It took less than a week for the provincial government’s commitment of $5 million for a new pool in Thompson to go from government spending announcement to political prop.
In a Facebook ad that appeared within six days of federal and provincial funding for a new Thompson pool being announced and five days of a Thompson byelection to fill its vacant MLA seat being called, the Progressive Conservatives asserted that “the NDP never delivered a new aquatic facility in Thompson. Our PC team did — the new, $15 million Thompson Aquatic Centre.”
The ad features Premier Heather Stefanson and Thompson byelection PC candidate Charlotte Larocque, whose official agent authorized the ad, which was paid for by the party’s financial officer. The word “never” in the first sentence is highlighted in yellow text, as are the words “$15 million Thompson Aquatic Centre” in the second sentence. The rest of the ad is a presumably stock photo of a happy child swimming.
It’s true that the NDP never delivered a new pool for Thompson while they were the provincial government, since the Norplex Pool was open for use at that time. Though safety concerns and equipment problems with the pool date back to at least 2012, seven years before the pool was permanently closed, that didn’t happen until February 2019, nearly three years after the PCs took over as government from the NDP. Prior to the May 9 announcement of $15 million for a new pool — $6 million of which is coming from the federal government and $4 million from the City of Thompson — the province also contributed $75,000 towards a new pool design, which cost about $1 million in total.
The fact that new pool funding was announced just before the last day that the byelection could be called under provincial election rules, along with several other northern spending announcements, probably didn’t mystify anybody who was paying attention, though Government Services Minister Reg Helwer said May 9 that the timing of the announcement was the result of the process of approving grants under the Canada Infrastructure Program, as well as co-ordinating schedules with city representatives.
