As reported by the Government of Manitoba News Media Services August 27, 2009

Premier Doer to Pass Baton After 10 Years of Leadership

Premier Gary Doer today announced he will resign this fall after a replacement is chosen. Following 10 years at the helm of the provincial government, Doer said the time is right for renewal.

“I look back with pride at all the hard work this team has done on behalf of all Manitobans, but there is still more work to be done to ensure this province is everything it can be,” Doer said. “As we mark the 10-year anniversary of our government, this is the appropriate time to pass the baton to a new leader who can carry on that important work.”

Doer was first elected to the legislative assembly in 1986 on behalf of the people of the constituency of Concordia. As a member of Howard Pawley’s government, he served as minister of urban affairs.

Doer became leader of the New Democratic Party in the middle of the 1988 provincial election. Following the 1990 election, he became leader of the official opposition. In 1999, he led his party to government and became the premier. In total, he led his party to three consecutive majorities.

“I am grateful to the people of Manitoba for giving me the chance to serve them,” Doer said. “No one should doubt that it is a great honour to sit in the legislature and work on behalf of the citizens of this province.”

Doer led a government with a mandate to invest in health care, education, justice and the economy.

“There are new hospitals, more doctors and nurses, one of the healthiest economies in Canada, a strong justice system and an education system that meets the needs of more students than ever before,” said Doer. “These are accomplishments of the entire government, not any one person. Any government must renew itself to maintain the ability to work on behalf of the people who elected it. I look forward to working without team as a new leader is chosen in the coming months.”

Background Information

March 18, 1986 — Elected MLA for Concordia

April 17, 1986 — Appointed minister of urban affairs

• Introduced business improvement zone legislation
• Represented Manitoba on The Forks Development Board and worked with Jake Epp and Bill Norrie to convert the former rail yard and its facilities into a new public space

Feb. 5, 1987 — Appointed minister of Crown investments

• Introduced the Crown Accountability Act

March 30, 1988 — Elected leader of the Manitoba NDP in the middle of a provincial election (following the defeat of Premier Howard Pawley’s government in the legislature) but declined to be sworn in as premier

• Served on the all-party provincial panel on the Meech Lake Accord

April 26, 1988 — Re-elected MLA for Concordia and leader of the third party in the Manitoba legislature with 12 seats

Sept. 11, 1990 — Re-elected MLA for Concordia and leader of the official opposition with 20 seats in the legislature

April 25, 1995 — Re-elected MLA for Concordia and leader of the official opposition with 23 seats in the Legislature

Sept. 21, 1999 — Re-elected MLA for Concordia and elected as Manitoba’s 20^th premier with a majority of 32 seats in the legislature

• The mandate of the new government included investments in health capital and the training of health professionals; targeted expansion of college and university enrolment and a commitment that funding for schools would keep pace with economic growth; an economic development strategy based on a partnership model and a new commitment to clean energy production; justice system and crime prevention measures; and a commitment to balanced budgets.

June 3, 2003 — Re-elected MLA for Concordia and re-elected as premier of Manitoba with a majority of 35 seats in the legislature

May 25, 2007 — Re-elected MLA for Concordia and re-elected as premier of Manitoba with a majority of 36 seats in the legislature

For the past 10 years, the Doer government has led the country in legislation, programs and policy that have improved the lives of Manitobans:

• 1st province to invest in a gamma knife, a laser instrument that allows cancerous tumors to be removed from the brain without surgery (2003)
• 1st province to provide dialysis service in a First Nations community at Norway House (2000)
• 1st province to have firefighters’ presumptive legislation for firefighters to expedite Workers Compensation coverage for cancers of the brain and kidney as well as non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and leukemia (2002)
• 1st on the justice front including 1st province to make it mandatory to report child pornography (2009),1st dedicated gang prosecution unit (2001) and 1st province to introduce Turnabout, a program focused on those who break the law but are under 12 and so can’t be charged
• 1st province to introduce a ban on phosphorus in dishwashing detergent and a ban on lawn fertilizer containing phosphorus (2007)
• 1st province to legislate its Kyoto target (2008)
• 1st province to eliminate the small business tax (now 1 per cent, to be eliminated in 2010)
• 1st provincial child-benefit program in Western Canada
• 1st government in Canada to introduce a Gas Tax Accountability Act to ensure all provincial road-use gasoline and diesel fuel taxes and any new share of federal fuel taxes are invested in roads and other transportation infrastructure (2004)

The size of Manitoba’s economy has grown by 65 per cent to $51.4 billion from $31.2 billion. We have worked with Manitobans on making the provincial economy stronger by:

• Saving $864 million in the rainy day fund, nearly quadrupling the amount when we entered office, and reducing our debt to GDP ratio by 27 per cent
• Moving to eliminate three taxes: the Education Support Levy, the Small Business Tax and the Corporate Capital Tax
• Investing in foods of the future at the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals at the University of Manitoba and the Food Development Centre at Portage la Prairie
• Investing in manufacturing, aerospace, green buses, life sciences, training and research through partnerships with industry, such as the Advanced Manufacturing Initiative, the Composites Innovation Centre and the Heavy Equipment Training Centre at Red River College
• Promoting a more robust real estate sector that has seen home values more than double
• Instituting new employment standards rules that include, for the first time in 50 years, new protections for agricultural workers
• Reforming the Labour Relations Act in 2000 and seeing a 50 per cent reduction in person days lost to strikes and lockouts
• Increasing resources to promote safer and healthier workplaces and ensuring a six-fold increase in the number of workplace inspections that were performed a decade ago

Our Economic Future Will Even Be Stronger: By creating 4,000 apprenticeship training spaces, by eliminating the small business tax and the corporation capital tax, by making Manitoba a centre for medical research using the International Centre of Infectious Diseases as its hub and making investments in productivity, innovation and infrastructure, such as CentrePort Canada.

Winnipeg has experienced a decade of strong and impressive growth. Our government is helping build a more vibrant Winnipeg by:

• Protecting Winnipeg from a one-in-700-year flood by expanding the Red River Floodway
• Providing a 10-fold increase in province’s contribution to Winnipeg road construction from $3 million to $32 million, in addition to investment in major projects such as the Kenaston Underpass
• Working with private sector and other partners on key investments in downtown Winnipeg such as the MTS Centre, the Princess Avenue campus forRed River College
• Working with newly merged Manitoba Hydro to locate its new headquarters in downtown Winnipeg rather than the original suburban location
• Investing in key health care projects throughout Winnipeg including Health Sciences Centre redevelopment and emergency room redevelopments at Seven Oaks, Concordia and Victoria hospitals
• Restoring the 50-50 partnership in transit funding and investing in a rapid transit corridor for Winnipeg
• Investing in Winnipeg’s wastewater treatment plant and making Manitoba’s first-ever one-third commitment to the remaining two plants
• Committing $60 million to improve recreation facilities, including a soccer complex for south Winnipeg

And We Will Make Winnipeg Even Stronger: By contributing to a plan to ensure the Disraeli Bridge is not completely closed during its redevelopment, by investing in further recreation improvements and by moving forward with other projects such as a new football stadium, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and infrastructure that supports the IKEA project.

Manitoba has among the strongest and most vibrant rural communities in Canada. We have worked with local residents to make these communities strong by:

• Supporting green-fuel production, a new market for Manitoba producers, by implementing an ethanol mandate that led to construction of Husky Energy’s $200 million plant at Minnedosa
• Developing Manitoba’s first-ever 99-megawatt wind farm at St. Leon
• Equalizing Hydro rates so rural residents pay the same for electricity as Winnipeg residents
• Establishing the Office of the Chief Veterinarian to assure consumers of the high quality and safety of Manitoba food
• Establishing a permanent excess-moisture insurance program at no cost to farmers
• Creating the Farm School Tax rebate that will reduce farm school taxes by 75 per cent this year
• Introducing a moratorium on school closures to preserve communities and to prevent long traveling times for Manitoba children
• Improving rural tourism and stimulating the local construction sector through the provincial cottage lot program and expansion of provincial campgrounds
• Providing cancer care closer to home by expanding treatment to Neepawa, Russell, Hamiota, Deloraine and Pinawa
• Improving access to health diagnostic tests by expanding CT Scan service to Brandon, Steinbach, Thompson, Selkirk, Morden-Winkler and Portage la Prairie
• Eliminating inter-facility transfer fees for rural patients needing ambulance service
• Investing in food processing including support for Simplot’s potato processing plant in Portage la Prairie and wastewater investments that allowed for expansion of Maple Leaf Foods in Brandon and Hytek’s Springhill operation at Neepawa

And we will make rural communities even stronger by: Making investments in rural recreation infrastructure, by making still more investments in rural doctor recruitment and retention and by introducing a biodiesel mandate that is good for producers and good for the environment.

We are proud to have strong leadership in our caucus from every northern constituency. These MLAs have helped us work with communities on the following initiatives:

• Reversing a decade of infrastructure neglect in the 1990s by investing $375 million in roads and bridges as part of the historic re-investment in infrastructure throughout Manitoba
• Expanding education and training opportunities by creating the University College of the North with two main campuses and 12 regional centres
• Equalizing hydro rates to ensure northern and rural residents have the same access to affordable hydro as residents of Winnipeg
• Expanding dialysis service to Norway House, Garden Hill, Swan River and Thompson and providing CT scanners at Thompson and The Pas
• Ensuring rural communities have access to the jobs that come with hydro expansion and making northern First Nations equity partners in new generation dams such as Wuskwatim
• Eliminating the $50 Northern Patient Transportation Fee — a user fee placed on northern patients who traveled to the south for health care
• Making important investments in water quality in northern communities

And We Will Make the North Even Stronger: By redeveloping University College of the North campuses in The Pas and Thompson, by building new Hydro dams at Keeyask and Conawapa, and by making further investments in dialysis in the North and in First Nations communities.

Graduation rates in Manitoba have improved from 72 per cent in 2001 to 79 per cent last year and we have seen post-secondary school enrolment increase by more than one third. We have supported education improvements by:

• Providing 37 per cent increase in support to public schools compared to just over three per cent in the entire decade of the 1990s
• Investing more than $1.2 billion in education capital, nearly triple the amount invested in the 1990s, including $570 million for public schools and $700 million for colleges and universities
• Post-secondary capital projects include Red River College campus in downtown Winnipeg, the culinary arts building at Assiniboine Community College and major projects at Brandon University, the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg
• Ensuring the second-lowest college tuition fees and the third-lowest university tuition fees in Canada
• Establishing the University College of the North including two campuses and 12 regional centres

We will make further improvements to education: By providing investments that improve the quality and accessibility of training in Manitoba, by keeping tuition fees among the most affordable in Canada, and by ensuring that investments in education and training are not sacrificed during the global economic downturn, as they were in the 1990s.

Manitoba’s child poverty rate has been reduced by 40 per cent over the last decade. We have made progress in reducing poverty by:

• Creating the Northern Healthy Food program
• Investing in Healthy Child and Healthy Baby, which provide support for moms and their children
• Making historic investments in affordable and low-income housing
• Creating the shelter benefit to help assist low-income Manitobans with their rent
• Creating initiatives such as Rewarding Work that help ease the transition to work from welfare
• Increasing the minimum wage by 42 per cent since 1999
• Funding 9,400 new child care spaces

We will continue to reduce poverty by: Moving forward with $212 million in new investments as part of the All Aboard Strategy to focus on long-term solutions to help low-income Manitobans.

Manitoba received the top grade of A for life-saving cardiac surgery and cancer care as well as hip and knee surgery in 2009 from the Canadian Wait Times Alliance. Our improvements to health care include:

• Attracting more than 300 additional doctors, resulting in an increase to 2,382 from 2,058 doctors
• Hiring more than 2,000 additional nurses, resulting in an increase to 16,126 nurses from 14,092
• Expanding training for doctors and nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, technologists and primary care paramedics
• Investing in modern, cutting-edge health facilities with the largest capital investment of any government in Manitoba history, including major redevelopment of Health Sciences Centre and the Brandon Regional Health Centre
• Building or renovating hospitals in Swan River, Thompson, The Pas, Beausejour, Pinawa, Gimli, Morden/Winkler, Ste. Anne and Steinbach
• Improving EMS service by investing in 160 new ambulances, eliminating inter-facility transfer fees, developing a central communications centre at Brandon and introducing a primary- care training program at Red River College
• Investing in health innovations such as the gamma knife and bloodless cyber knife, the Hip and Knee Institute at Concordia Hospital and the Cardiac Science Program at St. Boniface Hospital
• Expanding funding for homecare and creating the caregiver tax credit for Manitobans who want to care for loved ones at home
• Increasing surgeries and investing in diagnostic equipment across the province

We will make our health care system even better: By building a first-in-Canada mental health crisis centre, a first-ever child dedicated MRI at the Children’s Hospital, a new birthing centre, and a new Women’s Hospital.

Our population has grown by over 76,000 people, including a record 14,000 people last year thanks to:

• Expanding the Provincial Nominee Program
• Providing tax rebates for post-secondary school graduates
• Making Manitoba more exciting for young people through support for investment in downtown Winnipeg, such as the MTS Centre
• Making Manitoba’s vibrant cultural sector stronger by providing the second-largest investment per capita of any provincial government
• Modernizing our human rights legislation so that it is some of the most advanced in all of Canada, including legislation concerning same-sex couples
• Improving the quality of life through recreation improvements throughout Manitoba such as investments in camping and cottage lots and recreation facilities in Winnipeg, Brandon, The Pas, Dauphin and other centres in every region of the province
• Keeping Manitoba’s cost of living affordable by having among the lowest hydro and automobile-insurance rates in North America
• Making quality-of-life investments in trails throughout Manitoba including the Trans-Canada Trail, the Borders-To-Beaches Trail and urban trails

Our Province Will Continue to Grow: By setting a goal of reaching 1.3 million people in Manitoba by 2016

We have made strides in tackling Manitoba’s infrastructure deficit and have helped stimulate growth in the construction sector by:

• Developing Canada’s first inland port — CentrePort Canada —and transforming Manitoba into the international trade and transportation hub it was always meant to be
• Providing a 10-fold increase in the province’s contribution to Winnipeg road construction, in addition to investment in major projects such as the Kenaston Underpass
• Investing $1 billion in flood protection throughout Manitoba
• Investing an historic $1.6 billion in roads and bridges in the past four years, equal to the entire bridges and highways budget in the 1990s, including Highway 75 and twinning the Trans-Canada Highway to the Saskatchewan border
• Making historic capital investments in hospitals, schools, universities and colleges

We will continue to build infrastructure: Through a $4.7 billion investment plan for needed capital projects in health, education, housing, transportation, drinking water and wastewater treatment and building an all-weather East Side Road.

We have taken Manitoba from ninth place in Canada in energy efficiency to first place, have made significant investments in Manitoba Hydro, the largest exporter of electricity in all of Canada, and are continuing to be a green and prosperous province by:

• Continuing to export hydroelectric power, with sales projected at $5.5 billion over the next 10 years and $20 billion over the next 20 years, and moving forward with Bipole III to ensure the reliability of those exports
• Building the Wuskwatim Dam and committing to dams at Keeyask and Conawapa
• Establishing an ethanol mandate, helping build a 99-megawatt wind farm at St. Leon, and being a national leader in geothermal installations
• Banning logging in 80 out of 81 provincial parks and preserving nearly 900,000 hectares of permanently protected areas.
• Creating and expanding 46 provincial parks and protected areas, including the Duff Roblin Provincial Park and the Trappist Monastery Provincial Heritage Park, and the Manigotagan Park Reserve
• Placing a moratorium on hog industry growth in areas where water is at risk and banning the export of bulk water
• Introducing restrictions at home and on farms on phosphorus-based cleaners and fertilizers that create algae blooms
• Becoming the first jurisdiction in North America to legislate its Kyoto target
• Making a commitment to plant five million trees over five years
• Working to preserve the high quality of our air, receiving the top mark for all of Canada from the Heart and Stroke Foundation in 2008

We will build on this clean energy success by: Building additional hydro capacity, by protecting and securing UNESCO Work Heritage status for the boreal forest on the East Side of Lake Winnipeg, and by further reducing coal use by promoting alternatives such as biomass and wind, and imposing a tax on the use of coal.

By increasing our prevention strategies, strengthening the resources for those who protect us, and toughening up our means of prosecution. In so doing we have been:

• Investing in a new and innovative auto-theft suppression strategy, which has reduced auto thefts by two-thirds and brought them to a 16 year low
• Funding 205 more police officers and hiring 30 more Crown prosecutors
• Creating a gang prosecution unit that has achieved nearly 1,000 convictions
• Shutting down nearly 400 drug dens, crack, sniff and prostitution houses
• Successfully advocating for changes for tougher consequences for violations of federal criminal laws
• Establishing 60 Lighthouses across the province that provide youth with safe, fun and positive places to go at night
• Expanding recreation opportunities for youth in Winnipeg’s inner city and other Neighbourhoods Alive! communities

We will make our communities even safer: By pushing for more reforms to federal laws to ensure there are strict consequences for those who break the law, especially gang members, and by further investing in the prevention and protection programs that help make us safer.

The NDP are creating a government that reflects the people it represents and respects the democratic institutions through which it operates.

• Our caucus includes 13 women — the largest percentage of women in any government caucus in Canada — and six of those women are in our cabinet.
• We are proud to have First Nations representatives in our cabinet and caucus.
• We are proud to have a caucus that is representative of every region of our province and a caucus that is representative of the many faces of our province.
• We strengthened our election laws by banning union and corporate donations to provincial campaigns, establishing fixed election dates and eliminating the partisan hiring of electoral returning officers.
• We passed the Auditor General Act to strengthen the independent office of the auditor general.
• We have also made Manitoba’s independent watchdogs offices stronger by establishing new independent commissioners, including a conflict of interest commissioner, as well as by completely removing the ability of the legislature to determine electoral boundaries.

We will continue to work: To ensure our caucus is as diverse as the province it serves and that the strength of our political institutions inspires the confidence of the people we serve.