Legislative Session Ends

Manitoba MLAs will be taking a week away from the House following the end of the current legislative session. The provincial Government has announced it will introduce a Throne Speech on November 20th to open a new session.

As this session came to a conclusion so too did a couple of pieces of legislation that we were following very closely...the Memorial Foundations bill and the proposed Pathogens Act.

Bill 17, The Firefighters, Peace Officers and Other Workers Memorial Foundations Act received Royal Assent yesterday afternoon (Nov 8) and will come into force shortly. The Bill passed Third Reading as amended at the Committee level, and named paramedics as a group that could come forward and request authority to establish a memorial foundation. The amendment making specific reference to paramedics was proposed as a result of our oral presentation to the Standing Committee reviewing the legislation.

The Pathogens Act, a form of blood samples legislation, was a Private Member's bill and unfortunately did not make Second Reading. As a result it died on the Order Paper as this legislative session ended. It's unfortunate to see this legislation die for a second time in only a year, but we have received assurances from Health Minister Theresa Oswald that the Government is committed to continued efforts in this area.

When the House reconvenes on November 20th we'll be listening intently to the Throne Speech. I suspect it may make reference to a number of issues that will be of interest to us in coming months, including how the Government plans to move forward with expected recommendations from the External RHA Review and the Health Professions Regulatory Reform Initiative. We can also hope the speech indicates an intent to introduce new blood samples legislation and a commitment to further address issues raised in our White Paper, especially in the area of service delivery.

The past two months have been very interesting from a political perspective. Although it is most likely MLAs will return on Nov 20th and only sit for a couple of weeks before breaking again until early April, I'm hopeful those two weeks will set the stage for some positive outcomes in 2008.