The Manitoba NDP uses a complicated delegate system to elect its leader, a process that will be under scrutiny at its leadership convention in March. Here’s a look at how it works, and two alternative systems used by Canadian political parties.

Manitoba NDP delegates

At the NDP leadership convention, each electoral constituency, and the Manitoba Young New Democrats, get one delegate for every 10 party members they have. There are another nearly 220 automatic delegates, who are the party’s provincial council and current Manitoba NDP MLAs and MPs.

Finally, the unions get a fixed 20 per cent of the total number of delegates, which means the more delegates from the other groups, the more delegates the unions get.

Manitoba’s highways and rural roads were significantly safer in 2014, with a drop in the number of people killed in vehicle collisions. There were 68 fatal collisions with 73 people killed in 2014, compared with 81 crashes and 95 deaths in 2013. Cpl. Mark Hume, who’s an officer at RCMP’s West District Traffic Services and a forensic collision reconstructionist, says he thinks the “message is starting to get across.”

Road deaths down 23 per cent“There’s still a long way to go. We still had 68 crashes and 73 deaths, which is far too high, but it’s definitely an improvement,” Hume said.

Summer months are usually the deadliest for drivers, with 34 per cent of deaths in 2014 happening in June, July and August. However, half of all 2013 deaths happened in those months.

Hume said he couldn’t pinpoint any specific reason for that drop, but he attributed the safer summer to MPI and RCMP road safety campaigns aimed around holidays and long weekends, and against drinking and driving. Summer would also have fewer weather-related crashes, unlike winter where drivers have to deal with adverse road conditions.

Manitoba’s First Nations still get most of their funding from the government, even though many are now operating successful business enterprises to boost their financial coffers. For the first time, the financial documents of Manitoba’s First Nations are all available in one place online, allowing us to get an idea of how they’re doing and how they’re being managed.

The First Nations Financial Transparency Act requires all First Nations in Canada to post their consolidated financial statements and the salaries of their elected officials online. The documents are available to the public on the federal government’s website. The government also has the power to withhold funding or take a First Nation to court to force them to disclose their documents.

While most Manitoba bands have complied with the law, 11 First Nations have not posted all their documents online yet. Some communities elsewhere in the country have said they will resist the law, seeing it as an intrusion into internal aboriginal affairs, and one First Nation is challenging the law in court.

The documents lay out the financial health of Manitoba’s First Nations, revealing the amount of debt they hold, how the money is spent and how various communities are turning to entrepreneurship to pad their budgets.