WINNIPEG -- Voters head to the polls Tuesday in Manitoba. Here is a look at some of the promises the three main parties have made over the course of the campaign:
NDP
- Cut ambulance fees in half, create 1,000 new personal care home beds and expand hours and locations of QuickCare clinics to reduce pressure on emergency rooms.
- Spend more than $1 billion a year on infrastructure, replace red lights on perimeter highway around Winnipeg with overpasses and develop long-term plan to remove rail lines from Winnipeg.
- Replace student loans with grants, provide free tuition for students in child welfare up to age 25 and create 12,000 new child-care spaces.
- Continued deficits until at least 2021.
Progressive Conservatives
- Reduce provincial sales tax to seven per cent from eight per cent, raise income tax brackets with inflation, join the New West Partnership trade agreement with other western provinces.
- Spend at least $1 billion a year on infrastructure, increase tourism promotion and create special business plan for the north.
- Cut ambulance fees in half, set up a task force to find ways to cut health-care wait times and fast-track construction of 1,200 new personal care home beds.
- Increase operating funds for licensed family child-care spaces, make up to $20 million available for scholarships and bursaries with private sector, develop a program that focuses on literacy in elementary schools.
- Announce a target date for ending deficits once the party has updated budget figures.
Liberals
- A dedicated health unit to treat strokes, mental-health care covered under medicare and free ambulance rides for low-income seniors.
- Student loans converted to grants, full-day kindergarten.
- Private liquor stores would be allowed, property taxes on condominiums would be reduced and ride-hailing services such as Uber would be allowed.
- Municipalities would get one per cent of provincial sales tax for infrastructure and also a full sales tax rebate on goods they purchased.
- The province would move to proportional representation and 10 per cent of legislature seats would be set aside for indigenous people.
- Continued deficits until 2022.