Last week, our government’s Minister of Municipal Relations Jeff Wharton provided Thompson Regional Airport Authority president and CEO Curtis Ross with a letter of support in principle for an application for federal funding for the airport’s terminal redevelopment project. In appreciation of the support in principle from our government, Ross replied that, “In my 15 years of service with the Thompson Airport, this is one of the first times we have had support of our provincial government in any way, shape or form, assisting us to make a federal government funding application.” He went on to say, “We have requested this of previous governments in the past only to be stonewalled or pushed aside. (The minister) should know my board of directors will be extremely pleased and this will not go unnoticed by them and the region as a whole.”
Our Manitoba government is also supporting women who want to work in trades, through a new $25,000 grant to the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology. The funding is going to an initiative to increase the number of women enrolled in the school’s programs, and to the development of promotional materials to increase interest in trades and other careers in which women are under-represented. The grant announcement was made during Women’s Equality Week, which our government proclaimed in 2017 for the third week of January.
This week, as well, our government joined Bell Let’s Talk to announce we are jointly contributing $1 million over five years to the Strongest Families Institute to expand timely and family-centred mental health care for children and youth. The Strongest Families Institute uses a distance-coaching approach to assist families in the privacy of their homes as they deal with mild to moderate mental illnesses and other health issues. The service, which also operates in seven other provinces, has a no-wait-list policy and is expected to help about 1,000 Manitoba families during the next five years. It will be launched formally in Manitoba in the coming weeks. Further information is online at www.strongestfamilies.com.
