Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen has received a mandate letter from Premier Brian Pallister, outlining the goals for him as Minister of Education. Goertzen says it contains some expectations that are already known, such as doing a review of the education system next year which will include a look at merging school divisions. But he adds it also asks him to implement province-wide bargaining for teachers.

"The province wants to ensure that is done more collectively so it is not done at an individual division-by-division level. That's something that's actually been asked for by the Manitoba Teachers' Society for many years and we think that it makes sense. There needs to be significant legislative changes for that to happen. That legislation is in the process of being drafted now. I would expect that it would be introduced in the spring of next year so that it would be ready for implementation, hopefully, in the fall of next year."

Goertzen says even with province-wide bargaining, it would still be possible to have varying rates of pay in the different divisions. He notes there is already precedent for that in health care.

"It happened when there was amalgamation of RHAs (Regional Health Authorities), for example. You had different contracts within the different regional health authorities as they existed at the time and there was a process where that was worked through and sometimes they were grandfathered, sometimes they had other provisions in there. So I'm not entirely sure how it will work out exactly in the education context, but there is always that discussion that goes on when these changes happen."

Meanwhile, for the Immigration part of his portfolio, Goertzen says the mandate letter asks him to fine tune the nominee program to ensure that people are coming to Manitoba with the right skills so that they can quickly fit into jobs.

As for the training part of his portfolio, the letter urges Goertzen to reduce the number of employable Manitobans on welfare by connecting them with training and job opportunities.

"It's ensuring that those who are not just leaving our education system have the appropriate training, but those who might not have gone through the education system and need a bit of hand up, in terms of training to get back into the job market, that they have that ability."