The spring sitting of Manitoba's legislature ended early Tuesday morning and the MLA for Steinbach says he was left with a feeling of disappointment. 

Kelvin Goertzen notes this was really our first chance to get a sense of the new NDP government. He says what we saw was "somewhat typical." Goertzen says there was an increase in taxes, including property taxes.  

"That's almost what you'd expect from an NDP government," he says. "But still disappointing particularly since people are having a hard time making ends meet with inflation and with higher interest rates."

He notes another disappointment included the significant cuts to green team funding, which allows organizations and charities to hire youth for the summer. 

"But particularly I think targeted at faith-based organizations, where many faith-based organizations around the province didn't get as much funding, or didn't get any funding at all," he says. "So, there were concerns about why those organizations seemed to be targeted in particular."

Goertzen says another disappointment has been how the NDP campaigned on fixing our healthcare system relatively quickly, yet all we see is that wait times continue to grow longer for knee and hip surgeries. 

"We've seen a number of rural emergency rooms close down again or go on limited hours because of a lack of staff," notes Goertzen. "So those concerns don't only continue to persist, they are actually getting worse it seems in Manitoba."

As mentioned, the spring sitting of the Manitoba legislature ended early Tuesday morning. Goertzen says MLAs were in the legislature until after 1 am. He notes several bills had to go through the voting process, which went into the early part of the morning. 

"As I get a little bit older, it becomes a little bit less desirable, a little bit less exciting when you are driving home at two or three in the morning," admits Goertzen. 

Goertzen says the Progressive Conservatives were able to hold over several bills to the fall. Some of those bills included changes to labour legislation as it relates to unionization and the concern from businesses on what sort of impact these changes might create. 

"We chose to hold those bills over to the fall, mostly because I think sometimes you just need more input and there needs to be more time in terms of their consideration," he adds. 

Meanwhile, Goertzen says when a government brings forward 40 or 50 bills, some find the agreement of all parties. He notes a few of these bills were passed during the spring sitting. For example, there is Bill 24, which is the Intimate Image Protection Amendment Act, that has been strengthened and renamed the Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images Act. The definition of intimate images is now expanded to apply to fake intimate images including images or recordings created or altered by software, artificial intelligence (AI), or other means. Manitobans who have had fake intimate images of themselves shared would now be able to access civil remedies provided for under the act.

"That was a bill that I certainly did support," says Goertzen. 

He notes another bill that he supported has to do with individuals who are on the sex offender registry and change their names. Goertzen says it has been difficult for law enforcement to see if an individual is still on the sex offender registry because their name has been changed. 

"Legislation came forward to make that more difficult and to close that loophole," he says. "An individual shouldn't be able to change their name and by virtue of that get off of the sex offender registry."

The Manitoba Legislature will resume on October 2nd.