Manitoba reaction to the federal budget

I’m Ian Phrase at the Manitoba Legislature, where Finance Minister Adrian Salah offered a quick reaction to the federal budget released Tuesday afternoon. Salas says it’s early. He hasn’t been able to pour over all the documents, but he says the multibillion dollar housing program sounds encouraging. He says it builds upon Manitoba’s efforts like a plan to remove the PST off of rental unit construction with the housing announcements that we made in our budget. There’s a great opportunity here to see opportunities to stack some of these federal announcements with what we announced recently, and that should help Manitobans to get access to more affordable housing. Sala also likes that Ottawa will make clean energy grants available this year. He says that will help organizations like Manitoba Hydro to advance green initiatives at City Hall. Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham is hopeful new infrastructure money can be used to upgrade the North End water treatment plant. I have asked the federal government before that they permit some flexibility when it comes to funding, so that any new envelope of funding that they would roll out could be used to stack on previous funding granted. What I’d like to see frankly, is us as a council identify a portion of that $1 billion that goes to municipalities to try to access as much of it as we can and to apply it allocated to the North implant. Meanwhile, Salas says infrastructure is where this budget. Falls Short premieres from across the country have been asking for more infrastructure dollars for months. Ian Fraze, CBC News, Winnipeg.