Electric vehicles, lowering tuition on NDP agenda

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This article was published 16/11/2017 (2352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Elect Wab Kinew premier in 2020 and there could be an interest-free Tesla in your driveway.

With Premier Brian Pallister set to reveal his government’s throne speech Tuesday, the NDP leader released his party’s alternative throne speech Friday.

“I want to be able to buy you your first Tesla,” Kinew said. “We would be able to finance 2,500 electric vehicles in the first year.”

Kinew said he’d take half of the $250 million Pallister expects to get each year through carbon taxes and use the money to buy electric vehicles for Manitobans. They’d repay interest-free over eight years, while reducing carbon emissions and reducing their own carbon taxes.

Kinew would scrap Bill 31, which increases university and college tuition next fall to five per cent plus inflation, and roll it back initially to inflationary increases, then work on reducing tuition until it is free.

The NDP would shift health care away from cutting spending, to putting an emphasis on preventing people from needing to use the system. “The true driver of cost in the health care system is the overall wellness of people,” he said.

Kinew said that Manitoba is only at 20 per cent proportionally of the long-term care beds in Vanocuver — even if Pallister converts closed emergency rooms into long-term-care beds, Manitoba will be hundreds of beds short of 50 per cent of Vancouver’s capacity. Those beds would reduce waiting times by freeing up space for acute-care beds, he said.

He acknowledged that the problem goes back to the former NDP government, but used his increasingly frequent argument that it’s not on him, because Kinew wasn’t elected until 2016 and didn’t become leader until September.

And he’ll deal with the impending loss of 1,500 jobs in northern Manitoba while improving the economy throughout the north.

When he talks to Manitobans, said KInew, he finds “fair minds, big hearts, and a desire to see Manitoba on the right path. They told us to get back to basics.

“They see a premier who appears to be losing his compassion and focusing only on the money. We cannot cut our way,” he said.

What worries him most about Tuesday’s throne speech is what will be announced, Kinew said.

Pallister is showing a pattern of waiting several months before making cuts and getting deeper into austerity, he told reporters.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca