When the Thompson Citizen had the audacity to suggest in an editorial back in February that perhaps the City of Thompson was having to adjust to a new reality in which it didn’t hold as much sway with the current provincial government as it had back when the NDP was in power and the local MLA was a long-serving cabinet minister, the current MLA, Kelly Bindle of the Progressive Conservatives used his MLA Report, published two days later in the Nickel Belt News to attest that, to the contrary, “our government is maintaining strong and positive communication with municipal officials in Thompson.”
Well, if that is the case, and if the evidence that the February editorial was based on, including a committee recommendation to send a letter to Bindle expressing disappointment about the mayor not being notified in advance about Finance Minister Cameron Friesen being in Thompson for a PC party meeting, was somehow incorrect, or perhaps interpreted wrongly, it seems that relations must have suffered a serious setback in the intervening four months.
These days, it seems, some provincial government ministers and the city are doing most of their talking via third parties, especially when it comes to the issue of the Mining Community Reserve Fund, which is funded by taxes paid by mining companies to support mineral exploration programs and, from time to time, mining communities facing economic hardships due to mines shutting down. Provided, that is, that the fund has a balance of at least $10 million, perhaps so that the provincial government has access to some emergency funding in the event of an unanticipated shortfall in revenues, to cushion the blow of a situation that would otherwise force it to make spending cuts in order to achieve budget targets, though of course, the provincial government, having the ability to run deficits wouldn’t be in as much of a bind in that situation as, say, a municipality, which is required by legislation to have a balanced budget.
For the city, the current intermediary of choice is the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM), which represents all municipalities in the province and lobbies on their behalf, though it isn’t frequently confrontational about it and works in partnership with the provincial government on various initiatives that impact municipalities.
Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Blaine Pedersen, whose portfolio includes overseeing the province’s mineral resources and who might choose, perhaps, to select his legislative assistant, the aforementioned Bindle, to speak with the City of Thompson on his behalf, instead ended up with an unexpected messenger in the form of former United Steelworkers Local 6166 president Les Ellsworth, who asked councillors June 4 if it was true, as Pedersen told him, that the reason the city has yet to receive any money from the MCRF despite the obvious mining-related economic challenges it is facing, was because they had not presented the province with any substantial plans for how to use that money. Ellsworth, given his union activism, isn’t likely a big fan of the Progressive Conservatives, and has expressed his displeasure with Bindle on a number of occasions and issues. On the other hand, he’s no big fan of the current mayor and council either, it seems.
Why relations between the City of Thompson and the provincial government, which were apparently hunky-dory just a few months ago, have worsened since winter gave way to spring is anybody’s guess. Maybe Thompson, a city Premier Brian Pallister hasn’t made any public appearances in since before being elected back in 2016, doesn’t play as big a role as it used to in the province’s economy and politics, though initiatives such as the province’s Look North task force would seem to indicate that the government sees untapped potential in the north, words Pedersen himself used in a recent op-ed column regarding the mining industry in Manitoba. Or maybe the province just doesn’t see the point in maintaining good relations with the current city administration, given that the mayor and the current city manager will no longer be running the show come the end of October. Or maybe they really just do want to see that money invested to help shape the way that Thompson’s economy is transformed over the next few years is money well spent though, honestly, it’s pretty rare for a provincial government to consider plans that extend for the next three years as short-term, given that their own political expiry date could theoretically come just two years from now.
