Manitoba Hansard — 11 March 1976 (Sitting 33, 30th Legislature, 3rd Session)

30-3-33

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF M.I\NITOBA 2:30 p.m., Thursday, March 11, 1976 Opening Prayer by Mr. Speaker • 879 .MR . SPEAKER: Presenting Petitions; Reading and Receiving Petitions; Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees. The Honourable Member for Logan. PRESE NTING REPORTS BY STANDING AND SPECIAL COMMITTEES .MR . WILLIAM JENKINS (Logan): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the first report of the Committee on Industrial Relations. MR.

CLERK: Your Standing Committee on Industrial Relations presents the following as their first report: Your committee met for organization on Monday, March 1st, 1976 and appointed l\IIr. Jenkins as Chairman. The quorum for all meetings of the committee was set at seven members. Your committee also met on the following dates to receive public representations with respect to labour legislation in the province. Tuesday, March 2, 1976, Monday, March 8, 1976, Tuesday, March 9, 1976, Wednesday, March 10, 1976, Briefs were presented to the Committee by the following: Mr. Mike l\II ushumanski, l\IIr.

Desile ts) - Manitoba - Winnipeg Building Construction Trades Mr. W. Iverson) Council, Mr. John Huta - Injured Workers Association of Manitoba, Mr. William Ridgeway- Manitoba Government Employ ees Association, Mr. Charles McCormack - Retail Store Employees Union, Mr. C.R. Bouskill - Association of Professional Engineers, Mr. A.W. Swarm - Canadian Manufacturers' Association, Mr. J.E. Wilford - Manitoba Federation of Labour, l\II r. J. G. Hayes - Manitoba Health Organization, Mr. Stephen Riley - Winnipeg Newspaper Guild, Mr. Frank Hinings - Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, Mr.

George Aikens - Labour Relations Council - Winnipeg Builders Exchange, Briefs were distributed to members of the Committee on behalf of the following: l\II r. Alex Tkach, Mr. Harold Jantz, Editor, l\II ennonite Brethren Herald, The Confederation of Canadian Unions. Your Committee agreed that, since all persons present at the last meeting had been heard, no further meetings would be scheduled until specific legislation has referred to the Committee. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Logan. l\IIR, JENKINS: Mr.

Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Churchill, that the report of the committee be received. MOTION presented and carried. l\IIR, SPEAKER: Ministerial Statements and Tabling of Reports; Notices of Motion; Introduction of Bills; Questions. The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. ORAL QUESTI ONS MR. DONALD W. CRAIK (Leader of the Official Opposition) (Riel): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the First Minister. I wonder if the First Minister can confirm that a tentative agreement has been reached in the case of the bus strike in Winnipeg • .MR . SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. HON.

EDWARD SCHREYER (Premier) (Rossmere): Mr. Speaker, I have had no formal indicaticn to that effect as yet although that has been relayed to me. I would defer to my colleague the Minister of Labour if he has perhaps more definitive information. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Labour.

880 March 11, 1976 ORAL QUES TIONS HON. RUSSE LL PAUL LEY (Minister of Labour) (Transcona): If I may, Mr. Speaker, I beli eve that at long last there has been tentative agreement reached in the industrial dispute between the City of Winnipeg and the Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 1505, subject of course to ratification by City Council and the Union.

It is my understanding - and I'm sorry, Sir, that I haven't got the precise figures in front of me - it's my understanding that agreement has been reached, subject of course to ratification, or a 15-month contract which approximates 16 percent at the termination of the agreement. Honourable colleagues will rec all in statements that I made in the House and as a result of a mediator appointed by the governmen t, a suggestion of approximately 15 or 15! percent over a 12-month period. Since then negotiations have taken place today that indicate a tentative settlement of approximately 16 percent over 15 months.

I trust and hope, Mr. Speaker, that honourable members of the Legislature will not tie me, figuratively speaking, to the masthead if I hav en't got the precise figures before me. But this is the indication that I have at the present time. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. CRAIK: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister can indicate, does this go to the two parties involved within the next 24 hours . MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Labour. MR. PAULLEY: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

I don't know if I said it precisely, I indicated, too, it's my understanding it will go before the two parties tomorrow morning. And of course it is also my understanding that in accordance with the law of the land, a review to be made by the Anti-Inflation Board. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. CRAIK: Mr. Speaker, I direct a question to the Attorney-General.

I wonder if the Attorney-General can indicate what the gove rnment's position is in regard to the current gun control legislation that's being considered by the Federal Government, as to wh ether the Provinc ial Govern ment has a position they can state on thi s matter. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Attorney-General. HON. HOWARD PAWLEY (Attorney-General) (Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, that question was basically asked of me a couple of weeks ago in the House. There is no Provincial Government position as such.

I had indicated my concern in regard to the possible financing of gun lice nsing, gun owner licensing , that this might be a heavy cost that the provinc es might find themselves burdene d with. And I think also one has to scrutinize very ca refully the suggested effectiveness of that type of legislation. Outside of the licensing provis ions, that which relates to the care and control of guns and the liability that follows from the careless use or control of guns, I think are provisions that we would generally wish to support; that pertaining to licensing, I feel, requires much more careful study. MR. CRAIK: Mr.

Speaker, I wonde r if the Attorney-General could indicate whether a!'ter last night 's performance at the arena he might consider undertaking hockey stick registration in the Province of Manitoba. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. James. MR. GEORGE MINAKER (St. James): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister respons ible for MDC. I wonder if the Minister can confirm that MDC has extended additional loans to Saunders Aircraft. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Mines. HON. SIDNEY GREEN , Q. C. (M inister of Mines, Resources and Environme ntal Management) (Inkster): Mr.

Speaker, moneys have been adva nced to Saunde rs Aircraft I believe in the amount of $135, 000 in direct keepin g with what I announced would be neces sary for the Product Support Program and for the activities now being conducted. I have to tell the honourable member that as well the $7 million which I predicted or which I estimated would be nece ssary up to the end of 1975, that the last installment, the payments of the last accounts have not yet been made . That money will also be necess ary, and there is certain funds necessary to protect the existing assets until they are disposed of.

All of those moneys will have to continue to be advanc ed but I believe yesterday's installment was $135, 000. MR. MINAKER: I wonder if the Minister can confirm that any future expenses

March 11 , 1976 881 ORAL QUESTIONS (MR. MINAKER cont'd) ••..• incurred by Saunders Aircraft will be financed in this manner of demand notes from time to time. MR. GREEN: Mr. Speaker, it is likely that the assets will be financed through the Estimates of the Department of Public Works, which will be receiving the assets on the securities that we hold. The Product Support Program will become an estimate I believe of the Department of Mines and Resources to be advanced to the corporation. That changes the bookkeeping but it's still the same amount of money that will be necessary. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Birtle-Russell. MR. HARRY E. GRAHAM (Birtle-Russell): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Honourable Attorney-General. I'd like to ask the Attorney-General if he has completed his investigation into the unfortunate affair that took place in the arena last n"lght, evening? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Attorney-General. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the interest by the honourable member in this incident which did occur last night, and which I think, Mr.

Speaker, is certainly a departure from the usually fine brand of hockey in Manitoba to have now observed such a performance as that which did occur last night. The Winnipeg Police Department are presently investigating. They're in the process of taking statements from police officers that were at the game, from players for both teams, and I understand also will be attempting to ascertain whether or not the video tape of the game itself will assist them in their investigation.

When that is completed then they'll be presenting a report to the Senior Attorney from our department for his evaluation of the material to ascertain whether or not charges under the Criminal Code ought to be laid. I would think within either tomorrow or Monday we would likely have received the investigation from the Winnipeg Police Department. MR. GRAHAM: A supplementary question to the Attorney-General. Is his department also investigating the incidents that occurred a week ago in Selkirk and in Brandon? MR. PAWLEY: Mr.

Speaker, I have to acknowledge, although I'm a resident of Selkirk, until my eleven year old boy mentioned to me this morning there had been a tragic scene apparently in the game last weekend in Selkirk, I had not been aware of it. I would have to take your question as notice to ascertain whether or not there is any police investigation of games either in Selkirk or in Brandon. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Flin Flon. MR. THOMAS BARROW (Flin Fl on): I direct this question, Mr. Speaker, to the Attorney-General.

A cheque has been issued and has been lost or destroyed or stolen and payment has been stopped on the cheque. What's the time lapse between that and the issuing of another cheque, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The question's asking for a legal opinion. The Honourable Member for Minnedosa. MR. DA VID BLAKE (Minnedosa): Maybe I could answer that question for the Member for Flin Flon. My question, Mr. Speaker, is to the Minister of Renewable Resources and it relates to an

article in the Free Press of March 9th, related to $250,000 to equalize the cost of freighting of fish in Northern Manitoba, and I wondered if this amount would be provided by Order-in-Council, or if it's provided for in the Minister's Estimates. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Renewable Resources. HON. HARVEY BOSTROM (Minister of Renewable Resources) (Rupertsland): Mr.

Speaker, the amount mentioned in the paper is an estimated amount which was calculated to be half of the amount which would be required for a transportation subsidy for northern fish, to give the northern fishermen an opportunity to be in a similar position to other fishermen in a more southerly location and more accessible to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Plant in Winnipeg. There is as yet no agreement between the Federal Government and ourselves on the amount to be paid out. That is just an estimated amount, and at the time there is agreement there would be provision of funds made.

882 March 11 , 1976 ORAL QUESTIONS MR. BLAKE: So in effect there is no guarantee to the fishermen for this amount. Has this been approved by the Members of the Cabinet providing the agreement is reached? MR. BOSTROM: Mr. Speaker, thiG is a mandate that I have from Cabinet to negotiate with the Federal Government, that provided the Federal Government - and we have been in communication with the Minister of Indian Affairs, the Minister of Fisheries, and also the Department of Regional Economic Expansion - on this particular concept.

There as yet is no agreement, and until there is agreement made the money from the province is not forthcoming. MR. BLAKE: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. So if the Federal Government should not join in this program then, would the Provincial Government withdraw their offer or would they provide all the funds themselves? MR. SPEAKER: Hypothetical. The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MR. LLOYD AXWORTHY (Fort Rouge): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health and Social Development.

Can the Minister confirm whether officials of his department are presently notifying private social agencies in the province that upon any disolution of their operation, those agencies that receive grants must cede all their property to the Province of Manitoba? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Health. HON. LAURENT L. DESJARDINS (Minister of Health and Social Development) (St. Boniface): I doubt very much that the information, my friend, is factual, but I'll have to take that and try to get the answer tomorrow. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for River Heights. MR. SIDNEY SPIVAK, Q.

C. (River Heights): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister in charge of the Manitoba Housing Renewal Corporation. I wonder if he can indicate to the House whether the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation have assembled and own approximately 300 acres adjacen': to, or close to the C. N. site for its Piggyback development ? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Urban Affairs. HON. SAUL A. MIL LER (Minister for Urban Affairs) (Seven Oaks): Yes, I believe MHRC does own land in that vi cinity; whether it's 300 acres or what the size is, I don't know. MR. SPIVAK: Mr .

Speaker, I wonder if the Minister can indicate whether either all or part of the land has been optioned to the Canadian National Railway. MR. MILLER: No, I think a portion of it has been optioned to the C. N. R. some time ago. MR. SPIVAK: I wonder if the Minister's in a position to indicate the amount of acreage that's involved and the price that has been optioned on it. MR. MILLER: Obviously I don't have that information at hand. I'll try to get the information for the member. MR. SPIVAK: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the First Minister.

There appears to be discussion in the Federal House about the outlying of polls during an election period, and it would appear that that legislation --(Interjection)-- With all due respect, Sir, it is P-0-L-L-S. I wonder if the ML'li.ster could indicate whether ••• MR. SPEAKER: Order please. MR. SPIVAK: ••• whether the government is contemplating legislation with regard to restriction of opinion polls during the election period. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. MR. SCHREYER: Mr. Speaker, I'm glad that the Honourab le the Member for River Heights has clarified his question.

I'm sure he wruld be among the first to admit that a significant part of our population come from a 90-mile radius of a part of Poland. But seriously, Sir, with respect to the matter of public opinion polls I can only give him my personal opinion, that they are best ignored. Just because one doesn't agree with a given mode of exprecsion doesn't mean that one is seriously justified in considering abolition thereof. MR. SPIVAK: Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the First Minister. I

March 11, 1976 883 ORAL QUESTIONS (MR. SPNAK cont'd) ••••• wonder if he can indicate whether a Conflict of Intereet legislation will be introduced this session. MR. SCHREYER: Mr. Speaker, it is legislation which is prepared. It's as I indicated before when it was before this Assembly, it is legislation which is certainly desirable; it is subject to all kinds of input from the opposition. Honourable members we frankly do not regard it as a priority item this session. But if there is any welling up of desire to proceed with it, we would certainly want to take that un der consideration. MR. SPNAK: Mr.

Speaker, another question to the First Minister. I wonder if he can indicate whether the public financing of elections will be in troduced by way of legislation this session. MR. SCHREYER: Mr. Speaker, when it comes to a matter of public financing of elections, that's certainly a matter of substantive public policy and that would have to be announced in due course. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Lakeside. MR. HARRY J. ENNS (Lakeside): Mr. Speaker, I direct a question to the Honourable Minister responsible for the Manitob a Development Fund or Corporation.

It has to do with earlier questions asked with respect to th e action taken recently with Saunders. The word "mothballing" Wa3 used in the reports with respect to inventory. My question is: Are the facilities, are the facilities themselves, the buildings, in cluded in that mothball term or are they available for the government to begin some new initiatives hopefully in attracting industry or something? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Mines. MR. GREEN: Mr.

Speaker we are trying to govern ourselves in such a way that the presence of the materials at Saunders and inventory and supplies, etc. , will not hamper us from seeking new tenants, and that is being actively done. When the time comes that we find that we have prm::pective tenants and facilities being occupied by Sau._•Jders, it would probably have some effect on our decision as to how long we are going to hold these assets. But at the present time, we are not in the position of precluding other occupants because of the existence at that facility. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Lakeside. MR.

ENNS: Just for clarification, new initiatives are being undertaken I take it by the Department of Industry and Commerce. A direct question to the Honourable the Minister of Indus try and Commerce. Can he indicate to us at this time whether they are of a serious nature that we can talk about the possibility of new tenants at the Gimli base, and whether there is some hope for the people at Gimli in that respect? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Industry and Commerce. HON. LEONARD S. EVANS (Minister of Industry and Commerce) (Bran don East): Mr.

Speaker, I was asked a similar question a couple of weeks ago by the Honourable the Member from Gimli, and I indicated at that time there was one Manitoba company that had a serious interest and had indeed begun some work at Gimli at the Industrial Park, and if all went well this particular activity could expand so that there cculd be a type of business that could employ a fair number of people, but only time will tell how successful it will be, but there is something under way. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Roblin. MR. J. WALLY McKENZIE (Roblin): Mr.

Speaker, I have a question for the Honourable Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. I wonder if the Minister could advise the House if the principle of home delivery of wines has been approved by the Board of the Manitoba Liquor Commission. MR. SPEAKE R: The Honourable Minister of Tourism and Recreation. HON. RENE TOUPIN (Minister of Consumer, Corporate and CulturalAffairsj(Spring field): Well, Mr. Speaker, the bill that¥.ras introduced for first reading in thls House encompasses the principle announced by the honourable member; it was so recommended by the Liquor Control Commission. MR.

McKENZIE: Could the Minister advise the House if it has been approved by the Manitoba Hotelmen' s Association and the Restaurant Association?

884 March 11, 1976 ORAL QUESTIONS MR. TOUPIN: Mr. Speaker, we consulted to the best of our ability, the Hotel Association so recommended; I can't recall the Restaurant Association. MR. McKENZIE: I wonder can the Honourable Minister advise the House if the South African brands of wine that are stored in back rooms of liquor stores will be available for home delivery. MR. TOUPIN: Mr.

Speaker, I believe the bill which will be coming up for second reading is quite explicit in saying that this will allow the two wineries that we have in the province to deliver, not to deliver South African wines or any other imported wines. MR. McKENZIE: One more question, Mr. Speaker, to the Honourable Minister. The principle of wine deliveries will that be applied to the rural vendors as wen: MR. TOUPIN: Well again, Mr. Speaker, this is something that will be left up to the two wineries to decide for themselves. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Rock Lake MR. HENRY J. EINARSON . (Rock Lake): Mr.

Speaker, I direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Because of many requests for the report on the Commission of Inquiry on Red Meats, I wonder if the Minister could inform us whether his department could supply an additional nmnber of copies for people who have request ed them? HON. SAMUEL USKIW (Minister of Agriculture) (Lac du Bonnet): Mr. Speaker, we have I believe just about ••• Well I think in the next day or two we will have an adequate supply of those reports available for any group or individual. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Sturgeon Creek. MR. J. FRANK JOHNSTON (Sturgeon Creek): Mr.

Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Urban Affairs. I wonder if the Minister can inform the House if the government has just purchased 189 acres of land in East Selkirk to build a satellite city on? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Urban Affairs. MR. MILLER: Mr. Speaker, this is an old story; it is not a purchase there is an expropriation, proceedings have been started in that area, and that's where it's at today. MR. BOB BANMAN (La Verendrye): Thank you, Mr.

Speaker, I direct my question to the Minister of Public Works, and ask the Mi nister whether Sannders Aircraft will be paying any rent for the space it occupies in the Gimli Industrial Park this year? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Public Works. HON. RUSSELL DOERN (Minister of Public Works) (Elmwood): Mr. Speaker, in effect the Department of Public Works is now responsible for the contents of those hangars and is therefore in effect the owner and also is therefore paying the rent at this point in time. MR. BANMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, A two part question.

I wonder if the Minister could confirm that Saunders Aircraft paid $115,000 rent last year to the Public Works Department; and I wonder if he could inform the House whether this new arrangement will then mean a larger operating deficit to the Industrial Park? MR. DOERN: Mr. Speaker, the corporation paid rent to the government last year; it was the government paying rent from one pocket and putting it into another.

This year it is no longer going to pay the rent to Saunders, and Saunders wil l no longer pay it to the Public Works,so if you're asking whether Public Works will be losing by the discontinuance of making advances to Saunders, yes, and the government will be gaining. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Fort Garry. MR. L.R. (Bud) SHERMAN (Fort Garry): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Honourable the Attorney-General.

I would like to ask him whether beyond investigation of last night's incident, and similar incidents, whether the honourable gentleman is considering or planning on any further initiatives or consultations with his colleagues with a view to ensuring that repetitions of last nights fiasco at the Winnipeg Arena are unlikely to occur?

March 11, 1976 885 ORAL QUESTIONS MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Attorney-Gener al. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, in January at a meeting of Attorneys-General there was an agreement by, unanimous agreement by the Attorneys-General in Canada that we should individually, and together, co-operate to ensure that incidents where there were unprovoked malicious attacks, where there was violence on the ice, should be dealt with by the respective Attorneys-General. Recently in Manitoba I have circulated a letter to the police, to the Chief of the Winnipeg Police Department, Chief Norman Stewart, to the R. C. M.

P., and to the Crown Attorneys setting out the law as it's always been applied in Manitoba. Last spring we charged and convicted a player because of an incident involving assault occasioning bodily harm, so that there is no new pronouncement insofar as Manitoba is concerned; it has always been the practice here. It may not have been the practice in other parts of Canada, but we have always applied the law as same relates to violence in hockey.

The police force in this province had been so informed, and as I say the Attorneys-General have agreed together that the provisions of the code ought to be enforced insofar as violence in hockey. MR. SHERMAN: Mr.

Speaker, I thank the Attorney-General for his answer but I would like to ask him a supplementary, and inquire whether he would consider con sultations with the City of Winnipeg and with the Winnipeg Enterprises Corporation to determine whether there might not be some mechanics worked out whereby police might be permitted to intervene in situations such as occurred last night befor8 waiting on the decision of a third party or a third official. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, I don't really see what ought to be done beyond that which has been done through proper procedure.

The police had been clearly inform ed as to what the legal practice is in Manitoba; when charges ought to be laid as against players; the police, Chief of Police Norman Stewart, and others have circulated the various police departments. So that insofar as the law and the application of the law, I think it's clearly understood or ought to be clearly understood insofar as those reponsible for enforcing same.

Insofar as the leagues themselves, to which I think the primary area of responsibility must rest to ensure that last night's game does not become a pattern, I think that there is certainly need there on their part to ensure that there is no further repetition in this regard. I don't think that it's a responsibility of the Attorney-General to go beyond that which has been done so far.

I would like to just mention to the honourable member that the affirmation of existing practice in Manitoba was in fact presented only a couple of weeks ago to police departments throughout Manitiba so that it's presently very fresh in the minds of all the police forces in the province. MR . SHERMAN: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. But is it not correct - to the Attorney-General.

Sir - is it not correct that a stricture of some sort in the Winnipeg arena prevents the police from intervening in the kind of incident that occurred last night until they are given instruction, or given the green light so to speak from an official or from another party, and would it not be possible to ease that restriction to an extent that would permit them to head off that kind of trouble? MR . PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, I think if there was such a stricture and if the police felt it did interfere with responsibility on their part, that they would bring that to my attention.

Certainly there has been no such indication in that connection to date; possibly arising from this event there may be requests from the police in that connection. I'm not aware of any such restrictions. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for River Heights. MR. SPNAK: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister in charge of the Manitoba Housing Renewal Corporation. I wonder if he can indicate to the House whether he approved the option given to the Canadian National Railways in connection with the land held by the Manitoba Housing Renewal Corporation to be used by them for their piggyback facilities. MR .

SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister. MR . MILLER: Mr. Speaker, the member asked a question whether I approved. The corporation through its board, if that step was taken, would do it through the board itself, it wouldn't require approval by me.

886 March 11, 1976 ORAL QUESTIONS MR . SPIVAK: By way of a supplementary. I wonder if the Minister can indicate whether he was made aware of their intention before final approval was given. MR . MILLER: No, I can't recall specifically when I became aware of it. I know I am aware of it; I think it's a recent month really that I became aware of it. MR . SIEAKER: Orders of the Day. The Honourable Member for Girnli. MR . JOHN c. GOTTFRIED (Gimli): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Public Works. Could the Minister inform the Chamber to what extent the planned expansion of the C. N.

Training School will help to offset the 300 jobs lost at Sannders Aircraft? MR . DOERN: Well, Mr. Speaker, there was an announced $3 million expansion of the Training School and the facilities at Gimli. The plans are now being designed by an architect and we expect that construction will commence within the next six months. MR . SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for La Verendrye. MR . BANMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would ask leave of the House to make a non-political statement. MR. SPEAKER: Does the member have leave? The Honourable Member for La Verendrye. MR.

BANMAN: Last. night in the Town of Steinbach the Manitoba Eastern Hockey League All-Stars defeated the Bronze Medalists West German Olympic hockey team by a score of four to three. I believe the win by the Eastern All-Stars is indicative of the type of calibre of hockey player that we have produced in eastern Manitoba, and will continue to develop in the future. MR . SPEAKER: Member for Wolseley. problem? Orders of the Day; Orders for Return. The Honourable Order please. The Honourable Member for Ste. Rose have a MR. A.R. (Pete) ADAM (Ste. Rose): I wanted to ask a question. Yes I have a problem, Mr. Speaker. MR.

SPEAKER: Order please, I can't hear the honourable member. MR. ADAM: Yes, I do have a problem. I stood up to ask a question but if I'm too late, I'll just withhold. MR. SPEAKER: Well if the Assembly wishes to revert to the Question period we have another four minutes on it. The Honourable Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: I had a question for the Attorney-General relating to the violence that occurred last night at the arena, and I wanted to as k him if he has the authority under the Manitoba Statutes to put a padlock on the arena for a month or two months? MR . SPEAKER: Orders for Return.

The Honourable Member for Wolseley. ORDERS OF THE DAY - ORDERS FOR RETURN MR. ROBERT G. WI ISON (Wolseley): I would like to move, seconded by the Member for Charleswood • • • MR. SPEAKER: Order please. MR. WILSON: ••• that an Order of the House to issue a return showing: What is the cost of operating the Rentalsman's office; How many citizens, people, are employed in this branch; How many complaints did the office receive in 1975 only; and How many of these complaints were upheld by the Rentalsman's office in 1975? MOTION presented. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. HON.

IAN TURNBULL (Minister of Consumer, Corporate and Internal Services) (Osborne): Mr. Speaker, I can supply this information during the Estimates or by Order for Return. It certainly is acceptable. The vagueness of the wording though will mean that I will limit the answer in the Order for Return to 1975, if that's accept able to the member. MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. The Honourable House Leader.

March 11, 1976 887 ORDERS FOR RETURN MR. GREEN: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if you would now proceed to the Adjourned Debates on Second Reading in the order in which they appear on the .Order paper. GOVERNMENT BILIB - SE COND READINGS BILL NO. 4 -

AN ACT TO AMEND THE MENTAL HEALTH ACT MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. Bill No. 4, proposed by the Attorney-General. The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AXWORTHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to begin by saying that it is disappointing, to me at least, that the only amendments that are being made to the area of mental health are of such a relatively minor housekeeping nature. There has been, certainly in this province and I believe right across Canada, in the last few years a serious review of the whole operation of our mental health facilities and the right • • • MR. SPEAKER: Order please. MR.

AXWOR THY: ••• and'it would seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that the kind of initiative that was required to improve the performance of the Province of Manitoba in the area of mental health should have called upon a more extensive series of changes to the Mental Health Act, and therefore it is disappointing that we are only receiving those that refer specifically to the role of the Public Trustee. I recognize, Mr. Speaker, that the matter has been referred to the Manitoba Law Reform Commission, but I believe that it has had that matter in its jurisdiction now for well over two years.

And I do believe that the Law Reform Commission is a creature of the government; it's an agency of the government, presumably responsible to its set of priorities and its set of directions, and it would appear to me that too often we allow the Law Reform Commission to become an excuse for delay and we use it, I suppose, as governments in the past have used Royal Commissions, that if there is a matter that you don't want to deal with, it's too easy to refer it to the Law Reform Commission and let it sit there without any action.

I think that this i3 a matter in the area of mental health that has really gone on too long unattended, because there are too many very difficult problems dealing with the rights of patients that should have been looked at and should be in fact part of this bill. And I could only, if I might, Mr. Speaker, point to a few before I deal with the Public Trustee activity because I think there is a direct relation.

One is of course the rights of patients themselves when they are incarcerated in institutions, that there are really no adequate provisions to safeguard the right of patients to know what their rights are, particularly their right to refuse certain kinds of treatment such as the electrolic treatments that many of them are provided with, and as a result many of them are given treatment that they would have, at least the legal right, to object to; and there .•• to my mind, and from the sources I've talked to, adequate provisions to safeguard the requirement that those rights be protected.

So I think there is a whole area of change and reform that could have taken place in precisely setting down exactly what the prerogatives and privileges of mental patients were in our institutions, because I do thin k that it is an area that has gone on unattend ed and unobserved too long. Another point of the problem, Mr.

Speaker, is one that I've had direct experience with in my own constituency - an unfortunate one - and that is in many cases the problem of the application for incarceration or for treatment of mentally disturbed people, that there is real problems for example when a next-of-kin, or even lawyers of next-of-kin, seem to be unkindly disposed towards a patient of again protect ing the family or those close around them, and to ensure that there then is the action taken through Magistrate's Court to get at least a doctor's certificate requiring treat ment.

I know that this even goes beyond that where there is not a close family or kin, there is even more difficulty. And I ran into a case, Mr. Speaker, in this last year in my own riding where a particular person· who had very severe troubles and next-of-kin that were not in any way closely attached, and it was causing very severe

888 March 11, 1976 BILL4 (MR. AXWORTHY cont'd ) ••••• disruption in the surro unding neighborhood and community; and the police themselves will not intervene in those cases unless there is an actual form of criminal assault taking place. The police are very very reluctant to step in to provide any kind of protection unless they can either find a direct act that countervenes the Cr iminal Code or find a direct disturbance of the peace. Which of course it's very difficult to detect.

So as a result in this particular case, the protector of the community was really in danger for a long period of time because of the extreme difficulty in pro viding for a very orderly procedure by which this person could receive treatment. So those are two very serious issues, Mr. Speaker, and I find it, as I say, disappointing, perhaps disheartening, that when the paper was presented to us that it didn't include some of these provisions in it, because I felt that it's certai nly been long overdue .

As far as this particular bill itself is concerned, my assessment of it is that it mainly serves to strengthen the position and power of the Public Trustee in acting on behalf of patients. And while on first glance there doesn't seem to be anything really wrong with that - I guess the question I have is, why ? When there are other remedies available why is it that we are now requiring just a little bit more rigmaro le, so that in effect the Public Trustee acting on behalf of the Crown can be in court on every single case , and act in every single instance, it seems to me, Mr.

Speaker, in part just an unnecessary addition to the role the governm ent plays in these kinds of relatively delicate human relationships . I just really find it difficult to understand why it is of dire neces sity to so expand the powers of the Public Trustee in this area. Particularly, Mr.

Speaker, when the Board Ass ociation of this province proposed to the Attorney-General - I believe it was last year, he may correct that, but it's been within recent months - that they set up the concept of the power of, special enduring powers of attorney, which would mean, that is to say, the parti cular case of an older person who has moments of absentmindedness or of senility but they'r e generally clearminded, they can pass on the power of enduring attorney to a trusted counsel of the family, who would then be able to act in those periods on behalf of that person.

Under this bill it would seem that that kind of case would immediately be trans ferred under the jurisdiction of the Public Trustee. So once again we 'r e bringing govern ment into the role; we're giving it the powers to act; we 'r e setting up a lot more paper work, a lot more rigmarole, a lot more sort of machinery whirring and turning around, unnecessarily so. Because it would seem to me that in this area it would be proper to alluw, and continue to allow, in many cases private attorneys or next-of-kin, the right of appointing special attorneys to act in such cases. So, Mr.

Speaker, that while the comments I have are not sufficient to compel me to vote against the bill, it just seems to me one more example of that kind of incremental growth of a little bit more government structure that probably is unnecessa ry, because I suppose if the Public Trustee gets these powers to intervene in every single case, he 's going to have to get a couple of people to help him, and a couple of secretaries to type up the letters , and he 's going to start appearing in court , and I suppose it will, you know, not add a big item to the budget but it would be some more money along the way that we 'll all pass very blithely without really questioning.

But it 's those incremental changes, those little bits and pieces of tacking on added power s, added duties, added responsibilities , added requirements to intervene , which simply continually adds to a ever-broadening base of government administration, management and enforcement . So in those areas where the government should be acting, where you need more intervention is oftentime prevented because we'v e had so much unnecessary baggage.

It makes it much more difficult for government to do the things they really should do well, and they've got the resources and the rights to do so, then we're spending so much time kind of frittering away on relatively small incidental activities , but when you add them up in aggregate they come fairly large and they become very expensive. And so, Mr.

Speaker, I guess simply what I am pleading for is some further explanation from the Attorn ey-General as to why it is really necessa ry, why do we really have to add to the work and position and activity of the Public Trustee, when it would seem to me so much of what is being provided in this bill could be provided through

March 11, 1976 BILL 4 (MR. AXWORTHY cont'd) ••••. the power of attorney or under special enduring powers as requested by the Bar Association of the Province of Manitoba. 889 In fact, Mr. Speaker, just by way of information, I know that the Province of British Columbia took a look at the-proposals coming out of the Manitoba Bar, thought that they made so much sense that they incorporated them in British Columbia.

So we have a strange anomaly that the British Columbia Government, which at that time was still of the same persuasion as our own, thought it was such a good idea they adopted the Manitoba request, in Manitoba we go ;1gainst it, and I think it would be important for the Attorney-General to at least explain why he chose this particular route in dealing with the matter of trusteeship rather than those that were recommended by the Manitoba Bar Association. So Mr. Speaker, those are the comments that we make on the specific intent of this bill.

But I would just like to recap and say that I really feel that if the Attorney General was going to take the initiative and provice for corrections and alterations in the bill, then I think he could have gone much further and dealt with much more serious problems in the area of mental health than this bill encompasses. QUESTION put, MOTION carried. BILL NO. 6-

AN ACT '::'OAMENDTHE COMMUNITIESECONOMICDEVELOPMENTFUNDACT MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 6, proposed by the Honourable Minister of Mines. The Honourable Member for Morris. MR. WARNER H. JORGENSON (Morris): Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Mines introduced this bill for second reading, he stated that - I say that with all the optimism in the world - what he said with all the optimism in the world was that the bill was one of an administrative nature with no hooks or claws in it, and that to the best of his knowledge it was a bill that was simply designed to do something that appeared to him to be straightforward.

I am not going to quarrel with that assessment. If that was the Minister's assessment, I take his word for it. And then he went on to say, ''I don't know whether members of the opposition will be able to point to sections of the Act which they feel are more substantive." Well I looked upon that, Mr. Speaker, as an invitation to examine the bill in greater detail, and I would like to comment further to what the Member for St. James pointed out in his observations yesterday. At the conclusion of the Minister's remarks he had this to s.ay: "Now these are the essential changes. There are some additional changes, Mr .

Speaker, which I believe are purely administrative. If indeed there is anything in the Act which members of the Opposition suggest constitute greater changes in principle, I'd be indebted to them if they would point them out. " Well, Sir, I am going to take the Minister at his word and since I am being paid as a Member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to be suspicious., I would like to voice a few suspicions that I have with regard to the content of this particular bill.

And I use, Sir, as a basis for that assessment, a document that the government produced a few years ago called the guidelines for the Seventies - and, Sir, I want to make it very clear that what I'm going to be quoting from is not the refined version but the unexpur gated version which I have found in the light of experience with this government contains a great deal more truthfulness than the version that was subsequently released to the public.

I start, Sir, by drawing your attention to a paragraph that appeared on Page 2 of the original draft, and it goes on to say this: "A publicly owned financial inter mediary would provide competition to the centrally controlled chartered banks and financial institutions. " And then in parentheses it says, "particularly in areas of commercial loans, and would help stem the flight of funds out of the province.

" That, Sir, was an observation that I suppose many of us took with a grain of salt until we discovered that this original version of the Guidelines contained a blueprint for the government, and that blueprint is being followed by the introduction on a piecemeal basis,

890 March 11, 197 6 BILL 6 (MR. JORGENSON cont'd) • • • • • items of legislation that fit in very well with that original concept. Now in order to fulfill that observation about a publicly owned financial inter mediary the government did introduce the bill, and did set up indeed the treasury branches which are designed to fulfill that particular function. --(Interjection)-- Well, the Minister says I wish they had.

All I can say to him that he should contain his soul in patience, because those who are responsible for the administration - and perhaps even the Minister doesn't know who they are - are carrying out that fumtion methodically and consistently and deliberately. Then the guideline goes on to say, "That they are going to set up what they call a Manitoba Crown Holding corporation. " I don't quite find the equivalent to that being introduced yet, but we are waiting in eager anticipation unless this is it, and that could possibly be.

It goes on to say, "That the province could increase its entrepreneural role through Crown corporations in joint ventures with the private sector." Sir, this govern ment working in conjunction with the private sector is an event that we have to anticipate. If past experience is any guide, there will be very little participation by the private sector. But then it goes on to say, "Tha t government production could bring considerable benefits to the consumer in the form of lower prices." And, Sir, we have had many examples of how that has happened.

We've had Saunders Aircraft; now has been thrown out --(Interjection)-- And my honourable friend over here says, Autopac. Yes, and I want to name that as another one af those Crown corporations that has provided great benefits to the people of this province at the expense of the taxpayer. And of course there's Flyer Coach Industries, another example of a hard working, efficient, money making Crown corporation. In 1974 Flyer Industries sold $5 million worth of buses and it cost them $14 million to produce those $5 million worth of buses.

And I tell you that is a record that is unlikely to be duplicated by any private corporation. That, Sir, is performance. You know, Sir, it reminds me of a little ditty that I ran across the other day, government intervention in business and government intervention in the economy. I think this explains pretty clearly what we can expect when governments become involved. It's called, "Tom Smith and His Incredible Bread Machine." "This is a legend of success and plunder, and a man, Tom Smith, who squelched world hunger.

Now Smith an inventor had specialized in toys, so people were surprised when they found that, instead of making toys was baking bread. The way to bake bread he'd conceived, cost less than people could believe, and not just make it, this device, could in addition wrap and slice. The price per loaf, one loaf. or many, the minuscule sum of under a penny. Can you imagine what this meant; can you comprehend the consequence, the first time yet the world well fed, all because of Tom Smith's bread. A citation from the President for Smith's amazing bread, this and other honours too were heaped upon his head.

But isn't it a wondrous thing, how quickly fame has flown, Smith the hero of today, tomorrow scarcely known. Yes, the fickle years passed by, Smith was a millionaire, but Smith himself was now forgot, though bread was everywhere. People asked from where it came, would very seldom know, they would simply eat and ask, was not it always so? However, Smith cared not a bit for millions ate his bread, and everything is fine thought he, i am rich and they are fed.

Everything is fine he thought, he reckoned not with fate; note the sequence of events, starting on the date on which the business tax went up, and then to a slight extent the pi:ice of every loaf rose too, up to one full cent. What's going on, the public cried, he's guilty of pure plunder; he has no right to get so rich on other people's hunger. A prize cartoon depicted Smith with fat and drooping jowls, snatching bread from

March 11, 1976 BILL 6 (MR. JORGENSON cont'd) •.•.• hungry babes, indifferent to their howls. Well since the public does come first, it could not be denied, that in matters such as this, the public must decide.

So anti-trust now took a hand, of course it was appalled, at what it found was going on, the bread thrust it was called. 891 Now this is getting serious, so Smith felt that he must, have friendly interviews with men in anti-trust, so hat in hand he went to them, they'd surely been misled, no rule of law he had defied, but then their lawyer said, the rule of law in complex times has proved itself efficient, we much prefer the rule of man, it's vastly more efficient.

Now let us state the present rules, the lawyer then went on, these very simple guidelines you can rely upon, you're gouging on your prices if you charge more than the rest, but it's unfair competition if you think you can charge less. A second point that we would make to help avoid confusion, don't try to charge the same amount, that would be collusion. You must compete, but not too much, for if you do you see, then the market would be yours, and that's monopoly. Priced too high, or priced too low, now which charge did they make? Well they weren't loath of charging both, with public good at stake.

In fact they went one better, they charged monopoly, no muss, no fuss, oh woe is us, egad they charged all three. Five years in jail, the judge then said, you're lucky it's not worse, robcer barons must be taught that society comes first. Now bread is baked by government, and as might be expected, everything is well controlled, the public well protected. True loaves cost a dollar each, but our leaders do their best, the selling price is half a cent, and taxes pay the rest.

" And, Sir, you know that demonstrates, that along with th e experience that we have had with Flyer Coach Industries, is a pretty good example of the efficiency of government in business. Now then the guideline goes on to point this out, "Local development corporation could seek financing from the participating municipalities, from the MD C, and from private co-operative financial institutions. The province would probably be required to provide a measure of financial support." And then it says in parenthesis, "Communities Economic Development Fund".

And here's where the Communities Economic Development Fund comes in, "It would also have to provide a variety of support service as local Crown corporations would need access to technical and managerial assistance that the province may be able to give. A local development vehicle of this nature would )lelp make the stay option viable, and would have distinct advantages of participation as well as integration of manpower programs with industrial planning. " Sir, what we see in that particular section, which was sighted by the Member for St.

James yesterday, was the intention of the government to follow precisely the kind of planning that is contained in the Guidelines for the Seventies, and one can see the government, and although the Minister claimed ignorance of what really was contained in the bill, I have a sneaking suspicion, Sir, that the Minister knew precisely what was in that bill, and he was trying to put us on by suggesting that nothing in there could scare anybody.

Well by itself, Sir, that might sound very innocent, but we on this side of the House have, since we have their Mein Kampf before us in the form of the Guidelines for the Seventies, whenever we have any doubts about what the particular direction and intention of this government is, we can always refer to the Guidelines, and we can always see where any particular piece of legislation fits into their plaus. We have the same thing with the insurance companies, this is also contained in the 3uidelines.

And there is some reference to Crocus Foods, it says here, "If Lever Brothers, Columbia Broadcasting System, and Beatrice Foods can all recognize a profit potential of selected Canadian firms , then surely a Manitoba Crown holding corporation can do likewise and provide alternative take-over bids. For the MCHC to take over such enterprises or to engage in joint ownership would ensure that the profits remain in the province."

892 March 11, 197 6 BILL 6 (MR. JORGENSON cont'd) . • • • • Well you lmow with the experience of Autopac, we lmow now that surely all of the profits are remaining in the province; the $19 million deficit is not going to be exported, and of that we have their assurance, and accrue to the public sector, and that production, jobs, and decision-making are not transferred abroad. Sir, these are noble theoretical thoughts on paper and in the eyes of honourable gentlemen opposite, at least some of the honourable gentlemen opposite, that sounds like the Utopian paradise that they are dreaming of.

And, Sir, that's precisely what it is, nothing more than a dream, because everyone of the ven tures that they have become involved in, in order to further the objectives contained in the Guidelines for the Seventies, have fallen flat on their face, every one of them, starting with Saunders Aircraft and winding up with now more recently with Crocus; because the Dairy Associations, at least the Manitoba Dairy and Poultry and Co-op have indicated that they don't want any part of a venture that at the outset is admitted will lose money because if the optimistic prognostications so far as Flyer .. and Saunders and Autopac are any indication of how much money these ventures will make, then when the Minister suggests that a venture that they are going to become involved in is going to start losing money, then heaven help the taxpayers of this province because we lmow to what extent that loss will be multiplied.

Then he goes on to say, "That the MCHC need not restrict its takeover activities to Manitoba firms ; it might also buy out profitable Canadian concerns, located in other provinces that were threatening to sell out. " And so it goes on, and of course part of that whole operation is the Manitoba Export Trading Corporation. That is dealt with in the Guidelines as well. The purpose of the Trading Corporation was to provide trading expertise and marketing expertise in other countries.

Well we do not have a report as yet from the Minister of Industry and Commerce to give us an idea of how much that is costing the taxpayers of this province, but if experience with Flyer Coach Industries is any example, then it's no wonder that the budgets are moving upwards over a billion dollars, and why the debt in this province on current accounts is something like a billion dollars, and the capital debt is something like a billion point eight. These ventures have all indicated to us , Sir, that government involvement in business of any kind is doomed to disaster.

On the basis of the provision in this particular bill it seems that the planners and the thinkers are not deterred by these losses since they don't have to pick them up, they are picked up by the taxpayer, and they are going to go full speed ahead in attempting to bring more and more of the economy of this province under the control of the government, under the misman;!gement of government, at a cost that is going to be very dear to the taxpayers of this province, not only in terms of dollars that will be spent, but in terms of the freedom which they will lose.

Sir, perhaps the Minister will forgive me if I draw these points to his attention. After all he did invite them when he introduced his legislation, and I thought that I should help him in that respect to point out to him what we feel are some serious weak nesses in the planning of this government, and I hope that when the Minister responds he will be able to give us so me assurance that, well in the words of the song, "Say it isn't so. " MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Mines shall be closing debate. MR. GREEN: Yes. Well, Mr.

Speaker, I hope that when I am finished with this bill that I will have occasion to ask my honourable friend's forgiveness for some of the things that I may have to say concerning things. It seems , Mr. Speaker, that my bills are given a special scrutiny, that there must be something sinister in this innocent bill otherwise it wouldn't be introduced by the Minister of Industry.

I had occasion to say in the House before that once when I was in opposition I moved a resolution suggesting that the provinces get together to try to have a solid front in negotiating with mining companies, and the Member for Rock Lake got up and said that this is Communism because anything that was coming from the Member for Inkster , as I then was, must be Communism. I responded by I

March 11, 1976 893 BILL 6 (MR. GREEN cont'd) • • • • saying that if I moved that the House rise and go and have a picnic in Assiniboine Park, they would say this is a Bolshevik Insurrection. So I am getting somewhat that kind of response with respect to what I thought was a very innocent bill, and I tell the honourable members that I sincerely thoughti t was innocent, and I didn't think that it was nearly as good as has been painted by the Member for St. James or the Member for Morris. I was told that

Section 10 as it now reads restricts the Fund from lending money to a Community Development Corporation, and that in order to make it av ailable to a Community Development Corporation we should remove the restrictions , because the

section now says that the Fund can do anything virtually, and then without restricting the generality of the foregoing, it can do things except to Community Development Corpora tion . This has been viewed by honourable members as being an intrusion - I'm reading

Section 10 of the existing Act and now

Section 10 of the new Act, which leaves out that restriction. Well in any event, Mr. Speaker, the honourable member says that this bill enables the government to get into corporations, to run corporations by themselves, and that this is a new sort of means of doing it. Well, Mr. Speaker, the honourable members know that I introduce less legislation probably than any other Minister because I believe that if you can do some thing without legislation, you should not bring in legislation.

You should not bring in declaratory legislation or enabling legislation, because generally if you bring in legislation you have more restrictions because you are restricted by the words of the legislation; therefore if you can do something without legislation, you don't bring in legislation. My honourable friends really offend my sense of what is prudent by suggesting that this legislatLm gives the government the opportunity to start a corporation. Do they not feel that the government now has the opportunity to start corporations.

They can start corporations under the Manitoba Development Corporation Act, and have started them; they can start corporations under the Act which we brought in, which was again the introduction of Bolshevism to Manitoba, where we have the Moose Lake Loggers Corporation, the Minago Corporation, and Manitoba Development Corporation, which was enacted by the Conservative administration for the purpose of enabling the government to direct the corporation to start businesses.

By the way, that's where they started; that's where the biggest business that is run by the province, the one in which we have put in the most money and the one which has still the greatest loss record, started under the Conservative administration by virtue of the Manitoba Development Corporation . So if the honourable members feel that this legislation does something new, then I want to indicate to them that the powers that they say are now being sought we have already, and therefore this particular change was merely to remove some of the restrictions in

Section No. 10. I'd probably be better off eliminating it entirely, Mr. Speaker, but I cannot be the draftsman for every piece of legislation that the government enacts. So the remarks that are being made, you know, they're rather unusual.

The Member for Morris in an address which could have a great deal of substance to it, the Member for Morris says that the government has been a total failure in business, and it's small consolation to me that I can point to other Conservative and Liberal govern ments of the country that have been greater failures, because that doesn 't , in my opinion, help our position at all. But I think the Member for Morris was taking a good point, he just oversells the point. There isn't a single instance, I think he has said, in which the government involvem ent has proved to have been a good thing. Well, Mr.

Speaker, the Morden Fine Foods oper�.tion has proved to be a good thing and the Member for Pembina would just raise hell and fury if we tried to do anything to upset what is happening in Morden or to not give it additional capital for expansion which he was asking for last year. The Tanta lum Mining operation is a very fine operation.

It is one in which the government will have played an important role in conjunction with private enterprise, and some people are a little wary of the private enterprise that we are involved with but they're not making any comments which would question the prudence of the Government of Manitoba having invested a million five in that company and in effect saved that

894 March 11, 197 6 BILL 6 (MR. GREEN cont'd) • • • • • company from going under. The same with Versatile Manufacturing, Mr. Speaker. You lmow I read in the editorial page of the Winnipeg Tribune where Harry Marsdon said that Versatile almost got into the clutches of the MDC but got its money elsewhere. That is not true. Versa tile was saved by the MDC. It got its money from the MDC.

It didn't draw on it but it had a covenant from the MDC which it then took to private enterprise, which wouldn't have advanced money to Versa tile had it not had the covenant of the Province of Manitoba, and that saved Versatile Manufacturing. But Mr. Speaker, we're going to get into that debate, I'm sure, at other times in the House. And I lmow that the Member for Morris has chosen this bill on which to raise this issue. I'm going to deal with some of the things he said in a moment, but I want to go back to the Member for st. James who did have certain observations to make which deserve response.

He said there is a danger that we are creating another bureauc racy. I assure the honourable member that the two bureaucracies now exist, that I am not creating a new bureaucracy. I am merely putting into statutory form the two bureauc racies that presently exist. The fund has its own board, it has its own manager, it has its own staff, it has its own investigation officers. And I think it is unfair for the board of the Manitoba Development Corporation to continue to sort of be in some way responsible, or the umbrella under which this fund acts, when it really doesn't have any control over its activity.

Therefore the Manitoba Development Corporation shouldn't deal, the members of that board shouldn't deal with what's going on at the Communities Economic Development Fund. But if he is asking whether this is the creation of another bureaucracy, this is not the creation of another bureaucracy. The loan officers , the men that he is talking about are already in the field and if he says that we have more men and less money advanced than in previous years, Mr. Speaker, I can't feel unhappy about that.

I think that there is more money out as an accumulation of things and that the biggest role is now in trying to give assistance and management help, supervision and monitoring of the funds that are now out, and I think that the Auditor has asked us to have more money. Some of the men in the field, some of the questions that have been raised in the House, legitimate questions, have caused us to have more men in the field and the amount of money that we have out is not a serious problem in that respect. So I asked, it's true - the member said I invited observations, I got them.

That's kind of a maxim, if one invites an observation, he is liable to get one. So the honourable member says I invited observations, I have got them. I wish that the

section that they're referring to had the tremendous potential that they are suggesting that it has, but I assure the honourable member that it doesn't materially change what can happen at the present time with respect to operating a com pany. In some cases, Mr. Speaker, we would be well advised to operate a company than to try to get it operated privately.

One of the most critical loans, of which there was the most criticism , and I've never expressed a judgment on that loan as to its merits because that's something we have left to the Board of Directors • • • But where the fund is advancing all the moneys it is perhaps better that they own the corporation and give the entrepreneurial incentive by saying that people will be able to assume management positions, they will be able to have share options to ultimately buy the company with success rather than just making them owners of the company which is what can happen if you only make a loan.

And if that greater flexibility is there by virtue of this section, that's fine. With regard to the question that the honourable member raised about the by-law and the resolution, I believe that the Board now has a by-law which says that they are able to vary their loans from person to person, the by-law says that. And they are now asking that that practice be formalized in the Act in a resolution, and that is the reason for that particular section. So I hope that I'v e answered all the questions that the Mem ber for St. James had raised, in particular his position vis-a-vis the administration.

I think that he will find both with regard to the MDC and with regard to this Act that we are trying to contain the bureaucracy. Now, Mr. Speaker, both the Member for Morris and the Member for Lakeside

March 11 , 1976 895 BILL 6 (MR. GREEN cont'd) • • . • • have adopted rather interesting approaches with regard to debating government positions, and the Member for Morris has decided to make an issue on this particular bill. You know, the Member for Morris has in the past and I believe he thinks that he has got a good thing; he's got that draft guideline which he calls the unexpurgated - is that the right word ? Yes, the unabridged version - that's easier - of the Guidelines for the Seventies .

Here is the real document, the other document is really mer ely a facade, and he has repeated this on numerous occas ions in the House. The Member for Lakeside, his debates now are based on resol utions that were pres ented to a New Democra tic Party convention. You know this really , Mr. Speaker, demonstrates the weakness of their position, because if they cannot argue against the government position they can argue against some thing that somebody once said which they hope that they can attribute to the government.

And this document keeps coming out and I'm going to give my honourable friend notice, if he doesn't already have it, that every time he wants to use a draft document as being the policy of the Government of Manitoba, and every time the Member for Lakeside wants to use resol utions which were presented - despite the fact that they were over whelm ingly defeated - as constituting the policy of the New Democra tic Party, because if they can't attack the real policy they should at least have the opportunity to make a debate on what is a non-existent policy, then I'm going to repeat , Mr.

Speaker , what was the policy of the previous administration. Not by a draft document, not by a resol ution that was forwarded to a convention, but by a study which was paid for by the people of the Province of Manitoba, involving an expenditure of some $300, 000 which became, Mr. Speaker, the policy of the government which was adopted as their style of appr oach and which is contained in Manitoba Trea sury Board Project Working Papers , Project II, Financial Management and Plans Program budget. Now, Mr.

Speaker, this isn't the draft document, this is statement, the result of the work in which the Province of Manitoba spent $300 to get a policy for the Government of Manitoba and its people --( Interjection)- -$300 ,0 00, Right. Suggested approach , Mr. Speaker . This is not a draft document, this is the abridged version, this is the final version. "In Manitoba the government seeks election" - and this is not a Progress ive Conservative statement, this is a Government of Manitoba statement; not a party state ment; not a resol ution at conventions, but a government statement.

"In Manitoba the government seeks election in 57 constituencies ." - that's almost like Heinz variety - the purest Member for Wolseley who likes to talk about the terrible things governments do - "In some of these a government finds greater difficulty in obtaining a plurality than in others ." Well they were sure right about that, Mr. Speaker. "In a purely political sense, theref ore, some constituencies have greater impact on the government's overall ability to maintain itself than others .

We suggest a weighting of constituencies according to their stress to the overall security of the government from least to greatest impor tance as follo ws: Solid opposition; sea ts tradi tionally held by the opposition where voting patterns are stable and there is little chance that government action could shift the balan ce. Solid government: sea ts traditionally held by the government and where voting patterns are stable and predictab le . Volatile opposition: sea ts held by the opposition where changing population patterns, age groupings or other fact ors make predictions of voting patterns diffi cult.

Volatile government: seats held by the government where changing population patterns, age groups or other factors make predictions of voting patterns diff icult. " Now, Mr. Speaker, this isn't a statement made in the heat of an election campaign with regard to, let us sa y, malicious MLAs . This is a government document finan ced by the people of the Province of Manitoba. "Mar ginal opposition: seats held by the opposition but with a slim margin and with some stability of voting pattern. Marginal government: sea ts held by the govern ment but with a slim margin and with some stability in voting pattern.

"Each of the some 300 programs of the government has a different impact on the political sc ene in each riding. In some areas , for example, hospital ser vices to Indians are of political significan ce ." It is of political significance that there be hospital

89 6 March 11, 1976 BILL 6 (MR. GREEN cont'd) . • • • • services to Indians. That's something that should be taken into account. "In another riding, vocational basic training for skill development meets a greater felt need and is more powerful in eliciting political response than the hospital program for Indians. "Indeed programs that are vote getters in some ridings may have a depress ing effect on the electorate in other ridings .

A systematic comparis on of each program against each riding yields information which focuses attention on those programs which are most important to the political security of the government. This appraisal, unlike the analysis in the Planning and Priorities Committee which deals with long-range needs aims at the short-run. It considers the impact of programs in the context of the short range political situation. It's prime horizon extends to the next general election and to the extent that that program 's effort cannot shift or cannot appear to shift that rapidly to the election following.

"The pro cess, we suggest, is similar to the one followed by all political parties, but we have extended it in thre e direct ions. Firstly, we have forced the process ing to a systematic fram ework which deals with all programs in all ridings simultaneously. Secondly, we have based the political analysis on the inventory of government program s, so that the expenditure items considered are concrete and easy to manipulate and are descr ibed in the same terms that administrative decisions are taken. Thirdly, we have built the political analysis into the formal pro cess of cabinet priority review. " Mr.

Speaker, it's only a few paragraphs longer and I think that all of it should go on record. "Through this proc ess each of the government 's programs will be examined separately against each constituency separately. For each pair of constituency and pro gram the following values to be assigned: Minus one, where a program effort has a negative effect on the political scene. Zero, where program effort has a negligible effect; (1) where program effort has a favourable impact and (2) where program effort is exceptionally important .

Multiplication of the value assigned to the program riding assessment by the value for the riding itself yields a number giving some indication of political importance. The summation of thes e values for each program are over all ridings in the province use an aggrega te index of political priority. It is probably that only a relatively small number of prog rams are highly important from a political sensi tivity point of view. The implications for cabinet are obvious, the programs having a high sensitivity index must recei ve first attention in allocating funds.

This is essential for the political security of the government." Mr. Speaker, this document was part of the Manitoba Treasury Board P;roject Working Paper which ultimately came forward in the - I forget the name of the program - which set up the Planning and Priorities Committee and Management Committee of the previous Conservative administration in 19 67. It was prior to the election of the present government . Mr. Speaker, I am citing this document only to indicate that the type of material that my honourable friends rely on to make their debating points are far less significant than this document.

The Honourable Member for Morris will persist in using a draft statement which he calls the unabridged prelude to the guidelines. I can tell the honour able member that there are numerous , far more damaging - because I don't consider that particular one that grossly damaging - but there is an abundance of material of this kind. The Member for Riel used a memo from a teacher to a committee that was operating under the aegis of the Department of Education to make his thrus t against the government . The Member for Morris continues to use what he calls the unabridged version of the Guidelines.

The Member for Lakeside, he uses resolutions that were presented to a convention which went down by virtually 600 to 3. --(Interj ection)--I'm sorry ? Mr. Speaker, I really did not • • • MR. SPEAKER: It was out of order to begin with. The Honourable Member for Sturgeon Creek have a question? MR. F. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister is , did not the

March 11, 1976 897 BILL 6 (MR. F. JOHNSTON cont'd ) •.••• NDP use the White Paper of the Minister of Educ a tion at the time, and it was just a White Paper ? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Mines. MR. GREEN: Mr. Speaker, I was in the election campaign of 196 9. I don't remember what paper the honourable member is referring to. I could tell my colleague, the Member for Seven Oaks, wh o's very interested in education, I can't remember the White Paper you are referring to. If it was a White Paper , you lmow, that's somewhat different. The White Paper would constitute a policy document.

It's like the White Paper that we published on Unicity. I think a White Paper is surely a legitimate document for debate even though I don't remember using a White Paper. But surely a White Paper is put forward as a document for debate .

But the members on the opposition side - and you lmow it really should give us some satisfaction - if they have to go to the resolutions that were presented to the con ven tion; if they have to go to background documents prepared towards the Guidelines for the Seven ties and really can't challenge the Guidelines themselv es ; if they have to go to memos that were written by a teacher who was sitting on a committee that was formed by the government to make their case, then it appears that they don't have a very strong case to make against public government policy.

And if the Honourable Member for Morris says that he can recognize the invisible sinister hand of the - well, I suppose I can use his term of radical elements on the Planning and Priorities Committee--(Interje ction)-- MR. SPEAKER: Order please. MR. GREEN: He is referring to Mark Elliotson. Mr. Speaker, the fact is that --(Interjection) --Yes, I was going to say that we have sort af displaced certain of our differences for the entertainment of the honourable members opposite and I suppose others . I'm not going to go into the differences that I have with the civil servants .

All I can tell the honourable member is that he will have to do one of two things.

He will have to try to attack the government policy as he sees it in the expressions of govermnent policy by the members of the government or the legisla tion - or if he would prefer to engage in debates which are completely irrelevant and which have no consequence, then he can do what the Member for Lakeside did, he can attack the resolutions that were-presented to convention or he can attack a memo that he found expressing an opinion of some admin istrative person within the government as representing a desire to do things which no one dreams of. When we look at the bill itself --(Interjection) --Right.

I gather that •.. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. MR. GREEN: . • • the item in the bill, Mr. Speaker, that the member is refer ring to is an item which permits the Communities Ec onomic Develo pment Fund to operate a business. I believe that that

section is merely to remove a restriction; that it is not vital to the government trying to operate a business; that they don't have to - if I can use my honourable friend's, one of the complementary, I think, phrases that he made about me - we don't have to back in, we can walk right in the front door , and therefore we don't need this type of section. I hope - well I suppose, Mr. Speaker, that we're going to continue to throw these documents back and forth at each other.

There has been a certain amount of repetition of this procedure in the past, and I suppose there will be a ce rtain amount of repetition in the future, because I gather each side figures they've got a good thing and if it's going to be used it will be used. I want to do what my honourable friend did, I say that I hope the honourable member will forgive me if I try to make light of the attack that he has made against the govermnent . I do think that there has been on the whole constructive suggestions with regard to this bill.

In spite of what has been said by my honourable friend, I don't think it is nearly as dangerous as they would suggest that it is. Leader. QUESTI ON put, MOTION carried. MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 10, The Honourable Member for Rock Lake. MR. EINARSON: May I have this matter stand, please Mr. Speaker ? MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 18. The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. Bill No. 19 . The Honourable Member for St. Matthews . The Honourable House

89 8 March 11, 1976 MR . GREEN: Mr. Speaker, I move , seconded by the Honourable the Minister for Urban Affairs , that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty. MOTION presented and carried and the House resolved itself into a Committee of Supply with the Honourable Member for Logan in the Chair . COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY - URBAN AFF AIRS MR . CHAIRMAN: I refer honourable members to Page 58, Resolution 112(b). The Honourable Member for Wolseley. The honourable member has twenty-four minutes. MR . WILSON: Mr.

Speaker , I'd like to lead off where I left off yesterday and reca p that - if you remember, and the members on the opposite side, I wanted the government under the Minister of Urban Affairs to get on with the building of the elderly citizen complexes like we are doing in Ontario. I felt yesterday that I was emphasizing what I considered was the politicizing of these elderly citizen structures; and the fact that both the members opposite and the media have not recognized the federal dollars which these program s are linked to.

And it just seemed to me that I was emphasizing yesterday that they would be found out sooner or later, and that these delays in con struction would not be appreciated by those very people that they are hoping to convince that they are responsible for building. The Member for Winnipeg Centre acknowledged in his own words the great machine that he had in Wirmipeg Centre . He called it another machine , but I'l l skip that .

And I was going to deal besides, 444 Kennedy with 185 Smith Street, which I thought was another example of where it was suggested to me that memberships were given out gratis during the opening ceremonies and shol.tly thereafter, and would they like one from these wonderful people who built this block. It didn't seem to me that not one story had come out about this attempted pressure by the NDP because if these people really wanted an economy that they will allow that many more of these structures would be built.

You know, before this great campaign, the NDP campaign, to supply more of these structure s, anybody with a commonsense thinking would realize that only a viable economy would give them a better standard of living and a better life for those that follow and those that follow in future years by greater numbers of these structure s. The only credit forthcoming to the government is that they took the federal funds and they chose the sites, and by the Minister's own admission in last year's Hansard the First Minister and him took Mr.

Danson to dinner and were able to get a million and some odd extra dollars from this exercise, showing that they really need the federal money. They're not prepared to put the provincial funds that they waste on some of the programs they have to use in building this much needed acceleration of elderly citizen's housing. What I am saying is, that you're tying in the amount of construction with the amount of federal dollars they get. It seems that the members opposite are so confident, they are so confident that they have dubed our elderly citizens, that I even said they'll build one in Wolseley.

In my election material I promised that I would fight for one because I know the NDP will figure these people will say, we're so grat eful to you for building one. But name one Conservative province that is not doing equally the same as you gentlemen opposite and accelerating the efforts of this construction with federal money. And I don't see them pushing Conservative membership cards and holding openings with ribbon-cutting cer emonies . I don't see the private sector holding ribbon-cutting ceremonies for every block that 's built in this city.

I wanted to before - as I say I was commenting on the rem arks from the Member for St. Johns, but before that I thought maybe I should slip to the criteria which was also mentioned in last year's Hansard that it's based solely on a willingness to go into these structures and of course some form of a means test. It would seem to me that if there really is a housing shortage that some consideration should be given to many single grandmothers who are in tax-paying homes that they should be allowed to sell them because this would solve two problems.

We would then have another house on the market which we could put a family in and many of these elderly single grand mothers, if you want to call them, they would be glad to be rid of the burden of having

March 11, 19 76 899 SUPPLY - URBAN AFFAffiS (MR. WILSON con t'd) . . . their home and move into a particular friendly complex and begin the first day of their new life. I just throw that out for the Minister 's suggestion. But I was dealing with the Member for St. Joh ns . I felt that really his treat ment, even though his terms of referenc e were to support the City Fathers , it seemed to me that the Member for St. Jo h..YJ.s would not treat the city the same as the Federal Gov ernment treats your government . Never. I don't think he ever would. The members opposite have admitted it.

They keep saying, he who raises the taxes must spend them . The Minister of Mines of course has been quoted in last year 's many newspapers that he wouldn 't give them one red cent: "The Member for St. Johns and his government give little money to the City of Winnipe g. "--(I nterj ection)-- Yes, but they do, they blame the council lors , I can think of the political games . They say when the people of Winnipeg be quiet, we'll hold back funds , and when the Councillors appear through the media to really be in trouble we'll increase the property tax rebate. That's the fairest way to do it.

Not give our City Fathers money to pay for the ess ential services. Make them look bad and then we'll have another property tax rebate. --(I nterj ection) --Yes, we'll give them a property tax rebate and maybe we'll take over Ass ini boine Park. But we won't take over education just yet. We won't take over the complete cost of welfare. We won't take over the police protection and we won't take over educ ation. We won't take over one of those thin gs . We'll just take over your assets. You know, the Member for St.

Johns challenged me to speak in the House, you know, beca use he said, "We like you" maybe you'll give us some ideas which we can use next time round . But somebody up there is giving me the opportunity to at least speak in one sessi on and I intend to tell it like it is, and I mean that sincerely. I'd like to give the Minister of Public Works some of my own person al thoughts. If the members opposite want to rej ect them or maybe possi bly come forward with some of them , but . . .

I think it's time in light of the press articles in which the Chief of Police is seeking 266 more constables and there 's a 39 percent increase in violent crime, and it's 1. 3 million this year alone, I think it's incumbent upon that government over there to start realizing that the protection of our citizens is a service - is a service to people - and a service to people should be paid for by the provincial level of government. I honestly feel that whenever I look at the clippings about the problems of law and order in my area, I can't help but feel . • . The

article says , "The best cure for crime is a policeman on foot" - I'm sure your government in the long run would save money, and certainly the Member for Winnipeg Centre wouldn 't have to build new prisons , and certainly we could do without a lot of these parolee homes centred and concen trated in the Wolseley area. I'd like to see you remove the sales tax from the goods and the machinery that the municipalities have to buy for school construction and roads and what-have-you. --(I nterj ection) -- Pardon me? Well, what we're talking about is giving the municipalities a break.

You people are reaping a profit from every piece of equipment they buy . Then there 's the other one, Mr. Speaker, about the old schools that the Minister seems to want to tear down in the centre of the city. I say to him rather than send out threatening letters and giving them one year to live, that the Minister should be putting these funds into teaching in the core area. What good are the wall-to-wall carpets when children are lacking in the three Rs and special needs such as in our area. The crisis teachers , they .•. MR. CHAIRMAN: Please. The honourable member co me back to Administration, Urban Affairs .

We'r e not on the Department of Education. Order please. To ma ke that speech in education. . MR. WILSON That's terrific. I'd like to, Mr. Chairman, suggest to them that they take over the Playhouse Theatre before it burns down. And I'll quickly go over the others . I think they should take over the transit system and share in the growth taxes to the municipalit ies. My comments about the hotel tax will be dealt with later on. The Minister of Mines is not here but I wanted to--(Interj ection) --I wanted to speak to the Minister of Mines about some of the suggestions that he made due to the fact

900 March 11, 1976 SUPPLY - URBAN AF FAlRS (MR. WILSON cant' d) ••••• that the Member for St. Johns took me to task and I didn 't want to leave him out. Some of the statements that he made like, citizens should expect increased taxes ; everyone should expect a different tax bill today; and everybody should expect their city councillors should tax them and say, I wouldn't give the city one red cent. These are all comments that I think deserve sort of an alternate opinion or an alternate view. You know if we followed the Minister of Mines' thinking we would have a 10 to 15 percent hotel tax. --(Interj ection)--Yes.

Well why not give the City of Winnipeg the five percent hotel tax? What do you do for the hotels ? You take the money from them, that seems to be all. I'd like to suggest that they're located in the municipalities and the municipalities should reap the benefits from that five percent tax. I'd like to hear the Minister of Tourism who isn't here today support the counter-productive measure of a 10 to 15 percent hotel tax. I'd like to at this time if I could, refer to two past battles that the Minister of Mines has had with - and his government - with His Worship Mayor Juba and Deputy Mayor Wolfe.

It seems that according to this

article , this government has increased and benefited $121 million in three years. --(Interjection) --This one right here . It goes on to explain that if you are a property owner it 's time you got mad. On the one from Deputy Mayor Wolfe, he points out that the government through growth taxes has enjoyed under individual incame tax since 1967 five times , today it' s $197, 600, 00 0.0 0. In corporate inc ome tax it 's more than doubled, from $20 million to $50 million ; revenue tax from $39 million to $125 million. There' s at least eight of them but I wo n't read them all into the record.

I'd like to point out in this particular prospectus which has been issued by the City of Winnipeg, on Page 12 they point out: Since 1972 the unconditional grants from the City of Winni peg are now only seven million; they were 5. 1 million. And yet if you members would be honest and tell the public you enjoyed $121 million increase and you'r e giving the City of Winnipe g only $2 million under this

section alone, that to me is unfair. Since we are dealing with the Minister of Urban Affairs, I couldn't help but respond to a number of statements that he made and, of course, in last year's Hansard where he admitted that he has to depend on the federal funds to respond to provincial requests. I wanted to support the Minister on his statement about sharing the cost in deficits of the Convention Centre.

But I disagree with his colleagues opposite who seem to call thems elves equal partners, and when this structure costs 23. 7 million and they offered 7. 5 and ma ybe now it 's up to 9, I don 't think you have a right in national articles to say the capital cost of the facility is to be shared by the city and province - shared to me means 50-50. I'd like to try to get this into the open, yet your government coffers however - everything that I can think of in that structure seems to benefit your government. As I say, I was reading the financial statement, and I could even think of the

article here that says that the multiplier effect from every dollar that's spent and, of course, every conventioner spends $50. 00 a day and $250 . 00 average stay. So what has this got to do with Urban Affairs ? Well it leads to the very commen t that was made by the Member for Fort Rouge that he felt that the Convention Centre has done very little for the down town core. Somehow or other I would like that government to come out in solid support of that structure because the benefits are there for the entire community.

I think we all have a selling job to do, and I refer to the Member of Flin Flan who kept referring that we're always bailing them out. I think there's many spin-off benefits from that structure. There's post-convention tours which sometimes end up in the Flin Flan area, fishing or looking for their pet rock or something. I'm sure there's some benefits for the Flin Flan area.

I feel the Minister of Urban Affairs should have a veto power over the Minister. of Public Works, because if you combine the priorities over the spending on Public Works compared with the urgency and some of the many things that the Urban Affairs Minister is trying to do • • • just look at some of the expenditures under his budget compared to what is needed in housing. What have you got ? He's got that Broadway biffy over th ere;

March 11, 197 6 901 SUPPLY - URBAN AF FAIRS (MR. WILSON cont'd) ••••• he 's got two more Legal Aid towers, or at least a twin plan for the Woods worth Buildi ng; he 's got a huge government parking garage planned and he 's going to purchase the Great West Life buil ding - and more. I think it's time that we recognize the Minister of Urban Affairs is trying to supply needs for people; he 's trying to supply shelter and jobs and revitaliz ation of the downtown core. In short, I feel the City of Winni peg is a good mixture of the old and the new.

I think we should cut off the car allowances to our own government employees and iss ue them with bus pa sses . -- (Interjection)- -You say "why "? Beca use we could turn the Provincial Legislature back into the park it was intended to and not a parking lot. I'm serious . And your planning is really something, and that's why I say the Minister should have a veto power over the Minister of Public Works.

He built that biffy to solve the hippy problem, but the gove rnment grants and everything have removed the hippy problem from the park and that alternate use for that particular biffy, the bomb shelter, is poor planning beca use it's not even safe as a bomb shelter. So that's the kind of expenditure that I mean when I say that Urban Affairs should come and have some priority over the Minister of Public Works.

I didn 't want to leave - and I attempt to support the Minister of Public Works in dealing with the Member for Fort Rouge who, as I say, seemed to feel that after his party had that alleged big splash at the Convention Centre, which was really just a little bit of a ripple, that their party seems to have taken a negative effect towards the Con vention Centre and his statement that it really didn 't seem to do anything for the down town core.

I would like to ask you members - and I don 't have time to go into detail but to look at the before and after - think of it in terms of the beautiful buildings that are there now, and the park, the open space, and the job revitalization, many new exciting jobs down there and , of course, the total umbrella. You're looking at the accel eration - it was really a catalyst for a building of at least one new hotel, one in the planni ng stages and at least two new apartment buildings , all bringing tax revenue to the city. And that I think is important.

I disagreed with the member, and of course I wasn't allowed to speak on this subject, but I did dis agree with him when he spoke of educ ation, that the downtown core has an 80 to 90 percent term turnover in students. I would like to think he 's overstated that statement and I regret I wasn't able to talk on that subject. I did want to speak again to the Member for Fort Rouge on the question of studying housing, and I have to include the Minister of Urban Affairs here. I think we've studied hous ing long enough. You know, how long have we studied housing?

How many tax dollars in overlapping studies have there been? May I offer some of my own personal advice to these experts, beca use I sort of guess an expert is one who has a large Federal Grant, very inexpensive office space and a lot of would-be experts paid for that are going to turn into experts and are all going to tell us how expert we can be. I find that this new Environmental Impact Study fad is very interesting. While they study they try and hold up these projec ts, the costs just rocket out of sight and I find very little change takes place.

I would agree that some new trees are planted, some hous es may not be torn down. I wouldn 't ca ll them obstructionists because they're all real people . But they don't seem to realize that the die has been cast by some level of government; if they have a spokesman and they have that much clout they should run for office. I found in many cases that the Impact people are usually aggrieved com mercial tenants who by holding up the project increase their bargaining position and end up with sort of a vested interest, and their argument might be better if they didn't have that vested interest.

I think of particularly the tenants of the Hart building and of course even the Ca rleton Club. We talk about studying hous ing. Well I'd like to tell the Minister of Urban Affairs and the Member for Fort Rouge that I was extremely lucky beca use I went to the NIP Conventi on in St. John. I toured the row housing in a setting like San Fran cisco. And you probably agree it is a setting like San Fran cisco, an artist' s dream. But the housing there is really something, one toilet for four floors of residential living. Ev ery home smells of co al oil and fuel oil. There are large communiti es of people ,

90 2 March 11, 1976 SUPPLY - URBAN AFFAffiS (MR. WILSON cont'd) ••••. Empire Loyalist stock and pioneer negro families who are living happily in that area because they've been told by the government how well off they are. And they 're not running around in a negative thing getting people turned on and getting riled up about how tough they are. Just compare other parts of Canada to our standard of living in Manitoba and we're pretty well off. Yes we talk about planners' dreams, and I think the Minister of Urban Affairs would tell the people about many of these other areas .

We all want a better standard of living; we want to be above New Brunswick, above Newfoundland and above Quebec, but for God's sake let's not try to realize we're going to have a better standard of living than Alberta with its oil wells. MR. CHAffiMAN: Order please. The honourable member's time has expired. MR. WILSON: Well I just - again talking about planning ••. MR. CHAffiMAN: Order please. Does the member have leave ? Proceed. MR. WILSON: I'll be brief, Mr. Chairman. I was talking about the experts in planning.

It seems to me when I want to talk to somebody about housing I attend the conventions myself, I discuss these problems with many ordinary people who have an interest in shelter. I talked to Bruce McLeod and Martin Bergan of HUDAM; I talked to Avrum Regenstreif of the Minister's department, and I talked to even the Member of Fort Rouge on occas ion. But it would seem to me that the time to spend money on experts, planners , environmentalists , is over. We need housing and we need it in the seventies . However I want to give you some examples , if I may be brief, about experts in government planning.

In your own department, Mr. Minister, I refer to 24 Carlton Street where the government built an elderly citizens complex. But it was located three quarters of a mile away from the nearest store. There was no transit to get the elderly people downtown or even to that store. There was no Age and Opportunity, and thank goodness there was no huge Legal Aid office. But what did these ordinary people do, like myself of course and many interested citizens , we asked for a bus . Did the Provincial Government supply the city with the money because of their error for a bus ? No they haven 't.

So we get limited bus service and these people are basically locked in. But then to show you that we co-operate, we have 43 Edmonton Street under construction. This is an example of what happens when governments talk to councillors and ordinary people. Because then you can turn around and sell both the particular complexes on the amenities of the downtown core. And just maybe the city experts on transportation will supply these elderly people with a bus service. But I say these are things that the experts should do before construction starts.

The type of meetings that should take place before construction starts . And the lack of .•• as the Member for St. Johns said, the lack of wanting to talk to the City of Winnipeg and advis.e them. I'm reminded of the five-year river bank plan which this government allowed the city with the abandon ment of the Guertin Building to scrap. And I think if you were interested in the former Metro Plan and the Five Year Riverbank Plan that you should have , as an Urban Affairs Department, stepped in and offered some advice, and I did not see it forthcoming.

To the Minister of Public Works I think that his Osborne Street bridge could be a catalyst for the complete revitalization of the Parliament Legislative Building grounds along the riverbank, and certainly we should have an area for viewing on the bridge and bicycle and people paths that would make it a very proud structure with these extra amenities . I'll wrap up the remarks by simply saying that I feel that the Minister of Urban Af fairs has got to go beyond waiting for federal funds .

And in fairness I think the media has got to give the Federal Government across this nation some credit for acc elerating the Elderly Citizen and Public Housing and not give the credit completely to the government who has been using many of these structures for politicized purposes . I would hope really that you could cut down the grandiose grand openings and maybe invite a few of the members opposite to attend. MR. CHAIRMAN: I wonder if we could call it 4: 30. It's close enough I think. Com mittee rise . Call in the Speaker. Pardon me .

In acc ordance with our House Ru les I'm interrupting the proceedings for Private Members' Hour and shall return to the Chair at 8 p.m. this evening .

March 11, 1976 903 PRNATE MEMBERS' HOUR MR. SPEAKER: Order please . The first item, Private Members ' Hour is Public, Private Bills . Bill No. 21. The Hono urable Member for St. Matthews . MR. JOHANNSON: Stand, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 26, also the Hono urable Member for St. Matthews . MR. JOHANNSON: Stand. MR . SPEAKER: Consequently we will proceed to Reso lutions. Resolution 3, pro posed by the Honou rable Member for Portage la Prairie. The Honourable Member for St. James . RESOLUTION NO. 3 MR. MINAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My co mments will be brief.

I listened with interest in the first round of debates when the reso lution was placed befor e us on March 1st, and I decided that I would like to add furth er co mment to the debate at this time. When one reads the resolution before us, one has to assume that the main objec tive of the bill is to equalize co nditions for people residing in the north in a ce rtain pay range or pay scale . But really the main ob jective in my opinion is to equalize co nditions and to try and make situations the same in iso lated areas as they are here in the southern regions.

And my concern with the reso lution before us is that it wil l affect very few of our citizens in the north or isol ated areas because, as the Honourable Member for Flin Flon indicated during his participation in the debate, there aren't that many people that are residing in our northern areas that are working on a minimum wage . And when they are, they are really no different than a lot of the people that are working on a minimum wage in Winnipeg or southern area.

They are usually, the majority people who are holding down a second job, or they are the second person in the family that is bringing in an in com e, and are wo rking in a service facility such as, say, a restaurant or •.. I believe the hospital still pay minimum pay scales, that if the additional burden of too high a minimu m wage was placed on the ope rator s of these services, that they wo uld probably have to shorten their hours of service or cut back the service, or even in some cases possi bly close down.

So my concern is, one, that the objective of the resol ution is to equalize condi tions, and I don't believe that this will be achieved with the resol ution put forward. It might assist a few but it will probably have a more detrimental effect than it will have beneficial. Mr.

Speaker, my belief is that if the bill is trying to equalize the conditions between the northern regions and the so uthern regions relating to living costs and standards, taxes, and so forth, that really what we should be probably looking at to try and equalize these co nditions of higher cost of products and costs to move around in the north, and so forth, is that we shou ld try and look at some kind of a tax incentive.

Why I say this is that really we want the people to stay in the north, and I know the Hono urable Member from Churchill wil l agree with me on this statement, that we like the citizens of our north to stay there. We 're selfish probably as southeners because a lot of us necessarily wouldn ' t want to leave our homes here and move to the north, but that's where the future of Manitoba lies, and we all know it, that the growth of Manitoba is going to be in our northern regions and we don't want to have people com ing in one night and moving out two weeks later.

We want the citizens in our northern regions to be proud to be there and to want to stay there, and to remain there and make their livelihood there and their life there.

I think this co uld probably be achieved with a tax incentive, and really when one looks at it that the person living in the north is prob ably paying 15 to 20 percent mo re for goods, and possibly for services in the north, that if there is a sales tax on that particular product or goods that he buys, instead of actually paying five pe rcent sales tax, in actual fact when you com pare the dollars that he puts out in sales tax on that same product and apply it to the value of the product here in Winnipeg, it ends up he paid six percent .

He actually wo uld have paid 6.2 percent, so that a lot of our citizens of the north are paying much mo re in sales tax in terms of

90 4 March 11, 197 6 RESOLUTION 3 (MR. MINAKER cont'd) • dollars than you and I are who reside in the southern regions . If we look at the fact that I think about one-tenth of our population resides in the northern regions, that our revenue from sales tax last year was somewhere in the order of $200 million, that in all likelihood our northern people are contributing not $20 million which is 10 percent of it, but maybe 25 .

I'm sure that the government has these figures that by a personal income tax incentive to overcome this defic it, or this unfairness that our northern citizens are faced with at the present time, would probably balance out, but in so doing, would probably give the indiv idual initiative to go to the north to earn a higher take-home pay than he would have in Winnipeg because he would be paying a lower provincial income tax. And that's what I'm talking about, an incentive with the provincial income tax, because he is now presently paying more in terms of sales tax dollars than you and I are, Mr .

Speaker, that reside in the southern regions because of the difference in cost of products, yet we are still applying the same five percent sales tax to the sel ling price of the item . So, Mr .

Speaker, I personally favour the tax incentive, not only for the low income for all incomes of people working in the north, to encourage the growth of the north, to encourage people to go to our frontier to live there and resi de there, and not to just go in and move out two weeks later; give them some kind of incentive that will encourage this growth, and more so to benefit most people - well anybody that wants to work will benefit by it, that's basically it . Those who want to work in the north will benefit by it and rather than just a few that are involved in this present resolution before us .

For that reason I would find it difficult to support this resolution personally because we realize it will have some benefit to a few people, but really we believe the objective of the whole resolution is to equal ize and make it more beneficial to our north ern citizens , not just a few . Thank you . MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Churchill . MR. LES OSLAND (Churchil l) : Mr. Speaker, I would just like to add a few thoughts on this resolution . In some respects we have discussed this a lot on this side, particularly the members from the north, and I just can't support it in the form it is in now.

I would just like to add a few thoughts to it, particularly to do with how the raising of the minimum wage would affect our people up there . I think possibly I could just bring a little light to some of the problems that we're being faced with . Looking at it from an overall picture it just becomes impossible to raise the minimum wage and think that you are accomplishing anything. When we look at the av erage wage within some of our communities as being $260 for a whole year, - that's statistics I'm quoting.

Now we go from the $260 a year for some individuals and progress right up to $15, 000 and $2 0, 000 in the case of others which are in some of the com muniti es, which have had the advantage of some economic industrial base to them. So we not only have the problem of the difference as far as individual people, the spread as far as wage income is concerned, we also have the difficulty of communities being in the same boat. We have communities in the north where there is at least 90 percent unemployment, and yet in some of our main industrial communities up there, un employment is almost unheard of.

So that really a minimum wage and a blanket approach like this really doesn 't assist us to any great deal here . I believe that -- (Interjection)-- Well I'd like to just enlarge on the small busin ess and how the raising of the minimum wage could affect small businesses in the north, because we have a lot of small individual busine ssmen who are having difficulty, faced with the same problems as all of us have in the north, with transportation costs .

Every thing affects them greatly up there, and if we raise the minimum wage this automatically throws their business into a different position as far as the balance is concerned . Having run a small busine ss myself I know this was one of the problems that we had; we went as high as we could go with wage s, but taking also the consideration of transportation and other costs that were involved . I think in a lot of cases the small businessman at the moment is hiring the wives, or shall I say the second pay cheque within a family unit,

March 11 , 1976 905 RESOLUTION 3 (J\IIR. OSLAND cont'd) •.••• and if we could spread the economic develop ment over the complete north, taking in all our communi ties, I think this would be the real challen ge . In order to cover the whole of the north this is going to take a tremendous amount of input from all of Manitoba . It isn't going to be any lig ht easy thing to accom plish it . We're going to have to change a lot of our ways of doing things that have been traditionally done in the north. We 're really challenging every concept as far as our development is concern ed .

I believe that dollars that are being spent in the north at the moment can be better spent, and they can be better spent and directed by the people of the north right at the local le vel . This inclu des input from the Federal Governm ent ; it inc ludes the prov incial input that is going in at the moment, and if we can organize, develop, bring our expertise that is in the north, bring it to the surface, utilize it properly, I think that the dollars that are being spe nt up there now will be better utilized and we'll actually accom plish what we are after in a far more satisfactory way for all people .

This resol ution in effect really, Mr . Speak er, I would sugge st is promoted by someo ne that is living in the south, and they ten to one have heard of the ir problems, they're sympathetic with the north, and all of a sudden the y've got some sort of a quick solution to all of our problems .

We 've had this before , the north is great on the business of speaking for itself; we want to be recog nized, our local councils, our ec onomic de velop ment councils that we are developing now, they want to speak, and I think we would be better to listen than to all of a sudden impose somet hing like this on them without actually cons idering the ramifications of it . I believe that we should be looking at the total of Manitoba, and I dislike the idea of bringing in a law or changing anything that is specif ically for the north without involving the whole of Manitoba .

Theref ore, I would like to make an amendment to the resol ution, and I would like it to read this way: That the Resol ution No . 3 be amen ded by striking out every word after "that" in the third line of the resol ved portion, and insert in its place the following : "where a highe r minimum wage is considered ess ential because of higher living costs in a region, the needs of that particular region shall determine the level of minimum wage for all of Manitoba ." That is seco nded by the Honourable Membe r for Flin Flon . Thank you . MOTION pres ented . MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge . MR.

AXWORTHY: Mr. Speak er, I would like to say a few words in favour of the original intent of this resol ution before it was . . . modified in its form by the last mem ber who spoke , who I think is res ponding as he does always in loyal and faithful fashion to the dictate s of his caucus , but may not in fact be se rving the best inte rests of his constituency in this case . And I know that there is always the se conflicts of loyalties that appear, and I think it always is unfortunate in this House when you find cer tain mem bers torn between the dictates of the ir conscience and the dictates of the ir caucus .

I can only say, Mr . Speake r, that according to our system of course the caucus always has won out, at least in this case . It doesn't always as we have seen in the past week, but in this case at least the re has been an obvious choice and, Mr . Speaker, we think it is the wrong choi ce . Let me just deal with some of the positions put forward by mem bers opposite in their opposition to the original proposition put forward by the Member from Portage la Prairie, who originally introduced this resol ution. The first thing I would like to clarify, Mr.

Speaker, for the use of the members from northern Manitoba is that this was not a res olution that was concocted in the cat acombs of some downtown basement meeting place in cen tral Winnip eg . In fact, Mr . Speak er, I would like to say without using names that the res olution was derived from some very active and close convers ations we had with a number of northerne rs from the area of Thompson, in fact people who are involved in the union up there, a man who was in fact was, I would say by his position is a senior union official in the steel workers .

While it may come as a surprise to mem bers opposite that we actually have con versations with memb ers of the steelworke rs, particularly since Octobe r 14th, the fact of the mat ter

906 March 11 , 1976 RESOLUTION 3 (MR. AXWORTHY cont'd) ••••• is that we have. had very close discuss ions with them and one of the things that they felt was very important to working people in northern Manitoba was a differentiation in the minimum wage. So I want to as sure the Member from Churchill, and the Member from Flin Flon, and the Member from Thompson, that we don't want to take credit as a group for that particular resolution.

It was a res olution brought forward in the best spirit and inte rests as expressed to us by northern Manitobans, and I hope that they will accept it as such, that we are simply acting in way as a voice for their concerns, because I suppose they recognize that members from their own areas are again constrained by caucus loyalty, and therefore perhaps not able to represent the things that they would really like to say at times . So, Mr . Speaker, in fact we are act ing in part as a surrogate for what otherwise I'm sure the member from Churchill and Flin Flon would like to say on their own.

I know the Member from Thompson probably hasn't spoken yet, but he probably feels that silence is better than standing forward and express ing himself because that way he doesn't have to in part go against his own conscience in this matter. However, Mr . Speaker, let me then deal with some of the substance of argument that has been advanced on one side or the other . I think it has been conceded by speakers on both sides of the House that the requirements to deal diff erently with those who live in northern Manitoba, or for that matter any northern region, should be an important part of pu blic policy.

I think it is fair to say that most countries that I know about, in Scandinavia, the Soviet Union and elsewhere, which have northern remote regions, or regions where there are certain extra additional costs carried by those who live there, have always adopted a policy of differentiation providing in some ways, either in the form of special wages , salaries, housing conditions, they've always made concess ions to the fact that people require special programs to meet the fact that us ually their costs are much higher, an:i in this case, as we all know, their costs are generated by very heavy transportation problems, and whatnot.

I don't think it is enough, Mr . Speaker, to simply say that the Government of Manitoba is doing everything it should, and I think the Member from Churchill himself admitted that it wasn't. We have heard glowing tributes from .•• I'm sure the Member from St. Matthews will probably rise to his fe et and provide another glowing tribute to the Department of Northern Affa irs next, but the fact of the matter is that one department he hasn't hit this yet. I think he has almost complimented every one except the Department of Northern Aff airs , but I'm sure that is next on his schedule. I expect the Member for St.

Matthews has a little

schedule in his offi ce where he says, "Now which department do I pay absolute compliments to this week." I was thinking actually that the Member for St. Matthews really has the wrong occupation; he should be one of those people that go around and visit people in hospitals because he brings such good cheer to those who are so deathly ill, and we have so many deathly ill departments in this government, Mr. Speaker, that he is providing a little solace to the infirm and I think that that seems to be the role he is playing in the government these days . Mr .

Speaker, going back to the point ••• so I think that that principle has been recognized, and I haven't heard anyone that has disputed it . The question is , what kind of allowance do you provide ? If you are fortunate to work for the Manitoba Provincial Civil Service you get an ext

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Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	30-3-33
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	30th 3rd hansardpdf 33.pdf
Language	en
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