Manitoba government’s 2024 budget | FULL PRESS CONFERENCE [Video]

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/budget-2024-1.7159693

Manitoba is facing a nearly $800-million deficit for the year ahead, as the first budget under the NDP government promises incremental progress on a number of election commitments, along with new tax relief geared toward lower-income households.

The Manitoba government’s 2024 budget, released Tuesday, pledges to double the province’s spending on health-care infrastructure — including beginning the process of building a new emergency room at Winnipeg’s Victoria Hospital.

It also promises to extend the provincial gas tax holiday by another three months and introduce changes to the education property tax next year that will essentially eliminate the tax for some homeowners, but see the owners of higher-valued homes pay more.

A total of $635 million is budgeted for health-sector capital projects, including starting the process of opening a new Victoria ER, along with an emergency room in the Interlake community of Eriksdale and a new CancerCare headquarters — all NDP election promises.

However, the budget doesn’t offer a timeline for any of those projects, though Premier Wab Kinew, speaking during an early afternoon briefing with reporters, said he expects “shovels in the ground” for Victoria’s ER within two years.

That south Winnipeg emergency room was converted into an urgent care centre in 2017, under what the then Progressive Conservative government called the “most significant change in the health-care system in a generation.”