View From the Legislature

While spring has officially arrived, it doesn’t quite feel like it as colder temperatures stubbornly hang around Manitoba. Yet those cold temperatures didn’t prevent some guests from Hollywood stopping by Niverville recently to announce a major investment to build a film and television studio just south of Winnipeg. It was one of a number of recent significant announcements in the southeast as the region’s population continues to grow, attracting business along with it.

It is sometimes natural for smaller communities located close by each other to compete. That competition usually is intense on the sports fields and ice surfaces, but there can be competition for investment dollars as well. But what the southeast is demonstrating is that if you grow the size of the pie, there doesn’t need to be less for anyone else. Put another way, what is good for one community is often good for another as growth attracts growth and investment attracts investment.

What else can explain the fact that virtually all communities in the southeast have experienced growth over the past few years, some quite dramatically. Residents have come from other parts of Canada and from places all over the world. Some have moved from Winnipeg to be in a smaller community but still close to Manitoba’s largest city. And as experienced recently, many have fled war in their home country, with hundreds of families coming from Ukraine to start a new life here in the southeast.

Around the southeast we see new event centres being constructed, upgraded health facilities with new services being developed, and new schools either already opened or planned to be built. There are head offices being constructed and more local businesses and chain franchises opening in a variety of places.

This growth shouldn’t be taken for granted. It is not the experience of every community or every region of Manitoba. And it needs to be managed in such a way so that the infrastructure and services can keep up with the growth of the area. Part of this is by continuing to think in a regional manner. Regional infrastructure projects, such as the recently announced Red-Seine-Rat Wastewater Cooperative that will serve several communities in the region and which is a partnership between several municipalities, demonstrates the power of regional thinking and planning.

Communities will always have their own specific needs and ways to meet them, but the growing understanding that regional thinking can be a benefit to everyone is part of the success of the southeast. And in many ways, it pays tribute to the history of the region whose early settlers recognized the need to help one another for the benefit of everyone.

We have much to be grateful for in Manitoba and particularly in the southeast. Even as we wait for spring to arrive, things look as bright as ever.