Lord Roberts students share their values with politicians

If you ever wanted to know what students in a typical Grade 3-4 class value, NDP Leader Wab Kinew can tell you. That’s because Wab Kinew visited Lord Roberts School during February for I Love to Read Month. Expecting his visit, one Grade 3-4 classroom, taught by Leah Jantz, prepared a classroom letter to read to Mr. Kinew titled, What Wab Kinew Should Know. 

Here’s what it said:

In Canada, there are 3 different governments. The federal government is run by the Prime Minister and his name is Justin Trudeau. The Prime Minister runs Canada. The federal government is responsible for things like the military, if Canada goes to war, your passport and who can come and go from the country.

In Manitoba there is another government called the provincial government. They meet all the time in the building with the golden boy. They talk about the rules and where they should spend money. The provincial government is responsible for things like schools, hospitals and childcare. 

The person here to read to us today is Wab Kinew. He gets to talk to all the politicians who make decisions about how the money gets spent and what rules they should make. Our teacher told us that “HE IS OUR VOICE” and we should brainstorm about what we would want him to know. 

Here are the top 5 things we want Wab Kinew to know:

1. We care about the planet and our health – we think you should not let people cut down trees to make more buildings. Also, we think you should make smoking cigarettes illegal. 
2. We care about people in need. You should spend more money on homeless shelters, more beds and more medicines and you should make a law where restaurant and stores have to donate the leftover food to people who are hungry.
3. We care about kids. You should spend more money on parents, homes, food, clothes and shoes for kids who need them. Also, kids should be happy so you should help them get toys, cheeseburgers and you should build more indoor and outdoor playgrounds.
4. We care about everyone’s health. We think hospitals should have more nurses, doctors, surgeons and beds. We also think that families should have MORE places to be near the hospital when they have a family member who is sick – just like the Ronald McDonald house does.
5. We care about going to school. We think that schools need more science equipment, more books and more supplies. We think there should be more time for math (but some of us think we need less time for math) more time for gym and more time for art. We think the school should have more teachers, more educational assistants (EAS) and a person to work in the library. One of us thought that all the teachers and EAs should get a raise.

We hope you will take the things we care about and talk to your friends about it. We hope that you care about the things we care about. Please help us and know that we care about at happens in our neighborhood. 

Mr. Kinew was touched by the letter and shortly after the school visit he reached out to the teacher, inviting her and her students to attend Question and Answer Period at the Legislature. The class attended this session on Monday, March 20, 2023. Mr. Kinew introduced the class as his guests and took some parts of their letter to create an official Member’s Statement.