-litre provincial tax on gasoline and diesel is being extended to Sept. 30 because of Imperial Oil’s temporary shutdown of a pipeline between Gretna and Winnipeg and to keep gas prices as low as possible, the budget document says.
Compulsory auto insurance premiums will be cut by five per cent.
The NDP also touted a “broad” middle-class tax cut, which increases tax bracket thresholds to $47,000 and $100,000 in 2024, before returning to annual indexing in 2025.
The basic personal amount, which increased to $15,780 because of indexing in 2024, is projected to increase to $16,206 in 2025.
This year’s budget also extends $10-a-day child care to summer months and holidays for children under 12 at regulated non-profit facilities.
Health spending is hitting a record high of $8.2 billion — up by $980 million from last year. The government said it will hire 100 doctors, 210 nurses, 90 paramedics and 600 health-care aides as part of retention, recruitment and training efforts that will cost $310 million.
“The challenge that we face in health care isn’t going to be solved overnight, but based on the investments in this document, you are going to start seeing improvements in health care this year,” Kinew said.
About $65 million is being set aside to help reduce emergency room wait times, which includes 151 new acute-care beds across Manitoba.
Initial funding to design a new ER at Victoria Hospital is included in $635 million of health capital spending.
Funding to launch an inquiry into the Winnipeg police headquarters and a review of Manitoba’s pandemic response is also in the budget.
The NDP’s inaugural fiscal plan follows two Tory terms marked by austerity or financial restraint.
After a projected deficit of almost $2 billion for the last fiscal term, the largest ever for a non-pandemic year, the NDP is projecting a shortfall of nearly $800 million in 2024-25.
The NDP’s first fiscal blueprint, for the fiscal year starting April 1, includes $24.1 billion in expenses, an increase of nearly six per cent in 2023-24 due, in part, to greater spending on health care and tax cuts.
Projected revenues of $23.3 billion, an increase of 4.3 per cent from last year, are being driven by increases in personal, corporation, retail and education property tax revenues.
Income from Crown corporations dropped by $363 million, mainly because of losses at Manitoba Hydro and Manitoba Public Insurance.
Federal transfers are expected to jump by $992 million, or 13.6 per cent, from 2023.
Other budget highlights include a $4,000 rebate for the purchase of new electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles retroactive to Aug. 1, 2023, a $50 hike in the renter’s tax credit, a $28.57 jump in the seniors’ top-up credit and a doubling of the prenatal benefit to $162.82, which the government said is the highest in Canada.
The plan also contains previously announced commitments of $20 million to search a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of three slain Indigenous women, a supervised drug consumption site in downtown Winnipeg, a universal school nutrition program and free birth control.
After pledging to end chronic homelessness in two terms, the NDP is spending $116 million to help build and maintain 350 social and affordable housing units in the next year.
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Chris Kitching
Reporter
As a general assignment reporter, Chris covers a little bit of everything for the Free Press.