Thursday saw the Province of Manitoba unveil its provincial budget.

It was delayed because of the NDP's attempts to block it from going through.

Portage la Prairie MLA Ian Wishart says there are a lot of highlights in this budget.

"One of which, of course, is getting our rainy day fund up to the level it should have been - $872-million. Of course, that may come into play right away as we’re uncertain about what may be needed to deal with the coronavirus situation. Some of that could come from the rainy-day fund. We have increased funding specifically to deal with that as well."

He says many of these taxes will have an impact on the business community.

They’re also rolling out their Green Tax.

"We'll be implementing that in July, but to offset that, we'll be reducing the PST -- the retail sales tax  -- to 6 per cent. That'll make us the second-lowest in the country regarding the provincial sales tax. It should be quite an incentive for a number of businesses in the community. We’re also changing the triggers and lowering the payroll tax, but that won’t come into play until January."

There’s also some good news for the Portage la Prairie area.

"One of the things that we're very concerned about in the central region and north is, of course, the outlet to Lake Manitoba, and we’ve committed $100-million to deal with that and to get that moving forward. That’s certainly good news and it relates very much to the flood."