Published in the Mar. 13, 2013 issue of the Interlake Enterprise, by Teresa Carey…
RM of Bifrost Reeve Harold Foster with Brian Pallister
Leader of the Manitoba Conservative Party, Brian Pallister, was in Arborg on Mar. 12 to meet with “community stakeholders” at the RM of Bifrost council chambers, starting shortly before at 10:00 a.m.
The meeting, which was only supposed last about an hour, ran well past noon.
Pallister was accompanied by three of his MLAs, Heather Stefanson (MLA for Tuxedo and PC critic responsible for Aboriginal & Northern Affairs, Sport, Aboriginal Education, and the Floodway and East Side Road Authority Act), Stu Briese (MLA for Ste. Rose and PC critic for Local Government and Emergency Measures Organization), and Cliff Graydon (MLA for Emerson and PC critic for Entrepreneurship, Training and Trade).
The closed door meeting was attended by members of Bifrost council, including Reeve Harold Foster, Arborg Bifrost Community Development Corporation (ABCDC) Economic Development Officer, Pat McCallum, business leaders from the Arborg area manufacturing sector, and possibly others. The council chamber was filled nearly to capacity.
The meeting was not open to the public because “people might be less frank about their concerns if it was open to the media,” Pallister explained after the crowd dispersed. However, he said some of the topics discussed were health care, urgent care, the need for a personal care home, community economic development, and infrastructure, such as road projects that are a priority for the community. All of these issues have previously been reported in the Interlake Enterprise.
Pallister said the group also had “a really good discussion around taxation” and summed up the meeting as “very productive”.
“We try to do our best to represent the perspective of the people in this area,” he added.
Pallister and his team later headed over to Gimli for afternoon meetings to discuss “similar issues,” Pallister said. He named Diagio’s as being one of the companies who would be in attendance, and which would be expressing its concerns about recently introduced changes in taxation. Community projects was another item on the agenda for the Gimli meeting, he said.
Pallister, who took the helm of the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party last year, has had three meetings in the region this year, one of them a ‘meet and greet’ which took place at the Arborg Curling Rink in January.
More meetings were scheduled for Mar. 12 and 13 at various locations across the Interlake region. All 19 members of the Progressive Conservative caucus were expected to be taking part in these as part of an information-gathering mission.
