Premier Wab Kinew says his government’s gas-tax holiday was the most important thing a Manitoba government has ever done.

In 2024, Kinew’s NDP government suspended the 14-cents-per-litre gas tax for an entire year, a move that cost the province $340 million in tax revenue.

During a scrum after the federal NDP convention in Winnipeg on Sunday, former NDP MLA Marianne Cerilli questioned Kinew about Manitoba’s gas-tax holiday.

In response, Kinew called the 2024 tax reprieve “the most important thing that a provincial government ever did in the history of Manitoba because it gave power back to the middle class and to the low-income folks.”

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives said Kinew’s comment makes him sound out of touch.

“Saying that it was the greatest thing ever done in the history of Manitoba is an insult to every government that has been in power here in Manitoba,” deputy PC leader Jeff Bereza said in an interview from Portage la Prairie on Monday.

Bereza said providing women the right to vote was the most important political decision made by a Manitoba government. Manitoba became the first Canadian province to introduce women’s suffrage when the Tobias Norris Liberal government made the move in 1916, though Indigenous people did not get the vote federally until 1960.

Bereza said the construction of the Red River Floodway, which began in 1962 under Duff Roblin’s Progressive Conservative government, ranks No. 2 on his list because it saved the province billions of dollars by preventing the destruction of Winnipeg.

University of Manitoba political scientist Christopher Adams said he considers the expansion of Manitoba’s boundaries in 1912, spearheaded by Conservative Premier Rodmond Roblin, the most important move by a provincial government.

The Rodmond Roblin government’s decision to build the Manitoba Legislative Building ranks No. 2 for Adams, even though a kickback scandal related to the project led to the fall of the Tory government.

Adams said Kinew may have just been caught up in the moment Sunday and was only thinking about his own government’s accomplishments when he cited the gas-tax holiday as Manitoba’s biggest governmental achievement. The holiday is certainly the most populist move made by Kinew’s NDP government, the political scientist said.

“I suspect if he sat back and smoked a corncob pipe, he would think, well, there are probably more important things before that,” Adams said.

Adams said by way of example, when Ed Schreyer was asked to name the most important thing he accomplished as premier, the first New Democrat to lead this province surprised people by singling out his government’s 1972 decision to amalgamate the City of Winnipeg with neighbouring municipalities.

Schreyer’s government also created Manitoba Public Insurance and oversaw the construction of major hydro-electric projects.

“I think premiers often have different perspectives on what they’ve done and how other people see these things,” Adams said.

Kinew’s office declined an interview. Spokesperson Ryan Stelter said the premier stands by his Sunday comments about the gas-tax holiday.