The Manitoba government is inviting residents to vote on the design of a new specialty license plate celebrating the province's provincial parks, with a portion of proceeds from every plate sold going to an endowment fund for park improvements.
Five designs are on offer -- a campsite at night; someone canoeing on a waterway; a map replication; a loon on a lake, and a pure black design representing a park after dark.
The initiative was brought forward by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, which applied for the new plate as a way for Manitobans to express their connection to the natural environment.
The plate will be administered by Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI), the Crown corporation that has run the province's Specialty License Plate Program since 2011. MPI currently offers 19 specialty plates, and to date more than 208,000 specialty plates have been sold, generating more than $6.2 million in charitable proceeds. Specialty plates for non-members cost $70, of which $30 goes to a designated charity.
The specialty plate announcement comes as MPI continues to manage a period of financial difficulty. The corporation reported a net loss of $19.7 million for the year ended March 31, 2025, a significant improvement on the $129.5 million net loss recorded in 2023-2024, which was driven largely by more than 15,000 hail-related claims following a severe storm in and around Winnipeg in August 2023.
MPI received 280,300 auto insurance claims in the 2024/25 fiscal year, a rise of approximately 2% on the prior year, with total claims costs reaching $1.2 billion, equivalent to an average of 1,121 claims on every working day.
Meanwhile, the corporation continues to face rising claim costs, the impact of global tariffs on the auto industry, inflationary pressures and shifting political dynamics. MPI is currently seeking a rate increase for the 2026/27 insurance year and has flagged ongoing financial stewardship as central to its mandate of keeping auto insurance affordable for Manitobans.
Against that backdrop, the specialty plate program represents a modest but consistent revenue stream that simultaneously serves a community engagement function, connecting the public insurer to causes that resonate with residents across the province. For MPI, which operates through more than 300 Autopac broker locations across Manitoba, the program also reinforces the insurer's role as a civic institution beyond its core auto insurance mandate.
The government said the vote is open until July 31, with the winning design going into production for sale next year.
