Brandon Burley says Southern Manitoba offers a lot of opportunities to benefit the province

Brandon Burley says Southern Manitoba offers a lot of opportunities to benefit the province.

Southern Manitoba Cabinet Leader Brandon Burley says his role representing the region in the NDP cabinet is rewarding. The region Burley covers is 24,000 square kilometres.
    
Burley's role involves meeting with a broad range of stakeholders, including school boards, municipal councils, community groups, individuals, and outreach organizers.

The plan is to eventually set up a physical office, but for now, Burley has been on the road a lot.

"It's a lot of travel and a lot of visiting, but it's going very well and there's a lot of opportunity, I believe strongly in Southern Manitoba, and I believe government does as well. And so being able to identify and work towards the challenges and the opportunities that need to be addressed has been a rewarding one."

Burley says he's been working hard to get the many opportunities addressed in cabinet and by the premier. He says the premier and cabinet are very interested in promoting and growing Southern Manitoba.

"There's a lot of opportunity to work collaboratively. Southern Manitoba offers a lot of challenges due to its size and its remoteness in some occasions, but it's also an area that has an awful lot to offer the province in terms of opportunity and potential."

Initially, Burley said the plan was to open an office for people to come to him.

"But again, the area is massive. So, it became apparent that the most important thing for me to do was to get out and see the communities and seeing people and get an idea for context before doing that. And so, I've been making myself available for meetings where people are at, and I think that's most advantageous."

When Burley took on the role, he said a couple of extremely important opportunities and challenges caught the attention of the premier and cabinet. Burley was then assigned some additional work in relation to those opportunities.

The additional work has kept him busy at the Legislature to get those opportunities addressed.

"Those will be moving off of my desk sometime in the next month or two, freeing up more time as well for community engagement. The Community engagement piece, I'm more than happy to meet people, chat with them where they are, meet them somewhere."

Burley says his goal is to have an office set up this summer to give people a location to meet with government.

Brandon Burley can be reached by email at brandon.burley@manitoba.ca