The MLA for Emerson expects healthcare to remain an hot topic in the legislature this fall. Since coming into power in spring 2016, the Progressive Conservatives have made sweeping changes to Manitoba's healthcare system in just one example of the effort to slash spending and reduce the province's debt.

"It's an issue for people any time that there's change," said Tory MLA, Cliff Graydon. "When there is change people are always afraid of the dark, so to speak, but at the same time we do know that the way things were going that it wasn't sustainable at all."

Meantime, Graydon admitted that it's going to take more than a year or two to get the province's books back in order. He noted it took 17 years to get the deficit this high, which at one point was forecast to hit $1 billion by March 2018.

Graydon added that his party has managed to turn things around. The latest numbers now forecast that debt to be $872 million by the end of the fiscal year.