The quarterly luncheon was held today for the Portage la Prairie & District Chamber of Commerce with guest speaker minister Ian Wishart. Wishart outlines his topic for today's speech.

"Basically the theme was The First 100 Days. I spoke about what we, as a government and the new government of Manitoba, have been able to accomplish during our first 100 days. I gave them an outline of the process that's going on in terms of budget review and financial review, and talked about the bills that we passed in our first session. I highlighted about half a dozen of the more critical ones."

Ian WishartWishart notes one of the other topics.  "I also explained to those here what department I'm responsible for -- Education and Training, and how it's structured -- and what we do in that department. We changed the departments dramatically. Going from 18 to 12 departments made a big difference. It's a good example for Manitobans. We're trying to be efficient and trying to do a good job and give them good value for their tax dollars. Having less departments are a good way to do that. That's just an example of what we're trying to do all the way through government."

He says he shared how MP Candice Bergen initiated an agreement for one of her staff to be on location at his Portage office, and it's turned out very helpful.

"That was her call. She decided to do that about three months ago when she started with someone on site. I think it's very helpful. We used to help people, gather the information and send it down to her office in Morden. And now having someone onsite even part-time is really helpful. We've had some staff changes as well. We're trying very hard to make sure we continue the level of service that our constituents in Portage have become used to."

Flood concerns were also addressed, and Wishart explains how things are coming along for future mitigation.

"The federal government has been very cooperative. They've committed in terms of the dollars. We still have to go through the process, which includes some environmental reviews as well. But we're very much aware of the situation in which parts of Western Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and even parts of Alberta are very wet. There is a risk that we could see a problem for 2017 similar to what it was in 2011. So, we're doing what we can as a government to make sure we minimize the risk over the course of the winter. We're very much susceptible to how much snow falls and where it falls, and other forms of moisture. We'll be watching that very, very carefully. It's not going to catch us by surprise. But there may be nothing we can do about some things. This is not going to be like the Spring of 2011 where frankly they weren't prepared at all. We're prepared."

He notes engineering has been completed on the outlet at Lake Manitoba. "So, it's a question of working through the process of getting the licensing in place. That wasn't done before. We made sure it got done. It's the same with the Eastside Road Authority. We shut down Eastside Road Authority because of the amount of dollars being spent without proper supervision. We think it benefits Manitobans to have the roads there, but we need to be very careful about how we build them, and not throw money at the problem."

Among the bills discussed was Bill 15:

"Bill 15 was a sexual violence prevention bill for students in the post-secondary system. That's one I was responsible for. The Protective children's act was another one that I think was really big. That helps many of the kids that are in the CFS system. We have lots of problems with the CFS system in Manitoba and are trying to take steps to make it work better. Then there's the bill dealing with funding for political parties, in which we removed the automatic funding that many people call the Vote Tax. Our party decided to not take the funding other parties were taking, that were costing Manitobans significant dollars to fund a party they may not have even voted for but had to fund. Those were the more critical ones."

Dave OmichinskiChamber President Dave Omichinski shares his perspective on the presentation.

"I thought he did an excellent job in terms of touching on many topics of interest, but both from a provincial perspective as well as a local constituency perspective. Ian's a good speaker. He talks in terms that I can understand, so anybody can understand. And it's obvious the province has a reasonable handle on the important issues."