The spring session started at the Manitoba Legislature on March 6th with provincial representatives in session full swing this past week.

MLA for Turtle Mountain, Doyle Piwniuk, says he's advocating for not only his riding, but for the entire Westman Region when it comes to economic development, rural health care, and housing, just to name a few.  However, he adds there are so many opportunities to bring to Westman specifically, and we just all need to work together to accomplish great things in our Westman communities!

Piwniuk says Brandon is growing as a city, but we can do more.  In Westman, we can do more.

"We want to attract more industry," he says. "We're seeing right now Winnipeg is growing quite a bit, and all of the Red River Region is growing.  We need to work together as a region, as Westman, and bring a lot of that industry to our corner of the province, to make sure that every town is going to grow healthy."

Economic development, health care, education, housing are all inter-connected, says Piwniuk.  

Bringing more industry to our communities, benefits the community as a whole, "because as those companies grow, and continue to need more employees, there's always bound to be more workers who can actually help in health care, that could be family members, or youth that can start getting some training as students and come back to live in the community that their parents are."

Turtle Mountain and Prairie Spirit School Divisions have seen increases in their school enrollments, but at the same time Piwniuk is seeing a decrease in enrollment in Southwest Horizon School Division.

"They actually put somebody on their local economic development because they realized that we're educating the children, but they're moving away as soon as they're educated," shares Piwniuk. "So, this is why we all have to work with the schools, and the whole community has to come together, not just local governments and officials."

"Everybody has to be part of the solution."

 Please listen to more with MLA Doyle Piwniuk on this very topic below!