The grand love affair is over.
No, not Harry and Meghan. We're talking the Manitoba NDP and the Manitoba Nurses Union.
It was a match made in woke heaven---the NDP's sweet-talking Wab Kinew and a giddy, love-starved union walking hand-in-hand while whispering sweet nothings to each other.
But what began with canoodling during the 2023 election campaign has, alas, ended in a slow slide of recriminations, broken promises, and enough gaslighting to illuminate foggy London.
At the start, the future was so shiny. Magic Wab would walk the land scattering fairy dust everywhere. Emergency rooms would burst from the earth and rivers of nurses would flow to depleted hospitals and nursing homes. Such (election) promise.
And, oh, the months of pillow talk...
The NDP announced with great fanfare that they would immediately begin "fixing "healthcare" by conducting "listening tours". They would visit health-care centres across the province to hear from nurses, doctors, and others in the profession about their front-line fixes for the ills ailing healthcare
“This is something we’ve been asking for for years now. In fact, when the former Premier was vying to lead her party and ultimately the province, we asked her to declare that she would do just that - connect with and hold space for our members,” cooed Nurses Union President Darlene Jackson. “Despite agreeing to do so, she never followed through. It’s very important that if we are going to keep staff and rebuild the culture, that this government hear first-hand experiences to make educated decisions on the next right steps." she said.
Nurses and NDP, sitting in a tree...
Six months after the election, the duo signed papers, in the form of a contract, pledging their devotion to each other for the duration of the NDP term in office, four years at least.
But only a few short months later, the nurses started nagging. They spoke the words nobody ever wants to hear: we have to talk.
The head of the Manitoba Nurses Union (MNU) says it’s time for the NDP government to go beyond listening and making election-style promises, and time to start making the changes they promised to fix issues that continue to plague nurses across the province. (Winnipeg Sun, Aug. 15, 2024)
“We’ve said enough with the Listening Tour, it’s time to make some significant changes to health care culture,” MNU President Darlene Jackson said in an August 2024 statement on the MNU Facebook page.
By the time of their first anniversary together (October, 2024) , the honeymoon was over.
A union survey of nurses found that 65 per cent felt the government was not effective at addressing issues or potential solutions suggested by nurses during the Kinew and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara “listening tours” of hospitals and other health-care sites. (Winnipeg Free Press, Jan. 23, 2025)
Almost half (48 per cent) said their workplace lost staff last year. A majority (62 per cent) said their workload got worse in 2024. And 59 per cent of respondents felt morale had worsened in their workplace.
They were asked to grade the government’s performance on fulfilling election healthcare promises The nurses union said 42 per cent gave the province a “D” (no improvement).
In a Feb. 2025 interview with the CBC there was this exchange.
"Union president Darlene Jackson accuses the NDP government of falling short on collaboration and transparency. "I can say it's, uh, it's very comparable with what we saw with the previous government."
Premier Wab Kinew encouraged unions to be positive, while pointing to his government's new hires in healthcare. "They're getting a great wage. They're getting more work life balance. Everything that the unions have been asking for, we're delivering."
Lecturing your partner is never a winning strategy. Neither is gaslighting, which the NDP adopted next.
A whistleblowing nurse in Flin Flon said nurses were left to scramble to evacuate patients as wildfires closed in. (Winnipeg Free Press, May 29, 2025)
The nurse accused the health authority of being unprepared for the complex evacuation. She said the hospital failed to enact its disaster management plan, leading to nurses being thrust into roles they wouldn’t normally do.
Asagwara said in Kamala Harris bumble-speak, “In a crisis, it’s going to feel like a crisis.” “I can tell you definitively that the emergency plan was enacted.”
Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes, was her message.
The nurses were feeling neglected and unloved, and they wanted attention from their partner. So early in the new year 500 nurses rallied at the Legislature.
Only to learn that Wab Kinew was seeing someone else.
Wab, who goes to every Pride parade, was a no-show at the nurses rally. He was too busy getting ready to attend the "white-out" to watch the Winnipeg Jets play the Dallas North Stars. (The Jets lost.)
His place-holder at the rally was the Health Minister, and Asagwara heard an earful.
"What we're finding is the only way we get the government's attention is by actually either shaming them or coming out and being edgy and very pointed," Jackson told reporters.
Before the NDP was elected in 2023, Jackson said the union was fielding "continuous phone calls" from the then opposition party, which said fixing the province's beleaguered health-care system would be its top priority. But 18 months later, "we hear from our nurses on a daily basis that we are not seeing any appreciable change to health-care," Jackson told the CBC.
Abandoned partners often blame themselves for the problems in their relationship. In this case, their social media posts started blaming their leadership -- union boss Darlene Jackson who had been the matchmaker with the NDP - https://blackrod.blogspot.com/2024/06/overwhelmed-nurses-in-open-revolt-at.html
She responded with some gaslighting of her own. Her target was her own union members -- and the entire population of Manitoba.
In a newspaper op-ed she insisted that she was not to blame. The nurses union never favored the NDP, she declared. Us? No way, Jose. We're as non-partisan as Santa at Christmas.
A universal gasp was heard throughout the province. Jackson simply forgot to mention the banner headline that ran in all media outlets a month before the October 2023 election: Manitoba Nurses Union endorses NDP health plan ahead of election.
Why are nurses so cranky, asked Dan Lett, Winnipeg Free Press columnist and the NDP's biggest cheerleader.
Maybe she was being cranky because she was being ghosted by the very NDP she got elected.
Jackson said the union has been trying to sit down with government to discuss its issues, but "we have been absolutely frozen out." (WFP May 7, 2025)
"We're not going to continue to keep nurses in health care if we don't change culture. That was a huge promise made, and nothing's happened to change culture," she said.
There was a telling disagreement over the last time the government met with nurses to hear their grievances.
Jackson alleged she hasn't had a face-to-face meeting with Asagwara in "months," which Asagwara later disputed by saying the two met last Friday. (WFP, May 7, 2025)
"A union official explained the two were in the same room for a committee, chaired by Tuxedo MLA Carla Compton. But that doesn't count as a meeting between the two of them, the official said."
And two-timing Wab Kinew? He was ducking them even harder.
Union leader Jackson tried the soft approach on the nurse's Facebook page with a public note to the Premier.
Dear Premier Kinew,
We get it. You’ve got a lot going on. You’re preparing to attend the Council of Federation next week, (July, 2025) where you’ll (hopefully) attend a breakfast hosted by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) to discuss the serious issues pushing nurses to the brink of exhaustion.
Afterwards, she reported on the success or lack thereof at the meeting. She pulled no punches.
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) Policy Breakfast, held alongside the Council of the Federation—a gathering of all Canadian Premiers to discuss shared priorities and coordinate efforts across provinces.
The annual CFNU breakfast is more than just a tradition. It’s a space where health experts, researchers, and frontline voices come together to shine a light on pressing issues in healthcare. This year’s theme couldn’t have been more fitting: “Nursing is a Safety-Critical Workforce.”
As MNU President, I sat with Premier Kinew with the intent that we all hear the same message. That we all see the evidence. That we walk away with a shared responsibility to act.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the extended conversation with Premier Kinew that I had hoped for. But I did make it clear: there are serious issues requiring urgent attention. For nearly two years, nurses in this province have been calling on government to lead with courage and conviction.
Nurses in Manitoba—and across the country—deserve systems that recognize the safety-critical nature of their work, and patients deserve care that reflects that truth.
We’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Manitoba’s elected officials must do more than talk."
The break became evident in July when the bickering went public. It was the sort of thing that make friends uncomfortable and forced to pick sides, Team Wab or Team Nurses.
A new nurses survey said 44 percent of respondents felt healthcare had worsened under the NDP.
Health Minister Asagwara said the NDP was listening to the safety concerns of nurses at the HSC. But she apparently wasn't hearing desparate cries for help like this one from the MNU Facebook.
“Hello MNU. I’ve been a Registered Nurse for 10 years and have worked in the WRHA Emergency program for 7 of those. I currently work in Urgent Care. We’re a small team, but we have great leadership, and they’re trying so hard to make changes; yet, despite this, I've been going to work anxious and fearful, mostly for night shifts.
This is an excerpt from an email I sent to my manager about recent events at my hospital:
‘I honestly can say I've never been actually literally scared to come to work for shifts. I'm scared I'm going to be physically injured. I have psychosomatic symptoms thinking about going to work, and anxiety before my shifts start.
We had to call the police last night 4 separate times, and had 4 patients escorted off the premises by police - 2 left cuffed. Last week I called the police every night shift except once for patients that refused to leave the department, whom were discharged. Who all had histories of violence to ER/UC staff.
I think as a group we try and keep it light when talking about it to each other, but we've more recently been having serious conversations about our safety, and how scary it is.
Patients left due to the vulgarity of the other patients last night. We have sick vulnerable persons, children and the elderly in the waiting room, next to someone who is potentially intoxicated by meth and alcohol.
We have signs all over that say "physical or verbal abuse will not be tolerated.” I was called multiple expletives loudly in the waiting room on 3 separate occasions last night, this isn't the first, and I want it to be the last. It’s so incredibly frustrating that it appears that we don’t have ISO's or police presence in the department.
I feel so devalued, like in a sense that there is more value placed on meat at Superstore than people who have chosen to make it their careers to help people, as well as patients that are vulnerable and come to us for help.’
I had initially written this email Tuesday, and subsequently Thursday night I was kicked in the chest by a discharged patient..."
This wasn't a one-off complaint. Here's another from the MNU indicative of the Minister's tone deafness.
"We continue to hear deeply troubling accounts:
Nurses being punched, grabbed, spat on.
ISOs Institutional Safety Officers (ISOs):working short, shift after shift.
Family members driving nurses to and from work at all hours out of fear for their safety.
The Minister also stated that both they and the Minister of Justice have written to the federal government, calling for legislation to hold those who assault healthcare workers accountable.
Federal legislation may help in the long term — and we support measures that reinforce consequences for violence in healthcare. But the reality is this: we need immediate, local action now."
In response Asagwara reminded nurses that safety measures such as beefed up parkade patrols, security officers, and weapons scanners had been instigated. The nurses reminded her that the hospital was compelled to act by an arbitrator.
When the MNU announced there had only been a net increase of 370 nurses hired since April 1 (the start of the fiscal year), Aswagara said they didn't know what they were talking about.
Manitoba added at least 732 net new nurses in the last year (presumably July 2024 to July 2025), and more than half of those positions are in Winnipeg, she said., Where did you get that phony number, she sniffed.
"Your government" via a Freedom of Information search was the answer.
The MNU said the figures provided to them showed "1,340 nurses were hired across all health regions — including casual and part-time positions — and another 970 nurses left, resulting in a net increase across the system of just 370. They showed a net loss of 14 nurses employed by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, and a net gain of 156 nurses employed by Shared Health, which includes the HSC.
Of the 1,340 nurses hired since April:
• 34% of those hired were into casual roles
• Only 27% were hired into full-time positions
• Resulting in a net increase across the system of just 370 nurses
Winnipeg, the region with the highest patient volumes, actually saw a net loss of 14 nurses.
The nurses conceded Shared Health’s data is still incomplete, "But so far, we’re not seeing the workforce transformation that’s been promised."
“I ask nurses and Manitobans to bear with us.” the health minister begged.
But it was too late. The union served the NDP with papers---a formal greylisting of the Health Sciences Centre, Manitoba's largest hospital, over safety concerns, (Greylisting is a declaration that nurses are discouraged from applying for jobs at the institution.)
Said the MNU:
With HSC members voting 94% in favour of grey listing, the concept of institutional betrayal feels more relevant than ever, especially in light of the Minister of Health's inaction. Shouldn't they be the first to stand up and say, "Under my leadership, the conditions at HSC have only gotten worse, and I plan to change that NOW?” Shouldn't they have reached out to our President to request an urgent meeting to discuss how this government can help? Especially as a NURSE?
Is there a chance for reconciliation?
Wab Kinew got his answer a few days ago in the form of a poem posted on the MNU's Facebook page.
Manitoba Nurses Union
1,463 followers
"Oh, the Things He Could Do!"
(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)
There once was a Premier, named Wab Kinew,
Who addressed healthcare problems like they were untrue.
With polished replies and a confident grin,
He’d smile for the cameras and a tale he would spin.
He’d say, “Help is coming!” and “Hope’s on its way!”
But somehow that help just… never came our way.
He’d promise the nurses, “You matter to me,”
Then vanish back into the Leg with no guarantees.
He’d nod and he’d listen, so earnest, so wise—
But action, dear friends, it was nowhere in sight.
He had all the lingo, the buzzwords, the face,
But none of the courage, no signs of grace.
He’d tweet out his thoughts, he’d hold a parade,
While ERs were closing and nurses felt played.
So Premier Kinew, we say this to you:
We see through the talk. We see what you do.
A slick little speech won't make it all better.
It’s time to get real, it’s time to become a real go-getter.
Because of the wonderful things Premier Kinew could do,
If he hadn’t fooled many, do you feel fooled, too?
Once your ex starts trolling you on social media, you're history.
So where to now? Well, the NDP's health minister Asagwara won't be around much longer. She's lost all trust of the nurses who now openly call her Manitoba's worst ever health minister.
Her replacement will be signing up for a suicide mission.
And Wab? Well, how long before he decides to leave the sinking ship and join Prime Minister Con-job Carney in "saving Canada"?