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After vowing to help tear down economic walls in Canada, the Manitoba government has returned to building fresh ones at home.

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On Sept. 16, 2025, Premier Wab Kinew announced what he called a “landmark jobs agreement” with the Manitoba Building Trades, an umbrella group of construction unions. The province, he said, would build four new schools: two in Winnipeg, one in West St. Paul and one in Brandon, under a new framework meant to “create good, family-supporting jobs.”

Behind that easy phrase sits a new set of rules. Under the Manitoba Jobs Agreement, every contractor working on these schools must follow union-level standards for wages, benefits and apprenticeships, and must “prioritize Manitoba workers.” Any public project worth more than $50 million, a threshold that would capture most new hospitals, highways and major schools, will follow the same........

© Winnipeg Sun