Manitoba Government Hits Impasse With Nurses

The Manitoba government has reached an impasse in its negotiations with the province's nurses. During more than a decade of cutbacks in expenditures on medical care, the salaries of Manitoba's 11,000 nurses have fallen 30 to 40 percent behind salaries in neighbouring provinces. Only Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island pay nurses less. This has resulted in thousands of nurses leaving the province in search of higher salaries.

The nurses are demanding a 29 percent raise in order to partially catch up to salaries in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The province is offering 15 percent over 3 years. The nurses' contract expires March 31st.

While claiming to have severe limitations on money for health care expenditures and blaming Ottawa for its transfer cuts, the Doer government appears to have had no difficulty in coming up with millions of dollars in bailouts for Motor Coach Industries, New Flyer Industries and other companies, nor in finding millions more to invest in a new downtown arena.