Manitoba Hansard — 9 May 1994 (Sitting 23A, 35th Legislature, 5th Session)

35-5-23a

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Fifth Sessi on • Thirty-Fifth Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS (Hansard) Published under the tmthorily of The Honourable Denis C. Rocan Vol. XLlll No. 23A • 1:30 p.m ., Monday, May 9, 1994 ISSN OS42-S492

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thirty-Fifth Legislature Members, Constituencies and Pollttcal Afftllatton NAME CONSTITUENCY PARTY. ASHrON, Steve Thompson NDP BARRE'IT, Becky Wellington NDP CARSTAIRS, Sharon River Heights Liberal CERILLI, Marianne Radisson NDP CHOMIAK, Dave Kildonan NDP CUMMIN GS, Glen, Hon. Ste.Rose PC DACQUAY, Louise Seine River PC DERKACH, Leonard, Hon. Roblin-Russell PC DEWAR, Gregory Selldrk NDP DOER, Gary Concordia NDP DOWNEY, James, Hon. Arthur- Virden PC DRIEDGER, Albert, Hon. Steinbach PC DUCHARME, Gerry, Hon. Riel PC EDWARDS, Paul St. James Liberal ENN S, Harry, Hon.

Lakeside PC -· ERNST, f1m, Hon. Charleswood PC EVANS, Ciif Interlake NDP EVANS, Leonard S. Brandon East NDP Fn.. MON, Gary, Hon. Tuxedo PC FINDLAY, Glen, Hon. Springfield PC FRIESEN, Jean Wolseley NDP GAUDRY, Neil St. Boniface Liberal GllLES HAMMER, Harold, Hon. Minnedosa PC GRAY, Avis c�scentwood Liberal HEL WER, Edward R. Gimli PC IUCKES, George Point Douglas NDP KOWALSKI, Gary The Maples Liberal LAMOUREUX, Kevin Inkster Liberal LATinJN, Oscar The Pas NDP LAURENDEAU, Marcel St. Norbert PC MACKINTOSH, Gord St. Johns NDP MALOWAY, f1m Elmwood NDP MANNESS, Clayton, Hon.

Morris PC MARTINDALE, Doug Burrow s NDP McALPINE, Gerry Sturgeon Creek PC McCORMICK, Nonna Osborne Liberal - MceltAJB,James,Hon. Brandon West PC MciNTOSH, Linda, Hon. Assiniboia PC MITCHELSON, Bonnie, Hon. River East PC ORCHARD, Donald, Hon. Pembina PC P ALLISTER, Brian Portage Ia Prairie PC PENNER, Jack Emerson PC PLOHMAN, John Dauphin NDP PRAZNIK. Darren, Hon. Lac du Bonn et PC REID, Daryl Transcona NDP REIMER, Jack Niakwa PC RENDER, Shirley St. Vital PC ROBINSON, Eric Rupertsland NDP ROCAN, Denis, Hon.

Gladstone PC ROSE, Bob Turtle Mountain PC SANTOS, Conrad Broadway NDP SCHELLENBERG, Harry Rossme� NDP STEFANSON, Eric, Hon. Kirkfield Park PC STORIE, Jerry FiinFlon NDP SVEINSON, Ben La Verendrye PC VODREY, Rosemary, Hon .. Fort Garry PC WOWCHUK, Rosann Swan River NDP

- 1274 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Monday, May 9, 1994 The House met at 1:30 p.m. PRAYERS RO�NEPROCEEDINGS PRESENTING PETITIONS Thompson General Hospital Patient Care Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Mr.

Speaker, I beg to present the petition of Barbara McLeod, Maggie Hurtubise, Linda Percbaluk and others requesting the Legislative Assembly to request the government of Manitoba to consider reviewing the impact of reductions in patient care at the Thompson General Hospital with a view towards restoring curre nt levels of patient care and, further, to ask the provincial government to implement real health care refonn based on full participation of patients , health care providers and the public, respe ct for the principles of medicare and an understanding of the particular needs of northern Manitoba.

TABUNG OF REPORTS Ron. Harry Eons (Minister of Agriculture ): Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of presenting several ann ual reports: the Annual Report 1992-93 of the Department of Agriculture; the Annual Report 1992-93 of Manitoba Fann Mediation Board; and the Annual Repor t 19 92-93 of the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation. Introduction of Guests Mr. Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, may I direct the attention of honourable members to the gallery, where we have with us this afternoon from the Warren Collegiate sixty Grade 11 students under the direction of Mr. Wiebe and Mr. Smith.

This school is located in the consistency of the honourable Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enos). Also this afternoon, from the Children of the Earth High School, we have eight Grade 9 students under the direction of Ms. Jan Orvis-Cook. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes ). Also this afternoon, from Pinkham School, we have twenty Grade S students under the direction of Ms. Siobhan Faulkner. This school is located in the consistency of the honourable member for Burrows (Mr. Martindal e).

From the Sisler High School, we have twenty Grade 11 students under the direction of Mr. Bill Harper. This school is located in the consistency of the hono urable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux). On behalf of all honourable members, I would like to welcome you here this afternoon. •

(1335) Speaker 's Ruling Matter of Privilege Functions of the Office of Speaker Mr. Speaker : Prior to Oral Questions, I have a ruling for the House. After Prayers on May 3, 1994, the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) rose on a matter of privilege and mov ed: "THAT the statements made by the Premier calling into question the impartiality of the Speaker be referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections." After receiving advice from the honourable member for Thompson, the honourable First Minister (Mr. Filmon) and the House leader of the. Liberal Party (Mr.

Lamoureux), I took the matter under advisement. As all honourable members know, I view this as a very serious matter, and I would like to take some time to review the main points in the argument put forward by the honourable member for Thompson when he rose on this matter of privile ge.

12 75 LEGIS LATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MA NITOBA May9, 1994 The me mber tabled a transcript from a te le vision int erv i ew with th e First Minist er just after th e votes had bee n taken on the budge t. The transcript quot e s the Prem ie r sa yi ng, and I quote : When the votes are taken, we hav e 29, they hav e 28. You 'll con tin u e to see this hap pen and I don' t see it as being a lot different from othe r ye ars.

The honourabl e me mber for Thompson, if I may summarize what he said, int eqne ted those words of th e First Minist er as me aning that he , th e Pr e mi er , did not se e me , th e Sp ea ke r, as an inde pend en t aibi trator of this Hous e and that I was sub ject to the governm en t Whip. The Pr e mi er , in sp ea king to th e matt e r of privil e ge on May 3, ackn owl edged he had said that there had bee n si x vot e s in the Chambe r thus far in the session and that the resul ts had bee n 29 to 28 .

He we nt on to say, in ea ch case, and I quot e: "I would nev e r, ev er brin g mys e lf in a position to question your imp artiality or your right to rul e in accordanc e with th e prec e de nts that hav e be en long es tablished in the pa rliame ntary tradition of this world. " The honourabl e me mb e r for Thompson has fulfill ed the first co ndition of privil e ge by raising th e matte r at the first availabl e opp ortu nity. He indi cated that he had onl y rece ived the transcr ipt of the inte rvie w on May 3, and I tak e his word for that.

Be fore ruling on whether a prima facie case has be e n es tablish ed, I would lik e to mak e som e obs ervati ons.

Erskin e May's Parliam en tary Practic e, 20 th edition, de fin e s privil eg e as : "t h e sum of th e peculi ar righ ts enj oyed by ea ch Ho use coll ec tiv el y ... and by Me mbers of ea ch Hous e individually, without which th e y could not discharge th ei r fun cti ons, and which ex ce e d thos e possessed by oth er bodi e s and individuals ," or as Hatse ll, th e great 18 th Ce ntu ry authority said: The pr ivil eg es of Parliam en t are rights which are "a bsol ute ly ne ce ss ar y for the du e execu tion of its pow ers .

" May, page 12 7, as we ll as Be auch es ne Otation 71 are cl ea r that accusations of parti ality of the Sp ea k er ar e re fl ec tions on th e Chair, and Be auchesn e Otation 16 8(6) ind icat es that such re fle ctions may be punish ed as br e ach e s of privil e ge s. This is back ed up by the Au stralian Hous e of Re pr es en tativ es Practic e, ed it ed by A.R. Brow ni ng, that stat e s: "Tr aditional ly, a refl ecti on on the charact er or actions of the Spe aker insid e or ou tsid e the Hous e" -and I want to com e back to this point lat er -" has bee n punishabl e as a breach of privil e ge ....

" Anoth er authority, The Encyclop edia of Parliam en t, edit e d by Laundy and Wilding, ind icates that disre spect to the House coll e ctive ly is the ori ginal and fundame ntal fo nn of breach of privil eg e, and includ es libels on th e Hous e at large and upon the Spe ake r. I lo oke d at th e que stion of whe ther the prin cip l e that stat e me nts made outsid e th e House by a me mb e r cannot fo nn th e basis of a matt er of privil e ge is applicabl e to this case. In my opini on, it do es not be caus e th e re marks of th e First Minist e r (Mr.

Filmon ) re la t e dir e ctly to proc ee dings in this Hous e . My opinion is reinf o rced by a ruling of Speak e r Lamo ure ux of the Can adian Hous e of Commons give n on May 10 , 19 66, whe re he indicat ed that in ord er to co nstitu te a breach of privil e ge the matt er must be ba s e d on thin gs arriving from th e actual trans action of th e business of th e Hous e .

Maingot in his book Parliam en tary Privil e ge in Canada put it this way: "i f one me mber speaking outsid e th e Hous e re fle cts improp er ly on th e . conduct of anoth e r me mb er 's parliam en tary activiti es and th e matte r is rais ed as a matter of privil e ge in th e Hous e, the Spe aker ce rtainly has jurisdiction to ex amin e thos e sam e words and de te rmin e if th ere is a prima facie cas e of privil e ge or cont e mpt of th e Hous e.

" In our case , th e issue do es arise from my casting vot e s on th e budget which is de finit e ly part of the act ual trans action of the busin es s of th e Ho use . A revi e w of Man itoba Spe ake rs' ruli n gs found nothing directly rel ev ant to this parti cular matte r of privil eg e. • (1 340) The Canadian Hous e of Commons does hav e som e rulings that are of int e rest. On Ma rch 23 , - -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1276 1993, Speaker John Fraser ruled a prima facie case of privilege existed when a member of Parliament was quoted in a newspaper as alleging that the Deputy Speaker was in collusion to restrict the right of members of the Bloc Quebecois to speak in the House. On May 7, 1976, Speaker Jerome ruled that accusations by a fonner M.P. that members of the House of Commons had been in receipt of bribes was one of privilege .

Speaker Jerome also ruled on July 25, 1975, that accusa tions by a newspaper about a member leaking budget inf ormation were the basis of a prima facie question of privil ege. Now, to get back to the case before us. My job now is to decide whether, assuming that the facts are as stated, the conduct complained of can reasonably be held to be a breach of privile ge. In my review of the actual words spoken by the Premier (Mr. Fllmon ), I find that they do not in themselves reflect on the partiality of the Clair.

They do not directly imply wrongdoing, slander or partiality of a presiding officer such as were noted in the House of Commons rulings I just cited. The interpre tation of the honour able member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) of what the words spoken by the First Minister is just that-an

interpretation. The expl anation by the Premier of what he meant is also just that-an explanation. To paraphrase Beauchesne Citation 494, I must accept statements by memb ers re specting themselves and particularly within their own knowledge . In this case, what we have are an

interpretation and an explanation of the same incident I doubt neither the intent ions nor the honesty of the honou rable memb er for Thompson or the honourable Fust Minister. Therefore, I do not find that there is a prima facie case of privile ge. Having said that, I would like now to thank the honourable House leader of the Liberal Party for something he said in his remarks on May 2. He noted that members of the media as well as members of this House have been saying that the government has a majority of one in this House . This has been a concern to me as wel l. The government does not have a majority.

There are 28 government members in this House and 28 opposition members, and there is one Speaker. What we have is a tied House. What we also have is a Speaker that has had to and I am pretty sure will continue to have to cast deciding votes. I appreciate the comments of the Premier and of the honourable member for Thompson and indeed of many members in acknowled ging the difficult and delicate role the Chair is forced to play in the upcoming weeks and months. As a servant of the House, I will do my utmost to fulfill that role to the best of my ability and in accordance with the best traditions of parliament.

That concludes the matter of privilege . ORAL QUESTION PERIOD Bums Committee Status Report Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier. Last week during the Premier's Estimates there were at least three hours of questions by both Leaders of the opposition dealing with the issue of the Jets and the Burns report and the deadline and the viability of the hockey team and the issues of public support and various options .

Again, there is media speculation that there are various proposals being put forward just waiting for the review of the existing private owner of the hockey team. Of course, this concerns all of us because under the agreement that was signed by the Premier and the mayor of the City of Winnipeg on November 12, 1991, as each committee keeps studying this issue and studying this issue the taxpayers of the province of Manitoba are subject to the partial operating lo sses of the hockey team. I would like to ask the Premier: What is the status of the Burns report?

Secondly , how much money are we anticipating that the province will have to pay for the operating losses of the hockey team for the fiscal year we are currently in, which is the next fiscal year of the Winnipeg Jets hockey team? Bon. Gary Filmon (Pr emier): Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of things to say in response to that

1277 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 question. Fust, as I u nderstand, the inf onnation that was the basis of a newspaper

article on the weekend came from some briefing notes that were being prepared for the Burns commission. The Burns commission has not supp lied me with any written report and recommendations, and it is my assumption that no final report exists. In fact, I am told that Mr. Burns issu ed a statement to the effect that some of the material within that newspaper

article was incorrect. 1be member is correct in saying that all of us ought to be inter ested in finding a solution as quickly as possible so that we obviate the need for continued support of the losses of the Jets hockey team. That is why both the Mauro committee and now the Burns committee have been asked to give us their best advice as to the solution to what is a very difficult issue. 1be issue of course is one in which we would not like to have the ongoing support of the team require funding from the taxpayer.

On the other hand, there appears to be still some question of viability without further commitments of support from the private sector. With respect to the final aspect of the member's question, as I told him last Monday evening, until we get the inf onnation from the interim steering co mm ittee on an approved budget for the forthcoming year for the Jets hockey team-and we do not expect to get that for I believe it is at least a mon th-we are not in a position to give him any accurate estimate on what support we may have to give vis-A-vis losses in the next season. •

(1345) The Winnipeg Jets Operating Losses Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, it is indeed al ann ing for all of us to not know four weeks already into the current fiscal year what our liabilities are going to be for the agreement signed by the Premier on November of 1991. It is also a great concern for us, when the Premier and the mayor established this committee in November of 1991 , they asked that all these issues be dealt with: the issue of the new arena, the issue of pubic support; the issue of viability to the team.

This, of course, was moved over to the Mauro report, or the Mauro committee, then four or five months later it has been moved over into the Burns committee. Every time we drift along and drift along and not make a decision, the taxpayers of Manitoba and the taxpayers of the city of Winnipeg are liable for the operating loss of the hockey team.

My question to the Premier today is, and he has been briefed by members of the committee he indicated in Estimates last w eek, members of the Burns committee, the Mauro report indicated a $30-million necessity of public support for a new arena There is speculation today that it may well be $60 million of public support for a new facility. Can the Premier tell us, is the cost of this new facility doubling in terms of public support?

Can the Premier tell us why we cann ot get the figure for the operating losses of the team 7 Does the team not even have a draft budget, so that we would have some information on the basis by which all Manitoba ns can start making an intelligent decision about the various options? Ron. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, firstly, I would not put out draft infonnation when we are in a position to get finn inf onnation on which to make that kind of-I know it may be good fodder for the Leader of the Opposition to try and make some political hay on it, but it is not the basis on which to make good decisions.

Secondly, in our discus sion last Monday eveni ng, he acknowledged that it would not be appropriate for government to attempt to make decisions when they do not have final indications of whether or not there will be a revenue-sharing agreement among the various teams in the NHL or a salary cap, both of which were seen as essential to a decision in the Mauro commission report. The Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards}, I believe, both indicated their agreement with that approach to it. We do not have either one of those pieces of the puzzle in place.

So the question is, do you take a precipitous decision and commit to a development and a construction of a new arena, purchase of a team and all these things without that inf onnation, - -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1278 or do you ensure that when you make the decision, that critical long-term decision that does involve taxpayer participation to some degree, that you have all that information as much as possible? We are taking the prudent course by ensuring that we do have that inf ormation. The course that he is suggesting would be imprudent, Mr. Speaker, and I do not accept it. Mr. Doer: Mr.

Speaker, the Premier cann ot talk about prudent co urses when be signed an agreement in 1991 that requires us to pay for the operating losses of a hockey team and he cannot tell us four weeks before the budget of the Jets what it is going to be. So let the Premier not lecture any member of this Chamber about his agreement and his operating loss of the team being covered by us. The Premier bas now confirmed that the arena is not an option because we do not have a salary cap as recommended in the Mauro report, and we do not have a revenue- sharing agreement from all the other Nlll. teams.

My question is to the Premier. If we are going to cancel the operating loss deal that he bas signed for the team, what is the option that we are looking at in six weeks in terms of the hockey team 7 The government signed an agreement. It bas moved it from one blue-chip committee to another blue- chip commi ttee to another blue- chip committee, and we want to know six weeks ahead of time, what are the options for the public of Mani toba.

Are we going to have all the facts and figures on the table so that we can make an intelligent decision on somethin g that is very important to our province?-but also so are the losses that we have to cover very important to the people of this province. • (13 50) Mr. Fdmon: You see, Mr. Speaker, this is why Man itobans cann ot put any trust in this Leader of the Opposition. Just Monday evening he said: I do not want to politicize this issue because this is too important to Manito bans and there is a very fragile situation.

Now, today, he is doing exactly what he said be would not do, trying to make some cheap political points. That is why Manitobans do not trust him. The fact of the matter is that we signed an agreement that did include res ponsibility for sharing losses with the City of Winni peg, because such an agreement already existed with Winnipeg Enterprises Corporation in which they were responsible for the losses exceeding the first $400, 000, I believe. We took, in return for that, shares in the hockey club so that we would then become covered for some degree for the losses that we would be in currin g.

There are reasons behind all of these, but the long-t erm reason why we are spending the appropriate time in trying to find a solution is that I believe most Manitobans would like to see the continuance of an Nlll. hockey team in Winni peg. I believe most Manitobans recognize that if the team is to fold or be withdrawn from this city, it will not likely return in our lif etimes. So most Manitobans want the right decision to be made, and they want sufficient inf ormation available at the time that the decision is being made. We do not have all that inf ormation.

That is what the Burns commi ttee is saying; that is what everybody is saying. We do not know whether or not the NHL will have a re venue- sharing agreement. That is one of the critical factors pointed to in the Mauro report. We do not know whether or not there will be a salary cap at this point. That is one of the requirements put forward in the Mauro committee. So for him to try and make some cheap political bay on this is irrespo nsibl e, and it goes absolutely contrary to what be said on Monday- Mr. Speaker : Order, please. Points of Order Mr.

Doer: The Premier is imputing political motives in this Chamber about cheap politics, when we are asking questions about the costs of the various options that be signed. All we want is the inform ation, Mr. Speaker. Let us get the rhetoric from the Premier out of the debate, and let us have an inte lligent debate about this iss ue.

1279 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9 ,1994 Mr. Speaker: The honourable member does not have a point of otder. • •• Mr. Filmon: On another point of order, I have said repeatedly, when I have that information I will share it with him and other members, so let him not tty and put anything in my mouth. Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable First Minister does not have a point of order. That is clearly a clarification of the facts. That is all that was. Connie Curr an Contract Cancellation Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Mr.

Speaker, my question is to the Premier, and given the government's track record on the kind of deals that they have entered into, the question by the Leader of the Opposition was quite justifiable. Mr. Spe aker, the Prem ier ha s staunchly defended the Connie Curran contract, the $4 million plus $800, 000 of expenses, tax-free, even going so far on radio to defend it.

Since the Minister of Health has told us in Estimates that not all of the money has been paid out to Connie Curran and that some money is in trust, will the First Minister direct the Minister of Health to not pay out that more than probably three -quarters of a million dollars in trust to Connie Curran and, instead, put that money back into health care for the many programs that have been cut by this government and to community services that are not in place? Bon.

James McCrae (Minister of Health): The honourable member will recall discussion last week when it came to costs in health care systems, and I reminded him of the cost to the Ontario health system of the salary and expenses of one Michael Deeter, with whom honourable members opposite are very familiar. You know, even if they withheld 20 percent of Mr. Deeter's salary, he would still be paid way more than Frantt Maynard here in Manitoba. The honourable member ought to remember when he is raising questions like this, the issue of hypocrisy does enter into the debate from time to time.

It usually only happens when honourable members from the New Democratic Party get into the deba te . When you are looking at the performance of a contract, Mr. Speaker, you have to look at what you contracted for and look at the deliverables, and that is precisely what has bee n happening. As a result of looking at the deliverables, the savings that were contracted for were arrived at within the range contracted for. There are no legal grounds by which the government of Manitoba or the hospitals involved in the contract can hold back money indefinitely. •

(1355) Mr. Chomiak: Mr. Speake r, why, since the minister himself said on Nove mber 3 that he could not justify Connie Curran's contract, can this minister now say that he is going to pay another three-quarters of a million dollars to Connie Curran when everyone in Manitoba knows that this contract and this project, the Connie Curran contract of $4 million plus $800,000 in expenses, tax-free, is a disgrace to the province of Manitoba? Mr. McCrae : Not unlike the previous set of questions, it brings into the deb ate a fair amount of rhetoric. The honourable member brings into the discussion a fair amount of rhetoric, as well as

interpretation which certainly is not accurate. I remember the newspaper

article to which the honourable member refers very well, and it is very difficult, Mr. Speaker, to tell the honourable member today, when his mind is clearly made up that it does not matter that there is all this waste and inefficiency in our hospitals. His mind is made up; he wants to continue to defend that waste and inefficiency. I very, very clearly disagree with him and so do the people who need the health system in the future. Home Care Progra m Review Tabling Request Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, we think a million dollars going out of the health care system would be far better in the health care system paying nurses than paying their American consultant - -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1280 My final supple mentary to the same minister: Since they are now going to go ahead and pay the $7 50, 000 more to Connie Curran. will they table the home care contract and, at the same time, will the minister ask the Department of Justice to view the legality and consider breach of contract against Connie Curran, Mr. Speaker? Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Mr.

Speaker, that is typical of the New Democrats and is the reason why we need to make changes to our health system, because he has just finished saying , if you have a million dollars just throw it into the syst em. Do not ask how you are going to spend it or anything, just throw a million dollars into the system and that will make everything all better. That is exactly what got us into the problems in the first place, that kind of mentality .

Time for change is here, and this governm ent and governments right across this country, New Democratic governments when they are in office, conduct appropriate reforms and do their best In some cases, it is too bad they waited as long as they did, because they now have to go with the slash-and-bum method of reform, which is not the system we are using here in Manitoba. What we are doing is, through a phased approach, bringing about changes that will leave us with a health care system for many generations to come. National Hockey League Salary Cap/Revenue Sharing Mr.

Paul Edwards (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I listened with inte rest to the response of the Premier to the Leader of the Opposition 's questi ons, and I wanted to follow up with the Premier on one of the comments he made. Oearly, according to Mr. Mauro's committee and according to what we know of the Bums report and according to all other people who have studied this, key to the determination as to whether or not any public money should go into an arena or the Jets is the issue of a salary cap or revenue-sharing agreement.

That is not ne w, and I do not think the Bum s committee is likely to give us further guidance on that That seems fairly agreed to. Mr. Speaker, my question for the Premier: Given that it is only he and Mayor Thompson that have met with Mr.

Be� from the NHL , and there is no indication publicly as to whether or not this is on a short-term agenda for the NHL, whether or not it is a realistic possibility , can the First Minister tell us whether or not all of this is in fact moot or whether or not, according to his discussions with the NHL , there is a reas onable possibility that either of those two things is going to happen in the short term? Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): The Leader of the Liberal Party gave two options in his

preamble. One was whether it is on the short-term agenda and, two, whether or not it is realistically possib le. Mr. Bettman is very open in saying that it is on their short-term agenda, that the NHL governors believe that it is part of the solution to long-term stability for the league. The other side of the coin, of course, cannot be answered until they are through their discussions and negotiations with the players who are adamantly opposed, I might say, to any sa lar y cap. So, like mos t sensitive negoti ations , nothing will be known for a considerable period of time.

They now have sort of postponed their time frame till perhaps early fall, the beginning of the next season. That is where it may reach a head. At some point, the negotiations between the players and the NHL , vis-�-vis a salary structure-as Mr. Bettman refers to it rather than "cap" but referring to it perhaps I think in a similar context to what we believe is necessar y-they now are saying that they will not bring that to a head during the NHL playoffs. They will leave it until perhaps the start of the next season as the breakpoint for their discussion. So we will not know that for some time.

It is pretty evident about that, and that is what makes the decision that we have to make more difficult. Whether or not we can make it without that, as I said on Monday evening in my Estimates debate, I think it is very difficult for us to make that decision without having these pieces of the puzzle in place. •

(1400) 1281 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9 , 1994 Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, in those Estimates the Premier specifically indicated, and I am quoting: "When you look at it from a business point of view, there is not a good reason why you would want to extend that any extended length of time because you want to be able to get underway with a development decision," clearly indicating that if there was an extension it would be seen in a shor t-term sense. He comp ared it to the Abitibi-Price extension. Mr.

Speaker, he bas now used the words "considerable period of time" according to his best infonnation being required to get a salary cap or revenue-sharing agree ment in place. Under the current situation with current facts as they are, Mr.

Speaker: Can the First Minister indicate whether or not he believes there is any point in considering an e xtension, given that he bas used-in his own words, he bas tied it to a short period of time he would be prepared to extend it, when in fact it looks like it is "a considerable period of time," using his words, that is going to be required to even look at a salary cap or revenue sharing agreement? Mr. Filmon: I guess that is where we get into difficulty with words, and I should apologize. I did say "a considerable period of time," but I did talk about this fall as being the potential breakpoint.

So I do not have any real assurance of any particular date. I do not think the NHL can give us any particular date. At this point, we are hopeful and I think they are hopeful that this fall may bring a resolution to the issue, but I cannot give him any assurance on that. What I can say is that we believe that we need to have this part of the arrangement settled in order to make our decision vis-a-vis the ownership of the team and a new arena. The Winnipeg Jets Government Ownership Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader of the Se cond Opposition): Mr. Speaker, finally, for the First Minister on this issue. Mr.

Mauro talked in his report about public majority ownership of the Winnipeg Jets hockey team. The First Minister in Estimates on Monday talked about that as being a p ossible option, that the public would own the majority in Winnipeg Jets hockey team, but the Premier indicated that only if certain conditions were in place and on a temporary basis. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the First Minister: Under what conditions would he be prepared to exercise the option and take go ver nment ownership of the Winnipeg Jets hockey team? Bon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr.

Speaker, I believe we ought to be prepared to take ownership on an interim basis if it facilitates putting together the best package for long-tenn viability of a team and arena complex. That is the critical part of it, that we would be doing it to facilitate a proper long-tenn solution, not doing it to become long tenn owner-operators of the hockey club. Youth Court Backlog Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Justice. The minister has received a letter from the mother of a young offender dated February 14 of ·this year.

In that letter, the mother talks about charges being laid against her son in August of 1993 for car theft, among other things. The mother now tells me that nine months later this youth has yet to be sentenced. In fact, we are talking here about a guilty plea. Meanwhile, this youth was involved in eight additional car thefts, according to infonnation received from the mother. The mother says that this child is laug hing at the justice system.

My question to the minister is: Given that this minister is well aware of backlogs of up to nine months even on guilty pleas, will she advise this House what plan she is going to put in place to deal with this crisis in the court? Bon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Just ice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, the member references a very spe cific case. I would be willing to look into that particular case, but I would also want to be very careful because obviously the - -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1282 case is still before the court. The member has said that there has not been a sentencing. I would like to make it clear that any remarks I make today are unrelated to a specific case which the member has tried to raise in this House and deal only in general terms with the issues of the youth court to protect the fairness required for those people within the justice system. That member comes dangerously close to ignoring due process oflaw, Mr. Speaker, when he raises those iss ues, pardcularly in this House .

I will be very happy to address the issue of how we are dealing with youth crime and justice in this province , because the member knows very well we have taken a very strong stand in the area of youth crime and justice. Our stand is one-and I was very happy to hear on Saturday-in which that member strongly endorsed one point of the nine-point plan. He gave his full support to the youth justice committees, and I look forward to his continued sup port in our plan to deal with youth crime and violence. I will be pl eased to continue answering if the member-[interjection] Mr. Mackintosh: I never heard an answer, Mr.

Speaker; I heard some vague allegations about due process. My que stion to the minister is very straightforward. What plan does she have to deal with the serious backlog in the youth court, a court in crisis? Mrs. Vodrey : Mr. Speaker, I reject totally the member's allegations of court in crisis. I notice that in this Hous e , where he cannot be so irresponsible with the use of dates, he has now changed the range of backlog that he has been speaking about. He has been quite irresponsible in lately raising a period of time for backlog which is absolutely incorrect.

I can tell the member today that for those youths in custody we are booking court dates for youth in the youth court as early as June for those people who are in custody. We have no more than a five-m onth backlog or a five-month waiting period. Let me also say to the member that, again, I will remind him he comes very close to ignoring due process, because in due process of law there are two sides and cases must be prepared. Point of Order Mr. Steve Asht on (Opposition House Leader): On a point of order, the minister has repeated an accusation made against the member for St. Johns.

I would like to quote Be auchesne 's 48 7(2): "W ords may not be used hypothetically or conditionally, if they are plainly intended to convey a direct imputation." The minister is suggesting that somehow on this side of the House, for our Justice critic to be raising questions about delay in the justice system that that is interfering in the justice syste m. That is not only not true, it is unparliamentary. The minister should withdraw that and should just answer the questions raised by the member. Mr. Speaker : Order, please. The honourable member did not have a point of order.

I believe the honourable minister was just actually quoting from the sub judice convention. ••• Mr. Mackintosh : The minister says there is no 11 -month backlog. I bring in an example of a nine-month backlog and she says, do not bring it in. My question for the minister, once again, Mr. Speaker: Will the minister consider putting together a committee of the Crown, of police, of defence , of administrat ors, of judges to try and deal with this problem? Would she try and deal with the crises- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put his question. Mrs. Vodrey : Mr.

Speaker, again I say the member dangerously exaggerates the facts. He again tries to ask the Attorney General of this province to speak about a case which is before the courts, which he has brought forward to this House and which, in all interest to fairn ess and respect for

1283 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 the position that I bold, be knows that I will not speak publicly about a case before the courts. However, I have said that my comments are to be re garded generally. I reject totally his accusation of 11 months. I have made it clear in this House today that for those youths in custody we are booking court dates as soon as June. I would remind the member that be is not and nor am I able to speak about some of the reasons that a specific case may now be before the courts .

As be knows, there is due process to law; there are two sides to prepare a case . • (1410 ) Sex Offenders Release Notification Mr. Doug Marti ndale (Burro ws): Mr. Speaker, parents and comm unity memb ers are very concerned about the release of sex offenders into their neighbourhoods without any notification, and the police are not even notified when a sex offender completes his sentence and is released from jail.

Since the police are only made aware of parole and probation orders, can the Minister of Justice create a system so that the Winnipeg Police Department will be regularly infonned as to when sex offenders are being re leased into the community? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice . and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, the member speaks about a system which we have for treatment specifically of sex offenders, which is, I will tell the member, one of the leading programs both in tenns of access and in the content of that particular program across Canada. We woik very carefully with that particular program.

Also, Mr. Speaker, in relation to treatment of sexual offenders and the community being aware of when they are attending programs, be may like to know that I have woiked with a representative from that area to make sure that police are notified when sex offenders are attending a group in that community. Treatment Programs Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr.

Speaker, can the Minister of Justice instruct the Crown to investigate the lengths and types of sentences being granted to sex offenders in the Manit oba court system with a view to providing greater treatment opportunities to these people , since part of the problem in treating sex off enders is that they are not spending enough time in jail to be treatable and many are receiving one-year sentences, intermittent sentences or probation? Will the minister improve the existing pr ograms, make them more effective and make sure that people receive treatment before they are released? Hon.

Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney Gener al): Mr. Speaker, I am happy to educate the member that sentences are imposed by the courts. That is part of the responsibility of judges as they sentence indivi duals, and perhaps that member would like to step into the issue of judicial independence and range of sentenci ng. However, if be is raising concems about an amount of time possible for sentencing, then we have to address that through federal legislation.

I would also like to say to the member then as well, in tenns of treatment, we do have very active treatments within our institution, within Headingley Jail, that within Headiogley those convicted sexual offenders receive individual counsell ing. There is also group counsellin g, but I will say to the member that group occurs on a regular basis . It is not a come-and-go group. It bas a defined beginning and end. Sentencing Reform Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows ): Mr. Speaker, I am grateful the minister referred to the federal government, because the previous Parliament bad a bill before it on sentencing refonn.

Will this minister contact the federal government and push them to do something about sentencing refonn , not just look at a bill, but do something proactive so that sentencing is fair and consistent and fair to the public and the victims? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, the federal -

May9, 1994 LEGISLA11VE ASS EMBLY OF MAN ITOBA 12 84 Libe ral gove rnme nt bas a great deal to co n sider in te nns of the legislatio n before it , both le gislation that deals with yo u n g offe nd ers an d other legislatio n of the Criminal Code. I have pre sen ted to the federal mi n iste r several suggestions from the peo pl e of Ma ni tob a to deal specifi cally with issues of the Crimi na l Code. I look forward to some co-operatio n from the fe deral gove rnme nt , but I have no t had any indica tion at this time that they are willin g to make changes . Home Renovation Pro gram Budget Allocation Mr.

Jerry Storie (Fiin Flon): Mr. Spe aker, one of the fe w bri ght spots in the pro vi nci al budget was the Home Re n ova tio n Progra m. There is in creasi ng evide nc e that this pa rticular pr ogram was an add-o n that was added on in the pro ce ss without any co ns ultatio n with the Home Builders ' Assoc ia tio n, the housi n g in dustry or the De p artme n t of Housi ng . Mr. Spe aker, my questio n is to the Ministe r of Housi n g (Mrs. Mc in tosh ).

Given the fact that there is no refere nc e to the $1 0 mill io n that is to be ex pend ed in the special warrant that was passe d on March 23, 1994, there is no mo ne y avail able in the Estimates as pri nt ed and tabled in Ap ril, can the Min ister of Housi n g tell the peo pl e of Ma n itoba how the governme nt is goi ng to pa y for this pro gram ? Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister of Finance): Mr. Sp ea ker, the member for Fli n Flo n kn ows par liame nt ary pr ocedure full well in te nns of whe n he refers to spe cial warrants and the deali ng with the budgetary matters.

There is an allocat io n within the '94 -95 budget, $1 0 m ill io n un der Other Ap pr op riatio ns . As he kn ows in te nns of this pa rticular progr am, there is an app licatio n pr oce ss that has to be substantiated by atta ched in voices, quotes to te nders on any pa rticular pro jects and so on , so there is a time pro visio n in te nns of as these pr ojects · will be coming forward. But pr ov isio n will in fact be made to meet all pa yme n ts as re qu ire d. Mr. Storie : Well, Mr.

Spe aker, first of all , there is no aut hority for this pa rticular kin d of pa yme nt and it shows us the co n fusio n this gove rnme nt is in, eve n in a pro gram that has the po te nti al for a lot of Manitoba n s.

My seco nd questio n to the Min ister of Housi ng is: Give n the fact that there are no applicat io n fo nns available, there are no bro chure s avail able and the de partmen t doe s no t have the authority to pa y, can the mi ni ster tell us how lo n g peo pl e are going to have to wait, give n that they are alre ady in some cases fin ishi n g their pr ojects, bef ore they will receive the support that they are en titled to from this pa rticular pro gram ? Mr. Stefanson: Mr. Sp eaker, again, I think the member for Fli n Flo n has se rve d in pr evious gover nm e nt s.

He kn ows the issues of co nf ide nt iality whe n pr ep ari ng a budget documen t, and he kno ws that you c ann ot set the wheels in motio n in man y instan ces to prep are all of the docume nt ati on because of that co nfide n tiality, or at least I ho pe he ap pre ciates that as p ect of pre pa ring a budget on behalf of Manitob ans. Immediately , the wheels were pu t in motio n to pr e pa re all the detailed docume nt atio n that is goi ng out, the kinds of brochures , the ap pl icatio n fo nns . I have outlined for him a detailed p rocess in te nns of how ap p li cations will be dealt with.

There is mo ne y allocated in the '94-95 budget. There is pr ov isio n to meet the pa yme n ts. I am no t sure where he is he adin g with this ques tio nin g. This is a pr ogram, Mr, Spe aker, that has bee n very well received by Ma ni tobans, both in te nns of the constru ctio n indu stry because of the hu ndreds of jobs that it will create in that in dustry an d because we are doi ng somethi ng for pe op le and familie s in te nns of im p rovi ng their homes during this pa rticular year. Mr. Storie: Mr.

Spe aker, if there were ap p licatio n fo nns in pl ace so that peo ple could fin d out the . in fo nna tio n they ne ed and if the pr og ram was restructured so that lower-income families and families with houses in the inn er cities and in so m e rural co mmuniti es could take access, it would be a good pr o gram. My final questio n to the Mi n ister of Housi n g (Mrs. Mc in tosh ) or the Mini ster of Fmanc e is: Can the mi ni ster tell the peo pl e of Manitoba, if they

12 8 5 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 have fin ished their pr oj ect, whe n they might reaso n ably expect to receive the support that they were pro mised ? Mr. Stefanson: Again, the member for F1in Flo n I think looked at the details of this pro gram. There are provisi ons to deal with the peo pl e in various in come levels. There is a pr ovisi on to deal with indi viduals who qual ify un der the RRAP pro gram, the Reside nti al Rehab ilitatio n Assistance Program, which is lower tha n the $5, 000 thre shold, Mr. Sp eaker.

There is a pr ovi sio n to deal with emerge nc y home rep airs, again for in dividuals which are below the $5 ,000 thres hol d. So I want to remi nd the member of those pr ovisions that are in this pa rticular pr o gram. We are just in the pro cess that has to deal with ren ovations that were started after Ap ril 20 , 1994. We are just in the pr oce ss of in dividuals. We are no w three weeks from budget day. Some in dividuals who might have bee n quick off the mark are in the pr ocess of maybe starti ng to com pl e te thei r ren ovatio n pro grams.

They will be submitting their de tailed in formatio n in terms of their cost They will be pr ovi ding the two quo te s requ ired. That will be assessed by the de partmen t, and refund s will be proces sed, as is pro vided un der the pro gram, Mr. Spe aker . Maintenance Enforcement Public Hearings Ms. Norma McCormi ck (Osbo rne): Mr. Spe aker, my questio n is to the Mi ni ster of Justi ce. On Sa turday I met with about 30 pe op le co n ce rn ed with the effective ne ss of Ma n itoba's Mai nt en ance Enf or ce me nt Program.

They sh ared their experie n ces and their commo n belief that the maint e nan ce en forceme nt system is no t wo rkin g as in te nded. My questio n to the minister is : Will the mi ni ster co ns ider acti ng on the pri ority recomme ndatio n of this grou p and hold a pu bl ic in quiry to ex amin e the pr oblems and de ficie nc ies with this ope ratio n- [int e tje ction ] I am askin g my questio n-to bear the suggest io n s of those directly affec ted for im p rovi ng service and collectio n? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney Genera l): Mr.

Spe ake r, as I stat ed in answ er to a question last week, my de p artme nt is making sure that it is holdi ng mee tin gs and is spe akin g with pe op le who are co nc ern ed about mai nt e na nc e en forceme nt , re pr e se nt atives of wome n' s grou ps in pa rticular . We are gathe rin g inf ormatio n.

As the member kn ows, a great deal of our co ncern is to collect mo ne y owi n g from pe op le who reside in other pr ovi nc es, so we are working with ministe rs across Cana da and in the territories to look at how we can revise the REMO act, but, of course, it will take the co-o pe ratio n of the fe deral Ube ral gove rnm en t. • (1 42 0) Out-of-Province Collection Ms. Norma McCormick (O sborne): My suppleme ntary , Mr.

Spe aker, in res po ns e to both today's ques tio n and also to my questio n on May 5: The minister in dicated that there was a large amou nt of mo ne y owed to childre n from outside the jurisdictio n. Will this mi n is ter pu t on reco rd whether she considers the $4 mill io n of the $2 7 mill io n to be the very large pi ece she was ref er rin g to and what her de partme n t in ten ds to do to collect the $2 3 million owed to child ren by their pare nt s who still live in Ma n itoba ? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attor ney General ): Mr .

Sp eaker, the member has pu t in co rr ect in formatio n on the reco rd. No, that is no t the accurate amou nt . However, I will tell the member that we are wo rkin g very hard. We are wo rkin g very carefully with pe op le withi n Ma n itoba who are owi n g mo n ey and who are required to pa y that mo n ey . We have do n e that through a nu mber of enh an ceme n ts within my de pa rtment . We have added five ne w staff members . We are also wo rkin g with cou n te tp arts across the cou nt ry . Point of Order Ms. McCormick : On a po i nt of order, Mr.

Spe aker, the in formatio n with res pec t to the $4 millio n has bee n received from the mi ni ster ' s de p artme nt - -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASS EMBLY OF MANITOBA 12 8 6 Mr. Speaker : Order, pl ease. The ho no urable member doe s no t have a po in t of order. That is a dispute over the facts. Sex Offenders Treatment Pro grams Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): My questio n is for the Min ister of Justi ce. Mr. Speaker, it is evide nt that the pu blic is at risk whe n sex offe n ders do no t receive treatme nt they ne ed to avoid reoff e ndin g. Sex offe nders who receive treatme n t reoff e nd at a much lower rate than those who do no t receive treatme n t.

Because of heighte ned pu blic co nc e rn for the demand for this se rvice an d the lack of reso urces, will her gove rnm ent review the reso urces available to pr ovi nc ia l treatme nt pr ograms for sex offe n ders ? Bon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, I just need to say to the member that-fr om the pre vious questi on- she does no t have the total amou nt of mo ne y owi n g from acros s Canada However, to the member' s questio n, the third question in a serie s-- Mr. Speaker: Order, pl ease. I would remi n d the ho no urable mi ni ster to deal with the matter raised.

There was no po i nt of order on the member for Osborne . Mrs. Vodrey : Mr. Speaker, in terms of treatme nt for co nv icted sex offenders, first of all I think the member does ne ed to kn ow that treatme nt is determi ne d by the courts, No. 1, that is what is requ ired whe n the sen tence is given. Full treatme nt is 16 0 hours of therapy an d it does focus up on pr e ve nt io n, up on rehabilitatio n an d rela ps e pre ve n tio n . The pro gram does come in two forms, a form of in stitutio na l pr ogramming an d also a form of pr ogramming in the pro batio n area. Mr. Kowalski : I have a su pp leme nt ary, Mr.

Speaker. Why bas this mi ni ster decided that savi ng s can be fou nd in commu n ity and youth correc tio n s? Has she thereby decided that treatme nt pr ograms are no t nece ssary, or does she have an alternate pl an and will she share it with this House ? Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Sp ea ker, I re ject those allegations totally . Let me tell him that we do have a very co m pr e he ns ive series of treatme nt pro grams. As I said in an earlier questio n, we have a com pr ehe n sive series of treatme n t pr ograms withi n the in stitutio n. They in volve both individualized therapy an d they also in volve grou p therapy .

As I said in an earlier answ er, grou p therapy is no t a sort of come-a n d-go ki nd of grou p. The group therapy is one in which there is a beginning and an end, an d in dividuals would the n go in to the nex t grou p as it bas the spots available. Point of Order Mr. Kowalsk i: On a poi nt of order, the Estimates figures in the budget show that there- Mr. Speaker : Order, pl ease. I would like to remi n d the ho no urable member for The Ma p les that po in ts of order are used to show the Chair that there bas bee n a breach of the rules.

This is clearly a dispute over the facts, so the honourable member does no t have a po in t of order. Louisiana-Pacific Co. Treaty Land Entitlements Ms. Rosann Wowcbuk (Swan River): Mr. Sp eaker, several times I have raised with this House the co nc er ns of the First Natio n s' commu ni ties of my co n stitue n cy with regard to the Louisia n a-Pacific deal . This week I met with chiefs, and I would like to quote a chief who said: We are no t op p osed to eco no mic develo p me n t. No on e is op p osed to eco no mic develo p me n t. What we want is to be co n sulted.

What we want to have is in pu t, an d what we want is a fair pi e ce of the pi e. We wan t jobs. In light of that stateme nt , Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Mi ni ster res p onsible for Native Affairs why be bas no t met with the FirSt Natio ns to bear their co nc ern s on treaty la n d en titleme nt , on traditio n al land use, why be bas no t met with them . Will be make a commitme n t today to go up to the

1287 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 constituency and meet with these bands to address this eoncem so that he does not put these jobs in jeopardy? Bon. DIUTell Pramik (Minister responsible for Native Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I find it so ironical that from the New Democratic Party benches we woul d have concerns raised about job opportunities. The question of bow those jobs and economic opportunities are distributed is certainly a very valid question, but it is coming from a member and from a party who do not want the operation in the first place so that discussion becomes very academic.

Point of Order Mr. Jerry Storie (F1in Flon): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, one of the obligations of every member is to bring the truth to this House. The Minister of Labour- Mr. Speaker: Order, please, right here. Hold it. The honourable member for Flin Flon, you know full well, sir, that is unpa rliamentary because in essence what you are saying, the honourable minister is not telling the truth. Therefore, that is unpar liamentary. Right? [interjection] Order, please. The honourable member for Brandon Bast (Mr. Leonard Evans), I am sure, does not want to reflect on the Chair .

What bas happened here , the honourable member for Flin Flon bas said that the minister should bring forward the truth. What you are saying, sir, is that he bas not been bringing the truth. Therefore, that is unp arliamentary. The honourable member for Flin Flon, just to withdraw that, please. Mr. Storie: I did imply that that may be entirely pos sible in this insta n ce, and if that is unpar liamentary, Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw it. Mr. Speaker: I wo uld like to thank the honourable member for Flin Flon. There was not a point of order, by the way, because that was a dispute over the facts. ••• Mr.

Speaker: Time for Oral Questions bas expired. NONPOL�CALSTATEMENTS Multicultural Week Mr. Jack Reimer (Niakwa): Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I may have leave for a non political statement. Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member for Niakwa have leave to make a nonpolitical statemen t? [agreed] Mr. Reimer: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to infonn the members of the House that this week, May 9 to 13, bas been proclaimed Multicultural Week in Manitoba. Canada is a reflection of the cultures of the world. Nowhere is the fact more evident or proudly mor e cel ebrated than here in Manitob a.

Manitobans have always been deeply committed to maintaining their ethnocultural heritage and their traditions. The various celeb rations , observations and festivals held across the province throughout the year attest to the enthusiasm and pride we feel about our origins. We have become more aware of bow multicultural events are a positive force in our society. They provide economic stimulants, learning experiences, a basis for understanding each other and countless opportunities for bringing our ethnocultural communities closer together.

Our dynamic multicultural community is a vital factor in Manito ba's continuing growth and progress on every level. At a time when other nations are being tom apart by their etbnocultural divisions, we are building for the future on the strength of our etbnocultural diversity. Multicultural Week is our official recognition of Manitoba's multicultural reality of its roles in our society and our day-to-day lives. I ask all members of this House to join with me in recognizing and celebrating Multicul tural Week in Manitoba. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr.

Speaker: Does the honourable member for Wellington have leave to make a non political statement? [agreed] Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to rise and commend the people of Manitoba on the beginning of Multicultural Week -

- May 9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1288 in the province of Manitoba and share, as the member for Niak:wa (Mr. Reimer) has stated, the positives that the people of Manitoba have experienced through the richness and the variety of the ethnic groups that have graced our province over the last 125 years. Mr.

Speaker, I also feel that it is incumbent upon us, too, in this House to ensure that the programs and the community be enriched by everything that we do in this Legislature, and we, too, worlc and take account of all of our actiom and the effect that all of the deliberatiom that we undertake in this House have on all of our communities, most parti cula rly this week the multicult ural community. Again, Mr. Spe aker, on behalf of the NDP caucus we, too, share in the cele brations of Multicultural Week. Mr. Speaker : Does the honourable member for Inkster have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed] Mr.

Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I stand up to give comment on Multicu ltural Week on behalf of the Liberal caucus. Later this week, in fa ct, I am going to be over at Meadows West School where there is going to be a multicultural concert. This is a school that has now sponsored a multicultural concert of sorts for the la st number of yea rs. I have had other opportunities to be able to attend it, and it is always a positive experience when you are able to participate first-hand in some of the diff erent cultural events that are out there.

I know over the last weekend, for example , I was over at the Sikh temple on Mollard and was able to participate in a Sikh wedding. You get a better appre ciation and a better understanding of the many diff erent cultures and heritages that are out there that help make up what we are and is a part of the Canadian identity of being a multicultural society, because far too often we hear the words of multiculturalism and we do not necessarily see the sorts of actions from the public as a whole that reflect in terms of what really and truly being a multicultural society is all about.

Hopefully , as we get weeks of awareness such as this we will get more individuals participating and experiencing first-hand what multiculturalism is all about, thereby getting a better appreciation and understanding of the many different cultures and heritages that are out there. Anything that goes to further promote multicultural harmony, whether it is a heritage dance, whether it is barriers that are out there, can be a very positive thing. It is with pleasure that I say those fe w words. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. •

(1430) ORDERS OF THE DAY House Business Bon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, House leaders have discussed certain adjustments to the seque nce for Estimates consideration. Therefore, I would ask you to seek the unanimous consent of the House to set aside the Estimates of the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism so that consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education may begin today in Room 255. When those are completed, that

section of the Committee of Supply will revert to the Estimates of the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism in order to complete them. Mr. Speaker: Is there unanimous consent of the House to set aside the Estimates of the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism so that consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education may begin today in Room 255, and that when those are completed that

section of the Committee of Supply will revert to the Estimates of the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism to complete them? Is that agreed? [agreed] I would like to thank the honourable government House leader. •

(1440) Mr. Ern st: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stef anson), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty. Motion agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be

1289 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 9, 1994 granted to Her Majesty with the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the Chair for the Department of Education and Training; and the honourable member for Seine River (Mrs. Dacquay) in the Chair for the Department of Health. COMMITI'EE OF SUPPLY (Concurrent Sections) EDUCATION AND TRAINING Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Good afternoon. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This

section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. Does the honourable Minister of Educatio n and Training have an opening statement? Bon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will say a fe w words to start off with. I would indicate to members at the table that our government, of course, is committed to maintaining adequ ate funding levels despit e the cur rent financial constraints.

I know members opposite will want to take issue with me particularly that the reduction in funding represents a threat to the quality of education. I do not accept that as a matter of fact, because to accept that then would sort of be equivalent to throwing your hands up and saying you have no solutions. The reality is, the government of Manitoba and indeed governments across the land are going to have to do refonn and a lot of the changes that I think most of us around this table would agree to; they are going to have to do that in the context of restraint .

As I pointed out to those who want to listen to the glo ba l numbers, when we came into government six years ago and subsequently upon bringing down seven budgets, we have increased funding in education. I might be corrected on this, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, but it seems to be about $750 million to $1 billion. Maybe I am out tens of millions of dollars some where , but this go vernment has certainly shown that a commitment to education is, if not the highest, certainly the second highest le vel after the billion dollars in addition we have put into Health over seven budg ets. Mr.

Deputy Chairperson, as members know, we have increased funding to colleges by 3.3 percent and, according to much of the latest available data, Manitoba fares reasonably well in funding for schools, colleges and universities vis-a-vis the other provinces. We are ranke d second in percent increase to basic opera ting grants for colleges. We did a telephone survey in '93 and '94 and have found out subsequently that in '94-95 several provinces are freezing and reducing their operating grants, I think in particular Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, while we have increased ours by 3.3 percent.

Indications for '94-95 are that most other provinces are freezing and red ucing the operating grant to univers ity. There are wide ranges here, a range of zero percent in New Brunswick down to a minus 11 percent for Alberta. The only exception that we can find so far is a 2.4 percent increase in British Columbia, which probably represents no increase in the level of funding, but simply accounts for increased enrollm ent. Tuition fe e increases at colleges are similar to increases in other provinces.

Also, I might indicate that average tuition fe es in arts and sciences at universities in Manitoba in '91-92 were the lowest among the four western provinces. That is a number that comes from Statistics Canada, for anybody who wants to challenge the number. Manitoba ranked in the middle in terms of elementary , secondary per-pupil expendi tures in spite of the fact that this is the second year when reductions are being made on a per-pupil basis.

I would like to again indicate that when we try to factor a per-pupil cost across Canada and compare Manitoba to our sister provinces and when one takes into account that the cost of living here is probably lower than-well it is lower than-the national average , I daresay that we are doing reasonably well in maintaining our commitment to funding to education. - -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1290 Mr. Deputy Chairp erson, what needs to remembered, and as I remind my friends, the critics from the opposition parties, is that we still as a province are spending alm ost $1 billion on the education system across all facets.

I would like to spend just a few moment on talking about reform , the department restructuring in K to Senior 4, and here I am talking about regionalization of services, integration of program design and delivecy with educational technol ogies, emphasis on aboriginal education, emphasis on quality, emphasis on assessment and evaluation -those are the hal lmarks of what we want to be part of the reform model.

I want to ensure members that I hope we will have an opportunity to dialogue in depth about some of the matters, although it might be more opportune if Education Estimates were being considered a month or month and a half from now because hopefully, by that time, we will have the reform package out in greater clarity to the public. I daresay that there are some areas that I can give insight into to the members and maybe have some understanding from them as to their views, because I have reached out to a lot of Manitob ans.

I certainly look forward to not only members pushing me as to what my view is on some of the issues, but also they will share with me their insights as to how they believe that reform should be conducted in the realm of education over the course of the next number of years. Mr.

Deputy Chairperson, I want the record to show that my No. 1 priority, having come into the ministcy, is the reform of education, not only in K to Senior 4 but also post-secondacy sectors of the department To give effect to that change and to that emphasi s, I should say, members are well aware that we have now appointed a second deputy minister. I will move into greater reasons for that in a time to come, but certainly one of the reasons for having to do that is the great emphasis of change. The expectations on one person, one deputy to lead this, I think, wa:; just too much.

Measures will be taken to ensure a more co-or dinated approach to post-se condary education, as recommended by the Uni versity Education Review Commission. A point that I would like to make is that this is why Universities Grants Commission and Colleges Secretariat are part of the same appr opriation. Members will notice that there is a change in format That is one of the reasons why we have made this change . We are tl)'ing to, again, rather than set up a number of divisions and branches and appendages, more and more, we are tl)'ing to consolidate those functions.

We are hoping we can work to more of a single post-sec ondary division or branch within the dep artment I might point out, when I am mentioning the University Education Review Commission, I am hoping and I am expecting that this month yet, I will make a definitive response to that report.

I might indicate , still talking about reform, that we have allocated this year, members will notice in the line , $2.25 million to ensure that the K to Senior 4 re form in areas of curriculum development, standards and evaluation, parental involvement, will begin to take shape and certainly this funding will help put into place, hope full y, the reform areas. They will involve the development of a curriculum framework which will include provincial standards and benchmarks , a review of special ed programs and ongoing consultation on forum with parents and other education partners. So, $2.25 million, Mr.

Deputy Chairperson, to be directed towards K to Senior 4 reform . Also, progress on major departmental initiatives is furthered by these Estimates. These include Francophone schools governance , education legislation reform , review of university education and the creation of employment development centres in the school division district boundaries review. I know members will want to pose questions in all these areas. •

(1450) Mr. Deputy Cbairperson, the last point I would like to make with respect to the reform agenda is that we will continue to dialogue as a government as widely and broadly as we possibly can. Certainly, a manifestation of that occurred just a little over a week ago with the Parents ' Forum, which by all of the input that has come to me by

1291 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 way of individual comments from virtually everybody that was in attendance certainly rated that forum as being highly successful. I certainly will use a fair amount of the material to try and guide my thoughts with respect to the ultimate blueprint that we want to share with Manit obans. The third area I would like to talk about is distance education and techn ology, again one of our very high prior ities. The government is comm itte d to usin g the remarkable new capabilities of the electronic highway.

This will radically improve educ ation and training opportuni ties thro ughout the province . Through the application of telecommunication technol ogies, Manitobans will have vastly improved access to a wide variety of education and training programs, information sources and a high level of expertise from throughout this province and in fact from anywhere in the world. As well, the department will be integrating curriculum matched software with curri culum development at the K to Senior 4 level in order to improve its own capabilities and incre ase the resources available to our students and teachers.

Specific actions in this area include app lication to the Canada-M anitoba infrastru cture program for a comprehensive distance education system which includes local interactive television clusters , an extensive video conferencing system for delivery of post-se condary courses in adult education, province-wide local access to Internet, a technical structure for library linkages, a system for ongoing training of skilled human resources. Those are some of the specific actions that we hope to begin to worlc toward, and yet there are many others, Mr. Deputy Chairperson.

We want to develop the multimedia resource and expect to do this as an exciting, effective way of delivering curriculum to middle-year students. We want to ref ocus the Manitoba Satellite Networlc to provide research, development and course delivery for the evolving distance education system.

We would like to pilot pro ject grants to ensure that the education and training system as a whole benefits from the creativity and energy of those educators who are pioneering with the new technologies and, of course, we want to begin to integrate this into other areas of education by an active exploration of library linkages throughout the province .

We realize that because there is such a pressure for distance education to come in in a myriad of ways and yet it is very impor tant, given that certainly in the first instance this will all have to be supported for the most part from the pub lic purse, it is just so crucial that there be some not only integration, but that there be a gatekeeping function in place so that there is not overlap and duplication built into a delivery system that is going to plague us cost-wise for years and, I dare say, decades to come.

This has been the experience in too many of the jurisdictions into which we have looked, stateside and even some of the efforts in Canada, that various microsectors of education have run off to do their own things and other partners in the community have run off to do their own things and all of a sudden you have an incredible waste of effort and indeed of cost. What we have to do in this province is try to bring it in in an orderly fashion.

I sense that now there seems to be a desire by the fe deral government to also be more involved, alth ough education per se is a provincial resp onsibility, but as we move into the post-secondary education and some of the other outreaches that are now more fe asible through an electronic approach and a technological appro ach, it has to be done in a sharing of good minds and indeed of resources as between all levels of government, but beyond that thinking as to how we hold everybody back a little bit, or at least those that are let on to the system do not find themselves in the position of having to be built into a high-cost system .

So to that end, Mr. Depu ty Chairperson, we are contemplating and probably will esta blish a Provincial Distance Education Technolog y Council to explore the administrative and management structures for distance education in our province. Fourthly, the fourth broad area, skills training initiatives, of course, are to receive special -

- May 9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1292 attention also. This is becoming such a-ce rtainly not new and it is · certainly not si gnificantly different, but it is taking on new twists and it is what is making the whole area of training, and I know this is very important to the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen), but it is what is taking on its own special initiative.

I point out to members at this table that the former fe deral government took all human res ource activity and put it under one ministry, and of course that government now has been replaced and the new government has chosen not to change that structure tremendously . And all of a sudden one minister is fmding, in this case himself, grappling not only with training per se, but how it sort of fits in with all the social refonn on the social side.

We, not only we in Manitoba, but our provincial governments across the land are trying to come up with something to begin to match this structure, because departments traditionally in a provincial setting are very much caught in the older ways, and I am not going to use the word turf protection. They are trying to work together, but the reality is, we have had a social safety net in place for 30 to 40 years, which is sort of purely based on social programming in and around unemployment insurance, welf are costs and then a little bit of crossing into training.

Yet, here now we have the fe deral government with a structure in place where training is trying to become tied so closely and involved with social refonn, and that is another dimension of the reason why we moved to a sec ond deputy within Education, because training and education is going to become more than training and education. It is going to be a little wider. It is going to have to come into fully understanding and complementing the changes in the social safety refonn that the federal government is leadi ng.

I only point that out as a starting point, but certainly training will receive and has received special attenti on. In order to equip our citizens with the skills necessary in today's world, we are revitalizing the Apprenticeship Program, increased resources allocated by almost $300,000. Yet we will continue with what we deem to be successful programs such as the Workforce 2000, and I know members across the way would disagree. We will continue with these progra ms, and also CareerStart, Partners with Youth and the literacy programs. Youth Career Development Programs continue to be strengthened.

For example, new businesses will participate in the Young Entrepreneurs component of the Partners with Youth program which was introduced in '93-94. Responsibility for the provincial co-ordination of co-operative education was incotparated within youth programs to strengthen partnerships among programs that promote the transition of students from school to work. A new component of the new CareerStart program, Tradefocus, will be implemented in pilot fonn in '94-95 in order to enhance the profile of the trades as a career choice for Manitoba students . The last point I would like to make, Mr.

Deputy Chairpers on, with respect to training is that a movement toward a fully integrated, co-ordinated approach to skills training programs was begun with the consolidation of skills training in Manitoba Education and Training. This will be enhanced further by the creation of a one-stop, single-window employment and training service called Employment Development Centre s, which will include the fe deral and munici pal governments as partners.

Again, this refeiS back to some of the general statements I made just a few minutes ago when we today have to remove overlap and duplication in all of our efforts to try and make more successful the limited dollaiS that we have to direct toward the needs in these areas. The final point I would like to cover, Mr. Deputy Chairper son, again is a focus are a within the department, the new initiatives that are being developed in collaboration with our fe deral government.

We have included $1 million for our new initiative, welf are to work, in co-operation with the Department of Family Services and the fe deral government . Under this new initiative , pilot projects will be undertaken to assist social assistance recipients to obtain employment Assisting single parents will

1293 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 be a particular focus. We will participate with the federal govermnent on a review which will lead to significant social secur ity reform. Clearly, edu cation and training will be important components of social security reform. Again, I am just reinforcing the point I made a fe w minutes ago. •

(1500) In addition to soc ial security reform , opportunities exist with the fe deral-provincial infrastru ctur e progra m and the Winnipeg Development initiative . Consultations with the fe deral government will result in a number of joint projects with benefits for Manitoba. Just to finish on this point, Mr.

Deputy Chairper son, our departm ent, and indeed this government, is trying to wor k as closely as possible with the federal government in its efforts to restructure social security ref orm, because having been actively involved in the planning and the management of this province over the last, as I say, seven budgets, it is clearly obvious to us that if we do not try and evaluate our programs, reduce those that are not performing and taking those sa vings to those that will perf orm better, ultimately , we will lose the whole system we have .

So governments across the land have absolutely no choice but to make those efforts. To the extent that the federal government is sincere and is genuine in its approach, and we are convinced that they are at this point, we will continue to work closely with them. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, with those few opening remarks , I look forward to the comments of my colleagues and, furthermore, spending a productive period of time reviewing the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. Thank you. Mr. Deputy Chairpers on: We thank the Minister ofEducation for those comments.

Does the official opposition critic, the member for Dauphin, have any opening comments? Mr. John Plohman (Da uphin): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we have two critics, of course, and perhaps both of us would want to make some comments on different areas, mine dealing with the public education system K-12, K-S4 and my colleague dealing with post-secondary and apprenticeship employment programs and so on. Perhaps the minister would be able to share his written comments.

I know he had some notes he was referring to, and we might be more productive if some of the statements made , where he did refer to those notes, could be distributed. We would not have to wait for the Hansard, which will be a few days down the road, bef ore we can deal with it We will be well along the way.in the Estimates by that time, so maybe the minister will be able to do something in that regard with his statement. I · would appreciate that. I just wanted to indicate a few areas of where we will be concentrating and raising issues with the minister.

I guess, in many quarters, there is some -well, I think there is a great deal of concern about the dire ction the minister is taking with regard to education reform in terms of priorities and the present govermnent 's commitment to the public education system as we know it and where this is all leading with the purposes. We want to explore, in the gene ral discussion, with the minister, his motives and objectives and so on, and where he sees his vision for the public education system , where he sees this le ading to.

Certain ly, we do not disagree that change is always nee ded and that certainly we are at a point, at this time, of great change, but I think it must be done from a position of being positive, positive change , constructive , building on what we have at the present time as opposed to tearing it down or throwing it out and starting over again. I wonder if the minister sometimes is taking that approach. I have sometimes some serious concerns, as I said in my budget speech, about the minister 's support for the present system .

I think that we have to admit that the present system, over the last 20 or 30 years, has done a very good job, and we should establish some confidence in the public education system and build from that confidence to change rather than creating a situation where there is a lot of questioning or an in-depth lack of confidence in what is happening in the public education system . - -

May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1294 Because of the societal pressures on our public school system, no doubt people have made a lot of demands on the public education system, and as a result, since the school system has not always met those deman ds, they question whether the system is doing its job, so to speak. Those are valid questions.

But we cannot allow , I do not think, and that is why I have asked the minister during my speech as well to consider the kind of misinformation that is being thrown out by those who seem to have an agenda that is contrary to the best interests of the public school system as it has been known and run in the past number of years, that those statistics which are not accurate should be refuted by ministers, by governments , because they are in a position to do so and to carry some weight in what is said about the public education system .

So it bothers me when I see the Economic Council , Statistics Canada, a 1989 literacy survey being ref erenced as a basis for saying there is a 38 percent illi teracy rate in the country when in fact some would argue that it is probably closer to 3 percent in terms of Canadian-born nonlit erates. I know that the numbers are far less than that, and I think that the minister has a responsibility to ensure that to the best of his knowledge facts are being used in the debate on the future of the public ed uca tion sy stem , not innuendo and misinformation.

It is the same with the retention rate in our schools, the graduation rates-m uch higher than some would lead us to believe in terms of dropout rates and so on. So I think that this is part of the job of the minister and all of us involved in education in some way to put out factual information on precisely how well the public education system is doing as a system rather than simply buying into a kind of a crisis mentality or creating it to a certain extent by in fact proliferating that kind of inform ation.

So we want to ask the minister about the role he sees for public education, the impression the minister has and fa ctual information as to how well it is doing · its job, the issue and purpose of competition that the minister refers to as being necessary in the public education system . It cannot be free from competitive pressures and statements like this that I have heard the minister make. Exactly what is he talking about there? What is the purpose of it and the form it would take in terms of competition, how the private sector agenda is in fluencing the min ister 's agenda?

What constitutes the basics in the minister 's mind? The consultation process that he wants to unde rtake--I mean, we had the Paren ts' Forum, which was kind of an isolated thing compared to the kind of consultation that perhaps should take place. What happened to the Partners in Education forum that took place in Brandon in '93 and the fo llow-up from that, and where is the minister fitting into that process? How he intends to spend, what he said I believe , $2.25 million on the reform , what are the priorities, those kinds of questions on the reform .

The minister, of course, has said that there will be the docum ents coming fo rward within a month or so and then we would have a lot clearer idea Of course, if we were dealing with the Estimates at that time it might be a lot easier to question the minister about where he is going. We are going to be asking a lot of things that undoubtedly will be somewhat answered perhaps within a short time . Unf ortunatel y, I guess, we cannot do much about that at this point. We are going to also raise the issues of funding in the public education system.

The minister said, well, he is committed to adequate funding models and that funding is not an issue, that it is not jeopardizing quality. Whenever I have asked him about fund ing, he has attempted to leave the impression that what I am saying is just like, let us throw more money into the public education. We ll, we do need perhaps some increase, especially in some areas, with regard to funding.

The big issue that we have raised with the minister, and he cannot, I do not think, seek to leave a different impression about our intention and concern there, is the fairn ess of the funding model that he has put in place and that he is now overseeing in this province . As a result of the artificial impositions of such things as Bill 22 and

1295 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 9, 1994 Bill 16, the cap that has been put in place and then the reductions that have taken place in funding and re-assessment, we have seen a tremendous disparity in the funding in the last fe w years. • (1510 ) Without establishing, first of all, what is a level of service that we expect, what is a reali stic, a fair expenditure to arrive at that level of service and then fu nding accordingly, ensuring it is done equitably, we just see cuts in some school divisions that are much higher, even low-spending divisions that are being cut drastically, like Interlake, Evergreen, Lord Selkilk.

At the same time, other divisions that spend much more per pupil are receiving increases. There has been no attempt, it does not seem, to determine what is required, what is a level of service that the government is prepared to support and then ensuring that it is done equitably. I think that is the issue in funding. It is funding fairness. Let us not say it any other way. That is the issue in funding right now, and we have to pmsue that with the minister.

Of comse, in relation to some of the other things, the private school increases, the fact that funding has been far below inflation over the last number of years, the funding fairness aspect is the big one. We wa nt to talk to the minister about reorganization, the programs branch in the department, the issues surrounding loss of professionals in the department. So many losses in the Curriculum Br anch, so many of the consultants, even the director and others, co-ordinators have been lost in that area, have left largely of their own volition in some cases; other cases, the government has made a direct cut.

Either they have taken premature retirement or whatever the case may be, but they are gone, and the minister does not have that ca pacity of prof essionals that he has bad in the past. That is a deep concern to us. Child Care and Development Branch is also another one. Distance Education branch, key people have lef t there, and yet, these are the priorities for the minister. He is talking about education reform. Curriculum is obviously an impo �Jant part of it, and Distance Education the minister talked about as being a ma jor priority.

Of comse, we want to talk about that, and the costs of all involved: who pays; what services; how they will be developed; who will deliver them and so on? So those are the important issues that I see with the public education system and, of course, the Francophone School Division. There are a lot of problems out there in the implementation of the new Francophone School Division and how it is impacting on existing divisions. We said last year, when this was being initiated by the government in response to the Supreme Court decision, that in fact existing divisions should not be negatively impa cted.

They should be compensated. Yet we are seeing a lot of diffi culty being created in many areas of the province and, particularly, in the Mountain School Division and in the surrounding area. I think we have to find out from the minister clearly what he is attempting to do there.

There seems to have been some variations from the original intent of the act and so on, and we want to know exactly where this is going and how he is going to ensure that existing divisions are not being impacted in any substantial way by the implementation of the Supreme Court decision, they are not being made to pay , which is not the intent, I do not think, within the spirit of that agr ee ment, particularly since the federal government has money available or it was in the process of being negotiated as being availab le. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I am going to stop there.

Those are some of the ma jor areas we will want to deal with with the minister, and I hope we have some very informative discussions in that respect. Point of Order Mr. Kevin Lamour eux (Second Opposition House Leader) : I know in the past we have had the off icial opp osition, then foll owed by the second opposition respons es. I know, with the New Democrats and the Liberals, we have split that particul ar department, and I would request maybe, in particular, from the Minister of - -

May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1296 Education (Mr. MaDness), if there would be any objection to dealing with them separately? For example , the lines are in fact very well defined for post-secondary, and maybe we can deal with the K- 12 or K-S4 first and then go on to deal with post-sec ondary education. So I would look in terms of the will . Mr. Deputy Chairperso n: Order, please. The honourable member did not have a point of order, but we will be following line by line , as is the normal procedure of the committee .

We do go line by line, so it will follow the format that the honourable member is wishing to deal with. At this time, we are going through the opening statements in which each party is allowed 30 minutes. The opposition party has now used up 12 minutes of their time, so she has some remaining, then we will go to the honourable member for Inkster. ••• Ms.

Jean Friesen (Wolseley): I was interested by the long list of future pro jects which the new Minister of Education or the third minister in this government has given us, and certainly the ones which he has outlined, distance education, ap prenticeship , employment development offices, libraries, relationship between them and distance education, the development of an initiative with the fe deral government and single parents, the review of the Roblin commission, a number of areas which the department is now beginning to look at after six years in office.

I would certainly say that each of these is significant, but what is equally significant is the delay and the drift that we have seen from this government. Six years in office, and they are now finally beginning to look at distance education, app renticeship, libraries , libraries where they sat on a Public Library review report for two years. It was printed, it was ready, but they simply did not release it to the public, in spite of many letters from all across the province. The same thing with the Roblin review-they promised it, I belie ve, now three to four years ago.

They delayed two years in implemen ting it. The repor t itself was understandably late and even yet we do not have a formal response from the government. Unemployment development offices, development centres I think the minister called them, one-stop shops in relationship with the fed eral government and municipalities-that is an interesting proposal . It is one that has been around in other jurisdictions for a number of years , both here and in other countries .

Of c ourse , what it does is come after six years of delay on labour force development boards, where both the fe deral Tory government and this government went through a long proce ss of review and delay. We are no further ahead this year than we were six years ago on the development of a labour force policy in Manitoba. So while I welcome the minister's interest in these new areas, app renticeship particularly I think is a very significant area for Manitoba to begin to move in, but for six ye ars we have seen the apprenticeship committees on curri culum, for example, have been dormant.

Now, in the year bef ore an election, the government decides it is going to put some interest and attention to the area of apprenticeship. So I am interested in these future prospects that the minister dire cts us to and certainly would be interested in asking some questions about those and about the plans they might have for perhaps bringing any of them to fruition within the months that are left to this government. The particular areas that I will be looking at I am sure are quite evident to the minister. We have been asking questions in the House for two years now about Workforce 2000.

My primary concerns are about the app ropriate use of public money for private purposes and the accountability of this particular fund to the public. The minister has, I believe, had a number of individual and collective reviews of this pr ogram. None of them have been made available to the public, in spite of the proposals and recommendations of the Auditor, so I will be pursuing some areas there. I am concerned about students, about the changing population of students in Manitoba, the changing economic conditions that students are

1297 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 facing. It is not something which has happened overnight; it is certainly something which has been developing over the last 10 years. But I do believe that there are some significant changes which this government has made to the conditions of students, and I would like to know what the evaluations of those changes have brought and what the minister will be able to tell us from the reports, which I know he has had done and which I believe he is prepared to table here.

That is the one done by Peat Marwick on ACCESS studen ts, which the minister indicated he would be prepared to table, and other reports and evaluations which I believe have been done on student loan and student debt issues. •

(1520) I am interested also in the overall planning of post-se cond ary education, the governme nt 's preparations for a formal response to the Roblin review and the plans which it has to develop some of the prop osals there. I am concerned about coll eges, as I think most Manitobans interested in post-secondaly education are.

It is a very serious issue for Manitoba, and the Roblin review, I believe , was a direct denial of this government 's continuing policies over the last fe w years when it emphasized the important role the colleges had to play and recommended to the government an increase in the number of places and the number of programs.

So I am concerned about the kind of plans that the government has to encourage the increase in· programs, the nature of those pr ograms, what goals it has for the colle ges, what kind of numbers of students we should be looking at, what are the types of courses we should be looking at, what is the role of the colleges vis-�-vis the universities and the training program.

In parti cular, I am concerned about the experience that the minister has had with existing boards and the role of the private sector in the determinatio n, direction and selectivity of the courses which are currently being offered at the cc1lleges . In training and social assistance the minister has mentioned now, in the last few months of the government, a series of programs in conjunction with the federal government, some of them indeed at the initiative of the fe deral government, that he is prepared to look at. This is interesting.

I do not know the details of them, so I would not want to comment on them at this point. I think we should regard them in the context in which they are being placed, and that is that over the last four or five ye ars we have seen a systematic reduction of the existing programs of training such as New Careers and other types of community-based training program s, whether it was in the Core Area Initiative or whether it was those which came directly from the departme nt. We have not seen them replaced with any alternatives.

So, again, in these last few months we now see some prospect of alternative , and some of them I do underline are not at the initiative of this government but at the initiative of a new fe deral government. Fmally, I would like to have some discussion with the minister, perhaps as we go through, on his ultimate philosophy about education. Ultimately we are looking at a transmission of a culture and a way of life. [inte rjection] The minister says it is danger ous. Yes, of co urse, it is, but it is fundamental to where you are going.

It is fundamentally an issue, I think , of what kind of Manitoba you want to see 10, 20 years down the road, and how we build an education and training system that will help us get there. The minister's own values, I have to read between the lines , but it is my assumption that his fundamental values for Manitoba are based upon the creation of wealth. I would like to pursue with him some of the implications of this as his fundamental goal for education. There are many other

definitions and goals of education than the creation of wealth, and when that has become the ultimate one, I think we perhaps can be helpful to the minister in suggesting the limitations of having that as the only definition of education. So we will pursue that perhaps if we have the opp ortunity, and I will finish my remarlcs there . Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I thank the honourable member for Wolseley for those comments . Does the critic for the second opposition party , the - -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1298 honourable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), have an opening statement? Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkste r): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, it is actually with great pleasure that I am here on behalf of the Liberal caucus as the Education critic. I really and truly have been enj oying the challenge that is in fact there . When I was first appointed as the critic, I was trying to first come to grips with trying to establish some form of a mission statement. We all, at least I like to believe or I choose to believe , want to see a very healthy public educational system .

I am of the opinion, as all of my caucus colle ague s, that the first priority has to be given to the public educational system, and I see it as my primary role to ensure that the quality of education in the province of Manitoba is moving in the right direction. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, this is in fact what I had thought in terms of. It is not all inclusive, one could always add to it, but one of the thoughts that I bad with respect to a mission statement was that the educational system of Manitoba must be to provide an environment that promotes and fo sters the learning potential of every student.

It must give students the opportunity to develop the knowledge , skills and values necess ary to become productive citizens in their community and throughout the world. One could go on to talk about guiding principles in order to enable government to provide the opportunities as I just finished pointing out, but needle ss to say, I wanted to comment on what some of the things the Minister of Education talked about in his opening remarks and also to say a few words in terms of what it is that I would like to see come out of this particular discussion.

The minister has talked about education reform , and I am pleased to hear that discussion that the minister wants to see education reform . I have had the privilege to be here for six years now, and I have finally seen someone, a minister, who is prepared to take some form of action in a real way in terms of implementing the ref orm. I do believe that the change is necessary. It is a question in terms of how you manage that change . I am not convinced that the Minister of Education is in fact managing the change as best that it could be. I share many of the concerns that he bas talked about.

I have a discussion group that bas mel I had one individual who is part of the discussion group who brought me two textbooks, a Grade 6 textbook and a Grade 1 textbook, and pointed to the Grade 6 textbook as, this is the book that my daughter is being asked to read. I just recently found out that she is having a tough enoug h problem reading the Grade 1 text book. What she personally took great off ence to is the fact that she was not aware of it.

I think that there is a sincere fee ling that there needs to be some form of change in education, but I do not believe that this change is something that has been needed just in the last six months. I believe that we should have been seeing government moving towards change in education or facilitating that change a number of years ago. I was somewhat smprised to hear some of the rem arks that the Minister of Education, for exam ple, put on the record in Brandon. He sure made some very strong statements, and- Mr. Manness: It is the only way to go. Mr. Lamoureux : He says it is the only way to go.

I do not know about that. A lot of individuals talked about it being-! should not say a lot. I had a couple of call s, and one caller in particular said that it was like the Minister of Education being a bull in a china shop, and that kind of stands in my mind in terms of the way in which he was going to deal with education. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the Minister of Education did get a lot of attention when he made some of the statements that he made, and we want to do some of the fo llow-up to some of those statements and see what the minister was in fact talking about.

I know I have had the opportunity to hear the Minister of Education on numerous occasions addre ss groups of individuals expressing his concern about education. He is always stressing that he is worldng with his partners in education, and he talks about The Manitoba Teacher s '

1299 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 Society and the superintend ent's association and the Manitoba Association of School Trustees. I was very cognizant of the fact that he was in fact missing out a significant portion of the population, or other stakeholders, so I was genuinely pleased in the throne speech to hear that the government was going to have a forum for parents to participate. I thought that was a positive step. I then believed and was somewhat suspicious in tenns of actual timing of the Paren ts' Forum.

I would have thought that it might have been more appropriate to have the Parents' Forum prior even, possibly, to the establishmeni of some of the partners that the minister was meeting with, in other words, toward the end of fall, early winter, so that the minister is in fact able to take some of these forum discussions that came out of the wolkshop to his partners and seeing what those . partners have from the beginning as opp osed to after hours and hours of dialogue, because I know he has been meeting with those three partners in particular on an ongoing basis. •

(1530) I know some of them have shared som e frustration in the sense that they are not hearing as much from the minister as they would like . It seems that they are the ones that are doing a lot of talking and so forth, and that is important, to listen. That is to a certain extent a good chair, but I believe that what they are hoping to see is some sor t of a direction in terms of wher e the government is going to be taking the whole issue of some of the reforms that the minister is in fact talking about.

As I say, the parent council was a good idea I still believe that the Minister of Education is missing one of the most important stakeholders in educa tion, and that is in fact the students themselves. As the minister knows, because I believe he was there all day, as I was, during the Parents ' Forum, there was very strong representation saying that the students had to be involved, the students needed to be involved.

Even though I did not necessarily see it in the slide show at the end, but with the comments and discussions that I had between breaks of sorts, of course- I did not want to interrupt or to minimize the interruptions on my behalf, but there was in fact a very concen trated ef fort by a number of individuals to try to express that we need to get the students involved. In fact, I recall oftband, when the president of MAST, Gail Watson, spoke , she quoted from the newspaper a student, and the remalks that she read from a student that wrote a letter to the editor, I take it.

She received a considerable amount of applause in terms of, yes, the student is right to a certain extent but, more importantly, that she is listening to the students. I am hoping that right off the bat this will be one of the issues in which the Minister of Education will seek at least to app ease my mind that students are in fact a part of the minister's agenda, agenda for change if you like. I am intere sted in knowing what he intends to do about getting students first-hand experiences with education, the things that they believe are neces sary in order to implement change .

A year ago, we had the Boundaries Commission appointed, in which Norrie is the chair, and we all wait for that particular commission to come forward. It is still a tad bit unclear in terms of when it will become public information, and I am hoping that the Minister of Education will indicate , in a very clear way, in terms of when we can anticipate that report being cleared. One of the concerns that I do have about the commission is the one of governance versus boundaries.

You can draw as many lines as you want, but until you decide how the government 's models are going to wotk and the responsibilities of Department of Education versus school trustees or school boards and parent councils, the actual lines of boundaries or the number of school divisions could be somewhat irre levant. You have to know in terms of the roles that each of the stakeholders are going to have in educa tion. Again, I will go back to the Parents' Forum, where there was a very strong representation saying that parents need to get more involved in education.

I have read numerous reports that have indicated that the more you get the parent involved in the - -

May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1300 school , the better the quality of education. I have heaid the Minister of Education make mention of that I would like to see in tenns of what the minister has to say in a very real way about the role of the parent and some of the responsibilities that he or she might have in tenns of guiding our schools. There were a number of different issues that came out of the Parents ' Forum that I made note of and which I will go into more detail once we go into the Estimates, to see in fact what the minister has done in the interim in tenns of getting that ready .

He makes mention of distance education. Just recently I had a presentation in which someone had a Highway 2000 for Manitoba Schools 1994, and it is quite the ill ustration. It is really an eye opener in tenns of what is available and out there in tenns of technology and the advantages of acting on this in a very quick fashion. We have individuals who are out there and in particular in rural Manitoba, that could use this. Distance education can provide better acce ss, in particular to those individuals who live in rural Manitoba.

It will be interesting to find out from the Minister of :Education, because under one line he has refonn and it includes curriculum, it includes distance education, to find out in tenns of the type of reso urces that the governm ent is in fact putting in for the promotion of distance education. The minister, at the beginning of his comments , made reference to the adequate funding levels and then he argues that education refonn does not necessarily mean, if you will , that there has to be increase in actual dollar amounts. Mr.

Deputy Chaitperson, I would like to see the Minister of :Education take some initiatives that would clearly demonstrate just that. I know when we had talked about the Student Services package, I did not perceive that as necessarily being fair.

I did not get a convincing answer from the Minister of Education when I asked him the question in tenns of where was the fairness in that, and I will be seeking to get that clarif ication from the Minister of Education, because again I have heard the Minister of Education time after time talk about, he will do what is fair and that you do not have to throw more money in order to improve the quality of education.

Wel l, that in itself, no doubt, we will find out more and more as we go into the Estimates, but the issue of fairness is something that I plan to ask the Minister of :Education on a number of occasions where I believe that he has made some poor decisions . In tenns of programs or new initiatives, again, I had asked the minister a question with respect to a literacy program. He had indicated to me when I asked him that particular question that Manitoba is lea ding the way, that other provinces are following. Well , Mr.

Deputy Chairperson, I am going to be looking to find from the Minister of Education which provinces are they that are actually following. The Minister of Education can look at what other provinces are doing. I had pointed out, in particular, the province of New Brunswick, where we talked about the literacy program and how the private sector and the government were working together to improve the rate of literacy in the province of New Brunswick to great success. No doubt discussions of this nature will lead to interesting dialogue between me and the NDP critic for :Education.

I know we were just recently at a function in which he felt that the private sector has no role in education, Mr. Deputy Chaitperson, and I look to explore that because I do believe that there is a role for the private sector in many different aspects of education. I do not believe for a moment that the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plo hman), in particular, because he is the critic, is more concerned about the state or the future of public education than myself , but I choose to acknowledge that there is, in fact, in some areas, some benefit in getting the private sector involved.

One of those areas is in fact a thing such as the literacy program because the results speak for them selv es. •

(1540) Mr. Deputy Chairpe rson, I know we were wanting to move on into the Estimates, but before I conclude I wanted to make very quick reference to the point that the minister has now assigned two

1301 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May9, 1994 deputy ministers responsible for Education. As I pointed out through a point of order earlier, you will see that the two oppo sition parties have acknowledged that the importance of education is such that there is a need to have K-12 critics, post-seco ndary crit ics. I see some form of acknowledgement of that when we see the curre nt Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) appointing a second critic. I look in terms of exploring the reasons and the rationale behind that.

I think that is a very positive move, and having said that, I will leave the comments on post-se condary education to the criti c from the Liberal Party, the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray), when we move on to that particular area. With those fe w words, Mr. Deputy Chailperson, I am prepared to go on. Mr. Deputy Chairpers on: I thank the honourable member for Inkster for those remarks.

Under Manitoba pra ctice, debate of the Minister's Salary is traditionally the last item considered for the Estimates of a departmenL Accordingly , we shall defer consideration of this item and now proceed with consideration of the next line. At this time we invite the minister's staff to join us at the table and ask the minister to introduce his staff that is present, please . Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Ch airpers on, I welcome to join me John Carlyle , Deputy Minister of Education, well known or certainly known, I would think, to all around this table .

Across the table from him, Jim Glen, Assist ant Deputy Minister of Education, the ADM ofFmance , and to my far lef t Tom Thompson, the Director of Fmance. At this time, I have copies of some of the notes, which I used to begin the Estimates, to table . Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the minister for that. We will now move on to 16.1 which will be (

b) Executive Support

(1) Salaries and Employee Benefits. Mr. Plohman: Just a brief question to the minister on this area-tl�ere is no change of staff. Perhaps names have changed but positions have not, or have they ? Can the minister just tell us who is working in this area and what kinds of people, in terms of qualifications, not specific but in terms of the kind of function they perform? Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chailperson, my staff is looking up the exact listing. I am led to believe there is virtually no change. Some of the names are different. Mine is different. Pearl Domienik is the secretary to the minister.

Pearl was my secreta ry in Finance. Presentl y, Sharon Curtis Leslie is a secretary to the ministry. Linda Kuhn is a secretary to the ministry, and within Executive Support, Cindy Carswell is a special ass istant to the minister, Chris Eons is my executive assistant, and in the deputy minister's office, three positions , Mr. Carlyle , Diana Saaid, secretary to the deputy minister and Pat Lavoie, program analyst. I believe those are all the same positions, and the only changes are, of course , those people who came with me when I came to the office. Mr.

Plohman: Did the minister say Cindy Carswell is a special assistant? Mr. Manness: Yes, she is. Mr. Plohman: She deals with the dep artmental matters that might arise and Chris Enos primarily with constituency issues for the minister, or is that not still the way it worlcs? Mr. Manness: Well, every minister does it differently. The member as a former minister would know that. I have very little activity on a constituency basis through my political staff, I would say, and what there is, that is right, Mr. Eons handles, and it might use 20 percent of his time . The rest of the full time, Ms.

Carswell 's full time and indeed most of Mr. Enos' full time is directed toward departmental issues of which there are many. Mr. Plohman: Does the minister have access to any other poli tical advisers besides the two special assistants, executive assistants? Mr. Manness: No, I do not. I, of course, have access to the policy arm of the Premier, but, certainly, no. Mr. Plo hman: We ll, then, maybe just to clarify my question a bit, in terms of contract people, perhaps I will give him one example ; Beth -

- May9, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 130 2 Cruikshank, for exam ple. Are there any others of that nature? Mr. Manness: We ll, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we hire other people in the department, but I would put Beth Cruikshank in that very same position. Her role is 16 hours a day, not one moment of which is political. As a matter of fact, I dare say she might have been a little bit more active politically before this contract. So there are no other contracts on an untendered basis . Mr. Plohman: So does Beth Croikshank report directly to the minister or to some one in the dep artment? Mr.

Manness: We ll, actually both. She formally reports to Planning and Policy and more directly to the deputy minister, but I make sure she reports to me also, periodical ly, two or three times a month, because of my gre at concern I have around the whole area of distance education, and the member may want to delve into that in greater depth later on. Mr. Plohman: Just to clarlfy then, this is the only person of this natu re who reports directly to the minister as well as to the deputy and to Planni ng and Policy branch.

There is no other additional staff on contract that would be of a similar nature to Beth Cnrikshank in other areas? Mr. Manness: No, nobody at this time. I say "at this time" advisedly, because I always have been a very strong advoc ate as a minister to bring in individu als who I sense can do a job and challenge some of the reporting lines within government I have done it in Fmance. I have encouraged it in Ind ustry, Trade and Tourism in the past, and I have done it in this case with respect to Beth Croikshank for a short period of time. • (1 550) Mr. Plohman: It is interes

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Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	35-5-23a
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Volume / chapter	35th 5th hansardpdf 23a.pdf
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