Manitoba’s promised plastic health cards pushed to January [Video]

The Manitoba government’s plan to replace paper health cards with more durable and modern plastic ones is running a bit behind schedule.

Premier Wab Kinew has said on a few occasions, including in a social media video last month, that people would be able to start applying for the new cards in December.

He now says the process is to get underway in mid-January and that it was pushed back in part by the postal workers’ strike.

“We had existing (paper) health cards going out the door, just kind of starting to pile up,” Kinew said in an interview.

“We definitely respect the postal workers’ right to strike, but we took that period to say, ‘You know what, there’s some other things we could do in terms of the technical roll out and preparing to fulfil everyone’s new applications quickly.”‘

Kinew’s government made plastic health cards a key promise in …