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No delivery guarantee on promises made; proof of progress on key issues what matters most
Manitoba’s incoming NDP government will not make good on all of its election promises. New governments rarely, if ever, do. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * Opinion Manitoba’s incoming NDP government will not make good on all of its election promises. New governments rarely, if ever, do. Election promises are important. But most of them are not written in stone. They signal a political party’s intentions if they form government. However, the pledges are — and should be — subject to change depending on evolving circumstances. Most election commitments are forgotten or dropped because they were too vague to measure or were never doable in the first place. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Manitoba Premier-designate Wab Kinew promised voters a lot during the election campaign; some of those promises were realistic, some were not.. Good intentions die frequently around cabinet tables when new, inexperienced politicians find out what they promised voters either can’t be done for legal, financial or practical reasons or may not have been a good idea in the first place. In 1999, the New Democrats promised to elect members to regional health authorities to make them more democratic. They ditched the idea once in government after discovering it was impractical. They pledged during the same election to significantly change the ratio of part-time nursing positions to full-time jobs. Once in government, they found out the health-care system needs an abundance of part-time nurses to help fill scheduling gaps. The commitment was dropped. Governments do make good on some election pledges. The NDP promised in 1999 to cut tuition fees by 10 per cent and freeze them afterwards. They followed through on that commitment, even though it turned out to be a bad idea that starved universities of revenue and didn’t improve accessibility. The party promised to balance the books, which it did most years until a leadership change in 2009. The NDP promised smaller class sizes and delivered. The Progressive Conservative party pledged during the 2016 election to reduce the PST to seven per cent, which it did. The party also promised to balance the books over two terms. It achieved that in three years before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and government fell back into deficit. So how will premier-designate Wab Kinew and the incoming NDP government fare in all of this? They promised voters a lot during the campaign in heath care, education, infrastructure and child care. Some of those promises were realistic, some were not. Some will be easy to achieve, such as a one-year freeze on Hydro rates and cutting the gas tax temporarily. Others will be more difficult, such as staffing up hospitals and reducing wait times. The NDP will be judged mostly on whether it can demonstrate tangible results in health care. That was by far the party’s most important commitment during the campaign and one Kinew has reaffirmed post-election. Public expectation is high in this area. The most meaningful measurement of good governance, though, is how decisions are made once a new party is in office. The first thing new premiers and cabinet ministers do after they’re sworn in is sit down with senior civil servants and get briefed on current issues. They’re also given options on how to implement their election promises (civil servants don’t participate in elections but they observe campaigns closely and often come prepared when a new government enters office). Some campaign promises will be doable and some won’t. What’s important is what premiers and cabinet ministers do with the new intelligence they receive (which they didn’t have while in opposition). They will discover things about the inner workings of government they didn’t know and will have to make decisions accordingly. How they adjust and pivot, even if it means breaking or altering an election promise to land on the right decision, will make or break their success in government. Good judgment is the key to good governance, not necessarily what was promised in an election campaign. Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. The NDP will likely discover, for example, that reopening three emergency departments, and massively reorganizing hospitals to do it, may not be the best way to improve patient care. No government can “fix” health care, or even define what that means. But government can make improvements in the system by reducing wait times, expanding hospital capacity and making primary care more available to the public. Manitobans will expect measurable results from the NDP in all those areas. Anything less will be seen as a failure. Governing, for the most part, comes down to priorities. If the NDP makes good on its election pledge to “end chronic homelessness” in eight years, for example, what matters most is not whether they achieve that goal in absolute terms (which would be almost impossible to measure) but whether they make significant progress on it. The public doesn’t expect perfection from governments, but it does demand tangible results and sound judgment. New governments should do what they promised to do and explain why they can’t if there’s a good reason. That’s all the public can ask for. [email protected] Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019. Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019. Advertisement Advertisement
Publish Date : 2023-10-06 20:45:37
Image and News Source : winnipegfreepress
