Statement by MFL President Kevin Rebeck in response to Manitoba’s 2026 Budget:

As the global economy continues to face strain, it is encouraging to see the provincial government focused on creating good, family-supporting construction jobs here at home by putting Manitobans to work first in building our province up.

This budget’s commitments to build and renew critical infrastructure, like schools, hospitals and Manitoba Hydro projects, through Manitoba Jobs Agreements is good news for Manitoba workers and higher wages and bad news for out-of-province license plates on job sites. And this budget’s greater investment in our apprenticeship system will mean more Manitobans can build their future here at home.

The budget also includes several other supports for workers to join and succeed in the labour force.

Higher wages for child care workers and more child care spaces will mean more parents – especially women – can participate in the labour force. More investments in personal care homes and long-term care mean more workers – especially women – will not have to limit working hours or exit the labour force altogether to provide care for loved ones. And increased investment in Adult Learning Centres will help to boost employment by ensuring more Manitobans can achieve their high school diploma.

The cost of living is high on every worker’s mind these days and this budget will help make life more affordable for working families by providing free transit for kids and youth, free menstrual products in the workplace, and free childcare for low income families.

Finally, we all count on public services to be there for us when we need them, and we know that workers in Manitoba’s public sector continue to struggle with understaffing and high vacancy rates after years of cuts and chaos under the former PC government.

The provincial government’s important goals of ending mandatory overtime and ensuring safe patient ratios will only become a reality through a sustained commitment to recruitment and retention in health care.

And understaffing is a major contributing factor to health care and the public service having the highest workplace injury rates in the province. This budget’s additional funding for new workplace safety and health officers is welcome, but it only addresses enforcement. We would have liked to see commitments in this budget to bring these injury rates down through injury prevention programs as well.

We know that these problems cannot be fixed overnight but we encourage the government to focus its efforts on staff recruitment and retention to strengthen our public services.