April 12, 2011
Budget 2011 Highlights
Together, Manitobans have tackled the challenges of the global economic turndown, Finance Minister Rosann Wowchuk said today as she unveiled Budget 2011.
“Over the past year, Manitoba has led the country with the lowest unemployment rate and Maclean’s magazine refers to the way the Manitoba economy is emerging from the recession as the ‘Manitoba Miracle.’ Budget 2011 builds on these successes by putting families first, strengthening programs, supporting jobs and keeping the province on schedule to return to surplus by Budget 2014,” said the minister.
Supporting Families
- Increasing the basic personal exemption by $1,000 over four years, starting with $250 this year. Once this measure is fully implemented, almost 22,000 more Manitobans will pay no provincial income tax at all.
- Creating a new Children’s Arts and Cultural Activity Tax Credit to help parents provide new opportunities for their children.
- Funding 2,100 more child-care spaces, 400 more nursery spaces and expanding the online child‑care registry provincewide.
- Supporting seniors by hiring more personal-care home staff and enhancing the Primary Caregiver Tax Credit.
- Increasing the basic Education Property Tax Credit by $50 to $700, saving renters and homeowners an extra $16 million this year.
- Helping seniors by increasing their maximum Education Property Tax Credit in each of the next three years.
- Investing in programs to make it easier for families to access healthy foods.
- Improving provincial parks and maintaining free park entrance so Manitoba families can enjoy the province’s many parks.
- Strengthening programs to help connect people with jobs.
Providing Better Health Care
- Investing in health infrastructure in Winnipeg, Selkirk, Ste. Anne, Flin Flon, Pine Falls, Oakbank/Springfield, Lac du Bonnet, Stonewall and Vita.
- Taking important new steps to ensure Manitobans who want a family doctor will have one by 2015.
- Opening five new quick-care clinics where nurse practitioners will offer families basic primary care.
- Implementing a new pilot program to increase the time nurses spend with patients.
- Providing a mobile primary-care unit to serve rural and northern families.
- Creating teams of health-care professionals to co-ordinate health services with patients and their families.
- Investing additional resources to train and retain health-care professionals across the province.
- Increasing the tobacco tax by two cents and giving more help to Manitobans who want to quit.
Investing In Education and Training
- Freezing tuition fees to the rate of inflation at universities and capping fee increases at colleges at $100.
- Providing strong, stable multi-year funding to universities, which will receive operating increases of five per cent in each of the next three years.
- Adding additional seats to train apprentices and developing more online apprenticeship training programs.
- Increasing operating funding for all school divisions by a minimum of 2.2 per cent for a total of $1.1 billion.
- Renovating, expanding and building schools with an additional $94.2-million investment in public school facilities.
- Funding to develop a plan for the third phase of construction of the Assiniboine Community College’s new campus.
- Investing in the new Manitoba Mentors Program, as recommended by the Premier’s Economic Advisory Council.
Building a Strong, Innovative Economy
- Introducing a new, five-year $30-million program to help Manitoba businesses grow and find new markets.
- Completely eliminating the small business income tax and the general corporation capital tax, the first full year Manitoba companies will benefit from these changes.
- Improving the Research and Development Tax Credit.
- Increasing the Green Energy Equipment Tax Credit to 15 per cent from 10 on geothermal heating systems.
- Working with the new Council on International Trade to help Manitoba businesses expand to developing markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China.
- Enhancing online services to make it more convenient for Manitobans to do such things as apply for student loans, pay maintenance support, and pay traffic tickets and other fines.
- Providing an additional $500,000 this year through the Manitoba Mineral Exploration Assistance Program to support research including the search for rare earth elements.
- Reducing red tape so non-profit organizations can focus more on programs and less on paperwork.
Strengthening Communities
- Increasing municipal infrastructure and transit grants to the equivalent of one percentage point of the existing provincial sales tax, dedicating future revenue growth to municipalities for infrastructure funding.
- Making major new investments in flood protection.
- Enhancing drainage, especially in high-risk areas such as the Interlake.
- Hiring 66 more police and 10 more prosecutors to fight crime and protect families.
- Helping more Manitoba families realize the dream of owning a cottage by opening up 600 new cottage lots at Black River, in partnership with the First Nations community.
- Expanding the Trees for Tomorrow program.
- Funding a workers advocacy centre in Brandon that will also serve rural and northern Manitoba.
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