Manitoba Committee Hansard — 4 July 1980 (Public Expenditures Committee, Sitting 21, 31st Legislature, 4th Session)

31-4-pe21

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

ISSN 0542-5492 Fourth Session - Thirty-First Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba STANDING COMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS 29 Elizabeth 11 Published under the authority of The Honourable Harry E. Graham Speaker FRIDAY, 4 JULY, 1980, 8:00 p.m. Printed by The Office of The Queen's Printer, Province of Manitoba

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thirty - First Legislatur e Members, Constituencies and Political Affiliation Name ADAM, A. R. (Pete) ANDERSON, Bob BANMAN, Hon. Robert (Bob) BARROW, Tom BLAKE, David BOSTROM, Harvey BOYCE, J. R. (Bud) BROWN, Arnold CHERNIACK, Q.C., Saul CORRIN, Brian COSENS, Hon. Keith A. COWAN, Jay CRAIK, Hon. Donald W. DESJARDINS, Laurent L. DOERN, Russell DOMINO, Len DOWNEY, Hon. Jim DRIEDGER, Albert EINARSON, Henry J. ENNS, Hon. Harry J. EVANS, Leonard S. FERGUSON, James R. FILMON, Gary FOX, Peter GALBRAITH, Jim GOURLAY, Hon. Doug GRAHAM, Hon. Harry E.

GREEN, Q.C., Sidney HANUSCHAK, Ben HYDE, Lloyd G. JENKINS, William JOHNSTON, Hon. J. Frank JORGENSON, Hon. Warner H. KOVNATS, Abe LYON, Hon. Sterling R. MacMASTE�Hon. Ken MALINOWSKI, Donald McBRYDE, Ronald McGILL, Hon. Edward McGREGOR, Morris McKENZIE, J. Wally MERCIER, Q.C., Hon. Gerald W. J. MILLER, Saul A. MINAKER, Hon. George ORCHARD, Hon. Donald PARASIUK, Wilson PAWLEY, Q.C., Howard PRICE, Hon. Norma RANSOM, Hon. Brian SCHROEDER, Vie SHERMAN, Hon. L. R. (Bud) STEEN, Warren URUSKI, Billie USKIW, Samuel WALDING, D. James WESTBURY, June WILSON, Robert G. Constituency Ste.

Rose Springfield La Verendrye Flin Flon Minnedosa Rupertsland Winnipeg Centre Rhineland St. Johns Wellington Gimli Churchill Aiel 'st. Boniface Elmwood St. Matthews Arthur Emerson Rock Lake Lakeside Brandon East Gladstone River Heights Kildonan Dauphin Swan River Birtle-Russell lnkster Burrows Portage la Prairie Logan Sturgeon Creek Morris Radisson Charleswood Thompson Point Douglas The Pas Brandon West Virden Roblin Os borne Seven Oaks St. James Pembina Transcona Selkirk Assiniboia Souris-Killarney Rossmere Fort Garry Crescentwood St. George Lac du Bonnet St.

Vital Fort Rouge Wolseley Party NDP PC PC NDP PC NDP NDP PC NDP NDP PC NDP PC NDP NDP PC PC PC PC PC NDP PC PC NDP PC PC PC lnd NDP PC NDP PC PC PC PC PC NDP NDP PC PC PC PC NDP PC PC NDP NDP PC PC NDP PC PC NDP NDP NDP Lib PC

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBL V OF MANITOBA THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS Friday, 4 July, 1980 rime 8:00 p.m. ::HAIRMAN Mr. J. Wally McKenzie (Roblin): BILL 31 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ACT MR . CHAIRMAN: The Committee will come to )rder. May 1 ask anybody from the rural part of this xovince that are prepared to come here and present :heir views tonight and have to come back on Bill 31 >r 19, if they would like to make their presentation, �ome forth to the microphone. The Member for Virden. III R. MORRI S McGREGOR: Mr. Chairman, I just had :� phone call.

Fort La Bosse is being represented by :� group from Elkhorn that phoned from Portage. rhey're going to be a little late but they do want to �o back tonight. III R. CHAIRMAN: I have a delegation of ladies in :he front row and there are apparently some air flight :>rob lems. Would you then appear before the �ommittee. Then you're No. 11 . Well, her name is not Jenner. Where are you on the list my dear? MRS. PLATTNER: Eleven, I think. I'm not Mr s. Jenner, no. I'm Sybil Plattner. III R. CHAIRMAN: She's part of your group. III RS. PLATTNER: She's not here tonight but she's :he ... III R.

CHAIRMAN: You're speaking on her behalf. =>roceed, Mrs. Plattner. III RS. PLATTNER: I was asked to wait until the 'riefs are handed out. III R. CHAIRMAN: Don't worry. We're politicians. III RS. PLATTNER: Okay. Before I actually read our )rief, we received in the mail today a copy of part of rhe Schools Education Act from Quebec and there "'ere a couple things in here that I think are very ippropriate. I'll make it very short and if anybody r,tants to be able to see these things in full, if you taven't got them, I'm sure we can get the address or you.

We believe it's wasteful to reinvent the wheel and ve would like to share with you what one provincial �overnme nt has done in recent years by 1uaranteeing appropriate help to all handicapped :hildren. In 1979 the province of Quebec issued firstly its >olicy statement and plan of action in respect to its otal school system. Secondly, its policy statement md plan of action in respect to children with lifficulties in learning and adaptation.

These laws have now become the law of Quebec. n view of the limitations of time I would like to refer 59 you to certain highlights from its report on children with difficulties in learning and on policy. The aim of the policy is to ensure that children with special needs have access to quality educational services appropriate to their needs, within a regular school environment, in order to enable them to function effectively in the community as adults.

In order to attain this objective, the Minister of Educ ation will be obl iged to act in close collaboration with other departments of government, particularly with the Minister of Social Affairs. Now access to quality education: But it is not enough to guarantee these children access to our school, attention must also be focused on the quality of the services provided for them.

Consequently, we must constantly bear in mind the twofold purpose of educuation optimum personal development and the social integration of the individual. lt is within the framework of this overall educational project that appropr iate measures of aid for children with difficulties must be established. No w this is to do with teacher training and updating.

To help maintain pupils with learning disabilities in regular classes and to encourage a pedagogical approach which will be at once better structured and more adapted to their needs, the plan also provides for, the development, in conjunction with universities and school boards, of standardized scholastic performance tests; the inclusion in teacher education programs of training in the use of scholastic evaluation tool, in respect for individual differences, in the provision of support services and in the diagnosis of minor learning problems.

Support to school boards for updating of teachers and school principals in the same areas. Modification of department guidelines with a view to providing appro priate services to pupils displaying minor learning disabilities, without the obligation to identify these pupils for administrative purposes. Early identification. For several handicaps, early identification and diagnosis are essential for the maximum success of remedial action and rehabilitation. For physical and sensory impairments, the Minister of Social Affairs is planning a system of identification, starting at birth, as well as follow up procedures.

The Minister of Education of Quebec, for its part, will ask the school board to collaborate in applying diagnostic measures to all school pupils as planned by the Minister of Social Affairs; provide for visual and auditory testing of all children admitted to kindergarten, as part of agreements between . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. Is it possible that the committee could have a copy of what you are reading from. MRS. PLATTNER: We'll give you the address. I don't know if I can leave this. lt's one copy that we have and I don't know . . . MR. CHAI R MAN: lt's very difficult for the committee.

Within a couple of minutes the Clerk will

Friday, 4 July, 1980 have copies for all the members, if you'd permit us to. MRS. PLATTNER: Have this ... oh, right this evening you mean? MR. CHAIRMAN: That's right. MRS. PLATTNER: Okay. That's good. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner, may I suggest that you pursue your brief and your aid there, in a couple of minutes he'll and all the members of the committee will be able to communicate with you on the brief. Is that okay? MRS. PLATTNER: Yes.

We congra tulate the government because for the first time a proposed Education Act requires school divisions to provide an education to all children who have the right to attend school. However, as has been well demonstrated elsewhere, an obligation to provide education does not imply an obligation to provide to a child an education appropriate to that child's specific needs. Our general concern is to assure that the educational system is required to meet the special needs of all exceptional children.

The specific concern of our Association is to assure those rights to children with specific learning disabilities. Specific learning disabilities result in an individual's ability to process language, to read, to spell and perform mathematical skills being significantly lower than that which can be expected of him or her at a particular age level despite conventional instruction and adequate intelligence. Specific learning disabilities may be due to genetic or psycho-neurological factors.

Although the etiology may not be certain, there is no doub t that the limitations caused by specific learning disabilities severely impair educational, vocational and social progress. Learning disabled children comprise an estimated 10 percent of our school population. This means there are approximately 20,000 such children in our school system. The vast majority can be helped as part of the mainstream with adequ ate support services. Only a small percentage need intensive, long-term separate services. The great majority of these 20,000 children presently receive very little, if any, help.

Learning disabled children have often been described as children with a hidden handicap. lt is difficult for the untrained person to determine the specific nature of a child's learning disability. lt is, therefore, crucial to the remediating of the learning disabled that there be trained persons available, not only to provide early diagnosis, but immediately following such diagnosis, to prescribe and apply appropria te programs suitable to the child's individual needs. lt is for this reason that we make the following submission which must be followed in order for learning disabled children to achieve their full potential as contributing citizens in our society.

We request that: All school divisions shall provide for all resident persons who are eligible to attend school, an education appropriate to their individual needs. 60 One of the measures of a society is the quality of education it provides for its members. From a purely practical point of view, it is more economically sound to educ ate all learning disabled children with appropriate educational programs, than to bear the future cost of the potential liability they will be to society in terms of welfare, mental health, and judicial system costs.

The means by wh ich appropriate educational services can be provided for learning disabled children must include the following: 1. Appr opriate training of all clinical and educational personnel in recognizing and assisting learning disabled children. 2. Early diagnosis and prescription of learning disabilities is essential to provide appropr iate programs for· these children. 3. Children should not be removed from their home school division unless it is absolutely in the child's best interests. 4.

Where appropriate programs are not available within the school division, transportation and living expenses must be shared by the school division and the province. Parents must not be burdened by these costs. 5. When parents, or for that matter, professionals, believe that a child is receiving inadequate and/or inappropriate educational services, or that a child has been inappropriately removed from the school system, then that parent and/or professional must have the right to due process which includes: (

a) access to all records pertaining to the child, (

b) recourse to an independent tribunal and to the judicial system, if need be, including the right to call witnesses. We appreciate that no one wishes to deliberately deprive a child from receiving an education which will enable him or her to become a productive member of society.

But we are also aware of the fact that unless the right to an education appropriate to the needs of a learning disabled child is enshrined in the law, the majority of these children will continue to be deprived of an equal opportunity to become self supporting contributing members of society. lt is not their fault that they have special needs but it is their right to have the opport unity to achieve their potential. I have a little poem I'm going to read to you before I close, and it says, 'Teach All of Me", and it's written by a learning disabled young adult.

And it says: Teach me to know myself making each day a step towards self-fulfillment. Academic experiences must be meaningful to me. � Caring parents and professionals guiding my way. Honouring my abilities while I strive to compensate for my disabilities. All that I learn today leads to what I become tomorrow. Let me take responsibility. Offer me the opportunity to grow. Foster my maturation and pride. Measure me by all spokes of my individuality. Expect the best I have to give, I will seldom fail.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 For then you will have taught all of me. We must guarantee to these children their basic ights. Their futures are in your hands. IIR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you , Mr s. Plattner. Are here any questions? The Member for Rossmere. IIRS. PLATTNER: May I call Mrs. Lois Henteleff to :ome and join me. We will try to answer your 1uestions together as a team. IIR. CHAIRMAN: Very good. IIR. VIC SCHROEDER: On a point of order. First of 111, I take it that when the copies of that Quebec >tatute come back that the group will be allowed to :ontinue with that portion of its presentation, is that he plan? III R.

CHAIRMAN: If that's the wish of the :ommittee. There'd be another way of doing it, when he copies come back, that the members could >eruse this at their own time. Was it your wish that •ou continue with the copy when . . . III RS. PLATTNER: Well there was very little else. rve were just trying to make a few points. 1t doesn't natter. III R. CHAIRMAN: Very good. The Member for St. 3oniface. III R. LAURENT L. DESJARDINS: Mr. Chairman here's only one thing.

This is I think a statement of >olicy of another province and I don't think it would >e fair to question the people on that. lt should be ·eceived as information and treated somewhat :lifferently than their own brief that we should �uestion. III R. CHAIRMAN: Very good. If that's in agreement IVith you, then we'll continue with the questions and IVe'll distribute the material when it has been copied. fhe Member for Rossmere. III R. SCHROEDER: Thank you. Mrs. Plattner, how nany learning disabled children are there in the >rovince as far as your organization is concerned? III RS.

PLATTNER: Well, a very conservative figure s 10 percent. We feel there probably are more but if IVe want to be conservative, I would say 10 percent. 1 :hink there are about 243,000 school children in 1.1anitoba (I nterjec tion) No t that many? WO,OOO? So 20,000 . . . MR. SCHROEDER: You're probably not being :onservative enough on that portion. III RS. PLA TTNER: lt seems we were right on in the Jrief, about 20,000 children with learning disabilities. III R. SCHROEDER: How many of those children in rour estimation would require long-term separate ;ervices? MRS.

PLATTNER: Probably 1 to 2 percent would 1eed intensive long-term help. 61 MR. SCHROEDER: Is that 1 to 2 percent of the total school population or is it 1 to 2 percent of the 20,000? MRS. PLATTNER: No, 1 to 2 percent of the 20,000. MR. SCHROEDER: So we're talking about 200 to 400 students? MRS. PLATTNER: That's right. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder, pardon me. If you would allow me time to identify you, then we'll get things correctly on our tape. MR. SCHROEDER: Fine. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder. MR.

SCHROEDER: Of those 200 to 400 students, do you have any estimation as to the number who are curr ently not receiving any education whatsoever? MRS. PLATTNER: Most of them are pro bably getting some help, but not the amount of help that they need in order to get them to where they should be; if Lois has any more to add. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Henteleff. MRS. LOIS HENTELEFF: There are 50 children per year helped in the MACLD Lions Learning Centre at the moment. The vast majority of those children are from Winnipeg School Division No. 1.

So the other 200 children are not getting intensive kind of daily help that they should be getting in a special setting. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder. MR. SCHROEDER: Yes, thank you. You say that the majority of the 50 students a year who are helped by the MACLD Learning Centre are from Winnipeg No. 1. Why is that? MRS. PLATTNER: That's because we have a contract with Winnipeg No. 1 to send children to the Learning Centre. So far, we have been unable to get contracts with any of the other school divisions to send children to our learning centre. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder. MR.

SCHROEDER: V es, and the contract you have with Winnipeg No. 1, I take it that that contract gives you a financial payment, a certain amount of payment per student or per student hour. Is that right? MRS. PLATTNER: That's right, they pay ... MR. SCHROEDER: I see. Mr s. Henteleff is disagreeing. MRS. HENTELEFF: No, they pay for the staff, the teaching staff. The Director is paid from funds which we get from elsewhere, but the teaching staff comes from Winnipeg No. 1.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. SCHROEDER: What portion, approximately, of the funding comes then from the Lions Club? MRS. PLATTNER: Well, we get proceeds from the Lions Telethon. We got 65,000 the first couple of years; I'm not sure if we got 100,000 last year or if we're promised 100,000 for next year. MR. SCHROEDER: You indicate that your learning centre takes about 50 children a year. I believe previous witnesses indicated that students come in for periods of 5 or 7 weeks. How many students do you have at a time then? MRS. PLA TTNER: I think 6 or 7 children at a time. MR.

SCHROEDER: And for those children, how many staff people do you have? MRS. PLATTNER: Well they do an awful lot of one on-one with the children. I'm not sure what the actual number of staff is. MRS. HENTELEFF: The teacher-pupil ratio is one to one. Aside from the Director and the office staff, which you don't want to know about, it's one-to-one. MR. SCHROEDER: Are the facilities and the staff large enough to handle all of the children who are currently attempting to get into the place, or is there a waiting list, and if so, what is the length of the waiting list? MRS. HENTELEFF: Yes, there is a waiting list.

The waiting list depends on whether you happen to come from the Winnipeg School Division No. 1 or from elsewhere in the province. Because of the contract we have with Winnipeg No. 1, we must take a certain proportion of the students from that division. MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me. Before we go any farther. May I apologize. Your voices are so similar, it's going into the recording, I have already indicated Mrs. Plattner was speaking, Mr s. Henteleff, I apologize. Would you kindly just raise your hand who is going to speak. This answer that we're getting now is from Mrs. Henteleff. Is that correct? MRS.

HENTELEFF: Correct. MR. CHAIRMAN: I apologize. Just kindly raise your hand, it's all being recorded. I would not, Mr s. Henteleff have something go into the record in the name of Mrs. Plattner. lt's for the records and the Archives of this province. I apologize. MA$. PLATTNER: That's okay. Our minds think very much alike. MRS.

HENTELEFF: We would very much like to enlarge our facility, we would very much like to see similar facilities elsewhere in the province, we know that it's difficult for people to bring children in from Flin Flon for five weeks or ten weeks, some children are put into a school classroom situation after they have been in the learning centre, sort of a transition program, and this makes it more difficult for people outside of the Winnipeg area.

And so we very much would like to enlarge the facility we have; we would 62 like to enlarge our staff and perhaps not have quite the same ratio but still keep it as close to a one-to one as possible. We would be most delighted to hear from other school divisions in order to make arrangements with them to have their children in our centre. MR. SCHROEDER: When students come in this is two questions, first of all you indicated that there was a percentage of students requir ed from Winnipeg, Winnipeg No. 1, under your contract with Winnipeg No. 1.

I'm wondering, first of all, what that percentage is; and secondly, when students from outside of Winnipeg No. 1 come into your centre, to whom is the bill for the services sent? MRS . HENTELEFF: There is no bill and it isn't a percentage . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Henteleff, I apologize, this is a strange environment, the political arena. Just raise your hand and I will put in the record that you are speaking, he will tape it and your name goes in the record. Mrs. Henteleff, proceed. MRS. HENTELEFF: lt isn't on a percentage basis.

The learning centre is provided with a staff in order to have a certain number of children in the centre per year, so it isn't a ratio exactly. We must see the amount of children that we have contracted for with Winnipeg No. 1. I'm sorry, I've forgotten the second part of the question, oh, where does the bill come from? There is no bill because the teachers are hired by Winnipeg No. 1, and the bill does not exist because that's what the division gets back. They get service for the children in return for the teachers that the centre has. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder. MR.

SCHROEDER: I had understood previously that when children from outside of Winnipeg No. I, came to that centre, that in fact if their parents had the ability to pay that there would be charges of up to 700 or something in that area. Is that not correct. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. MRS. PLATTNER: Yes, that's correct. The Winnipeg School Division No. I is the only division that we have a contract with, so if they come from another school division, or we also take in children privately, they have to pay the cost. The cost when we first started, I think, was 500.

I think now the cost is about 1, 250 for diagnosis and a five-week term in the school. So if a parent is bringing a child in, if they live in a school division outside of Winnipeg and that school division won't send their child for a diagnosis they have to pay the cost themselves. MR. SCHROEDER: If you are a parent living outside Winnipeg No. 1, you could conceivably pay 1, 200 in order to assist your child in terms of that particular disability. How many of the children from outside Winnipeg No. I, would in fact be required to pay that? Are most school divisions paying that or are some paying it?

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MRS. PLATTNER: I don't think we have a contract with any other school division, so I think that anybody coming out of Winnipeg No. I has to pay. The only problem then of course is once they've had their diagnosis or spent five weeks in the school, and when they are in the learning centre they go a half day to the learning centre and the other half day they are at home, they don't go to the school, to their regular school because they don't want them confused while they are at the learning centre.

Then when they go back to their school after the five weeks, there should be ongoing communication between the learning centre and the child's teacher. We don't know what sort of communication there would be with children outside of Winnipeg No. 1. I think Lois forgot to say we do have a satellite though. Did you mention the satellite in St. James? MRS. HENTELEFF: May I answer that?

There are some school divisions which have, on rare occasions, paid for the services of the learning centre for children whose parents cannot afford or, in some cases, because they are very puzzled and want to know the answers to their problems, so it isn't a regular kind of occurrence but it has happened from St. Vital and in River East that I can remember for the moment, but there may be other places as well. MR.

SCHROEDER: In your brief you refer to a matter of appropria te educ ation and I'm ju st wondering if that terminology was included in the Act, whether you would see appropriate education as including the public funding of centres such as the one operated by your group? MR. CHAIRMAN: Who is going to answer that one? Mrs. Plattner. MRS .

PLATTNER: We certainly could include that as being appropriate for diagnostic purposes, but when we talk about appropriate education for each child we are thinking about having the proper diagnostic and prescriptive services, tailor-made programs, for each child, for the needs of each child.

Of course he would have to be diagnosed and the program would have to be set up for him and then when he is in his regular school system he would have to be taught in an individual manner in the way that he can learn, which calls for, of course, properly trained classroom teachers and perhaps speech clinicians, physical educators, reading clincians. MR. SCHROEDER: Yes, Mrs. Plattner is quoting from the Quebec statute which I had read some time ago. lt deals to a great deg ree with philosophy behind education.

Do you see any benefit in a statute dealing with education, talking about the philosophy and the rights of people, the responses of the system to the rights of the children in the system, do you see any benefits in having those kinds of terms and thoughts enshrined in statute? MR. CHA IR MAN: I would think that on that particular the members of the committee we'll have those copies here in a couple of minutes and we could deal with it. Mr. Schroeder, maybe you have a copy, we don't, but if you want to proceed on that Mrs.

Plattner, it's fair ball, but those copies will 63 be here in a couple of minutes we understand. Mrs. Plattner. MRS. PLATTNER: That brief that I brought from Ontario, I have only seen it myself one hour ago. I couldn't possibly answer questions about what is in that. MR. CHAIRMAN: I think, Mr. Schroeder, your questioning is rather unfair, until the members of the committee have access, but those copies will be here in a couple of minutes. Proceed, Mr. Schroeder. MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Chairman, on that point of order, the question I asked dealt not at all specifically with what Mrs. Plattner had just read out.

The question asked was one of the philosophy of this particular gr oup with respect to whether this particular group believes that there is some benefit in enshrining the general philosophy of education, of the government of the day, in an education bill. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that when you say that type of questioning is unfair, that that is simply not correct. lt is a very fair question to ask of a group which appears before us with a document which deals in fact with the philosophy of education. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder you raise a very interesting point.

There is no member of the province of Manitoba for any jurisdiction that has come to this desk or speak before that microphone, have to answer any questions. I hope those that are in the room tonight recognize questions may be raised by members of the committee. There is nothing in our rules that say you have to answer and that's the rules of this committee. I will try and guide it if the que stions are unfair and make sure that the witnesses are not being cross-examined.

We are only seeking information, and that's fair ball, and I hope the members that are in the room tonight and those that are ·before us right now understand the rules, and that's fair ball. Mrs. Plattner proceed. Mr. Doern. MR. RUSSELL DOERN (Eimwood): Mr. Chairman, on a point of order.

I concur in what you have just said, namely that it is at the option of people appearing before the committee, but my colleague has placed a question and if the lady wishes to answer it, then she is free to do so and if she wants to decline that's also her option, but he has put the question and I think that if she feels she wants to answer it, that's her prerogative. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Doern, I thank you for your wisdom. You are a long time member of this House, and you understand the rules. That's what I already told, Mrs. Plattner. MR. DOERN: I was backing you up, Mr. Chairman. MR.

CHAIRMAN: I thank you for your judgment and I'm sure, Mrs. Plattner, you'll feel more comfortable now; proceed. MRS. PLA TTNER: I felt comfortable before all that started. lt didn't bother me at all and I was ready to answer the question before we were interrupted.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner, this is a political arena and I'm sure you know where you are. MRS. PLATTNER: I know where I am, very well. MR. CHAIRMAN: We want to make you feel comfortable, and have you and all the other people in this province comfortable. We want all the information to be provided on this legislation, before us. We thank you. MRS. PLATTNER: I'll just say one little thing and then I think I'll pass it to Mrs. Henteleff. What I wanted to say, Mr.

Schroeder, about that one point is the right to an education appropriate to a child's needs, was stated as one of the rights at the U.N. Last year was the International Year of the Child and it was stated as one of the rights of children and, therefore, it should be in the law of every country. I just wanted to make that point to you and if Lois has any more to say on that. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Henteleff. MRS. HENTELEFF: What I was going to add was that the bill does not have a statement of intent or philosophy, but all the way through there are statements of intent in a sense.

We really would be very pleased if the philosophy of the government would be to provide an education appropriate to the individual needs of every child who is eligible for education in the province. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder. MR. SCHROEDER: That particular document also, you read out that it indicated that the Minister of Social Services, I believe, the Health Department or something similar to tha t would be responsible, in fact, to examine children for disabilities at birth or shortly after birth. How do you view that kind of a responsibility?

Do you feel that that is something which should be in law in Manitoba? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. MRS. PLATTNER: Are you talking about our co operating with Health and Social Development? Are you talking about that, are you talking about their places or are you asking me whether I think all children should by law be tested at birth, or from birth on? MR. SCHROEDER: I think it's the second part. Do you believe that we should have a statutory mechanism by which children are tested shortly after birth? MRS.

PLATTNER: Yes, I think, you know, certainly where you know you're dealing with that risk children, there are methods now whereby they can test children, I think, from the age of three months on to find out if they are going to be potential candidates for any kind of learning problems. I was at a conference in Toronto a few months ago and I know that there are people who are working on that kind of testing. Now I'm not too familiar with what kind of test they do, but I do know that they can 64 start testing children from age of about three months on. MR. SCHROEDER: Yes, again . . .

I'm sorry, I'm going into a different area. How many people does your organization represent? MRS. PLATTNER: Oh, well, we have a mailing list. We have a newsletter and we have a mailing list of 650, but we send it out to a lot of other people also who aren't members of the Association; we just send them out as a cour tesy. We have a branch in Brandon. it's a new branch and I'm not too sure how many people we have in that branch at the moment.

We have organized groups in Daupin and Lac du Bonnet, but more than that, we have a resource centre, we have a library and we disseminate information to thousands of people all over the province. We're getting to a lot of . MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder. MR. SCHROEDER: Yes. In terms of the matter of appeal by parents who are concerned that their children are receiving inappropriate educational services, could you explain the mechanism which you would see for such an appeal? MRS. PLATTNER: I'll start. MR. CHAIRMAN: Proceed, Mrs. Plattner. May I now advise you, Mrs.

Plattner, the members of the committee have copies of the brief that you started with, so you're prepared to proceed on debating those matters as well? Proceed, Mrs. Plattner. MRS.

PLATTNER: What we would like to see, first of all, is some sort of a committee set up like if a parent has a problem, so that there is somebody they can go to, perhaps made up I think you've heard this before, because I've been listening to briefs and I've heard people saying the same things that we want to say but I don't think it hurts to repeat it perhaps a school trustee, teacher, whatever, 49 percent of professional people and 51 percent parents. Because we as a parent group like always to keep the parents on top of things.

If we have a problem and that doesn't work, then we think that we should be able to go to an ombudsman, and we thought we were going to be first with that one but we're not. But we do have an answer to a question that people have been asking. You've been asking, are there any ombudsmen in the educational field? In Ontario, there is an ombudsman. He is not specifically an educational ombudsman, but he does deal in educatio nal matters. There's also an educational ombudsman in Denmark. Other than that, I'm not too sure.

If the ombuds man doesn't work or can't settle a disagreement or whatever, then we feel we have to move to the judicial system. And at this point, I let Mrs. Henteleff to take over. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Henteleff. MRS. HENTELEFF: Thank you, but I have nothing to add. I think that Mrs. Plattner has done very well. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. SCHROEDER: Would you see the ombudsman as having a different role from the ombudsman whom we currently employ in the province? That is, if you take an appeal to the ombudsman now, he has the right to recommend to government; he doesn't have the right to make a decision. Would you see this particular individual as having the right to make a decision, and if so, why would you need a further involvement with the judicial system beyond that? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Henteleff. MRS.

HENTELEFF: To begin with, we would hope that the ombudsman would be able to not just make recommendations but would be able make decisions which are binding. However, the due process system doesn't leave people hanging in mid air in any other situation except in the educational system. If patients have recourse to the law if they feel that there's been malpractice, we feel that parents of children should have recourse to the law if they cannot to the judicial system, if they feel that there's been a serious malpractice involved. MR. SCHROEDER: Thank you, I have no further questions. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Walding. MR.

D.J. WALDING: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Schroeder asked a number of questions that I had but if I can ask a couple of Mrs. Plattner, please. You 've indicated that the figure of 20,000 for Manitoba is derived from a figure of 10 percent. Do you have an actual number of how many children with learning disabilities have been identified in this province? MRS. PLATTNER: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. I didn't hear the last part of that question. MR. W ALDING: Do you have a figure for how many children with learning disabilities have been identified in this province? MRS. PLATTNER: Well, you mean over the year?

Over the years I don't know exactly. We know that if you have a classroom of 30 children, there are going to be 3 in that classroom who have a learning problem. So if you're asking me, do I know how many there are, this year if there are 200,000 children in the school system, then there are 20,000 children who have a learning problem. MR. WALDING: I realize that you've derived your figure of 20,000 from a percentage figure of 10 ,000, that's how many there should be according to your best guess. How many are there that have been identified? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. Mrs. Henteleff. MRS.

HENTELEFF: The fact is that ther e is insufficient number of clinicians in the province to identify children with learning disabilities. The courses required at the University of Manitoba at the present time do not req uire teachers to know anything about learning disabilities. There are some courses available but they're not very intensive. The University of Brandon has a more intensive course 65 but there simply are not enough trained people to identify the children.

We know that there are 20,000 because the percentages have come up in other jurisdictions and I can give you my sweet sources, if you'd like, for these statistics. But as far as the number that have been identified, all I can say is that if we have 650 people on our mailing list, we have probably 650 identified children. But they may have been simply identified by a classroom teacher who says, I think your child may have a learning disability and parents phoning the association and saying, help, what do we do next?

There are enough people in the province to do the work but they are not trained at the present time. MR. WALDING: So you're saying, perhap s 3 percent of the total of 20,000 have been identified and the problem being as you have just outlined it. Can I ask you now, if we wanted a system that would screen every child, missing out no one, and we decided to do it when the child enters Grade 1 or kindergarten, whatever the case may be, would this be a suitable age to diagnose a child? Is it too late, is it too early, or is there an optimum age? MRS. HENTELEFF: There are some children that we know are at risk.

Children who have suffered birth trauma, children whose parents have a history of learning disabilities; whose brothers and sisters more than one may have a history of learning disabilities. There are a number of children that we know are at risk and should be looked at as soon after birth as possible. For the general population, if the Day Care Centres were part of the educational system, that would be the place to start. But since kindergarten is the earliest point at which you can start, then you have to start at the earliest point at which the educational system has control over the testing procedures. MR.

CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. MRS. PLATTNER: I just wanted to add one thing to what Lois said as far as early identification. We have one place in Winnipeg that does do early identification and that's the Child Development Clinic at the Children's Hospital. Now if a child is not doing the things that he or she should be doing from a very early age, they can pick that up at this Child Development Clinic.

Unfortunately it's the only early diagnostic tool we really have in Manitoba and there are an awful lot of people that probably aren't even aware that they can take a child that they think has got a problem to this Child Development Centre. The only way that one actually can go there is through referral of a pediatrician and there aren't all that many pediatricians who will recognize that a two year old may be a potential problem and say to the parents, we better have him looked at. So you have to have people who are aware and who know what to look for. MR.

WALDING: If we were to go to this method of screening at kindergarten or Grade 1, you've already mentioned the lack of courses for training teachers, would you see that the screening could be done by teachers in the classroom if they were given the appropriate courses? Or is the screening process

Friday, 4 July, 1980 itself, something that should be done by clinicians or experts in that particular field? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Henteleff. MRS. HENTELEFF: The answer is both. Yes, a properly trained classroom teacher can do the gross testing. They will find some problems that aren't problems. Maybe out of a class of 30 they may find 5 children instead of 3 or 10 children instead of 3.

Then the 10 or 5 or whatever, should be sent to a trained clinician who then can further weed out the problems and say, no, this child does not have a learning disability but however that child has an auditory impairment or a visual impairment of some sort and can get down to identifying exactly what the needs are and how to deal with the child. MR. WALDI NG: Do you see the root of the problem here as being teachers who are not adequately trained for this job, or a lack of clinicians in the province generally? Or both? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. MRS.

PLATTNER: Turning it around a little bit; if we have the proper diagnostic tools to catch these children from the time they were three or four, let us say in a nursery school, a lot of children go to nursery school these days, and somebody who is very perceptive can pick up in nursery school that a child is going to have a problem, if they catch that child and start remediating, get a diagnosis and then start to work with that child, by the time he gets to Grade 1, it isn't to say that he isn't going to need help, but the teacher won't have to diagnose if the work is done before that child ever hits the school system.

But that's a dream, I'm sure, and all teachers should at least recognize that they've got a child who is different or that's got a problem, and there are still teachers in our school system today who don't know what a learning disability is. MR. CHAIR MAN: Mr. Desjardins. Mo nsieur Desjardins. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Chairman, I am sure that the committee would allow me to congratulate you. Our Chairman has just been informed that he is a grandfather for the eighth time and that might explain why he's so happy tonight. First, a qu estion to Mr s. Plattner.

You were referring, I thought, to this document that was being prepared and you said that you�d only had an hour or so, you said a document from the province of Ontario. Did you mean Quebe c or have you something from Ontario? MRS. PLATTNER: Did I say Ontario? I'm sorry, I meant Quebec. I had only looked at the booklet that came in from Quebec one hour ago. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr . Chairman, some of my qu estions that I was going to ask have been answered, especially by Mrs.

Henteleff, but I would like to know, the first priority of course is that you would like to develop the teachers to be able to identify the needs. I am appalled to know that this is not a requirement of somebody that would get a 66 deg ree to teach. I'm surprised at that. But if I understand you right, you run a Centre and these people are either referred to you by school divisions, schools, or private individuals. But upon request, or is it something that you wouldn't want to encourage, do you work with the schools, do you go to the schools to work with the teachers?

Are you ever requested to do so or do you think that this would be something worth while? MRS. PLATTNER: Are you talking about the" learning centre now? MR. DESJARDINS: Yes, your group of experts, yes. MRS. PLATTNER: Right. After a child has been diagnosed and has gone through the learning centre and then goes back to the school, they do keep in touch with the child's teacher. They do give the child's teacher instructions as to what has been done with the child and what has to go on. it's an ongoing service. They do go into the school and see that the child is being helped properly.

Now if Lois has more to say on that . . . MRS. HENTELEFF: I understood the question a little differently. The people in the learning centre do not go out and diagnose in schools. They'll go out and speak to groups of teachers on request, or groups of parents or whatever, but they will not go out to schools to work with individual children because it's important to take the child out of the failure environment for even a short while.

The child has felt failure in that room with the desks and green wallboards and the same teacher and whatever for several months or years or whatever, and it's a necessity to break that failure environment and that's why the importance of a learning centre, even for a shorter period of five weeks, is important. So it is part of the pol icy of the learning centre not to work in the schools until the child has been through the learning centre and broken that failure syndrome. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Desjardins. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr.

Chairman, I understand that and I understand the value of the Centre, and I wasn't suggesting that in lieu of doing that you should start working in the schools. But it seems to me that if you are going to get the result that you want, it is important to work with the children, but also it is important to educate the teacher also and I thought, do you do such a thing as helping the teacher on the job and maybe spend some time with them to try to assist them in identifying these needs, ar1cl then, of course, taking them out of there.

I meant, it seems to me if I read this correctly and if I have understood what you have been saying, that unfortunately there are not enough teachers that really understand, that can identify these needs, and you are helping probably the very few, the lucky ones. But to reach more people, my question was, do you assist the teacher, to train the teacher in other words, to do this? Are you ever requested to do that? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 �RS. PLATTNER: I was going to say something 'lse, but I will let Mrs. Hen teleff answer this part of Ar. Desjardins' question. IIR. CHAIRMAN: I apologize, but you raised your inger and I thought ... Mrs. Henteleff. IIRS. HENTELEFF: The learning centre staff does 10t do this, however the Association itself does on a egular basis work with groups of teachers when they 1re requested to. There is an annual meeting where ve bring experts from all over the country, all over he world for that matter, to which teachers come.

I lelieve about three years ago there was something ike a thousand in attendance. We do do this kind of raining, it is a very short kind of thing. The learning :entre staff is not hired to do that kind of thing, but he Association itself attempts to do this on a vorkshop basis by getting experts from out of the :ity or within the city to work with groups of teachers lr clinicians. lt has made some mark, obviously. We 1re not in Square One anymore. III R. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Desjardins. III R. DESJARDINS: Mr. Chairman, I think Mrs. III R. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner, I apologize. III RS.

PLATTNER: I just wanted to add that one hing that we do do in order to get teachers hearing ibout learning disabilities is we have an annual ;onference and we have been doing that. We just 1ad our Twelfth Annual Conference and oh, you ;aid that, you see I didn't hear that but we get ·egistrations of about 800 people at our conference md the evaluation sheets always come back with the ieachers saying we want something more intensive than a two and one-half day conference, where we :�re just scratching the surface, and then we go back to the classroom on Monday morning and we still :!on't know what to do. MR.

CHAIRMAN: Mr. Desjardins. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Chairman, to the ladies, what kind of communication do you have with the teaching profession? Are you well received? Are you improving? This, of course, these things when you invite them it is certainly not compulsory, but is there any talk that they will tighten regulation or introduce certain courses to deal with these people and to insist that all teachers at least receive some education in this. Are you progressing in this at all? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Henteleff. MRS. HENTELEFF: We have had a great deal of co-operation with the Teachers Society.

We haven't had quite as much co-operation with the University. lt doesn't seem to teachers in training don't seem to know what they need to know when they get into a classroom, and so it is not until teachers are at the in-service level after they are in the classroom, at the workshop level, where our Association has been involved in panel discussions and workshops and so on. lt doesn't matter what profession you are talking about, you can't expect a green person who comes to a university to know what they are supposed to 67 learn; the unversity is supposed to tell them what they are supposed to know, and as yet the University hasn't been very forceful.

MR. DESJARDINS: This is my point, I don't know if you really understood my question. The co-operation between the teacher and yourself is very important, but I mean lobbying in effect with the association of teachers, or with the Faculty of Educati on, who would insist to introduce certain courses that these people should have, at least the minimum for teachers that then could more readily identify these people with these needs. This is what I meant. Is there any talk like that going on? Is there an effort to doing that, or don't you think that is needed? MRS. HENTELEFF: lt is probably needed.

We did try this several years ago. Unfortunately, our staff is very small and volunteers are really working very hard, and we felt that we really had to move where we felt we were making inroads and an impression. We had to stand back and wait for things to change in the places where we wer en't making the impressions. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Chairman, my last question to the ladies. Your staff and your people, what are they? Are they trained people? Do they have a certain degree, or are they just well-intentioned and people that might have had experience and that are interested and that?

What qualifications must they have to be teaching there? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. MRS. PLATTNER: Are you talking about in our MACLD Association or are you talking about the Lion's Learning Centre? You see, we are one, but we are two. MR. DESJARDINS: That is easy, give me both. MRS. PLATTNER: Well, okay. In our MACLD office, in our own office, we have an Executive Director and we have a secretary. The Executive Director runs the office and mostly what she does is disseminate information we have a library and she does an awful lot of talking on the telephone to parents who are in trouble.

She is a parent of a learning disabled young adult. She doesn't have a degree, but she has got a background in heartache, aggravation and all this sort of thing, so that makes her very good for counselling other people who are in trouble. At the learning centre we have a staff of teachers, as Lois said, who are paid by Winnipeg No. 1. We have an Executive Director, who has got training, of course, in special education, and there is a staff of secretaries. And then there is also a coordinator of volunteers, because at the learning centre they use a lot of volunteers. MR.

DESJARDINS: I am sorry, but that doesn't really comple tely answer my qu estion. Those volunteers, those teachers that you have, what special training, are they just teachers that want to go in this field that have received their certificate, or is there any extra work, and any extra course or

Friday, 4 July, 1980 anything like that that they have received to participate . . . MRS] PLA TTNER: Do you think I could call upon the Chairman of the Board of the learning centre to answer those specific questions for you, Mr. Yude Henteleff? MR. CHAIRMAN: We would be pleased to hear from the Chairman. MRS. PLATTNER: Mr. Yude Henteleff. MR. YUDE HENTELEFF: You will forgive me for my dress, Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: Proceed, Sir. MR. DESJARDINS: Join the club. MR. HENTELEFF: I was on the way to pick up my wife to go to the lake. MR. CHAIRMAN: In the House we have to wear ties if the Mace is on the table.

In this room dress is not important. We want to hear the words and the wisdom and what the people of this province want to tell us about this legislation. Proceed, Sir. MR. DESJARDINS: And in the House we don't care. MR. HENTELEFF: Well, if you don't care, I don't care either, Mr. Desjardins. MR. CHAIRMAN: Proceed, Sir. MR. HENTELEFF: Thank you. As was, indicated I am the Chairman of the Lion's Learning Centre. MR. CHAIRMAN: Could you have your name in the record, Sir, for the tape? MR. HENTELEFF: Yude Henteleff. MR. CHAIRMAN: Proceed, Sir. MR. HENTELEFF: The Director of the learning centre, Dr.

William Stephens has his Ph.D with a speciality in Learning Disabilities. There are four personnel, all teachers, who are specialists in the field of Lea rning Disabilities and in Sp ecial Education. We also have a person who is not only a co-ordinator volunteer, and she is a non-trained person, except with a good deal of background. We also have four part-time what we call liaison teachers, as well as a person who is the head liaison co-ordinator.

Each of these liaison teachers happen to be teachers, qualified teachers, but are unable, if I can put it this way, to find employment full-time, and that is simply because there is a surplus, as we may be aware, of teachers in this province. In the result, because of particular training that they have received in the learning centre, as well as from 70 to 75 volunteers, all of whom receive very intensive training.

And the work that the volunteers and liaison teachers do is to follow the child into the school system and work together with the parent and with the child and with the school teacher, so that in answer to your earlier question, yes. In fact, this use 68 of volunteers, who we think put in about 20,000 hours last year, plays an extremely valuable role in creating a bridge between the learning centre and the school system.

We try to have the school system develop what we call, receiving schools, in the sense to develop expertise at their own particular level, in order to be able to absorb these children when they come from the learning centre. lt was found, however, that unfortunately the vast majority of teachers hadn't received the necessary training within which to provide the kind of help that was necessary but, with this use of volunteers, and these are women and young men from all over the city. Some are women who have their families grown up and who have been teachers or social workers.

A good many of them, I may say, are students from the Faculty of Education, Department of Psychology and from Social Work, who don't get any credit for placement with us, but in fact find the experience so worthwhile and so rewarding in terms of being able to learn during that pr ocess what they haven't been able to learn elsewhere, that they spend an enormous amount of time. Without those volunteers we couldn't do the job that's been done.

Now we have had two separate evaluations over the past two years, done independently by a team from the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, who by the way sit on our board as well as a member from the Department of Education and two from the Winnipeg School Board.

So that we have representation from the Lions Club, from the Junior League, from the Department of Education, from the two faculties of education, as well as from the Child Guidance Clinic, on our board. lt has received overwhelming approval over the extent to which children who have come into our centre, being perhaps two to three grades behind in some vital subjects such as math and reading, within a period of five to ten weeks, pick up sometimes a full grade and sometimes a grade-and-a-half in that short period.

So unfortunately the five weeks is far too low, but that's the most expensive time because that's when it must be on a one to one ratio. We're desperately trying to extend that to ten, and even to half a year, but with great difficulty. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Henteleff, may I thank you for raising the Lions. I am a Lion and a lot of members of this committee are Lions, and at least you've brought our name into play . . . MR. HENTELEFF: May I tell you, Mr. Chairman, so that we've tried very hard to advise the community of the Lions' involvement.

In the last four years, the Lions Telethon, they've contributed over 500,000 to the operation of this learning centre and it is a unique partnership, if I can put it that way, between the community, generally, between a school system and between the parents. it's really unique and the Lions, bless them, are the most fantastic group of men that have ever been on the face of this earth. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Sir. Mr. Desjardins.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. DESJARDINS: That's not necessarily including Premier Lyon. MR. HENTELEFF: I would include him amongst that group since he qualifies, if not by anything else but by name alone. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Henteleff, I'm sure there are all kinds of Lions in this room tonight. Proceed. Let's go another way. Mr. Desjardins. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Henteleff, if the Faculty of Education was to decide that before a teacher would graduate, receive his or her degree, that they would have to spend two weeks with you; first question, would it be helpful to you ; secondly, could you accommodate them?

Could you do this? MR. HENTELEFF: Yes, it would ... MR. DESJARDINS: And third, would there be any value? MR. HENTELEFF: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it would be very helpful indeed if we were accepted as a placement situation because it would give them credit for what they're doing in any event. But a more important thing . . . MR. DESJARDINS: Could you handle that? MR.

HENTELEFF: Oh yes, provided of course that the expansion that we are presently now considering, and which hopefully the Lions with a prospective capital campaign will support and we hope that the government will support, if I may put it that way, but I would like to put it very quickly. There is a very important thing you should be aware of.

The University of Alberta considered that the problem of learning disabilities and the degree of prevalence was so important that they created a task force, whose report was issued about six months ago, and the report is a superb report and if you don't have a copy of it, I'd be happy to make it available to you.

That task force report emphasizes the responsibility of the university not only to make those courses compulsory in education because of the tremendous percent of all children having this problem, but they also mandated the Faculties of Medicine, Social Work and Psychology to get together with the Faculty of Education and put their minds together so that each of those disciplines give this particular problem the attention it deserves, and the university also mandated all of those faculties that as part of their planning they must create a bridge between what they are doing and what the community is doing and provide a direct service component to the community as well.

MR. DESJARDINS: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Henteleff, that . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: Before we proceed much further, I'm having very difficult times as a Chairman in this forum it's a political forum. Mr. Henteleff, if you'd refer to the bill, just at least once in your replies, I'd be more comfortable because it goes into the 69 record. And that's what we're here about, to deal with the bill that's before us. MR. DES JARDINS: On a point 'Of order, Mr. Chairman, the whole brief is intended to addr ess itself to the bill. I don't think that we will take you to task for that.

They are just giving us more information about something that I, for one, wasn't aware of, and I welcome this information of this good, worthwhile organization and I think there's little doubt that we're talking about the same thing. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Desjardins, members of the committee and those that are here. I have no problems at all. This is valuable information for the province and for Canada. But in our forum here, we suggest that at least once, refer to the bill, that's all I need, if you would be kind enough. Mrs. Henteleff. MRS. HENTELEFF: Mr.

Chairman, on page three of our brief, if you'll notice it, at the bottom there, there are it's numbered, one, two, three, four the first thing that we felt was most important was the appropriate training of all clinical and educational personnel. So if that assists in any way to tie . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: Just mention Bill No. 31, and then I'm free. MR. HENTELEFF: I'll be happy to mention that, consistent with the remarks that I just concluded making. MR. CHAIRMAN: Then the debate would be very wide-ranging, Sir. Proceed. MR.

HE NTELEFF: I would sugge st that, with respect, since for so long the rights of so many handicapped children haven't been specifically provided for in

an Act, that many areas in the United States and Canada have come to the conclusion that rather than it being indefinite, it's obvious that because of the lack of awareness, the lack of interest, the lack of concern, that it is appropriate to be very specific and very definite.

And I think that's really the point that's being made not just here, but in the University of Alberta, the province of Ontario, the province of British Columbia, the province of Quebec, as I understand you've heard earlier this evening, and they have decided that there should be no room left for any doubt as to what it is these children need and what should be done in order to enable them to receive it. In respect to Bill No. 31. MR. DESJARDINS: Before Mr. Henteleff leaves, to help us here with Bill No. 31, would you make sure that we get a copy of this report, maybe send some to the different caucus rooms?

Or at least one for each ... MR. HENTELEFF: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. Do you mean the Report from the University of Alberta? Yes, we'd be happy too. And we'd also be very happy, by the way, to provide you with copies of the two evaluations made of the learning centre, because that will give you some idea that when people receive the training that they need, and the support services they need, that an enormous progress can be made

Friday, 4 July, 1980 with these children and the cost-benefit ratio and I'd be happy to provide you with a paper on this as well proves absolutely categorically that these children, when helped, very quickly can become productive citizens and more than make up any front-end costs, that anybody is obliged to put up. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Henteleff. MR. DESJARDINS: Maybe you should work with the members of this House. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Brown. MR. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just like to say that I too am a member of the Lions Club and I'm very pleased that the Lions Club is involved in this type of work. The question that I'm going to ask, Mr. Chairman, is going to be out of order, it does not go within the parameters of Bill No. 31, but I would like to have leave of the committee, while we have these people here, to ask them one short question.

We've heard many briefs which deal with the problems of the child with learning disabilities in the classroom and prior to that, earlier on in your brief, you mentioned high-risk parents and it just came to me that these high-risk parents, as a rule, have large families, seven to eight children in a family of high risk parents is not uncommon. Do you know, or are you involved in any counselling services that could be provided to these parents? Or do you know any organization that is involved in counselling services? In other words, could we prevent this type of thing from happening? MRS.

HENTELEFF: You have misunderstood what high-risk families are. High-risk families are not necessarily large families. High-r isk families are families were there has been a history of learning disabilities. A child who is a high-risk child is a child who may have had some birth trauma, may have had some accident or disease, or something has occurred to stop his breathing for some short period of time. We don't know all the reasons, but certainly the size of families, as far as we know, has nothing to do with having a learning disability.

As a matter of fact, the one interesting statistic that we do have is that there is a large proportion of adopted children who have learning disabilities. Now whether it's because it's easier for parents to accept that the fruit of their loins is or is not as easy to accept that their own blood is not quite perfect,

whereas an adopted child may be acceptably not perfect, or whether adoptive parents, and I believe this is probably the more likely one, are better trained, more likely to notice abnormalities, more likely to be more objective, and so they notice and so we have a very high proportion of small family, adoptive families, small adoptive families. MR. BROWN: Is it your opinion then that there is very little that can be done to prevent this type of thing from happening? MR.

HENTELEFF: The fact that there has been an enormous amount of research in the United States and the fact is that in terms of prevention, they know 70 for certain that it what we call psycho-neurological ir origin. Which simply means that for whatever thE reasons are, it may be genetic, it may be prenata trauma, it may be immediate post-natal trauma, thal is damage occuring before birth, inappropriate diet or whatever, which causes something to happen tc some of the receptive parts of the brain, which ir turn give inappropriate messages, so that people seE words backwards or whatever.

But we learned a long time ago, that if one had to wait to find out what thE cause was, that all these children would still bE sitting in limbo and the fact is that many things can and are being done. But there is no doubt also that there is a need for an enormous amount of research. But what's most critical of all, is early identification and that's why, whether it's here, or in the United States or in if I could put it without being critical those places who have taken giant leaps forward in this field.

When you can get an at risk child and you can see them as early as age six months, and certainly by two years, that if those children at that stage of the game get the kind of attention and diagnosis then, in fact, prevention can occur because in the vast majority of these cases, with the appropr iate interv ention at that time, the vast majority of these children can be helped. So by the time they get to Grade 1, or Grade 2 or Grade 3, these children can then be like any other child. They learn how to use their strengths.

Unfortunately, far too many of these children don't come to our attention until they are in Grade 4, and Grade 5 and Grade 6. By that time the inappropriate learning patterns, the emotional problems which have set in because of their continued failure make it profoundly difficult. There is a very simple formula, Mr. Chairman, that after Grade 2, for every year that you postpone, it takes twice as many people, twice as highly trained, twice as expensive, with half the chances for success. Now, there is no doubt about this; it is absolutely proven.

So that by the time that child gets to Grade 6 or Grade 7 I'm not saying you can't help them but to enable that child to go back and begin to reachieve the potential which they had always been capable of, it's pract ically impossible. These children become lost and that's for certain and the correlation between, for example, juvenile delinquency and this problem is horrendous and also proven. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. MRS. PLATTNER: I just will go one little bit further.

When we talked about it's more economically sound to educate all learning disabled children, which is just going a little further with what Yude said, I just have a couple of statistics. lt costs 18, 000 or more to keep a person in jail for a year; it costs 25,550 for psychiatric care for these people for a year.

At a hospital, an in-patient person at the Health Sciences Centre, 36,000 a year and the ones that really don't get any help at all and can't function, if we are lucky enough to get them into some sort of a workshop type of thing so that they are doing something like, you know, ad infinitum, 65,700 a year. If you add all that up with all the children that do have these learning problems, it seems to me that there

Friday, 4 July, 1980 absolutely is no choice but to catch them early so that when they do grow up they can pay taxes like we do and be members of society, rather than having us supporting them the rest of their lives through welfare, psychiatric things, workshops, what have you. And jail, because a lot of them do end up in jail. MR. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that some of these things we have been discussing do not come under the parameters of Bill 31, but I would like to thank this committee for coming out. MR. SCHROEDER: I have a qu estion for Mr. Henteleff, and it deals with the question of whether an objects clause would be of benefit in

an Act such as this, that is whether he feels that Bill 31 would be improved by a statement of intent starting out dealing with what our children are entitled to, the entitlement to an approp riate education, the entitlement to the advantages of a system of education which would be conducive to the full development of the personality of a child which would allow him to develop his faculties, his personal judgment, a sense of moral right or wrong. Do you believe that

an Act such as this would be improved by that type of a clause? MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you raise your hand, whoever is going to reply to that? Mr. Henteleff. MR. HENTELEFF: First of all, I had thought that perhaps might have been dealt with earlier by the brief presented by the MACLD, and if in fact, as I understand they may, have supported the fact that there should be an objects clause, the answer is yes.

I think, to simply state that a person is required to attend school to receive an educ ation isn't approp riate because it's been well indicated elsewhere that simply being required to be educated does not necessarily say that a child or a person is thereby automatically entitled to an education, a specific education related to their specific needs. I suppose it might be argued that it's merely a matter of semantics, and I know full we ll, from conversations that I have had with him, that the Minister of Education, the Honourable Mr.

Cosens, is totally in support of the idea that every child, as a right, should receive that kind of assistance. I must say that we commend him for the fact that we have progressed to the point where this bill, in fact, says that they are required to give that child an education and I think he has made a very progressive step.

But on the other hand, with a great respect for him, and we've had many discussions on this subject and they've always been mutually productive, I hope, Nith the greatest respect to the Minister, I personally feel, for the reasons that I'm sure have been �xpressed to you by this group as well as others, that we simply can't afford to take any chances, and ·eally when it comes down to it, it's that. Far too TJany chances have already been taken with too TJany children, and so many of them have waited for �o long.

Let's be certain; let's be sure; let's not leave any doubt, because if there is the smallest doubt, that means a child is going to suffer. So in order to TJake sure that there is no doubt, then let's be 71 specific. Let's not leave it to chance; let's not leave it to whim; let's not leave it to whimsy; let's leave it to a matter of absolute basic right for these children to receive that which is their due. I hope I have answered your question. MR. SCHROEDER: Yes.

Further, I thank you for that answer, and further on the matter of Bill 31 and its dealing with the right to an education, would you say that Bill 31, in dealing with that right, is an improvement over the old Bill 58? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder, I thank you kindly. I think the debate has gone on, except I raised the bill, for almost an hour and a half, and those who are going to do a research, even tomorrow, or 25 or 50 or 100 years from now, and you know the pages have go ne into the records. I thank you, Mr.

Schroeder for finally bringing us back to Bill 31, and that's what we're here about, sir, and I have a difficult time as Chairman. The debate is wide ranging and there's no problem, we're here to listen to all the information, but if we could kindly just keep referring to that bill, then those who are doing research 100 years from now, or 200 years, because we're breaking new ground and we thank you for your contribution. We want all the information. I thank you, Mr. Schroeder. Mr. Henteleff, proceed. MR. HENTELEFF: May I say that to have it in a

preamble, without making it part of the Act, doesn't mean a thing. So that it must become an operative part of the Act. I would like to add that to my previous comments. And I may say that in response to your question of whether 31 is an improvement over Bill 58, is that the number of the old Bill? Which is Bill 58, I'm sorry? MR. SCHROEDER: To assist Mr. Henteleff, that's the one that was passed, I believe in 1975, and not proclaimed. MR. HENTELEFF: Oh, I see.

If I can recollect, that particular bill did say something to the effect that an education appropriate to a person's needs but I'm not sure it went that far, and if it didn't go that far, then it wasn't appropriate for the same reason that I sug gest that this particular clause is inappropriate in Bill 31. MR. SCHROEDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr. Henteleff. I would just, on the same grounds as the members opposite, want to unburden myself and let the members of MACLD know that I am a member of the Lion's Club. Thank you. MR. HENTELEFF: Mr.

Chairman, I wish that were the subject tonight, because if you want me to give blessings to the Lion's, I'll bring you in hundreds of parents and hundreds of children who say a little prayer about them every night. I'm a member of the Lion's, too. MR. CHAIRMAN: I apologize to Mr. Schroeder and Mr. Henteleff, earlier in my comment, there is likely dozens of Lion's in this room tonight, sir. MR. HENTELEFF: I hope so, because they deserve all the credit they can get.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. CKAIRMAN: Very seldom has their name ever been raised in this committee, and they deserve it. Mr. Walding. MR. WALDING: I'm not a Lion, but can I ask a question anyway? MR. CHAIRMAN: Certainly. MR. WALDING: Mr. Chairman, I want to ask a question of Mr. Henteleff, and it seems a problem breaks down into two parts, the school system as it applies to children with learning disabilities, and that's why I had asked an earlier question about some form of screening at the first introduction to the school system.

You said in answer to a question a little earlier that diagnosis was important as early as six months or even two years old. Would you agree that that age is not the responsibility of the school system, and if it is not, then can you suggest a manner in which children might all be screened at that age so as not to let children through to be spotted at some later and more expensive stage? MR. HENTELEFF: First of all, I would want to make something quite clear.

Our relationship with the teachers throughout Manitoba couldn't be better. lt isn't a question of their not wishing to help these children, not at all, but they do lack the training that they should have received, and unfortunately, the in service ties being as short as they are, regular in service is totally inadequate to enable them to receive the training that they should receive.

Secondly, they are lacking the availability of the kind of support services and materials which, if they were avai lable, and which, if there were people available to them to help them use them, they could deal with perhaps close to 80 to 90 percent of these children. 80 to 90 percent of these children could be helped by the regular classroom teacher if they received the adequate training and if they received, locally, the kind of resources that they need. So it's a question of marshalling these resources.

There are some school ju risdictions that now recognize their responsibility from age 3 to 21, that is from 16 to 21 for those who need prolonged attention, but start at age 3. If, for example, nursery schools were made part of the school system, as many of us believe they ought to be, then, in fact, a good many children could be helped, provided that at the local level, as has occurred in the province of Saskatchewan, the Departments of Health, Social Services and Education have been integrated now for several years.

And because of that we have urged , and continue to urge, that the front line people, in particular the public health nurse, who by the way, we have addressed and given lectures to ou rselves, as parents, because they lack the necessary information. If there was sufficient integration at that level, with the front line people, the public health nurse as well as the local doctor, and as well the local system of education and parents, yes, the answer is that the vast majority of these children can be helped quite effectively at that time, because there is the acceptance of that recognition.

Now that means that there is more than one department that should be sitting here. 72 MR. WALDING: Thank you. Would you see the latter in your explanation involving doctors and public health nurses, do you see that as being a bigger problem than the children that are presently in the school system? MR. HENTELEFF: I'm not sure what you mean by a bigger problem.

I think that if these front line people were able to understand and comprehend what it is that they were seeing in terms of children who they see not developing at the same rate as perhaps the· normal child would, if they became aware of this, for example, I don't know if that many of you are familiar with Dr. Harold Davies of this city. Dr. Harold Davies was, I think two or three years ago, the President of the Canadian Pediatric Association and he was the first chairman of the MACLD Lions Lear ning Centre by the way, he was our first chairman.

And because of his great interest and concern , he now has deve loped a working relationship with the school system in St. Vital and elsewhere, has developed his own approach that the moment they see a child whom they consider to be what they call at risk, then a whole series of batteries of tests occurs in co-ordination and consultation with the parents, if the child's old enough for the school system, and so forth. So yes, the fact is that it isn't any more difficult dealing at that level than at any other level, provided that people have the information and the resources that they are entitled to. Mr.

WALDING: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. CHAIRMAN: I have already been advised. I apologize to the Lionelles who are in the room tonight and my humble apologies. Mr. Kovnats. Mr. KOVNATS: Mr. Chairman, for the record, I am not a Lion. MR. HENTELEFF: I can sign you up right now. MR. KOVNATS: But under Bill No. 31, it kind of suggested a story about the little boy that went out on the street to play with some of his friends and he was telling them that his father was a Lion, an Eagle, and an Elk, and the response he got was, how much does it cost to see him. I have enjoyed very much the ... Mr.

DESJARDINS: Make sure you mention Bill No. 31. Mr. KOVNATS: I did, at the very beginning. I enjoyed the presentation very much, enjoyed it to the point where I found it most interesting and it was quite a compassionate plea on behalf of the people making the presentation and I thank you for it. I think that you've got a very good audience here this evening. I think the part that I was looking for was, how could we fund it; where do we get the money for it; is it worth the while as guardians of the public purse strings to support a program that's going to cost a lot of money. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 IR. KOVNATS: I'm not asking a question at this oint, Mrs. Plattner. IRS. PLATTNER: Oh, well I haven't answered it. IR. KOVNATS: Well I'll tell you, I already have lceived the answer. How can we afford it; how can e afford not to support it? IR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner, this is democracy. re would like to hear your answer. IR. KOVNATS: I wasn't quite finished. Don't get 10 excited because I'm in complete support of your resentation.

I wasn't up until the time that we got a •w dollars which, as I say, we are custodian of the iJblic purse strings and we do have to consider all f the costs and all of the ramifications of it. I Jpp orted it from my heart up until the time that you :tme up with your cost factors as to what it would )St if we don't train these children and find out that 1ey do have a problem at an early age, and I am :>w in complete support of you. I hope that I can be f some benefit through the government in support f your program. IR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. IRS.

PLATTNER: I was just going to say what Mr. ovnats said, when he said how can we, where are e going to find the money, how can we afford to do 1is; and our question of course is, how we can 'ford not to do it?

You don't want to have a whole IJnch social cripples, people who are going to want ' live off of you and you and all of us for the rest of 1eir lives and none of us has mentioned the most 1portant thing in the whole issue and I'm glad that I 1ought to mention this now and that is the person. re know a lot of learning disabled young adults, )me of them are children, because our children are :>w in their twenties, we have all been around a long 11e, and we know a lot of young adults in their venties who are emotional cripples, social cripples, ho never will really do terrific things with their lives. ome of them aren't doing too badly, some of them ·e just functioning, and the most important thing s unfortunate that we always have to talk about 1oney.

The most important thing is saving the 9rson, and a lot of these people don't have very )Od self images. They don't have a good ego, and 1ybody who doesn't like himself can't like anybody se and cannot be a good person for society. IR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Kovnats. IR. KOVNATS: I think that we are both preaching 1e same thing, Mr s. Plattner. You have a very )mpassionate group here this evening. Obviously om the questions that were asked of you, I think 1at you have support and with the cost factor being rought into the picture, I think that you will have ten more support. IR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Plattner. IRS.

PLATTNER: Thank you. IR. CHAIRMAN: Any further questions from the ommittee? 73 Mrs. Henteleff and Mrs. Plattner, we thank you for your contribution to this committee. I have the group from Elkhorn and the Liberal Party of Manitoba that have to be heard tonight, so I will call the group from Elkhorn, first if I may, and that is number 18 on your list gentlemen, and after that will come the presentation from the Liberal Party of Manitoba. Are you Mr. Aitkens, sir? MR. KOOP: No, I am Mr. Koop. MR. CHAIRMAN: Can you spell your name, sir? MR. KOOP: K-0-0-P as in Peter. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, sir. MR.

KOOP: I would like to, at this time, before I address the committee, ask whether Mr. Aitkens and Mr. Leonard could join us at the table? MR. CHAIRMAN: Absolutely. MR. KOOP: They have a . . . The brief as you might note is very short, but we have a few questions of clarification that we would like to ask following the brief. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Koop, if you maybe understand the rules of this Committee, you as witnesses are not allowed to ask questions. The members of the Committee can ask questions.

But under the rules of the House and this Committee, I am not allowed to permit you or any of your friends that are with you tonight to ask questions unless we have leave from this Committee. That's the rules that we are living under, sir, so proceed with your brief. MR. KOOP: Yes, maybe we can make the brief so that the questions will be forthcoming within the brief. MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, Mr. Koop if you are a politician you can likely paraphrase your questions like Larry Desjardins here and I'm sure you'll be well heard, Proceed, sir. MR. KOOP: The brief that I have to present here tonight gentlemen is on . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sir, I have a problem here. A witness here is concerned that we are hearing the brief from Elkhorn and I know that he's been here since Day One and the Liberal Party ... So I'd ask if he'd come back and speak in the microphone and plead his case. He's gone out the side door. We want to be fair in the Committee, we want to hear everybody. I know this gentleman, I don't have his name, but he's been here since the committee opened and he's most concerned that we are hearing your group, sir, and the Liberal Party. So if Mr. Arnold would come and plead his case before . ..

I'm at the mercy of the Committee and he could make his case heard. Mr. Arnold, you are at liberty to plead your case and I apologize if my ruling is unfair. The Committee will make the decision, sir.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. ABE ARNOLD: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. We have sat through here several sessions and on a number of occasions we've been sort of moved down the line again. We were here yesterday and we were promised we were going tO be first up tonight. I don't like to delay out-of-town delegations, but at the same time there should be some kind of parity. Perhaps the next time we'll have to bring one of our out-of-town delegates in to lead our delegation. Is it possible to hear us now, or do you want us to wait until ... MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Arnold where does your name appear on the list? MR.

ARNOLD: Number 10. MR. CHAIRMAN: Number 10 , that's right, okay. I'm at the mercy of the Committee. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Chairman, I know that Mr. Arnold is a reasonable person and I wonder, we only have one from rural Manitoba and it's a very short brief. I wonder if we could hear this person. But, Mr. Chairman, while I'm talking on this, I hesitate to bring this thing up, but the last brief was very interesting, but we took an hour-and-three-quarters and there's not only us, we probably were in the mood today, but there's a lot of people waiting. We don't want to show any preferences.

I think we all enjoyed the brief and the discussion that we had, but I think that in all fairness to the Committee and to the members of the committee, that we should try to expedite and stay with the rules a bit without . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Arnold, while you're still there. Mrs. Plattner came and saw me after the House Committee adjourned the last time we met. Some of her group, I don't know who they are, are supposed to catch an aircraft tonight and I think they have missed the plane, because I think it was scheduled for 9:00, because the committee and that's the problems of . . . MR.

ARNOLD: When you make promises to two groups at one time, you get into trou ble, Mr . Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: But I'm at the mercy ... and the members of this committee can decide to change the agenda, Mr. Arnold, and I'm at the liberty to do anything ... MR. DESJARDINS: Bring Elkhorn back. MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. MR. KOOP: Actually, we are very reasonable. We come from the drought area and if you would tell us how long Mr. Arnold's brief would be, we would gladly go ahead and have supper. MR. CHAIRMAN: Proceed, Mr. Koop. MR.

KOOP: On behalf of the Elkhorn Save the School Committee, of which I am chairman, and on their behalf I wish to put on record before this committee, my co mmitte e's sup port and endorsement of Clause 5 of Bill 31 and it's particular 74 Clause 5(1)(

d) and Clause 5(4), pro the new Bill 31. These paragraphs allow a remedy to aggrie ved electors which is more straightforward and likely to be more effective and far-reaching than anything available under the current legislation.

We find in rural Manitoba, namely in our area, that there are grievances which are difficult to be solved within a complicated Education Act such as we have, and therefore, by reviewing Bill 31, we found a clause that does simplify certain things and we would like to, at this time, express our pro feelings towards · that clause, thanking the department and the committees in maybe simplifying certain issues of gr ievances that can be dealt with more quickly.

Sometimes we, in the rural Manitoba area, feel that we don't exist, and because of that feeling of non existence, at times feel that everything that is dealt with within the education world, as far as education goes, is directly relevant to the city of Winnipeg and core area, and therefore at this time we would like to speak for that particular article. However, on the other hand, we have two issues that are difficult for us to understand. No. 1 of the same clause 5(2), there is a question there as to the clarification of that and the clarification of that would be much appreciated if we could have that.

Also, one of my colleagues, Mr. Leonard, has a statement to make on another clause within the bills. So if that would be in order at this time, then we would like to hear that; Mr. Leonard. MR. CHA IRMAN: Please put your name in the record, and proceed. MR. TERRY LEONARD: My name is Terry Leonard. MR. CHAIRMAN: Please spell it, sir. MR. LEONARD: L-E-0-N-A-R-D. I am referring in particular to

Section 57(5), the alteration of wards and number of trus tees and in particular the variation in population basis. In the first part, I would like to say that we feel, in our area, that the variation from the population quotient may lead to a tendency for bo ards of education to increase the representation from heavily popula ted areas, regardless of the special considerations that are outlined in this

section and we would like to know, does the committee feel that the intent of this

section is towards strict or more ideal or more . . . I should say, towards more representat ion by population, and we would also like to know if it is their intent that there could be more emphasis in the Act on representation by community rather than by strict popula tion quotient.

In regard to that, encouraging the latter sort of representation by community would also help to assure adequate support of minority rights in processes in democratic votes by the board, and in particular it would have a great impact at the small rural school level, where very often the area, even though they are very interested in their educational quality and setup, are at the mercy of numbers and cannot uphold their education in their own community. MR] CHAIRMAN: Mr. Koop, is there any further presentation you would like to make, sir?

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. KOOP : Yes, Mr. Aikens has a short presentation. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Aikens. MR. AIKENS: Mr. Chairman, we have one slight rese rvation on paragraph 5(2) of the bill. The intention of this paragraph seems to be that it would enable the Minister to fill a gap where he saw a need and that, should he not receive a written request in terms of 5( 1), he could himself, on his own initiative, refer a question to the Board of Reference.

We have some reservation about the wording of that, the use of the word 'whether" can imply, I think, whether or not and we feel that, in its present form, this paragraph 5(2) could allow the Minister on his own initiative to refer a question that something should not be done and possibly preempt and I don't mean that he would do this is in bad faith or anything, I'm just looking at the wording, 'possibly preempt a written request from any party or group within 5( 1) ". We just make that reservation for consideration by the committee. it's not put as a question. MR. CHAIR MAN: Thank you, Mr. Aiken . Mr.

Schroeder. By the way, Mr. Koop, you are prepared to answer questions from your committee. Proceed Mr. Schroeder. MR. SCHROEDER: I have a question which would probably be best addressed to Mr. Aiken, the last speaker. He was referring to

Section 5(2) and the Minister's power to refer matters to the Board of Reference. Is it his understanding that the matters which the Minister can refer to the Board of Reference can deal only with matters of establishing school districts or adding or transferring land to and from school districts, or are there any other matters that he feels the Minister has the power to refer to the Board of Reference under that section? MR. AIKENS: Well, in its present form, the Minister made a fair question as to whether anything to which reference is made under subsection (1) should be done, and subsection (1) leaves out Items (

d) to (g). lt seems to me that the Minister could refer any question within that compass. For example, the question as to whether a new school division or school district be established could be referred by the Minister in terms of 5(2) or be not established and that's our reservation. MR. SCHROEDER: Yes, what I'm getting at is your group fully understands that this

section doesn't put the Minister in a position where he would be second guessing the local school board on decisions in terms of, for instance, things like school closings. MR. AIKENS: We do understand that. MR. SCHROEDER: Yes. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Schroeder. MR. SCHROEDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 75 MR. CHAIRMAN: Any further questions from the members of the committee? We thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. MR. KOOP: Thank you very much. MR. CHAIRMAN: I call Mr. Arnold and the next one I'll call is Mr. Dunford from the Liberal Party. I apologize, it's very difficult in these committees.

Rural people do come in and they are entitled to you know, they have to drive home tonight, so I'll hope you bear with us, sir. MR. ARNOLD: Well, I wasn't really upset about the rural delegation, but I thought the delegation that appeared first was a rural delegation and I realized they really weren't. In any event . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: I should have announced earlier that some of them at least are supposed to catch a plane, but I think they missed it. Carry on, Mr. Arnold. MR. ARNOLD: In any event, Mr. Chairman, ... MR. CHAIRMAN: You have your brief and it's been circulated? MR.

ARNOLD: Yes, it's been circulated and by way of prefatory remarks I just want to mention, first of all, that our brief this evening from the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties will be presented by myself with my colleague, Waiter Hlady. I will deal with the opening

section and one or two substantive points and will then turn it over to Mr. Hlady. Before I get into the brief, I would like to take note of the fact that it was just exactly about two years ago that our association appeared before a committee of the Legislature for the first time. Since that time our organization has grown to some 300 members and the 29th and 30th associated group members just arrived in our office today from Thompson and Leaf Rapids, so that we are a growing organization in the province. MR. CHAIRMAN: We thank you, sir. We see your name on the agenda pretty regular, so ... MR.

ARNOLD: Yes, you have heard briefs and the other name, you have heard briefs from four or five different members of our organization. MR. CHAIRMAN: We thank you for your contributions to the committee. Proceed, sir. MR. ARNOLD: On this quest ion of The Public Schools Act, I presume we're still only dealing with Bi1131. MR. CHAIRMAN: No, both. MR. ARNOLD: Oh, we're dealing with both of them now. MR. CHAIRMAN: Both bills, sir, now. MR. ARNOLD: Because our brief does make some reference to the other one, as well, but in most cases they are related sections.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. CHAIRMAN: I am, as chairman, advised by the Clerk that we are prepared to deal with both bills, sir. MR. ARNOLD: Okay, good . This is the second occasion, Mr. Chairman, in less than a year, that the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties, along with many other groups and individuals, is appearing before this committee of the Legislature in regard to The Public Schools Act.

Considering the extensive number of briefs and presentations on The Public Schools Act and The School Administration Act that were presented to this committee during the intercessional hearings last fall, we are somewhat surprised at the fact that so few changes have been made to Bill 31, The New Public Schools Act, compared to Bill 22, The Public Schools Act that was introduced at last year's Session of the Legislature. The only significant change in the Act which has been generally welcomed is in

Section 41( 4) which now ensures that every school board shall provide or make provision for education in Grades 1 to 12, inclusive, for all resident persons who have the right to attend school. This has been interpreted, and you have already had numerous presentations on this point, as a concession in favour of handicapped children. lt is felt, however, that the revised Act does not adequately address the right of all children, not only to a place in the school, but to an education appropriate to individual and special needs.

I am not going to go into detail on that, except to draw attention to the fact that our organization does at the present time have among its associated groups a number of the organizations who represent the various disabled members or categories in our community. Apart from this modification, only one or two minor changes are apparent in the new bill and the majority of the substantive changes recommended in the MARL brief, as well as in other briefs last year, have not been given too much consideration.

The submission that we wish to make at this time is therefore not changed too greatly from our previous brief of October, 1979. We do, however, wish to draw attention to certain aspects of the bill which we regard as matters of significant principle in regard to the protection of civil liberties. Now as I pointed out, the concern of MARL in examing these bills is to make certain that they provide adequate protection for the rights of children and students in our schools and for the corollary rights of parents concerned with the education of their children. We must be equally concerned for the rights of teachers.

In particular, we draw immediate attention to the absence of a unified

section in Bill 31 dealing with pupils such as there was in the old Public Schools Act. In Bill 31, matters pertaining to pupils are still scattered through under a variety of headings, for example, Prohibitions and Penalties, School Attendance, etc. Moreover, nowhere in the bill is there any statemt concerning the rights of children, and particulary the right of every child to an education in keeping with his or her capacities. There is a brief statement in

Section 259 on the right to attend school but nowhere in the bill is there any other statement referring to the rights of children as pupils in the school system. The bill also states in

Section 260( 1) 'that every parent or guardian shall ensure that the child attends school", but it does not state that parents have the right to express their views or in any way participate in determining the kind of education that their child shall receive, except in certain limited instances relating to religious instruction or special language instruction.

And, of course, you have already had some comments about the interest of parents in being able to have a greater say in regard to the education of their children. · With regard to teachers, their rights are not adequately clarified in some sections of the bill, partly because of the fact that the word 'teacher" is given one definition in the opening

interpretation

section and another definition in

section 97( 1) (

j) under

Part VIII in Collective Bargaining. We must also question the appeal procedure for teachers as set forth in Bills 31 and 19 . And another matter which we wish to discuss, and which I will go into personally, is that of the question of religious instruction and religious exercises in the schools. We believe that these sections as now written do not give adequate protection for freedom of conscience. And I would like to turn to this particular

section of our brief, in particular which begins on page 8. We are obliged to dra w attention to the fact regarding the matter of religion in the schools, and you have heard about this before from at least one brief, from Carolyn Garlich, and I should mention that while she was speaking for herself, as a parent, our organization also takes a similar position as to that expressed by Carolyn Garlich. We are concerned about Bill 31, sections 80-83 on instruction in religion and

section 84, religio us exercises, which is presented in substantially the same way as dealt with in last year's bill except that a pupil over the age of majority may now be excused from participating in religious instruction without parental consent. We strongly suggest that these two sections involve a certain infringement of freedom of religion as guaranteed in

article 18 of the International Covenant and this is a slight correction in wording from what you have before you in the brief The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Canada is a signatory. This

article states, among other things, that 'no one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice". lt also calls for the 'liberty of parents to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions".

Dealing first with religious exercises we must confront the fact that we are imposing a subtle form of coercion in compelling all pupils, regardless of their own religious background, to participate in Christian religious exercises unless their parents ask that they be exempted from such exercises. 76 Many otherwise well-intentioned people continue to hold the view that the Lord's Prayer, for example, is a universal prayer acceptable to all religions. lt is not. The Lord's Prayer is one of the prayers which was taught by Jesus to his disciples as recorded in the New Testament in Matthew,

Chapter VI, verses 9-13. lt is also known as the paternoster, one of the prayers recited by Roman Catholics on the rosary.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 lt should, therefore, be clear that those people of non-Christian faith would not find this particular exercise acceptable and, of course, the subject of religion is always a very sensitive one and one to be taken seriously and certainly it may be possible to modify the religious exercies so that they reflect the variety of faith views that prevail in our community.

Religious exercises, based exclusively on these sources, are the exact opposite of nonsectarian which is a phrase used in the Act which states that the schools shall be nonsectarian except as provided, and this is really a contradiction. Nonsectarian really means not limited to or associated with any particular religious denomination. By the way, I have some quotes here which are not in the brief but I do have some copies of those quotes if anyone wants to see them. Nonsectarian means not limited to or associated with any particular religio us denomination.

Is it morally right to tell children who come from other backgrounds that they must sit in the class and listen to Christian teachings or stand in the corridor to gain intestinal fortitude? lt is this type of sectarian practice in our schools which has led our association to suggest that religious exercises are contrary to the nonsectarian approach and the present form of religious exercises would therefore be better eliminated. Now moral exercises are another matter.

What better way could there be of fostering a code of true morality than to begin each school day by teaching respect for human rights, not in the abstract but in the immediate context of students and teachers in the classroom. In recognizing human rights as part of our moral code we will certainly not deny or denigrate religion because we must encompass freedom of conscience. From this approach it might be possible to develop morning exercises which are creative, inspirational and perhaps even spiritual in the sense of attesting to positive principles that should activate a person in his or her daily life.

For specific examples of such morning exercises, one might suggest the reciting of an appropriate poem, selected or written by a student or teacher. A student might read a short composition on such topics as living with our neighbours, my family, the customs in our home, or what Canada means to me. A student might choose a prayer or religious reading and explain its particular meaning for him or her.

And in this connection by the way, this issue has been discussed in other jurisdictions as well and particularly recently in the city of Toronto, where the Toronto Board of Education has recently introduced a book which includes 60 prayers and readings from non-Christian religious sou rces, along with 30 traditional Christian ones, headed by the Lord 's Prayer, to be considered for use in religious exercises, with the suggestion that a different prayer might be considered or might be read every day.

The idea is that in this way, the religious and cultural makeup of the students in a particular class, or a particular school, might be better reflected in religio us exercises if such exercises are to be maintained. In the city of Toronto, of course, the student population is now reported to be almost 50 percent non-Christian. I don't think we've reached that stage in Winnipeg, but certainly we do have a growing proportion of non-Christian students. 77 Now turning to the

section on religious instruction in Bill No. 31, this provides, the same as before, that parents of 25 children or the parents of 10 children, depending on the size of the school, who request religious instruction, may have such a class in religious instruction established and all children must take that instruction unless the parents opt out on behalf of their children or, as in the new amendment, in the case of the majority-age pupil who may personally opt out.

We suggest that this clause tends to be coersive in compelling all children to take a particular course of religious instruction requested only by a few unless their parents choose to withdraw them. lt also shows a lack of respect for the liberty of parents to arrange for the moral and religious instruction of their children in their own way.

If a certain group of parents wants to have a certain type of religious instruction given to their children, they should be entitled to have it, but this should not oblige all other children to take the same religious instruction unless their parents arrange for them to be excused. Now I just want to deal with two other points before turning it over to my colleague, Waiter Hlady.

Dealing with the matter of school attendance, last year we did have occasion to speak up in favour of the right of the parent to a fair hearing who wanted to be able to teach her child at home and we understand that particular case has been resolved, but we should like to point out that in regard to the question of parents who wish to teach their children at home, the present Act does not specify the satisfactory standards of education for children being taught at home, and at the same time we should recognize that the ultimate goal of our public school system should be to make it more flexible by offering a greater variety of alternative educational programs within the school system.

We also note, of course, that there has been a change in the Act to provide for direct grants to private schools and while we are not taking a position on the philosophical aspects of that particular point, we do wish to emphasize the fact that this change imposes a greater responsibility on the department and on the Minister of Education to check and to monitor the standards in those private schools to make certain that they are keeping up and are at least equal to the standards of our public schools. Now at this point I would like to call on Mr. Hlady to carry on. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr.

Hlady you can sit in your chair, there's a microphone there if you wish, sir. Mr. Arnold can go on the other microphone. Proceed, Mr. Hlady. MR. W. HLADY: I would like to go back to page 2 in the Northern School Division and I assume that this equates fairly well with the Frontier School Division in the last version of the bill, and I would like to note some of my experience that I think . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hlady, you say page 2, I don't have any numbers on the brief that I have before me. MR. HLADY: Under Bill 19 and under Bill 31 on each page there's a number.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 MR. CHAIRMAN: Proceed, sir. MR. HLADY: I would like to first state that in talking about the northern school division that I have had some experience in the north. In 19 53 I was a teacher of a one-room school of eight grades at Gillam. In 1954, because I stayed on to work in the community, they made me chairman of the school board, or elected me to that position. In 1955-57,1 was secretary-treasurer of the Cranberry-Portage School Division and I was also the truant officer in that division too. But

section 17(1) and 17(2) do not appear to have been changed from the present Act, especially with regard to the powers of the Minister, who has been given absolute control to establish the northern school division and to appoint an official trustee to run that school division. The bill provides, under

section 17(1) , that the Minister 'may appoint a committee of persons residing in the school division to advise and assist the official trustee" and under

section 17(2) that the Minister 'may appoint a local committee for any community within the school division." We feel that this action unnecessarily restricts the people of the north. The establishment some years ago and I am moving away from the text in the brief the establishment some years of the Frontier School Division arbitrarily disenfranchised the electors of some two-thirds of the province in school matters.

And I sometimes wonder if it appears to be a comment by the governments in power provincially over the last decade or so, the value of our Canadian citizenship, that functioning school boards prior to that time, fully responsible under the law, were dissolved and school matters taken over by the government. Is democracy so weak in Manitoba that the government will condone, and yes, perpetuate the disenfranchisement of electors? Is the new Act to help maintain the colonial status of the north indefinitely?

If so, I suggest perhaps that we should rename the Department of Education, the Department of Education and Colonial Affairs. If we disenfranchised the voters of the north, why not then the voters of the remaining one- thir d of the province? That should certainly simplify some of the administrative problems. Perhaps we should also set up a southern school district. Now these remarks may seem extreme but, it has been said that these are extreme times and to me the system of education which we have is basically an autocratic one.

In some respects this may be justified, and as a school teacher I've been quite autocratic at times myself. But I don't think it's justified when we have the electorate in two-thirds of the province who are disenfranchised. The clauses covering the appointment of advisory committees are no replacement for school boards or division boards. Human rights and civil liberties in this country have not been written into the constitution, as they have been in some other countries.

We have in the past relied upon tradition and precedent to a large degree and Premier Lyon recently reiterated this go vern ment's position at the last Premier's conference, that writing these guarantees into the constitution was unnecessary. Yet Bill 31 will carry on an intolerable situation, and I hope that the 78 Members of the Legislature will ensure that the process of citizen disenfranchisement in school matters is reversed and that we will have citizens in the north who are handling their own school affairs. In this respect, I think that the school division as outlined is fine.

But the fact that it has an official trustee and does not have the say of the people except in an advisory capacity, is wrong. We are very strong in MARL that people should have their own school boards or division boards to handle their own school matters. · I'd like to move on to the next

section on the powers of school boards.

Section 48(1) states that the school board may, under subsection (a), 'provide a course of instruction and training for children between three and six years of age in nu rsery or kindergarten schools or both." We believe it is time to recognize that instruction for children between the ages of three and six should be extended and that the establishment of kindergarten should become an obligation. Su bsection (

j) states that the school board may provide school books to children, with or without charge. This is in conflict with

section 41(1)( n), which provides that every school board shall purchase textbooks for free distribution to pupils. We trust that there is no intention to begin levying charges for standard school books. In addition,

section 48( 1) (

v) provides for the levying of caution fees and fines. There is no explanation for these levies, however, and we cannot understand why any school board should have the right to levy such fees and fines. In the next

section on accidents, Bill 31,

Section 87, deals with defective apparatus and states that a school division or its employees, agents or trustees 'shall be deemed not guilty of negligence unless it is shown that one or more of the trustees of the school board or one or more of the em ployees or agents thereof had knowledge of the dangerous nature of the apparatus and failed to remedy or replace the apparatus within a reasonable time." We believe that lack of knowledge of defective apparatus should not relieve the school board of responsibility for accidents and that a school division should have the same responsibility as to liability as any other institution or organization or person. Therefore, we feel that

Section 87 should be modified accordingly. On the

section on suspension and expulsion, Bill 31,

Section 48(4) and Bill 19

Section 4( 1) (

d) states, an expelled or suspended student I'm sorry, on those sections, we feel that an expelled or suspended student should have the right to a hearing and an appeal against expulsion or suspension before an independent body. There should also be some limitation of the grounds for expulsion which are specified in Bill 31,

Section 48(4) as 'a school board may suspend or expel from a school any pupil who, upon investigation by the school board, is found to be guilty of conduct injurious to the welfare of the school." We suggest that the grounds for expulsion be limited to conduct which seriously disrupts school activity or seriously infringes on the rights of students, teachers, or other persons in the school. We furthe r urge that the words 'upon investigation by the school board" be qualified as follows: upon investigation by authorized school board personnel, excluding elected board members.

Friday, 4 July, 1980 Any suspension or expulsion by a superintendent or principal, and this is in Bill 19

Section 4( 1) (d), should be for a limited period pending an appeal hearing. The report of such expulsion should also specify whether it is an expulsion from all schools in the division or from one school only, with the opportunity to transfer to another school. lt should be provided that in any hearing or appeal, the rules of natural justice will prevail, including the right to present counter-evidence, the right to cross-examine, and the right to counsel. I think that school boards have been guilty in the past of taking advantage of The School Act as it was to prevent parents and students from having a fair hearing in many cases. On the

Section on teachers, Bill 31,

Part VIII and Bill 19, Sections 5, 6 and 7, are the ones we are concerned about.

Section 5( 1) of Bill 19 provides for the Minister to appoint a certificate review committee which will replace the present discipline committee in relating to the suspension of teachers' certificates. Bill 19,

Section 6( 1) allows the Minister to cancel or suspend a teacher's certificate 'for any cause he deems sufficient" and

Section 6(2) provides that a field representative may suspend the teach er's certificate 'for incompetency, misconduct or violation of this Act or the Public Schools Act or of any regulation". Bill 19

Section 5(5) provides that all suspensions of teacher certificates must be referred to the certificate review committee. We believe that the grounds for suspension or cancellation of teacher certificates give the Minister or the field representative too much power. Except in the case of a clear emergency, there should be no arbitrary suspension of a teacher's certificate by the Minister or any other official. Proposed teacher suspensions should be referred to the certificate review committee and a hearing before that committee should be a prerequisite.

The committee should have the power to determine if there are sufficient grounds for cancelling or suspending a teacher's certificate. Where there is a suspension or cancellation the teacher shall still have the right to appeal to the courts against an adverse decision. Bill 31,

Section 92(4) provides that the school board may terminate an agreement with a teacher on the basis of a complaint 'respecting the competency or character of a teacher". But only after informing the teacher of the complaint and giving the teacher 'an op portun ity to appear personally or by representation before the school board to answer the complaint". Bill 31, Sect ion 92, subsection 5 provides a detailed arbitration procedure for teachers whose agreements are terminated by the school board if they have been teaching for at least 20 teaching months of paid service.

The teacher who has been teaching for less than 20 months of paid service is entitled to ask for and be informed of the reason for the termination of his or her teaching agreement but is not entitled to arbitration. All teachers, regardless of the length of teaching experience with a school board, should have the right to a hearing to determine that the reason for termination was not improper. I would like to move on to Page 12 on the Role of attendance officers, as covered in Bill 31,

Section 79 263, subsection 1 and

Section 275. We believe the school attendance officers are given too much power under these sections, for example,

Section 267, subsection 1 gives the attendance officer the power without warrant to enter any place of public entertainment or amusement, factory, workshop, store or any other place where children may be employed or may congregate.

Section 267, subsection 2 provides that when the attendance officer finds in that place an individual who should be in attendance in school, as required by this Act, he may, as he deems advisable, take and conduct that individual to the school in which he is enrolled or to the home of the individual. The objective, we feel, should be to encourage school attendance, (

a) through counselling of parents and children and (

b) through enforcement. And while I, from my own experience, would feel that this is generally covered, it is a little unclear in the bill because Bill 31 appears to speak only of enforcement. In addition the enforcement provisions written into this bill are self-defeating.

Section 268, subsection 3 provides for fines to be enforced against parents who do not comply with notices given to them under

Section 268, subsection 1 and 2; and 268 calls for the posting of bonds by parents to ensure of compliance. This procedure is both unrealistic and unfair, we feel. Truancy is a major problem

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	31-4-pe21
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	31st 4th hansardpdf pe21.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	580db33ee6c854c0c776072095bab25a8b456bfd

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