On Thursday, February 8, the province’s new Minister of Municipal Relations, Ian Bushie, will receive a chaperoned tour of Niverville from Mayor Myron Dyck.
“After the provincial election, we sent out letters to all of the ministers saying, ‘Hey, do you know about Niverville?’” says Dyck. “You know who and where we are? He probably knows about us, but maybe he doesn’t know some of the specific things we were planning with the previous government.”
Dyck was pleased to hear that Bushie was taking him up on his offer. According to the mayor, it’s not uncommon for municipal leaders to be invited to sessions with the minister at the Legislature, but they don’t often pay personal hometown visits.
“It’s one thing to talk about [Niverville], but it’s another thing to see it,” Dyck says. “At least this way when communications are being directed back to their office, they understand and think, ‘Okay, I saw that.’ As opposed to, ‘I heard about that.’”
Considering that the tour will take place during a two-hour window, Dyck says it will be necessarily brief. The route will include the Heritage Centre’s aging-in-place facilities, the Open Health medical clinic, and the Community Resource and Recreation Centre.
“With the personal care home, we want to talk about the funding per bed, which hasn’t gone up in a lot of years. And we want to talk about the expansion of clinical services [at Open Health],” Dyck says. “And then we’re still dealing with the movie studio and the roundabout [on Highway 311]. And those need government funding. Are they picking up these projects?”
Also a concern of Dyck’s is whether the promised government funding for the upcoming wastewater treatment plant will be adequate at a time when the cost of trades and materials have climbed exponentially.
“We look forward to just kind of talking with him about shared initiatives and things that Niverville is looking to do,” Dyck adds. “Also to discuss what the province is looking to do and see where things align and what things we could do together.”
Because the Minister of Municipal Relations acts as a liaison to other provincial departments, Dyck says that he’ll be probing to find out what kinds of initiatives the province may be planning to roll out this year.
“Maybe there’s grants or programs that they are working on that we’re not aware of so [that would tell us if we] need to put our energies into that.”
