One of Gary Doer's two biggest regrets? "an oversight in a new low-flush toilet incentive that would have meant people could only buy the toilets from one retailer". O - M - G.... Does this give you the warm and fuzzies?
From The Winnipeg Sun; by PAUL TURENNE
Premier Gary Doer has a message for Manitobans worried about the economy heading into 2009: We're on it.
In his annual year-end interview with the Winnipeg Sun, Doer spoke about his government's plan to focus on education and training, not go overboard on tax cuts, and prepare both workers and companies for the world that will emerge at the other end of an economic downturn.
"We have steady hands on the wheel and we will do everything we can to traverse and tack through these difficult economic times," he said. "We put a lot of thought into the future economy a few years ago. That is going to place Manitoba in good shape when the economy picks up."
Doer, however, acknowledged Manitoba will not be immune to tumbling markets regardless of what his NDP government does.
"We were swept into it like everyone else in the world," Doer said. "The provincial government is not going to turn back the sins and excesses of Wall Street."
Part of that effect will be manifested in the budget that will be released this spring.
SOME REGRETS
"There will definitely be departments that will see lower increases in their budgets and some that will be frozen," Doer said.
The government's goals for the coming year include continuing to increase Manitoba's population, which has recently been growing at a rate not seen in two decades. Economic growth and a continued emphasis on skills and training are other goals.
As for the year that was, Doer said nothing that occurred inside Manitoba's halls of power came as a great surprise to him, including a mostly rural uproar over restrictions on the expansion of hog barns.
"It was loud in the house. I expected it would be," Doer said. "We knew that people who would be directly impacted wouldn't like it."
The man who has run Manitoba since 1999 admitted he does have some regrets, including not having acted sooner to adjust MPI's bodily injury policy and an oversight in a new low-flush toilet incentive that would have meant people could only buy the toilets from one retailer.
"I make 100 decisions a day and not all of them are right. Most are, but not all of them," Doer said.
