Manitoba Committee Hansard — 13 May 1997 (Public Utilities Committee, Sitting 5, 36th Legislature, 3rd Session)

36-3-pu5

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Third Session - Thirty-Sixth Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba Standing Committee on Public Utilities and Natural Resources Chairperson Mr. Gerry McAlpine Constituency of Sturgeon Creek Vol. XLVII No.5 -10 a.m., Tuesday, May 13, 1997 ISSN 0713-9454

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thirty-Sixth Legislature Member Constituency Political Affiliation ASHTON, Steve Thompson N.D.P. BARRETT, Becky Wellington N.D.P. CERILLI, Marianne Radisson N.D.P. CHOMIAK, Dave Kildonan N.D.P. CUMMINGS, Glen, Hon. Ste. Rose P.C. DACQUAY, Louise, Hon. Seine River P.C. DERKACH, Leonard, Hon. Roblin-Russell P.C. DEWAR, Gregory Selkirk N.D.P. DOER, Gary Concordia N.D.P. DOWNEY, James, Hon. Arthur-Virden P.C. DRIEDGER, Albert Steinbach P.C. DYCK, Peter Pembina P.C. ENNS, Harry, Hon. Lakeside P.C. ERNST, Jim Charleswood P.C. - EVANS, Clif Interlake N.D.P. EVANS, Leonard S.

Brandon East N.D.P. FILMON, Gary, Hon. Tuxedo P.C. FINDLAY, Glen, Hon. Springfield P.C. FRIESEN, Jean Wolseley N.D.P. GAUDRY, Neil St. Boniface Lib. GILLESHAMMER, Harold, Hon. Minnedosa P.C. HELWER, Edward Gimli P.C. HICKES, George Point Douglas N.D.P. JENNISSEN, Gerard Flin Flon N.D.P. KOWALSKI, Gary The Maples Lib. LAMOUREUX, Kevin Inkster Lib. LA THLIN, Oscar The Pas N.D.P. LAURENDEAU, Marcel St. Norbert P.C. MACKINTOSH, Gord St. Johns N.D.P. MALOW A Y, Jim Elmwood N.D.P. MARTINDALE, Doug Burrows N.D.P. McALPINE, Gerry Sturgeon Creek P.C. McCRAE, James, Hon. Brandon West P.C. McGIFFORD, Diane Osborne N.D.P.

MciNTOSH, Linda, Hon. Assiniboia P.C. MIHYCHUK, MaryAnn St. James N.D.P. MITCHELSON, Bonnie, Hon. River East P.C. NEWMAN, David, Hon. Riel P.C. PENNER, Jack Emerson P.C. PITURA, Frank, Hon. Morris P.C. PRAZNIK, Darren, Hon. Lac du Bonnet P.C. RADCLIFFE, Mike, Hon. River Heights P.C. REID, Daryl Transcona N.D.P. REIMER, Jack, Hon. Niakwa P.C. RENDER, Shirley St. Vital P.C. ROBINSON, Eric Rupertsland N.D.P. ROCAN, Denis Gladstone P.C. SALE, Tim Crescentwood N.D.P. SANTOS, Conrad Broadway N.D.P. STEFANSON, Eric, Hon. Kirk field Park P.C. STRUTHERS, Stan Dauphin N.D.P. SVEINSON, Ben La Verendrye P.C. TOEWS, Vic, Hon.

Rossmere P.C. TWEED, Mervin Turtle Mountain P.C. VODREY, Rosemary, Hon. Fort Garry P.C. WOWCHUK, Rosann Swan River N.D.P. Vacant Portage Ia Prairie

95 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA THE STANDING COMM ITTEE ON PUBLIC UTILITIES AND NATURAL RESOURCES Tuesday, May 13, 1997 TIME -10 a.m. LOCATION- Winnip eg, Manitoba CHAIRPERSON- Mr. Gerry McAlpine (Sturgeon Creek) VICE-CHAIRPERSON - Mr. Denis Rocan (Gladstone) ATTENDANCE - 10- QUORUM - 6 Members of the Committee present: Hon. Messrs. McCr ae, Pitura Messrs. Ashton, Dewar, Gaudr y, Jenn issen, McAlpine, Mrs. Render, Messrs. Rocan, Svein son APPEARING: Mr. Jack W.

Zacharias, President and Gener al Manager, Manitoba Public Insura nce Corporatio n MATTERS UNDER DISCUSSION: Annual Report of the Manitoba Public Insura nce Cor pora tion, October 31, 19 94 Annual Report of the Manitoba Public Insur ance Corporation, Febr uary 29, 19 96 Annual Report of the Manitoba Public Ins ura nce Corporation, Febr uary 28, 19 97 *** Clerk Assista nt (Ms. Shabnam Datta): Good mor ning. Will the commit tee please come to order. We must proceed to elect a Chai rpe rson before we begin with the meeting. Are there any nominations? Mr. Ben Sveinson (La Verendrye): I nominate Mr. McAl pine.

Clerk Assista nt: Mr. McAlpine has been nomi nated for Chair. Ar e ther e any further nominations? Seeing that there are no further nomi nations, Mr. McAlp ine has been elected. Would you please take the Chair. Mr. Chairperson: Good morning. Will the Sta nding Commit tee on Public Utilities and Natural Resources please come to order. Before the com mittee can proceed with the business before it, it must proceed to elect a Vice-Chairperson . Ar e there any nom inations? Mr. Sveinson: I nom inate Mr. Rocan. Mr. Chairperson: Mr. Rocan has been nomi nated. Ar e there any other nom inations? Seeing none, Mr.

Rocan has been ele cted as the Vice Chai rperson of the Sta nding Commit tee on Public Util ities and Natural Resources. This morning the commit tee will be considering the October 31, 19 94, Annual Repor t of the Manitoba Public Insura nce Corporatio n and the Fe bruary 29, 19 96, Annual Report of the Manitoba Public Insur ance Corporatio n. Previously these reports had been considered in commi ttee on October II, 19 96. We will also be considering the Fe bruary 28, 19 97, Annual Report of the Manitoba Public Insura nce Corporatio n. Does the honourable minister have an open ing stateme nt? Hon.

James McCrae (Minister charged with the admini stration of The Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): Mr. Chair man, a very brief comme nt. Good morning, and good morning to members of the comm ittee. I am pleased to be here today to resume the review of the annual reports of the Manitoba Public Insur ance, and today I am accompanied by seve ral

96 LEGISL ATIV E AS SEMBL Y OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 corpora tion officials who will assist in respo nding to questions. Before we go any further I would like to introduce them. Mr. Be rnard Th iessen is the chairman of the corpora tion's board of dir ectors. Down there at the end is Mr. Jack Zacharias, president and general manager. Mr . Zacharias has ser ved with the corporat ion for 25 years. He informs me he started out as an adjuster and now he is the president. So it is quite a move forward in those 25 years. No doubt, I do not know if it was right at the beginning of the corporation that you came on.

Floor comment: Two months after it started. Mr. McCrae: Two months after the corporation started. So we have considerable experience represented in our capable president. How old would you have to be to be there for 25 years? Mr . Wilf Beda rd is vice-president of Claims; Mr. Barry Galenz oski is vice-president of Finance and Corpor ate Information Systems ; Mir. David Kidd is vice-pres ident of Insurance Opera tions; Mr. Kevin McCul loch is general counsel and vice-president of Customer Relatio ns; Mr. Peter Dyck is corporate controller, and Mr. Jim Kingdon is manager of Corporate Commun ications.

Jim, he is the one you see on TV sometimes. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move the adoption of the 19 94-1 995 MPI annual reports and begin taking questions on the 1996 Annual Report of Manitoba Public Insurance. Perhaps I can ask Mr. Zacharias and Mr. Th iessen to come forward and assist me in resp onding. These matters have been, other than the '96 report, these reports have been before comm ittee in the past, and I would urge honour able members to perhaps move the adoption of these reports today. Mr. Chairperson : We thank the honourable minister.

Did the critic for the official opposition, the honourable member for Th ompson (Mr. Asht on) have an opening statement? Mr� Steve Ashton (Thompson): Oh, yes, Mr. Chai rperson, I definitely do. I want to start off by indicating to the minister that I will be asking a number of questions, and I will be raising it in two areas. One is-by the way, following our experience with the Manitoba Te lephone System-given the insur ance lobby to have MPIC privatized, at least the profitable portion of it in their mind, I will be raising that question with the minister.

I realize that, given MTS, there may be an element of cynicism that we have about the government saying, well, they have no plans to privatize MPIC, but I said in the same room in the fall of 19 95, and in September of that year heard the MTS minister say the same thi ng, in fact, accused me at that time of being the only person and the NDP being the only party that was talking about the privatization ofMTS. I will be raising that because if the government thinks they had a fight on MTS, watch out if you even think about privatizing Autopac.

You will have an opposition from the public like you have never seen before. So I will be asking that on the record. Th e second area of questioning I want to raise-and, by the way, I think there may be an element of commonal ity here in terms of what is happening with Autopac and par ticularly what is happening on the injury coverage side-the government brought in the no fault auto insur ance legislation several years ago, and what is, I think, most notable about the recent reports is the dramatic reduction in the payout for injury claims that we ha ve seen from the period.

I bel ieve it was in the last annual report '9 3-94; it was $19 3 milli on. If one goes ahead, and we have seve ral reports we are dealing with here, but the most recent report indicates that claims for injuries are $10 3 mill ion. * (1010 ) By the way, the reducti on-and I find it rather unfor tunate the minister attempted to skate off the question in the House about the actual source of it-is actually outlined in the report itself, the most recent report which indicates very, ver y clearly tha t the PI PP, which is basically no-fault, is performing even better than anticipated.

I assume that means even better for the gove rnment and the corpora tion, resulting in a lower cost per inju ry claim, and worst case scenarios involving reser ves set aside for post-PIPP claims have not material ized. Well, that should come as no surprise because if one looks at the number of injur y claims -

May 13 , 19 97 LEGISLA TIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 97 going back to 19 93 before no-fault, the claims have dropped from 20,659 to II ,511 . While there may have indeed been some reduction in the number of accidents, what I found unfortunate is the minister refused to recognize what his own repor t states essent ially, and that is if you look at what has happened, many of the types of claims that were elig ible in 19 93-94 are no longer eligible under no fault, and the minister knows that. So what you have is a dramatic drop in what has been paid out since the no fault policies were brought in.

I want to indicate on the record because once again the minister in the House did not give an accurate view of things, the New Democratic Part y supported no-fault insofar as it takes out the involvement of the legal system. I believe that a properly run no-f ault system can be fairer to people who are injured in automobi le accidents. Just as the Tories have done with Workers Compensation, now they are doing with MP IC. I have some experience with Workers Compensation, ha ving been the critic for several years. What they did in Workers Compensation was the same pattern.

Th ey brought in legislation to limit the payouts and the type of benefits that individuals were eligible for and largely moved away from any coverage for pain and suffering. I remember the legislation at the time. I believe it was 19 93. What they also did, I bel ieve, in Workers Compensation is squeeze claims, and surprise, surprise, there is a surplus in Workers Compensation. Well, Mr. Chai rperson, that is because it has come basically out of the pockets of injured workers and their families, and I have seen it. I have seen people I know personal ly who have been through that system.

I know people who have been through the system since they changed the legislation who have not been able to receive the kind of coverage they should be rece iving. I have seen people since the changes in the legislation of Workers Comp ensation not receive the kinds of benefits they would receive if they were eligible to tort action, which they are not. Once again, the New Democratic Party suppor ts Workers Compensation, but not the meanspirited, deficit, surplus-oriented approach of the government that looks at the bottom line ahead of injur ed workers and their families.

Wel l, I use that as an example, because I believe that what the government is doing with Autopac is ve ry much in the same theme. I do not think it should come as any surprise to anyone what the real dynamics are. Th ere has been a lot of political debate around Autopac since its inception. I might add that the Conser vative Party of the day wore black armbands, said it was a black day for Manitoba. Sterling Lyon attempted to privatize it. Even Sterl ing Lyon under stood that that would have been politically unacceptable. So I always have a bit of a suspicion when it comes to Conser vatives and Autopac.

But I under stand there is some Realpolitik of Autopac. I found it ironic that this is one of the key issues they used in 19 88. I noticed that they did not exactly drop automobile insurance rates after they got ele cted, but sort of like Jean Chretien and the GST, I suppose some of those things get forgotten and forgiven over the period of time. What is interesting is, if you look at the reason for some of the rate increases which by and large were kept and continued by the Conservatives, it was because of increased costs in the liability area, injury claims out of the court system.

I believe what the government did in 19 93 and '94 when it came to no-fault is basically sat down and said we are faced with either ra pidly increa sing costs or cutting the costs. Now, insofar as no-fault takes the system out of the courts like Workers Comp does and removes the legal costs, which can be fairly significant, obvio usly that is positive to everyone I suppose except for those involved with the legal system. We suppor ted that. We brought in 35 amendments during the bill which the government completely ignored, which were aimed at making the system a fairer system.

What the government did-and by the way I would encour age the min ister to meet with many of the people that have been dealing with Autopac. If you think you have taken the legal system out of it, I will te ll you many people have gone to lawyers, not because they can go to court but because when they go into the appeals system, they feel that the cards, the deck is stacked against them.

98 LEGIS LATIV E ASS E MBL Y OF MANITOBA May 13 , 199 7 I just met this morning with a group, in fact, a lot of people who have been affected fighting Autopac. Th at was one of the things. I asked how many people have had to access lawyers. Vir tually every single one of them had to access a lawyer. It is interesting, because even though they are starting to workers comp the system at Autopac, they have not even learned from history. In the early 19 80s one of the most significant thi ngs that the New Democratic Party government of th1� day did was to bring in the Worker Advisor office for Workers Compensa tion.

Now what the Worker Advisor office does is al low you, if you have a claim with Workers Compensa tion, to go to a totally independent advocate who advocates on your behalf. I would suggest to the minister, and I would suggest that he consider this immedia tely given the great deal of concern that has been expressed about the appeal system, the lack of fair ness by many of the people who have been part of that system, many of the Autopac claima nts. I would suggest that is the first thing that the minister should do, not even wait, by the way, for this so-called rev iew of Autopac, the one Mr.

Uskiw is conducting of the no fault package. I do not think we need to wait that long. I think it is absolutely clear to anyone that it worked on Workers Compensation, and it prov ides a balance when you remove the tort system, because you no longer have legal recourse. I believe it is unfair, absolutely unfair, when you have Autopac able to have all the resources at its disposal and have accident victims in there without any support. I have heard stories, by th e way, of people having difficulty accessing the appeal process.

I realize it is a new process, but one of the common themes that accident victims have expressed to m1! is how the rules seem to be changing over the last several years and how, for example, you get a document which outlines in some ref orm what the situation is, but then, no, that obviously does not have legal impact, so you have to go get the bill, and how people have had difficulty even gett ing information on the appeal process itself.

Indeed, I think if you look at the number of appeals, com parat ively, I believe it is a small percen tage as com pared to what might happen if people had more access to the system. I do not encour age appeals, but when you remove the system from the, court system, the tort system, I be lieve you owe respon sibil ity to people who have paid their insur ance and who are injur ed, in many cases injured, by the way, through no fault of their own, I believe you have an obligation to make sure the system is balanced. Mr. Chai rperson, the system currently is not balanced.

I do not be lieve it is fair, and until we start by having an advocate in place, I believe that will be the continuing situation. I want to say once again that I hope to ask various questions about this, because when you see a drop from $19 3 mil lion to $10 3 milli on, it obviously begs a number of questions, and indeed you can take the estimated legal fees that would have come out that; it would have been a significant percent age.

You can talk about changes in accident ra tes, and I have always been supportive of pre vention, but your own document, I believe anyone who looks at any obje ctive analysis will reco gnize that the reason the claims have dropped is specifically because of some of the decisions you made when you brought in no-fault insurance. Th e sad part, I believe, is the degree to which there are people who are suffering as a result. I dealt with Workers Compensation for years, and I want to put on the record that I do not blame Autopac and its staff.

Th ey are basically following legislative patterns that were there, that were put in place, but you know, I remember a few years ago, and I want to use the par allel of Workers Compensation again, because what I found staggering, when the government was looking at re vie wing Workers Compensation a few years ago, was that there was an internal document being circula ted-this is at Workers Compensation, by the way-that indicated that adjusters felt that, I believe, the figure was about 70-80 percent of claims were somewhat or totally fraudulent. * (1 020) I found that absolutely offensive, and indeed that is not the case of Workers Com pensation; it is a very small percentage.

I ha ve dealt with Workers Compens ation cases for 15 years, and I can count on one hand the number of cases that were fraudulent. I want to take that ahead to Autopac. There was abuse of the system, and I bel ieve there is a role for invest igations. I had a situation myself where

May 13, 1997 LEGISL ATIV E AS SEMBLY OF MANITOBA 99 investigation was conducted over an alleged accident, and indeed the person who was investigated was claiming disabil ity and was continuing to work at the same time. Th ere is a role for investigation, but there has to be a balance. I also believe there has to be a clear dir ection from the top, starting from the minister, policy making level, to treat people fairly. One of the things that I find in dealing with a lot of accident victims is a lot of them feel that it is assumed that they have been involved in fraud.

One person said the more you fight it, the more you get this thrown back in your face. Th ere is abuse of any system, but 99 percent of people, I bel ieve, who are involved as accident victims, first of all, it is no choice of their own. Bel ieve you me, I have had fam ily members who have been throu gh that. Second of all, in a lot of cases they are confused, they are in pain, they have disruption to their lives, to their marria ges, to their health. Th ese are not people who are defr auding the system.

I am sure there will be people who will say, well, I know this case or that case or the other case, but what I want to make sure out of Autopac over the next period of time is that we make sur e there are no memos or no directions, whether it be from the top or anywhe re, that would lead to any suggestion that that is the case. Many of the adjuster s I know do not treat people that way, but when I see a government that has a pattern of doing these thi ng-! remember one time someone, it was a Conservative said the biggest problem that Conservatives have at times is people view them as blackhearted accountants.

I think that is probably unfair to accountants, but I know the sense. You know, when you get down to it, that is the sense that a lot of people have, and I will tell you, when I have seen what this government has done to Workers Com pensation and I tell you, they do not meet with the people that are suffering as a result of their decisions-blackhe arted accountants is not far off it. I will tell you when I meet with some of the accident victims that I have, and I want to stress again, I am not blaming Au topac or any of the Autopac staff; I think there are a lot of very fair individuals at Autopac.

I know a lot of people work at Autopac, and they are ve ry dedicated, but when you have got a government that starts sending the kind of signals it did in 19 94, which I think fundamen tally bel ieves in the politics of A utopac ahead of the fairn ess, I think that is the root cause of the problems w ith the way they brought in no fault. They could have brought in a good system. The y did not.

I think it was all to do with politics, with th e upcoming electio n, not wanting increases in Autopac ra tes, but you know blackhearted accountants, I will tell you, meet with some of the accident victims, and that is the only conclusion you can come to. So what I want out of this minister is more than what we have with this rev iew, and be lieve you me, it will not be acceptable to the opposition if the min ister says we have the Uskiw rev iew.

I think this rev iew, by the way, we ha ve no details on what kind of resources it will have, whether there will be an ability for claimants to meet privately, because many people are afraid to meet in any public forum to outl ine the circums tances of their case. I ha ve met with people who do not want me to even raise thi ngs, but they want me to know what is happening, because they are afraid that this will affect the processing of their claim.

Quite frankly, I want to say on the record again, too, because I think it is unfortunate that the minister in this particular ease-l raised this in the House, and it was sort of interesting that they said, oh, well, Mr. Uskiw used to be an NDPer. We all know that Mr. Uskiw is a big contributor to the Conservatives, a ver y active Conservative at this point in time. I get the feeling th at may have a little bit more to do with his appointme nt than his years as an NDP MLA, but you know that is besides the point.

You should not have appointed, I believe, anybody other than either a very senior judge or a senior lawyer who has dir ect experience with the tort syst em. Th e biggest concern that people have about no-fault is to make sure that a system that is good in principle pro vides actual and real justice in pract ice. I bel ieve that once again when you have a political appointment , as was made in the case, just as you have done by the way with Lotteri es, you know, where politics is definitely a criteria , what you end up with is a repo rt that potentially is going to have pol itical ram ifications. Do you know what?

Belie ve you me, Sam Uskiw would not have taken this as an insult even when he was an NDPer. Sam Uskiw is a very political

10 0 LEGISL ATIVE AS SEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 individual. You could have, you should have appointed a judicial re view. The New Democr atic government in the 19 80s appoi nted a re view based on that. I would suggest that that would have been far mor e appropr iate than this.

By the way, if you think that the re port will be acceptable if it does anythi ng othe r than deal fundame ntally with the whole no-fault question and provi de fairness and access and trave l throughout the province and be able to listen to people who have dealt with the system-and by the way, I would suggest, listen to many of the Autopac emp loyees tht:mselves, because I am sur e they can provide a lot of guidance. Do not thi nk that you can just use this as some paper ed over way of dealing with some very re al concern s out ther e. So I want to finish off on that note .

I want to stre ss again that I be lieve there has been at lost opportunity with no-fault. I think no-fault has offered some re al potential as a concept, and I would note that if you had liste ned to us in 19 94 and adopted many of the amendments we had proposed, you would not be in this situation today. I re ally wonder whether you re ally care, because as a gove rnment , and I do not mean you as an individual, but as a government, because certainly you have got what you want, you have cut back the claims to people who we re injure d as a re sult of automobi le insurance . You now have a surplus.

You have en ded up with this. It is just like Workers Compens ation, but you know, I believe the first obligation of Work ers Compensation and Autopac is to provide services to Manitobans. When I buy insurance, I buy insurance not only for my automobile but for my own person al potential injury and that of others who might be involved in car accidents. Having had family members who have bee n through car accidents, I know the terri ble situations that can re sult as a re sult of automobile accidents.

So I say to you I believ e this govc:rnment has been heartless in the way that it has dealt with Autopac and Autopac victims, and if there is one th ing I hope to do as a re sult of this commi ttee and the othe r committees , which I hope we can schedule, is persuade the gove rnment to put aside its political agenda on Autopac, whether it be for privatization, or maybe some Conservatives do not actually care if Autopac is seen as not doing its job and not worki ng effective ly. Then it is just a lot ea sier to tum around and privati ze it. I wonder if that, maybe, is part of the agenda.

I hope not, because I hope that if you have not shown much heart towards accident victims the last three, four years, that we can make you show some heart, and even if you do not want to, get you to bri ng in some legisl ative changes and br ing in the kind of advocate that can go to bat for people and make sure that we get a faire r system for accident victims in this provi nce. Mr. Chairperson: I thank the honourable me mber for those comments. Do the officials in attendance from the Manitoba Public Insurance Cor porati on have any statements that they wish to make to the committee at this time? Mr. Jack W.

Zachar ias (President and General Man ager, Man itoba Public Insurance Corporation): No, I do not. Mr. Chairperson: How did the committee wish to proc eed this morning? Shall the re ports be discussed separ ate ly or together? What is the agree ment of the commit tee? Mr. Ashton: It probably would be best if we discuss them as a group, but I have no proble m passing the '94 re port at the en d of the day. We ll, we have got the-which one ? '94? Whi ch ones have not been passed? Mr. Chairperson : '94 and '96. An Honourable Member: '94 and '95. Mr. Chairperson: '94 and '95. Mr.

Ashton: We ll, we could certa inly pass '94. I just hope there wi ll be other heari ngs set, because I do not be lieve we will be able to finish in an hour and a half this morning , so I can pass both the re ports, but I just would ask for some general commitment that we can [inter jection] yes, but if we can deal with them in general, it is just that ther e may be some shifting back betwee n differ ent re ports and some of the questions so- -

May 13 , 19 97 LEGISL ATIV E AS SE MBLY OF MANITOB A 101 Mr. Chairperson: Is it agr eement that we wi ll deal with the re ports in general and the n pass the two re ports- both re por ts, '94, '95, at the en d of this sitting? Is that agr eed? [agr eed] Did the committee wish to indicate how late it wishes to sit this morning, or should we re visit this issue? Mr. Ashton: I think twelve o'clock would be- Mr. Chairperson: Twelve o'clock. Is that agr eed? [agr eed] * (1 030) Mr.

McCrae: Br iefly in re sponse, my initial comments were simply to introduce the re pr esen tatives of MPI who are with us this morning, and the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) raised a number of matte rs by way of introduct ion that I would like to comment briefly in re sponse, if I may. I am, first off, ver y glad that the honour able member for Thompson in his comments, which in some ar eas were somewhat criti cal, but throughout spoke we ll of the people at Manitoba Public Insur ance who day in and day out and year in and year out run the ope rati ons of the corporat ion.

I was glad that he did that, because I share-of all the things he said, that is one thing I can sh are with him, that if the 19 96 re port shows a re asonably successful performanc e, it is partly to do with the direction set through the policies of the government, but in no small measur e it has to do with the day in and day out operati on of the corpor ation. So I certa inly agree with the honou r able me mber for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) about that.

He firstly raised the spectre of pr ivatization, and I thi nk simply in orde r to deal with this matter it might be best ifl re fer re d to the re sponse given to the honourable member for Thompson by the First Minister in the Legislatur e here in Manitoba on Apr il 22 of this year. The honourable member for Thompson was asking about this whole idea of the pr ivatization of Autopac.

The honourable First Minister re sponded as follows: "Madam Sp ea ker, I just want to say that I re ad that art icle that was put together by a re porter in the Wi nnipeg Free Pr ess, and I was shocked at the combination of circum stances that led to what I thought was a

part icula rly misleading headli ne saying that we are studying Autopac. The member should know that at the time of the introducti on of no-fault insurance , one of the conditions we made was that we would do a re view ofthe ope rati on of no-fault, peri od, paragraph, and that is ex actly what the appointme nt of Mr. Uskiw as a re view person is for. It is part of the act, and we are fulfilling the mandate of the act, nothi ng els e. The way in which that art icle was concocted to mislead this as to being a revi ew of all of Autopac under public ownershi p is absolutel y false.

We have no intention of doing that, and I want the re cord to be clear." That is, I think, all I need to say about the first part of the comments of the hono urable member. The hon ourable member went on to re fer to some other things, and amongst othe r things he talked about politics. I re member 19 87 leading up to the change of government in Manitoba in 19 88. I re me mber full page feature s in local newspapers about the troubled Crown corpor ations in the pro vince of Manitoba. That had a lot to do, I suggest, with the change of government in 19 88.

The honour able me mber speaks of politics as if somehow he or his collea gues would neve r in dulge in, and yet- Mr. Ashton : Not at the ex pense of accident victim s. Not at the ex pense of accident victim s; tha t was my point. Mr. McCrae: The honourable member says not at the ex pense of accident victims. Those are high sounding words, and I agree wholeh e artedly with th em. Nobody should do that, but what about the expens e of every single rate paye r in the pro vince of Manitoba?

We re call clearly today-I certa inly, as minister now re sponsible for this corpo rati on, re call very vivi dly the circumstance s leading up to the election of 19 88 which virtually devastate d the party in powe r at that time, because ther e were suggestions that the party in powe r at that time was bri nging political conside rati ons into the rate setting proc ess. To dispel that sort of thing we put into ope rati on the Crown Corpor ations Council whose job it is to oversee the ope rati ons of all the Cr own corporat ions. I thi nk

10 2 LEGIS LA TIV E ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 that has been a very positive thing. I thi nk most of the Crown corpor ations are ope rati ng much bette r today than they were in those days, thanks in part to their re quir em en t to be accountable not only to ever ybody el se but also to the Crown Corpor ations Council with re spect speci fically to Manitoba Public Insurance . That corporat ion was re quir ed by legislation brought in by the prese nt administrat ion to n�port annually to the Public Uti lities Board and to bri ng proposed rate incr eases to the Public Utilities Board and to argue thei r case there very publicly and to be cross-e xamined by in terested

part ie s. That is what happens, and that did not happe n pr eviously. Those two things alone have had a lot to do with the im proved perf ormance of the Manitoba Public Insurance . I notice, just in yesterday's paper, Roy Romanow is being accused in Saskatchewan of playing around with hydr o rate s in some kind of effort to he lp out the federal New Democ rati c counte rparts running in the present federal election. So, you know, the mor e we do not learn, the mor e we do not learn, but some people do.

I thi nk that the pr esent admi nistrati on in Manitoba has learned a lesson from the mistakes of othe r governments and, hopefully, we are not involved in making those same kinds of mistakes. I do not have to re fer only to MPIC. I can re fer to the way the Hydro was being run by the pr evious administrat ion in Manitoba. The Limestone Gene rati ng plant, I mean, it is wide ly agr eed that that came on before it was re quired and came on for a political re ason behi nd the timing of the construct ion of the Limestone Generat ing Station.

Again., I re fer to the rate shock of the '80s that we ex perie nced with re spect to MPI, and I have also re fer re d to steps taken since those days.

Ther e is a litany or list of Crown corpo rati ons that were very, very trouble some in thost: days and not so troublesome today, for ex ample, lthe Manfor, the proble ms re lated to deficits and, shall we say, ex cesses on the part of the government with re spect to the Manfor; the MTX issue, re lated to the teleph one com pany, which was then under the direction of the government of the day; Flyer Industr ies, which was so badly managed that even the New Dem ocrats agr eed that it needed to be pr ivatized, and that is what the y did.

I can thi nk of very, very troublesome days at the McKe nzie See ds company and ManOi l, and no doubt there are othe rs. So those corpor ations, Mr . Chairman, had some very difficult times due in no small measur e to the very thing the hono urable member for Thompson (Mr . Ashton) is re fer ri ng to today, political interfer en ce, to the detr imen t of people . Ther e is no point tryi ng to say that ther e is no detr imen t to people whe n you are hitti ng them in the pocke tbooks as hard as they were hit in the ND P days.

Perhaps it would be he lpful to the discussion here if we steere d away from that sor t of rhetor ical stuff, because I can, I think, quite ea sily, bri ng to the attention of the honourable member the ex cesses of the government he suppor ted, which far outweighs any kind of negative comments he could make about the prese nt admi nistrat ion and its stewardshi p of this corporat ion. The honour able member spoke of the PI PP, Personal Inju ry Prote ction Plan.

I re alize that ther e were amendme nts brought forward by his party when the time came to move in this direction, but ther e was general suppor t for the concept and the pr inciple. Contr ary to what the honourable member has said and with ex ceptions obviously noted because the re are, with any program, people who have difficulties from time to time with it, and we know that happe ns, but in an overall sense, I am saying this pr ior to the re view being carr ied out by Mr.

Uskiw, but I am re latively confident that in an ove rall sense the no-fault aspect of public insur ance is achievi ng the objectives that were set out for it and obje ctives that ever yone agr eed with. Like with all kinds of legisla tion that come forward that br eak new ground or ma ke significant change, his colleagues and himself br ing forward ame ndments that would achieve objectives that they might be mor e supportive of. I re alize that but, generally speaking, the annual re port sets out that we are achievi ng the objectives we set out to do.

But just in case we are wrong about that, which I do not think we are, but just in case, we have got the re view underway, which is a legislatively mandated re view. It is being conducted by Mr. Uskiw, and I do not under stand the comments of the honour able member for Thompson. -

May 13 , 19 97 LEGISL ATIV E ASSEMBL Y OF MANITOBA 10 3 * (l 040) Mr . Uskiw was good enou gh to be a minister in an NDP government for 16 years. I do not know why he would not be good enough to head up the re view of the MPI. The honou rable member makes some re fer en ce to political people, and sure ly he is not invi ting me to go back to the re cord of the New Democr ats and look at the kinds of people that were in charge of very, very im portant matte rs duri ng the NDP years. Is there someth ing wrong with Mr. Uskiw is what I want to know.

It is hard for me to believ e the honour able memb er when he says ther e is something wrong with Mr. Uskiw when he did not mind seei ng Mr. Uskiw serve in an NDP government for some 20 years. As the Pr emier put in on Apr il 27, he said: I thi nk, to Mr. Uskiw's credit, he has re cognized that the re is good governme nt in this provi nce, and if he supports this government, that should not be a re ason why he has to be re jected as a commissioner.

The fact of the matter is, he does have the ex perie nce, he did serve in thi s House for 20 years, we do not hold it against him that he was a New Democr at, I do not understand why they-me aning the honourable member and his colle agues-hold it against him that he has see n the light and re cognizes good governme nt. Mr. Ashton: You should have appointed a nonpolitical person. That was my point, and you know it. Mr.

McCrae: The honourable member also re ferred to the appeal process under the no-f ault aspect of public insur ance, and I would re mind the honour able member that the me mbers of the public are advised in writi ng by the corporati on of the appeal proce ss that is available and how to access it. The honourable member re fer re d to family memb ers, and I do not suppose ther e are very many people who are not, in one way or another, affected, or a memb er of a family who is not, in one way or another, affected by ser ious injur ies which are the re sult of motor vehi cle accidents.

I can tell the honourable member that I am just like he is in that re spect, in mor e than one instance in my personal exper ience and that of my family. So I do not need to hear from the honourable member any rhetor ical tirade s about that sort of thing. I have see n the pain. I have felt the pain. I know a little bit about the suffer ing; perhaps not as much as some other people, but I certai nly have , and members of my family have, certa inly been involved in very, very seri ous motor vehicle accident injuri es.

So I do not need any lessons in sensitivity from the honou rable member for Thompson, because I certainly have ex perie nces of my own. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to re spond, and I and the corp orati on are available to answer questions. Mr. Ashton: I must say I find it intere sting that the mini ster had an op ening statement, the n I had an opening statement, and the n the minister had another opening statement. I can get into a lengthy debate with the minister, but I ju st want to say two things.

First of all, I think it is unfortuna te, the fact that he re ad into the re cord the comments of the First Minister-by the way, has no cr edibility whatsoev er on anything to do with Crown corporat ions, and the n atte mpted not only to justify what the government is doing with Autopac, but the n attack a re porte r who wrote a story which indicated, factually, that the re have been two things happening with Autopac. One is the re view by Mr. Uskiw, but which, by the way, is the re sult of an amendment brought in by the New Democr atic Party when no-fault was passed.

I have the ame ndment he re in case the minister is not aware of that. But the second thing is the fact that there is an insur ance lobby to privati ze part of Autopac. It is interesting because when it came to MTS there was no lobby to sell off MTS, but they went and sold it off anyway. So the question that I ra ised was the position of the gove rnment. I wi ll just leave it to say that the words of the Pre mie r, who has zero cr edibility on Crown corp orati ons, on Autopac, do not give any satisfaction to anyone.

When I hear about the insur ance industry, and I say this on the re cord and I will say it in meetings with him, which is that they either want to privati ze Autopac or else what they do is they want to have insur ance pr emiums, the perce ntage that agents get, incr ea sed by about thr ee to four times. I mean, I just say that, I am sorry, but society does not ope rate for the benefit of people in that way. The

10 4 LEGI SILATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANIT OBA May 13 , 19 97 reason that we have Autopac there, in the first place, is to benefit all Manitobans, and I hope:, by the way, the government will not make the same mistake it did with Autopac on that. I hope, by the way, that the minister will be more caref ul in quoting the words of the Premier. I thought he took a real cheap shot on that, because he knows and the minister knows that the insurance industry is lobbying. I also, by the way, hope that the minister will not try and get into this sort of thing of separating accident victims and ratepayers.

We ll, accident victims are ratepayers. Th ey paid their ra tes, and one of my concerns is, I believe a lot of Manitobans who have been inju red or potentially will be injured are not getting the cover age that a lot of them think they would get and would expect to get. Th ey ar e not gett ing the cover age that is outlined in the brochure. Th ey are certainly not getting the kind of cover age that was talked about in 19 94, the words that were put out in terms of how this was going to benefit accident victims. The proof is in the pudding in tt:rms of what is happening.

Even the minister's own n:port is indicating that is happening. I think the system has gone far too far in the other dir ection, and I am hoping we can get to the bottom of some of the things that can be done to change that in this commit tee. My first question, though, and I want to ask this on no-fault again. In the debate, July 20, 19 93, the NDP critic, Len Evans, moved an amendment that would have esta blished an advocate for Autopac simi lar to what is in place for the Workers Com pensation Board. I notice, Mr.

Chair person, you spoke against it as being unnecessary, and it was voted down by the comm ittee by five to four, basically by the govern ment majority.

I want to ask, given the fact that under the new system of no-fault you no longer have any ability to go to cour t under the tort system and in view of the fact that many accident victims are saying that they feel intimidated, they do not feel they have a fair access or process, they feel mentally and physically exhausted from having to go through the steps, will you not take a system that works, the worker 's advocate system, and adapt it by bringing in an advocate for injury victims of Autopac to deal with the cur rent system? Mr. McCrae: The review of the PI PP being conducted by Mr. Uskiw has a mandate.

The mandate is the one that is set out in the legislation. The mandate, as I rec all, is that the review is to determ ine whether the PI PP is achieving the ob jectives for which it was esta blished, and we hope to receive the report of the review in due cour se and draw conclusions from that and take advice from that. But with respect to the honourable member's comme nts about an advocate, I alr eady ref erred to the appeal process that has been set up under the PI PP, and it is headed up by Ray Taylor, Q.C., a very well -known and respected legal person in Manitoba.

Until the review is completed, at least, that is the process that we have in place and we will await the results of the review. Mr.

Ashton : I want to note that one of the few NDP amendments that was accepted in 19 93 was the one leading to the review that the minister is talking about and spec ifically the reference to the fairness and adequa cy of the compensation available to victims, because we expressed concern about that in 19 93, the fairness and effectiveness in the way in which the corporation adm inisters claims and the fairness and effectiveness of the review and appeal processes under Division 10 of the act. We knew in 19 93, we predicted there would be some of the problems we are seeing today and some of the frustrat ions.

I would like to focus in on the appeal process for a moment. I would like to ask the minister if he can indicate how many appeals have been filed and what percentage of those appeals have been successful in terms of either Autopac or the claimants? *( 10 50) Mr. Zach arias: We have two appeal processes, one being an internal review and the other one being an external review. From March 1 of'94 to the end of that calendar year there were 43 applications filed. In the next 12 months there were 12 9. In the period January 1 to December 31, '96, 333; and Jan uary I to May 12 , there have been 17 6.

Th ere is also an external appeal process. During that same time there have been a total of 14 9 appeals applications filed.

May 13 , 19 97 LEGISLA TIVE AS SEMBLY OF MANITOBA 10 5 Mr. Ashton: So you are saying over the four-year period there have been 14 9. Mr. Zacharias: This is where the appeal-external appeals are with the review commission headed by Mr. Taylor . Mr. Ashton : What has been the disposition of those appeals? How many of them were resolved in Autopac's favour, how many in favour of the claimant? Mr. Zacharias: During the 19 95 calendar year there were 25 appeals concluded; 72 percent confirmed the stand that Autopac had taken and also gone through the internal review, and 28 percent were varied.

Tha t does not mean overturned; there can be minor modifi cations in some cases. During the 19 96 calendar year there were 7 4 appeals; 70 percent were confirmed, 30 percent varied, and so far in 19 97 there have been 49 cases, 68 percent confirmed and 32 percent varied. Mr. Ashton: I was wondering if you could indicate what happens in a hearing of the external appeal process. What resources are available to the Autopac claimant? Who is there on behalf of Autopac and what officials are there in a typical appeal? Mr.

Zacharias: The claimant would be in many cases representing himself and in a few cases may have legal counsel with him. It is the claimant's option, or he may have other advocates working on his behalf. Th e commission would normally hear the evidence, review the medical reports , order their own medical reports or other expert evidence if they thought it was necessary. Th e individual would also have the opportunity to address the commission with respect to their individual concerns.

From our corpor ation's side, there would be either an adjuster or in some cases a lawyer presenting the evidence that we had gathered with respect to that par ticular case. Every thing would be laid before the judge, and the three man panel would then, if they felt they had enough evidence, make a ruli ng, if not, pursue whatever course of action. Th ey might want to gather further evidence and then make their ruling. Mr.

Ashton: We ll, what I find interesting is tha t after we supposedly under no-fault removed lawyers from the process, Autopac then is still using lawyers at the appeal level and in terms of appeals, the external appeal you talked about? Mr. Zacharias: In some cases we would have a legal representation there, depending on whether it was issues of Jaw or straight evidence that was being in dispute. In other cases we would have the adjusters hand ling the files attend. Mr. Ashton : This is one of the concerns I know that have been expr essed to me by people who have been through the process .

You have the figures, obvious ly; MPIC is winnin g the vast majority of the appeals. I cannot prej udge that; I do not know the circums tances. Mr. McCrae: I hope not. Mr. Ashton: Well, and I hope the minister though will look at the fact that many people feel intimidated going into a process-and you have got to remember accident victims in a Jot of cases have gone through a lot, and they have suffered a Joss of income-up against a situation where Autopac has all the cards basically in terms of access to resources and is using in some cases lawyers in the appeal process.

I am wondering, was that the intent of 19 94 of no-fault, that we would get it out of the court systems but we would still end up with a system where Autopac would be using lawyers, and in many cases, accident victims-1 met with a group of accident victims this morning, most of them had to go to lawyers anyway. But, you know, the funny

part is they have had to go to lawyers not to have access to the court system but simply because they feel when they are dealing with Autopac, since there is no advocate in place and when Autopac has access to all the legal resources, that they have to have somebody who can argue on the legal side. Was that the intent of no-fault when it was brought in in 19 94? Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, in response to people's demands and the perceived requirement for some final arbiter in these matters, this is the process that was put in place. Mr. Zacharias has said that people are entitled to bring whatever assistance they req uir e, whether that

10 6 LEG1 SLA TI VE ASSEMBLY OF MANIT OBA May 13 , 19 97 be legal assistance or some other form of advocacy, with them ifther e is any fee ling of discomfort. Put yourse lf in the position of someone who has been injured in a car accident previous to this and now, and I do not know how one gets through a process as nasty as this in a person's lifetime without the kind of fears and discomfort and anxiety that got!S with being an accident victim.

It is cert ainly an intimidating thi ng, I suggest under the old system, to go to a lawyer to try to get your rights looked after and then find out that upwards of 35 percent of the cost of that system went to legal fees. Th at amounts ultimately to an intim idation of all 700,000 or so ratepayers under the insurance system in Manitoba. So I do not know how the honourable member can-1 do not think he can have it all ways all the time. Th at is one of the things that happens when you are in opposition. You do not have to be res ponsible for the thi ngs that you say, think or do.

Somt!times you do not have to be resp onsible for the thi ngs you do, but it sometimes comes back to haunt you,, as I have found out moving from opposition to govt!rnment over the years. But to say on the one hand you favour the no fault system and then on the other hand you are upset that at the final appeal level the corporation has legal advice available to it, I just say to the honourable memb er, as Mr . Zacharias did, tha11 people coming forward to that level also have legal represent ation if they so choose.

Again, I do not know how far I want to get into this discussion, because under the legislation we have a review process. Th at review process is now happening, and if the honoura ble member wants to put this par ticular point to his friend, Mr. Uskiw, then he is quite entitled to do that. Use my office to get the mes sage through if you want to. Mr. Ashton : Mr. Chair person, the minister did not answer the question. In fact he is the one that is having it both ways.

We were told in 19 94 that one of the basic purposes of no-fault was to remove this from the legal system, and we have that now confirmed in this commit tee that Autopac itself is using lawyers in the appeal process and that many claimants feel forced to do so, although I have talked to accident victims, by the way, who have said that there are very few lawyers that are willing to go to any kind of Autopac appeal because they know that they are bas ically not in the court system. Ther e is no access to tort, so it is the minister that is having it both ways.

We have got to remember here the big concern that was expressed in '94 was the fairness of the appeal process. I do not think it is fair, quite frankly, when you have accident victims now who go in there and do not have the same kinds of resources that even a Workers Compensation claimant would have, thanks to the advocate's office. By the way, I say to the minister that he is the one, and this government is respo nsible for passing the bill in 19 94, not Mr. Uskiw, and he ultima tely is respons ible for policy decisions, not Mr . Uskiw.

I will ask these questions today because we are dealing with Manitoba Public In sur ance Cor pora tion. Th ey are all relevant to what is happening, and I hope the minister will accept respo nsibil ity ultimately for this. But I want to go further, because you have to re call back in 19 93 that the NDP also moved amendments, which the government defeate d, that would have looked at a numb er of issues such as a benefit-of-the-doubt clause which, technically, is supposed to be in place in Workers Compensation. You have to recognize as well that there are many areas where it is in a gray area medically.

Th ere are many inju ries you cannot assess, back injuries being a good exam ple of it. Many injuries are in that gray area. * (1 10 0) We have the benefit-of-the-doubt clause. What you have is, you have some ability of accident victims, I belie ve, who know themselves the injuri es, to have some acceptance of that without the current process where, I bel ieve, once again, the cards are stacked against many accident victims and, by the way, even though it is technical ly in place with Workers Compensation, there again, it does not apply in pr actice in many cases.

I have cases that I can point to, both in Autopac and Workers Compensation, where that is the case. I am wondering, will this review look at including the kind of benefit-of-the-doubt clause that I believe would

May 13 , 19 97 LEGISLA TIV E ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 10 7 prov ide far more fairness and far more ability for accident injury victims to have fairness in dealing with the ir claims than the current system, which has no benefit-of-the-doubt clause? (Mr. Ben Sveinson, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair) Mr. McCrae: I under stand the kinds of concerns that the honourable member is bringing forward. Th ey indeed would be the same kinds of concerns that I would have as this no-fault system moves into a review phase. Th ese are good points to get on the record, espec ially at this par ticular time.

These are good points to bring to the attention of the commission reviewing the no-f ault aspect of MPI. Th ere is no doubt about gray areas. Just for the honourable memb er's interest, for a number of years I served as a court reporter in the Law Cour ts across the street, and for a time in Br andon as well, and had occasion to sit and I isten to both sides of the cases in many, many car accident cases. It took a lot of wisdom, I suggest, under that system, and no doubt under the present system, to come to an appropriate adjudication in these cases.

You can listen to a doctor or several doctors all day talk about, fully and completely using all the medical term inology that one sometimes hea rs from medical practitioners and, somehow, the message never re ally does come forward in a way that the victim or the plainti f f would like it to come forward simply, because pr oving issues such as pain is not always as easy as you might think. Th e medical people can only do what they can do wit hin the limit s of their skills. So I have no quarrel with the honourable member whatsoever when he talks about the gray areas .

It is an extremely difficult aspect of coming to grips with the kinds of problems that come before anybody tr ying to adjudicate these kinds of claims. That is why we do the best we can do, within the limits of what is humanly possible, to create a system that is as fair as we can make it. In the process, because new ground was being broken in Manitoba, it was felt that within three years it would be appropria te to bring about a review of the Personal In jury Protect ion Program .

I do not want to pre judice that review by going very far in my comments today, but that is not to discourage the honourable member from raising the kinds of issues that he believes are important to raise at this time, at this legislative commit tee. Th ere is not a thing wrong with him or anyone else making sure Mr. Uskiw understands the nature of the concerns that there are out there. Th e review has a mandate. If you look at the legislation that set up the PI PP, it has a clause in there that refers to the review mechanism and the process and the mandate of that rev iew.

The mandate is nothing more nor nothing less than what is set out in the legislation, and that is something to the effect that the review must determ ine whether the PIPP is achieving the objectives for which it was established. Tha t is what it about. That is a pretty wide-ranging mandate, I suggest, and the honourable member or anyone else is welcome. Perhaps, before we are done, we can share with the honourable member the address and telephone number so that Mr. Uskiw's office can be-that information can be made known, or the honourable member can use my good offices to pass on the concerns.

I will faithfully make sure they get passed on. If the honourable member is not having regular conversations with Mr. Uskiw, maybe I can help be a conduit for him. As I say, there is no question, but the gray areas are extr emely difficult for human beings to deal with, and all we can do is set up the best method that we know how to set up, to deal with them; and, if there is anything wrong with the present system, I hope that the review will let that be known. Mr.

Ashton: We ll, once again, the minister did not answer the question, and I hope that the minister will look at legislative changes to put in the kind of benefit of-the-doubt clause that we saw-introduces an amendment by the New Democratic Party . I also want to focus on some of the other areas that we identified, in particula r, in terms of the kind of information that Autopac has access to. I know we expressed concern at the time about the ability to have access to information not related to the accident, but that Autopac might feel is relative to the claimant's case.

We based our position, our concern, on that, on wha t happened with Workers Compensation and what has happened in various jurisdic tions. I know of people personal ly, and we have dealt with cases of people

10 8 LEGI SLATI VE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 where essentially material that is absolutely unrela ted has been used in the dealing with accident claims. To my mind, if you are injured, you are injured. You should be entitled to cover age. Some of the cases that I have seen, pressure has been put on individuals, and I will not g€�t into individual names, but I am prepared to provide this inform ation to the min ister, where essen tially the d1!gree of pressure that was put on people and often using total extraneous cir cumstances, cases, for exam ple, of someone on parole in an accident.

What relevance does it have whether they are on paro le or not on par ole? If they are injured, they are injured. I can provide cir cumstances where that has been the case. But is the minister prepared now to recognize that the kind of information that Autopac has access to, in many cases, goes far beyond the n!al question, and the real question should strictly be, were you inju red in an automobile accident and to what degree should that inju ry be covered by Autopac? Mr.

McCrae: I thought I had answere:d the honourable member's question quite dir ectly about the benefit-of the-doubt issue that he raised, that a111 swer being that this may well be an appropriate thing for Mr. Uskiw's review commission to have a look at. If, upon review, it is seen to be a good thought or a good idea, that, no doubt, would find its way into some n!commendations made by the no-f ault review.

I do not want to pre judice that rev iew, but there is nothing wrong with putting ideas in fr ont of that review for their consideration-the kind of thing that the member talked about, a case, perhaps, where somebody was on paro le and involved in a car accident. I do not know any thing about that case, and if the honourable member wants to share details of a par ticular case with me for my interest, that is fine. The appeal process is ther e and can be used. I think comm ittees like this sometimes are seen by the opposition as an opportunity to come forward and rehash cases.

I do not think that is my function here as the min ister. I think my function as minister is to answer questions related to the policies of the corpora tion as set for the corpora tion by the government, and for the corpora tion, through its pres ident, to answer questions about operational matters that are more appropriately answered by the corpora tion. But I do not see this as a place to rehash cases that maybe did not come up with a conclusion that was totally satisfactory. If it was not satisfactory, there is an appeal process to deal with that.

The no-fault review being conducted by the Uskiw commission, if we can call it that, may want to review the whole aspect of the appeal process. I do not think that is outside the r· andate set for the review in the legislation setting up no-fault. That would be my response. *( 11 10 ) Mr. Ashton: One of the problems is that in some cases people just give up. I can provide information on a case where that was the case, and I have had cases identified with me. I am not raising cases here for the 15 th, I OOth time where people -it is a reasonab le decision.

People in a lot of cases are frustrated because of some of the insinuations that have been made. I can prov ide details on the specific case I ref erred to; the person dropped the case. I can provide details. By the way, I met with many accident victims that were here at the commit tee today, this morni ng, and in many cases there are huge gaps between what people are el igible for and what they are able to access, even just in terms of information, in terms of whether people are el igible for injury benefits.

But, even in terms of the appeal process, people have had difficulty even accessing the appeal process, which concerns me grea tly. I am wondering if, quite frankly, the minister will review this. I say this because I am sure it is not the policy of Autopac; I am sure it is the policy to make people aware of what is going on. But will they review a constant theme that I have received from many accident victims-that is, in a lot of cases, it is difficult to access information on what is available to them?

One of the biggest concerns that has been expr essed is that there is a great deal of confusion since no-fault about exactly what people are eligible for in the way of benefits, what the processes are .

May 13 , 19 97 LEG IS LATI VE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 10 9 I talked to people this morning. If there is one consensus of people I met with, and I met with a numb er of them before , is that there is a general confusion in their view. I understand them, you are an accident victim, you are on the other side of the table. I am not blaming anyone here, but I am saying their view, and I think there is probably some legitima cy in it, is that the rules seem to keep changing as time goes along. Maybe that is part of the problem here. We have a system that is new in place, and maybe the government itself has not been clear.

Has there been any review at that level of dealing with front-line staff at Autopac to see if there is confusion taking place over the system and whether, indeed, information is getting out? As I say, I am not blaming front-line staff. I believe it is probably something you would expect with the new system, and has there been any review of that? Mr.

McCrae: I am advised by the corporation that each matter referred to the appeal structure set up, which reports, incidentally, not to this minister, but to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, which is an appropriate thing, I suggest-but I am advised that the proce edings are not-1 mean, you do not walk in and find wigs and robes and thi ngs like that. I understand that it is a relatively informal process that is used; that the participants or the adjudicators, if that is what they are called, do attempt to accommodate accident victims who come forward.

They do attempt to set up as nonadversarial and nonhostile an envir onment as possible so that people can feel relatively comfortable about getting their me ssage across to this panel. I am told the vast majority do not give up, as the honourable member has said. Here again, if the hono urab le member knows of a case that creates the kind of concerns about which the honourable member is talking, my door is open to the honourable member. We work together daily in our other capacity, and I am quite available to the honourable member to talk to him about a case, and I will cause whatever inquiries are appropriate.

I will cause thos� inquiries to be made to get to the bottom of things. Indeed, I will help the honourable member get through to Sam Uskiw ifthat is any kind of a problem for him. I would be delighted to try to help and get the matters the honourable member is referring to squarely in front of Mr. Uskiw so those questions can be examined and reported on. So I do not know how I can help more. If the honourab le member thinks that there is something more I can do, I would be delig hted to do that. I know he wants me to make decisions before the review is even comple te, and I do not think that is right.

There is no experience that I know of where that has been found to be an appropriate thing to do, to jump out ahead of a review that is mandated by legislation. Why wou ld I want to unless there is something that the honourable member can point to in an operational way that just screams of injustice? I would like very much to address that with the honourable member, address it with the corpora tion. The system that is put in place now was there, a genuine effort to try to deal with the matters the honour able member is raising. I think tha t Mr .

Cummi ngs and others had the foresight back in 19 93 to say, well, what if we are wrong? What would be wrong with having a review after three ye ars of the operations of this par ticular program? What if the hono urab le member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) or whoever from the NDP no doubt were making all kinds of allegations at that time? I think it is a very responsive, sensitive, nonarro gant way of dealing with an issue to say, well, we are going to have a review because th is is a very human world. We think we are doing the right thing.

We think we are doing the right thing by all of the ratepay ers and all of the accident victims, but just in case we could improve on the perf ormance of this par ticular legislation back then, we should have a review process to look at this, because we are indeed in Manitoba breaking new ground with this. I think that was the right to do. Now I think the right thing to do would be to make sure Mr. Uskiw has the information that he needs in order to make an appropria te determination as to whether the no-fault system is working the way it was intended to work. Mr. Ashton: Well, Mr.

Chair person, I do not need any help from the min ister to contact Mr. Uskiw, although I do note that there has been no del ineation of the process involved. I want to state on the record to the minister, I also do not consider the review that will be

11 0 LEGI SLATI VE AS SEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 under taken as living with the spirit of the amendment that we moved in 19 93. The min ist1�r did not consult with us on the appointment and, by the way, he may play word games in terms of Mr. Uskiw having been a former NDP cabinet minister who is now a very active Tory. In the end I will say to the minister that we do not need someone, in this case anyone, I be lieve, with a potential pol itical agenda to deal with something as important to Manitobans as reviewing no-fault insurance.

If the minister wants it clearly stated on the record, the New Democratic Party does not accept the way in which you have taken our amendment, which was adopted, and appointed an individual who obviously has a very distinct political agenda. I believe that the only fair thing to have done on this would have been to appoint a judge, a senior lawyer, someone that has some sense of justice and is not going to sit there and even subconsciously work this through in a way that reflects any of the government's priorities.

The minister knows, in fact, I know it would be very unlikely if he would have appointed any former NDP cabinet minister who just coincidently happens to be a ma jor contributor and active in Conservative campaigns. If this was some of the more rou tine boards and commission appointments, even Autopac-I Iook ar ound at the Autopac board. Surprise, surprise, they are political appointments. Do I criticiz (: it? No, I do not in the sense that I know that has been the case. People tend to appoint boards that ref lect their political phi losophy, and that was the cas1e with previous governments.

That is not the issue h1�re. When you appoint to my mind wha t should be a ju dicial review, you do not do it with somebody that you are giving a political payoff with or someone that has any kind of political agenda. You do it with somebody who is above and beyond this kind of discussion. If it was anyone else and, by the way, to the min ister, if you would even have had the cour tesy to discuss with us a potential appointment, I think we could have avoided this, because there are many emi nent Manitobans, I believe, who could have done this job without the hint of this.

This is not the only area your government has done it. You have done it with Lotteries now, and you have done it here again but, you know, there are some times when you have to put politics aside and you have to go and, in this case, I believe if you want to be fair to inju red Manitobans, I think you have to do that. I want to ask the minister because, by the way, I do not have any confidence in this review because, in the end, it all comes back to the government. You have to make the final decisions yourself , and you in 19 93 said no to the vast majority of 35 amendments.

I just want to, by the way, read here some of the amendments you said no to and ask that you indicate whether you will now reconsider those amendments. *( 1 12 0) We moved amendments that defined empl oyability, interpreta tions of emplo yability, incorporation of regional unemployment levels in the termination of income replacement. We expr essed concerns about MP I's latitude in deeming of income and their review after one year which allows them to drop people to lower income levels based on employability following injury. We moved to raise northern insurable earnings in line with higher northern incomes.

We moved to raise disability benefits for dependents and moved to incr ease death benefits. We moved to elimi nate the waiting period that was in place. Will you consider those amendments that in 19 93 you said no to, which I believe are at the root cause for many accident victims of the real frustrat ion that is out there? I say to the minister, by the way, I welcome his indication his door is open, because I know of a lot of people who would like to meet with the minister personally and outline their frustrat ions of what they have run through. I say to the minister, I do not blame you as an individual.

You were not the minister in 19 93, but you could have avoided a lot of these prob lems if you would have listened to the amendments. What I want to hear now, and I ask for this comm itment, is not that you are going to shuffle this off to the Uskiw review wherever and whenever it will meet with whatever resources it will have, because we do not know that. I do not want that kind of shuffling off. I want a commit ment.

May 13 , 19 97 LEG IS LATIVE AS SEMBLY OF MANITOBA 111 Will you in the next session of the Legislature bring in significant amendments to MPIC to address the very real problems with the system you set up in 19 93, the problems that are in place because you did not listen at that time to the New Democratic Party and a lot of other Manitobans? Mr. McCrae: I would suspect the honourable member is more concerned about personal ities than he is about issues- Mr. Ashton: Do not appoint a politician. Appoint a judge. Mr. McCrae: -and that, we ll, you know, the honourable member wants a judge for- Mr.

Ashton: I do not want the job. Mr. McCrae: The honourable member wants a judge. I assume he wants a judge for every time a decision has to get made or every time advice has to be made. The honou rab le member is a very skilful debater. I mean, I cert ainly give him that. He has proven that over and over again in the Legislature over the years, but why is it that you can have this kind of venom for somebody like Mr. Uskiw but not somebody like Larry Desjardins, who was appointed to head up the review ofthe VLT situation in Manitoba? Mr.

Desjardins is also a former NDP cabinet minister, and I was Minister of Health for a while there, and I found that Mr. Desjard ins on a few occas ions was extremely helpful to me in his past capacity, the experience he had gained. The advice that he was able to give was useful and done in a helpful way. I do not know all the th ings that go on between the honourable member and Sam Uskiw and why he feels the way he does about Sam Uskiw- Mr. Ashton: Well, who did you appoint him? Mr. McCrae: -but the question keeps coming back to him and it real ly bothers him that- Mr.

Ashton : How much does he give to the Conserva tive Party nowadays? I mean, you know, do not play games with us. You appointed him for political reasons. You should have appointed a judge, not anybody with any pol itical- Mr. McCrae: Wel l, I do not know how much money Ed Schreyer gives to the Conservative Party either, or how much money Larry Desjardins gives to the Conservative Party or others. People are entitled to support the political party of their choice. But the honourable member wants to make every thing into politic s as if these were the glory days of the NDP again.

That was the order of the day in those years. We have tried to do some reasonab le things. The honourable member suggests that there is something wrong with a man who supported the NDP for all those years and worked so hard with the NDP government in Manitoba and did much to move Manitoba forward . In my opinion, he saw the light one day and decided that maybe he would end his rela tionship with the New Dem ocrats and had this mir aculous conversion on the road to Gimli or wherever it was he was going. Mr.

Chairman, the honourable member refers to issues raised in amendments that he and his colleagues brought forward related to emplo yability, regional unemployment levels and northern differen tials, increasing of benefits and shortening waiting periods and all of those sorts of things. You know, the honourable memb er in his very skilful way wants me to replace Sam Uskiw and to do it all right here this morning. Wel l, I am not going to do that, because I have a little more regard for the law than that. The law says there is going to be a review. We have put a review in place.

The honourable member pre judges that review by saying he does not like Sam Uskiw, or words to that effect. I may or may not like Judge so and so, but I think I would like to see the product before I decide to condemn everyth ing about it. The fact is that Mr. Uskiw has considerable skills in public life and considerable people skills, and I think it would be an appropri ate thing for someone like that to be available to people who have complaints or concerns to make, and that, Mr. Chairman, would include the honourable member for Thompson. He says he does not need my services to get hold of Mr. Uskiw.

That is fine and dandy; let him contact Mr. Uskiw dir ectly to raise the issues that he is raising with me today. If he wants me to pass them on to Sam Uskiw, I will do that. If he wants to do it dir ectly, just let him say which way he wants it done, but the decision to have a review has been made, and it has been made pursuant to a

11 2 LEGI SLATI VE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 legislative req uir ement to do so, a requir ement that our party agreed should be part of ground-breaking legislation like the PIP P legislation. It is a good thing to do. We are sensitive to concerns that people raise. After all, I am a politician; so is the honourable member for Thompson. Whether Mr. Uskiw has been one in the past or not is of no moment to me. What is impor tant is that I belie ve that Mr. Uskiw will deal with the issues that he has been seized of in a sensitive and compassionate way, and that is what I want to see done.

If I did not th ink he would do it, li would not have appointed him. Mr. Ashton: Mr. Chairperson, we can continue this and we will. I say I am concerned, not for me, but for the accident victims and the people who look to Autopac, because I think you did a disservice to them. Fir st of all, you did not consult with anyone on this appoin tment. There was joint agr eement on this amendment. I said before-you know, quite frankly, I am a politician, I am an econom ist, I am various different things.

I should not be, either now or any time in the future, reviewing something that deals with justice issues to the degree that this review has to deal with, because that is not my expertise. Be cause, you know, ifl was appointed by a future NDP government to deal with this and had NDP affiliations, I would not want a subconscious decision on my part saying, we ll, you know this is fairness here but, you know, the government is concerned about rates or the government is concerned about this. You should have appointed a judge or somebody totally independent.

You did not do that, and I th ink that is the key issue, not Sam Uskiw. You could have appointed any othc!r person with a Tory- we ll, I tell you right now, if you had appointed a former Tory minister or major Tmy contribu tor, I would have said the same thing. I said the same thing as Lotteries critic when you appointed someone that the minister said, oh, I do not know what his politics are, and he had actually coincidentally given to the Conservative campaign.

I mean, that person may be a fine individual, but when you are making decisions about Lotteries and when you are making decisions about Autopac and accident victims, I say, Mr. Minister, you can play all the games you want about saying this about the appointment. The problem would have been the same for anyone, I be lieve, who was not in the position of being total ly and absolutely impar tial. You chose not to do that, and I believe that has tainted the process. * (1 13 0) By the way, I say to you that you are the minister respo nsible and, quite frankly, I will be raising these questions in the House.

I will refer other people and may indeed make a submission to Mr. Uskiw but, you know, I do not have faith in this process. This is not the process the New Democratic Party wanted in 19 93 , and it is not the p1 __,cess that Manitobans want in a sense of fairness. You know that and you know why you made the appointment, and I really find it absolutely appalling that you then tum around and say, our problem is with the person, the personality. If you had made any political appointment whatsoever, it would have been the same problem. You made a political appointment. That is the bottom line. That is where it ends.

I want to ask some further questions, because we have some interesting par allels with Workers Compe nsation in other areas , but I want to ask these questions related to the Special Investigation Unit. There are fraudulent cases; we all know that. There are fraudulent cases within any system-Workers Com pensation, Income Security. I dare say there are fraudulent cases when it comes to our income tax system and, you know, what I find amazing is the amount of resources sometimes we spend going after the little people, the ordi nary people, to look for so called fraud and how little sometimes we spend on Br e X.

You know, it just amazing me, Bre-X. I mean, how much attention was paid to investigating the most massive fraud in Canadian history? But there have been cases. I know in the previous fiscal year, there were 61 individuals charged with crimi nal offences as a result of investigations. I know this to be the case. As I said, I was involved in the situation of a case where another individual had claimed fraudulently an accident that I was involved in.

I wonder if the minister could indicate what the cur rent statistics are in the current year on the Special Investigation Unit both in terms of the number of cases investigated and the number of charges laid? -

May 13, 19 97 LEGISLATIVE ASSE MBLY OF MANITOBA 11 3 Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, I always enjoy the rhetoric of the honourab le member for Thompson. He is very good at it. It is from him that I learned some of my lessons, and now he is complaining that I have learned them too wel l. I just cannot seen to please the honoura ble member, but I never, repeat, I never use language like he does when talks about the little people and ordina ry people, although sometimes in a different context I might. Ordina ry people are outraged when they know that their system is getting ripped off .

Ordi nary people like me and ordi nary people like the honourable member and many thousands of people he knows are outr aged when they hear of our system being abused and cheated on and that sort of thing. So it is a very resp onsible thing to do something about it, not to spend all our resources tr ying to deprive deserving people of their legit imate rights. That is not what this is about, and that is why I mentioned the honourable member 's rhetoric, because nobody in this room wants to see the cheaters get away with cheating or defrauding or anything of the kind.

Nobody that I know of or work with wants to see that, and they want to see rea sonable steps taken to ensure that it is either stopped or that those who get involved in it get caught and get punished, and that is very simply put, all we are about. And the honourable member agre es with that too, but to go on and say that we have some greater purpose, i.e., to deprive deser ving people of their ri ghtful benefits, is nonsense. The honourab le member knows it, so why waste the time of the commit tee with that kind of rhetoric? (Mr. Chair person in the Chair) Mr. Ashton: I asked a question. Mr.

McCrae: The honourable member asked a question, and I would ask Mr. Zacharias to prov ide some details for the honourable member about that, but am I supposed to sit here quietly, Mr. Chairman, and listen to the hono urab le member suggest that we care more about going after what he calls little people than we care about going after people that abuse the system? I think it is appropria te that we do. Some people who abuse the system are car thieves. We have got over 9,000 cars getting stolen, costing our ratepayers money. I care about ordi nary people. They have to pay for this.

People who pay their rates have to pay the rates for stolen vehicles, and we need to make that system as fair as we can. So the honourab le member-you make a cha nge, who is going to jump on you? The honourab le member for Thompson, because he has been chosen to be the critic for this par ticular thing. But sometimes we lose the real substance of what we do, because we get involved with this rhetoric business around here in the Legisla ture, and I guess it is ever going to be thus, and nothing I can say is going to change it.

But if we could get down to real questions which the honourable member tagged on at the end, and then we will just tag on a real answer at the end of my rhetoric as wel l. Mr. Zacharias: The SIU department spends most of their time on the physical damage side rather than inju ry, but they do do injuries. I cannot give you an exact breakdown. I know that they do 1 percent of our cases annually, which is about 2,000 investigations. Many of them are targeted investigations working in conjunction with various police forces, and last year the actual per file savings were around $3 mill ion.

I think the bigger value is in the deterrent side. For instance, in the hail that we had last year we had about $1 55,000 in claims there that was reported coming in as hail that turned out to be not quite what was reported in the first place. Mr. Ashton: Mr. Chair person, I love the way the minister tries to twist words ar ound. What I said is, and I say this to the minister again, that no one wants to see fraud, but on the other hand I think it is very legitima te to ask questions about the degree to which investigations take place, how they are targeted and in the way in which they are conducted.

I know in the case of Autopac there is a far more significant investigative component than, say, with Workers' Com pensation, and I want to ask the min ister again, because I have had concerns expressed to me by accident victims and families of accident victims about people being literal ly subject to 24-hour surve illance, being tailed, and if you did that to as a priva te citizen to someone else you would be in the position of being-it is called stalking now. Is that a procedure that is in place? I would like to ask what kind of safeguards are in place to ensure that you do not go beyond normal

11 4 LEGISL ATIVE AS SEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 investigation and start getting to the point where people themselves feel they are been stalked. That is a real concern, and wh{:n I talked about ordi nary people, I think we have to under stand here, accord ing to the figures I have seen, in the last fiscal year there were 61 individuals charged with crimin al offences. There may have been other awards which were varied because ofthat, 61 fraudulent cases.

I am wondering if the minister may wish to indicate how many claims were filed in Manitoba, what percen tage of claims were fraudule nt, because I have nothing against, no one has anything against dealing with fraud, because that affects everyone, but the real question is the balance again-and those are real questions, not rhetoric-and I would like to ask the minister if he can answer with some real answers. Mr.

McCrae: No one would suppor t anyone being victimized or rev ictimized in a case like the honourable member is referring to by an investigative agency that is overzealous or that is picking on the citizens of this province. No one would support that. Any evidence like that would be dealt with extremely severe ly. Anybody working for the corporation stalking anybody should be immed iately fired, in my opinion, and maybe rep orted to the police for stalking. But let us not confuse legitima te investigative pursuit with stalking. I mean, let us be car eful.

Does the honourable member have evidence to back up his allegation? If that is true, you have got a case, you have got something you can take to the police. I mean, if it is stalking in the context of the Crimi nal Code, you have got a case there. In other words, if you have got evidence for these kinds of allegations, let that evidence be brought to the appropriate authorities so that we are not just dealing in innuendo and that sort of thing. Mr. Ashton: No, these are actual cases. Mr. McCrae: Okay, the honourable member says, they are actual cases.

Then bring the information forward so that we can turn it over to the police or do whatever the appropriate thing is with this type of inform ation. I understand our SIU, Special Investigation Unit people, some of them or all have police trai ning and experience, and perhaps Mr. Zacharias can talk about that in more detail if the honourable member wishes that. I think Mr. Zacharias talked about a level of expenditure on-did you mention level of expendit ure? with respect to the dolla rs being used for investigative purposes.

I think he talked about some $3 milli on in savings in respect to claims that were found to have been fraudulent in nature. I think if you look at the overall opera tions of the company you will see that Special Investigation's budget represents a very, very small por tion, some $600,000 to $650,000 out of the whole, and in the process of a discussion about this to say that somehow that is where we put all of our emphasis is not correct. We need to put the appropriate emphasis. *( 11 40) Right now, we referred a little whil e ago to stolen cars. That is an area where there should be an appropria te emphasis.

It is not good enough just to wave the deductibles. There has got to be more thi ngs happen if you are going to take an all-encompassing or comprehensive approach to a problem which is not only an expensive problem for ratepayers of Autopac and deductible payers of Autopac. That is also an expensive problem for society as a whole. It says there is something wrong with our system that needs to be corrected, perhaps at the level of the Justice dep artment, perhaps some social issues involved. So let us have a comprehensive look at that, and that is what we are trying to do.

No, I do not think we are overemphas izing and probably not much different emphasis than was placed on this aspect of it from the days when the honourable member was part of the government that ran the auto insurance company. Mr. Ashton: The min ister once again did not answer the question. By my calculations there were 61 charges of fraud filed. That is .03 percent of the number of claims. Ther e wer e 618 that were withdrawn, abandoned or denied. I, by the way, do not assume that all those were fraudulent. There have been cases, indeed, where people have dropped the cases out of frustra tion.

That is .3 percent of the number of cases. Once again I want to stress that the minister did not answer my question about, for example, some of the - -

May 13 , 19 97 LEGI SLA TIV E ASSEM BLY OF MANIT OBA 11 5 proto cols, and we are not necessari ly even talking about what would be something that is illegal under the Cr iminal Code. But I wonder the degree to which the investigation unit is, because I can identify, I have got people her e today who can testify the degree to which they have heen under sur veillance and where it has created havoc in their personal lives, huge havoc.

I am wondering what the policy of Autopac is on that and what protoc ols were in place, because it is one thing if you have a clear case of fraud, but it is another thing in the case of some of the people I have talked to who have been liter ally followed and investigated to the point where it is driving them crazy, it rea lly is bothering them not only physical ly but in terms of their own mental health.

I just want to know what the protocol is and in par ticular what limits are put on to make sure this does not take place, and then I will get into questions about auto theft with the minister, because I really want to ask him there. I mean, we have a great system from this government now; my car gets stolen, I pay $500 for it. That is his solution, the government's inability with automobile theft.

But I would like to ask, perhaps if the minister does not know, if Autopac itself can indicate what kind of protoco ls and controls are in place to make sure that you do not cross the line between legitimate investigation and what some would consider harassme nt. I do not say it is intended as that, but there has to be some sort of balance in the system tha t protects the individual rights of Manitobans. Mr. McCrae: I will just respond again that I want exactly the same thi ngs as the honourable member does. I do not want to see innocent Manitobans being victimized by the Manitoba Public Insur ance. I think Mr.

Zacharias has some further light to shed on that matter. Mr. Zacharias: There is legislation which governs what kind of surv eillance or people doing surv eilla nce, investigators, can or cannot do. We have reviewed that with all our investigators, and that is strictly enforced . In addition, any contract or any investigation work that we have hir ed, making sure that the contract is subject to those people having to work entirely within the rules and guidelines laid out in legislation, is part of those agreements, and any violators are immedia tely dism issed.

So we have paid a lot of attention to that par ticu lar item, and I am cer tainly unaware of any situation where our people have crossed the line and been called up because of that that they, to the best of my knowledge and both by policy and by contract, have to ope rate within the law. Mr. Ashton: Opera ting within the law is one question; the overall policy is another. You have to recognize again the frustration that it is creating. I want to ask, perhaps you can give us some idea, is it the practice of the unit to have ongoing surv eilla nce of individuals?

What kind of parameters are followed by the investigations unit in that? I have talked to individuals who have been under fairly long-term surve illance both in terms of the amount of time at any given time and over a period of time. Is that standard practice? I realize that may be legal, but is that the kind of thing that is part of the protocol that Autopac follows? Mr.

Zacharias: Long-term surv eilla nce would be very, very rare and unusual unless you had a lot of evidence that you were picking up down that track, in that periodic checks are done, activity checks are done on occasion, and in the majority of cases there is little evidence gained other than what we already know. But if there was a situation where we either had received reliable information from a thir d party such as through Crime Stoppers or something of that nature that some wrongdoing was going on, then it would be important for the people to pursue that to the fullest.

Or, if as a result of some investigation work they had evidence that was contrary to what we were led to be lieve, then they would do some follow up work on that as wel l, but long-term surv eilla nce would be rare. Mr. Ashton: But obviously it does exist, and the concern I have, and I can point to specific cases again too, where it strikes me that the degree of surv eilla nce is just overblown in comparison to the circums tances involved.

I can tell you, you talk to people who have been involved with that-l ike I said, no one is saying we are condoning fraud-but many of the individuals involved have not been cha rged with fraud, and I mention .03 percent of the cases, the claims per year, .03 percent end up with a criminal charge of fraud, and indeed .3 percent are dropped as a result. You indicated yourself

11 6 LEGI SLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 13 , 19 97 that many of those cases are relating more to the question of dam age to vehicles, et cetera. So I am wondering, and I ask this question to the minister: Will the min ister under take to review the activities of the unit?

I stress again this may not be necessa rily illegal, but it cert ainly creates a lot of pressure on individuals, and it seems to me that cert ainly in some of the cases I have dealt with that the degree of sUirveil lance that has been undertaken by Autopac is way out of proportion with the circumstances involved in any type of investigation that would lead to any substantive result for Autopac itself. Once again, there are certain things that the police can and cannot do within the parameters of the law. There are also certain things that as a matter of protocol are not done whether they can legally do it or not.

The police itself makes that decision on a daily basis, and I be lieve that the same sort of question has to be asked with Autopac. Will the minister-and I realize that I am raising cases here and the minister may not know as a matter of dir ect fact but-under take to review some of the cases and ensure himself as Minister respons ible for MPIC that there is a proper balance with protoc ol? No one is saying you should not have investigations, but there has got to be a balance that reflects the ri ghts of individuals. Mr.

McCrae: If the honourable member will prov ide me with some information that would tend towards substantiating the allegation that there is an overze alousness going on or any kind of evidence that would support an allegation of haras sment or something like that, of cour se I would follow that up, and if it points to something larger, then obviously something by way of a larger· review would be indicated.

If the honourable member, and I do not mean her e in the com mittee, but if the honourable member wants to be specific with the allegations being made, I would of course make it my business to ascert ain what lay behind the kinds of things the honourable member is bringing to my attention. The honourable member knows that I had some experience, was the Attorney General! of this province, and from time to time allegations arose about the conduct or approach being taken by various law enforcement agencies or individual perso nnel.

If it is that kind of an issue that we are dealing with, of course I will try to be responsive and look into what it is the honour able member is raising with me, but if it does point to someth ing greater, then something by way of a larger review would be called for, and I would not rule that out. Mr. Chairman, before the time goes by any further I would like to make sure that we get the '94-95 reports passed this morning. * ( 1 15 0) Mr. Ashton: I am .,ure we can continue a minute or two after twelve o'clock if that is necessary.

I want to return to the questions about no-fault, because there are some cryptic statements in this most recent report on no-fault. Obviously if you look at the number of injury claims prior to no-fault being 20,659, currently in 19 96, 1 1, 51 1, many ofthem are because of the fact that certain types of claims are just not recogn ized anymore. But there is a cryptic comment in here that says PI PP, which basically is no-fault, is performing even better than anticipated, resulting in a lower cost per inju ry case, and worst case scenarios involving reserves set aside for post PIP P claims have not materi alized.

I want to ask a number of questions, and if we do not have time to deal with detailed answers I am prepared to come back next time and deal with them then. I want to know what were the projections with PIP P compared to the tort system? Second was, when you say it is perform ing even better than anticipated, is that Autopac performing better for Autopac or perf orm ing better for Manitobans? I assume it is in the context of Autopac. The third question is: What has been the cost per injury claim versus the projections? The fourth question is really rela ted to the first one.

You say that worst case scenarios involving reserve set aside for post- PIPP claims have not materi alized. Is there any analysis available of why that is the case? The final thing I want to look at is in dealing with the number of claims. Has Autopac analyzed, from the 20,659 to the 11 ,5 11 how many of those are because of a dir ect result of no-fault? It is very obvious when you look at some of the categories that are listed that it is, -

May 13 , 19 97 LEG IS LATIVE AS SEMBLY OF MANITOBA 11 7 because these are some of the areas where no-fault has basically elimi nated claims. But I would like some explanation of that, because if you look at what has happened in the report and compare it over the past five years, what essentially has happened is a dramatic drop in injury payouts. I mentioned this earlier, $19 7 milli on down to $10 3 million.

Notwithstanding the lawyers and any changes in accident ra tes, it is clear that the move to no-fault has reduced the kind of cover age, in some cases, whether there is any cover age at all, and has introduced some other dynamics that I think were not even anticipated. So we have got a few minutes here, if we could get a start on that, but I realize some of these are detail questions, and I am prepared to def er them till next time. Mr. McCrae: What I am prepared to do, subject to allowing Mr.

Zacharias to comment after I have made mine here, would be to undertake to respond in a factual way in writing to the honourab le member to the questions he has just finished putting on the record. That is one thing I can do, subject to what Mr. Zacharias might be able to provide by way of verbal information right now. The other part of the answer, perhaps some of the answers to the questions, will arise from the review that is going on of the PIP P as wel l by Mr. Uskiw. But when the report says it is perform ing better than anticipated, that is good news, not bad news.

The honourable member and I might agree or disagree on whether it is good news or bad news. In my view it is good news because, as I said in the Legislature, a large percentage of all of this had to do with legal costs. It is always good news when I can report that there are 4,500 fewer people making inju ry claims. That means 4,500 fewer people either were not injured very much and decided not to make a claim because of that, or they are not eligible, or there are a lot of rea sons that would happen. The honourable member cannot have the old program and support the new program.

That is the point I am trying to make. He wants the old program while he claims support for the new one, and you cannot have it both ways. But, as I have said, maybe Mr. Zacharias does have something that he can add at this point by way of factual informat ion. If not, then we will under take to make a written response to the honourable member. Mr. Zacharias: The factual informa tion I do not have at my finger tips, and we would cer tainly provide that. Mr. Ashton: I want to stress here, ju st concluding today's commit tee, I hope to be able to return fairly soon and deal with a lot of other questions.

The minister says, has performed even better than anticipated. Well, if it is, like we have seen in Workers Compensation, a situation where you end up running a surplus at the end of the year at the expense of accident victims, I say to you, that may be better for you. It is not better for the victims. In terms of the number of accidents, the number of claims-[i nter jection] You speci fically, well, I say you politically, you as the person as the min ister. We predi cted in 19 93 that the system you brought in-by the way, it is not a question of having it both ways. The New Democra tic Party supported no-fault.

We wanted a fair no-fault system. You gave us no-fault. You did not give us the fairness. We introduced 35 amendments. You re jected all but I believe one or two, so you had a chance in 19 93 to do that. So when you say it is perf orm ing even better tha n anticipated, oh, yes, the number of accident claims has gone down. Well, in many cases, people are not eligible anymore. We have a system right now where you have a deductible in place. You are not even eligible for the first week's worth of earnings.

I say to the minister, I am asking these questions in this commit tee because I want you to do in 19 97 wha t you did not do in 19 93 . I want you to build a system that is fairer to Manitobans. I get concerned when you say things like that, that it is performing better, because I do not want to see it end up like Workers Compensation, where injured workers and their fam ilies have paid the price for the political agenda of the Conservative Party of running surpluses now in Workers Compensation. I do not want to see Autopac run surpluses at the expense of inju ry victims. I want to see it efficiently run.

I do not want to see any fraud. We all agree on that. What I am concerned about here is, this report proves that vir tually everyth ing we said in 19 93 has come into place,

11 8 LEG IS LA TJVE ASS EMB LY OF MANIT OBA May 13 , 19 97 vir tually ever ything that we said. What I want is a system that is fair to all ratepayers, and I include those who are not injured. I have been fortunate enough not to be inju red in an autom obile accident. What amazes me, when I have dealt as Autopac critic with some of the cases, I was surprised at some of the problems that people have run into and some of the things that were not covered. We can get into all sorts of issues like the degree of medial trea tment and people who are continuing to have medical trea tment at their own cost.

Some of the thi ngs I assumed were covered are not covered. I say to the minister, this system 'can be a lot fairer than it is currently. The way to deal with it, I believe, is for the government to sit down and just look at its own report and not to get up and say, we ll, it is good news, we are running a surplus this year compared to a deficit last year. It is good news when you run a surplus because you are efficient. It is not good news when you run a surplus at the expense of accident victims.

I believe wha t you have done is you, and, quite frankly, I say this because I think no-fault, if it was done fairly, would be the best possible system. I think you are the one that wants it both ways. You wanted to get the lawyers out but you did not get out the lawyers for Autopac. You have not elimin ated lawyers from any of the accident victims. They are still having to go to lawyers. The only difference is, they do not have a court to go afterwards.

Just as the agre ement between workers in the early part of the century and emplo yers with Workers Compensaltion was, this is a fairer system because you get it out of the courts. other side. Right now I believe you have loaded the equation far too much toward your interest and not enough for accident victims. I believ e that is the only way to get balance back in the system and have a fairer Autopac system to Manitoba. That is what we want, by the way, to improve Autopac, not to sell it off, not to run into this unfair no-fault system.

We want a better Autopac and we can do it if you will just listen to us and listen to people who have had to deal with the system. They know best. Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being after twelve noon, what is the will of the commit tee? Mr. Ashton: We can pass the '94 and '95 reports. Mr. Chairperson: Shall the October 31, 19 94, Annual Report of the Man itoba Public Insurance Cor pora tion pass? Some Honourable Members: Pass. Mr. Chairperson: The report is accord ingly passed. Shall the Febr uary 29, 19 96, Annual Report of the Manitoba Public Insurance Cor pora tion pass? An Honourable Member: No.

Mr. Chairperson: I am sorry. Shal l the Annual Re port of the Manitoba Public Insurance Cor pora tion of 19 95 pass. Some Honou rable Members: Pass. Mr. Chairperson : It is accord ingly passed. You have to have the same kind of social contr act Commit tee rise. agr eement today to make it fairer. You just cannot load thi ngs on one side of the equation and not look at the COMMITTEE ROSE AT: 12 p.m.

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	36-3-pu5
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	36th 3rd hansardpdf pu5.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	093c34019be338fbae77bc1cbe94a4187b646506

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