Provincial Water Management Strategy

Zebra mussels: Foe or Friend?

Zebra Mussels are pests but they can clean up water very quickly. In a controlled and balanced ecosystem, they could be beneficial if used as natural filters.

We can use data to build a shared understanding of water issues

Water quality data and information should reach community members, industrial developers and provincial experts. New technologies like IoT and AI can help us build forecasts, find and address sources of pollution and fix problems before they become major crises. This can also build trust and mutual understanding - important for watershed issues.

Land-based Activities - Calculating Local Stream Discharge and Freshwater Availability - elementary through postsecondary curricular advance

In 2019, Commissioners reflected a provincial reality collected from eleven workshops, pruning 6 comprehensive areas of focus into ‘10 Imperatives’ and ‘4 Concluding Remarks’ to questions posed by Education Minister Kelvin Goertsen. Identified was a sense of urgency in improving ‘achievement’ as students were not performing satisfactorily (p.7-26). Commission expectations listed rigorous student assessments, relevant curriculum, equity in distributed excellence inclusive of newcomers-refugee-Indigenous students and ‘girls in science’ with a special interest in STEAM (p. 101). When the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) re-evaluated PISA in 2018, Manitoba students had precipitously dropped 35 points in reading, 51 points in math, and 38 points in science (in 2 decades), placing the province last in the country (O’Grady, Deussing, Scerbina, Tao, Fung, Elez & Monk, 2019). Noting a decline of 30 points is equivalent to a full year of formal education, Manitoba now has the greatest percentage of students performing below Level 2 (the baseline level required to participate fully in modern society). Decreases in attention, concentration, numeracy and literacy (p. 27), combined with the lack of ‘evidence-based tactics’ and ‘cross-disciplinary approaches’ (p.36) have led students to increases in disengagement, cognitive lags and chronic absenteeism. Math and physics, regrettably taught in isolation, obscure relevance to daily functioning and the decline in performance signals a multi-pronged approach. More than ever, careers in resource-related disciplines require communication and computational skills blended with an understanding of environmental sustainability. Contemporarily, too many students entering college and university are without foundational knowledge and skills. Inappropriately, Manitoba now has the lowest level of postsecondary education attainment in Canada for the 25-44 age group (p.69). Desperately needed are research-informed strategies that pilot new initiatives.

Here’s a novel decades old “idea”:

So sad this is on the idea section, but will give it a shot: HEY, HOW ABOUT PROVIDING CLEAN POTABLE DRINKING WATER FOR ALL MANITOBAN FIRST NATION COMMUNITIES! I mean, it’s only the 21st century!! Is this STILL AN ISSUE? You bet it is!!, and apparently living in third world conditions is okay with this government. Clean drinking water is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT. Something we all take for granted as we do not have to boil our drinking water and hope for the best. Too bad I have to post this as the idea....an idea that has been ignored for too long. I am sad and embarrassed to be a Manitoban asking for this basic human right in 2021.

Use controlled drainage to regulate the water outflow to optimize water use within the field without affecting yield.