Manitoba Hansard — Sitting 79 (27th Legislature, 4th Session)

27-4-79

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

THE LEGIS LAT IVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 8:00 o'c loek , Thursday, April 29th, 1965. 2007 MR. WEIR: Mr. Chairman, as you called it 5:30, I think that I had been talking a bit about provincial roads and I had wandered a bit from the order in which I had taken the notes . If I try and pick up that track ,I 'm liable to get lost so I think probably I had better move back to the order in which I took the notes. And I may have the habit to wander a bit as I carry on, but I'll do my best to try and answer some of the questions that were put to me .

I come now to the Honourable Member for Emerson and some of the comments he made and he was the first one to discuss what is probably, in my opinion, the most difficult problem that faces the Highways Branch today, not just in Manitoba but probably a good many highways' departments throughout the country, and probably other countries, and that's dust. We find ourselves in the position where to cure what is really a dust problem, spending quite consider able sums of money to improve the surface of the road where really the surface of the road isn't all that bad if you were able to control the dust.

I must frankly say that there has been no low-cost dust treatment, effective dust treatment, found to date. The best low-cost dust treat ment so far that we have been able to come up with is the calcium which has its disadvantages from the fact that it is a victim of the weather. In a dry year it's not very effective and it does wear out.

But by the same token, oftentimes the cost of calcium and the relief that you get from the use of calcium is more than of fset by the difference in what it would cost you for the interest on borrowed money alone , to say nothing of the depreciation on a more expensive surface treatment. And when you talk about this, the honourable member talks about dust in certain parts of the province. I don't know whether he hasn't been around the rest of the province but in case he hasn 't I have news for him, that a gravel road is just as dusty in another part of the pro vince as it is down in Emerson constit uency .

The people in Swan River and the people in Min nedos a cons tituency and some of the other fine constituencies that we have around the pro vince, when they eat the dust, they have the same attitude towards it as the people in Emer son and the people in the other constitue ncies. At this point, Manitoba has only applied calcium in solid form out of the bags .

At the present time , tenders have been called in an effort to get comparative prices to see if with the program that we have this year there won't be volume enough to make an experiment of liquid calcium which they are using in other areas .. .... have been called in different areas and different quantities and so on and so forth, and we sincere ly hope that as the prices are rece ived that we will have an experiment this year, at least one experiment, with liquid cal cium to see if we have better luck in some of these areas with liquid than we have had with the solid forms.

The honourab le member talks about the Atikokan highway and the impression that it will make on the Morden-Sprague highway. I do apprec iate the fact that the Atikokan highwa y is expected to open this summer and I do think that there will be an influence on the Morden Sprague highway; however I really don't feel that there will be as great an influence on the Morden-Sprague highway as there will be on Highway No. 12 .

I think that this connection on the Atikokan highway is going to increase the desire of a great number of people to use High way No. 12 and up to Winnipeg and' on on the Trans-Canada as well as -- as well as whatever increase there is on the Morden-Sprague because with all due deference I think that there are more drawing attractions north and west than there are directly west of this particular point from people that are travelling from as far away as Atikokan and farther east. But certainly it will be felt in all areas .

The honourable member spoke about the Mississi ppi Parkway and his regret about the fact that we are designating a route on existi ng highway and not doing anything about the loca tion that had been originally agreed to between Minnesota and Manitoba. He also says that he fee Is it's beca use there's been insufficient pressure from the Manitoba side.

I hasten to point out that in my opinion, in my opinion, it would be indiscreet -- it would be indiscreet of the Province of Manitoba to attempt to place any pres sure, any pressure at all, on the Gove rnment of the United States to spend money in Manitoba to develop the Northwest Angle . We have an agreement and the Province of Manitoba has indicated its interest in living up to the terms of that agreement to the State of Minnesota and the Government of United States. I might say for his information that the reso lution that I had the privilege of making at St.

Louis , Missouri, was seconded by representatives from the State of Minnesota who are

200 8 April 29th, 1965 (MR. WEIR cont'

d) quite happy to see the Mississippi Parkway marked on a loc ation in Manitoba and for my money , and for the publicity that can be obtained from this area in 19 67, we want to sell the Mississi ppi Parkway in this area, not just in Manitoba, but to sell the Can adian

section of it. We have a circle around the Lake of the Woods , granted it's a little further around, a little further away from the Lake of the Woods than what had originally been con templated. But we do have a circle tour around the Lake of the Woods with a choice of going by Pine Falls , etc. , or by taking the Trans-C anada Highway and back the other way and through Ontario. And I think that the publicity that can be gained from this is quite good indeed. I also know that if advantage is to be taken from having this route marked on all of the various maps prior to 196 7, no delay could be contemplated.

We had to start now if we were going to achieve any of the success by that time. The honourable member mentioned Vita and its street paving program. The treatment within Vita on the Morden -Sprague highway is being considered and certainly will be given every consideration in conjunction with the program that they are working on. The honourab le membe r indicated he thought that this salt, as he called it, was a waste of money . I really can't see it that way.

I recognize that it would be better, it would be more desir able if we in Manitoba could afford the treatment that we would like to have, but it is a reasonable substitute and does help to eliminate quite a bit of the dust hazard that we do en counter on our gravel roads . Now the Honourab le Member for Inkster was good enough to change the subject and get away from highways for a little while and move over to the public bui ldings side .

He inquired as to the repairs of government bui ldings and I might say for the most part the staff is em ployed by the department and they're on duty and looking after the government bui ldings. This is not always the case for major repairs and major renov ations . At times it's done by contract and in manners of that nature . But for the most part the repairs and renovations that are carried on are carried on by departmental staff. He inquires about the recoveries from the central provincial garage. Those recoveries are moneys that are received from all of the various departments.

The services that are rendered by the garage, actually now the central provincial garage owns all of the cars and pa ys all of the bills and leases the cars to the departments at five cents a mile . The five cents a mile repays the replacement cost and the repairs and the gas and the whole works of the operation of these cars . So therefore it's a nil expenditure and the actual expenditures show up within the estimates of the other departments.

He mentions park benche s; he mentions people lying on the grass; and the fact that prob ably the Minister gets down once in a while in the evening and I must admit that I have been down in the evening and that there have been occa sions when I've seen people lying on the grass when there were lots of empty benches. So it appears that the use of the grass isn't solely, isn't solely beca use of the fact that there are sometimes not enough benche s. This problem will be considered by the department and as benches are required they will be looked after.

The honourable member mentions a lower entrance to the building. No solution yet has been found for a stair entrance into the basement but I would remind him that there is not one but two ramps into the Legisl ative Building. There is only one that is used and it is poss ible for even wheel chair people , as we've pretty good example of within the Chamber, to make their way into the Legis lative Building. Mr. Chairman, the Honourable Member for Gladstone -- I come to his points. I don 't know what ones reall y to dwell on and what ones not to.

I think I'l l start probably with his sug gestions as far as provincial road No. 258 is concer ned and the purpose for calling it 258 is purely and simply a matter of accounting within the department, and as soon as the road in general gets to the point that we feel it is of a standard that can be proclaimed a provincial trunk highway this will be done ; our present intention is not to number it on the map as a pro vincial road , to indicate it as a road, until such time as cons truction reaches the point that we feel we wouldn 't be possibly mislea ding the public by putting a trunk highway number on areas that haven 't reached a standard that would be of that standard.

Now he talks about what he reads in the Financial Post and I regret that if I saw what he read in the Financial Post I didn't pay as much attention as he did to it because I only need to look at Manitoba and for whatever year he 's talking about in the recent past. Talking about a total expenditure on roads as $26. 3 million obvious ly this is incorrect and there has been more money spent on roads than that in the Province of Manitoba. The possibility exists that this is the capital figure that has been presented to the Financial Post either by somebody in

April 29th, 1965 200 9 (MR. WEIR cont'd) ..... my department or somebody outside of it. I don't know where their figures come from but there is an incorrect statistic there. The honourable member inquires how many miles of access roads have been built, or how many towns have been serviced. I'll have to get the information. I don't have it re adily available and I will see that it is supplied to the honourable member. Then we come to Highway 34. Highway 34.

Well I do remember -- well do I remember the day that the Honourable Member for Glads tone came in, supported with the other members up and down Highway No. 34 and all of the municipal councils from the area, to request of me that we make a start on improving Highway 34 with a surface and in that start it was unanimous ly agreed that we would start at the bo ttom , at No. 3 Highway and work north. I might point out that the only people that I have heard of any change in this approach from have been the people at the north end.

Obvious ly they have changed their mind and they feel that maybe we should be working both ways but certainly we shouldn't be just starting at the south and working north. I have no objection to them accepting this point of view except to say that the Province of Manitoba and the department have been carrying a program on each year on No. 34 Highway and we've been working north and I hope that the honourable member will have the patience to be with us until we do reach Gladstone because that is our aim to get there and get there as quickly as we can.

Now the honourable member talks about 75 percent grants on main market roads. I don't think he was really serious . I think he knows better than that. That was the grant on second ary highways , and as far as secondary highways were concerned my memory -- just from memory I think we only had 200 and some odd miles of secondary highway in the province on which 75 percent was paid by the province of both construction and maintenance and 25 per cent by the municipality.

The grant on main market roads has been 60 percent for some time in the original years and before I came in here I guess maybe in the early days of this govern ment, or certainly in the latter days of the former governmen t, it was a 50-50 grant on main market roads . And he indicates that the municipalities did not slash their mill rate . I don't think really that anybody had really anticipated that the muncipalities in rural Manitoba would slash any mill rates and it's been extreme ly difficult to try and establish a provincial road network that is equitable to all municipalities.

As I say there have been no statistics kept on the actual cost of maintenance of the individual miles within the municipalities. There had to be some arbit rary decis ions made . Negotiations were held.

Apparently they weren't held for a great enough period of time with the Honourable Member for Gladstone but I hasten to advise him that ne gotiations are not over, that negotiations are going to be continuing and that as I indicated yesterday that many miles that were suggested by the municipalities are presently being con sidered by the planning division of the department and some of these will no doubt be recom mended and some no doubt will not be recommended.

There are areas that have been agreed on as provincial roads by the department and by the municipalities that the municipalities themselves have had some second thoughts on. And as well as additions and deletions there 's going to have to be amendments where they're moved a little bit to ease with the traffic flow. Anybody that might have thought that a provincial road network of this magnitude could have been brought in without hitch and without differences of opinion I'm afraid just doesn't under stand the situation very well.

I'm sure that honourable members opposite do recognize the difficulties and they do recognize that we are going to have to be flexible on. this program as we go along and attempt to develop a network of roads. The honourable member mentioned an area up in the Honourable Member for Roblin's constituency and I may say I don't think that there was an area in Manitoba that it was as diffi cult or is as difficult to attempt to tie in provincial roads, because the places for you to take them from and to or to and from are a lot more scarce.

The traffic generators are not as well defined so some arbitrary means had to be established. The honourable members appear to forget that even in the develo pment of the highway program, as the highway network is established in the Province of Manitoba today there are ineq uities.

I didn't realize until I started out to negotiate a network of provincial roads throughout the province that we had muni cipalities in the Province of Manitoba without any highways , without any highways , who had paid either all or 40 percent or 50 percent of every mile of road that they had within their municipality, and this is the case with one of the municipalities in the constituency of my honourable friend from Roblin. Now there have been inequities. The Honourable Member from Gladstone in the last year or two has been commenting on the inequities that existed in the grant

2010 April 29th, 1965 (MR. WEIR cont'd) .... and aid formula where there was the flat 10,500 grant, if it was matched by the municipalities, regardless of the size of the municipality and the demand on the roads .

So outside of the .fact that in my opinion there has been a reasonable distribution of pro vincial roads throughout the province, although granted not perfect, I think that the skeleton is there to develop a very good network of roads and to attract traffic that will travel on these roads, that will concent rate on these roads, and will relieve pressure on the ordinary muni cipal road throughout the province.

Some of the honourable members enquired about the program as far as these roads are concerned and you will have noticed by now that the program that has been distributed covers the trunk highway program and the provincial road program as it was prior to January 1st. The estimates that are found in the current estimates are set aside for the maintenance and the development of the provincial road network -- largely this 4, 000 miles of road, and there is no general upgrading program to be presented to the House.

The funds are going to be distributed throughout the district with the idea in mind of attempting to make as good a net work out of this with as many small improvements as possible throughout certainly the first year and maybe even into the seco nd year.

As I indicated yes terday there are many areas in the province where, with the connection of a mile here or a half mile there , the improve ment of a bridge, knocking down a hill, evening out some very sharp turns, where you can tie together several fairly significant sections of road into a pretty good road that is going someplace and has a t�ndency to improve the traffic, to say nothing of knocking down brush and things of that nature. Mr.

Chairman, the Honourable Member for Brokenhe ad discussed quite a number of things; some of them I think I've already covere!l in talking of some of the other members ' questions. But to try and pick out some of the things that he was talking about -- the mileage, I think, has been generally covered. I know certainly he 's got one municipality in his area where in my opinion there is need for another provincial road. I'm not just so sure that I know exactly where it should be but I think that there is need in that area for another provincial road.

There may well be more like it and these things will have to be sorted out. He talked about the .advertising that the government happens to get out of tendering in the classified pages of highway programs. I just question the number of people that really read the classified

section this closely, as close ly as the Honourable Member for Brokenhead does. However, I am of the opinion that the people that we •re trying to reach do r.ead it. The reason for the duplication is that in the last two or three years we've been trying. to get a greater per ce ntage of our road program advertised in the fall, either October or November before the snow comes, so that the locations and the type of work can be made known to the contractors .

The contractors can take the advantage of going out and having a look at the location before the snow comes, so that the province and the department can advertise the tenders during the winter months and secure reasonable bids from the contrac tors. In this way I can get double the work without a crash program from the staff within the department.

The same people that would normally have had to have been preparing tenders just during the busy season of the year are now able to spread their work over a larger number of months and just the improve ments within the department alone are significant and worth this type of duplication . I gather this is the duplication he was talking about because he mentioned several months apart. Besides that, each tender is advertised twice, twice in a row.

O nce the tender is called, it's advertised -w e advertise in Wednesday's. and Saturday's papers so that the con tractors throug!10:1t the Province of Manitoba, in case they don •t take the papers regularly, know what day they have to buy to keep up with the tendering practices within the department. If the first tender is on a Wednesday it's also advertised on the Saturday. If it's advertised on the Saturday, it's also advertised on the following Wednesday.

He spoke about the relocation of Highway 59 and I think that I might say that it's a rather significant reloca tion, although not. relocated the distance that the Honourable Member indica ted. It 's not east of the floodway, by any manner of means ; it's someplace, for the most part, between the flood way and the old 59. The old 59 as he well knows, runs through a very con gested area of the city and would be almost impossible from the standpoint of drainage, right of-way acquisition and so on and so forth, to develop the kind of a facility that is required and has been required for some time in this area.

Actually the best descr iption I could probably give is that it will -- at the point of No. 15 Highway, No. 59 Highway will be located just west of the overpass on No. 15 Highway - the well lit overpass on No. 15 Highway. You'll recall

April 29th, 1965 2011 (MR. WEIR cont'd) ......... how you come down off the top of the highway; No. 15 will be raised fairly, significantly and the Honourable Member for Radisson was enquiring about that stretch of road west. We feel that the majority of the traffic will turn onto 59 and there will be an improved intersection here and that the same pressure will not develop on the part of 15 High way west of the new 59 that is there now.

The honourable member mentions the lighting on the bridges and just as he has mentioned and complained about the amount of lighting there is on bridges , I know of another member in the House that approached me the other day about a struc ture that we haven't got lit at all, or well enough lit, and I might say that we have every intention of lighting the structures on No. 4 Highway and the north perimeter bridge and things of that nature . You talk about it being lit up like a Christmas tree.

The lighting engineers tell me that once you light it you have to light it to a certain degree or you 're worse off than if it wasn •t lit at all because you get light patches and dark patches, and you're running into a blinding situation. I haven't used the excuse on No. 15 that is probably there. The reason I haven't used it is because I'm not really aware of it -- the fact that it's so close to Symington.

We have other areas within the city where Symington Yard in itself has forced us to light areas of our road system because the lights that light the Symington Yards blind the motorist coming from whatever direction he may be coming, and it's a definite hazard. I imagine to some extent the same thing applies on the overpass of 15 highway. I don 't use it as an argument because I'm really not sure. The fact that it's that close to Symington makes me believe it may well be cor rect. He mentioned Henderson Highway and all I can say is I realize the problem that there is there .

I think he recognizes that some money has been spent within the last couple of years in attempting to straighten out some of the more dangerous areas of this road. I don't know whether he 's aware of the difficulty that you have if you attempt to take down a tree or to get a little pro perty off somebody who lives along that road . I can only say that I live in hopes that the com pletion of No. 59 Highway not too far to the east will remove much of this problem.

The day may come , when 59 is completed, where by removing the signs - the No. 9 highway signs -f rom Henderson Hig hway and letting it serve the local area rather than attempting to concen trate traf fic on it from a wider area, may well solve some of these problems . It's not probably the an swer he is looking for but I hope that he recognizes some of the problems that we face with it. He talks about materials for surfacing. I think that I've indicated the problems we have there .

I think that I could convince my colleagues to pay a fairly significant prize to the engi neer that could come up with a low cost formula with relatively maintenance free operation that would lay the dust and maybe hold down some of the flying stones so that we don't have to buy near as many head lights and don't have to buy near as many windshields and things of this na ture. Unfortunately I have no solution to offe r. We are trying experiments . There are experi ments going on under varying lifts of blacktop etc . of lime stabilization and cement stabiliza tion and things of this nature.

It may well be that as time progresses we will find the answer, but the breakthrough isn •t here yet. Now several of the members have indicated that the various municipalities felt they had been told exactly what was going to happen, and I suppose this is probably true in some munici palities.

It's entirely , I think, within the imagination to understand that as the pla ns were drawn up by the planning division to have som ething to talk about when we went out, some of the roads were fairly distinguishable to the planning division as connector roads , so that when you got to see the municipality most of the roads that qualified were looked after.

The power of suggestion by this munic ipality to the planning division did not have as much influence as may be some municipalities where this wasn't as possible and there were areas of negotiation and discuss ion back and forth, and I don 't think that this sort of thing can be eliminated. I really see no other means of deve loping the program than what was done . I will say that I think, having asked each of the municipal councils , that 90 percent, a good 90 percent of the municipal coun cils indicated that they felt it was a reasonable place to start, from the spot -- from their particular position.

I frankly say that there were some that didn't think it was too reasonable a position to start it off, and I think this was to be expected and certainly those municipalities may well be right. I have committed myself to take some of my staff and myself and go out and see these municipalities which are in the areas that are hardest to determine again this summer, to see if any of these things can be improved on. The Honourable Member from Brokenhe ad mentioned that in addition to the main market roads that are going back to the municipalitie s, that they also looked after quite a number of roads of their own.

I just ask him not to forget that as well as the roads we are taking over, that

2012 April 29th, 196 5 (MR. WElR cont'd) ....... we have all of the roads that were provincial roads before , all of the trunk highways that were trunk highways before , and all of the large capital inves tment that there was in this area. I'm of the opinion that the roads that have been taken over, or will be taken over by the province, are the roads where the capital costs are going to increase. The capital costs are going to increase as time goes on.

We are going to be enco uraging these costs to increase because we are going to be attempting, through signing and other menas, to attract traffic off of the municipal roads and onto the provincial roads , so that we will be able to de termine those roads that should be improved first, and there's going to be differences of opin ion.

If this government is here , or if it's another one, I daresay that there 's going to be dif ferences of opinion as to which one should be done first, between those that sit on this side and thos e that sit on that side, and a lot more differences still with those that don't sit inside at all; and I think this is to be expected and I really think that we will be able to proceed at a rate that is quite significant. I think, Mr.

Chairman , those are the major points as far as this area is concerned for the Member for Brokenhe ad, with the exception of the problem that he seems to have in his area, with our 125 foot limit requiring permission of the Highways Branch.

He seems to have the idea, I don't know-- there was a while when I wondered if he understood the reason for the 125 feet, if it was to really stop the clutter and to keep people back from the road, but in his comments this afternoon I really believe he did understand that the real purpose for the 125 feet is to leave room for the improvement of that road, or of that facility, whether it be tele phone, hydro, utility road or what have you in this area, without having to pay high costs of building structures that are located too close .

At one stage of the game I thought he was en quiring if we lived up to it ourselv es , if he meant with bui ldings that we erected within the de partment within 125 feet of the road, which of course we do live up to this regulation; but as far as agreeing to move sorrebody that ends up by being within the 125 feet automatically when they are within this area or approaching it, then of course this isn't the case or we would defeat the main purpose for having it within the Act. Now, damages are paid. It's a matter of re lativity I think.

When you reach a certain point, some people will choose the damages rather than have their house moved, even when it comes up real close. Other people will prefer to have their house. moved. We enter into an area of negotiation here which I'm certainly not a specialist at. I've got people on my staff who I think are really pretty good, really pretty good at dealing with people who find themselves in this position, and they don't like taking things away from people - they try and be as reasonable as they can.

But when you reach an area where there is absolu tely no agreement, then I think that we have really reached the point where we find ourselves in arbitration to either pay the damages or something like that. The Honourable Member I,know has some specific cases out there . One he talks of with 15 feet -- which is 15 feet. There is another one that he is referring to that if it's the one I think he 's referring to, it's not 15 feet at all but, as close as I can come, approximately 40 fee t. You get into areas of this kind, and again , I don •t want to mention names .

I think we understand one another in this line of thinking. Now the matter of trespassing, as he calls it. I really think that -- there 's probably some criticism coming to the department. There probably is.

But if there is criticism coming to the department - and I've looked into I think the case that the Honourable Member is discuss ing - and I think that if there 's criticism coming towards them it's for attempting to negotiate too long, attempting to negotiate too long, because they hesitated to take force, and while he talks about trespassing under the Act, the minute the plan is filed in the Land Titles Office the province has right of entry. It doesn't necess arily require that immediate ly this man get notice . On enquiry I found that the paper work-- they negotiated as long as they could.

The equipment was almost -- it couldn 't be stopped before the plan was filed. The plan was filed before entry was taken, but it was some particular time before notice was received, written notice was re ceived by the person with the land. So really I think probably if there 's any criticism to the department it might have been that they might have recognized they weren't going to come to terms maybe a day or two or a week before they did, after having negotiated for some weeks , and gone ahead with the plan before this stage.

There was certainly no intention on anybody's part to make it difficult for the individual concerned, and I apologize on their behalf if this has happened, because it certainly, would not be desired in any way. Now the Honourable Member for Radisson, the Leader of the NDP, who's got the privi lege of going and spending the evening with Tommy while I have to stay here and accept my re sponsibilities here , I'll attempt to answer some of his questions. He enquired about a subway on Nairn Avenue and the answer is the same as was given last year, that there has been no offic ial

April 29th, 1965 2013 (MR.

WEIR cont'd) ........ request by Metro for an overpass or underpass, a grade separation with the railway on Nairn, not that it hasn't been considered, but it is being postponed particu larly beca use a firm of consultants have been retained by the Metropolitan Corporation and they were also retained by us when Metro was retaining them, to attempt to co-o rdinate the develop ment of No. 59 highway on our behalf and a road and street network on behalf of the Metropoli tan Corporation in the east part of the Metropoli tan area, and there is the possibi lity of another location being chosen which would probably make Nairn not as important, not as heavily a trafficked thoroughfare as one that is possibly going to be developed, so until you can approach the Board of Transport Commissioners to pick up the largest part of the tab, it would not be reasonable to attempt to make decisions on Nairn Avenue .

Highway 15, its extension to Rennie - all I can say is that there 's been no decision made on this at this stage of the game. The best advice I can get, and I haven •t looked at it very closely, is that if this area had been conducive to road construction back in the days before I was here and I think before this government came into office, that probably would have been the location of No. 1 Highway. Maybe the Honour able Member from Lakeside can help me out.

But in this area, I'm advised that there 's some very very high cost area which certainly will have to be considered before any extension of the existing No. 15 directly east to Rennie is contem plated. The Honourable Member asked about the crossing of the Floodway at St. Anne 's Road. The last information that I had from my department from Water Control which is - they are both interested, but it's certainly a Water Control responsibility - is, the present thought is that there will be no crossing of the Flood way at St. Anne 's Road, that the distance between St. Anne 's, between St.

Mary's and 59 is not that great, and that if this were to be required there 's probably other areas where the bridges are farther apart on the floodway where this would be required even more. However, having said that, I'll ask the members of the department to have another look from their point of view and. to discuss the matter with Water Control again to make sure that they're still of the same opinion . The Honourable Member from Radisson enquired about a wage increase for staff on the grounds.

The best information that I have is that the fair wage is paid for all of those employ ees, the fair wage is set once a year to be renewed again on April 1st. If there 's a change in the Fair Wage Act on April 1st, there will also be a change reflected in the staff that the Honourable Member from Radisson was talking about. And I think that I answered his question as far as the construction west of the overpass on No. 15 Highway was. concerned. So, Mr. Chairman, I may have missed some; I've tried to hit the major points. MR. GUTTORM SON: Mr.

Chairman, I rise to protest about the deplorable condition of No. 6 Highway. Before I go into my remarks, I want the House to know that I'm fully aware of the work that is planned for this road this year, and that the road wor\';: planned this year is far greater than we have ever had before since this government came to office, and the Minister of this present department has been far more consider ate of this highway than any other minister in this government serving before him, and I'm grateful for the attention that he has given No. 6 since he took office.

However, I must point out to him that the people of St. George have ex hausted their patience as a result of the negligence of the government prior to this present Minister taking office. We've had a number of government representatives describe the Interlake as a depress ed area, as a poverty�stricken area, and there have been other. uncomplimentary remarks made about this area. ARDA has been described as a possible soluti on to the Interlake area.

Well, I'd like to tell this House that if that portion of the Inte rlake that I represent had a proper high way, it would go an awful long way to solving the ills of the constituency . People have been told that the tourist industry could be developed for fishing and parks and hunting. The horrible truth is that the people won 't venture into the area because of the highway, and many people who once go into the area, many will never return bec ause of the abuse their vehicle takes as a re sult of the road.

Unlike so many other areas, No. 6 Highway is the only means of transportation serving that whole area from Winnipeg to Grand Rapids. A few years ago, we used to have a train ser vice . This train, as the Minister and the members of the House -m ost of them - will know was discontinued a number of years ago and the only means of hauling our freight and passen gers is to go in on No. 6. Interlake has often been described as a wonderful cattle country and I agree with this. Most people do. The Minister of Agriculture, I think, will agree with this.

But the problem is, people lose on their animals as the highwa y is so rough - it's amazing the

2014 April 29th, 1965 (MR. GUTT ORMSON cont'd) ....... amount of abuse they take . People are reluctant to settle in the area because they have 't got a highway to come out on. The dust hazard is unbelievable. Now the Minister has said there are other areas have dust problems ; I'm sure this is correct, but I'm sure no area is worse for dust than No. 6. The damage that the vehic les suffer from the roughness of this road is unbe lievable. I know that on one trip I have broken three head lights on my own car. Windshields are be ing broken regularly. Shocks are broken frequently.

The cost - the truckers are at their wits ' end because of the maintenance costs that they are faced with as a result of the rough highway. Now, it may be considered that I'm t he only one concerned with-this. Well the Minister is aware now that I am not. There is a commit tee known as the Ashern - or the Camper - Gypsumville Development Board, who on their own initiative , without any prompting from me , have written the Premier - and a copy was sent to the Minister of Public Works - complaining very bitterly about the condition of No. 6 and the proposed plans of the government with regard to No. 6.

The Municipality of Siglunes on their own initiative have written a letter, and I fee l free to read it beca use it has been published in its entirety in the newspaper. It is written to the Secretary of the Area Development Board, Camper-GypsumviUe . And I think I should read it just to indicate, show that the people - what their reaction is .

This letter was unsolic ited and it says -- its addressed to the Board and it says : "Dear Sir: Referring to your letter of date March lOth, I would like to mention first of all that some time in the fall of 1963" - this is, the Minister will remember this was August of '63 - "repres entatives of several municipalities in our area, along with Mr. E. Guttormson the MLA , met with Premier Roblin and Mr. Weir, Minister of Public Works . The purpose was to discuss the condition of No. 6 Highway and to ascertain if the government had any intention to finally make some' improvements .

During the discuss ion we were assured that there was definitely a better chance now to put hardtop on this road since there will not be as much heavy traffic on No. 6 H ighway as there has been during the first part of the Hydro cons truction at Grand Rapids, and the government was prepared to complete No. 6 with blacktop from St. Laurent to No. 68. I would like to add here that we are anxious to see No. 6 completed, and fail to see any reason for not continuing north of Eriksdale.

There is as much and more traffic on No . 6 as on many other highways in the province which have blacktop, and it is ridiculous to expect the public to ruin their vehicles when using this road, especially with the ever-increas ing tax on gas and high licence fees . Much has peen done to accommodate tourists along Lake Manitoba and elsewhere along this road, and much more can and will be done providing the tourists find a road they want to travel on. Unless No. 6 is made attractive, all efforts will be in vain.

We are therefore prepared to support any move dedicated to insist that the government carry on this work north of Eriksdale without any delay until No. 6 is completed. Yours truly, K. F. H. Co leman, Reeve of Ashern. " The Minister will recall that he was good enough to meet with these munic ipalities and myself in September of 19 63, and at that time he gave us an undertaking that No. 6 would be completed from St. Laurent, where the blacktop ended at St. Laurent to No . 68 Highway. And everything the Minister had said at that meeting he has carried out, and I am grateful to him for that. Up till now, the

schedule that he gave me , he has lived up to the word , and I appreci ate his frankness and the attitude he has taken with respect to keeping his word. However, what concerns the people, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that the government indicated they were only prepared to go to No. 68 Highway. This is a long way off from Gypsumville and it's a big area yet to be served - such towns as Ashern, Steep Rock - and these people are the ones that are primarily concerned because of the government's plans at the present time not to go be yond Eriksdale.

Now I would like to advise the Minister that we have another problem which he may or may not know of. For years the rocks in the mines at Spearhill, Gypsumville and Steep Rock have been hauled out of the area by rock trai ns . Now, on a limited scale at least, some of this rock ·is being hauled by truck, and the Minister will realize what this will do to the high way if some work isn't done on it immediately. The Minister might say - there would be some degree of truth in it if he did - that they couldn't because of the Grand Rapids road.

Howeve r, I'd like to point out that No. 6 that was built in the last two years from Fairford south to Hilbre has all been on new location and could have been done regardless of what is going on on the highway because it wouldn 't have interfered. When I point out to the people the government's reasons for not building No. 6 - the answer that has been given me , the former Minister, Mr. Thompson , said -- he told this House and he 's on record that he felt they couldn't do the work on No. 6 because of Grand Rapids. Well, many people in St.

George are not prepared to ac cept this argument whether it's true or not. They're very disgusted because of the dela ys.

April 29th, 1965 2015 (MR. GUTTOR MSON cont'd) ... ... . What is irritating them even more is the fact that in the by-electi on of 1956 when I first ran for office, the First Minister was in the area and decried the terrible condition of No. 6 Highway. As a matter of fact, he named it "C ampbell 's Soup" and I might tell him that No. 6 Highway in those days was a far superior road than it is today, and although the First Minister made an issue of the condition of No. 6 at that time, it wasn't an issue with the people. But the road has gone down very badly since that time.

The Minister of Mines and Natural Resources appeared in Ashern at a public meeting a few years ago and decried the conditon of No. 6 High way and gave assurance that something would be done . It wasnit until this Minister took office that anything has been done on No. 6. The blacktop that we are going to get on No. 6 this year is the first we have had since this government came to office.

At the present time, we have a petition - it's not my petition; it's a petition that is being circu lated in the Inter lake and it's being signed by thousands of people, many of those that live in the Inter lake and others who travel in the Inter lake and have to use No. 6 Highway. And this petition, I expect, will be pre sented to the Minister by the representatives of the bo ard when they meet with the Premier and the Minister at a date to be set by the Minister .

I know the Minister may feel that I'm being ungrateful in view of the fact of the work that he has given us -- the work that we are going to get this year. I want to point out to him I would be remiss in my duties if I didn 't point out to the House the situation on No. 6. Mem bers in the House who have never travelled on No. 6 may think I am being very parochial by discussing this matter at this length but until you've travelled on No. 6 Highway, you haven't travelled on a cow path. -- (I nterjec tion) -- Pardon ? You haven't lived then.

Two years ago when I learned that the Hydro was planning to invite all the Members of this Legis lature to visit Grand Rapids and look at the dam, I wrote the Premier a personal letter. I didn't pub lish it or I didn 't make it available to the press. I didn't want him to think I was trying to make a political issue of it. I wrote in a personal letter and invited him, or suggested to him, that he have the Members of this House travel to Grand Rapids by car or bus so they could see the condition of No. 6 for themselves.

Unfortunately, the Minister didn't accede to my request and I'm sorry to say he didn't even acknowledge the letter I sent to him. I think what's irritating the people also is the fact that the government has mentioned crash programs on certain highways. They have a crash program now on the road to Portage la Prairie where we have an excellent road; I'm not suggesting that perhaps it needs a wider road. But No. 6 is a very heavily travelled road and the people up there fee l that they're en titled to at least one road with hardtop beca use it's the only road they have .

The government has announced another crash program, I beli eve it's on 59, and it's nonsense like this that is really irritating the people because they feel that if ever a road needed a crash program it was No. 6 Highway. I just came in from the constitutency twice during the last three or four days and I can tell him that the road is just awful. The highway - the potholes in it - it's just unbelievable and the truckers are at their wits' end because of the damage they are incurring to their vehi cles as a result of the rough condition of the highway.

I've never seen any subject which is such a bone of contention in any area as the condition of No. 6 highway. I think that it's even cons idered a bigger, a far bigger issue , than the increased taxes imposed last year.

Ev ery where you go people discuss No. 6 Highway and particularly in the area north of Eriksdale , be cause people at Eriksdale and south have now received a commitment from the Minister, and they can see that he plans to carry out his promise, to have blacktop but they've had no assur ance at all that anything will be done beyond Eriksdale where , as the Minister knows , there 's a long distance to be served after you pass Eriksdale. There are a number of centres , we have a number of mines. So I would suggest to the Minister that he reconsider, if he can, to try and do more work on No. 6 Highway.

If he wants to do the Inter lake a service of providing a proper highway with hardtop it will do more than all the other programs combined. I'm sure that many of the people would fee l that the government could scrap ARDA if they would give them assurance that they would be provided with a highway in a short time, be cause nothing, I'm confident, as many other people are, that nothing will do the area more good than a highway. It is said, and I'm not exaggerating, people refuse to come to even visit their relatives after one trip because of the abuse their vehic les suffer.

Tourists are reluc tant to come to co ttages beca use of the highway. So I would suggest that the Minister give this

2016 April 29th, 1965 (MR. GUTTOR MSON cont'd) ... ..... matter every consideration and ease the minds of the people of the Inte rlake about what's going to be done, something that's favour able, so that they will feel that all is not lost. So when the Minister replies I would hope that he could perhaps give me some assurance that blacktop will not stop at 68 and perhaps that he can see his way c !ear to speed up the program in this area. . ........ Continued on next page

April 29th, 1965 2017 MR . CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, I have three specific questions that I'd like to ask the Honourable the Minister to give me information on. I wouldn't expect that he has the figures with him now -perhaps he has -perhaps he can get them during the evening or if not, as soon as he can. The first question that I would like to ask my honourable friend is, what was the total highway expenditure in the year that just closed a month ago? That is, the year ending March lst, '65.

My honourable friend justa few minutes ago, commenting on the remarks of the Honourable Member for Gladstone, the Minister said that the figure that the Honourable Mem ber for Gladstone used was not a correct figure, that much more than that had been sperit.

Well now, when I checked the figures as to what has been spent, the place that I go to is the report of the department itself where they give the actual expenditures per fiscal year in the report but, as happens with all the departments, the reports are away out of date by time we get them and it is nice to know what the actual expenditure is when we're dealing with the estimates. So I'd like to know first, how much was spent in the year that just closed a month ago because I'm sure that, even if the figures aren't completely finalized, that the Ministe:r will be able to give us a very close approximation.

Then, secondly, I'd like to know what is the total that's being appropriated for this year that we 're in now ? That is, ill cluding current and capital, because this program as given in the annual reports, telling what has been in fact completed in the year under review, is the total of current and capital and I think that's the right way that it should be presented. And so would he tell us what amount is being appropriated for this year that we're in now ?

Now I listened carefully yesterday when the Minister was giving the figures, and I haven't had time to check them exactly, but as I listened to them it would appear to me that he said that something in the neighbourhood of $23 million was being made avairable in current and something in the neighbourhood of 20 in capital which would indicate to the person that added those two figures together that there was a program for the current fiscal year of $43 million.

Now I'm quite sure that the program isn't that large and I know that my honourable friend isn't intentionally using any figures to confuse either the members of this Committee or the public, but presented that way it can appear that this is a $43 million program. Then I am aware too of the factthatthere usually is some carried over work, as the Honourable the Minister men tioned.

There usually is some carried over money as well, or some money standing in the appropriations that can be used, but what I'd like to get is first, how much is in the present estimates and will be presented in capital, and then the third question that I'd like to pose is, what is the cost of the program that the Honourable Minister expects to complete this year ? And I know that there again there can be a variation because of the fact of how the season works out.

But I happened to notice a press report that I just glanced at this evening and the press report seemed to say that it had read the program as being $39 million, and when I had added up the current estimates of the department it had looked to me as though the highway roads were about $19 million rather than 23. So I'd like to get a clarification of those figures from the Honourable the Minister. Now, Mr.

Chairman, if I were inclined to be critical of anything in the department my job would be rendered very difficult by the fact that the Honourable the Minister handles his estimates so nicely, replies to the questions in such a gentlemanly fashion and refuses to be drawn into any realm of controversy, even when almost challenged to do so, that I would certainly find it difficult to .attempt to argue with him. I could gain a lot of encouragement from the fact that even my honourable friend the Member for St.

George whom I don'tJre quently find throwing compliments at the other side of the House, seemed to be saying that he thought, even if he wouldn't say anything good about the Minister, at least he wasn't as bad as the rest of them, and I think I could pretty largely subscribe to that text myself.

And it's not directed towards the Honourable the Minister himself but rather towards some of his colleagues and the information services of the government that I feel it necessary to once again put on the record as I see it, some of the facts about highway expenditures and I'm always anxious to have my figures checked by the Minister himself and by the experts of the department whom I know are listening in, that if the ones that I give are not correct, I'd be glad to have the revised ones because there has been a program by the government sup porters, and I do not say my honourable friend the Minister in the present instance, because I was quite impressed by the nice way in which he replied to what my honourable colleague the Member for Ethelbert Plains had said about comparisons, by saying that the former ad ministration had a program to put into effect and it no doubt dealt with it as it saw fit in those

2018 April 29th, 1965 (MR. CAMPBELL cont'd. ) days and we have our program to deal with and we do the same thing. If all of my honourable friend's colleagues took the reasona ble attitude that he does, I think there would perhaps be less criticism emanating from this side of the House. But the fiction has been continued by my honourable friends or the government benches, not only the ministers but the private members, that there has been continuing expansion to the highways program of this government.

As a matter of fact, just a year ago or maybe it was two, two such well-informed gentlemen as the Honourable the Minister of Mines and Natural Resources and the Honourable the Minister of Welfare challenged me when I quoted some of the figures and said they weren't right because they - even they - were victims of the propaganda of the department that the huge expenditures that did actually occur, for a couple of years in the highways branch, were still being continued.

They really I think believed that that was the fact and so I wanted to review these figures from a little different angle to what the Honourable Member for Ethelbert Plains did but I'm going back no further than the last year that the former administration completed. Now I know that somebody will say tq me, in reply to this that oh sure, but there was an election coming up. Well, Mr. Chairman, there's always an election coming up in this country. There's one coming up now. There was one coming up last year.

There'll be one coming up next year and regardless of when we talk about there's one coming sometime, and I think good programs of any kind have an effect on elections no matter when they are put into operation.

But though I'm dealing with the last year that our administration completed, I would mention that the following year, for which we put in the estimates and my honourable friends rather than we had the administration of them for nine of the 12 months, we had increased those estimates in that year -- yes, an election year but if they will go back a few years they'll find that they had been steadily increased in an equal proportion; back a few years, not back all the way that our administration was in office, that's true, because it can be recounted any time here that during the war years, when men and materials were needed for other work that certainly the road program fell behind what lots of us would have liked it to have, but if you will take the increases from the year that the war ended and follow them through you will find that the increases were not only continuous but they were sharply graduated regularly.

And even at the time that one of my honourable friend's good friends was the Minister of Public Works and in charge of highways in this province, the same thing happened, and I'm not -- this is of no particular consequence but when my honour able friends criticize the program of the former administration -- and again I'm not blaming the present Minister at all, he has not followed this line, but when some of his colleagues do, I would remind them that the gentleman who was their colleague at the time that the so-called new program was introduced, had been the minister in charge of highways for ten years, under our administration, and a great many of these roads - in fact the foundation work of this road system that we put in was laid during the years that that gentleman was the Minister of PUblic Works.

Then he was the man who a few years later, on the coming into office of this govern ment, said that the program before had been too restricted and I would be remiss, Mr. Chair· man, if I didn't remind honourable members of the fact that just a very few years before we went out of office, that the present First Minister of the province, when we we;re laying before this committee a program of highway expenditure of $16 million, suggested to us that it was too large and that ow million should be cut off of it.

So that those of my honourable friends, and they do not include the present Minister of Highways, when talking about the program of the former administration should remember some of these things and take them into consideration. Now as far as the last year that we were in office, that is, the year ending March 31st, 1958, the highway expenditures as given in the Public Works Department annual report were $29-1/ 4 million. In all cases I'm giving round figures. Now it's true that in the next year, this was jumped; this was increased $5 million but, Mr.

Chairman, it was the former ad ministration that put in the estimates and the estimates were bigger than the expenditure that the incoming government put on the highways. We had provided more money than what was actually expended under the new incoming administration. The expenditures that year were 34, 600, 000 odd. In 1960 there really was a big increase because it went up to 41, 800, 000 odd. and that was a big year, but by 196 1 it was down more than $3 million, down to $38, 600, 000. By 1962 it was down to $29, 672, 000; by 1963 it was down to 28 million, well practically $29 million.

That was the year that I was quoting when I reminded the House of the similar figures and my honourable friend the Minister of Welfare, my honourable friend the Minister of Mines

April 29th, 1965 2019 (MR. CAMPBELL cont'd.) .••.• and Natural Resources, hooted at me from across the hall for suggesting that in that year that the expenditures were no larger than they had been under our administration, and they said almost as one voice from over that side, yes but take cur rent and capital together and I said, yes, taking current and capital together.

And these are the figures that are given in the annual report of the Department of Public Works and these are the right figures as I understand them, because what we should give I think, what we should go on, is the actual program that is carried into effect -- not the money that is voted and that does of course carry through from one year to another as far as the capital is con cerned, and not the amount of work that's still to be done from one year's program to another, but the figure of how much in a given year was actually expended by the department on high ways.

A table used to be included for some years after my honourable friends came into of fice and I show you one here, the trunk highway system development from '52 to '62 with the ascending scale going up here, pretty steeply, and getting pretty high. That table was con tinued until the next year, going up still higher, but after that it stopped and it stopped for the reason I am mentioning in these figures because the expenditures started to go the other way and the table has been discontinued.

Well now this is not of any great consequence, but the fact is that there is a recognition there both in the figures and in the table that the increase had stopped and had tailed off. Now to go on; 1963 it was down to practically 29 million, a little bit less. By '64, the last report that we have, it was back to 30-1/2 million which I am quite free to acknowledge. What I would like to get is the comparable figure for the year that just ended a month ago, so that we can see exactly what the total expenditures were.

Then the point that the Honourable Minister mentioned just today when replying to what my honourable friend from Ethelbert Plains had said. The Minister mentioned the fact that roads were being built to what was considered a higher standard now than they were before and that you can't consequently compare exactly the miles of grading and the miles of paving and this sort of thing, we must look at the quality. But you can compare, in my opinion, you can fairly compare the total expenditures on the highway branch and this is what I want to get the correct figure for.

And then there is the other comparison that my honourable friend from Ethelbert Plains mentioned and that's the comparison of the revenues that are obtained from what I think are properly regarded as the road taxes, the gasoline and motive fuel users' tax, the automobile and truck licences and the drivers' and chauffeurs' licence ·s. That quartet I think of taxes could be properly delineated as the road users' taxes. And here's an interesting point and I don't intend to take the time, Mr.

Chairman, to trail all through these various years because I'm sure I can make the point without doing it, that in 1958 when we spent, as a matter of record, $29-1/4 million in the Highway Branch, the revenue from those four taxes was less than $20 million, less than 20 . In other words there were $9-1/4 million odd more spent on the highways than accrued to the province from the users' taxes.

In 1964 the annual report says that there were $30-1/ 2 million spent on the highways ofthe province, but the revenue, as I have figured it out - and the estimate of the expenditure is the department's own - the revenue that I give as my own figuring from the Public Accounts, and I hope I have figured it out correctly, was almost $35 million - in other words, nearly $5 million more than was spent on the highways; and this, I think, is a correct measure of the attention that is being paid. And the revenue as estimated for this present fiscal year from these taxes will be $48 million odd.

Now, even if the 43 were going to be spent for the program - and I greatly doubt that it's anything like that big -I would guess from what I see of the program that it's again roughly in the nature of $30 million, or a little more, as far as the amount that's going to be completed, actually completed in this fiscal year, is concerned. So this is what I would like to get, because, Mr.

Chairman, I have no wish whatever to continue to refer to what happened in the old days, and I do it only when it's raised from the other side of the House, and I perhaps would not have gone to this extent in my present remarks had it not been for a mention that the Honourable the First Minister made last evening when some question was being asked by my honourable friend from Rhine land, and my friend the First Minister rather slightingly and snidingly referred to, "that was one of those fine 'Grit' roads that we hear about, " or words to that effect.

Now, for the edification of my honourable friends on the other side of the House, I would simply say that if more of them would eschew the program of the First Minister in making such remarks, and follow the personable approach that my honourable friend the

20 20 April 29th, 1965 (MR. CAMPBELL cont'd. ) Minister of Highways has and generally employs, that likely the estimates would get through a little more quickly, because I can only blame continuing propaganda that goes out to the province as though this great road program that did happen for a couple of years was still being carried on, and as though it were a lot bigger than what was carried on by the former administration, and the kind of remark that was thrown in yesterday, for the fact that I have to once again stand in my place and put on the record these facts as I see them.

So, if my honourable friend will furnish me with the information that I have asked in those three questions, I'd be very grateful, and I perhaps won't have to ·go over this statement again during the present estimates. MR. SHOEMAKER : Mr. Chairman, before we get too far into the estimates, I think it would be most helpful to the Committee for the Minister to tell the members of it what is the new definition of provincial roads, connector roads, secondary highways, main market roads, municipal roads, school roads, and there used to be what they called 100 percent roads.

That many at least, and any other new adjectives that have appeared since we last met; and then I would like to know what the provincial contribution is to each one of these roads. Now if we had thaf, we would then know - everybody would know - what we were tal king about, the pro vincial contribution to each, and we would all be on the same basis. I think that it would be most helpful to every member of the Committee to have that. MR. SCHREYE R : ..••••••••• the Minister answers, I have some points here which will help to clean up whatever questions I have on this department -- on highways, rather.

I was glad to hear the Minister say that the provincial road take-over is not exactly a hard and fast thing but is subject to revision, addition, etc. , as the municipalities make their wishes and needs felt, and I was glad to hear the Minister leave it open-ended at least to that extent.

There are some aspects of this provincial road program that I feel do need clarification, perhaps not now but some time soon, and that is for example that the province is now respons ible for hundreds of miles of gravel road which the department was not responsible for before, and I get the impression that the Department of Public Works in the past has been geared to dealing with road maintenance of roads that are hard surfaced for the most part.

Now, having taken over hundreds of miles of gravel roads -I think that's correct; hundreds of miles of gravel roads - will the province, in order to maintain these roads, grade them etc. to keep them from getting too rough? Will they have to go into purchasing a couple of dozen of patrols ? Will they have to hire quite a few more patrol operators? Do they intend to work on a contract basis with the municipalities, and let the municipalities do the gravel road patrolling with their machinery or what does the Minister have in mind, or the department have in mind in this con nection? It seems to me too that

whereas in the past the municipalities were either well equipped or getting well-equipped to do this patrolling and snow- plowing in the winter, now I presume that the province is completely responsible for this. They'll have to buy patrols, snow- plows. I assume that they don't have the equipment to do all this at the moment and I don't think that they will have it either, unless they go into quite a substantial program of ac quisition of the machinery for this. I want to say that I believe that the cost to municipalities is going to rise sharply now.

The cost of road maintenance is going to rise sharply even though the province is taking off their hands certain designated roads. Losing the 60 percent grant is bound to have an upward effect on their road costs, road maintenance costs, particularly with regard to bridges. I think the Honourable Minister's perhaps more aware of this than I am, that to a small rural municipality, when the cost of bridge construction or repair is allowed to go back completely to the municipality, there's no more 60 percent grant from the province on that.

This is worry ing many municipal officials, particularly when the bridges that have reverted back to their responsibility are bridges over major creeks and rivers, like - I understand that in Broken head, the municipality of Brokenhead had six bridges revert back to them completely, and some of these bridges are quite dilapidated which will necessitate bridge construction over the Brokenhead, which is a pretty big river, if I must say so myself - it's not as big as the Missis sippi but it's still quite a cost in bridges; it runs in the order of $30, 000 - and six such bridges have reverted back to the municipality with no more provincial grants on them.

Well, I don't expect the Minister to answe r on that point because I'm more or less making a statement on that rather than asking a question, but I want him to be apprised of that point. The Minister did answer my other questions very well -I 'm thankful to him. Except one point he left out entirely and that is, what happens now to the access roads program ? It seems

April 29th, 1965 2021 (MR. SCHRE YER cont'd. ) ....• to me this requires clarification. I know that the Member for Rhineland probably was going to follow this up in any case. I'm of the opinion that those vil lages which were waiting patiently for access roads are now probably going to be told that "Well, now we're going to put a provincial road through here, designated now as a provincial road, so you have what you were asking for. " But, Mr.

Chairman, that's not quite correct, because a provincial road can be left in the gravel state or condition for several years and that's not the same as being provided with the access road which meets the same standards as the trunk highway or as the highway to which it connects. Closely allied with that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Minister what happens now - now that we have the provincial road program - what happens now to those village and town streets? I understand that there was a village and town street cost-sharing program in the past.

For example, the Town of Beausejour, a few years back, had some of its side streets - not its main street, but its side streets - dug down. The street bed was compacted better and a bituminous surface was put on and it was cost-shared with the province. Certain villages have been hoping that they could have some of their so-called village main market streets, if you can use that expression, improved, possibly hard-surfaced, on a 60-40 or 50- 50 basis.

Now I have the suspicion that now with the provincial road program coming in, the Minister may think that all this can lapse, but the provincial road program doesn't: really sub stitute for these things that I'm talking about. Finally, before I take my place, I think that honourable members here should take some interest in the departmental report which takes the provincial highway construction program for the last year and gives a breakdown of the various work orders, the number of project miles, the kind of work undertaken and the expenditure for work order.

And I find something in there a little bit disturbing, Mr. Chairman; something that certainly requires clarification; and that is when you look at the access roads program starting on Page 61 of the report, you find there that there's quite a variation in the cost, in the expenditure for base course and bituminous surfacing in the various towns and villages. Now I understand, of course, that some soil conditions are such that require more excavation and compaction than others, but the description in the report refers strictly to base course and bituminous surfacing.

That is to say, I assume that this has nothing to do with the cost of grading or compaction - this is strictly in each case the cost of base course and bituminous surfacing; and we find quite a discrepancy, For example, in Deloraine, base course and bituminous surfacing per mile, 19, 500 -p er mile of base course and bituminous surfacing. Then you move on down the page and you find in Newdale that it works out to 26, 000 for the same kind of work order - 26, 000 per project mile.

And further on down the page we find Fraserwood, 44, 000 per project mile for base course and bituminous surfacing - nothing· there about compaction or cost of digging down with excavation of the road bed. And at Gretna - I guess the Member for Rhineland probably has an explanation; I hope the Minister has - at Gretna, 86, 000 per project mile for base course and bituminous surfacing and so on and so forth. And then some are considerably lower, for example at Miami and at St. Malo and at Goodlands, it works out to about, oh, less than 10, 000 per project mile, one or two being as low as 6, 000.

Now I don't know if I've made myself clear, I understand full well that if you must take into account the road bed treatment, compaction, etc. , you could have a big differential of cost, but bituminous surfacing is bituminous surfacing. Once you lay it down it doesn't mat ter if you're laying it down in swampland or in land where there's good drainage - it's bitumi nous surfacing; it's the same material; and why should there be such a big differential ? That's not quite all, Mr. Chairman. Finally, I say, you compare the cost being ex pended on access roads.

Let's say that it runs at about 19, 000, or let 's say 15, 000 per pro ject mile for base course and bituminous surfacing. This is for access roads. Now compare that with the cost on trunk highways, base course and bituminous surfacing. You would think -- I think any reasonable member here would assume, lay man would assume, that, if any thing, the cost of base course and bituminous surfacing on a trunk highway is going to be a lot more, a lot higher than on an access road. This is what one would expect and yet I can find quite a few instances here where a provincial trunk highway - for example, No. 4 East.

A base course and bituminous surfacing was laid down for ten miles at a per mile cost of $1, 600. 00. I find this either is a typographical error that should be cleaned up or else, what? Or else it simply doesn't make sense when you compare this $1, 600 per mile for a trunk high way, when you lay that beside 26, 000, 19, 000 and 15, 000 for access road base course and bituminous surfacing. It should, if anything, be the other way around, it seems to me. Now

2022 April 29th, 1965 (MR. SCHREYER cont'd. ) ... ... the one I picked out, admittedly - the $1 ,6 00 per mile - is by far the lowest, but I can find other examples where trunk highway hard surfacing has been done much more cheaply than for access road, and I just can't understand that, Mr. Chairm an.

Finally I would say to the Minister that this example of 1, 600 has to do with the highway from Beausejour east of Seddon•s Corner, No. 4 East, and maybe the cheapness with which this project was dorie is already showing itself, because that road surface there is already we aving, undulating, and re cognizably of poor quality. Now I hope that the Minister will have some logical answer for the price differentials on these projects involving bitum inous surfac ing . MR. FRO ESE: Mr. Chairman, before the Minister answers, I would just like to follow up on one or two matters.

I think the Honourable Member for Brokenhead already continued further to what I said previo usly in connection with access roads . Are those roads that would have normally qualified for access roads before this new legislation came in, will they be put up to a standard that -- as the highway to which the road leads onto? Will they be of that quality and of those speci fications? Or are they now a new type of road and there will be no relation at all to the type of road that they will be built into? Another matter is the maintenance of these provincial roads that the governm ent has now taken over.

As the Minister probably knows, the rural municipality in the past years has won awards and prizes for taking good care of their roads . They 've won seve ral awards in different years for good roads, and now they find themselves in the position where these roads are not properly maintained. We 've had citizens from the area call the department to get maintenance on these roads.

Then, apparently as I understand it - and the Minister can correct me on it later if I'm wrong - the department then contacts the municipal ity and finally the reeve gives instructions to their men with the equipmen t to go out and maintain the roads, This sometimes takes days before· they can get any service . Does the department intend to acquire its own machinery to maintain these roads, or are the municipalities going to maintain these roads in the future as they have in the past, with the government paying the cost? What is the program set up for? What does the government intend to do in this respect?

Over the weekend when I was home, I had people call on me and also today I saw some of our people from back home. They tell me Highway 32 at the pres ent is in very poor shape and it 's almost impassable because of the many pot-holes and so on, and that they would like to see some maintenance on these roads.

Mind you, we hope to get the blacktop and we ap preciate that, but at the same time these roads have to be used during and until we get that hard surfacing, and I would like to know from the Minister just what is the program, what do they intend to do, who is supposed to service these roads, and how they intend to carry out the whole program? Then also, I hope the Minister does make some remarks in connection with the access roads and the questions put to him previously.

Applications were made a year or two ago - I think two years ago already - for access roads from these various communitie s, and while some of them have been termed now as provincial roads, others haven't; and these that haven 't, is there still legis lation on the books as far as the access roads are concerned? Will these others that are not qualified or haven't come under the program of provincial roads, will they still be able to be brought in under the access roads so that they can get the improvem ents made? I cer tainly would like to hear from the Minister on this. MR. WEIR: Well, Mr.

Chairman, if I can answer a few of the comm ents that have been made again. I think that there 's no point in me making too much reference to the remarks made by the Honourable Member of St. George . It's not the first time we 've discussed No. 6 Highway. He's told me priva tely, I think, everything that he 's said here tonight. I have no further good news that I can give him than I' ve already given him, and I think that he knows that until such time as I can, that I' m cer tainly not going to make statements that I•m not sure where I• m going.

It may well be that something can be done from Eri ksdale north, but at the moment I have nothing definite that I can say about it. I, too, got a copy of the petition which -- or I guess you'd call it a petition that formed the basis of his remarks, the brief, and I do intend to meet with the group as soon as I can after the ses sion is over. The Honourable Member for Lakeside wanted to go back and talk about the old days again a little, and I noticed he just talked about the one year, at which it was 29 mi llion total, the year ending March 31, 1958. That's correc t .

If you go back the year before it's correct , that it had come up $4 million. But if you go back the year before that, you go back into a period of se veral years where you were in the 15 and 16 mi llion dollar bracket . However I have no

April 29th, 1965 2023 (MR. WEIR cont•d. ) ..... desire to dwell on it. I haven •t in the past and I see re ally nothing much to be gained from it. He asked for the total expenditures for the year ending March 31, 1965 as close as we could come to them , and the figure as close as we can come at the moment is $32, 539, 000 . As far as the estimates for this next year are concerned, I thought that I had been fairly clear in my rem arks last night. However, the way they've been interpreted I wonder how clear I was .

But then I thought I was clear on some other things and some of the questions that have arisen in the House this afternoon and this evening make me wonder how clear I was about some ofthose things that I had said too. So I 'll see if I can straighten the figures out for the Honourable Member for Lakeside. First of all, I started out by saying the curren t estimates of my department predict a requirem ent of almost $23 mi llion, which is the Department of Public Works , total. And that is the way I expressed it and I thought it was clear .

Obviously some people have added the figure together and called it all highways program . The next statement was the net provincial capital expenditure for highways for 165-66 . It is expected to be approximately $20 mi llion. The estimates for the contracts contemplated within the program are abour $24 million. Yes , the estimates in there as close as can be estimated, total approximately $24 million. There is a reco very of som ething in the neighbourhood of 2. 5 mi llion dollars from interested third parties .

The re is expected to be a carry-over into next year out of this year •s program of about $5 million, and there •s a carry-over coming from last year into this year to offset that of about $4 mi llion, which should, all things sorted out, if my arithmetic has been correct, boil down at about a net of so mething in the neighbourhood of $20' mi llion.

Now the Honourable Member for Gladstone, I think we have reached the point where he will be able to understand the terms and the names that we have for our roads because as of now, in the organized areas of Manitoba, we •ve only got two - just two - it's as simple as that - provincial trunk highways and provincial roads, and as far as the payment is concerned, the Province of Manitoba pays the full bill , construction and maintenance. The rem ainder are munic ipal roads.

In unorganized areas there has been no change; we have the same situation as we had before, of the school roads and the main market roads and the provincial roads and the provincial trunk highways . The re 's still that area and the same sharing formula is to continue in the unorganized areas that continued before . The areas that provincial roads come out of organized areas and into unorganized areas, on main market roads, will mean that those that used to have to pay 50 percen t of their snow clearing, will now have their snow clearing provided by the department.

The Honourable Member for Brokenhead goes into the matter of maintenance, along with the Member for Rhineland, and I guess probably I hadn •t been too explicit about it but I had thought I had left the impr essio n there that the district offices are co-operating extremely closely with the munic ipal offices . There is every effort being made to get the best use out of every machine that we have in the Province of Manitoba. Provincial machines are going to be made available to municipalities on a rental basis . Municipal machines are being provided on provincial roads on a rental basi s.

They are making an effort to try and establish beats for the machines, so that there is regular periods of time for these municipal machines to go over and look after a given beat. We are in the proce ss of organizing some foremen's districts through out the province, filling in the holes where they were before , and I think probably it 's under standable that there's still a few holes in 1lhe organization, considering we are only three months from the date at which the change actually took place.

But relatively speaking, for the most part, municipalities in areas where they have equipm ent to handle it, will be looking after the roads within their municipality, working on a rental basis and the de partment paying regular government rentals on their equipm ent. There will be areas -- there 's a real effort being made to attempt to keep machines from running up and down the road with the blade up.

I don•t know whether any of you people have had the experience of driving for a few mi les along behind the maintainer and you see the darn thing going down the road, and the road is pretty rough but the darn maintainer is going up, and all it's doing is weari ng the rubber out on the machine .

I have asked the districts and I have asked the municipalities to co-operate to attempt to lay out a routine, so there will be as little deadheading as possi ble. l'm the first to re cognize that it's impossi ble to elim inate all of it, but I have asked all municipalities and all of the dis trict offices to do everything in their power to elim inate deadheading of machines, whether it 's our machines working on their roads -- you boil down to where you've got a book account of the same type of a machine owned by the department or the province and it 's a lot cheaper to keep

20 24 April 29th, 1965 (MR . WEIR cont•d. ) a set of books to se parate the work than it is to send two machines out to do the same job in the sa me area and while I fully expect that even· after this year we 'll have areas that. we won't have fully organized, I' m led to believe throughout the country that is is operating fairly efficiently for the mo st part. As far as bridges are concerned, all of the municipalities are quick to remi nd us of the bridges that are going back on . their roa ds.

There is none · of them are· too anxious to indicate the number of bridges that we have happened to get, some of.which are almost falling down, the same as what some of theirs are, and if the br�dge had to. be r.ebuilt on the grant formula that they would have been picking up a bit of the tab .. Now it 's altogether too early to know exactly how this thing is going to work out. A period of time has to go by and sort the thing out. I re cognize that regardless of what I say or do, rega rdless of how much I take over, I can •t control the municipal mill ra te.

It 's set entirely by the ml!llicipality on all of the roads that they have left. If I take over a little more, if they want to collect the same mill rate, they can just end up by doing a little mo re work in. another loca tion and it's going to take a certain period of time for each of us , for each of us to find 'our stride in this program but I do anticipate the co- operation. of the municipalities. I see no reaso n why it won •t come. Ea ch one of them as we went. around indicated that they were prepared to give this thing a real try and let 's see if we can •t ma ke it work.

Now he talks about cost of access roads and he . compares the cost of access ro.ads and highways .

The one figure that he us es of 1, 600 per mile is so far out that I •m inclined to be lieve it's because that there wa s only a certain am ount of work done on that road in that fiscal year and that the balance will show up in the Public Acco unts the following. year -- if you get what I mea n -- a part of the job was done one year. and a part. of the jqb the following year . ,As. far as access roads are concerned, or blacktop in general, paving in general, your prices vary quite drastically with, first of all, the number of contractors that are available that bid when they •re called and you try and have it organized so that there are available con tractors to get com petition in your good system as you go along.

The other thing is the size of the project. Yo\( can understand that when a contractor mo ves a hot-mix· plant in to do a. sma ll job it costs him just as much to move his plant in and get set up and es tablish!'ld as it does to go in and dp a big job, so you have a certain fixed cost that reflects itself in a milea ge cost on a sma ll job. But even at that, I think these are rela tively inconsequential because the one variable factor costwise all over Manitoba is the ma jor ingredient in any road and that •s the granular materia l.

The Honourable Member for Rhineland happens to come from that area where, well really copper and zinc aren't any mo re valuable than what gravel is. Probably the gravel for that project that was worked on there had to be hauled 40 or 50 miles . If you get areas where you can get gravel at .. 75 cents, $1 . 00 or $1 . 25 a yard , and you go so mep lace else and it costs you $3 . 50 or $4 . 00 a yard , you can get an idea of the difference that you have in costs . This is the experience pretty well I think on this type of project.

Now there has been some questions asked about access . roads and you will have gathered from the remarks I ma de about only being two types of roads, but they won 't be referred to as access roads any more but the fact that they are not referred to as access roads doesn •t indi cate that there is any change in thinking. The road from the town, even though it's a provincial road .and has a number on it, wrJch is an indication to people where to turn off and how to find their way, doesn •t change the kind of tr affic on it.

As a matter of fact, it should tend to in erease the traffic that 's on this road and while it ma y, it may affect the priority at which some of these individual roads are upgraded to the -- well, what we 'ye always called the access road standards, because of other pressures for a similar type of service, bringing up to a gravel standard or improving certain things within the specific area because of some thing being more important really than that particular se ction.

There may be changes in priority on it but the · intention will be, the intention would be that that portion of the provincial road that is the access road, certainly if it can be worked into program s and things like that,. that it can be tied into highway program s, it is the intention to attempt to serv e as ma ny of these places as possible.

My honourable friend there has some areas off No. 32 Highway that might under some ·cir cumstances have been included in No. 32 Highway but with the other priorities that there are in the area - - a gravel short area -- and some of these roads that haven •t even any gravel , in that particular area there is going to be a dem and for more things in that area than the kind of mo ney that it takes to pave into that kind of a road .

Now I' m not saying that some or all of the se will reach that standard or when they will, but it will be the intention, for those that qualify on a provincial road, that we 'll be attem pting to ma intain similar standards to what we 've

April, 29th, 1965 20 25 (MR. WEIR cont• d. ) ..... had in the past. As far as the ones that aren't on the access road program or aren't on the provincial road program now, this is bound to be an area where there is going to be probably suggestions , from the municipalities for inclusion as a provincial road. We have attempted to keep from having stubbed provincial roads. We •ve attempted to have our provincial roads going some place -- if you get what I mean - - and the way access roads work out, normally you find that the road into the town carries on and goes to another town,.

This isn •t the case with the towns that the Honourable Member for Rhineland is talking about. They must be in an area where it would be almost a stub road, a couple of miles in and that would be it, you wouldn •t be going on in the other directio n . There are liable to be some of these as time goes on but there again it 's a matter for study.

Now the Honourable Member for Brokenhead asked about streets in the towns and villages and I recall some comments where I didn •t think he was very much in favour of this program when he was speaking on the new highways bill and the powers that were involved as far as providing grants for this kind of a street within The Highways Act but if he read that Act real closely he 'll find that the power is still there , to provide grants to towns and villages.

There was the area before where they used to pay 40 percent of the flankage on provincial roads or provincial trunk highways ; now this will be carried on by the province in areas that it is felt necessa ry. There are other streets though that we feel have an inter-munic ipal flavour.

They won •t be on the same basis as probably exactly the same basis as what it was before, although it won't be -- experience has proven it's not too much different because ac cess to schools, hospitals, elevators, creame ri es, things that attract quite a good deal of inter- munic ipal traffic, where there is a res ponsibility for somebody to take some of this load off the town or village concerned, a 50 percent grant will be provided towards this type of project; the maintenance to be looked after by the province .

I don •t know how many of yori people have noticed in some of the towns, some of them are fortunate because they are of such a size that they can provide proper maintenance for the kind of a street that they now have, but we have many towns in Manitoba that now have black topped streets and the sum total of the equipment that they can afford to keep that street clean is a stiff broom, a shovel and a wheelbarrow , and it doesn •t really go too far on the size of streets that we have in some of these towns.

So the Department is going to this year experim ent and get some street sweepers like we see in the urban areas and which Steinbach, and the odd community like it, are able to af ford because of the amount of work they have and the tax base that they have, that we are going to try and have two or three of them located strategically within the province and make a clean up periodica lly of these streets. I can take you I' m sure to quite a few of our small towns where the community is say 40 perce nt and we pay 60 perc ent of the flankage, and you •d never know that it was a paved street .

The area in the centre, because of the traffic up and down it, keeps clean. The province 's share is always kept clean. , While we recognize we won •t be able to do it as regularly and keep it as clean as is able to be done in a place like Steinbach or Winnipeg or Portage or some of the other places, this is going to be done as well as we can. We 'll try and catch fair days, days of celebration at the towns there, and we can help them clean their streets and spruce up on those occasions. The province will be responsible for provincial r oads.

There will be a rental established on the equipment, so if the towns want the streets that are their res ponsibility, for a very lim ited cost and no transportation costs, at so much an hour they can have the streets done on this basis while the machines are in the area. This is an experim ent that was looked forward to, I would say, with some interest by most of our smaller towns and villages throughout the province . I think, Mr. Chairman, that answers most of the questions that I had.

2026 April 29th, 1965 MR. CHAIRMAN: 1 (a) -- MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, I wouldn 't want my honourable friend to think that I deliberate ly misinterpreted his statement. I'm sure he wouldn't, but if I misinterpreted, I think he 's partly to blame for the way he introduced this part of the program because I'm read ing - I looked it up in Hansard - I'm reading now from what he said yesterday: "I propose to confine my operning remarks, Mr. Chairman, to the Highways Branch since it is this

section of the department that generates the most interest among the members of the Committee ." Then he goes right on: "Current estimates of the department predict a requirement of almost $23 million, an increase of $7 million over last year. " So I -- it was completely unintentional, but I thought he was referring to the Highways Branch as he had stated at the beginning. But, Mr. Chairman, I'm afraid I still find trouble in reconcili ng the figures. Am I right in saying that in the current

section of the estimates there. are $19 million approximately appropriated for the Highways Branch ? MR. WEIR : I believe that's correct. MR. CAMPBEL L: Nineteen. Is it true that my honourable friend's .total program that he expects to complete in the current year is just a little over $20 million? MR. WEIR: That's correct. That's right. MR. MOLGAT: Mr. Chairman, the Minister said that he thought his statements were clear and I must agree .

I was not here when he made the statement but I made sure that I read it today and he confirmed again that the net provincial expenditures are going to be $20 million, and this then covers this program and I presume will be both capital and current together. The cost of this will be $20 million, some of it will come out of costs and some of it will come out of capital. MR. WEIR : That's pretty well all capital. MR. MOLGAT: Pretty well all capital. Well the confusion it seems to me , Mr.

Chair man, arises from the news reports which we then read, beca use ir'you pick up one newspaper - this is the Winnipeg Free Press, Thursday, April 29th - and the headline is not very large but it's c.lear: "Road work outlined". It says , "$39 million to be spent. " Now presumably this covers some other things that are not in here and I would like to know from the Minister what it is , because then I'm thoroughly confused when I pick up the Tribune and they have a very large headline which says that "Weir Announc es Roads Program of $48 million".

So we have the Minister who tells us it's going to be $20 million; the Free Press who tells us it's going to be $39 million; and the Tribune goes another $9 milli on better and they are up to $48 million. Now, Mr. Chairman ....... . MRWEIR : Mr. Chairman, this probably won't sit with my friend very well, but I would suggest he .listen to the Minister. MR. MOLGAT: So the correct answer then is $20 mil lion -- $20 mill ion on highways . MR. WEIR : No, capital and current. MR. MOLGAT: ....... ... ....... But that's the highway constructi on program. MR. WEIR: Mr.

Chairman, that is the program as you have it here in the ye llow pages. Over and above this in the current es timates are all of the improvements that will be going to wards the provincial road program -- the new provincial roads . In other words , no program has been established for it on an itemized basis . This program involves the trunk highway and the old provincial road program on which we anticipate spending $20 million.

Besides this is whatever happens to be in the current estimates that is spent for construction on the other roads , much of which will be of a relatively minor nature, very -few items of the magnitude of the items that we have in this program. MR. MOLGAT: The one I'm interested in this stage is the highway program, and this basic ally is it. What we'll find here in the estimates, the other things , will cover the main tenance presumably. There 's a figure there of some $3 million, almost $4 million on provin� cial trunk highways. That presumably will be largely the maintenance of the highways - not construction.

When we're talking about construction and grading, gravelling, surfacing, we're talking about these sheets which I presume are comparable to the previous years , and this pro gram which is the construction program for the season will be some $20 million. That answers my question. MR. CHAIRMAN: 1 (a) (1) -- MR. SAUL CHERNIA CK, Q. C. (St. John's) : Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask one detailed question relating to the employment by the department of temporary help for a period of years as I understand it. I have a copy of a letter which was sent in November last to the editor of

April 29th, 1965 2027 (MR. CHERNIACK cont'd), ........ the Winnipeg Free Press and the Minister - a letter was sent to him as well - complaining about a

summary lay-off of 37 men last November with only one day';; notice. The matter that interested me. most about this was the statement that these 37 men were all men who were not entitled to notice because they were temporary employees, and I would like to get some clarification of just what their status was in view of the fact that they claimed that many of them had been steadily employed for over 10 years by the department. Could we get some clarification on that? MR. WEIR : Yes, Mr. Chairman, beca use I was as much upset by those circumstances as were many others.

It's true that the men were laid off on one day's notice, and fol lowing an inves tigation by myself, instructions were issued that it was not to ]lappen again, that a minimum of seven days' notice was to be given to anyone who was laid off. Somebody 'boobed', som�body slipped, and it's the first time certainly since I've been Minister that there 's been any lay-offs of this nature . I think we have been in a period where we've been employing these people for a year or more, all of th ose, and some of them up to a considerable term of office. Over a period of time we managed to work it out on a seniority basis.

Some of the long-term were off for a little .while pending the completion of a job that somebody else was on, at which time as soon as it was sorted out the men with seniority stayed and the others were out. In the mean time, instructions have been issued that any lay-offs are to have seven days ' notice . MR. CHERNIACK: Mr. Chairman, just what about the statement that they were tempor ary employees. Is that correct ? MR. WEIR : Yee;, Mr. Chairman, it is correct. They had been hired on a temporary basis and the work had continued off and on. Some of those people may be laid off from time to time.

They haven't been .in the last year or ye ar and a half or two years.. I think the work has been such that there has been work to carry them all the way through , but all of those people are on the basis that whell the work plays out, that there 's no more work there , they are really temporary help, but the work has been more or less of a continuing nature and I think most of them were only off a period of -- some of them two or three weeks , some of them maybe a month or some thing like that.

I think everybody got back to work with the .exception maybe of some who had been employed a year or something like that. MR. CHERNIACK: In order to get .clarification, are these men entitled to vacation with pay? Are these men entitled to pension rights ? There seems to be some recognition as to seniority rights, but if they are temporary employees do they qualify in any way as civil servants to gain the benefit of the various additional benefits that come in addition to a!). hourly rate of pay? MR. WEIR: Mr. Chairman, I'll have to look for detailed help on this situation .

They are covered the same way as temporary help is covered under The Civil Service Act. Those that work so many hours a year for so long are entitled to it, but I'l l have to get an answer for you. lY,lR. SHOEMAKER : lVir. Chairman, about two months ago on the Orders of the Day, I directed a question to my honourable friend the Minister of Industry and Commerce relative to a news item that appeared in the press concerni ng a multi-million dollar park proposed at Mac donald, and the same

article repo,rted that the province had recently acquired the air base for the sum of a quarter of a million dollars. The Minister of Industry and Commerce got up and said in fact that the Minister of Public Works should answer this and he said, the Minister of Public Works , that upon reaching his estimates that he would make a major statement in this regard and explain to the committee the whole program for .this multi-million dollar park as referred to here . I wonder if he would prefer to deal with it on his salary or oil some other item under his estimates? MR. WEIR: Mr.

Chairman , it do esn't make any difference to me . I don't recall having left the impression that I would make a major statement. I think I left the impress ion that I would be gla d to answer questions and to. discuss the situation on my estimates. The Province of Manitoba purchased Macdonald Airport and the Department of Industry and Commerce has been making an effort to find suitable occupants for some of the bui ldings. There are some of the old H-huts and what-nots that are not fit for industry. They are really more of a fire hazard than anything else and are to be sold by auction.

To give everybody an opportunity at the same time , it's being widely advertised throughout the province so everybody will get an idea of it and that type of building is being auctioned for removal from the location . The houses and the hangars and the big buildings that are good possibilities for being put to some industrial purpose are still being held. I have nothing firm that I am aware of, and I'm not aware that the Minister of Indus try and Commerce has , although he may be more up-to-date on it than I am.

20 28 April 29th, 196 5 (MR. WEIR cont'd) .. .... . The other item that is involved is an item of quite a bit of land which I know the Member for Lakeside has some interest in, and maybe oth ers. We've been concerned as to what to do about it because I and others fee l that if it's to be disposed for ordinary farm lands, that it should be done in such a way that the people that had the land taken from them in the first place should be given some opportunity at competition to attempt to purchase this land back.

I think that probably we'd all agree though, that if the development of that land into something else would encoura ge the development of an industry in one of the buildings, . that this might have some priority. We have come to the conclusion that for this year the property, the farm pro perty, will be farmed by the mental hospital as a holding operation for one year, pending the re sults of further negotiation and study for attempting to encoura ge the development of these facili ties in the ground. MR. CHAIRMAN: (a) (1) passed -- MR.

TANCHAK: There are just two specific questions I'd like to ask and I don't think anybody answered the Minister. He said he didn't know where these statistics in the Financial Post came from, and the statistics .in the Financial Post come - the source, it says , is Domin ion Bureau of Statistics, Canadian Tax Foundation - referred by the Honourable Member for Gladstone.

And I note in here that this is the order that the provinces come in: The one that spent the least money in 1964 was Prince Edward Is land with 5. 8 million; hext lowest was : New foundland with 19 .6 million; and then the third came , Manitoba, with 26 .3 million. And it's interesting to note that Nova Scotia, very much probably smaller province and not as - I'd like to consider Manitoba richer than Nova Scotia - they were higher . They spent 31. 7 million dol lars - higher than Manitoba. And then other provinces come next.

I always like to think that Manitoba is better off than Nova Scotia because it's my home province , but this is -- I am just mentio ning this so that the Minister would know where these figures come from. Now, I have listened to the explanation on access roads and it seems to me that now, in stead of coming to the Minister, it would be the responsibility of the regional offic ials to take care of these access roads as provincial roads , in the different areas. Of course the Minister is still responsible. We have several roads in my constituency. It is noted that St.

Joseph have consis tently asked for an access road from Lete llier to St. Joseph, and I am sure that the Mini ster has numerous reso lutions asking for this road. Another one that was asked for was the road to Ridgeville , my own home town, a matter of four and a half miles. In fact that road has already been surveyed; I think everything is ready to go. And I hope that when we go to the people respons ible that they will accede to it. There is still another, a third one, is the Wam pum road -- people have asked. And then the St. Mary's road from Arnaud on. Now the speci fic questions .

I don't expect an answer to what I said so far beca use I think I am right in my thinking that we should take it up with -- try to convince the regional people that we should have these roads , as far as the priority is concerned. Am I rig ht in that, I presume ? Well I'l l ask my ques tions and he can answer. Now there 's one specific question I'd like to ask and that's in regard to projects which have been agreed upon, or agreed to, by several municipalities on a cos t-sharing basis with the provincial government .

It could be bridges, it could be highways , and so on, but projects which were not completed and some of them in fact have not even been started but the govern ment officials had agreed to go into this contract, but they have not. Now this grant -- and they have expired March 31st, and I would be int erested to know whether the government would be flexible enough in regards to this. Some of these projects which were agreed upon, would the government consider completing these, because I understand that there is no more grant in aid as of March 31st -- maybe I am wrong in this case.

And my other specific question is this : Does the road or the Provincial Highway No.2 17 which goes as far as Rosa -- just two and one-half miles beyond that is a community pasture which road is a very important road. The residents of that area would like to know who is re sponsible for the upkeep and constructi on and maintenance of this road. It's only a matter of about two and a half to three miles - the community pasture piece of road there . Is it 'the Provincial Government or is it the Federal Government ? Who is responsible for that ?

They 'd like that 217 extended at least to the gates of the community pasture. Now for the sake of clarification, I noticed the Minister quoted me as saying that putting salt on the roads. was a waste of money. Well what I really meant - maybe I didn 't express my self clearly - is that relatively to the benefits that we would get from surfaced roads , in the long run it is a waste of money . But I have to agree that temporarily it is better because it keeps the

April 29th, 1965 20 29 (MR. TANCHAK cont'd) ........ dust. But what I referred to , that I thought it may be a waste of money over the longer period, because you have to continue to do it ever y year. And I would certainly encour age the government to, rather than pouring liquid calcium chloride , or dry, on the road, to try some of these through the larger towns anyway. And the Minister did not an swer my question on the No . 200 provincial road. That's the one leading into Emerson, that part of it that 's always be ing flooded when there 's high waters in Emerson.

I presume the same answer would apply to this , that deal with regional director. MR. M. N. HRYHORCZ UK, Q. C. (Ethelbert Plains): Before the Honourable Minister rises , I only have one question. In the project." listed here , on No. 5 Highway right at the bot tom on the first page, you have eight miles PTH No. 10, Gilbert Plains - second lift construc tion gravel and calcium. As far as -- this would be , I believe , north of the jLmction of 5 and 10 , would it? North of the junction of 5 and 10? MR. WEIR : West. MR. HRYHO RCZU K: West .. Well it wouldn't be on No. 10 then. It should be on No. 5 probably. MR.

WEIR : Well Mr. Chairman, if the Honourable Member will read ...... starting from the outside it's Highwa y No. 5, eight miles from Highway No. 10 towards Gilbert Plains, second lift construction gravel and calcium. The Hmourable Member for Em erson mentioned again the note in the Financial Post. Well the only thing that made me wonder about it is that in any recent period there hasn 't been any expenditure of less than $29 million in Manitoba. That obviou sly says 26 -- there's some thing just a little fishy some place. The figures that are used with the other provinces may be equally as fishy for all I know.

But the other thing that might be kept in mind is that with all of the provinces in the eastern part of Canada, they have been fortunate enough, being Atlantic provinces , to have the Government of Canada extend the Trans-Canada Highway agreement to provide 90 percent of all the Trans-Canada Highway that's uncompleted, and a very large per centage of the money that is be ing spent in Newfoundland, I know, and in Nova Scotia to a quite large extent , is federal monies which will probably be showing up as the gross figure within that area. I'm not trying to discredit the figures.

I just say that it's difficult to compare them un- less we know all of the circums tances , which I don't pretend to. · The Honourable Member for St. John's , I have a mess age now here as far as the men are concerned which tells me that the hourly rate of employees1 and the department contribute , both of them contribute , to vacations with pay through the Department of Labour , and if they work the full year they get the two weeks pay; if they work the portion of the year they get pay for the portion of the year that they worked. The men do qualify for superannuation.

The thing they do not qualify for is sick leave, which a civil servant would. MR. CHERNIACK: ........ : . ask is the only distinction - the sick leave - is the differ- ence between a temporary employee and a permanent employee ? MR. WEIR: That's the information I have. MR. MOLGAT: Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to say a few words in view of the fact that we're handling the highway estimates at this time .

I well recall, and I'm sure other members of the House will remember, those who were here in those days , that very shortly after the present gove rnment took over, and the first highway program that was presented, my then col league, the then Member for Rhineland, exc laimed himself at the size of the program and said, "milli ons for everyone but not a penny for Rhine land. " We ll, I was in those days not in the same position as the Member for Rhineland because there was actually included in the estimates some work for .my cons tituency .

The unfortunate part of it was that I ended up really in the same position as that honourable departed gentleman, because the work wasn't done , and since that time I have been after my honourable friend the Minister, urging him to do it, and I suppose one should be thankful even for small gifts. It took some time because in other estimates - for example in '62 there wasn't a single penny for Ste. Rose and in '63 there wasn't a single penny for Ste. Rose, but finally in '64 we did get around to that little piece that had been in the origi nal program, that 3. 1 miles of No. 19 Highway.

And that has proceeded and I'm pleased to see that the Minister this year has a bit more work on it, strictly, as I read it, the matter of addi tional gravel. Now I notice that in this , a number of cases, the Minister indicates second lift construc tion gravel for a lot of cases , and then others read, "second lift construction gravel and calcium." I'd like to know from the Minister why is it that they're not all calcium and why are some that way and some not. Insofar as that particular piece of highway, it's the entrance, the east entrance

2030 April 29th, 1965 (MR MOLGAT cont'd) . ,,,,,,, to Riding Mountain National Park, and does have a very consider able amountof traffic in the summertime , It is an important tourist entrance because at that particular point the esc arpment is very steep and a lot of people come , use that route at least, as one of the entries to the National Park because it is probably the -- well certainly the most steep of them all and the more scenic one , So I would like to know why itis not being treated with calcium, but I'm pleased to see that at long last we are going to get it completed, I note too, that in this year's program the Minister has added a

section that I had been u'rging him to do and that's· the entrance to the Agassiz Ski development, Here again it's a very important tourist road, being used more and more .

The success of the Agassiz Ski slides has been remarkable and this will tie in with the federal road within the park and l'm pleased that the Minister is proceeding with this , However, I would like to appeal to him that after having at least three series of estimates in which there wasn't a penny for Ste, Rose, and having moved up to .3.1 miles last year, this year we moved up to 4. 3 miles whether he could -- I'm gaining, I'm gaining I'll admit -- I'd like to suggest to him that he might have a look at some of the other roads in the area.

I know that he's had a number of requests in the past from the municipalities concer ned and I have spoken here , for example, about roads like the Plumas Waldersee. The southern part of that road to No. 4 Highway is hard-surfaced at present; the north

part is gravel. There have been a number of serious accidents, fatal accidents in fact, where the hard surface joins the gravel and there is a real demand for that road to be extended and completed and surfaced. Similarly the cros sroad from No. 50 Highway at Amaranth over to Glene lla and No. 5 Highway. There is a third road, which I know the Minister has under cons ideration and request s have gone in, and that's No. 50 Highway. This is a numbered highway.

It is completed and hard-surfaced for a good length of it from No. 4 Highway up to the Silver Ridge corner but then agairi the cross piece east and west is not surfaced and there has been no further work done on it for some ye ars . It's a numbered highway and I would appeal to the Minister that he might look back over the years and I think he'll see that the requests of the constit uency have been very modest, or at least I should say that what has been granted to the cons tituency has been very modest and that these are roads that do deserve cons ideration ..

They are carrying a fair amount of traffic and are important roads insofar as that area is concerned. I would just like to say a word on what my co lleague, the Member from St. George was saying regarding No. 6 Highway. Some two years ago I rece ived a number of complaints from that area and I arranged to go up and meet with the councils along the road, covered by No. 6 Highway. I met with a series of these people and found out from them their views on the situa tion: and travelled the whole of the highway myself and I must confe ss that the condition was most deplorable.

Even the s.:mthern part of it, the hard-surfaced end, was breaking up, particu larly on the one side where the heavy trucks which had been using it for Grand Rapids traffic , had pretty well punched it through . I know that the Minister has it under cons ideration but I would urge him to move along with haste on that one.

I suppose I could arrange to go and have another series of meetings with the 0ouncils in the area, because I think that the last series did have some beneficia l effects because some two weeks after I had had those series of meeti ngs , the Premier and, I think, the present Minister of Public Works had a similar series of meet ings with the councils and that we've had some progress. Now if that's the technique, then I'll be very happy to go around in the areas that require such assistance and hold meeti ngs with councils if my honourable friend will tell me that this will help move things along.

But I think that the Member for St. George has a reasonable claim here . It's not a purely local problem, it does serve as the Minister knows , the Grand Rapids project plus an increasing amount of traf fic going west and using either the ferry or the new road at the north end of Lake Manitoba. MR. WEIR: Mr. Chairman if I can just say a word or two here . If the Honourable Leader of the Opposition really fee ls that

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	27-4-79
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	27th 4th hansardpdf 79.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	89a82cb78e1bc842c1417855df396971789d4692

Source file is stored in the law ingest library (pdf).