News Releases

March 6, 2025

The Manitoba government introduced a number of new bills on the second day of the spring session. The legislation includes:

• The public schools amendment act (nutrition equality for lasting learning outcomes) would amend the Public Schools Act to make universally accessible school nutrition programs mandatory.
• the environment amendment and waste reduction and prevention amendment act would amend the Environment Act to reduce the threshold for pollution releases that constitutes an offence under the act and establish enhanced obligations on proponents and government to notify local authorities when and public when there is a release or imminent risk of a pollutant release.
• the protecting youth in sports act would require Sport Manitoba to establish a safe sport policy that provincial sports organizations recognized by Sport Manitoba would be mandated to adopt. The policy would include behavioural expectations and prohibited conduct for sport participants, coaches and officials in addition to procedures for review, disciplinary measures and appeals.
• an act respecting O Canada and other observances and land and treaty acknowledgements in schools (education administration act and public schools act amended) that would require public schools to establish land and treaty acknowledgement policies and repeal the religious exercises in schools regulation and the schools patriotic observances regulation, and transfer requirements regarding O Canada and Remembrance Day activities to the Public Schools Act.
• The public interest expression defence act would protect people from strategic lawsuits against public participation that are meant to silence or deter participation on issues of public issues, and would create a mechanism for a court to dismiss this type of litigation at an early stage of the process.

 

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