Manitoba Hansard — Sitting 19 (27th Legislature, 1st Session)

27-1-19

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 8:00 o'clock Monday, March 18th, 1963. MR. CHAmMAN: Resolution 26 -- Item 1. MR. PAULLEY: Mr. Chairman, just before we left at 5:30 I'd asked a few questions in connection with bursaries and raised one or two points I thought. I didn't quite complete the remarks that I had in mind to make at that particular time.

I was going on into the question of loans and just before we commenced here this evening the Minist er of Education kindly gave me a copy of the regulations and application forms for the Department of Education for '63 - '64 and it might be that within this document I may find the answers to many questions that I have in mind, that I was going to ask before we rose at 5:30. I do note that just in a very quick glance the answers to some of the questions that I had in mind insofar as interest charges on the loans and also repayment of loans.

But I do want to bring up one point in connection with the general matter of loans. As we know, we have a sys tem of scholarships and also that we have a system of bursaries, and I think that the Minister possibly will refer to that a little later on, but it does seem to me Mr. Chairman, that insofar as loans are concerned that the person who finds himself in a position of having to obtain a loan in order to go ahead with Univers ity education sometimes finds himself in a rather pecu liar position.

It seems to me that at the present time with the scholarships being for -- I was almost going to say exceptional academic achieve.ment -- receives contribution toward higher education, and then there is a cut-off in the level as I understand it in the awarding of bursaries, there's a percentage of efficiency and then it is the category that doesn't fall into the position of being able to obtain bursaries for higher education that can apply for loans . Now it seems to me, it seems to me, that if the loans are going to be loaned interest-free then there should be more bursaries.

It seems to me that if a person has the necessary qualification to obtain a loan because of their standing in the year previous to which the loan is made for, then this is the type of individual that should be given even more consideration in a loan in pursuant of a higher education. I've glanced through a document, it's two years old now, dealing with the national bur sary plan as suggested by the National Federation of Canadian university students.

This docu ment is dated February '61, and I think there are some very pertinent remarks in the document itself dealing with the question of loans and also the whole question of income of students in general. I note on page 6 of the report it mentions in the fourth paragraph from the top of the page that students from low income families cannot expect their parents to contribute sums in the neighborhood of $500 yearly toward their university education, particularly if there are other children in the family.

It is significant that the top 15 percent of the population, by in come, contributes 50 percent of Canadian students while the bottom 20 percent contributes only 5 percent of the university students. So I suggest by this, Mr.

Chairman, and I think it will be generally agreed, that the ratio of students in the lower income groups is far out of proportion to that in the higher income groups, and that until we have a better balance insofar as income is concerned in the field of education then in effect we're defeating the purpose of education and we're not making as great a contribution to the future of our country that we should.

I appreciate very much the fact, as has been mentioned in two or three remarks and debates thus far on the question of education, that the costs of education are continuously ris ing and, as I believe my honourable colleague from St. John's said just prior to the supper closing, that this will continue and this is all to the good, and I agree with him most heartily. But I also agree, Mr.

Chairman, and I trust that I have considerable agreement with this, that until such time as the same opportunities to those, as pointed out in this document in the bottom 20 percent of the income statuses in the Dominion of Canada, until there's an increase above this five percent that they refer to we are defeating the purpose of education and not giving a relatively fair opportunity to all the levels in society which we have at the present time.

And I think it will be generally agreed upon that there will be, and will continue to be this general high and low in our income standards in the Dominion of Canada for a little while to come. Now then I was going to ask my honourable friend specifically on the question of Univer sity loans and other loans, the method of repayment; the amount of interest charged; the dura tion of the loans, how soon after a student graduates from university must these loans be paid? March 18th, 1963 Page 373

(Mr. Paulley, cont•d.) . . . . I think it would be agreed, or should be agreed if it is not agreed, Mr. Chairman, that when a student goes to university on the basis of a loan that he starts out after he has obtained his degree, he star'ts out really into business behind the 'eight ball' because he's got to start paying off a loan, which is a further handicap in order for him to get started in his chosen field. Now then I have other comments, Mr.

Chairman, that I will make on the various sec tions in the estimates, but I want to refer momentarily to the remarks of the Honourable Minister in respect to the general course. I note that the Director of Vocational Education speaking-- and I'm sorry I haven't the actual date of this newspaper clipping that I'm going to refer to -- that he was speaking to a convention meeting of 400 teachers, at that particular time he did not know exactly whether or not the graduates from the general course would be able to go to the technical institute.

Now the minister speaking this afternoon made mention that in general, if I understood him, that graduates of the general course will be given the opportunity of going to the technical school with the exception of one or two categories.

I must confess I didn't write them down, but I want to ask this of the minister in connection with those professions that he did mention that at the present time would be excluded from the general course as to admittance in the professional associations of society, does he intend to carry on negotiations with the societies or organizations, or professional groups in order to have them accept graduates from the general course as being qualified to take further study peculiar to these different professions.

Atso I would be very very grateful to the minister if he would also forward me a copy of the proposed regulations and entrance qualifications to the various occupations in the technical high school in order that we may have that before us. Now, Mr. Chairman, I think generally that takes care of the comments which I wish to make at the present time, and as I say I may have other questions that I'll raise on the various sections in the estimates. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr.

Chairman, in this department, we, the Province of Manitoba, the people of Manitoba, are spending much more money than any of the others; I think it usually is fairly popular but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't always try to find ways to make savings when it's possible. Now this is something that I've mentioned the tast few years --I think it's very important -- apparently there might not be too many that agree with me. It's the question of the high cost of school buildings and the real estate.

I was very pleased to see that last year there is a -- in the Seven Oaks Division they initiated a first there, community schools. In other words, this

article that I read in the paper, certainty agrees with me, or I agree with the

article --I did tast year also. I think because of the high cost of the school buildings and their reat estate, especially here in the City, I can't see why we should not combine these buildings and use them as many hours as possible, combine them as community clubs. It is the same people that are using this.

We have school yards and then we have yards around the community clubs; we have to have different approaches for the cross ing for the children; we're losing taxes on the reat estate; we're building the same, duplicating the work, the buildings themselves, and some of the people working there, and I can't see why this could not be looked into. Maybe it's not done anywhere else but I think it's certainly worth while -- it's a good idea to lead once in a while when we think we have something good.

I have mentioned this many times and Friday night also when we were talking about civil defence, that I think there should be a possibility of having a gym underground in those buildings -- eventually we might have swimming pools and so on. The cost will not go up, the cost may be on a certain department, but this -- we're talking about the physical education and so on, and recreation, - it might be that it'll combine with other departments, but definitely we would in the long run save money and that's the important thing, and I think it would be a step in the right direction.

I imagine that the minister must have followed this a bit --I couldn't get anything else but that

article from the Free Press on May of 1962, where they were going to give it a try -- three schools a try. Now the Honourable the Minister might tell me that this has nothing to do with the De partment of Education -- maybe it's up to different communities; different cities -- but I think that he certainty should be concerned and that he should be interested in that thing. He must at least have some opinions on it and I'd like to hear him because I know he takes his department very seriously and I think it has something to do with his department. And I Page 374 March 18th, 1963

(Mr. Desjardins, cont'd.) ...• mention again this question of gym underground. I don't say that you're going to start knocking out the buildings that you have now, but we're building so many buildings, so many new schools that this should have been done. I'd like to hear about that also. It seems that they haven't the place, that's why they're sending the kids home, we were told last Friday because they haven't the room. Well if we had a good gym then that could be used for all kinds of things.

It seems to me that this is important enough; it would be a big enough saving; it would be an improvement; that we should look into this. Now, there's another thing-- I hope I'm in the right department here. I remember two years ago we finished the session in a pretty heated debate. It was felt at the time that the members of the Liberal Party were pretty heartless because they did not want to go for this Little Colombo Plan. They thought that the Federal should take care of that. Now I haven't heard any more about this since that day. I didn't hear anything last year.

I wonder if we can have some kind of a report. I don't know, I'm trying to find it in the estimates. I'd like to know if we're still sending teachers in these underprivileged countries -- and especially now that I've seen that they reduced the estimate -- the Honourable Mr. Nowlan was supposed to reduce the estimate by -- Oh I think it was $8 1/2 million on this Colombo Plan in Ottawa.

A lot of people have been concerned about that -- if we follow the votes of two years ago, we were, the Liberals were proven heartless on this; they didn't want to go along to help other countries; We thought it was a federal thing at the time; we explained this. I certainly think that the minister should give us a report on that; on his teachers, what they're spending - maybe he can point it out in the estimates somewhere, but what will be spent this year on that. I waited to find the department last year and I didn't see anything at all, so this year I want to make sure that I get it.

I'd like to hear sd'inething on this, especially in view of the fact that Ottawa I suppose thinking that the provinces are more interested in that, figure that they should save a little money and let the provinces take care of it. Now, there's a-- I'm not going to go into any details on this, but unfortunately, this year, we've had a lot of trouble in the question of free textbooks, in the question of busses and religion in schools, and so on, and I would like to know if it is the usual thing for the minister to just - any controversial thing like that-- should he just refer it to the courts.

I don't know if he's responsible for that, for books being seized from students. I'd like to know more about this. I don't want to go as I said into details, but it's funny that this wasn't mentioned at all. I think that we should hear something about that. Now, very shortly also, we were talking about civil defense, and I have a statement here of either the minister or his deputy minister that during this crisis, Cuba Crisis, that this is what was said, that, it was pointed out that private schools cannot be compelled to adopt the regulation but they would be offered them.

And then it says here: "each school will have to draw up protection plans and submit them to the co-ordinator of Civil Defense in the Education Department. Civil Defense authorities would help school officials to draw up their individual plans." I'm not going to make a big tirade on this aid to private schools, especially at this time, but I certainly think that this is a question that could be the Department of Education or any other department, but those people should be forced to protect their children. Maybe there's something else, but to say now that you have no jurisdiction, I don't think that's right.

Either through, if it's not the department of education, we have to see that those people follow the same .steps and take proper care and give the same protection to those children. I'm not talk ing about the principle of aid to private schools at all, I'm talking about that those children should -- or those people running these schools should definitely be required to take care and offer the same protection as other schools do, and I don't like this explanation to say, "well we have no jurisdiction over them, we can only suggest." I definitely think that's wrong.

There's another plan -- in the last two or three years I have asked many questions to the Honourable Minister and most of the time he didn't even give me a nod, I couldn't get any thing from him at all, and during the last campaign election I was kind of surprised to see that a gentleman-- I think his name was Mr. Huband-- was going around electioneering and saying that he had two or three times, he was saying that he had the okay and the promise and that he was given the authority to speak for the Department for the Minister of Education.

Now, I want to know if this is something new, if he has a certain portfolio or if he holds some kind of a March 18th, 1963 Page 375

(Mr. Desjardins, cont•d. ) •••• position in the Department of Education. I'm not against this gentleman at all, I've never met the gentleman, but he definitely was going around the country saying that he had the authority to speak for the Department of Education, and this was never denied. I think that we should have an explanation at this time, because if this is the case we would like to know who ;represents the Department of Education, especially when we ask certain questions, practically the same questions, and we don't even get an answer right here in this House.

So if we're supposed to go out of the House to get the questions, I'd like to know who we should visit and who we should ask these questions from. I think this is all for the moment. MR. MORRIS A. GRAY (Inkster): It's true that I'm not an academic specialist and also that I will not discuss any details but I'm a great believer in education. Thirty years ago I realized how hard it was for me, financial and other ways, to give my own children the proper education; but we have sacrificed and they all went through university and two obtained a profession.

I have listened. with very great interest to the Minister's report and I have also listened to the other speakers, and for the life of me I cannot see why some of the honourable members here quarrel with the Minister on the general situation. They could quarrel on cer tain items --as my leader stated that he is going to raise certain matters under the Estimates --but how can a person have their cake and eat it? We have spent in 1920, a million and a half dollars for education. What could we have done for a million and a half dollars? Can we build proper schools?

Can we hav.e classes with less pupils that we had then --60, there was 60 in a class, 65, and how can we expect the teacher to pay attention to 60 children and give more attention to those who need it? When the classes are smaller it is possible. We need an educated people. I've seen enough of illiteracy in many countries in Europe. I've seen many that came over here and couldn't sign their name --many --and each and everyone have done everything possible to send their children to school, so they would not be as handicapped as they were for years and years if not for generations.

I'm a little bit surprised at the Honourable Member from Emerson who is a teacher and a good teacher, because I used to live for awhile in his constituency --I remember when he was teaching --to say that we are spending too much money (Interjection) Yes, you said it. I have a note here. At least you inferred that we're spending too much money, $33 million - you gave the figures yourself --it was supposed to be a million and a half in 1920 and less in 1910, and now it's $33 million.

How can we afford to deprive a child from a proper education, and each child, not only those whose parents can afford to send them to school, but a child who wants an education and the pa:r;ents cannot afford it. Shall we cripple up that child because it costs money? For God's sake what is money? The welfare of the people that's what we are striving at. We found $20 million when I came here in '41 of a Budget. Well now we have --I assume that the Treasurer will show us how to get the money --and we've got along. That's $125 million. For what?

Children used to leave school at the age of eight --grade eight and nine, many of them --I remember. They came out in the world because they had to work as their parents couldn't afford anything for the taxes were too high for them. What became of those children in this machine age and what will happen .to these children in the future when there's no more hard labour work. There's no more sweeping the streets, a machine does it; there's no more digging sewers, a machine does it in a day that labour couldn't do it in a month or two. Why cry over it. For God's sake once we admit that education is necessary.

I remember for the 22 years that I am here every year, almost every year we demand educa tion. We've cried out here in this House many times that we are getting good teachers $600 a year; and we cannot find a qualified teacher at $600 a year. Even in the City of Winnipeg where they picked the best of the teachers where the minimum wage was $900 a year, when I was on the school board. Ho w can you expect a girl going through university to become an A-1 teacher? How can you expect them to go even up to Grade xn and one year at the Normal School unless they are being paid.

A teacher that gets $600 a year, even if it was years ago, crippled up the children, didn't give any personal attention, because the teacher was a child, and a child had to teach other children. So now they're crying out too much money, too much money, too much money, instead of finding certain faults or suggesting an improvement; is being criticized. The Honourable Member from St. Boniface says let's put the boys in the basement and Page 376 March 18th, 1963

(Mr. Gray, cont'd.) ..•• let them have the physical training over there. Why should they go to the basement? Why should they get lack of attention? Why shouldn't they have an audi torium where to play and where to get their exercise and so on? Always criticizing, criticizing, criticizing. I think the government has done, in my opinion, in education quite a bit of progress. I don't say this government, the government of the past they did as well -- probably not as good. But every year the same thing, when it was a million and a half dollars we complain; when it's $33 million we complain.

I think that no money should stop the progress and educa tion of a child. It will pay a lot of interest; the child will become an educated boy or an edu cated man, a good citizen in Canada, a good man to the rest of the world and he wouldn't have to be unemployed because only those trained men are being employed now -- others don't. So I feel this way that I don't go into details in the academic details, but I feel quite concerned if anyone criticizes the cost of education in this machine age. On just one more point I would like to ask a question perhaps.

What is being done dir ectly to the Indian school population? Are they getting all the privileges that they give the others? Are they getting the scholarships? Have they got proper schools? Are we trying to give them an education so they could mingle in society, with us, with everybody? I think, perhaps with a proper education we could take them into our midst. We'd have less trouble; less expense and make out something useful of the native sons -- the real native sons -- of Canada. So I do not criticize the spending of the money.

My criticism is: is everything being done to bring up a healthy, useful, self-respecting and self-supporting youth? MR. McLEAN: Mr. Chairman, I don't wish to enter the debate at the moment, but I did want to direct the attention of the members of the committee to the class in the second gallery. This is a class of Grade ten, new general course students, who very kindly carne over with their teacher. Mr. Norris Belton, from Churchill High School, to be with U:s this evening. I do want to express our apprecia tion to them for coming along; in being here and participating in our proceedings. MR. CHAffiMAN: Item 1 (

a) passed. MR. McLEAN: Mr. Chairman, I should answer --I won't undertake to make a speech, but rather just to answer as many of the points as I can, that have been raised. I'll try and group these, Mr. Chairman; perhaps beginning with the observations of the Honourable, the member for Rhineland, especially since he made a statement with which I'm certain everyone here will agree -- that the minister has no conscience. That's been a well-known fact for quite a long time.

I hope, however, that not too many would agree with his suggestion that the minister should resign -- perhaps he'd be content if he was transferred to another port folio.

I would like to renew; my standing offer to the Member for Rhine land -- and this is in reference tO his suggestion that perhaps the Dauphin-Ochre school area, since it forms a very well known and important ccinstituimcy in Manitoba, was receiving some special benefits by reason of my present portfolio -"' I'd like to renew a standing offer that I've inaae to him that if he'll get the people of his territOry tO form a school area, i•u see that they have every ad vantage, indeed "pushed down and running over" -"'-what's those words in the bible -- that they hav� in the Dauphin-Ochre area.

However, I'm pleased to tell him that his troubles are just about all over, because on March 29th I'm certain that the people of that part of ManitOba are going to approve the formation of a school division and we'll be in business and his problems will be solved and I hope some of mine will be as well. Now, returning tO some of the matters raised by the members --I'm just grouping these according to location in the House here -- the New Democratic Party, and running briefly down some of the points that were. raised there.

The Honourable the Member for Brokenhead asked about the enroiment capacity of the Institute of Technology and whether or not we would be abandoning the present Manitoba Technical Institute. The over-all enrolment capacity of the Institute of Technology will be 2, 000 students.

The plan of the building, of course, permits for expansions and we have quite a bit of ground there -- well we have quite a number of people wanting tO buy it from the province but we're holding onto it -- and roughly speaking that enrolment will be broken down into approximately, and these are approximate figures, of course, until we actually get it intO operation -- approximately 1, 000 students -- accommoda tions for 1, 000 students in the technologies and accommodation for 1, 000 students in the trades training.

The trades training is a general term which I use referring to the work that is carried March 18th, 1963 Page 377

(Mr. McLean, cont'd. ) •.•. on at the present Manitoba Technical Institute; and all of those folks will be moved over to the new institute in the trades training wing of the institute and as I say, the general capacity there will be 1, 000 students; and in addition in the technolo gical wing, capacity for 1, 000 students there. · Now just how many students will be in each technology, of course, we're not absolutely certain. He asked for a comment of my views concerning a comparison with the Ontario system.

Now I have read.rather briefly, or rather quickly, the material that has been issued by the Ontario Department of Education, with respect to the new system they have for high school education. It's a bit complicated when you look at it, although basically I'm inclined to think that they have come up by a little diff erent route, but come up with much the same type of training available as we have in Manitoba.

That is to say, when one considers that we have as they have they're calling theirs Arts and Science course, which in effect means the univer sity entrance -- the matriculation course leading to university entrance; they have the other branch called high school training, which leads, in eff ect, to our Institute of Technology or the trades training or any of the opportunities that are available in that general com mercial and industrial area.

They have the -- I suppose what might be called the school leaving course or terminal course, although they have it more clearly defined than we do in Manitoba -- and that incidentally, Mr. Chairman, is one area where we have a lot of work to do in this province in preparing a suitable and proper course of that sort. And then they have -- what is the other -- well the vocational course. Now, as I say, they have it set up on a rather diff erent arrangement. I'm not really able to say whether theirs is better or worse; I would think it was certainly as good arid probably is better than ours.

I note however, that in Ontario, while this system is rather well laid out from an administrative point of view, it is left to the individual school district to adopt it or not as they wish, and I would be interested in finding out -- perhaps in a year or two -- how it is being adopted, because it may be that it is uni fo rmally adopted throughout the province or it may be on a rather patchwork basis .. I was in terested in that fe ature of it. Now, those com ments aren't too helpfu l, and after all their course is only getting underway at the present time.

He suggests that we ought to be providing more 50-50 vocational courses in rural Manitoba, and I agree with him; and you may remember that I mentioned to the House the other day that we had some 21 additional schools offe ring these courses at the present time throughout the' province. There is a great deal of work to be done there.

I did say last year that I thought I would like to look at the Alberta system of school grants, and I conf ess that I have only made a very tentative inquiry and didn't do what I had in my mind at that time, largely because I was aware for some time that we were planning a royal com mission in Manitoba which would be including the subject of school costs. I didn't lose interest, but I didn't consider it was quite as important that I should concern myself about. He wanted to know if I fe lt there would be any diffic ulty in selling the general course. Yes, there is.

One would be very foolish not to recognize it; and as he has correctly pointed out, these have not always been successful where they've been tried. The present enrollment in the new general course -- I have the fig ures for him. We have 29 classes in 25 schools in 21 school divisions, and the total enrollment is 767 students . Of this 767 students, 198 are girls and 569 are boys. He asked also how the present program of teaching French in Grades 4, 5 and 6 was working out.

I have some fi gures for him and for the commit tee, that in the non-French-speaking classes -- these are the folks whose mother tongue is not French -- we estimate that there are over 8, 000 pupils in these classes -- I'm speaking about Grades 4, 5 and 6. 278 copies of the Grade 4 teachers' texts have been issued to teachers; and a total of 394 copies of the curriculum guide have also been issued. The reason for the discrepancy there is the fact that people, members of the general public, often ask us for these curriculum guides and that accounts for the diff erence.

In the French option courses in Grades 4, 5 and 6, it is estimated that there are something over 3, 000 pupils taking this work at the present time. The Honourable Member for St. John's asked me some questions concerning teachers' certific ates, and I would like to give him that inf orm ation now. May I say to him that -- just to try if I can to make the situation as clear as possible -- there are really three groups of people in this particular category. There are those who have conditional certificat es. Now Page 378 March 18th, 1963

(Mr. McLean, cont'd.) • . are these people who have taken their teacher training but who have some condition, that is to say, there is some subject or subjects which they have not success fully passed, either in their academic work or in their professional work, as the case might be. And what has been happening is each year a conditional certificate. is issued for one year only, and it has been the practice to extend these certificates from year to year, gradually whittling them down with a view to eliminating them altogether.

Now, we said last year that after June 30, 1964 no conditional certificates would be issued, and so in answer to his ques tion "how do they come to an end", they come to an end simply because after June 30, 1964, no further conditional certificates will be issued, and that'll be the end of it. Now everyone, that is, every teacher has been on notice for some time now that these conditions must be removed and it is of course 01.!1" sincere hope that they will see that their conditions are re moved by that time.

Now, with regard to the number of people presently with conditional cer tificates, that number as of the present school year --and by the way that's one of the diffi culties about that annual report, that it is up to June 30, 1962 which is not quite a year behind, but almost, and sometimes there's a bit of difficulty in just correlating these figures.

But the actual number of teachers teaching with conditional certificates at the present time are 319 in the elementary schools and 12 in collegiates --and as I say, they all come to an end automatically.on June 30th, 1964, and no further conditional certificates will be issued. I would anticipate, however, that the most of those 331 people, will have removed their condi tions or they will have decided to leave teaching completely. Now the next group of people are people teaching on permit.

A permit teacher is a per son who has not had any teacher training --I should say who has not had a proper teacher training. The permit teacher was largely a --that is the largest number of permit teachers came during the war years and shortly thereafter when it was customary to give a six -week course to people who had either Grade 11 or 12, and allow them to go out and teach --and in some cases they don't even have that amount of teacher training.

But on the subject of permit teachers there are at the present time 61 persons teaching on permit in the elementary schools in Manitoba and 83 persons teaching on permit in the secondary schools. Now these people teaching on permit in the secondary schools will, of course, be university people may even in some instances be a person with a BA or Bachelor of Science degree. The reason they are permit is that they have not taken teacher training and hence are classified as permit.

In the group of 61 people teaching on permit in the elementary schools, many of these folks are teaching in remote schools --they're not really teaching because there is a shortage of quali fied teachers, but rather because there is a lack of qualified teachers who are prepared to go to some of the remote situations where they are required.

For example, I was last fall in the constituency of my friend the Minister of Mines and Resources at Sherridan --which is now a remote community in more ways than one --and in order to staff the two -room school it was necessary to engage a young lady, who I believe was reasonably competent, but she had no teacher training. But the reason we were able to get her was that she was living there --her husband was employed as the

section foreman I believe of the railroad and she was employed as the teacher. Well she is a permit teacher and that is the sort of situation, and I really don't anticipate that it would ever be possible to do away entirely with permit teachers, although that figure of 61 will certainly be reduced, I'm sure, say a year from now, and we'll get downfair ly low. The matter of the permits in the secondary schools is not too serious a problem.

I would expect that that will disappear fairly soon. · Now, the third group are people who teach on letters of authority and these are people who are qualified teachers but who teach beyond their certification and they are given a letter of authority to do so. Many of these folks are found in high schools, maybe a first aid teacher for example, teaching in a high school, teaching above the level which that person would nor mally be entitled to teach.

And included in this group also of letters of authority are those persons who take the 12-week course at the Faculty of Education at the university, followed by two successive six week courses and qualify themselves for a collegiate certificate.

Now at the first stage after they have taken 12 weeks of training the first summer, we give them a letter of authority in order that they may teach in the high schools --and these are all univer sity trained people --that is, have taken Arts or Science or degree work at the university - and the reason they have a letter of authority is that they have not taken, at the time they March 18th, 1963 Page 379

(Mr. McLean, cont'd.) •••• received their letter of authority, they have not taken their full teacher training, although they are required to do so over the course of three years. We have at the present time 155 of thes.e "letter of authority" people and they will be found in the high schools throughout the province. Now perhaps I have taken rather longer than I anticipated just. giving that information. Oh, I see he .had asked me the reason for cataloguing the racial and religious origin of students at the Ma1;1itoba. Teachers College and I'm sorry I didn't check on that.

I must confess to him that when I read it the other day, I wondered the same question myself, and I'll be glad and interested to get that information for him. He asked me .about the textbooks and! have the information here.

I'm not too certain whether I can just answer --I can't give an answer for all the textbooks, but in the past year in the textbooks that havebeen authorized, and these are in two groups, tho'se that have been authorized for the new general course --there have been a total of 32 texts authorized: nine are Canadian; Canadianized-American, that's a term where you take basically an American text and convert it and make it suitable for Canadian use, zero; American --.these are straight Amer ican texts --seven; British 12; others four. That's in the new general course.

In the balance of textbooks authorized, of which there were 226, we have .73 Canadian; 41 Canadianized American; 36 American; 62 British; and 14 others. I think that we are particularly anxious to develop Canadian texts and for example in science in the new general course, we have asked Professor Hedley of the Faculty of Education at the University, who is a very accomplished person in that field, to provide a textbook that will be used. This is a case where we believe these is no suitable textbook available and that system is being followed.

This matter of text books, as I have said before, is a rather troublesome one and I, of course, must say I think while it's nice to say we sought to have Canadian texts but we must acknowledge that people in other countries can often times write good textbooks on certain subjects and we would be fool ish I'm sure to deny ourselves the privilege of using them. We have, however, a policy, which is a fixed policy, of using Canadian texts wherever suitable and of searching out .anddeveloping Canadian texts where that is possible.

The Honourable the Leader of the New Democratic Party referred to the question that had been asked by the Honourable Member for St. John's the other day, about bursaries and scholarships and I should tell him that the minister without a conscience relented really after the other day and we've got some people in the department working on the breakdown of the various categories of bursaries . and loans, and where the folks are and so on, everything but their racial and religious origins. Referring particularly to page 108 of the annual report, I think perhaps there is no cause for concern.

The Honourable the Leader of the New Democratic Party looked at the figures and said: "why for example in the group of age 15 students is there a drop and so on?" But I would remind him that, of Cl)\lrse, this is not by grades, the more important thing is if there was a drop-out as between grades, and I'm sure that this is simply a reflection of the fact that birth statistics do fluctuate and could be in any year represented by that. But it seems to me the important thing is the total, because if you look over at the final column, the total, you'll notice that .the total is going up.

One other comment, and that is, that of course if there ·is any significance attached to ages 15 or 16, I would assume that that situation would be corrected by the legislation which will be coming forward here within a few days, raising the school leav ing age, which is now 14, raising it to 15, and subsequently 16. In other words that there would be a shifting of that figure as a.result of tbe change in the school -leaving age. I don't really think that there's any concern there. He asked about the repayment of loans and whether or not there was any interest.

Well there's no interest charge and the arrangement about the repayment of loans by students is they get the loan and they are required to repay it in the summer following the year in which they secure it. This, as everyone will recognize, is really not too satisfactory an arrangement, and I'm not very happy about it --have never been very happy about it --and we're presently engaged in trying to reconstruct our whole matter of this type, including the matter of bursaries, as well as loans, and hope to have as soon as we can a new system entirely.

As I say, I don't suggest that the system that is followed now is too good; I think perhaps it does a job for some of the students but it needs to be looked at, to be revised. Page 380 March 18th, 1963 I

(Mr. McLean, cont'd.) •.•. Now he did refer to a news report about the entrance to the Manitoba Technical Institute and I want to read, because I think it's important --I hope I haven't lost it again -- the letter which I had hoped to read this afternoon, and to put it on the record because I think that this is most important, and this now supersedes all previous news releases, or news reports that anyone has heard. This is a letter which I recently addressed to the President of each Trustee Association and the President of the Teachers Society. It is dated March 12th, 1963, and the subject is:.

"Manitoba Institute of Technology Entrance Requirements"; and I now quote the letter in full: "At the time of the joint presentation by the Manitoba Teachers Society, The Manitoba School Trustees Association and the Urban School Trustees Association of Manitoba on Friday, February 22nd, 1963, representations were made and discussion followed concern ing the eligibility of graduates of. the new general course to enter the Institute of Technology. · I am writing at this time to confirm my statement that: subject tO the exceptions here under noted, students who have successfully completed the new general course will be accepted for entrance to the Manitoba Institute of Technology.

The policy in this regard has never been otherwise and I wish at this time to emphasize and underline this statement. With regard to the exceptions to the foregoing rule, these fall into two categories. The first category is with respect to the teacher training which will be carried on in the Institute of Technology. This teacher training will be for prospective teachers in business education, vocational and indus trial arts.

The entrance requirements for these.students -- teachers irt training-- will be the same as the entrance requirements for the Manitoba Teachers' College; we expect that any variation in the entrance requirements for The Manitoba Teachers' College will be reflected in a similar change for those entering teacher training in the Institute of Technology. At the moment no consideration has been given to the possibility that graduates of the new general course will be accepted for teacher training at the Manitoba Teachers' College.

If this change should be made, then the same entrance requirements would apply to those entering teacher training at the Institute of Technology. The second category is in those technologies in respect of which entrance requirements are established by a provincial or national body outside the jurisdiction of the Government of Manitoba. The only two known to us at the present time are as follows: (

a) X-Ray Technicians. In respect ofthese students The Canadian Society of Radiological Technicians requires that persons entering training for this work possess a matriculation standing. For this reason matriculation standing will be required for those who enter The Institute of Technology for this particular type of training. This will be done to ensure that students taking this type of training will be eligible for employment upon completion of the course. In the event that the Canadian Society o� Radiological Technicians changes its requirements to include the new general course, then our requirements will be altered accordingly. (

b) Medical Laboratory Technicians. In this case matriculation standing is required by the Canadian Society of Lab oratory Technicians which controls the issuing of certification to these persons; the same :comments apply here as in the case of X-ray te chnicians. If other ca::es are brought to our attention wherein matriculation standing is established as an entrance requirement by either a provincial or national body outside the control of the Province of Manitoba, you will be ad vised". There is, I should comment> one here that I did not mention to the Committee this afternoon.

I mentioned the X-ray technicians and the medical laboratory technicians and forgot entirely the matter of the teacher training people which are covered in this letter, Now then the Honourable the Leader of the New Democratic Party asked me if negotia tions were still being continued with these groups, and the answer to that is yes. I welcome his support because I'm one who has rather objected to the idea that entrance requirements to various types of work should be established by outside groups, and I'm with him right all the way.

I'm not too sure that we can sort of change things overnight,· but I'm quite interested and we will work in that direction. MR. PAULLEY: Mr. Chairman, one question before we leave this point. I presume that because the school trustees have been noted through your letter of these exceptions of teacher training, X-ray technicians and the likes of that, this information will be publicized sufficiently in order to enable the students who may be contemplating or considering the general course, are fully aware of this knowledge. March 18th, 1963 Page 381

MR. McLEAN: Yes. Going on, the question that was asked by the Honourable Member for Inkster concerning the Indian School population, I remind the members of the committee that treaty Indians are the responsibility of the Federal Department of Indian Affairs who are providing them with their school facilities and that would be outside my sphere of activity. I do report to him however, an interesting development, that more and more we are having the treaty Indian children attend the regular public schools by agreement betWeen The Department of Indian Affairs and the school boards concerned.

This is in force in a number of places in Manitoba and is proceeding rather nicely. In many cases they begin perhaps at Grade 5 or 6 or 7 having the children attend the public school with the Department of Indian Affairs paying the school board for the education of their responsibility.

In the field of integrating the educa tion of treaty Indian children with others we have an interesting situation at Grand Rapids where our new school there was built to accommodate the treaty Indian children as well as all the others and where we have a completely integrated school situation there --this is one in which I suppose we might be entitled to some credit for having taking the lead in providing this ar rangement. They have under consideration at The Pas, a plan for a completely integrated sys tem of schools within the public school system.

With regard to the Metis children of course they are the responsibility of the province in the sense that all other children other than treaty Indian children are and we provide them with school facilities the same as we do for anyone else; and in most of these cases these children are in what we call our special schools and about which there is an Item in the estimates pro vided for them. The quality and the type of school is the same, that is there is no distinction made as far as between Metis and non-Metis children.

Even in some of those schools by agreement with The Department of Indian Affairs, we have treaty Indian children where it is feasible to send them if they live in close proximity to our schools. Now, turning then to the members of the Liberal group, I thank the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition, he has a quick eye for an injustice to school boys, because he pointed out this afternoon --I very graciously granted a holiday on August 31st--and he points out that that happens to be a Saturday and that wouldn't be much of a holiday.

My error was that it should have been Friday, August 30th, and I thank him for preventing a very serious miscarriage of justice. I believe this afternoon, and I might just make this comment now, I be lieve this afternoon in talking about where the general course classes were located that I includ ed Neepawa and that was in error. There is no class at Neepawa in the general course. Now, the Honourable the Member for St.

Boniface asked about the little Colombo plan and I would direct hi.s attention to the Estimates under Item 3 Teacher Training down in (c) 3, where it says "Additional training facilities" and I would ask him to remind me of his question at that time, at which time I will be glad to give some report on what is taking place there. He asked me about Mr.

Huband and I have two comments: first of all what happened was that The Manitoba Teachers' Society had arranged a meeting during the election to which they invited repres.entatives of the various political parties, and including myself on behalf of the Progres sive Conservative Party. I was unable to be there --owing I strongly suspect to some engage ment in the constituency of the Honourable Member for Ethelbert-Plains --and Mr. Huband very kindly agreed to go in my place.

Now he wrote to me immediately the day after, as I believe he did also to the Honourable the First Minister, saying that he had been misquoted in the news report. I have no further comment to make about it; I was not there and read only the press report and have Mr. Huband's comment that he was not properly reported. One of the items that came up for discussion on that occasion is one to which I am going to make rather detailed and specific reference in just a few moments, because it was raised by the Honourable Member for Brokenhead. But Mr.

Huband, I think did not at any time suggest that he was speaking for the government or the department; he went to give an outline on my behalf of some of the work that has been done in the Department of Education to that group at which other representatives were present. I was interested in the Honourable Member for St. Boniface, his suggestion about forc ing the private schools to protect their children, and I certainly think he suggested an interest ing idea.

I don't know what this proves but my reaction was quite the opposite; that if I had attempted to force them to do anything that they would have resented my doing so. What took place was this that the regulations were prepared, and I've already described that time, and Page 382 March 18th, 1963

(Mr. Mcl..ean, cont'd. ) .••• I received a telephone call as to whether or not the regulations would be made available to the private schools. Just quick off the cuff or off the top of my head as they say, I said well now I would not wish anyone to think that I was trying to force these regulations on a group of schools over which the Department of Education does not have jurisdiction, but that if it would be helpful and if they would like t.o have the regulations for their guidance we would be glad to supply them, and that was done.

But it had not occurred to me -- and I would want to look at the legal situation -- it did not occur to me to say, well you must follow these regulations, although as I say that's an interesting suggestion. I don't know what authority I or anyone would have to say that that was to be the case .

I want to tell the honourable member that I do not refer matters to the Courts , the matters of the textbooks and the transportation in both instances are matters under the jurisdiction of the school divisions concerned or school division and it is only that I have been informed that the matters were re ferred to the Courts . I, myself did not do so.

He has referred to the interesting comment about the community schools in the Seven Oaks School Division and I want to concur in what he has said regarding the importance of mak ing use of school buildings as much as possible. ·I think that the trustees of the Seven Oaks School Division have come up with an interest ing plan; they did so after some thought and after visiting a similar arrangement in one of the American states, and came to see me about it some months ago and said what would be the attitude of -- my attitude or the attitude of the Department of Education?

My words as I recall .them were: "God Bless You, I wish you luck.

We as a government are in favour of school buildings being used as widely and as much as possible." I think there's a distinction or I think they've come up with an interesting answer to one of the problems in connection with the use of school bu ildings, because previously it has generally been the case of the Boy Scouts for example, the Boy Scouts Committee wanting to use the school on Wednesday nights and troubles have developed because on occasi ons it seems that they might have not used the school properly or problems of discipline and one sort and another like that.

Now what the Seven Oaks School Division is doing is they as a school division are running this quite important program and their people are in charge and looking after things and I'm inclined to think that this is probably the answer and it may solve this problem that had seemed to exist before. However, they did it with the full knowledge and authority of the department and the government, and I say very plainly that we're pleased with what they have done.

Insofar as they give evening school classes that fall within the com petence of the Department of Education, they receive grants from the province through the Department of Education. I believe that my colleague, the Minis ter of Welfare, through his work in recreation, is also providiug some assis tance. He's better able to speak about that than I, but they have an arrangement with the Seven Oaks School Division so that they partici pate in that side of the work.

Last Saturday -- I'm in error -- a week ago last Saturday, a meeting was held in my own town of Dauphin, at which representatives of the Seven Oaks div ision were present and explained what they're doing. This meeting was held with a view to encouraging a similar development at Dauphin in the use of the high school building there and I have hopes that that will be developed. All of this is most worthwhile and to what extent we can do so we will be glad to give it our support. Some of the other suggestions about school buildings made are quite useful.

I've had this experience, that in the planning of the Institute of Technology, we designed the basement space there, or a good deal of it, suitable for a fallout shelter, and as a matter of fact it is large enough to accom modate about 4, 000 people. It's a little more expensive all right, as we found out when we came to get our specifications, but not too much. If you are going to have a basement in the building to begin with, it's a matter of strengthening the concrete , you have to have so many more inches of concrete and so on, and it adds a little bit to the expense.

Now that is the first direct sort of assoc iation that we've had in the preparation of buildings for that particular purpose; and that's a provincial building, it's not a ordinary school in the regular way. MR. ·DESJARDINS: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister would permit a question at this time. Now, beside that shelter, is this basement used -- what is the basement used for when it's not used as a shelter -- and I hope it never will be . Is it gym or anything like that? March 18th, 1963 Page 383

MR. McLEAN: No, it's -w e're going to have some classroom space there . I beli eve, if I remember rightly, that the hairdressing people are going to be down in the basement. But most of it is storage; we require extensive storage in a building of that size, and most of that space otherwise is storage. It is not a gymnasium. ·B ut it is used for other purposes, and of course, the heating plans, and all that sort of thing. MR •. DESJARJ?IN: If it's used as storage, Mr. Chairman; what would happen then if you , needed the building as a fallout shelter.?

I don't know, it seems to me that I don't know what you're going to do with what you have in there. MR. McLEANi There are two parts -- it's a big building -- and there are two parts. Now, when I say two parts , I don't want to .imply that they're both equal down to the last inch . But part of the buildi� is fully finished, and there's another �ortion which has just an earthen floor and it's really jUE!t sort of a what I suppose one might call a surface foundation.

Now in the event of an emergency, any supplies in the first portion could be simply shoved under the other and the whole thing cleared out for that time. I. don't know if I make my point clear, but I am assured there would be no problem in clearing the space quickly for use as a shelter if it were necessary. MR. I>ESJARDIN: To pursue the point -- if there's room there for 4, 000 people and if that's full of equipment and so on, I think there . will be a problem, because they'll be thinking of maybe bringing the groceries and so on. It might be pretty touchy.

I was wondering why, if this vast unfinished area as you might call it is suitable for storage, why isn't the equipment and so on put in there from the start and maybe use that part for a gym or some other thing that could be emptied, could be used. If it's something new, maybe Ui.ey'll come up with some thing -� I hope so. MR.

McLEAN: Now this illustrates the importance of -- what I had hoped to do is take all the members .of this committee over there and show them, and I'll make certain that. the Honourable Member has -:- we'll have a look through it and we'll just see that we're all doing it the right way, and I appreciate his suggestion. Just a comment. I enjoyed. the conclusion of the Honourable the Member for Emerson's address when he referred to his own experience as a teacher, and the visit of Inspe ctor Cum"' mings •.

While I was not personally acquainted with Inspector Cummings, he was a wonderful person and was loved by everyone �nd the honourable member was inde.ed most fortunate to have had that association. Now, Mr. Chairman, I come to a matter upon which I wish to speak fairly definitely in order to clear up ap. item that. was raised by the Honourable the Member for Brokenhead, be cause he felt that inde.ed the Minister did owe an explanation for what seems to him to be rather a queer action in regard to the matter of teacher certification. This matter, Mr.

Chair man, arose or came to public attention as a result of an editorial appearing in the Septe mber-October 1962 issue of The Manitoba Teacher . This is a magazine which is pub lished by The. Manitoba. Teachers' Society. It is the official .organ of The Manitoba Teachers' Society and the editor of this magazine is E. L. Arnott. On Page 6 of this particular issue , there is an

article or an editorial entitled: "The Minister Owes An Explanation", and I would like, Mr. Chairman, to read into the record.the first paragraph of this editorial, becaus,e �t outlines the question and the alleged problem. I now quote the first paragraph in full: "Buried. in the June 23 issue of The Manitoba Gazette is evidence of a s�ocking debasement of teaching standards and therefore of education in Manitoba. Two or three lines on Page 162 state that a person holding a permanent first-class certificate, Grade B, is entitled to teach any grades in a continuation school or a one-room high school.

This means that a teacher with non-matriculation Grade 12. plus one year of teacher training is now fully qualified to teach Grade 11 in Manitoba. For many years until the passing of this new regulation, such a teacher was entitled to teach only up to Grade 9". This paragraph , . as I say, indicates the complaint that has been made and that has been referred to by the Honourable Member for Brokenhead. Now, Mr. Chair man, you will note that the allegation is that there was a lowering of the training standards, or teacher certification standards -- teaching standards -- by reason of the regulation.

Now, first let me say that there was a new regulation in the sense that in that issue of The Manitoba Gazette, a revised set of regulations were published. It was a revision of the regulations bringing them up to date, and the old ones were repealed, as they say, and Page 384 March 18th, 1963

(Mr. McLean, cont'd. ) .•.... this new regulation brought into eff ect. But, Mr. Chairman - and I would ask the members of the com mittee to note my words very carefully-..;. that ill .respect of the matter that is referred to in this editorial, there was "no change". I repeat that -- there was no change. I tell you that prior to June 1962 , and indeed going back as long as the memory of any of those people in the Department of Education can remember, the regulations provided that a person possessing Grade 12 plus one year teacher training could teach Grades 1 to 11.

That provision existed for as long as, as I say, · as anyone that I have been able to find can re member; and, under the terms of the new regulation, such a person could teach Grades 1 to 11 -- exactly the same after the regulation of June as it was befo re . I have a pretty substantial witness, Mr.

Chairman, to substantiate my story; and it is none other than the editor of the Manitoba Teacher, who in 1936 to 1940 himself was in charge of and taught a high school de partment teaching Grades 6 to 10, inclusive, in a two-room school at Headingley School Dis trict No. 9; and from 1940 to 1947, he taught while presenting a first -- the kind of cer tific ate that's com plained of here -- I'll use the exact words, "a permanent fir st-class cer tif icate Grade B" -- while in possession of that certific ate, he did legally and properly teach in the Tuxedo School District No. 1709, in charge of Grades 9 to 11 inclusive.

And so Mr. Chair- man, I give you that evidence to prove my case. · But to indicate to you, Mr. Chairman, how important this issue is, may I tell you that in 1959 there were I think 198 -- 198 -- continuation and one-room high schools in the Pro vince of Manitoba, and that today there are less ·than 50 of those types of schools; so that a reduction in a short period of time of 150 of them will indicate as I say -- and I say this sarcastically, I'm quite frank to admit -- will indicate the shattering importance of this alle gation that has been made. And not only that, Mr.

Chairman, but of the 47 -- of the 47 one room high schools that there are in Manitoba, there are three with permit teachers, four with teachers with letters of authority -- and remember that these are university-trained people, although they may not have teacher training; there are 10 with 1-B certific ates, the ones that are complained about; and the balance are 1-A or higher. Those are in the schools that are in actual operation at the present time.

There are four continuation schools -- and let us all be clear that a continuation school is not a good thing, and I would hope that they would all be gone before long -- but in the continuation schools -- four of them in Manitoba -- in the continuation schools, every one of them has got a 1-A teacher or better -- not one of them has a 1-B teacher actually teaching in the continuation schools. So, Mr.

Chairman, I trust that this matter will now be laid to rest where it belongs, and that there will be -- well let me put it this way, that if the Minister did owe an explanation, that he has given it, and I think perhaps at that point the matter may rest. Now, I think I've covered all of the points that were raised and would be glad to take another run at it. MR. GUTTORMSON: Mr. Chairman, we've heard a great deal about equality of edu cation. However, there is one particular area where this isn't true. I refer the Minister to the School Division of White Horse Plains, where we have school children fr om St.

Ambroise attending school at St. Laurent but because of the road conditions in a certain strip between the two areas, these children are unable to go to school and during this past winter have been for ced to go to school, I believe, in the basement of a church in St. Ambr_g_ise. I believe last week the school board fr om White Horse Plains met with the minister to discuss this unfa vour able situation. I believe a year or so ago the Member for Lakeside and I attended the minister's offic e with this school board to discuss the situation and at that time he agreed to look into the matter.

To the best of my knowledge the situation hasn't changed, and as a result of it these children are not getting the education that they rightfully deserve. I realize there is a problem here because this road in question passes through the municipality of Woodlands, who are not prepared to spend the money that is required to make this road passable all year round. How ever, I think the minister will agree that this is a special case and one that -- I believe it is the only one in the province -- and I certainly think that steps should be taken to rectify it so that these children can return to the St.

Laurent school where they expected to go. MR. D. L. CAMPBELL (Lakeside): Mr. Chairman, perhaps I should join with my honourable friend from St. George in pressing this particular point. I'm sure that the Hon ourable the Minister will remember that I raised it in the House and as the Member for St. George has said, attended with a delegation on one occasion. When this was raised in the March 18th, 1963 Page 385

(Mr. Campbell, cont'd) .•.•.• House a year ago, the Minister to a considerable extent set my fears at rest by telling me that discussi ons were being held regarding these high school children attending another school, even closer than the St. Laurent one, and though I would think that- and I thought at that time, that perhaps that unde rmined the plan that the Boundaries Commis sion had in view in. the first place in sending them to the St .

Laurent School in order to be with people of their own faith and racial extraction to a large extent, that if it could be arranged it would certainly have some advantages and so I was inclined to go along with the S\lggestion. But apparently this has never materialized and the result has. been as stated by the Honourable Memb�r for St. George. Now this means that there certainly is a high school there being car ried on in a very small. area; they're being separated from the high school that they had been intended to attend.

This problem is complicated by the. fact--it shoul d be helped by the Jact, but I'm sure it's complicated by it--that in just a short distance of road, 24 miles, the road happens to be in the constituenc ies of three honourable members--three very important hon ourable members : the :flonourable Member for St . George, the Honourable Member for Rock wood-Iberville and myself. I don't imagine you can find another 24 mile road perhaps in Manitoba that has the distinction of being represented by three members of the House.

That shou ldn't spoil the educational program of my honour able friend, but the other point is that it's got two municipalities and I gu ess it's an unorganized territory district unde r administration. The upshot is , as stat ed by my honourable friend from St.

George , that the high school situa tion there is most unsatisfactory, and all becau se , all because my honou rable friend with all his persuasive powers--and I give him credit for trying--but with all his persuasive powers he has been unab le to convince one of the three of those public bodies, namely, the municipal ity of Woodlands. todo some small amount of road work. (Interjection) Six miles my honourable. friend tells me .

Well , this really is not a thing that should hold back a program that my hon ourable friend is .so proud of , and while I know the difficulty of making special arrangements for. one area, yet this is an area that was intended to go to the St . Laurent district; everything seemed to indicate it would be advantageous all around for that to be done, and at the present time that program simply. cannot be ,implemented .. So I join my support to the Honour able Member for St . George, pointing out that this difficulty still exists and what are we going to be able to do about a particular situation of that kind.

I was not going to raise it on the ministers salary; I was going to bring it up a little later on under grants , but since it's come up I must, of course , .make my position clear with regard to it. MR •. GUTTORMSON: Mr .. Chairman, can the minister indicate what he plans to do in this situation ? MR. McLEAN: Mr.

Chair man, I can only indicate that I will do as I told the delegation last week I think it was they were in, that.! would meet once again with the Council of the Rural .Municipality of Woodlands. and use whatever powers I have -- which I don't think ainount to very much with them, or on .this problem -- and see what .could be done. I confess it is the only situation of tttis sort .in Manitoba and I acknowledge that the accommodation for the high school students at St. Ambroise in the Bernier School District is quite inadequate and that it's obviously a case where they've got to be gotten over to St. Laurent.

Now at the moment neith er I or anyone else has any authority that I'm aware of to compel the Municipality of Wood lands to undertake this project, and persuas ion doesn't seem to work. I went out last sum mer and met with the Counc il at Woodlands and went over the road -- I've travelled the route. They pointed out to me, of course , that the road doesn't serve anybody else -- there's nobody apparently living along it, c;�r very few people living along the road -- and it does in a sense seem to be a rather expensive proposition for a re latively few people.

However, we are in the situation where these folks are in the school division and some provision must be made, has to be made for them. Well that's just recount ing what everyone knows and as I say I plan to meet as soon as I am free of my immediate dutie s here to meet with the Cou ncil and see if there is any way in which we can meet the situation. for them. When we were discussi ng it before, as the Honourable Member for Lakeside has pointed out, there was some possibility that the Bernier School District would be detached from the White Horse Plains School Division and transferred into the Portage Division.

However, that did not come about and the situ ation remains as it was in that regard. MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, Shakespeare caused on of his characters to say on Page 386 March 18th, 1963

(Mr. Ca mpbell, Cont'd. ) •.• • one occ asion: "To do a great right, do a little wrong.' ' I won't repeat the very next part of that quotation, my honourable fri end's probably familiar with it I think, - and I rec ognize that it isn't easy for the department to do a little wrong by putting in specialprovis ions for an individual case.

I know the diffic ulties of trying to temper a whole policy to one diffic ult situation, but because this one is so diff icult, and because after all this is the way the division was set up, and there are good grounds for it, wouldn't it be a logical program for the Honourable Minister if the municipality simply takes the position that they haven't enough of their road ratepayers to justify any expense on that road, wouldn't it be well to frankly admit that it's an unusual situation but one that requires a remedy and the department find some special funds to build that piece of road· and keep it in shape?

I' m sure that the muni cipality of Portage la Prairie can be counted on to do a good job of maintaining it; they would be willing to do that in order to help out the residents of their municipality but they can't, of course, be expected to go into another municipality and do ·any construction. I suggested this to the minister on another occasion and he fe lt that it was rather a drastic situation to t:ike but I think that after all this delay it's perhaps justifi ed. Mr.

Chairman, I have ·one other matter that I think should come up under the minister's salary -- I know of no other place where it would be so appropriate --it's one where it seems to me that the division plan is also appearing to break down and the Honourable the Minister and others who have spoken here are very convinced that the division plan in total has been very successful, ·a nd no doubt in the majority of cases it has, but there are some cases that I thl'hk should be brought to our attention because they seem to imperil the best working of the program, in particular areas; just as this one that my honourable friend and l have mentioned in the St.

Ambroise district. But this is a larger area concerned and I would like to hear the minister's explanation of what has taken place and the present situation down in the Pilot Mound Crystal City area. My honourable friend smiles at this and I'm always glad to see anybody smile rather than frown when a matter is up fo r discussion, but fr om, and I do not pretend to be personally acquainted with this situation, but I have a friend in the area and I have fo llowed with interest and concern what I have seen reported of the negotiations in that commu nity and in the western part of that division.

Now the Minister can correct me if I'm not stating the subject accurately, and I'm sure that I'm not fully acquainted with it, but to the extent that I have some notes here it would ap pear that more than two years ago that the board of the school division gave notice of a build ing program that entailed building in the Village of Manitou and the Village of Pilot Mound, and that when that ca me to the Department of Education for approval it failed to gain that ap proval.

After some discussion and the lapse of six months time, the Division Board changed their forms and suggested a diffe rent sized school at Manitou and the purchase of the Pilot Mound existing school. I am told that this project was turned down by the Minister himself on the ground that the board's dec ision was not unanimous .

In October - that took place in June according to my info rmation -- October of that year, the Minister attended a mee ting in the area and undoubtedly tried to bring some order out of the chaos that existed, but later in October the Minister received a suggestion from the board, from one of the interested districts , I believe Pilot Mound, suggesting that schools be built in Pilot Mound and Crystal City.

A month or two later there was a joint meeting of the Elementary School Boards of the two villages, Pilot Mound and Crystal City, to try and work out some arrangement; and by March of 162, that's 14 months after the firs t plans were sub mitted, the Minister of Education said in a letter to the chairman of --to the secretary I be lieve it was, of the Division Board, and Pm quoting now fro m that letter: "Subject to estab lishment of the necessary enrolment to justify the rooms requested, the Department of Educa tion will be prepared to approve any plan which is endorsed by the majority of the members of the Division Board.

" It appeared that he had thought that the discussions and disagreements had gone on long enough. A month or thereabouts afte r that the board submitted another proposal. I don't know the exact details of it but apparently it was, at least in some respects, diffe rent again. And there the matter appears to have rested so far as any inf ormation I have from April of '62 until July of 162, and at that time, because there seemed to be no action taken by the department, the Division Board elected to call in the Boundaries Commission to hold a hearing and recom mend March 18th, 1963 Page 387

(Mr. Campbell, Cont'd. ) • • • • a school site. I'm not positive that that's the procedure, but I gather that it was the board that made that decision. In September -- no -- and following that sometime, the Boundaries Commission did conduct an investigation. Some place along the line, in September I believe, a large delegation came to see the First Minister of the province and I have some interesting press reports with regard to that meeting. They were told, according to the

article that appeared in the Pilot Mound Sentinel Courier, that the First Minister said that he couldn't interfere. The Minister of Education, according to this report, did not sit in at the meeting. He was out of town apparently. The press report pays tribute to the acknow ledged debating skill of the Premier who they say, endeavoured to discount the vetoes that had been apparently given by the Minister of Education, but that his decision was that he couldn't interfere.

But some place along the line presentations were made to the Boundaries Commission and they eventually issued their report, and their report recommended Crystal City as the site. Then --I think perhaps I have the chronological order wrong there because it was pro bably after this time that the delegation met with the First Minister. In any case, there is a lot of criticism of that suggestion, that recommendation by the Boundaries Commission, and eventually a plebiscite was decided on.

The vote was held on the question of -- as established by the Boundary Commission -- Are you in favour of the recommendation of the School Div:ision Boundaries Commission to the effect that this secondary school for the western half of the Pem bina Valley School Division No. 27 be erected within the boundaries of the Village of Crystal City? I am informed that the electors voted against the Commissi on's findings but that the D! vision Board has now decided against the result of the plebiscite that was held.

Now that may be an incomplete resume of what happened and there are undoubtedly some.ga ps to be filled in there, but would the Minister comment on the general situation and where does it stand at present? .••.•••••• Continued on next page. Page 388 March 18th, 1963

MR. McLEAN: Mr. Chairman, I'm not a student ofShakespeare,but I'm sure he must have had something to say that would be applicable to a situation of this sort. This has been one of the more unhappy episodes of my public life and I really don't know that I can make any useful comment because it is a matter that has been well ventilated. The Honourable Member for Lakeside has correctly or pretty well set out the sequence of events.

In actual fact, there are a few facts not known to the public generally but whi.ch are known to me and, of course, to the School Division and trustees and the people in that part of Manitoba. It is a situation with out precendent in Manitoba and I wouldn't think that it could properly be. regarded as an indica tion of the breakdown of the school division system, . because I cannot conceive of this particular si�ation developing anywhere else with two towns of almost equal size and four miles apart. You can see one from the other without any difficulty.

From the beginning of the establishment of the school division, it was recognized by those who knew the situation that any school . division with both Pilot Mound and Crystal City in it was destined for trouble . I understand that in the matter of the establishment of hospitals and hos pital services, that this was a problem which the Honourable Member for Lakeside's govern ment had .to deal some years past and he undoubtedly has some personal understanding of the problem arising from that event.

It was -- (Interjection) -- Well, perhaps we ought to call you back for the purpose of getting this situation settled; In the thinking of the Division Board, they were considering, first of all, the establishment of one school in that division and one school would have had to be located, as I understand it, at La Riviera which would be about the centre . Well ; the trouble started and I was having delegations and representations from all sides naturally. Well that idea apparently was abandoned and the board began thinking in terms of having their high school at Manitou and Pilot Mound.

This is a factor which I th4Jk, is not generally known, that immediately, immediately the people from Crystal City began to come in and they did come in and I went out. _ I think I was at two public meetings at Crystal City over this very matter before anyone -- and this was before any decision had really -- firm decision to proceed had been made . But the point I'm wanting to make to the members of this Committee, Mr .

Chairman, is that this question has two sides to it and there are two groups of people concerned, and the one group of people who haven't been heard from for quite a long time now were the first folks to be concerned .and make representations and so on. Well .then, as has been related, the board did come in with a suggestion that they would like to build schools at Manitou and Pilot Mound and it is there that we run into this allegation of a veto by the Minister . I used to try and ex plain to people that no such thing happened. I've given up trying to convince anybody and you can take it whichever way you like.

The thing that I did, however, was to point out to the di: vision trustees that I had already had strong representations from Crystal City in opposition to the establishment of the school at Pilot Mound. I wanted them to be aware of that fact, and that we should indeed all be aware of it in our considerations, and so I said to them, now we will approve the school at Manitou because there didn't seem to be any issue about it, but I did ask them to re -- not to reconsider -- but to give careful consideration to their suggestion about the high school at Pilot Mound.

There was also another complicating factor involved and that was the fact that at Pilot Mound they had a fairly large school, a number of rooms, five rooms of which were being rented by the school division.

It was a new school; there were a·l ot of debentures to. be paid; they were. receiving rent from the school division, and if they built a new school at Pilot Mound and those five rooms at Pilot Mound regular elementary school became vacant, the taxpayers were going to have a pretty heavy burden on their hands to carry the debentures for that school without the rent revenue that normally came , and I asked them also to consider that feature. In fact, I made it quite clear that I didn't want to adopt any course of action which was going to re sult in added cost to the taxpayers of the Pilot Mound School District.

Well that was at that stage but, as I say, it's at that point that those who wish to tl.o so say I vetoed the plan. I say simply that I never dealt with it .in that regard. I asked the trustees to consider it, give further consideration to it; and I told them that I would approve their school at Manitou and they could have proceeded at that moment as far as we were concerned. Well time went on and there were a number of meetings by myself with the division trus tees, all with the view of endeavouring to work out a compromise arrangement that would be March 18th, 1963 Page 389

(Mr. McLean, Cont' d.) .••• acceptable to all concerne d. And I have no objection of being quite frank with the committee and telling them what I sugg ested. First of all , and one must remember a bit of background here , that the majori ty of the trustees , indeed I think perhaps it would be fair to say that all of the trustees were impressed with the idea that they should have only one school in the western part of the divi sion. Naturally when you say one school , remem bering the situation concerning Pilot Mound and Crystal City, you've created a problem . So how do you handle a situation of that kind ?

I suggested that they might consider one school mid way between the two towns and I think the trustees were kind of inte rested in it, and it's not such a crazy idea as you mi ght think. It's been done in other place s, but of course I earned only the opprobrium -- is that the right word? -- of both sides, neither one of who were going to be satisfied with something midway between. So I said, well , we'll try again and I tried to see if the school division trustees would agree to placing a school at each pla ce , but they didn 't feel that they wished to do so and we made no progress.

Now in making that suggestion I was well aware of the arguments there are in favour of one school . I'm sure the Member for Lakeside would agree with me that sometimes , maybe , it's not a bad idea to have a small school here and there, and these would have been smaller schools, but it seemed to me that whatever the merits of a large school, we weren't making any progress and the thing to do was to get on with the job and get at least part of the job fin ished if that was helpful .

Indeed, the two school idea would have permitted the retention of the high school in the Pilot Mound school and continue d that revenue to the district that I was rather concerned about for the support of their debentures. Well I made no progress there and I might just as well have saved my time . I think I made five trips out to Man itou to meet with the board and I might , as I say, just as well have been going to the picture show in Winnipe g for all the success I had.

Well then , it was decided by the board, that is by the Divi sion Board, to call in the Boun daries Commission beca use , you understand, they were being besi eged by both sides in this situation as well as I, and they called in the Boundaries Commission. Now they asked the Boundaries Commission at their very first meeting which I had arranged for them here in this bui lding, the trustees said, "now we want a commitment that you will only recommend one school ." In other words , they barred them from the possibility of recommending two schools and , as I say, there begins your problem again .

The Boundaries Commiss ion held a hearing . I'm satisfied they gave it very careful thought !\lld came to the conclusion that Crystal Ci ty was central to the largest number of school students and recommended that if there was to be one school that it should be loca ted at Crystal Ci ty . Now when one says "located central to the lar gest number of students", you have to remember that the biggest proportion of students in that particular territory are rural students.

There 's a difference of opinion as to how many are actually located in Crystal Ci ty and Pilot Mound , but those are only part of the total and they came to this conclusi on . Now there was some dispute , of course, and when the delegation came to see the First Minister they contended that the Boundaries Commis sion had reached it conclusion, that is the conclusion that said Crystal City was central to the largest number of students , on erroneous eviden ce ; and that was indeed a serious charge .

It was documented, or at least placed in writ ing subsequently and passed to the Boundaries Commission, and as a result of that representa tion -- or at least that representation, I'll put it that way, was forwarded to the Boundaries. Co mmission by myself beca use we felt that this was certainly calling into question the proceed ings and the report of the Boundaries Commission, and the Boundaries Commissi on decided to submit the matter to a vote . It was the Bound aries Commiss ion that did that , and that was held just not too long ago .

Now it was contended by some , and perhaps with some force , that perhaps the ballot was not correctly worded, although in actual fact it could not have been worded in any other way.

The question submitted to the resident electors of the affected school district was: "Do you ap prove of the recommendation of the Boundaries Commission with respect to the location of the high school at Crystal Cit y?" Well , in other words , the voters were not really voting between Pilot Mound and Crystal City; they were voting eithe r for or against the recommendation of the :Boundar ies Commission; and that vote resulted in a majority against the recommendation of the Page 390 March 18th, 1963

(Mr . McLean, Cont•d.) •••. Boundaries Commission. It was not a very big majority; it was very even -- almost, I think 40 votes was the difference if I recall the figures. Now by law, the School Division Trustees were not bound to accept the result of the vote and indeed have not done so . They have said, notwithstanding the vote, we are still going to adopt the re commendation of the Boundaries Commission and we wish to build the high school at Crystal City.

The next development has now been an application by ten school districts , including the School District of Pilot Mound, to detach themselves from the Pembina Valley School Division and be transferred to the Tiger Hills School Division. That applic ation comes before what we call a Board of Reference .

This is a little different type of applic ation in the sense that usually the Board of Reference is only dealing with one school district on the boundary line between two divisions that may wish to maybe transfer over for some particular reason, but this is a case of ten and the reason, one of the reasons, there are ten is that this forms a contiguous group of districts that could, if the application were granted, be transferred.

Well that appli cation is now before the Board of Reference and I, of course, am unable to hazard any opinion as to what the result will be .· If the application is granted, then Pilot Mound will be in Tiger Hills School Division and we'll proceed from there . If the application is not granted, then of course the present situation remains and will have to be resolved in some manner or other. So that's the situation in which we find ourselves.

In actual fact, there is no physical harm heing suffered by anyone because those five rooms at Pilot Mound are very good rooms; it's a good school; and they're being used as a full high school at Pilot Mound and that is carryong on, and so there 's no question -- there's not a new school building in Pilot Mound but there is a high school and it' s operating just indeed as it was operating previously.

There is also a high school operating at Crystal City, and while the accommodation is not too satisfactory -- in fact I should say it's not satisfactory -- but they're not out in a tent or a barn or anything of that sort and they're carrying on. We have again given approval for the high school at Manitou and I have said that in my opinion the School Division should proceed with that and get that matter dealt with, because it is obviously going to be some time before this other question is resolved with regard to the ten school districts and whether or not they're going to be in Pembina Valley or Tiger Hills.

This has an important bearing because if the ten districts were transferred to Tiger Hills Division, it means I think 134 high school pupils, so obviously that affects the size of any building that might be built in the remainder of the Pembina Valley Division. Now , Mr. Chairman, I don't know if that helps any.

I say here what I said to the Division Board, that I thought they ought to provide high school accommodation at both Pilot Mound and Crystal City, and in doing so I was following the precedent which had been established in re gard to the hospital affair, and felt that probably that was the only solution to that particular situation. MR . CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, I'm not as well versed perhaps as I should be with regard to the different boards and commissions that operate in these connections.

I think I'm rather familiar with the Boundaries Commission, its operations; but the Board of Reference , who are the members of the Board of Reference ? Before the Minister answers , I notice that the Minister said that the Division Board was not bound by the decis ion of this vot e. That, I believe , is correct. Isn't it also correct though that the Division Board was not bound by the Boundaries Commission's recommendation either? Isn't that also correct? MR. McLEAN: Well, Mr .

Chairman, the School Division Board was not bound by the re commendation of the Boundaries Commissio n and not bound by the result of the vote. So far as the Board of Reference is concerned, they don't have anything to say about it . That is , other than to make representations to the Board of Reference . The Board of Reference deci sion is a decision that is final for the transfer of a school district from one division to the other or a reje ction of that application, subject only to an appeal to the County Court Judge. There's a difference , if I make my point clear .

It is not bound to accept the recommendations of the Boundaries Commission but certainly everyone is affected and bound by any decision made by the Board of Reference , subject only to the ri ght of appeal to the County Court Judge. Now the Board of Reference is a board that was established for the specific purpose of dealing with applic ations by school districts to transfer from one division to another. That is its March 18th, 1963 Page 391

(Mr. McLean, Cont'd.) .••. principal business. It consists of: the chairman now is Mr. Syd Taylor of Minnedosa; Mrs. Richardson ·-- Mrs. Rita Richardson of Portage la Prairie; and Mr. Albert Fletcher of McCreary. They are the three members of the Board of Reference. MR. CAMPBELL: That is a permanent board, is it, Mr. Chairman:? MR. McLEAN: It is. MR. CAMPBELL: And any such request that comes up would go to that board and their MR. McLEAN: Yes. MR. CAMPBELL : I wanted to ask one other thing regarding administration.

I believe that as far as the Building Projects Committee was in the department, they have the· authority and are expected to either approve or disapprove of not only plans that are submitted to them but proposals for the establishment of high schools as well . MR. McLEAN: I'd love; Mr. Chairman, to be able to hide behind that but I'm afraid I must accept the responsibility for what they decide. It's a departmental -- it's really an inter departmental committee because it includes Mrs . McConaghy of the Municipal Board and ?-re presentative of the Treasury Board.

It is known as a Building Projects Committee and their function has nothing to do with school site ; it is only as to the approval of the recommendation to the Minister for the approval of a school containing a ce rtain number of rooms. They direct their attention to the question of how many rooms should be approved and it operates somewhat in this fashion, that a school district or a school division says that they wish to build a school at a certain point and the committee asks the folks concerned to tell them where the pupils will come from and how many they will have.

The look at their present enrolment and projected en rolment for a period of five years and they then recommend that approval be given for the con struction of a school at such and such a point; containing a certain number of rooms . Their whole operation is directed to that one point of the number of rooms . The question of the ap proval of the plans is a routine matter that is really the same as it used to be where they come in and we look at it to make sure they have enough square feet in each room and enough windows and the right doors and that sort of thing. · MR. CAMPBELL: Mr .

Chairman, this recommendation by the Building Projects Com mittee is simply a recommendation to the Minister, and if the Minister approves then it goes through. But he has the authority to refuse if he thinks it's proper. MR. McLEAN: Yes, that's true . MR. CAMPBELL: So that when the First Minister, if he told them what the press reports , that he felt that he could not interfere, I would think that was a proper decision. But as far as the Minister of the Department is· concerned, it's not a case of interference; it's a case of ex ercising a jurisdiction that is given to him by the Act. Is that correct? MR.

McLEAN : Well this is a good question , Mr. Chairman. Perhaps it wouldn't be just quite as easy as that in the sense that I think that the school division trustees, the trustees pri marily have the responsibility of deciding location; and when the First Minister was speaking and said that he couldn't interfere he was, if I may interpret his remarks, he was referring to the question of where the school was to be located. In that sense, when I was discussing these matters with the division trustees , I really had no authority to tell them that they could not have a school at any particular point.

I was using my, whatever it is, discretion, or I was discus sing with them whether or not that was the better arrangement and of course informing them of the representations that had been made to me. I was rather inclined to think that if the division trustees had made a firm decision at that point that I would have no authority to countermand that, although they would still have to have our approval, the Minister's approval, for the num ber of rooms that they wished to build. MR . CAMPBELL: Mr.

Chairman, this was rather the point that I was aiming at because I was sure that I had heard the Minister on more than one occasion say that the responsibility in these cases rested completely with the Division Board, subject of course to the approval that is received by the plans people and the Building Projects committee and such like, and I just wondered if I had been wrong in that assumption.

So I gather that all the Honourable the Minis ter was doing was exercising his persuasive powers to the .extent that he could to try and get them to come to an agreement because they bad the right to do it if they agreed on it . Is that correct? Page 392 March 18th, 1963

MR. McLEAN: Yes, that's correct, MR. CAMPBELL: But I thought the Minister said in his letter to them of March, Mr . Chairman, said in his. letter of March a full year ago, that he said to them that he would ap prove any plan that a majority of the board decided on •. MR . McLEAN: Yes, that' s correct, Mr . Chairman , and the actual -- the next sequence of events was the calling in of the Boundaries. Commissi on by the division trustees.

You see my discussi ons with them had all titken place prior to the letter and the situation is that the - actually, the decision of the trustees has , in effect, been m�de . in the. sense that they cal led in the Boundarie sC ommission; the Boundaries Commiss ion made a recommendation; the trustees have said they're going to accept it and they have asked now for the approval of their school ; and we would be giving that were it not for the fact that we don't know now what enrolment they would have for a school at the western

section in view of this pending application by ten dis tricts to transfer out. The moment that we would know the final disposition of that application we would be able to say: Fine, you'xe entitled to a school with 15 rooms or whatever the case might be and the matter would be settled as far as we are concerned in accordance with the terms of my letter. MR . CAMP BELL: Now, I gather, Mr . Chairman, that it's in abeyance again, pendillg . the decision of the Board of Reference. MR. McLEAN : That's correct. MR. CH AIRMAN: 1 (a) - -p assed? MR. PAULLEY: Mr.

Chairman, just before we leave that, I have one more question I'd like to ask the Minister in connection with the general course. I think this matter was under discuss ion if I recall correctly last year , insofar as students taking the general course and be: coming regis�ered nurses . If memory serves me correctly, at that time the Minister wasn •t quite sure or made a statement to the effect that the Act sets up that insofar as registered nurses are concerned, the Junior Matriculation is the requirement.

Now I've noted in the Act . since , as a matter of fact I was looking it up a few moments ago, I noted that in

Chapter 222 of the Revised Statutes of '54 under The Registered Nurses' Act the qualification for a nurse is Junior Matric.ulation or the equivalent as decided by the Minister. Now my question would be , Mr. Chairman ., has the Minister decided that graduation from the general course would be the equivalent of Junior Matriculation insofar as registered nurses are concerned? MR . McLEAN: No , the Minister can't decide that, Mr. Chairm an . That doesn't mean perhaps what it might seem to mean. The equivalent refers to equivalent standing from an other province.

There might be cases where a decision has to be made , what is the equivalent of Junior Matriculation for a student who has gone to school in Ontario. Now I'm getting into a field of which I don't k:llow the exact and all the detail, but I can illustrate it by saying that . we would rule that Grade XII in Ontario. -- in the matriculation course in Ontario is. the equiva lent of Juni()r Matriculation in Manitoba, because in Ontario they have the 13 grades . That's what's meant by the equivalent. It's not some other course of training and saying well this is equal to this , no. . MR.

P AULLEY: Then I would suggest, Mr. Chair man, if that is the case, that here is another one that the Minister should add to the list that he gave us this evening as to th� se who WOUld take the general COUrse WOUld be debarred under present legislation of taking Up an OC cupation which they may desire to go into.

Now then I would suggest this , that this is very vital, particular�y to the y()ung women of the Province of Manitoba, and thank goodness there seems to be a considerable number of them desirous of becoming nurses , I think that the Min ister, in fairness to the young ladies of Manitoba, .s hould point out to them at the commence ment in Grade X of the general course that obtaining a certificate at the completion of the gen eral course will not qualify them under the present legislation to become registered nurses in the Province of Manitoba. MR . McLEAN: Mr.

Chairman, I think I should just say this to clear up any misunder standing. When I was speaking earlier about entrance requirments, I was talking about en trance requirements to the courses that will be given at the Institute of Technology . We don't train nurses at the Institute of Techilology. That training, as the committee knows , is carried on in the hospitals and that's a separate group. We 're certainly making it as clear as we can that there are these other areas where matriculation is required and so on and , at the same March 18th, 1963 Page 393

(Mr. McLean, Con t'd. ) . . tim.e are continuing our negotiations with the Manitoba Assoc iation of Registered Nurses' to try and have them agree to accept the general course graduates for nursing. The people in the department seem to feet hopeful. They're not making very fast progress but they're keeping at it because there will be a number of instances of this sort where we will hope that people will adopt the general course standing for entrance to their particular type of training. MR . PAULLE Y: My purpose, Mr.

Chairm an, in raising. this is because of the fact that we're now venturing into the general course and it seems to me that there seems to be a con siderable amount of publicity given to the advantages or otherwise of the general course, but this is one of the disadvantages at the present time that should be pointed out to the students who feel at the present time that they may enroll in the general course . That' s my purpose , Mr.

Chairman, in raising this and I sincerely trust and hope that the Minister will , in addition to his letter respecting the entrance into the Technical Institute , will point out this in respect of the general course in order that there will be no misunderstanding later on. MR. CAMPB ELL: ...• I can't agree with that.

I think the Minister is doing it in the proper way, because I think the thing to do is not to point out to them in the general course that they can't do thus and so, but to get the Registered Nurses' Association or whatever is the name of the organization, to get them to accept the people from the general course , because the fact is that -- in my opinion, the fact is and I'm sure that the Honourable the Minister of Health would agree with me if professional etiquette and other things didll't enter into the equation, that we don't need any more training than the general course in order for people to go into the nursing profession and we should stop being so sticky about getting them in there.

The thing to do is not advise them in the general course that they can't get into nursing but to work a lot harder at the job of seeing to it that they accept them in for nursing. MR . PAU LLEY : Mr. Chairman, the point taken by the Honourable Member for Lakeside might be all right, but the fact of the matter still remains that we are starting out in this gen eral course now.

I think what the honourable member refers to as a desira ble thing is okay, and I agree with him in that, but sometimes we have to look a picture right in -- directly at it as it is at the present time, and the fact of the matter is, at the present time we're encourag ing our young girls to go into the general course they won't be aware of the legislation under The Registered Nurses' Act, I would suggest, unless it's looked into, and they may feel that on graduation from the general course that they could go into nursing.

Now I agree with the Hon ourable Member for Lakeside that maybe the qualifications of the Registered Nurses' Associa tion will be glad to change their legislation, to have the legislation changed, but the fear that I have is that, at the present time , that if until -- or at least until that is done, the students ven turing into the course at the present time may be under a misapprehension and it is that that I don't want to occur. MR . NELSON SHOEMAKER (Gladstone) : Mr.

Chai rman, I would like to ask the Honour able Minister a question or two, and in so doing it is not my intention to embarrass my honour able friend in any way, but there is a situation within the Beautiful Plains School Division that you could hardly consider a parallel to the Pilot Mound-Crystal City affair, and frankly I'll ad mit that I am not too familiar with it. In the last issue of the Neepawa press I read the head lines once again, that the School Division Board had not changed their mind on the closing of the Wellwood School.

Now I believe my honourable friend made one or two trips to Wellwood and spoke with the ratepayers there . I believe, too, that he made a couple of trips to Neepawa and met with the School Division Board. I am not familiar with the entire complications , and I would like to know what recommendations the Minister made to the Well wood people and if he made the same recommendations to the School Division Board at Neepawa. Now it does strike me , Mr .

Chairman , that many of the problems that presently face a lot of the School Division Boards stems from the fact that the School Divisions, or many ofthem are really too large and much larger than they need be if you consider the recommendations of the Royal Commission and if you consider the duty that the School Division or the Scho orBoun daries ' Commissi on were faced with when they established the boundaries of the divisions.

I don't recall exactly what the Boundaries Commissi on had to consider iri establishing the bound aries, but I think there was the minimum $5 million balanced assess ment; and then again, they must consider that there were sufficient pupils to warrant a 12-roomed high school in every · Page 394 March 18th, 1963

(Mr . Shoemaker, Cont'd. ) ••.• division. Now as one of the honourable members pointed out this afternoon, we do have divisions with five or six 12-roomed high schools in them . Well then, if that is so , and apparently it is a fact, then what are the advantages of having a div ision so large that it has five 12-roomed schools and apparently sufficient children to fill the schools, and then the balanced assessments say of four times what was recommended in the royal com mission report.

Now another question that I would like to ask my honourable friend is .this , inasmuch as my honourable friend has agreed that the larger school areas, and I think there still is only the one in the province , he agrees that in that type of ad ministra tion there are many advantages over the present school divisio ns . Are we moving towards these larger school areas? Is there any effort being made to move in this direction ?

It seems to me that I agree with my honour able friend that he has a better set-up in his own constituency than most of the members of this House can say about theirs , because it does embrace -- up in the larger school area, it em braces elementary and secondary education, so certainly it has an advantage over a lot of the school divisions . MR. McLEAN: Mr . Chai rman, I am not just too certain that I have said that the school area is better than the school divi sion .

I presume the honourable member for Gladstone is re ferring to my statement which I believe was reported that, from a financial point of view in speaking to the people of the Dauphin-Ochre School Area when they were considering whether they should remain as a school area or become a school division, that I did say to them that financially, in my opinion , that they would be better off with that type of administration . How.:.. ever , I doubt if I have ever perhaps made the blanket statement that they're necessarily better.

As a matter of fact, it is interesting to note how closely allied they are in many respects . However , he has asked me the question: Are we moving towards school area? I would say that ther e's no indication of that.

I believe there is an intermediate step before that situ ation is likely to develop , and that is the formation of fairly substantial consolidated school dis tricts to deal with elementary education , and that I could foresee the possi bility, in the future, and it would be a considerable way in the future, when there might be a trend toward the forma tion of school areas by combining large school districts dealing with elementary educ ation and a school divis ion .

I think, however, it is not something that's in the immediate future by quite a ways , and I must state my position quite clearly that I have always made it quite clear that it was not our intention to force the formation of school areas because there are people in Manit oba who are most desirous to maintain local control over elementary education and that is a posi tion which I respect and intend to do so .

I can see , however , as I say, that in the long stretch of the future that there could be a movement -- I'm thinking, for example , and the mem bers of the committee will pardon me for taking this illustration , but it seems like a pos sibility -- for example , with regard to the School Division of Brandon , where there are relatively few number of school districts , and where one might conceivably have a combined administration under a school area. Now he referred to the Wellwood situation , and I'm not too sure whether the committee wants a blow-by-blow desc ription of this problem or not.

I can say this, Mr . Chairman, tb,at I benefited by the Pilot Mound-Crystal City problem and have put my knowledge gained there to , I hope , fairly good use in connection with Wellwood.

Fi rst of all, let me say that with respect to the recommendation of the royal commission as to the size of high schools , it is quite true that they made such a recommendation, but members who were here will remember that when we in troduced the legislation with respect to school divisions I made it quite clear that the legislation did not provide that there was to be only one high school in the division or that it had to be 12 class rooms , or anything of the sort. In fact, the members will remember that we had a graduated scale.

We had some discussion about how the relative grants should be paid, and I think it was -- while I do know that the royal commission made the recommendation -- I do just want to make it quite clear that that did not become part of the legislation, although there was a ••tipping of the hat" in favour of the larger high schools because the larger grants go to those that have 12 rooms or more. Now the problem at Wellwood is that originally the Beautiful Plains Division submitted a plan with respect to school buildings , and my recollection is that it provided for high school accommodation at Wellwood.

This is perhaps two years ago or three years -- two years , three March 18th, 1963 Page 395

(Mr. McLean, Cont'd .) •••• years ago, and when they submitted that plan to a vote, it was defeated -- the debenture vote was defeated. Then more lately a plan was submitted and ap proved by the resident electors as far as the money was concerned, which was based on the assumption that the Well wood high scho.ol students would go to -- now, the name of the place - Brookdale, yes -- and the people at Wellwood have been objecting to this. They want their. one room high school to remain at Wellwood.

J.h ave explained to them -- I was . out; as the Honour able Me.mber for Gladstone has mentioned, I was at Wellwood and spoke at a public meeting and explained that the decision was a decision for the school division trustees. I've had two meetings with the division trustees. about it. I had a delegation from Well wood into my office and there was the occasion when I went to Wellwood .. The situation, however, seems to be one of communication.

That is to say, having said to the people of Well wood that it was a decision to be made by the trustees about where their children would -- whether they would stay in the one-room high school or go to Brookdale - then they said, well , they won't talk to us about it , and so the purpose of my visit to the Divi sion Board was to encourage them to meet with the.people of Wellwood. At first they said no, they didn't think that was worthwhile, but on reconsideration they decided to do so and I do ex press my appreciation to them because I think it was the right decision for them to make .

They went to Wellwood; and my report is that they had a most useful discussion and, while perhaps not all problems were resolved, there was a better understanding of the viewpoints of both sides. Now what the honourable member has told me of the press report is the first that I've heard. I'm assuming that this is a decision that has been made since the meeting by the divi sion trustees with the people of Wellwood.

As to the recommendations made by the Minister, they were simply confined to recommending to the division trustees that they should meet with the people of Wellwood; discuss their problems; discuss what they proposed to do, with a view to. seeing if there was any means of accommodating the situation. One other comment that I want to make . I don't· know whether divisions are too large or too small. That could be a matter of opinion. I don't think that it would be sound, however, to argue that simply by making divisions smaller that some of the problems which have developed would be resolved by that fact.

For example, it wouldn't do you any good to have a small school division th,at included both Cr ystal City and Pilot Mound. I don't care how small it would be , you'd have a problem• .I t wouldn't really do very much good to have Wellwood in a small school division because as a one-room high school they're very probably going to have difficulty in maintaining that one.:.room high school. at Wellwood. A smaller division would really not re� solve that problem.

This is a serious problem and it's one that saddens me because Wellwood is a proud little community and I was rather taken with it and yet, in this modern day and age, it's difficult to visualize us being able to give the kind of education that boys and girls need in these days in a one-room high school And so it is , as I say, it's the pilll of the present from the past, from the communities that did a wonderful job -- my goodness, Wellwood had a high school when I suppose many other communities weren't even slightly interested in providing high school education.

They .did it, and here now they find themselves face-to-'face with the modern days and the prospects of losing their students from their high school. It's not an easy question to answer; it' s not an easy question for division trustees. My whole purpose in going out and in talking to these people is to try and see where we can make some adjustment; some accommodation that will.bring about some reasonable solution. It isn't always the perfect solu tion, . but some solution which is better .than the .present and yet one that can be accepted and worked with. MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr.

Chairm an, is Wellwood a continuation school, or by a continua-,. tion school do you mean a school that looks after the needs of grades 1 to 10 , 1 to 11 or 1 to 12? MR. McLEAN: They have there a one class of high school students only. I'm in error. They've got two high school classes at Wellwood. I think they've got two teachers there. A con tinuation school is one that where in one class they have grades 7 and up into and including some high school classes . There are only four in Manitoba as I was indicating earlier, and Well wood is not one of them . MR . CHAIR MAN: Item 1 (a) . MR.

CHERNIACK: I think the Minister has indicated to us today that since he is �:.till Page 396 March 18th, 1963

(Mr. Cherniack, Cont'd. ) •... operating under his old salary and his new one wouldn't start until April 1st that he is earning it, and I don't propose to deal with the item of his salary ex cept for one plea, and that is that he study the feasibility of a revision of the Act under which he operates so that people who have to find their way through the maze of sections will be able to do so more readily. If he can't do something about a revision of the Act, a revision of the index would be most helpful to some of us . The question I rise to , Mr .

Chairman, is the list that we have just been given, or re cently been given on salaries paid to deputy ministers, and I assume that that item comes un der "other salaries" which is before us now. I assume also, Mr . Chairman, that the salaries shown on this list which is dated March, '63 , are the salaries which have been paid and are being paid as of this moment, but we have been informed that there will be a general increase in the Civil Service, both in terms of annual increments and a general increase, and I presume that will apply to deputy ministers as well.

Although I'm not pressing for the information at the moment, I'd like to know when we'll be in a position to be informed of the salaries which will be paid to deputy ministers after we 're through with all the estimates. MR . McLEAN: ..•. -. salaries of the deputy ministers from the list which you have , just a comment from the First Minister and he reminded me that last year there was an upward revision with regard to deputy ministers -- no change this year . The figures you have on the sheet are those that will be in force after the 1st of April . And the School Act is under revi sion.

The Attorney-Gene ral's Department is looking after that. MR. SHOEMAKER: Mr . Chairman, inasmuch as there are only four continuation schools in the province , I wonder if the Minister could give us the names of the four if you have them handy. MR . McLEAN : Yes, Mr. Chairman, I can . Continuation schools are Chortitz -- it's spelled CH 0 R TIT Z -- (Interjection) -- Chortitz . They teach 7 to 10, both grades inclu sive. I'm speaking of what's known as a continuation high school, that portion of it . In New Hopmmg they teach 7 to 10; in Pointe du Bois, 7 to 11; and in Summerfeld, 7 to 11 . You will notice , Mr .

Chairman, that all of those districts are outside of school divisions . None of them are in school divisions. MR . CHAffiMAN: 1 (

a) passed. MR . MOLGAT: I want to come back to t

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Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	27-1-19
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	27th 1st hansardpdf 19.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
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