Manitoba Hansard — Sitting 5 (35th Legislature, 5th Session)

35-5-5

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Fifth Session • Thirty-Fifth Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS (Hansard) Published under the authority of The Honourable Denis C. Rocan Speaker Vol. XLlll No.5 - 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, AprU 13,1994 ISSN OS42-S492

NAME ASHTON, Steve BARRETI, Becky CARSTAIRS, Sharon CERlLLI, Marianne CHOMIAK, Dave CUMMINGS, Glen, Hon. DACQUAY, Louise DERKACH, Leonard, Hon. DEWAR, Gregory DOER, Gary DOWNEY, James, Hon. DRIEDGER, Albert, Hon. DUCHARME. Gerry, Hon. EDWARDS, Paul ENNS, Harry, Hon. ERNST, Tun, Hon. EVANS,Clif EVANS, Leonard S. Fll...MON, Gary, Hon. FINDLAY, Glen, Hon. FRJESEN, Jean MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thirty-Fifth Legislature Members, Constituencies and Political Affi liation CONSTII'UENCY Thompson Wellington River Heights Radisson Kildonan Ste.

Rose Seine River Roblin-Russell Selkirk Concordia Arthur- Virden Steinbach Riel St. James Lakeside Charleswood Interlake Brandon East Tuxedo Springfield Wolseley GAUDRY, Neil Gll.LESHAMMER, Harold, Hon. GRAY, Avis St. Boniface Minnedosa Crescentwood Gimli HEL WER, Edward R. IDCKES, George KOWALSKI, Gary LAMOUREUX, Kevin LATHLIN, Oscar LAURENDEAU, Marcel MACKINTOSH,Gord MALOWAY, Tun MANNESS, Clayton, Hon. MARTINDALE, Doug McALPINE, Gerry McCORMICK, Norma McCRAE, Jantes, Hon. MciNTOSH, Linda, Hon. MITCHELSON, Bonnie, Hon. ORCHARD, Donald, Hon. P ALLISTER, Brian PENNER, Jack PLOHMAN, John PRAZNIK, Darren, Hon.

REID, Daryl REIMER, Jack RENDER, Shirley ROBINSON, Eric ROCAN, Denis, Hon. ROSE, Bob SANTOS, Conrad SCHELLENBERG, Harry STEFANSON, Eric, Hon. STORIE, Jerry SVEINSON, Ben VODREY, Rosemary, Hon. WOWCHUK, Rosann Point Douglas The Maples Inkster The Pas St. Norbert St. Johns Elmwood Morris BUirows Sturgeon Creek Osborne Brandon West Assiniboia River East Pembina Portage la Prairie Emerson Dauphin Lac du Bonnet Transcona Niakwa St. Vital Rupertsland Gladstone Turtle Mountain Broadway Rossmere Kirlcfield Parle FlinFlon La Verendrye Fort Garry Swan River PARTY.

NDP NDP Liberal NDP NDP PC PC PC NDP NDP PC PC PC Liberal PC PC NDP NDP PC PC NDP Liberal PC Liberal PC NDP Liberal Liberal NDP PC NDP NDP PC NDP PC Liberal PC PC PC PC PC PC NDP PC NDP PC PC NDP PC PC NDP NDP PC NDP PC PC NDP

169 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Wednesday, April13, 1994 The House met at 1:30 p.m. PRAYERS ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS PRESENTING PETITIONS Curran Contract Cancellation and Pharmacare and Home Care Reinstatement Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of Mildred Glover, Alison Wood, Eva Cobb and others requesting the Leg isla tive Assembl y of Manitoba urge the Premier (Mr. Filmon) to personally step in and order the ca ncellation of the Connie Curran contract and consider cancelling the recent cuts to the Pharmacare and Home Care programs. Mr. Harry Schell enberg (Rossmere): Mr.

Speaker, I beg to present the petition of Jackie Greenaway, Carol Smith, Bill Wilson and others requesting the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba urge the Premier to personally step in and order the can cellation of the Connie Curran contract and cons id er ca ncelling the recent cuts to the Pharmacare and Home Care programs. APM Incorporated Remuneration and Pharmacare and Home Care Reinstatement Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of M. Zaluski, B. Cherniak, A.

Welicko and others requesting the Le gislati ve Assembl y of Manitoba urge the Premier to personal ly step in and order the repayment of the $4 million paid to Connie Curran and her firm APM In corporated and con sider cancelling the recent cuts to the Pharmacare and Home Care programs. READING AND RECEIVING PETITIONS APM Incorporated Remuneration and Pharmacare and Home Care Reinstatement Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the honourable member (Mr. Maloway). It complies with the privileges and the practices of the House and complies with the rules.

Is it the will of the House to have the petition read? Some Honourable Members: Dispense. Mr. Speaker: Dispense. The petition of the undersigned citizens of the Province of Manitoba humbly sheweth that:

WHEREAS the Manitoba government has repe at edly br oken promises to su pport the Pharmacare program and has in fact cut benefits and increased deductibles far above the inflation rate; and

WHEREAS tire Pharmacare program was brought in by the NDP as a preventative program which keeps people out of costly hospital beds and institutions; and WHERE AS rather than cutting bene fits and increasing deductibles the provincial government should be demanding the federal government cancel recent cuts to generic drugs that occurred under the Drug Patent Act; and

WHEREAS at the same time Manitoba government has also cut home care and implemented user fees,· and

WHEREAS the Manitoba government paid an American health care consultant over $4 million to implement further cuts in health care. WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray that the Legislative Assembly urge the Premier to personally step in and order the repayment of the $4 million paid to Connie Curran and her firm APM Incorporated and consider cancelling the

170 LEGISLATIVE ASSE:MBL Y OF MANITOBA April 13, 1994 recent cuts to the Plzarmacare and Home Care Program. Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the honourable member (Mr. Santos). It compl ies with the privileges and the practices of the House and complies with the rules. Is it the will of the House to have the petition read? The Clerk: will read. Mr. Clerk (William Remnant): The petition of the undersigned citizens of the Province of Manitoba, humbly sheweth that:

WHEREAS the Manitoba government has repeate dly broken promise s to support the Pharmacare program and has in fact cut benefits and increased deductibles far above the inflation rate; and

WHEREAS the Pharmacare program was brought in by the NDP as a preventative program which keeps people out of costly hospital beds and institutions; and

WHEREAS rather than cutting benefits and increasing deductibles the provincial government should be demanding the federal government cancel recent cuts to generic drugs that occurred under the Drug Patent Act; and

WHEREAS at the same time Man itoba government has also cut home care and implemented user fees; and

WHEREAS the Manitoba government paid an American health care consultant over $4 million to implement further cuts in health care. WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray that the Legislative Assembly urge the Premier (Mr. Filmon) to personally step in and order the repayment of the $4 mill ion paid to Connie Curran and her firm APM Inco rporated and consider cancelling the recent cuts to the Pharmacare and Home Care programs. TABLING OF REPORTS Hon.

Harold Gilleshammer (Minister charged with the administration of The Liquor Control Act): I would like to table the 70th Annual Report of the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission for the fiscal year Aprill, 1992, to March 31, 1993, as well as the Quarterly Report for the first three quarters. Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr.

Speaker, I would like to table three reports: the Annual Report 19 93 of the University of Manitoba; the Annual Financial Report for the year ended Mar ch 31, 1993 , of Brandon University; the University of Winnipeg Financial Statements for the year ended March 31, 1993. Hon. Jim Ernst (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the Residential Tenancies Branch Annual Report 1992. •

(1335) Introduction of Guests Mr. Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, may I direct the attention of honourable members to the gallery where we have with us this afternoon from the Crestview School, twenty-seven Grade 5 students under the direction of Mrs. Lorraine Prokop chuk. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable Minister of Urban Affairs (Mrs. Mcintosh). Also this afternoon, from the Churchill High School we have twenty-five Grade 9 students under the direction of Ms. Terri Gartner. This school is located in the con stituency of the honourable member for Osb orne (Ms. McCormick).

From the River West Park School, we .have twenty-eight Grade 9 students under the direction of Mr. Colin Wilson. This school is located in the consti tuenc y of the honourable Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ernst). On behalf of all honourable members, I would like to welcome you here this afternoon. ORAL QUESTION PERIOD Brandon General Hospital Funding Reduction Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): I have a question for the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae), Mr. Speaker.

April13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 171 As the minister knows, I have expressed serious concerns in the past about cutbacks to the funding of the Brandon General Hospital. Now we have learned that the Brandon General Hospital is being forced to look at additional cuts to surgical beds and nursing staff because the minister is requiring the Bran don General Hospital to eliminate approximately $4 million in its budget in the next three years. This is a cut of about 10 percent on top of millions of dollars of cuts required previously.

We always though t there was a pause in health cutbacks, but now it seems we are full speed ahead. Will the minister confirm that the Brandon General Hospital is being cut back in funding and is being forced to look at eliminating a third of its surgical beds? Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, the medical profession have voluntarily joined in observing the commitments required in Bill 22. The Ma nitoba Nurses ' Union has voluntarily accepted compliance with Bill 22, as has everyone in the public service affected by Bill 22. So it is not swprising that Brandon General Hospital would be included.

The Health Sciences Centre has already done that. Certainly, we are working with the hospitals to ensure that patient care, our bottom line, is observed. The honourable member for Brandon East, who is my neighbour, will recognize and remember that the first permanent bed cuts were brought about by his government back in 1987. Mr. Leonard Evans: Mr. Spe aker , we also provided for day surgery and outpatient surgery. Mr. Speaker, this is beyond the amount being required to fulfill Bill 22. This is much more than that . It is a ve ry small amou nt; it is only one-qu arter of a million this year.

But they are being asked to cut $780,000 this year, $1.6 million next year, and another $1.6 million in the subsequent year. So that is a very serious cut for that particular hospital. My supplementary question to the minister then is: How can the Bran don General Hospita l continue in its role as a major regional referral centre if it is being continually cut back? The question is when is this going to stop, because the downsizing is discouraging people from Westman and elsewhere from using the hospital. Mr.

McCrae: I recently announced ou r government's support for Phase I of an over-$70 million re development for Brandon General Hospital, Mr. Speaker. I think the honour able member does not remember things like that when he rises in the House to ask questions. Do you think that we do not see a major role for Brandon General Hospital in weste rn Manitoba in the future if we are committing that kind of com mitment to the redevelopment of the Brandon General Hospital?

That hospita l will serve as a major urban community, regional, whatever you want to call it, facility for many, many years, and it will play an extremely important role in the health care needs of many, many people in western Manitoba. Does the honourable member know that 50 percent of the patients in that hospital are from outside the city of Brandon? That tells me that it is being regarded very much as a regional centre by the government of Manitoba. We worlc with that hospital and the other hospitals in Manitoba to ensure patient care is taken care of in the best way possible. •

(1340) Mr. Leonard Evans: Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that this modernization has been delayed since 1988 because, as the minister knows, we had a $45 million to $50 million plan at that time and it was in the capital budget tabled in this hospital. It has been delayed and delayed and people have been discouraged from using Brandon Ge neral Hospital, and this is from doctors who have told me this. Mr. Speaker: Question, please. Mr. Leonard Evans: My question to the minister is: What does the minister intend to do to ensure that people can easily access Brandon General Hospital in the future and receive adequate care, taking into consideration the bed closures and the

172 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April l3 , 1994 nursing layoffs that are going to take place because of this funding cutback by this minister? Mr. McCrae: In 1994, this year, the honourable member for Brandon East made it clear that his commitment to the redevelopment of Brandon General Hospital goes back to 1983. My question is, where was the honourable member between the years 1983 and 1988 when the peo ple of Manitoba put him and his government out of office? For him to be raising that kind of argument today rings very strangely indeed to me.

Brandon General Hospital, as I said, will have a very, very important role in the future. The honourable member knows that there will be psych iatric beds located at Brandon General Hospital to provide for the acute psychiatric needs of people who unfortunately need those services. The staff at the Brandon General Hospital do a terrific job. My neighbours, members of my family who have been at Brandon General Hospital have spoken and continue to speak very highly of the services offered there. Social Assistance Reduction Strategy Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr.

Speaker, last month the number of cases of City of Winnipeg social assistance achieved a record all-time high of 18,717. At the same time there were 26,835 provincial social assistance cases. Can the Minister of Family Services tell us what her government plans to do to move the record numbers of people on social assistance off social assistance and into paid emplo yment? Hon.

Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): I thank my honourable friend for that question because we did indeed commit, in the throne speech of just last week-and I hope the member will take the opportunity to congratulate us on working very actively along with the federal government, in co-operation with the federal government, on many pilot projects that will get people off of welfare and into the workforce. Yes, the city of Winnipeg numbers are high as they are right across the country. Mr. Speaker, in pro vinces that are governed by NDP administrations, they are experiencing extremely difficult times.

We will do everything within our power, and I have alluded to my request to the federal minister to initiate and implement pilot projects that will deal with getting single moms off of the welfare rolls and into the workforce, and we will be working and have been in discussions with the City of Winnipeg around how we can put initiatives in place to accomplish that for the single employable rolls also. Single Parent Families Mr.

Doug Martindale (Burrows): Can the minister tell us how many single parents are going to be moved off social assistance and into paid emplo yment as the res ult of this so- called initiative, given that this government has had since November 1990 the Single-Parent Families Report with eight pages of recommendations which this government has acted on almost none of and has cut in almost every area including the Student Social Assistance Program, child care, and closed two Human Resources Opportunity Centres? •

(1345) Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Mr. Speaker, our record on child care is second to none across this country. We have, in fact, since we took over as government increased the number of subsidized spaces throughout the province dramatically. We have doubled the amount of money that was spent on child care that was spent under the former administration in this province. We have increased the number of licensed spaces. We have made child care much more flexible by allowing parents to take the subsidy with them to the daycare centre of their choice.

So we have nothing to be ashamed of on our record with child care. Mr. Speaker, I have indicated that it will take a partnership right across our Manitoba community in order to implement any of the pilot projects that will be undertaken in co-operation with the federal government. We have the private sector that we need to dialogue with. We have the front-line

Apri113, 199 4 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 173 workers which we are in the process of beginning a dialogue with, and we have the volu nteer community that are all going to have to partner with government in order to put in place programs that will be meaningful for single mothers right across this province. Mr. Martindale: Can the Minister of Family Services tell the House why they are planni ng, after closing the Dauphin Human Resources Opportunity Centre , to cut the Dauphin Single Parent Job Access worker?

Why are they planning to lay off this person when the minister professes to have a concern for single parents? Why are they eliminating this position, this person who works with single parents? Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Speaker, I think I should repeat the answer that I just gave to my honourable friend because obviously he was not listening. He must have been thinking about his follow-up question. Mr.

Speaker, I have indicated that we ann ounced in the throne speech that we will be holding a Partn ership to Independence Forum which will involve the private sector which will be the vehicle for job creation for single mothers throughout this province , along with the front-line workers to determine what the incentives and what the disincentives are to moving people off of welfare and into the workforce. We will also be asking the community volunteers throughout our province to indicate where they can be a part of the process in the partnership. So, Mr.

Speaker, we have a comprehensive plan in place, and we believe that we will be moving single mothers off of welfare and into the workforce this year. Parents Forum on Education Representation Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education. On April 8, the minister announced with some fanfare that there is going to be a Parents Forum on Education. His press release stated that we need to consult directly with parents of children in the public school system, the people most affected and concerned with our children's education.

The letter attached to the press release states that the minister wishes to ensure fair regional distribution from all Mani toba as well as proportional representation, Mr. Speaker. My question for the minister is whether copies of the application form and letters of invit ation were ever sent out to parent councils? Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, there was some dialogue with the horne and school and parent teachers' association giving early notice that we were contemplating a forum, but other than that nobody had prior notice . Mr. Lamoureux: Mr.

Speaker, I was the one who faxed over to home and school or couriered over to home and school the application, so I think I probably have been maybe a bit more aggressive in trying to get the parents involved than the Minister of Education. The letter of invitation goes on: Fur ther participation will be based on a fair distribution of parents representing independent school students, exc eptional needs st udents, parents who are teachers, trustees, princi pals, superintendents of our education employees.

It goes on to say that: Given the criteri a listed above, spaces will be assigned on a first-come, filEt-served basis. My question to the minister is: Who will be determining which parents meet the minister's criteria? Will it be the minister himself or someone from his staff who will choose parents on the basis of what they believe or what his personal agenda is? • (1 350) Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, I find the question perplexing in many respects.

I know if we had not tried to fairly distribute the number of opportunities as between school divisions, as between rural and urban Mani toba, as between the various interest groups, as between the demographics to some degree, if we had not done that the member would be stan ding in his place criticizing.

174 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April l3, 1994 So he asked the question, who is going to ultimately do the evaluating and the waiting and who is going to be making the bard choices as to including a select number from those areas which may be over repre sented in the number of applications that come forward. My staff will be doing that, Mr. Speaker, but obvious ly I will be he ld acco un table and responsible for that action. Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Spea ker, an

article in yestenlay 's Flin Flon Reminder stated that the Flin Flon School Division will offer support to local parents taking

part in the Parents Forum. The school division will pay mileage plus a hundred dollars a night for up to four parents to attend the forum. This morning I received a call from someone in Flin Flon who wen t to her local school this morning to pick up an application for the Parents Forum. She was told that the application forms were available at the Flin Flon School Division office, something about which the minister himself implied that they would be going to the schools.

My question for the minister is: Since it appears that the school divisions may be choosing who attends the forum, how can the minister ensure that representation at the forum is really and truly reflective of the parents? Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, the member, I guess, could assume the whole forum away, and I guess he could assume this is November and not April. I do not know where he is coming from. All I know is that I am disappointed to hear that the applications in that school division are not with the schools.

I will look into that, because certainly we directed them out to roughly 800 schools throughout our province. With respect to who is going to be selecting, I mean, I trust every school division office within this province if indeed they have the applications. I assume that they will direct those applications to any individual who asks for them and if there are beyond 30 within any setting that they will be xeroxed or reproduced and more will be provided. Workforce 2000 Abuses Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr.

Speaker, last year I raised many concerns about Workforce 2000, a program of this government which transfers $7 million a year into private education at a time when every sector of public education is being cut. I was pleased to see this third Minister of Education shared some of my concerns when he was quoted in the Free Press as saying that be is aware that abuse has occurred in Workforce 2000, that somebody has gone beyond the limits of fair play and fair training and that in some rare cases it is questionable whether the training took place at all. Mr. Speaker, these are very serious allegations.

Will the minister table the list now of companies and trainers who are implicated in these abuses? Bon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, I do not have such a list because none exists. An Honourable Member: Make one. An Honourable Member: The NDP policy: just make one up. Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, the member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) encourages me to make one up. Mr. Speaker: Order, please. •

(1355) Point of Order Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Mr. Speaker, the member from Elmwood said: Make one; make a list of those who are abusing the program, not make one up. The minister should be careful in putting statements on the record, Mr. Speaker. He should perhaps listen a little more closely to the member for Elmwood. Mr. Speaker: The honourable member does not have a point of order.

April 13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 175 ••• Mr. Manness: I know I should not reflect upon your ruling, and I will not, but certainly a member opposite said, make one. Mr. Speaker, I guess I started my answer by saying I do not have one, and I do not. If I had one I would share it, but I do not have it because it does not exist. We are aware of a couple of situations under the good faith model that was put into place and which, for the most part, has delivered far beyond the early expectations. Within that good faith model, there were some situations that were in my view a little offside.

We have tried to take internal actions with the criteria to make sure that indeed the number that happen in the future that are offside are certainly even reduced from the level they might be at now. Ms. Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I am us in g the minister's words: There were abuses and training did not take place. This is a $7-million program. Will he table the list of people where these abuses occurred? Will he tell us how he is going about recovering that public money? Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me the question is identical to the very first one that was posed.

Again, the response that I provide will be very similar to my first response. The members opposite, in discussions last year, brought forward some examples of where they thought that there may be abuse. We looked into them. As a matter of fact, I am sure the Provincial Auditor who was looking at our criteria that were in place may have looked at them also. In most of the cases the member has cited there was no abuse, but in one there may have been on the margins of abuse.

We have looked into it and we have tried to deal with it with a change in criteria that apply to that sector and to that type of application, should it continue to come forward. Ms. Fries en: Mr. Speaker, will the minister explain then, why in the Free Press there are abuses? Why, in answer to my first question, there are two abuses, and why, when we are now down to the third question, we are down to one borderline case? What is the issue? Will he now answer and table the list of people who have abused that Workforce 2000 money, so that money can be recovered? Mr. Manness: Mr.

Speaker, the member stands and asks rhetorically, what is the issue. It is up to her to ascertain the validity of her facts. I have shared with her-and I sent to the NDP caucus room and I believe recently to the Liberal caucus room-the whole list of those successful applications who have had training support under the Workforce 2000 program. I am aware through some representation made not only by the NDP party but some others that there were some cases of those receiving support that were on the line. I would count those on one hand.

So I am saying to the member: We have taken actions internally to try and correct that criteria, to continue to have in place the good faith model without hiring a battery of inspectors and auditors, and yet still deliver training as indeed most of society wants today. Workforce 2000 Centra Gas Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Finance. Clea rly, from the previous answer of the minister, the minister has no intention whatsoever of doing anything to get this money back. He plans to let these people off with the money they have gotten away with.

Oearly, this government makes a mockery out of deficit reduction. Over the last five years, this gov ernment has added $5 billion onto the accumulated provincial debt of this province. What it has recently done is to give $177,000 under the Workforce 2000 grants to Centra Gas. This is a company that was recently ordered to stop overbilling consumers. It guarantees its investors a 12 percent return on investments.

176 LEGISLATIVE ASSE:MBL Y OF MANITOBA Apri113, 1994 I would like to know from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) if he is serious about deficit reducti on as to why a money-making company like Centra Gas needs corporate welfare. Bon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr.

Speaker, an observation drawn over many years of having sat in this House is when the NDP has nowhere else to go, is try and set up the economic warfare class struggle, and try to lay, of course, all the blame of a society at the feet of a large employer who is making obviously a large contribution to the employment numbers in our province. Nothing has changed, so I am not surprised by the essence of the question put forward by the member for Elmwood.

I say to him that it is a sector, indeed the energy sector is one that obviously has to have some high sophistication of training, and to the extent that all of our wealth-generating companies within our province have some access to better train their workers, this program, Workforce 2000, has a role to play. Abuses Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Mr.

Speaker, my supplementary then to the minister in charge of the Workforce 2000 program is that, given that Terry Cristall, the president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, sheepishly admitted that it probably was not a very smart move on his part to accept a Workforce 2000 grant, and Bob Kozminski, the Tory bagman and president of a car company, accepted money from Workforce 2000--- Mr. Speaker: And your question, sir, is. Mr. Maloway: I would like to know when will this abuse of tax dollars stop, and when will this government put some controls on this program? •

(1400) Bon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, I wish that the members opposite had maybe posed this question in the first instance, because that is a fair question. I say to them that I am trying to review the criteria because I too want to know whether or not it should apply to all sectors within the makeup of our economy. The question is fairly posed and in Estimates I would hope to have a fuller response to that question.

I think the criteria should be reviewed, but this is a program that is delivered exceedingly well over the course of three years, but there is no reason why some of the criteria that are in place should not be reviewed. I am planning to do that. Centra Gas Overbilling Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary is to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I would like to ask the minister to table any correspondence he has with Centra Gas involving the re cent overbilling of consumers in this province, and I would like to know why he has not met with Centra to resolve this case. Bon.

Jim Ernst (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Mr. Speaker, as the member for Elmwood full knows, the Centra Gas company is regulated by the Public Utilities Board. I have had no contact with anyone at Centra Gas, nor have I issued any orders, nor have I talked to them about this question. It is under the jurisdiction of the Public Utilities Board, a quasi-ju dicial body. It may be the plan of the NDP to interfere and to politically direct the operations of the Public Utilities Board. That is not the case for this government. Youth Crime Prevention Programs Mr.

Gord Mackintosh (St Johns): My question is to the Minister of Justice. Last year in the city of Winnipeg alone there has been an increase of 13 7 percent in charges of theft over $1,000 regarding youth. There are, on average, 17 vehicles a day being stolen in the city of Winnipeg. I think that those figures speak more forcefully than I ever could of the results of six years of cutbacks to programs for youth and families in this province, of policies that have led to the highest child pove rty rate in Canada and of

Apri1 13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSE:MBL Y OF MANITOBA 177 mismanagement that has led to the breakdown in the court system in Manitoba. My question to the minister is: Will she confirm to Manitobans that she has not even taken any rear-guard action to deal with this crisis, not even fo llowing the sum mit on youth violen ce in December? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, let me start by reminding the member of information delivered in this House by the Premier (Mr.

Filmon) the other day, which included the increasing amount of money spent by this government in all areas of service to people that relate particularly to children and to youth. In terms of what we are doing, yes, we did take the advice of Manitobans. We held a summit on youth crime and violence. I came out on behalf of our government with a nine-point plan to deal with youth crime and violence. It deals with youth crime and violence at the prevention end. It deals with toughening up the Young Offenders Act, and it deals with youth crime and violence in the Corrections end.

Community-Based Policing Government Support Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Mr. Speaker, the minister answered her question that all she has is a plan. I do not know what she is hearing, but we are fed up with rising youth crime. We need action, and we need action now. My question for the minister is: In the least, will she ensure a provincial role so that there can be community-based policing across this province so that officers are continuously and visibly deployed in neighbourhoods? Bon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Mr.

Speaker, I am very pleased with the plan that we put forward. That plan involves the people of Manitoba. It involves communities in Manitoba taking direct action. I ask that member why he cannot get the NDP party to support the toughening up of the Young Offenders Act. It is this government who has determined and spoken out across Canada and taken the toughest stand across Canada against young offenders, and that party does not support it. They, as usual, are on the side of the offenders. Mr. Mackintosh: Mr.

Speaker, if our caucus is going to get tough on youth crime, it is going to get tough on this government first. Youth Crime Auto Theft-Prevention Programs Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): My question for the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) then: Will she immediately convene a meeting with the minister responsible for Autopac and officials of the Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation to put in place programs to reduce the opportunities for car theft, and put in place and support our caucus in having a surcharge on premiums to deal with people who have been involved in vandalism and car theft?

Will she do that immediately? Bon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the administration of The Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): I no tice the member is shaking his watch. Mr. Speaker, the corporation is pursuing, to a far greater degree than perhaps the member apprec iates, the young offenders who have been identified as having been vandalizing automobiles or where they have stolen an automobile and caused damage to it.

If it can be shown that the y owe to the corporation as a result of that insurance claim, the corporation is working with the department of Driver and Vehicle Licencing to make sure that claim is paid back or arrangements are made prior to them being able to receive a driver's licence. Personal Care Homes Standards and Regulations Ms. Avis Gray (Crescentwood): Mr. Speaker, since 1989, my colleagues and I have raised the issue of standards in personal care homes.

The government's own report of December 1993 from the Centre for Health Policy and Evaluation indicates that we need to shore up standards in personal care homes. As well, a recent television documentary outlines the difficulties with staffing in homes, abuse and security.

178 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April13, 1994 My question for the Minister of Health is: Can he tell this House how has he followed up with the allegations from the documentary and the recommendatio ns from his own report in December? Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): The honourable member raises a very important issue, Mr. Speaker.

At a time when acuity of condition of people in our personal care homes is increasing and higher level s of care are required, it is extremely appropriate that government be mindful of the need to ensure that our standards and regulations are in keeping with those higher levels of acuity. That being the case, my department and the Department of Family Services led by the Minister responsible for Seniors (Mr. Ducharme) will be examining carefully those regulations and standards in the light of changing circumstances in personal care homes. Ms. Gray: It has already been four months.

We will hope to see some action very shortly. Inspection Notice Ms. Avis Gray (Cresc ent wood): Can the Minister of Hea lth tell us-that since to date inspections of personal care homes, homes are still given prior notice before the inspections occur notwithstanding his committee that is working on a rep ort, wil l he move today to remove that ridiculous procedure which staff at the care homes find laughable? Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): That matter has been raised with me as well. In some of my travels I visited a number of personal care homes.

I have been to 42 Manitoba communities visiting with the people who staff hospitals and personal care homes in our communities. That issue has arisen, and I do propose to address that issue as well. Ms. Gray: Mr. Speaker, while the minister and his committee are addressing that issue, could he also address the issue in personal care homes which again is common knowledge, that when inspection reports are carried out in fact patients who are difficult to manage and control are oftentimes sedated and oversedated so that when inspectors arrive things appear to be very much the normal?

Could he investigate that immediately? Mr. McCrae: That is a fairly serious allegation and also one that I have heard previously, and that will also be part of our review. Infrast ructure Works Agreement Northern Manitoba Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin Flo n) : Mr. Speaker, yesterday the First Mi nister (Mr. Film on) attempted to continue to blame northern elected repr esentatives for th e lack of provinci al government and federal government commitment to Northern Affairs communities.

Everyone in this House knows that the Minister of Northern Affairs supplies all of the capit� for projects in the 52 communities involved in the Northern Affairs department. Given the fact that not one single project was given to the 52 communities, many of whom lack sewer and water, adequate roads, access even to provincial trunk highways, not one project was approved, can the First Minister explain to this House how the Minister of Northern Affairs failed so miserably in his responsibility to protect the interests of those 52 communities? •

(1410) Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Northern Affairs): Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would remind the member for Flin Flon that Herb Lake Landing, I believe is in his constituency, which just received electricity, was the last community in Manitoba to receive electricity this year under this government. So the member for Flin Flon, in all honesty, has no cause to rise in this House to talk about lack of service or concern for northern people or his own constituents. I would remind the member for Flin Flon as well that we saw the first round of this project completed.

There is another round, and I think if the member would show a little bit of the patience that the people of his constituency in Herb Lake Landing had to show, with him as their MLA, getting electricity, he will have some good news shortly.

Apri113, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 179 Mr. Storie: Mr. Speaker, this minister is also having difficulty keeping the facts straight when it comes to this House. I have a letter from the Minister of Northern Affairs acknowledging my letter of January 24 regarding the need for infrastructure improvement in our community. He wrote a letter to my Leader on March 18 also suggesting that the Department of Northern Affairs was submitting proposals based on projects that are part of the budgeting process for Northern Affairs communities. There are dozens of them. My question is: Which is the truth?

Were there no projects submitted or only a few, or did this minister not do his job? Mr. Praznik: Mr. Speaker, first of all, yes, there are always a list of capital projects that- An Honourable Member: Did you submit them as you said you did ? Mr. Pramik: If the honourable member would just have a little bit of the patience that the people of Herb Lake have had, we will answer the question. Mr. Speaker, there are always a list of capital projects, as the member knows, from NACC committees. Some of them go back many, many years.

This department has always had a capital budget, a limited capital budget The resources of the province are not overwhelming, as the member knows. We sort through with NACC, with our regional staff and we prioritize projects. Out of that prioritization, the member is correct, yes, there is a list of projects. Out of that list, with the communities involved, the Department of Northern Affairs prioritized and submitted and there are two applications in with the infrastructure currently. Mr. Storie: Mr. Speaker, we have just had a new revelation from the minister. The First Minister (Mr.

Filmon) was blaming elected representatives, when he has now taken responsibility for the failure. Will the Minister of Northern Affairs now resign and the Premier assign this duty to someone who actually cares about the quality of services in northern Manitoba? Mr. Praznik: Mr. Speaker, the member for F1in Flon, one would think after being an MLA in the Nort h and representing Northern Affairs communities for a number of ye ar s, would appreciate that first of all not all of those comm unities have elected counci ls. The Department of Northern Affairs-in many cases there are not any councils-is the authority.

We work with people in the community. We work with the elected communities, and we develop a priority list with them. So the list that was developed has been dealt with, with the staff, to prioritize the list [interjection] The member for Th ompso n (Mr. Ashton ) mentions two. He also should remember that the one-third municipal share that has to be borne is not borne by those comm unities but by the department and has to fit within the budget that the department has. The process is there, and I think that at the end of the day work will get done. Transcona-Springfield School Division Funding Formula Mr.

Daryl Reid (Transcona): Mr. Speaker, on Monday the Minister of Education stated that funding was not an issue. Yesterday the trustees of the Transcona-Springfield School Division stated that funding was indeed an issue, as the division funding decreased by 3.6 percent, forcing trustees to cut 30 jobs, including 10 teachers, two child guidance clinicians and paraprofessionals and others. Yesterday I asked the minister what assistance he offered to this division who had requested his help in a letter of March '94. My question is for the Minister of Education.

I again ask the Minister of Education to tell the House what verbal options he offered in a phone call to the trustees of the Transcona-Springfield School Division. Bon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, if the member knows there was a phone call and there was a verbal offer,

180 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April 13, 1994 he obviously knows what the offer is. I wonder why he is asking the question. Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Education tell the House, because he was the fonner Finance minister, why he told the trustees that the level of funding will continue to decrease next year and then offer the trustees a $450,000 loan against next year 's grants? How is this supposed to solve the funding issue for this school division? Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, I cannot predict what the budget will look like next year.

I was asked how I saw the state of financial affairs throughout the country. My response would be as it has been for several years when I was the Minister of Finan ce. I ca nnot see wher e revenues to government are going to flow in the realm of 17 or 18 percent like they did in 1984-85, like they did to the NDP government. I think that is making a very honest answer to the situation. That was trying to put into place the fiscal landscape of the province. Furthennore, with respect to an offer, we were trying to find ways of helping, and I would think the member should not be so critical of that. Mr.

Reid: My fmal supplementary to the same minister, Mr. Speaker: When is this Minister of Education going to realize and make changes to the unfair funding formula so that the Transcona Springfield School Division does not have to add a sixth successive year of cutbacks to the programs in our community, a sixth successive year? Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, I do not know of a school division throughout the province who has not had to go through its budget on a yearly basis and remove some elements to contribute to the overall desire to try and make the budget work.

That has been part of the times that we have been involved in If the Springfield-Transcona division were in Saskatchewan, of course, they would be dealing with an decrease this year that would be much larger than the one we are talking about. Mr. Speaker, in direct response to the question, we review every year through the advisory committee to the ministe r, and I will be asking them again late summer to prepare a commentary as to how the funding fonnula might be revised for the forthcom ing year. I have also had direct representation from the school division.

They have been in my office and have provided a model of what they think a revised funding fonnula should look like. Mr. Speaker: Time for Oral Ques tions has expired. NONPOLITICAL STATEMENTS Sikh Celebration, Festival ofVaisakh Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member for Seine River have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed) Mrs . Louise Dacquay (Seine River): Mr. Speaker, I ask the members of the House to join with me in extending our wannest wishes to all Sikhs in Manitoba and across Canada as they celebrate the Festival of Vaisakh.

On April 13, 1969, lOth master guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa, the order of pure beings. Today, the descendants of the guru's followers are proudly known as Sikhs. For nearly 300 years, the baptized Sikh men and women have lived by the guiding principles of sacrifice, responsibility, accountability, truth, beauty, goodness and acting for the good of others. For Sikhs here and around the world, the V aisakh festival is a time to gather and rejoice in their spiritual and cultural heritage.

In our multicultural society, we welcome these celebrations vrhich renew and revitalize our links to the past, as well as reaffirming our sense of self in today's global community. The Sikh faith and culture has handed down its belief and customs from generation to generation for almost three centuries. For nearly a third of that time, Sikhs have been an active part of the Canadian mosaic. They have contributed much and have enriched our nation. I wish to extend sincere best wishes to the Sikh community in observing this special day and the great legacy of guru Gobind Singh. Thank you. •

(1420) Apri113, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 181 Manitoba Speech and Debating Association 1993 Junior High Provin cial Championship Mr. Speaker : Does the honourable member for St. Vital have leave to make a nonpoliti cal statement? [agreed] Mrs. Shirley Rend er (St. Vital): Mr. Speaker, last night, April 12, the 1993 Junior High Provincial Championship finals for the Manitoba Speech and Debating Association was held. Tw enty-eight teams from across the city participated. I am very proud to say that a school in St. Vital swept away almost all of the honours. The top school was Windsor School.

The top team was from Windsor School. The top two individuals were from Windsor School, and the novice team who came second was also from Wmd sor School. My congratul ations to Erica Best and Rob Chymy who were on the top team and who were the top two ind ividuals. My thanks and my congratulations also to Al Friesen, the gifted catalyst teacher from Windsor, for his hard work in organizing this event and for wo.dd ng with the students. I had the honour of being one of the judges in the final debate, and I want to say how impressed I was with the calibre of the debate. Again, my congratulations to Windsor School.

Thank you. CDC Pr ogr am, The Trouble with Evan Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member for River Heights have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed] Mrs. Sharon Carstairs (River Heigh ts): This will be very brief. I just wanted to remind mem bers if they did not have the opportunity last night of seeing the Fifth Estate program on The Trouble with Evan that they should in fact spend two hours doing that sometime this weekend when it will be rebroadcast on Newsworld.

There is no question that this program very graphically portrayed a child in great stress in our nation, and it is those children that all of us, no matter what our political affiliation, should be representing. I have to tell you that I wanted to give that child one enormous hug, but I did a great deal of crying throug hout much of what went on in the interaction in that family. I urge every one of you to watch it at the very first opportunity that you have to do so. ORDERS OF THE DAY THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (Fourth Day of Deba te) Mr .

Speaker : On the adjoumed debate, the fourth day of debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine), for an address to His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, in answer to his speech at the opening of session, and the proposed motion of the honourable Leader of the official opposition (Mr. Doer) in amendment thereto, and the proposed motion of the honourable Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards) in a further amendment thereto, standing in the name of the honourable Minister of Urban Affairs, who has eight minutes remaining. Ron.

Lind a Mcintosh (M inis ter of Urban Affairs): I am very pleased to be able to get up and continue my remarks today on the throne speech. Yesterday when I began my remarks I was so over whelmed with delight at being able to welc ome you back to the Chair, Sir, that I neglected to welcome to the Chamber five other people that I did not intend to overlook, those being the five new MLAs who sit in our Assembly this session. So I welcome you five new people. I hope that you enjoy your time and that you find it satisf yin g servin g the people of your constituencies.

I had left off yesterday by indic ating that some good partnerships have been formed with other levels of government. While we do have opportunities and incentives to be critical of each other at various levels just through the everyday workings that come about, nonetheless there are some positive things happening in terms of intergovernmental co-operation between all levels of government and inde ed between provinces.

182 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOB A April 13, 1994 I do believe that we have had very goo d co-operation with our Premier (Mr. Fihnon) and other Premiers, with our Finance minister and other Finance ministers across the nation. This speaks well I believe for the benefit of all the people we serve collectively. Having said that, of course I acknowledge there are differences and that we feel the position that we have taken is one that is in the best interests of the people of Manitoba that we were elected to govern and to make decisions on their behalf.

Much has been said recently about youth violence, about violence in the schools and indeed that concern has been explored by our government through a variety of means, one of those of course being the seminar that was held recently on youth violence. Dialogue continues between members and situations occur in society that draw our attention to this issue in rather dramatic ways.

We saw recently that the Winnipeg School Division has taken a fairly strong stand against the carrying of wea pons or the discharging of weapons, be they pellet guns, knives, whatever could be brought onto the school grounds or to the school buildings that have the potential to harm other people. I commend them for taking that stand. It is not an easy sta nd to take.

As a person who once represented a school division which, prior to my coming on the board, had just had a very violent death occur in a local school where a student had entered the school with a gun and had literally blown the head off another student in the middle of a classroom during class, I think the Winnipeg School Division is worldng very hard to ensure that the threat of that or the possibility of that happening again will become more and more remote.

Those kinds of occurrences bring home the message to us that we do need to take strong action so we do not end up with increasing violence but rather with decreasing violence. We know our courts, for example, refuse to allow weapons, and there have been strong measures taken to ensure that the schools and other public places are also freed from people who could harm others with weapons. Mr.

Speaker, there is much in the throne speech that I believe gives hope and optimism to the people of Manitoba I believe the initiatives that are outlined in the throne speech are for continued growth, continued economic activity, continued expansion of investment and continued initiatives in the realm of social and community activities that will ultimately be to the benefit of the people of this province.

I look forward to being part of the implementation of the initiatives that we see outlined and to the continuation of the good work that has been done over the years that still has an ongoing need for continuation. (Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair) . I also would like to indicate my appreciation to various members of my caucus who have been given the responsibility to follow through on some of these initiatives. I applaud the Minister of Health (Mr.

McCrae) for the very genuine care and concern that he evidences in his consultations with many sectors involved in health care delivery and indeed with the co nsumers of health care , the patients themselves. Those of us who work daily with our Minister of Health have seen the very great amount of time that he is devoting to communicating with all of the people who access the medical system and who work in the medical system. The suggest ions those people have offered for enhancem ents , impro vements, for cost effec tiven ess, for redu ction of was te and mismanagement have been valuable indeed.

On that note I also extend thanks to several of the groups in Assiniboia who have been kind enough to share with me their own thoughts and views and ideas. I have been proud and pleased to pass those on to the minister. I know he has taken them very much to heart and has taken the time to go out and actually speak to groups in my constituency and answer questions and clarify for them any misrepresentation they might have been given or any false rumours they might have been

April 13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 183 privy to, to correct the misinformation that has been put before them. I also would like to thank very much the Minister of Education (Mr. Manne ss). Education is an issue very near and dear to my heart. It is one of my main in terests. I am very pleased about the upcoming forum. I look forward to seeing that forum take place and to hearing what people have to say. One thing I think that has become clear as we progress through our mandate is that we do have a lot of faith in the people. People have good common sense.

We have made a practice of co nsul ting with them since we first took government . Our cabinet meetings are frequently held outside of the city of Winnip eg, away from the Legisl ative Bui lding, in towns and communities across Manito ba. People have come to those meetings and shared views and opinions with us, and invariably we will hear a good idea that we can take back and incorporate into our planning .

They believe this kind of consultation, this willingness to reach out, indeed, this eagerness to reach out and hear what the people have to say has led to the development of the throne speech that you heard in the Chamber a few days ago. The nine-point plan the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) has for youth violence has come from the people of Man itoba. We are listening to them, and I hope that members opposite be willing also to respect the opinions of the people of Manitoba upon whose recommenda tions we are taking action.

I know that members opposite do want to be seen to be responsive to what people are saying, and so I am sure that ultimately they will say, we do agree with the people and are willing to support the government in advancing the ideas of the people and implementing their thoughts and desires. We do have faith in the common sense of the good people of Man itoba. ... (1 430) Madam Deputy Speaker, that concludes my rem arks on the throne speech. As I say, I look forward to the implementation of the initiatives and the ongoingness of the initiativ es.

I hope, as well, that we can have the co-operation of our colleagues on benches opposite. I know that in their hearts they do support many of these measures, and I would like to see them have the courage with their voices to support these measures as well. Thank you. Ms. Mari anne Ce rill i (Radisson): Madam Deputy Speaker, I welcome the chance to join the debate on this government's throne speech. I look forward to this session. I think that there are a number of serious issues that are facing this province that this government has refused to deal with and has been incapable of dealing with.

I want to address some of those. I want to begin today by starting with some thank you's. I want to thank a number of people and groups that I have had the good fortune of being able to work with over the last couple of years since being elected as the MIA for Radisson. I really do feel it has been an honour to represent the communities of East Kildonan- Transcona. I want to thank a number of the groups that I have had the good fortune to work with: parent counc ils, community clubs , daycare co-ordinators and boards, service clubs, a number of people in · the community who are running businesses.

I really feel as I get to know more and more people in the community that it is a very strong commun ity . The number of par ents who are involved in the schools and community clubs across the constituency pay tribute to their commitments to the community, and I really think that that speaks volumes to what needs to be recognized I think by government and how much people can do in the community to make this a better place to live and a strong community. I also want to take the opportunity to thank the many people in the party that I represent who worked so hard on behalf of the party and have worked with me.

I am proud to represent a party that has a strong history of standing up for people who often are disenfranch ised. We have a strong history, in the party that I represent, for standing up for worlcing people and their families, and I really think that it is important to recognize that many people who are members of our party do not have

184 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April 13, 1994 the advantage of privilege. They do not have the advantage often even of a job and they give of their time and they give of their money in organizing and worki ng to face the kind of corporate sponsorship that other parties in this House have the advantage of.

We do a lot of hard wotk to raise money and get our messag e out and work with people in the community, and I really think that, unlike what the members across often say, we are not subsidized by labour, we are subsidized by wotking people and community people, seniors, youth, members of families across this province who believe in a different vision of how government should work, and they believe in a different vision of how there should be a relationship between government and the private sector and industry that is going to be more co-operative and is going to work to make this a better place to live.

I also want to give some recognition to the number of groups that I work with in my critic areas on a daily basis, the number of hours that these people contribute on a volunteer basis to making this province a better place to be and that are working to protect our environment, that are working to make sure our workplaces are safer, and young people who are working on student councils, young people who are wotking in youth groups and young people who are trying to get a leg up and trying to find a place in this society that is becoming more and more competitive and more and more difficult for them to find a place to participate.

I want to recognize how difficult it is for those young people. I am going to talk a lot about young people in my speech. I think as the Youth critic it is a role that I can play, especially since I have worked quite a bit in my former life with young people, young people who were young offenders, young people who were victims of child abuse, young people who were from very impoverish ed backgrounds and young people who were gifted.

I had the good fortune to work with a lot of young people also who were doing all right and probably are doing quite fine now, but feel that they have to realize as they are growing up that they do have advantages that often other members of our community do not have. Before I start on that note, I want to talk a little bit about the throne speech and a number of things this government is trying to do in its message. It was interesting. Last night I was at a forum at Kildonan East high sc hool. The Minister of Education (Mr.

Manness) was there, and they continue to put out the same kind of message there as starts off the throne speech. That is, there is this sort of sweeping change going on across the world, and we are a planet in transition. There is this restructuring going on, and the sense that it seems they are trying to create is that there is nothing we can do about this, that all of these things that are changing in our world and in our communities are simply happening and we just have to sort of cope with it, we have to restr uc ture, we have to reorganize. That may be true.

There may be some things that are happening that we do not have a lot of control over. I want to say, categorically, the economy is not

an act of God. The economy is man-made. [interjection] No, the economy, I would say, is man-made. The economy is made and designed to support a certain segment of our society. That is a segment that is privileged. As we move more and more to a globalized economy, where we have multinational cotporations having more and more reign over the decisions that are being made in our communities across the provinc e, we have a government, I think, that is supporting this. We have a government in Manitoba that did not oppose the free trade agreements.

They did not really do anything to oppose the Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which are tying us into this kind of cotporate multinational agenda, which is wreaking havoc across the country and across the world. I am going, I think, to refer later, there was some language I was reading in the throne speech that talks about the level playing field. I would say that is the attitude a lot of the wealthy and powerful in the world have about the planet, that it is their playing field. They think they have the right to treat workers and communities as if they are some

April 13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 18 5 kind of movable commodity that can be set up and taken down and workers can be exploited and moved around as they see fit. I think what we need to have are governments that are going to stand up to this. We need to stand up to this sort of free marlceteering that is going on with some balance provided by regulation from government. We have to get away from the pressure that is being created to lower wages and the pressure that is being created by governments such as the one led by Premier Film on moving away from taxation based on the ability to pay.

That is the fundamental, I think, characteristic of the Canadian democratic society, that we have had a taxation system based on the ability to pay, and that is being dismantled and changed by this government, and the cost of government is being transferred from industry and corporations to individuals, ratepayers and their families. We have seen this change dramatically since about the 1950s, when we have seen corporate taxe s reduce d from about 50 percent of government revenue to something around 12 percent of government revenue.

I would tell this government catego rically that that is what is causing the deficit That kind of tax giveaway to industry does not attract business like they are trying to tell us it does. We have seen investment in this province reduced; even though we have the lowest minimum wage, we have had no increase in minimum wage, we have seen investment in this province reduced. We have had it used as an excuse for years of why we cannot afford good public education, good public health care, good community services, recreation programs and the like.

I think that people are starting to realize the deceit behind this argument that we have to deal with the deficit because of overspending. •

(1440) The deficit is caused because governments, Conser vative governments and Liberal governments, yes , Liberal governments, have refused to make industry pay their fair share. They have refused to do that and now they have brought in trade agreements that are going to make it nearly impossible for us to have any kind of local control over ou r eco nomy and local ability to have business pay, to have industry and the polluter pay. So I think that people across the province are getting really tired of the deceit. They want to have local control of their economy in Manitoba.

We want to have some kind of ability to have some security. It is interesting hearing the minister across the way talk about balancing the budget. I would ask him to look to Saskatchewan, where the NDP in Saskatchewan had years of no deficit, and then they had Grant Devine rack up more deficit with more handouts to industry and his friends, and now it is the NDP that is in there again to try and clean up the mess. I am concerned that that is what is going to happen here in Manitoba.

One of the concerns that has been raised now, and it is st arting to get some att ention, is Manitob a's abysmal pover ty rate, Manitoba having the highest rate of child poverty and the highest incidence of poverty among families in Canada. It says in an

article from the Brandon Sun this past December that the state of the economy is a key factor, but it does not explain the significant widening of the gap between Manitoba and the rest of the country in terms of poverty. On the contrary, from 1989 to 1991 the incr ea se in the unemployment rate in Manitoba was below the rest of the country, but the poverty rate rose. By how much? I was on a roll there. How much did it go up? An Honourable Member: 17.1 percent. Ms. Cerilli: 17.1 percent. Thank you very much.

It goes on that one of the key factors in contributing to this was the failure of the Manitoba government to raise the minimum wage, which deals with what I raised earlier, where they have had the lowest increase in minimum wage across the country. Other provinces have had their minimum wages increase over 25 percent, over 38 percent in Ontario, and in Manitoba, it is 6.4 percent. The

18 6 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April l3 , 1994 outcome is the result of a deliberate policy on the part of the Manitoba government to reduce the minimum wa ge in real terms relative to other wages and relative to the minimum wages in other provinces. What is behind this policy? It is part and parcel of a concerted effort by the present government to create in Manitoba what some people call the mean streets economy. The purpose of such a policy is to reduce the wage levels, undermine the power of trade unions and promote intensified competition in labour marlcets.

Reductions in minimum wage directly affect working poor and their familie s. As well, by holding down the minimum wage, the government encoun ters less resistance to other regressive policies that affect the poor-redu ctions in welfare pa yments , the elimination of agencies and programs that serve the poor and a dilution and/or no nenforcement of employment st andards legislation. The government would have us believe, of course, that such policies are necessary to make Manitoba competitive with other jurisdictions for new investment in jobs.

In fact, the sorts of investments in jobs which such policies attract will be compatible with the mean streets economy, investment in jobs that are likely to accentuate the economic decline in the province and expand the ranks of the poor and the destitute, attracting Mcjobs just like they ha ve don e with the telem arketing system, giving away the MTS services and a number of other industries that they are privatizing, which is, of course, the other part and parcel of the agenda of Co nservative governments.

So this is the context that we are working in and the kind of situation that is going to have to be remedied after an election in this province. This is what young people are facing. I have a cartoon that is from the newsletter for The Marquis Project in Brandon, and it says: I worry about the youth of today. They are sensitive, compassionate, service minded, ecology minded and accepting of people from all cultures and backgrounds. In short, they are totally unprepared for the world we are about to dump on them.

That is a quote that I think speaks volumes to what we are setting up young people for, because they are the ones that are going to inherit the mess that has been made. They are the ones that are going to inherit the toxic waste, the pension funds, the boot camps, the justice system full of people who have been incarcerated, often in an unjust way, because they suff er poverty and alienation. One of the big issues that is being debated right now concerns me greatly, the way that it is being handled-and it has been talked about in this House-is the whole issue of youth crime.

Youth crime apparently consists of about 25 percent of crimes. So what all this media hype, all of these headlines that I think stereotype young people, all of these headlines that just encourage a generation gap, all of these headlines and news reports I think that further alienate young people from our community and the services and those people that are supposed to work with them. All of this is happening, but why is there not just as much focus on adult crime? Why is there not this kind of attention on tax evasion, child abuse, fraud?

Why is it that this government has chosen from all of the hundreds of recommendations made at the youth summit, which I attended, why are they focusing on this one? Why are they focusing on this simplistic punish-oriented authoritarian approach to dealing with young people? There were two fellows in the workshop that I participated in that were at the youth summit, and they talked about how we have to control young people with fear. They talked about how we have to show them that they cannot get away with things and we have to control them with fear.

They said the reason why they are going to stop committing crimes is if they fear they are going to be punished. Now I do not know about other people in this Chamber, but I know that I am not a law-abiding citizen because of fear. I am a law-abiding citizen because I think that over the course of my life, and I think over the course of most people's lives, they

April 13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEl\ffiL Y OF MANITOBA 187 have developed values that they believe in intrinsically where they respect other people . They fe el some kind of consideration for other people . They do things because they believe it is right, not just because they fe ar that they are going to be punished *

(1450) I think if we wa nt young people to be contributing me mbers of our community in a democratic society, that they have to be educated to have those kinds of values . That is one of the reasons that I have a real hard time with this approach, because I really think that if you use things like corporal punishment, and if you use these kinds of authoritarian approache s that what you do is you create another generation of corporal punishers. It is interesting, you know, because it is natural I think for young people to go through adolesce nce .

Wha t happens is they start challenging authority and they want to have some more free dom and they want to be able to do things by themselves. Part of becoming a responsible citizen is learning how to do things for yourself. I think we cannot isolate crimes that young people are committing simply as a policing and punishment proble m. We have to look at it in context. We have to see it as a societal and community problem. It is a problem of the alienation a lot of young people fe el. They fe el alienation often because of racism.

I think that young people fe el an awful lot of alienation because often they have been the victims of child abuse, and we can show from studies that a lot of young people who are criminals, who are violent have a history of child abuse. So we have to look at this in context of high unemploy ment; we have to look at how drugs and alcohol are involved in youth crime. We have to also look at the cutbacks in youth servi ces, in recreation opportunities so young people can have an alternative to get their need for peer support, to get their need for risk taking met in a positive way rather than a negative way.

I think that we also have to address what has happened in our community, where violence and crime is more and more entertainment, and how we have young people who grow up playing Nintendo and watching violent television shows, and ste aling cars becomes almost like real-l ife Ninte ndo. They are having a real way to get that same type of excitement. We have to be able to show that they can meet their needs and deal with all of these pressures on them in a positive way.

I think young people see the unsustainability of the economy that we are in and I think that is also contributing to the alie nation a lot of them fe el. We have to realize that violence is learnt and criminal behaviour is learnt. I remember working with one young fellow when I was worlcing in the school division. His mother had just been incarcerated for drug dealing and for possession of drugs. This fe llow was now the ward of the state, Child and Family Servic es, and he was going to be living on his own in an apartment by himsel f.

I was really concerned about him and wanted to make sure that he was going to have enough life skills and independent living support so that he was not going to follow in the footsteps of his parents. So we have to look at all of these issues , I think, and not just take a simplistic approach. We cannot just deal with young people as if they are criminals and forget that they are part of our community. I think that it is a challenge to our humanity and our compassion when we see some of the horrible things that happe n, of how we are going to deal with it, and realize that the punishment has to fit the crime.

Facing up to it and facing the victim and having alternative sentencing can in fact create more change than incarceration. I am not saying that there should not be incarceration. I think there are a number of violent offenders that we have to remove from society for the safety of the community. Certain provisions in the Young Offenders Act, like protecting the identity of young offenders, provisions like having youth court, were put in place because we wanted to see if young people could be rehabilitated. We wanted to see if we could not give up on young people if they were criminals.

188 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April 13, 1994 I guess the members opposite are saying we have to give up on them because we found that did not work. I wonder if that is perha ps because we did not do a good enough job in really under standing the problems and putting things in place that were actually going to rehabilitate them. [inte rjectio n] The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Eons), I believe, is taking a position that we cannot paint everyone with the same brush.

I think we cannot look at all the young people who are getting in trouble with the law and think there is going to be one solution to deal with them all. I think we have to be creative. I asked the minister the other day why, in his consultations on education, he was ignoring young people and not including them. I think that certainly teenage rs and recent graduates have a lot to contribute, and they have a lot to say about how their education has shortchanged them, if in fact it has.

I bet young people who have just graduated from high school have a lot of good recommen dations that they could make about how the education system can be improved, because they are the ones who are being directly affected. If you treat young people with respect, if you treat them like they have rights, they act more responsibly. They really do. That has been my exper ience from working with young people over the years. I think that is true for anybody. You have to treat young people like they have a brain, and then they use it.

I want to spend a little time from there talking about education and how that is affecting young people in this province. I went last night, as well, to the board meeting of the Transcona-Springfield School Division and heard about the kind of cutbacks that are going to be facing that community. Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): It is long overdue. Ms. Ceril li: Ten teaching positions are being reduced, and the Minister of Agriculture says it is long overdue.

I wou ld like to hear some explanation when he has his chance to debate the Speech from the Throne. [inter jecti on] Yes, I wonder if his colleague from Springfield feels the same way. With the way this government has boxed in school divisions, I think, for their own political purposes -they have said they are not going to raise taxes, and it is very clear now the kind of offl oading that has gone on and how we can attribute a number of tax increases at school board and municipal le vels to cutbacks from provincial governments.

I think they started wanting to avoid that, and that is why they capped the local levy. They capped the local levy and boxed school divisions in, took away the school boa rds ' democratically elected right to manage the affairs of school divisions. Now we are seeing the further erosion of our public school system, and this government has the gall to try to say that it is not affecting kids in the classroom, it is not affecting students. Everything is won derful in the Conservatives' world.

One of the ideas that was presented in the paper for how to deal with this "crisis in education" that has been created by the Conservative agenda is, for example, to have volunteers do custodial staff work in schools. Now let us think about this, because for every cutback that we have there are all sort s of ramifications in communities.

In schools where custodians work with chemicals, work with equ ipment, there are huge implications for the safety of childre n in schools, for the safety of teachers in those workplaces, and we have to look very, very seriously at lawsuits that could come about from this kind of initiative to save, you know, $1,000 here, $1,000 there.

I would hope that this government looks seriously at the kinds of recommend ations it could get from any kind of mee ting in their focus groups, whatever they are going to do to come up with more ways to cut back, and they would make sure that we are not going to jeopardize the safety of our students and teachers in this province. The busing reduction in the River East School Division that is occurring, I have gotten involved in this issue at the request of my constituents that

April13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 189 live in that school division. It is a question of equality. We have a provincial government that just went and cut funding for school busing, phasing it out so it ends at Grade 6, and not really looking at how that is going to impact on certain communities like in Radisson where we have a new subdivision that has very limited Transit service, that is miles away from schools because the kids do not have a school in their community because it is not finished yet. So there are urban sprawl issues related to this.

There is the financing of education and taxation issues related to this. So it is not an easy situation. We cannot just bring Transit buses in there if there is not the ridership. That is understandable, but is it really fair to the people in this community to have to have their kids now pay $300 a year to take a Transit bus that is going leave them more than a kilometre from their school, so that when it is 30 below they still have to walk a kilometre after paying a user fee now for what used to be provided through their tax money by school bus for Transit? I do not think that is fair. •

(1500) We are going to have a community meeting and see if anyone has some good ideas of how to deal with it, because that is the kind of effect that this Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) is having on communities. Families are being aff ected. It is being disrup tive . There are all so rts of repercussions for this for families now having to figure out how they are going to get their kids to child care and to school and get to work them selves. This government just does not seem to care. The bottom line is all that they care about. That seems to be the case.

What all of this is doing is forcing us to the level playing field, the lowest common denominator. That is what this is all about. What is a real concern to me as well is that in this climate all these other inequities irritate people. We see a resurgence of racism. We see a resurgence in sexism, the kind of violence against women that is going on in this community.

But the kinds of cutbacks this government ma kes to women's shelters, to child and family services, they do not understand that basic connection between the economy and society and social services, that you cannot dismantle social services at a time of high economic crisis, at a time of high unemployment. When wages are lowered and buying less, there is high inflation. They have to understand that people, I think, expect a government that is going to make those connections.

We cannot allow the polarization of people and the alienation of people from each other that occurs in this kind of climate because we are all in this together. We really are. Those elderly people in my constituency who are afraid of young people in their community when they go to the store to get their groceries deserve to feel safe, and they deserve to feel that they are going to have protection in their homes. They deserve to have governm ents that are going to provide that kind of service.

That, as I said earlier, is going to come by making sure that those services for young people are there as well so that there is an interest in elderly people having an interest in seeing that young people are taken care of in our community because they are all living in the same community. One of the things that was focused on in the throne speech was single parent families. Now, talking to, particularly young moms who are single parents, you realize the trap that they often are in because they want to stay at home and raise their child but at the same time they also want to be self-sufficient.

I really hope, with the initiatives that this government is proposing of transferring monies to education so that single moms can get the training and work experience and job placement that they need to end the welfare cycle, that they are going to make sure that they are going to have daycare and that they are not going to take that child care space from another working mom and set up this kind of competition that this government seems to favour which again just works to bringing us to the level playing field at the lowest commo n denominator.

190 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Aprill3, 1994 One other issue that is a big concern, and I have had phone calls regarding this, is the way that this government has handled gambling. I thought it was an excellent point that was made in the paper, in the Free Press the other day, when they talked about how it is pretty easy money. I think it is the government of Manitoba that has become addicted to gambling. We have to look at how this is affecting our communities.

We have to look at who is doing this gambling and where is all this money coming from and is it in fact coming from families and people who really cannot afford it, and has in fact the VL T system in this province become a tax on the poor, which is taking money from people who for recreation are going and playing bingo and gambling and then that money is being transferred often for recreation and culture for other people who are often in more positive kinds of recreational pursuits. I have a real problem in arguing that this is creating jobs.

I think this is a false economy and, yes, there may be some jobs there, but what is the cost in terms of health care, in terms of social allowance, in terms of people losing their savings and having to give up their homes and all of the other things that we are seeing happening with the gambling increase in our province. May I ask the Deputy Speaker how much time I have left? Four minutes. Thank you. I guess I will conclude by spending some time talking about this government's sustainable development initiatives and how it has tried to paint itself as a government that believes in sustainable development.

I think what is really going to be telling is this government's record on its inability to follow its own environmental law and how on issue after issue they have either changed laws when it has fit for them like when the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns) wanted to build his office complex in Oak Hammock Marsh and changed legislation, or when they brought in Bill 49 which allows them to ease in development, or they have simply ignored legislation mandating environmental impact assessment process.

Time and time again they have initiated construction on bui ldings and facilities without having an environmental impact assessment. That is going to be one of the telling records of this government come the election.

I really think that if this government meant what they said when they put out documents that say that they want to integrate environment and economy, they would stop ignoring environmental impact assessment legislation like they are doing in a number of places across the province, because that is the process that is going to allow us to get away from the jobs environment dichotomy and start looking at environment development issues together in the environmental impact assessment which this government refuses to have in project after project.

We want to be able to look at a development before it starts and see if it is in· fact sustainable, if it is in fact going to be able to ensure that the environment is going to be protected. We want to be able to make sure that there is provision for the public to participate. That is the only way that it is going to happen. One of the other things that was interesting was the whole debate around the NAFT A centre.

If this gover nment wa s really co ncerned about environment, they would not have been out there with their federal counterpar ts supp orting NAFTA, because that agreement was one of the worst things that is going to affect our international continental environment. So this Minister of Environment and the Fust Minister of the province are trying to buy themselves a reputation on environment development by having these international centres here rather than earning it by the wa y that the y practise environmental legislation and programs in this province.

There is no doubt about it, this government is not able to practise wha t it prea che s on su stainable development. * (15 10) I think, Madam Deputy Spea ker, that this government, if it really wanted to talk about sustainable development, would look at trying to create local control in an economy, a diversified local economy. They would deal with this whole issue of how foreign investment is draining

April l3 , 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSE:MBL Y OF MANITOBA 191 resources out of our province, and they would ma ke sure that they follow environmental provisions rather than ignoring them. The way that this gover nment has treated the number of scientists that have donated their lives to working on envir onment issues by ca lling them fe armongers whenever they raise an issue that is of concern is ridiculous. We have people who are raising legitimate concerns about community health, about water quality, about fore stry, about hazardous waste , and over and over and over again this government ignores them .

Madam De puty Speaker: The ho nourable member 's time has expire d. Bon. Darre n Praznik (Mini ster of Labour): Madam Deputy Speaker, what an opportunity today to be the member from our side who gets to speak after the member for Radisson. What an opportunity. An opportunity because the member for Radisson clearly divide s the thinking of this House and represents the division in the House.

She clearly put on the record today, I think, many of the reasons why the people of this province find suc h hypocrisy from me mbers of the New Democ ratic Party and in fact, Madam Deputy Speaker, why, if that member were ever to be in charge of the affairs of this province , I am sure we would be on a downward slide like we have never seen in our history. Before I get into my remarks and comments on the member 's speech, I would like to extend my congratulations and a welcome to the five new members of this House. Indeed we have our partisan moments.

I, obviously as a member of the Conservative Party, wish we were welcoming five Conservati ves to this Legislature, but the fact of the matter is that the people in those constituencies elected those members. It is a tremendous honour for any Manitoban to have the confidence of their constituents to rep resent and serve them in this Chamber. It is truly a noble and great institution of which we are all membe rs. Some of them I have had the opportunity of working with in other capacitie s. The member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) was a member of the pardon me. I ref erred to the member for Osborne (Ms.

McCormick) as the member for Wolseley. I rem ember another day in which she sought office in that constituency. The member for Osborne bad the opportunity to serve on the Workplace Sa fety and Health Advisory Committee when I was first minister. I know the member for Ros smere (Mr. Schellenberg) has had opportunity to speak with me on some issues relating to wor kers com pe nsation. We ha d a ver y intere sting conversation and an en joya ble one, Madam Deputy Speaker. To those members I offer my congratulations on their ele ctions and their welcome to this Assembly. Certainly there is a rancour to our debate.

At many times across the aisle we get into some very heated discussion. I think for the majority of members in this House there is truly a camaraderie that develops from time to time , and I am certain those members wi ll enjoy the pers onal relationships that they develop among members. I would also like to mention a very regrettable incident that occurred in my constituency in the last couple of weeks , truly a tragedy and one I mention for a number of reasons. A pioneer of the Bird River district in my constituency, Mrs. Greta Tagesen, was a fatality in a fire two weeks ago in her log house in the Bird River.

Mrs. Tagesen was an individual who was well -known over the years to all of the residents of the eastern part of my constituency. Her and her husband I believe were pioneers in the settlement of that Bini River area. Indeed, the home in which she died was a log house that her husband and she bad built when they bad settled in that area. I had been a visitor to that home on ma ny occasions. It was also the polling station in the Bird River Valley, a very small poll, only 36 voters.

I always en joyed visiting with Greta there because it represented to me how our de mo cracy wor ked, how the democratic principle , the principle of election could be extended to this far-flung little log cabin on the Bird River, far away from the hustle and bustle of the populated areas of our province . In each election, the 36 people eligible to vote in a poll that was truly a quarter of the geography of my

192 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April l3 , 1994 constituency would come to that little log cabin on that river to exercise their franchise. It was with great sense ofloss that Mrs. Tagesen, who was the deputy returning officer in that poll for many, many elections, was killed two weeks ago in a very tragic fire. To her family, I offer the deepest sympathies. I know that members of this House would share certainly a loss to our community. Madam Deputy Speaker, the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli), there is a comment that she made that just begs to be corrected.

If members want to talk about Sagkeeng, I will be delighted to discuss that in my speech, given the concerns raised by the member's party on one day about the Pine Falls buy out, yet when their Leader goes out, he is all supportive, but on other occasions, they are all opposed. We will be discussing that a little later in my remarks.

Madam Deputy Speaker, a comment that just begs for correction is when the member for Radisson got up and said to this House that she was proud to be a party that was not subsidized by anyone and not subsidized by unions but paid for by people who came forward with almost their nickels and dimes to support the cause.

I just wanted to point out how hypocritical that is, because my wife, who is an employee of the Province of Manitoba and is in no way, I can assure members of this House, in support of the New Democratic Party, each paycheque out of our family income, we make a contribution to the New Democr atic Party and not because my wife chooses to make the contribution but because it is stolen, expropriated out of the mouths of my children, in essence, from my family, to support her cause.

I want to clear up on the record today that there is no volunta ry contribution ma de from my household to the New Democratic Party, but my spouse has to go to work, works part time, and part of her hard-earned money has to go to support the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) and her colle agues because she is forced to do it.

If the member, who spoke so eloquently about how her party is financed, I would welcome if she really wants to stand by that, if she would like us to provide legislation in the province that would prohibit the forced deduction or the forced payment of contributions to political parties without the consent of the individual. I would welcome that legisla tion and be prepared to present it to this House as Minister of Labour.

I challenge her to come forward and make that suggestion and be true to the conviction which she wanted this House to believe somehow was so noble . • (1 520) Madam Deputy Speaker, the other comments that the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) made at the end of her speech that I find absolutely hypocr itical are her comm ents about this government ignoring the environmental impact statement in process. Now I know that my colleague the member for Pembina, Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Orchard), happened to pick up a book that may be qu oted by memb ers oppo site . What is it called-Mao Tse-tung 's red book.

I know the member for Radisson on occasion has quoted Karl Marx in this House, and I know there will be some exchanges back and forth among members but for the member for Radisson to say that after booking the conference centre in this building for a band of environmentalists-Madam Deputy Speaker, I say so-called environmentalists-who oppose a Qtajor project in this province without even having seen an application yet, without even having any facts, and that member has the gall to come to this House and sta nd here today and talk about this government ignoring environmental process. An Honourable Member: Shame.

Mr. Pra znik: Shame is right, Madam Deputy Speaker, because all of us, if we truly believe in sustainable development, if we truly believe in protecting our environment and also having an economy that produces wealth, which we all in this House want to spend on a variety of services, then we must respect the process.

Apri113, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSE:MBL Y OF MANITOBA 193 The process is that an applicant has to bring forward their proposal and it is examined. To prejudge that proposal before an application is even made says to the people of Manitoba that that party's true agenda is not environmental processes, is not protecting the environment. It is destroying job opportunities for the same young people that the member pretends to be concerned about. I am not in the habit of offering personal advice to members of the New Democratic Party, but to the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) I do have some advice.

The member for Swan River was done a great disservice by her Leader in this House by being seated right in front of the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli). I would suggest to the member for Swan River that she tum her chair and face the member behind her, the member for Radisson, because I will tell you, the knife is coming in her back, the knife, the cold steel of hypocrisy is coming right into her back. I will tell her, I will tell the member for Swan River that she has far more to worry about from the member who sits behind her than she does from any of the members who sit in front.

In fact, if my understanding is correct, I believe that member and the Leader of her party are out today in Swan River or will be out there tomorrow trying to put out all the fires that her colleague has caused her because she had no faith-no, not faith, that is not the correct word, Madam Deputy Speak er-because she did not let the process work, but did not want the project no matter what the project, not even seeing the application. Point of Order Ms. Cer iUi: Madam Deputy Spe aker, I just wanted to come in. I was told there was some inaccurate information put on the record.

I just wanted to clarify that it is 10 percent funding by labour unions to our party, and I think that is quite a lower percentage than the corporations that fund either of the other two parties in the House. Mada m Dep uty Speaker: Order, please . The honourable member for Radisson does not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts. ... ... ... Mr. Prazni k: It does not matter if it is 100 percent, 10 percent, 1 percent. Not one penny-not one penny from my wife-spouse's salary should go to the New Democratic Party if she does not want it to, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The amount is not important, it is the principl e. Again we see the principle of democracy abandoned. Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, getting back to the matter at hand.

The member for Radisson spoke about young people and, yes, I think every member of this House is concerned about the future of our province, but if we are going to come to grips with the future of this province and the future of the young people of our province who are going to have to earn their living in that future, we cannot ignore the last 20 to 30 years and decisions that were made right across our country in every province, to one degree or anothe r by every political party, in fact indeed throughout much of the western world, that has put us today in the position that we have to make very difficult decisions in order to secure a future for our young people.

The member tends to totally ignore, just like the members of her party, the financial reality in which we live. After the delivery of the throne speech, I noted the president of the Manitoba Nurses' Union made the statement that the problem in health care is not expenditure, it is that the economy, I believe the president of that union said, is not producing enough money. We hear that from the president of the Manitoba Teachers' Society. The problem is not our levels of expenditure, the problem is that our economy is not producing enough money.

You know, Madam Deputy Spe ak er, our economy then has not produced enough money for 20 to 30 years, because for clearly the last 20 years, governments all across this country of all political stripes have had to borrow each year. Well, now there were deficits to various degrees, but the member for Rossmere (Mr. Schellenbe rg) says Bl akeney did in Saskatchewan and certainly the Devine government overspent and not even by

194 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April13, 1994 a wee bit, by a very excessive amount, and so have the New Democrats. But how is the government of Premier Roy Romanow dealing with this? He is not ignoring it. He is not going out there and promoting the policies that the New Democrats in Manitoba are proposing, that we spend more, spend more, spend more. He is going out there by getting his expenditure levels, as we are trying to do, into what the province can afford today. And he is doing that. The fact is they are trying to do that. How are they doing it? They are closing 56 hospitals in Saskatchewan.

Yet the member for Rossmere and his colleagues get up day after day and say, for goodness' sake, do not ma ke any reductions in health care. Well, there is a hypocrisy there. Even the new member for Rossmere has to admit that. There is a hypocrisy when the New Demo crats close hospitals in Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia for the purpose of getting their expenditures under control to what they can afford, and when this government tries to do the same thing in Manitoba we are chastised and criticized for it by those New Democrats.

You cannot have it both ways, and you know if the electors of this province-and from current polls it does not appear they are going to-saw those members on this side of the House, they would have to do exactly the same thing, because the option to doing nothing is that this province will under go the same situation as in Newfoundland or in New Zealand. We will be bankrupt We will not be able to borrow money, and then we will have to make those decisions, but we will have less choice, less maneuverability and far greater pain.

So the irony in all of this, the irony for the president of the Manitoba Nurses' Union, the irony of our New Democratic Party, the irony of all those who stand and say, spend more, more, more, more, is that they are pushing us to that precipice. ... (15 30) Mr. Daryl Reid (Tr anscona): Spend smartly. Mr. Pr aznik: The member for Transcona says, spend smartly. You are right, spend smartly. When I was elected to return to this Legislature in 1988, the budget for the Ministry of Health was $1. 3 billion. It is $1 .9 billion, almost $2 billion today, and yet the members opposite say spend more, more, more.

When this government brings in plans or supports the administrators and plans to reduce their cost to better deliver services, the members opposite get up and say no, it might mean jobs. Madam Deputy Speaker, 75 percent, 85 percent of the cost of delivering those services are the human costs. They are costs and benefit packages to our employees. You can only save so many items or not wash the floor so many times before you get to that result.

The members opposite I think owe it to the people of Manitoba to at least have some consistency with New Democratic Parties and governments across the country and to lay out how they would do it in more than, there just has to be a better way. I think the truth of the matter is in every province governed by New Democr ats, they are doing what every other government is doing, a little bit different here or there, but by and large the same, because there are not any realistic options. It is about time that members opposite started to at least recognize that.

What I am really saying is they have to get out of Jurassic Park. Let us go back to the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) for a moment. The member for Radisson made a comment. She said that this administration, if I remember her words correctly, is moving away from the principle of taxation being based on the ability to pay. [intetjection] The member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) says right. Madam Deputy Speaker, this is coming from a party that brought in probably the most regressive, the most unethical tax you could ever impose on a people, the payroll tax.

Not a tax on profits, not a tax on money earned, but a tax on payroll, on jobs. In other words, make a job, create a job, create an economic opportunity for someone and we are going to tax it. It does not have to make any profit, we will tax it. [interjection] The member for Thompson-an interesting exchange going on below me. The member for Thompson says what is

Apri113, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 195 the level? What is the level in Sweden-70 percent, 80 percent? After how many decades of socialism, they had to then go and take 70 percent to 80 percent of the income earned by their people and they were still going back. An Hono urable Member: Darren, they have a right-wing government. Mr. Praznik: Yes, a right-wing government. Is it not a surprise now why Sweden has a government of the right and is trying to clean up its mess.

What disturbs me more by the comment from the member for Thompson is he seems to think that where our tax rates are today, that is okay, we can move them up to 70 percent before we really get into trouble. The attitude is that make do with what the people of Manitoba can afford to pay. His argument is to squeeze more out of them. The member speaks from his seat and this member can hear. Madam Deput y Spe aker, but back to the member for Radisson (Ms.

Cerilli), because her thinking-! have to give her credit because she is one of the few members of that party opposite who actually comes out and says what they believe without being all over the map because- Bon. Ja mes Dow ney (Minister .of Industry , Trade and Tourism): Scary as it is. Mr. Pr aznik: The Deputy Premier says scary. You are right, it is very, very scary.

Because she and that viewpoint is exactly what is pushing this country to the precipice and over, because she somehow believes that there is a great pool of money out there, this great corporate or industrial wealth, that if only we go and tax, all our problems will be solved. In fact, she said we need good quality public education, health care and social services, yes, but the fact that we were not out there taking more out in taxes was the reason why we do not have these things.

Well, I have to ask that member and I have to ask every member of this House who is the trustee of the public money, it is not our money, it is not their money. We are the trustees of the public money. Why? In 1988, members like the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry), who entered this House with me, we voted on budgets in this House that spent $1.3 billion on health care. Last year, it had risen by 50 percent to $1.9 billion. That is faster than any rate of inflation.

One would think the members opposite, as trustees of the public money, would be saying to us on this side, how can you sustain that level of growth, what are you doing? But they are not. They are saying to us, spend more, spend more. Somebody gets up and says I want something, give it to them, but by the way your deficit is too high. There are some very fundamental issues here. We have to come to grips with them as a province. The last time I looked, there were 57 members in this House who are charged with the responsibility of coming to grips with it.

The greater good of this province is not served if a very significant portion of them are not truly prepared to face the reality. We should be having good debates in this House about how we are going to manage with less money for these services. Should be prioritize this or that? We should not be spending this time, quite frankly, in my opinion, hearing one day the deficit is too high but spend more, go and borrow more. It just does a disservice to all of the people that we represent.

If I may make a comment on our media particularly, who, I suppose, are listening to this from their office in the building- An Honourable Mem ber: All very intently, I am sure, Darren" Mr. Pr aznik: I am sur e not, becaus e their deadlines are probably-[interjection] They do the people of Manitoba a disservice in not narrowing the issues to the true, meaningful issues that we face, as opposed to the quick headline, the quick bite which we all as politicians play into. But they do a great disservice to the people of Manitoba in not defining those particular issues.

Madam Deputy Spea ker, the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) also made a comment that is worthy of note, because she said what we want for our young people is to have local control of our economy and security. I think all of us would love to have that. It would make life much easier if we

196 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Apri113, 1994 could control all of the economic forces around us and know we would have security in our income for all of our days. Mr. Eons : I mean, Russia tried it for 70 years. Mr. Praznik : My colleague from Lakeside constituency, the Minister of Agriculture, refers to the collapse of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. There they tried it, and what did they do?

They ate up their capital until the system collapsed on its own with its own people out in the streets because the system could not even produce essentials like soap and food, things that we in this province take for granted. It collapsed because it could not work. The reality we face, although we would all like to have control of our economy, and although we would all like security, the reality of it is, we do not have that. We probably never have had that, and we probably never will.

Trying to pretend that somehow you can achieve that, ask the North Koreans, maybe they have achieved it as they quickly move on the slope to their own collapse and demise. You do not achieve it, you cannot, and to hold out some kind of fal se hope that you can do it is blatantly wrong. Madam Deputy Speaker, we on this side of the House want a future for our young people.

We on this side of the House want to make sure that we do our absolute best to give the young people of this province opp or tunities that they can take advantage of as they move through lif e. ... (15 40) Madam Deputy Speaker, we heard our colleague the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enos) speak about opportunities in agriculture the other day, about the opportunities to expand in pork and a host of other areas. They mean jobs, they mean wealth, real wealth, wealth that this Legislature will tax a portion of to provide public service. We have also heard about other opportunities.

We have seen the whole indus try grow in Manitoba around PMU based out of Brandon, but the member for Wellin gton (Ms. Barrett) goes out and attacks that industry and the jobs that it brings to our province and somehow then says she is worried about jobs for the young people of our province. We see her attack Louisiana Pacific- Point of Order Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to remind or share with the member for Lac du Bonnet that the member for Wellington has never in this House so much as said a word, as far as I know, about PMU. Madam De puty Speaker: Order, please.

The honourable Minister of Labour, on the same point of order. Mr. Praznik: I am not on a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Mada m De put y Sp eaker: The honou rable member for Wellington does not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts. The honourable Minister of Labour, to continue his debate. ... ... ... Mr. Pr aznik: Madam Deputy Speaker, I would not deny that for a moment, because the member for Wellington has not had the courage-or the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) has not had the courage to come to this House and tell us what she has really been doing outside the House.

Her name is associated and she is involved with, I am sure, a whole campaign to destroy that industry in the province of Manitoba. Now maybe she has not been honest enoug h to sha re that with her col leagues, but that is what she is out there doing . If she truly believes in that, she should come to this House and say that. Madam Deputy Spe aker, we talked about Louisiana Pacific. Without even an application made yet, without even knowing the details of the program, the member and her friends and some so-called environmental groups are out against it without even having it gone through the proper process.

They are agin it even before it is there to be judged, and yet the member says, we want jobs. Madam Deputy Speaker, when I listened to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) talk about jobs and young people in his remarks, I am reminded of the two largest employers in my

April 13, 1994 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 197 constituency, Atomic Energy of Canada and the new Pine Falls paper company as of the beginning of July. Both of those employers, employing almost 2,000 people in eastern Manitoba, have been attacked by the friends and by the member for Radisson, and I believe if that member had her way both would be shut down.

I have never seen the New Democratic Party come out other than-I have to qual ify this-when they are talking to people from those communities they are very supportive of those industries, but once they leave the boundary of the Lac du Bonnet constituency, once they get in the room that is with a radical fringe in our province , they are against those industries. You know, we do not have to go very far. Members of the New Democratic Party got up and spoke about gambling, how they are opposed to gambling. At least I give the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr.

Edwards) credit, even though his House leader supports more casinos and he is opposed to them, but the Leader of the Opposition rolls into The Pas, right? The community asks for a casino, and he says, yep, you elect us and you will get your casino. Roll in with a group of people who are opposed to gambling, oh, we are against gambling. Right? What do you want? We will promise. Now, the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) looks a little miffed, but I have a press release issued by the Opasquia Frrst Nation saying, we are going to vote NDP. They said that if they get elected they are giving us a casino.

Now, they also said they are going to start building it now. So, I mean, if that is not true , if the Leader of the Opposition's comments are not true, then I believe he owes it to those people to tell them that before they go out and spend money. But has he done that yet? Oh, no. He has not done that yet. I think there was a local newspaper that called him the king of the one-liners, and the people of Manitoba are not going to be fooled by that at all. Madam Deputy Speaker, if I may for a moment, the future ofManitobans- [interjection] Madam De puty Speaker: Order, please.

I am having great difficulty hearing the honourable Minister of Labour. Mr . Pram ik: Madam Deputy Speaker, we as trustees of the public's money and as its elected Legislature have a responsibility to ensure that we do a number of things, that we expend well the dollars that they have available for us to expend, that we do not so overtax them and overburden them that they do not have a hope of doing anything but paying taxes.

We have to ensure that opportunities that are there for Manitobans to take advantage of are pursued, and that we as government are doing what we can to allow them to take advantage of those opportunities. It is interesting to note that many of us, the member for Interlake (Mr.

Clif Evans) included, were at the meeting of the Manitoba Association of Urban Municipalities just yesterday, I believe , and in their Urban Scene magazine-and I would refer members opposite to this magazine-on page 6 they talk about communities selling themselves and a number of job-creating businesses-real businesses -that have grown throughout our provin� in a number of communities. Some are employing a few people; others, many hundreds; and all because the climate is right for these things to happen, and that does not happen by accident.

If that is not looked after each and every day by the trustees of the public who are elected to this Legislature, then those opportunities will not take place . I cannot resist, Madam Deputy Speaker, raising another issue on the job front which I know members of this House will en joy. I have a letter from Carnation Foods, and they wrote to me about a little incident where the brothers and sisters of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) went out and picketed at Carnation Foods in Carberry. Now, there is tremendous insight in this incident. What were they picketing?

They were picketing the fact that a company based in the United States that sold a piece of industrial equipment to Carnation Foods required that the installation be done by their own people to get the warranty. Now, there is nothing unusual about that. That happens all the time. Ask United Steelworlc ers, and they will tell you about it. It happens all the time, but the brothers and sisters of members opposite loaded a bus and they

198 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April 13, 1994 went down to Carberry. They picketed, and do you know what they said on their picket signs? They said: Yankee go home. I tell the honourable members, what was that equipment going to be used to produce? French fries. Do you know where those french fries were being co nsumed? In the Unite d States, by Americans, by those same Yanke es that the brothers and sisters of the members opposite said should go home. Do you know how many new jobs?

One hundred new jobs in the province of Manitoba, 100 new jobs for working people in our province, created by that facility-and members opposite: Yankees go home. Is that the future of Manitoba? No. Manitobans can compete, can take advantage of opportunities- Some Honourable Members: Shame. Madam De puty Speaker: Order, please. ... (1 550) Mr. Praznik: Thank you, Madam De puty Speaker. That speaks volumes, volumes to the mentality and thinking of members of that party. I am sure, in the course of the next number of days of the session, we will have plenty of opportunities to engage in a host of issues.

My time is running short. I say to the member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes ), I would love to entertain a question from the member in the House, any opportunity on that subject. (Mr. Speaker in the Chair) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate one of the many opportunities we have as members of the Legislature, one of the most significant opportunities to

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Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	35-5-5
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	35th 5th hansardpdf 5.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
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