Manitoba Hansard — 7 April 1975 (Sitting 37, 30th Legislature, 2nd Session)

30-2-37

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS Speaker The Honourable Peter Fox Vol. XXll No. 37 8:00 p.m., Monday, April 7th, 1975. Second Session, 30th Legislature. Printed by R. S. Evans -Queen's Printer for Province of Manitoba

Electoral Division Name Political Address Postal Affiliation Code ARTHUR J. Douglas Watt P.C. Reston, Man. ROM 1XO ASSINIBOIA Steve Patrick Lib. 10 Red Roblin Pl., Winnipeg R3.J 3L8 BIRTLE-RUSSELL Harry E. Graham P.C. Binscarth, Man. ROJ OGO BRANDON EAST Hon. Leonard S. Evans NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 BRANDON WEST Edward McGill P.C. 2228 Princess Ave .. Brandon R7B OH9 BURROWS Hon. Ben Hanuschak NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 CHAR LESWOOD Arthur Moug P.C. 29 Willow Ridge Rd., Winnipeg R3R 1L5 CHURCHILL Les Osland NDP 66 Radisson Blvd., Churchill ROB OEO CRESCENTWOOD Vacant DAUPHIN Hon.

Peter Burtniak NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 ELMWOOD Hon. Russell J. Doern NDP Legislative Bldg .. Winnipeg R3C OV8 EMERSON Steve Derewianchuk NDP Vita, Manitoba ROA 2KO FLIN FLON Thomas Barrow NDP Cranberry Portage, Man. ROB OHO FORT GARRY L.R. (Bud) Sherman P.C. 86 Niagara St., Winnipeg R3N OT9 FORT ROUGE Lloyd Axworthy Lib. 132 Osborne St. s .. Winnipeg R3L 1Y5 GIMLI John C. Gottfried NDP 44 - 3rd Ave .. Gimli, Man. ROC 1BO GLADSTONE James R. Ferguson P.C. Gladstone, Man. ROJ OTO INKSTER Hon. Sidney Green, 0.C. NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 KILDONAN Hon.

Peter Fox NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 LAC DU BONNET Hon. Sam Uskiw NDP Legislative Bldg .. Winnipeg R3C OV8 LAKESIDE Harry J. Enns P.C. Woodlands, Man. ROC 3HO LA VERENDRYE Bob Banman P.C. Steinbach, Man. ROA 2AO LOGAN William Jenkins NDP 1294 Erin St., Winnipeg R3E 2S6 MINNEDOSA David Blake P.C. Minnedosa, Man. ROJ 1EO MORRIS Warner H. Jorgenson P.C. Morris, Man. ROG 1KO OSBORNE Hon. Ian Turnbull NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 PEMBINA George Henderson P.C. Manitou, Man. ROG 1GO POINT DOUGLAS Donald Malinowski NDP 23 Coralberry Ave., Winnipeg R2V 2P2 PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE Gordon E.

Johnston Lib. 26-120 - 6th St., S.E .. Portage la Prairie, Man. R1N 1E8 RADISSON Harry Shafransky NDP 4 Maplehurst Rd., Winnipeg R2J 1W8 RHINELAND Arnold Brown P.C. Winkler, Man. ROG 2XO RIEL Donald W. Craik P.C. 3 River Lane, Winnipeg R2M 3Y8 RIVER HEIGHTS Sidney Spivak, O.C. P.C. Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 ROBLIN J. Wally McKenzie P.C. Inglis, Man. ROJ OXO ROCK LAKE Henry J. Einarson P.C. Glenboro, Man. ROK OXO ROSSMERE Hon. Ed. Schreyer NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 RUPERTSLAND Hon. Harvey Bostrom NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 ST. BONIFACE Hon. L.L.

Desjardins NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 ST. GEORGE Hon. Bill Uruski NDP 10th fir., 330 Portage Ave., Wpg. R3C OC4 ST. JAMES George Minaker P.C. 318 Ronald St .. Winnipeg R 3.J 3.18 ST. JOHNS Saul Cherniack, Q.C. NDP 333 St. Johns Ave., Winnipeg R2W 1H2 ST. MATTHEWS Wally Johannson NDP 418 Home St., Winnipeg R3G 1X4 ST. VITAL D.J. Walding NDP 26 Hemlock Place, Winnipeg R2H 1L7 STE. ROSE A.R. (Pete) Adam NDP Ste. Rose du Lac, Man. ROL 1SO SELKIRK Hon. Howard Pawley NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 SEVEN OAKS Hon. Saul A.

Miller NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 SCJURIS KILLARNEY Earl McKellar P.C. Nesbitt, Man. ROK 1PO SPRINGFIELD Hon. Rene E. Toupin NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 STURGEON CREEK J. Frank Johnston P.C. 310 Overdale St., Winnipeg R3.J 2G3 SWAN RIVER James H. Bilton P.C. Swan River, Man. ROL 1ZO THE PAS Hon. Ron McBryde NDP Legislative Bldg .. Winnipeg R3C OV8 THOMPSON Ken Dillen NDP 84 Pintail Cres., Thompson R8N 1A6 TRANSCONA Hon. Russell Paulley NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 VIRDEN Morris McGregor P.C. Kenton, Man. ROM OZO WELLINGTON Philip M.

Petursson NDP 681 Banning St., Winnipeg RJG 2G3 WINNIPEG CENTRE Hon. J.R. (Bud) Boyce NDP Legislative Bldg., Winnipeg R3C OV8 WOLSELEY Vacant

I 10 17 THE LE GISL ATNE ASSEMBL Y OF MANITOBA 8:0 0 o•clock, Monday, April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATI ON MR. CHAIRMAN: Resolution 46(a) . The Honourable Ministe r of Education. MR. HANUSCHAK : Well, Mr. Chairman, I did promise the Honourable Lea der of the Official Opposition and the Me mber for Brandon West some information in re sponse to the que stions that the Honourable Lea der, in particular, put to me just before we broke off for the dinne r hour. I re gre t to say that I do not have the answers at this moment. The y should be arriving momentarily. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Lea de r of the Opposition.

MR. SPIVAK: Possibly while we•re waiting for the information and there may be in fact some other que stions to be asked when the information. . . I want to unde rstand, if I can, that the core area programs that the Honourable Ministe r refe rred to, are in es sence the programs that we •ve had outline d to us, not in full de tail but that have been summarized in part of the programs that have been mentioned. Is that corre ct? MR. HANUSCHAK : Mr.

Chairman, I•m still at a loss to know what the honourable member means by the te rm "core area." I used the te rm core area with refere nce to a ge ographic area of Winnipe g MR. SPIVAK: We ll I•m talking in terms of what will be the areas of urban re ne wal numbe r two, the areas in the blight ed area around the central busine ss district, which you refe r to as the core area. Now I•m asking with re spect to planning ... Sir? Well, ap.:ain I want to unde rstand corre ctly that the programs Planning and Research have been involved in, I•m concerned with are they two or three programs that have been mentioned in

summary, at le ast in the global fig ure s, mentioned ea rlie r? Am I corre ct? Are there any other programs that are involv ed in which Planning and Re search are involv ed in? MR. HANUSCHAK: I be lie ve the honourable member is corre ct, if I unde rstand him corre ctly. In re sponse to the honourable member•s que stion: In the REAP Program 2-1 /2 SMYs $23 , 70 2; 2- 1/2 SMY on contract, $45 , 900, for a total of $69, 600. Other ex penditure s $2 9, 000. And $2 00, OOO by way of grants to school divisions, to the ei ght school divisions which partici pate in this program. MR.

SPIVAK: I•m assuming you have the de tails for ea ch program. Is that right, or it just this one program? MR. HANUS CHAK: I•m atte mpting to give the information to the honourable member that he asked for. MR. SPIVA K: No, but le t•s unde rstand that what I assumed you woul d do would be to give us the program, the de tails for ea ch program, for the REAP Program, the He adstart Program, all of the programs that have been .•. MR. HANUSCHAK: I am atte mtping to give the information that the honourable member asked. He says he is assuming that I•m giving the de tails. I coul d give more de tails.

The re are other de tails also. MR. SPIVAK: No, but Mr. Chairman, just so that we unde rstand cle arly. I asked the Honourable Ministe r if he coul d indicate unde r ea ch specific program unde rtaking under Planning and Research, whether in addition to the support staff that•s indicated in the 30 people who are em ploy ed, that er ch program if it did have additional peopl e involv ed by way of salary or by way of contract, that the indication be give n of how many and the amounts for ea ch separate program. And I gather for the REAP Program he is giving us that information. If I•m correct in

summary, he said that there are two people who are on salary and their salarie s are such an amount, there are two people on contract and the contracts are for that amount, and he•s talking, I assume , on the REAP Program. Is that corre ct? MR. HANTJSCHAK: We ll that was what I said, ye s. MR. SPIVAK: We ll, are we going to ge t information on the other programs:? My unde r standing of the unde rtaking was that he woul d de al with ea ch one of the Planning and Research programs and give us an indication of the bre akdown on ea ch one of those programs. MR. HANUSCHAK: We ll, Mr.

Chairman, I was de aling with one program and, before I was through de aling with it, the honourable member rose to ask a que stion.

1018 April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUC ATION MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. I thought we establ ished the other day that nobody woul d gain the fl oor until the Speaker recognized him, Now itt s very difficul t for Mr. Sly, itt s very difficul t for Hansard staff, to record who•s speaking and what's happening, If you•re not going to co-opera te, I•m going to have to ask that the mikes be shut off until the Chair recognizes you, The Honourabl e Le ader of the Opposition. MR.

SPIVAK : Mr, Chairman, all we•ve asked the Minister is for some simple infor mation that can be furnished by him, and I•m not going to repeat the information. If, in fact, he sat down, I didn•t ask the question before he sat down, and I•m asking now. Ifhe •s going to deal program by program, that•s acceptabl e to this side.

I don•t think there•s any objection to it, But if we•re dealing with the REAP Program and he wants to complete that first, then that's fine, then we•ll move to the next one, Or if he wants to give a list of each one that•s fine as well , Whatever his wish is, we•ll simply wait for the information, MR. HANUSC HAK : Mr. Chairman, this is the very reason why I asked the honourabl e member to explain what he meant by detail s, because if he wants me to give the detail s of the program, I coul d handl e it in any way he wishes, or whet her he mere ly wishes •.. response from this question. MR. CHAIRMAN: Order plea se.

Order pl ease. The Honourable Le ader of the Opposition, MR. SPIVAK : Well, Mr.

Chairman, the purpose of this examination is to determine, if we can, what the department is doing in the fiel d of Planning and Rese arch, and we are asking for specific information and we want specific answers, and there•s no need to try and sort of pl ay a game here, We have asked specifically for each progra m that has been expl ained as being under Other Expenditures in Pl anning and Rese arch, that there will be an indication of the number of peopl e who are empl oyed in the program chargea bl e to that portion of the program, the number of contracts, And if he has been dealing with the REAP program and he •s indicated that that's the information on the REAP program, then we can move on to the next program.

The only thing, Mr. Chairman, that I suggest to him is that he•s indicated, as far as I can see, based on his information, that there are two peopl e empl oyed in the REAP program and two people ••• MR. HANUSC HAK: I didn•t say that. MR. SPIVAK : Well then, I woul d ask a specific question. I don•t understand where the difficulty is. Can he not indicate to us how many people are employed under the REAP program. how many peopl e are on contract? MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Education. MR.

HANUSC HAK: I will repeat again, and I•m sorry that the honourabl e member•s notes are incorrect - I said 2--·1/2 SMY•s on REAP pl us 2-1/2 on contract. So it is not 2, it's 2-1/2. Headstart, 7 on contract, Administration, 4 SMY•s. School Milk, 1 SMY, 1 on contract. Planning Devel opment and Rese arch, 7 SMY•s. Community Volu nteers, 1/2 SMY. Evalua tion, 3-1/2 SMY•s, 2-1/2 on contract. Ur ban Education, 2 SMY•s. Community School Nutrition, 1/4 SMY. Schools for Ur ban Neighborhoods, 1/4 SMY. That, by the way, is for the fiscal year of the estimates which we are debating.

The previous year, or the fiscal year just ended, REAP was the same, 2:.1/2 each. Headstart was the same. Administration; School Mil k; Pl anning, Devel opment and Research; there was one contract in addition to the 7 SMY•s. The rest are the same. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Le ader of the Opposition. MR.

SPIVAK : Ju st so that we can establis h so there won•t be an question of the accuracy of the information - not from the position of the Minister but in our understanding of it, This would mean that the peopl e who are in contract, pl us the aggrega te of those who are on pro grams who are not on contract, woul d be added to the 30 who are empl oyed in Pl anning and Rese arch, and this would be establ ished ••• the peopl e who were involved •.. that.

So in effect, at this point, there woul d appear to be 12, 13, almost over 30, actually over double the amount, who are involved in these programs, who are not indicated within the re search staff of Planning and Rese arch, and I think that's probably a figure that•s an approximate, Itts probably more, So approximatel y 60 within the department in the Pl anning and Rese arch, dealing with the protion of Planning and Research in the Department of Education as opposed to the Department of Colleges and Un iversities, I•m assuming I•m correct at this point on that. All right.

April 7, 1975 1019 .···� "i SUPPLY - EDUCATION (MR, SPIVAK cont•

d) Now I wonder if the Min�ister is in a position to indicate, with respect to the three new programs, I guess, that were announced that would deal with the urban area, how the Pla nning and Research Department identified the particula r needs that had to be undertaken and the resea rch that they did in coming to the conclu sion that these programs should be undertaken. MR.

HANUSCHAK: Well, I just wanted to lo cate the programs in my Estimates book in the event that there will be other questi ons asked; but the answer to the honourable member•s question: 11How are the programs ident ified?" - by working in lia ison with the Winnipeg School Division, MR, SPIVAK : What are the specific target popula tion groups that these programs are dedicated to? MR. HANUS CHAK: Primarily the inner core of the City of Winnipeg, The boundaries may vary somewhat from one program to the other. MR. SPIVAK: I•m al most inclined, Mr.

Chairman, to ask the Minister to define what the inner core is because, you know, he didn•t understand what the core was, but I•d rather not, I think I understand what the inner core is just as he understands what the core is, Does the Minister really believe that the programs that he has identified tr uly are the programs that are needed by the specific popula ti on targeted in that area called the inner core? MR. HANUS CHAK: Ye s. MR. SPIVAK: What are the staff man ye ars to be undertaken with respect to the specific programs in the inner core ? MR. HANUSCHAK: I•m sorry, Mr.

Chairman, MR, SPIVAK: What are the staff man years and the program doll ars to be taken into consideration in the inner core for those programs that he•s mentioned? MR. HANUSCHAK : Roughl y 2.5. And while I•m on my feet , Mr. Chairman, the figures that I have given for the SMY plus cont ract, I think this would show about 21 SMY•s, pl us 14 on contract, but in total it works out to about 30 because many of them are for pe riods shorter than one year. Maybe for 10 months, nine months, something like that, but it may have been shown to the near half or quarter of a year but when you add them up it totals up to 30.

MR. SPIVAK: But in eff ect, Mr, Chairman - to the Minister - if the answer had been given that there were only 30 employ ees of Planning an d Research and that answer had been left, it would have been fairl y mislea ding, I think, to the House in total, in rel ation to the real total that•s in Pla nning and Rese arch which is approximately 60.

And I think that, from our point of view, and I think this is something that we were interect ed in this particul ar area as we would be in ever y phase of government activity and ce rtainl y ever y phase of the Department of Education, we would like to be in a position to be able to deal with what would be an accurate evalu ation of the employ ment within a particula r department. Now ..• MR. HANUS CHAK: Mr. Chairman, I can•t accept the fact that the actual tota l is 6cl, The total in Planning and Resea rch in the Department of Education is 30. MR.

SPIVAK : This is why I want to ..• My understanding was that the individual. .. The Minister said that there are 30 pe ople emplo ye d in Pla nning and Research. Wit h respect to these programs, these pe ople are in addition to the 30, and that is my understanding, so that in effect you•re talking really 60. And if l' m wrong, then I stand to be correcte d MR. HANUSCHAK: Mr. Chairman, this is the total staff, MR.

SPIVAK : Le t me then follow through because, then, there•s been a misunderstanding on my part, The total staff of 30 is charged to these programs, whose aggreg ate amount s to less than $1, 330, OOO under the Other Expendit ures, ye t there•s a sala ry item in addition to that of $333, OOO for Pla nning and Resea rch, and my understanding was, and again I repeat , that there was 30 pe ople emplo ye d in Pla nning and Rese arch, and that in addition there were another 30 employ ed in programs that have been identified under Other Expenditures. MR.

HANUSCHAK: It may be that the honourable member - I•ll just double check this - that we may be including the Native Branch which is responsible to Planning and Resea rch, and there•s something in the order of 12 or so SMY, 15 SMY•s there. Th,at may account for the differenc e. , MR. SPIVAK : Well, I would rather wait - if the information is being assembled now, would rather wait before I deal with the next item. MR. HANUS CHAK: Ye s, the Native Branch is included in this.

1020 April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATION MR, SPIVAK:. Well, Mr, Chairman, I wonder if he could now indicate what that means in terms of numbers. In salaries you have $333, OOO; of the 30 people who are chargeable to the various programs that you•ve indicated, some on contract, some on salary, are there any of these people who are chargeable in the salaries of $333, OOO? MR. HANUSCHAK: Yes, there are 11 Native Education, 21 Planning and Research, Yes, Thatis SMY•s, MR. SPIVAK: We•re talking 60 at that point, more or less, then. In this case it would be 61.

My point being, Mr, Chairman, and to the Minister, that in effect with respect to Planning and Research, the numbers chargeable to the Department of Education, it would appear that there are 60 people who are involved in either direct employment or by way of contract, and I think that figure is now assumed to be correct, And I say to the Minister that I think that the original statement - and I don•t think that that necessarily was his intention but I think that it's something that we have to consider in relation to this estimate as we have to deal with the others, that it's important that we know numbers, because one of the questions that is continually asked of the members on this side as we travel throughout Manitoba is why Planning and Research is so huge, and what is it supposed to be doing, and why are there so many numbers in terms of people, involved?

Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to make a comment - well I•d like to ask the Minister another question before I make the comment on part of the information. I know the others here will want to say - or ask other questions. Can he indicate to me the method used by planning and research to evaluate the programs, what method is used in evaluation of the programs that have been in operation over the past year? MR. HANUSCHAK: Yes .

Well if the honourable member wished I can go through the programs, program by program. as to the method and outline in the method of evaluation for each, which is what the honourable member asked. MR. SPIVAK: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I think that would be very helpful. I wonder if he could give us a cost-benefit as he does his evaluation, MR. HANUSCHAK: A which? MR. SPIVAK: A cost-benefit. MR, HANUSCHAK: Yes, I•m sorry I did not catch the word that the Honourable Leader made in his process of sitting down.

One measure of the effectiveness of these programs - this would apply to many, but I think that the Rural Educational Alternative Program is about as good an example to use as any because some of the criteria used there may to a greater or lesser degree to applied to others, and that would be to measure the cost-benefit ratio based on the cost of the program as compared to the over all reduction in education costs in that area, or if not the reduction of costs the slowing down of the cost acceleration or increases.

We would look at, in that particular program, at matters such as costs of transportation of rural students, the abandon ment of suitable facilities, capital costs of unnecessarily centralized schools, over-special ization of professional staff, unnecessary duplication between school and existing community resources, imbalances between learning needs and curriculum offered, and so forth. So these are some of the criteria that will be applied.

MR, SPIVAK: Well I really want the Minister to indicate how does he, or how does his department, or how does his research branch, go about evaluating the things, the criteria, that he just mentioned, Where do they obtain their information, who do they discuss this matter with, where do they assemble their statistical data, who are they in contact with, and how is that evaluated? MR. HANUSCHAK: The information can be obtained in a variety of ways.

By the attendance of the Planning and Research staff in those places where the projects are under way, interviewing pupils, teachers, parents, school trustees, superintendents and members of the community, whoever may in any way be affected by any of the programs that we have under way. MR, SPIVAK: You mentioned earlier about eleven native people employed in native programs. With respect to that native program, how much of that native program deals with the core area, or the inner core area? MR.

HANUSCHAK: At the present time, I must say not a great deal because this is its first year of operation and it's concentrating its efforts primarily on Northern Manitoba.

April 7, 1975 1021 SUPPLY - EDUCATION MR. SPIVAK: Well, Mr, Chairman, there will be others who are going to have a series of questions Itm sure to ask the Minister, but I think it would be appropriate for me to make a comment, and the Minister may want to reply , and this reall y deal s with policy matters and deal s with the government•s direction, and the dire ction of Pla nning and Resea rch.

The Minister has announced what I would consider very minimum programs for the inner core area of Winnipeg, programs that are needed but ce rtainl y are very pieceme al in terms of the kind of comprehensive program that should deal with the problems of the pe ople in the area, the problems that have been identified over a pe riod of years, the problems which have been recogniz ed in the essential thrust of the government to try and accomplish something in the area which has genera lly being called Urban Renewal No. 2, and could be called the ce ntre core area or the inner core area, depending on how yo u want to draw the line.

And the thing that is really I think disturbing, Mr.

Chairman, and disturbing in the Minister•s answers that have been given so far, disturbing in the sense that the government is so al ert to try and take credit for new directions in the areas in which there are significant social problems, is that it indicates that when we really examine what the government is doing they •re really al most devoid of any understanding of the problems of the area, and they are really inept at dealing with the problems, and if this their ident ification of the problems and this is their solution, then al l one can suggest is that, it will be a continuation of what we have and the same.

Wetve been concerned, and we'll deal with this when we deal with other matters in terms of the Minister of Urban Affairs and probably when we deal with the question of housing, as to what the program of the government really is for the core area. But, Mr. Chairman, this is, you know, if this is the work of the department , if this is the new directi on, then I ask you how does this accomplish the very basic things of deal ing with the problems of pe ople in that area.

With the problem of the upgrading of the skills and the att empt to try and provide the special educational requi rement s that are needed for the range of people who make up that area who are the pe ople living in poverty , who are the pe ople living under distress, who have tre mendous social problems, and how can these three or four programs be deemed to part of any comprehensive attack on the part of the government of solving the problems in the core area?

You know, Mr, Chairman, the Minister•s pronouncements reall y create a sham for the kind of direction that was expected and should have been forthcoming from the government in this area, and Mr. Chairman, as well, it just gives the lie to the concern that is supposed to have been expressed by the government for the problems of pe ople in the area.

It would seem to me that we come back to the fact that over the ye ars and this government, particula rly when they were opposition, who expressed concern, and expressed a strong voice for the host of pe ople who would be considered disadvantaged to live in that area, have not been prepared to marshall the forces of government to provide the kinds of programs that should be forthcoming in this area and while we will have other occasions, Mr.

Chairman, to deal with the basic question as to whether the government is meetin g the needs of the pe ople in that area by a full and complet e comprehensive program, I would suggest that what has happened here with the announcements that the Minister has made, with the expla nations that he has given, with the sums that are involved, and I say that, and with the more or less detail that is given, that what we have is li p service being given by the government to the programs in the hope that somehow or other they can be credit ed with some improvement, when in effect they are doing reall y nothing.

And that• s reall y what we are talking about. Nothing. Nothing is being done. Nothing is reall y pl anned, and while you may suggest that there is an initiative for which you should be credit ed, in rel ation to the total budget of this government, in rel ation to the high falutin• words that have been used by the First Minister and others with respect to the dedi cation that was to be undertaken by government for the pe ople who live in poverty , and who are the disadvantaged in that area, it would seem to me that really what we have is a very hollow and shallow program worthy of very li ttle recognition.

Certa inly the programs are worthy of support that have been announced, that's not to be criticized, but these programs are meaningless unless they•re part and parce l of a far gre ater direction, and unless there is some lea dership that is shown, and that lea dership has got to be significant in its att empt to deal with the problems. I wonder really how much consul tation took pl ace with the pe ople whowork in the area, called the core, inner core, and I do not necessarily mean the pe ople who are the disadvantaged pe ople because I think there is a problem that one has to recogniz e

1022 April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATION (MR.

SPIVAK cont'd) , • , ,in dealing with many of them whose conditions are so bad and so severe that it makes it very difficult for them to be able to understand the real, the possibilities that exist for them, For many of them their life has been shattered; for many of them they are living under the most intolerable conditions, and for them Ws very difficult to understand the full range of what government could be doing, But I really wonder for all those who really seriously have been working in that field, who understand that field, who know that field, who are in all the variety of different organizations, how much consultation there has been from this whole cadre of people who are working on these various programs and the 30 people who are working in Planning and Research, how many of these people have been in consultation with those who are working to determine what kind of programs could be developed for a full comprehensive program rather for the one or two programs that have been announced.

Now, I know there will be some on the other side inclined to pat themselves on the back and say,"Werre doing more than has been done before." But, I must say, Mr, Chairman, and I1ve said this before, this government has given hope to many people, or should have been giving hope to many people, who were the people who believed that they would be identified by the government, would be the target area which the government would direct itself for solution, and who would apply their energy in helping their problems.

And all I see in what has been introduced is something very shallow, very just - whatever it is it's better than what it has been before - but ineffective· to deal with the fundamental problems that exist.

I think, Mr, Chairman, that it really is a testimony to the lack of initiative, to the lack of direction and of not only the Minister, but of the government, who have been prepared to aUow the government to continue researching this whole series of programs, and has been satisfied with the announce ment of programs on the assumption that the announcementofthe program itself means that the solutions have in fact been forthcoming, The educational needs of the people in that area, I suggest have not really been identified by the Honourable Minister and his department, and certainly by his Planning and Research Branch, The target population group I suggest has not been identified; the programs are not designed to meet their needs, The programs are programs that have been designed as piece meal programs to satisfy a budget that the Minister would like to introduce that hers capable of dealing with, and the costs are really not evaluated properly, and I suggest, Mr.

Chairman, that the Minister and Plannirrg and Research are not in an adequate pooition to even evaluate whether this will be successful or not, and the problem, Mr. Chairman, that the complete total community impact program that should have been designed by his department as part of its total comprehensive program is lacking, and so the people 'Nho should be benefitting from a real and aggressive program at this particular time once again will have lost out, and lost out simply because of the lack of understanding and really the failure on the part of the government and on the part of the Minister. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AXWORTHY: Mr, Chairman, if the Minister wants to reply to the comments, Irm prepared to relinquish to the Minister. Did he intend to reply to the Leader of the Opposition? MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Education. MR. HANUSCHAK: Mr.

Chairman, the Honourable Leader of the Official Opposition attempted to make a point that very little or in fact, he used the expression, nothing had been done for the people in the core area, and he also made the statement, and particularly by this government, which had given hope to many people, and then he attempted to correct himself by saying should have given hope, Well, I think he was right the first time, that it had given hope to many, He asked whether there had been consultation with those involved.

Well the answer to the question is, yes there has been consultation, There has been consultation not only with the consumers of the programs but with all of those involved in working with them, and my department and this department in particular worked in the schools. There has been consul tation with the teachers, with the teachers and with the administrative staffs and the boards; that consultation was there on all the programs.

One of the prime purposes of the programs that we1re dealing with tonight - and there are others by the way, Mr, Chairman, which we will not be dealing with in this department but in Colleges and Universities, because they're teacher-training oriented and hence fall more properly within that department,

April 7, 1 975 1023 SU PPLY - EDUCATION (MR. HANUSCHAK cont1d) But anyway ge tting back to these programs, the consultation was the re, not only with the te achers and the staffs and the boards of the school division, but al so with the various organ izations which are active, working with the people in this community, the Friendship Cent re, the Portuguese group, with Se tt lement Houses, for example IMPACTE, and with others.

Just looking through this on the School Nutrition program, there's been consulta tion with the te achers and with the volunteers who will be working and determining the type of nut rition progra m that they wish to offer, whether they wish it to be a breakfast program or a lunc h supplement or a midday snack - and this is up to each school to decide what type of nutrition program they wish to offer. So there has been consulta tion. Now, the honourable member then concludes by saying that this isn1t enough, and I•m sure, Mr.

Chairman, that if we were to simply undertake to mount programs of this type, or whate ver type, on a universal basis particula rl y, if they are designed to meet a need, that they be common, they be prevalent al l over the province, if we were to mount that program on an universa l basis the Honourable Leader of the Official Opposition would be the first to crit ic ize us for going into it without running a pile of experiment s on it and taking a reading on that, evalu ating it, and then being guided by the results of it, and in determining the nature and the style of deliver y of that type of program if it should be delivered at al l.

So, these are pilot projects, they are demonstrati on projects, which will be reviewed upon the te rmination of their term, and then on the basis of our findings at that time the de cision will be made as to the manner in which, and the extent to which, and the rate at which these programs should be expanded to reach the needs of other communities . • . or to reach other communities which may have similar needs. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AXW ORTHY: Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, I al so would like to ask the Minister some questions on this fascinating account of the Resea rch and Pla nning progra m of the depart ment, but his st<ttement just provides one Point of departure which I think could be interest ing to this House and that is, when he is discussing the consultation that he underwent in developing some of these pilot programs in the inner city.

Could the Minister tell us to what degree he was able, or invited to consult with his own collea gues in his own collea gues in his own Cabinet when they themselves were developing what I suppose will become the Ed Schreyer "Build a Monument Progra m for the Inner City," which I think has been well described as a program that is al most purely and directl y designed to put up new buildings.

Can the Minister tell us whether he was involved, or members of his Research and Pl anning staff were in any way consult ed in any effort to integr ate the programs of Manpower Training or Education or Development of Human Resources, and how that this might have been integr ated, which it obviousl y wasn•t according to the announcements that we have heard in this House, where there was no indication of any kind of effort or thought or appli cation of providing for a comprehensive attack on problems in the inner city which would involve a range of devices and that $45 million that was talked about is a fairly hefty sum of money which might have been well applied in te rms of a far more important task of developing incentative and initiative for people living in that area to acquire a capacity and abili ty to cope with a very cold urban system that they have to operate in, So I find it interesting whether the Minister and the Department of Education, and Colleges and Universities for that matter, but ce rtainl y to his own person, were at al l invited to submit programs that might have been part of that downtown renewa l project that was announced.

If they were so invited, why were they not included in such a program?

To what degree might we hope that through the eff orts of others in this House to Provide a reminder to the government that rebuilding is mainly rebuilding of the people not of buildings, that we mi5ht expect future development s in that area so that that la rge amount of money that is presumably going to be committed by the government, will in fact incorporate a major compo nent in the area of the redevelopment of skills and capacities and abili t ies of yo ung people in that area so they can find decent work and be able to find jobs and emplo y ment, and basically begin to secure for themselves their own livelihood as opposed to being dependent upon the government or some other agency for their support.

So , when it comes to consul tation, I guess what I•m asking is, why wasn•t there more consult ation within government itself in terms of what the different departments were att empting

1024 April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATION (MR. AXWORTHY cont'd) ••.• to do in providing for a focussed approach to this problem, and if there was consultation, frankly why obviously was it rejected, or at least some part of it not included in the proposals that were announced by the First Minister? MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Education, MR. HANUSCHAK: Mr.

Chairman, I rather suspect that some of the points that the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge wishes to deal with would probably be more properly dealt with when we deal with the Estimates of Colleges and Universities Affairs, particularly if we're dealing with the matter of manpower training which happens to be within the area of responsi bility of that department and not the public school system.

Here we're dealing with a public school system with a program from Kindergarten to Grade 12, and the use of those school facilities, the use of all the resources that we have within our public school system for the benefit of the entire community.

To a degree, yes this does involve some preliminary Manpower Training of course, and our Vocational Training program, and so forth, But, if we're talking about Manpower Training of a post-high school nature, of a post-secondary nature, then that is the area within which it falls to the greatest extent, much more so than within our public school system, with the exception that I made in our Vocational Education program.

Now one of the programs that I had mentioned earlier that will be brought under way is the Schools for Urban Neighbourhoods within that very area, and this is a project designed to cope with the very types of problems and issues and concerns raised by the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. The Schools for Urban Neighbourhoods, Now, the rationale for the establishment of this program is a question that is in the minds of all of us, whether the schools that we have adequately serve, are adequately relevant to neighbourhood needs.

Now, in this sense adequacy is measured by the extent to which a school is recognized as a resource and is used by the residents living in the area adjacent to it, And this program, the Schools for Urban Neighbourhoods, will provide the opportunity for people to play significant roles in creating relevant neighbourhood-oriented educational programs, and as such the Schools for Urban Neighbourhoods is a recognition that the local school is at the heart of the neighbourhood, And the goal of this, or the goals rather of this program will be twofold.

One to provide formal and informal learning opportunities, responsive to: needs defined by citizens of the neighbourhood, irrespective of their economic and social status; and secondly, to enhance the role of the local elementary school as a point of contact between the neighbourhood and the educational system within it, And the neighbourhoods are going to be those that have a geo graphic identity or possess a distinctive culture uniqueness, or have been defined by either administrative boundaries or by participation programs, such as the City of Winnipeg's Neighbourhood Improvement program, So consequently it will involve north Point Douglas in 'Ninnipeg and the Kind Edward area, William Whyte, Keenleyside Public Housing communities and Brandon North.

Now in a design of this program there will be a local advisory committee which will give it the guidance and support, and the committee will be composed of a representative from the school division in which the participating neighbourhood is located, from the Department of Education, Manitoba Home and School Associations, and other agencies that may be active within that particular community.

And community education workers will assist residents in articulating their concerns, in organizing the resident committees, and in working with these committees, Each resident committee will serve as a forum for expressing educational concerns and implementing ongoing Schools for Urban Neighbourhood programs, This phase will probably take about six months or so, and then once that is launched then from that point on the schools should be able to function more independently, more on there own as it were, and with minimal assistance from our department. So, the point that I wanted to make, Mr.

Chairman, is, is there consultation, interdepartmental consultation? Is the Department of Education playing its role in any urban renewal programs? And by urban renewal, we can't ignore the human element, the human factor, which is very important. Of course there is. And the type of program that Jive just outlined is a demonstration project designed to ••. After it runs its course, then that may be a model that we'd be able to copy and duplicate in other communities for their benefit, MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge.

April 7, 1975 1025 SUPPLY - EDUCATION MR. AXWORTHY: Mr. Chairman - yes, I•m just trying to understand what the Minister was saying. The first point of confusion is that somehow he has managed to separate the activity by departmental function, I gather, between Golleges and Universities and Department of Education, of a process which I think cannot be separated. When you talk about the training and education of people to manage and to acquire skills, I don•t think that all of sudden you can assume, as the Minister seems to be assuming, that one part of it is in Colleges and Universities and through Community Colleges, the other

part is in Education. I think that if that in fact is the form of planning that•s going on, then I would say that it begins to explain one of the reasons why we don•t have the kind of comprehension and wholeness to an approach that is required, if the Minister himself is splitting his mind up in some schizophrenic way between the two. And I would take issue, Mr. Chairman, with the point of view put forward by the Minister, that somehow or other the schools themselves are minimally involved in this whole question of developing a job training, skill training capacity for young people in the Inner City.

I think that in fact they are one of the primary agencies in that role.

And the reason I ask the question is that there has just been a recent study put together in the Ontario system, which was reported in the Globe and Mail of last Saturday, which I think deserves some attention from this House because it indicates the graduates of occupational and vocational schools, which is in the Public School System there, have fewer chances for employment than graduates of composite secondary schools, and that in a fairly intensive assessment of that program, the conclusion was that in fact much of the training that was directed through those kinds of vocational schools up to the Grade 12 level, really had little bearing on the job-gaining ability of the graduates once they came out of the program.

Certainly it doesn•t take much insight, I suppose, into some of the problems occurring in Inner City, particularly at the junior hiP.;h level, when we have a dropout rate of close to 40 or 50 percent, many of the students who are native in origin, or otherwise, who simply just don•t get past the Grade 9 cutoff because of all kinds of reasons, whether they•re just leaving the school system and becoming people in society who aren•t able to get employment and often become the source of major social problems in that area, that somehow to say a school system is not involved frankly boggles me a little bit that such a statement would be made.

It also begs the question, Mr.

Chairman - I think the Minister successfully begged the question once again as to describing to us how it could be that as part of a major Throne Speech declaration, followed up by press conferences and other forms of appearances of Cabinet Ministers in parts of the downtown area, where a great deal of pride or self-congratu lation was taken by the government about its new vista for Unicity, that somehow education was totally ignored in those descriptions; that it somehow was forgotten along the way; that while the Minister says there has been some co-operation between interdepartments, and I take him at his word, then I find it difficult to understand why the very large scale commitment of funds, the $45 million that had been announced which were put forward for that program, did not include, as far as we can see, one red cent for a major push into this whole field of manpower, training, education, inner resources, etc.

And it strikes me, while it may be fine to talk about setting up the odd pilot program, certainly the world is full of all kinds of pilot programs, but the real test of the success of a pilot program is when in fact it becomes a major commit ment, where it translates from simply being a demonstration into being an actuality that eovers a fairly wide- range base.

So the question I was posing to the Minister, why did we not see in that $45 million, 5 million or 2 million or 10 million, whatever the sums may be, that would have been committed by this government to a fairly long term reinvigoration of that area through the educational system? That it is simply not sufficient to talk about the pilot approach that he•s talking about at this stage.

And I agree with his thesis, certainly, that it's very necessary to test out many of the techniques and the methods, but one of the important elements, I think, of any research or policy planning, is simply not to go around planting little petunias in the garden sort of, without any hope that you•re going to have a complete and sort of then total crop; that I think what has been happening in Research and Planning, so it seems to me, is that little seedlings have been dropped into the ground and they flourish and then wither, and they are not picked up and implemented into sort of fuller scale programs.

And if that• s the case, then the million and half dollars that you•re spending is frankly wasted, because unless those pilot

1026 April 5, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATION !MR.

AXWORTHY cont•d) •••• programs and those demonstrations and those experiments and those investigations have some capacity to continue into a program ••• and the proof of what I'm saying, I think, practically goes back to that announcement, that it 'Nas an announce ment which was almost exclusively concentrated upon the construction of public works and public housing, and had absolutely no mention, no identification, no slightest inkling or piece of evidence that the government was also prepared to commit a substantial proportion of resources into a broader based social and educational program.

When the Minister of Urban Affairs appeared at a community meeting at the Midland Recreational Hall on Isabel Street and was asked specific pointed questions to this regard, he again claimed that, as far as he was concerned, the program was purely putting up a court house and an Autopac building and three or four hundred units of public housing. Again, there was no mention that this was going to involve an educational, social kind of program based upon the pilot work that the Minister says he•s been doing.

So it does come back to, I think, a very major omission, or at least a breakdown in communication, either between policy planning in the Department of Education in its fuller structure, or the Department of Education and the rest of the government, when they come to the point of trying to make a maximum strategy and an approach to that problem that we•ve all identified as being of high priority, and that is to try to turn around the serious decline and deterioration, not just of the physical structures of the Inner City, but primarily of the com munity structures and in many cases the people themselves.

And frankly, Mr. Chairman, the Minister•s answer in no way satisfied, at least myself, that his policy planning and research has any further extension beyond simply more policy planning and research and I think that that is one of the major critiques that we must make about his department. Mr.

Chairman, I•d also like to pose, if I might, two or three other questions to the Minister related to a very similar topic, not necessarily concentrated on the Inner City, but to the actual results that have been achieved by the pilot programs that were announced in his Estimates of two years ago and in his Estimates of last year.

To begin with, I•d be interested in knowing what results the Minister could provide us in terms of the Headstart Program that was implemented in Northern Manitoba, that the development of nursery training or pre-school training, again for native children in the North, which I gather consumes hundreds of thousands of dollars which I think • . . what kind of results in terms of a program can the Minister indicate - and I think in particular, if he could give us an idea whether such an approach to education providing a headstart or pre-school training in the northern context, is of any value in the longer term academic achievements of young people in that area.

There has been two pieces of evidence that have been produced in the last year. One was a study at the St. Boniface School Division completed this year, which - and I read i'f'(JJ,n it - says: " The simple conclusion is that, attendance at nursery school has little or no effect on academic achievement; that in the particular population study were somewhat below the norm of social economic status and at a mental age one might assume that nursery school would have been an important remedial device for them. This is apparently not the case." Now that particular piece of evidence that the St.

Boniface School Division undertook, I gather, Mr. Chairman, on its own devices or through its own research, has certainly been confirmed by a lot of American evidence of the same kind, that the Headstart programs, pre school programs, provide only a very short term upgrading or enrichment of education, and the sooner or later, for all kinds of reasons, primarily related to the home situation, the ability of the child who went through it just simply peters out or erodes, and that the ultimate value of such a program has little or no use.

And I•m wondering if the Minister could supply us with any results from that research that would show differently, and show us to what degree, then, are we about to use the experience of Headstart programs on a wider basis. Is is about to become a permanent part of the educational program in northern Manitoba? Are we moving into a Heads tart arrangement in this province? Or is it simply going to retain its status as another pilot project? MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Corrections. HON. J. R. (BUD) BOYCE (Minister for Corrections and Rehabilitation)(Winnipeg Centre): Mr.

Chairman, just before the Minister responds, I haven•t intended to enter this particular discussion, but nevertheless the Member for Fort Rouge in making reference to the Minister of Ui;ban Affairs, who is attending a meeting in the Midland Community, I would just

April 7, 1975 1027 SU PPLY - CORRECTIONS (MR. BOYCE cont'd) ..•• li ke to ref resh his memory and point out to him that when someone is talking about, you know, capital expenditu res, the y•re lim ite d pe rhaps to the conversation relati ve to capital, and as I recall it, that•s what the Minister was pointing out , and he did dire ct his atten tion, I woul d agree, to the NIP area and what woul d tr anspire as far as capital costs were concerne d .

But nevertheless, I too sometimes would li ke things to be arranged to suit myself , but I think we have under discussion an item, and this being a new form, we• re discussing 4G(a), Planning and Research, the Department of Education. Not th>tt the Minister or his staff nee ds any defenc e from me, but nevertheless, the Planning and Research capacity in the Department of Education, in my view, has done an excellent job. In fact, I don•t bl ame the staff sometimes for bei ng a little chagrined that some of us in Cabinet can•t move faster than we have been able to in impl ementi ng some of thei r pl ans.

And I woul d ask the member, when he•s talki ng in the way that he just talked , to try and see what is involved, because in the legi sla tive process, we•re charged with presen ting our esti mates to the House, and the Member for Fort Rouge as well as all pe ople in Manitoba are asked to judge the government in its total program. If the member would go back and read the Throne Speec h to see the thrust of the govern ment in total for this session, and then revi ew each program as is pre sent ed to him rather than to criticize the Minister of Education for not solvi ng all the social problems of the Core area.

I had only int ended to draw referenc e to the remarks of the Minister of Urban Affairs but I woul d repeat, the announcements so far have been rela tiv e to capital costs, and these are contained in the capital bills which will be provide d to the House. But, as we progress through the Esti mates, inclu ding some of my own that I hope to get the approval of the House, some of the programs that are involved in juvenile corrections will be rela tive to the Core area and will form part of the total program. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Education. MR. HANUSCHAK: Mr.

Chairman, the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge makes the point that education is not something that one could compartmental ize a Portion of it into one de partment and a portion to another, and in a sense he is quite correct. �ou can•t . But for administrative purposes we must do that, as we must do similarl y with many other government de partment s where there may be very cl ose relati onship , One could also point to a cl ose relati onship between the Dep artment of Education, I suppose, and the Department of Healt h and Social Develo pment , and Agriculture, and a whole host of de partment s.

So that rela tio nship is the re. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty of the administration of a program, then we must set ourselves up into the de partment s that we have. But I•m not for one moment sugges ti ng that one ed ucation program is ... that we just shut our eyes to it and aren't a "\\ 'r'" of what•s happeni ng and aren•t pe rforming our role in terms of prepariri.g stude nts for it, or whatever. That is not the case at all.

The honourable member ref erred to an articl e which he read in the Gl obe and Mail, which I didn•t, but from my recolle ction of what he said, that that articl e - or it was based on t the study or surve y on the effective !l'f'SS of vocational schools as opposed to the comprehensive high schools.

Well, I woul d li ke the honourable member to know that in Manit oba we do not have have any purely vocational schools as such, as you may fi nd in the Province of Ontario and in some other Provinces, because our high schools are in fact comprehensive high schools which offer a mix of vocational, industrial arts tr aining, and academic programs. In fact, one of the -- (Interjecti on)-- Ye s, River East is a comprehensive school, as is Lord Selki rk, as is Sturgeon Creek, as is Crocus Pl ains in Brandon, and Ste inbach and Swan Valley and Dauphin. So there is a differenc e.

Now, the problem that the honourable m:.3mber raised with respect to the dropouts at the junior high level, well the vocational schools or the comprehensive high schools in Ontario, they wouldn•t have reached those chil dren anyway, because the y probably commence at Gr ade 9, or in many cases at the Gr ade 10 level.

With respect to the 45 million -d ollar capital announcement, and he said that there wasn•t a shred in there for the operati ons of the Department of Education, I•m sure that if there was, the honourable member woul d have been equally critical of us, and very properly so, for having incl ude d a portion of our operati ng expenses in capital where it does not belong, Now, he wouldn•t want to see de monstration programs just bei ng see dl ings pl anted in the community and not givr;n proper nourishment, and eventually wither. I woul d li ke to impress

102 8 April 5, 197 5 SUPPLY - EDUCATION (MR . HANUSCHAK cont•d) •••• upon the honourable member, Mr. Chairman, that when we initiate a demonstration project of any kind, it is giving effect to a principle that we believe in a principle that we wish to see implemented, but because of its complexity, or for whatever reason, or its newness, and nothing else in a similar situation that we could compare it with, therefore it's necessary to proceed at a sl ower pace by way of a demonstration program, and evaluating it, and then planning the ways and means of the expansion of it accordingly.

So I cannot accept the fact that, just because it's a demonstration project, that this is some indi· cation that we are merely paying lip service to a program without any intention or any commit ment on our part to see it through, The honourable member was alllo interested in whether or not there was an evaluation of the Headstart program, and he made reference to a study done in St, Boniface on the effects or the benefits of a nursery school training on the students• subsequent performance in the schools. Now the Headstart program, it•s neither a day care operation nor is it a nursery school.

It•s a program designed to acquaint . . • If I could just take a minute of the Committee•s time, the program• s objectives: to provide an early childhood enrichment program in the form of a drop-in centre for children aged 2 to 7 in selected native headstart communities; to make this program accessible to all eligible children in these communities; to include a nutritional component to the program so the children attending are ass ured of having some of their daily nutritional requirements; to develop a toy-book lending library, so the children can borrow a toy as they would a book to take to their home.

In fact, not part of the Headstart Program, but as another demonstration project, a similar project was also conducted in Brandon very successfully, Now, as far as evaluation, yes, this program will be in operation in eight communities, and there will be an evaluation done by Professor Brockman of the University of Manitoba and the evaluation is in its final draft, and at the moment the indication is that the Headstart approach has been quite successful, especially the toy-book lending library component of it, That appeared to be even more successful than the other aspects ofit, But the evaluation is in itt s final draft.

MR, CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge, MR. AXWORTHY: Mr. Chairman, I just have a few more questions for the Minister and I thank him for his information about the Headstart program, which goes back to, in a sense statements or commitments made by the Minister last year in Estimates debate that I would hope he could bring up-to-date for us and determine again the degree of success or failure of different programs.

The first has to do with the REAP program, the Rural Educational Alternative Program, Last year the Minister stated, I believe, that he expected within a two-year period to have some 15 sc hool districts signed in contractual arrangements under the program, I noticed that last year we had eight, This year in the report I believe it's also eight, At the same time, we notice that the expenditure of the program has gone up substantially, and I would like an indication from the Minister what is again the rate of progress being made in this particular area and why it is that, with apparently no further extension of the program, the costs have gone up fairly significantly percentage-wise.

Could the Minister, again, also describe for us the kind, what are the increases in expenditures for. Have they been brought about by an alteration in the program, by a change in the program, or are they simply staff costs ? A second question I would have for the Minister he could perhaps answer at the same time, has to do with the Native Education Program, which again was a new venture started last year by the department and which I believe he says now has some 20 staff members comprising the over-all complement.

Again, I would be interested in knowing to what degree was that program, the Native Education Program, the funds for it simply a transfer from similar educational programs that had been undertaken by native organizations, particularly the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, to what degree was the money simply a transfer and why was it felt that the investigation of educational priorities could be better done under the Department of Education in this case, and not by native organizations themselves , And along with that, could the Minister explain to what degree is there working arrangements with the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood and the Manitoba Metis Federation and other native organizations, to determine the utility of the program?

April 5, 1975 1029 SUPPLY - EDUCATION (MR, AXW ORTHY cont•

d) And a third sort of question that I have, Mr.

Chairman, I•d li ke to • . • The ques tions are reall y designed to determ ine '.vhat the priorities of the program are, but he could perhaps indicate whether the Research and Planning Division, subsequent to the discussion in this House last ye ar, when very serious concern was raised about the operation of the open area programs and the continuou s learni ng programs, where there was a good deal of criticism I thin k from both sides of the House to the impact that such experi ments again were having upon the abili ty of children to acquire basic skill s in schools, there was a serious publi c concern in many school divisions about the implementat ion and execut ion of those programs, and it was recommended to the Minister last year that it would seem one of the obviou s tasks for his department would be to try to come to grips with the degree to which such prog rams aided or abetted or in fact injured the educational abil itie s of children, and we would certainl y be interested in knowing whether in the intervening year the Poli cy and Research Branch have been able to provide an analy sis for us as to whether the variety of open area and continuous lea rning programs are having any success, if in fact they are bei ng extended, or in fact bei ng reduced, and what is the exact state or condition of that particular kind of educational experiment.

So if the Minister could supply answers to those three questio ns, please. . . . • continuted on next page

10 30 April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATION MR. CHAIRMAN: Th e Hono urabl e Ministe r of Education. MR. HANUSC HAK: Yes, Mr. Chairman, in sofar as REAP is concerned, the increase in the cost for this year is $25, OOO on the basi s of their budge ts ; for the cost of the operatio n of programs it works out to somet hing in the order of, on the average, about $3, OOO per pro gram.

In sofar as native educati on is conce rned - and why not some of the native organiz ations, the MIB, the MMF? - now those organiz ati ons are in no way precl uded from involvin g them selves in matt ers rel ated to educati on, to education of thei r peopl e, but there is al so a ne ed for a Native Education Branch within our de partme nt because, re gardl ess of what may happen in the MMF or the MIB, there is a program of te aching met hods, deve lop m ent of te aching mate rial s and so forth, at the le ve l of various school divisions, Fronti er school division, in the various curriculum committees within the curriculum branch of the Departme nt of Education and so forth, and hence there is a ne ed for some cent ral office, one address through which all matters rel ated to native ed ucation could be co- ordinat ed, but would en abl e me, en able the de partme nt and others de al ing with it, to acquaint the mselves with whatev er is done in the fi el d of native ed ucation.

Now in sofar as any analysis of the effe ctive ness of the open area cl assroom, I don't know if there was ev er an analys is done of the effe ctive ne ss of the tr aditional close d-in classroom, but I thin k that it 's recognized no w that some staffs fun ction more effe ctive ly in one type of set tin g than in the other, and this is practically entire ly depende nt upon your staff.

You can't just take a staff out of a tr aditional settin g where you have "X" nu mber of te achers, each one te aching his own cl ass in his own cl assroom, and put the m in an open area situ ation without any advance trainin g or preparati o n for it and expect them to functi on efficiently. Th at won't hap pen. But there are schools, many schools in Manitoba, where the proper tr aining and prepa rati o n has bee n undertake n by the Su perint ende nt, by the principal of the school, in preparing his staff to functi on in an open area situ ation, and in those areas it 's fun cti oning quit e well .

Now one of the probl ems, if we were to att empt some sort of a formal ... MR. AX WORTHY : Would the Mini ster accept a questi on ? MR. CHAIRMA N (MR. WA LDING): The Honourabl e Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AX WORTH Y: I wonde r if the Minister coul d, on that statement where he says it is fun ctionin g quit e well, could he produce some evidence to show that? Is it his opinion or is it in fact based upon some prett y strong empirical assessment that he can give us, or is it sim pl y int uition or whimsical wish, or does he have some evidence he can provide for us to show that in fact it is working well ? MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Honourabl e Minister of Education. MR. HANUSC HAK: One of the probl ems that I was about to indicate to the honou rabl e membe r is one of defining an open area. It has many la bels . You kno w, no two open area situ ations are identical . Some, I suppose, are more open than others, and so how do you compare one of those with another?

But at this point in time , I suppose the best evidence that we have is the performance of the student s, you kno w, in the same manner as the effe ctiv ene ss of your school and mine was measured when we went to school: on the basis of our perform ance, on the basis of our te acher's reaction and attitude to whatev er the y had to do at that time and the mann er in which the y had to do it, on the basis of the parents' and the communit y's acceptance of and reaction to that styl e of te aching.

It's true , in some communities there may have bee n groups of parent s which would have favored the reve rsal to the traditional type of cl assroom, but in the vast majority of communiti es this is being accept ed as a satisfactory way of in str uction, or a satisfactory settin g for instr ucti o n . MR. CHAIRMAN: Th e Hono urabl e Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AXW ORTHY: Th ank you, Mr. Chairman . I have one more, I suppose one could call it statement . I thin k that one of the things that shoul d derive from this discussion is a new form of dictionary or definiti ons of things.

I think we had a great de al of tr oubl e definin g what is a core. Now we're having to define what is more open than open, or openne ss as a concept, and I only can complime nt the Minister on his ability to defin e his de partme nt in only meta physical te rms and I suppose one would re quire an advanced de gree in lo gic to try and work it out. The point I'd li ke to make, Mr.

Chairman, based upon parti cularly the series of answers the Mini ster has given, is I think that the reading of the rol e and function of this particul ar branch of his de partme nt, whil e it is doing many int erest ing things and al so many useful things,

April 7, 1975 103 1 SUPPL Y - EDUCAT ION (MR . AXWORTHY cont'd) ..... is not really addres sing itself to fundamental educational concerns in the provinc e; that when he descri bes to us that some clas srooms are more open than others and some parents are less happy or more happy about more or less open class room s, or whatever it may be, the questio n is that we don't know , and that there are certainly , without a question of a doubt, a major concern in this provinc e at the present time about the quality and standard of ability that a child or a young person has when they come out of the school system .

What kind of basic rudimentary skills do they acquire and to what degree are they able to at least meet some of the most elementary kinds of standards that the rest of the community would put on them in order to be able to read and write and do some arithmetic ?

And while I'm not a great advocate of necessa rily that as the sole function of education , it would seem to me it only makes sense that for the amount of money being spent in res earch and planning that one of the functions it should have been doing is addressing itself to that kind of issue as to what degree is the range and variety of experiments and so on that are going on in a variety of school s, impairing that capacity of children to learn .

Are we simply being dilettante with children 's educational careers for the sake of, I guess , curi osity that we may have about how you can sort of manipulate or engineer different kinds of me thods ? I think the Minister himself noticed , in his opening remarks , that there has been a great deal of fetishness and almost fopishness sometimes in educational circles about things to be tried , and I would complime nt the Minister and his own department that they have kept an open mind, or a more or less open mind , more open or more closed, whatever , on educational reform .

So it would seem to me that that puts a real obligation upon them at the same time to find out to what degree do these things work. And the ... from that , Mr. Chairman , is ... The thing I find difficult to understa nd about the prese ntation that we 've heard from the Minister so far in this description of activities of this particular branch of his departm ent, is that there are ma ny errors of omissi on .

It would seem to me that some of the very crucial educational problem s facing this province are not being touched upon at all , that there is no re search or planning going on in areas which may not have as much sex appeal as some of the things we 've talked about , but ce rtainly go very much to the heart and concern of education . For example , one of the things that is causing a great deal of conste rnation in a variety of school divisions and teaching circles amongst people who pay taxes for schools, is the prob lems of declining enrollme nt s.

The study done by the Manitoba As sociation of School Trustees that was is sued this summer indicated a decline of close to 50 , OOO students in Ma nitoba schools over the next seven or eight years.

Now , I don't know whether those figures are totall y accu ra te, but certainly all the projections seem to indicate that there is a fall-off in school enroll ment, and it has very serious cons equences for the small school division s who are all of a sud den having and watching their grant base being shrunken away , as a re sult being able to offer less of an educational base , which has the end re sult of cre ating a ... of di sparity in educa tional quality .

And I go back to the Min ist er's speech last year where he said the first concern as far as he was concer ned , in education was to overcome inequa lities in the educational sys tem , and yet we now have a situation in Manitoba where, because of changing population pat terns and the movement of people and the decline of enrolment s, the end re sult of that is in fact to acc entuate the inequit ies in the school system by simply providing a base of fewer reso urc es for smaller school divisions in rural area s, for small school divisions inside the city, which can no longer keep up, and offer the full range and smorgasbord of educational offerings because they no longer have the tax base to support it .

Ce rtainly it's causing a great deal of conster nation amongst school teacher s, who are saying that there may be a decline of be tween two or three thousand teaching posts over the next five or six yea rs. And what happens to the whole teaching professi on which is a major occupation in this province ?

And yet wher e' s the rese arch and planning being done to accommodate that change , to re spond to it , to try to find ways of res olving those problems so that there is not a serious disruption , or a serious break ing out of major disputes or conflicts in the school system caused by that kind of shake-up in the population base ? I'm surp rised for exampl e, Mr .

Chairman , that the is sue that has bothered this province I guess ever since we 've undertaken public education , and under standably is not one that a Minister of Education or a government would like to cope with , but it 's still there nonethe less, it 's the whole problem of boundari es, that we go back to the recommendations of the Boundaries Commissi on of several years ago, that simply said that perhaps one of the answers that we

10 32 April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATI ON (MR, AX WORTHY cont'd) ..... must fac e in de aling with the problem of de cl ining enr oll ments to look at the re alignm ent of boundar ies. And there 's no question , Mr. Chairman, that that causes a great de al of anguish in the minds of all kind s of peopl e when you start talk ing about it .

But it would seem to me that the number one priority of any planning group would be to start seeing to what de gree we should be lo oking at the boundary arrangeme nt s both inside the City of Winnipeg and in rural areas to find out if there is a way of ext ending boundaries, or changing boundaries, at le ast, to provide for a richer ta x base so that a bett er ed ucational offering can be issued . And if that's not the case, how do yo u de fine it ? And ye t it appears to me, Mr.

Chairman, that because it is of some de gree of controve r sy and would cause the.M inist er many sl eepl ess nights, we are simply not de al ing with it and inst ead we 're off, kind of, still talking over in an area which is of inter est but compared to the priorities, would not be at the top rung of priorities. I am disturbe d, Mr. Chairman, that we are in· fact bei ng asked to support an al lo tm ent of a million and a hal f dolla rs for planning when in fact we 're not planning with one of the most crucial questions facing ed ucation in the pro vince.

And if we simply all ow it to continue , if we simply go on ye ar to ye ar simply pl anning for the . . . putting pet unias in the garden patch, which what seems to be perhaps the metaphor we could use for the present activity of Pl anning and Research, and not loo king at re ally at how we sort of have to rake over the whol e gard en, then we are going to be in a ve ry serious proble m and the school system will begin to slid e and slip, and we 're going to find ourselv es in ve ry short order faced with major probl ems of re organization without having done any kind of anticipation towards it. And I may be, Mr.

Chairman, being unfair to this Ministe r. Per haps back in the catacombs of Portage Av enue, or wher ever Pl anning and Research is pre sently loc ated, say it 's Osborne Barracks, maybe there is some work being done , maybe the y are de al ing with it . But we have not he ard about it. Th e Minister hasn't talk e d about it. We've re ceiv ed no press re leases from the information machine. We have jus t simply not seen to what de gree is this ki nd of probl em being addr essed . And I would suggest that in particul ar, Mr.

Chairman, that we also must lo ok at another ve ry serious issue that just comple ment s that and, that is the curious kind of ambival ence we now ru n into in school fin ancing - and I won't ge t into that to pic because we 'll have many oppor tu nit ies la te r on - but it is this probl em that we now have a situation because of the nature of school divisions and ev erything el se, that we have a school division simply saying, this is what our budge t is going to be this ye ar, here 's the mill rate s that you 're going to have to impose to achieve it, and it passes that on to a municipality to raise the money .

And that goes•fi:>'�l'll tr ary, in fact, Mr. Chairman, to the basic principle I've he ard the Ministe r of Urban Ait airs enunciate on many occasions, that those jurisdictions that spend the money should raise the money . We ll, Mr. Chairman, in fact we don't have that any more, we re al ly have a kind of a two- step approach because in fact the school boards within the City of Winnipeg, because we have unifie d the City of Winnipeg pol itical structure , the school boards are no longe r part of it . Th e y simply . . . they have been re tained in the same way .

I would be inter est ed to know again if the Ministe r has dir ecte d as part of the prioritie s of his branch, to begin investigating whether in fact there should be a complete int eg ration of school divisions and municipal divisions. Th ere are many ed ucational authoriti es who are sug gesting that the school itself is a major component of any urban setti ng, that the pl anning of an urban area must control, as I was trying to suggest to the Minist er earlie r on, el ement s of tr ansportation and housing, and la nd use, and economic de ve lo pment, and ed ucation.

And ye t we have a sy stem re al ly where ed ucational planning is re ally quite divorced from the re st of the pl anning and de ve lop ment that's going on in the municipal ities.

And again I don't pret end that that woul d be an easy thing to come about but cert ainly it is an issue that should be raised, and should be re searche d and invest igated, and proposals being raised so when the Minister of Education is invit ed to go off and give his annual address to the Manito ba Te acher s' Society or the Manitob a As sociation of School Tr ust ees, rather than talk ing about re la t ively innocuous things, or saying I'm tire d of school critics talking about criticism, he should be saying to them, "Here 's the hard issues, de cl ining school enr oll ment s of 50, OOO, shrink age in the te aching force, a curious and almost irrati onal system of school financing, a system of boundaries which no longe r correspond to popul ation sizes; here are some of the proposals that you'r e going to have to start thinking about, " and use the money, the staff, the 30 people , or 60 people, or whatev er it is, which is by far the bigges t think tank

April 7, 1975 1033 SUPPLY - EDUC ATION (MR. AXWOR THY cont'd) ..... in ed ucation in this province , to pose the al te rn atives and the direct ions and ideas that shoul d be conside re d by ed ucators and school tr ustees, and stu de nts and the gene r al popula ce. And yet, Mr. Chairman, ther e is virtually sil ence coming fr om that de partme nt, and I wond er then re al ly is this branch of go ver nment doing what it should be doing and whether they are simply avoiding the hard issues.

Is it taking the easy way out, and is the Minister taking the easy way out by simpl y not putti ng that very major commit ment of re search money and plan ning money, which I think most member s of this House agree is essenti al , by putting it to work in de ali ng with the ki nd of things that re al ly matter , and if there is some funds le ft over to begi n de taili ng some of the more, you know, exotic plants in the ed ucational garden, that's fine . But until we come to grips with this kind of issue, and not have it dismissed simpl y by pre suming that it' s not ther e, then I think, Mr.

Chair man, that we would have to say that we wonder about the ki nd of go verning that is goi ng on. And that goes back, Mr.

Chairman, to the point we are trying to raise and the Minister of Corr ections took some exception to, that here again was a major issue of the ed ucational program, a total package of programs in the in ner city, and we concede that ther e is differ ent varie ti es of things being tri ed, but surel y to goodness we have le arned , or should have le arned by now, that by having eve ry go vernment de partme nt and agenc y foll ow a diffe r ent beat of a drum that it's simpl y playin g out of tune all the ti me and that what's re quired is an orchestra tion, a bringi ng of the differ ent parts toge ther, ed ucational and social and economic and de vel opmental , and al l the re st of it.

And that goe s back to the issue of to what de gr ee is ed ucation becoming the part of the pl anning process of the City of Wi nnipe g, and how do we start pull ing all these strand s, or getti ng some orchestr ation of the combined acti viti es of gove rn ment so that there can be a total impact upon an area. And rather than having li ttl e sort of peashooter s sort of popping off into differ ent directions and maki ng a lim ite d impact, that it al l comes tog eth er with one very major approach.

And that again is a task, I think, of the Pl anning and Re search branch to come up with not simpl e pilots or de monstrations or things, but to come up with a way of doing it. We should be doing far more irt the area of instituti onal inno vation, which is I guess the area we are talk ing about because when we talk about bound arie s, and we talk about integrati ng school divisions with municipaliti es, we're talk ing about innovation in the instituti onal arrangements of this pro vince.

And that certainly we are programming oursel ves to de ath and we're spending al l kinds of TI" ey on all ki nds of programs which are simpl y when you add them up, the parts are far le ss .iian the whol e. And one re ason is, it' s because I don't think this go vernment is showing at al l any imagination, or any innovation, in te rms of providing the instituti onal ways and means of utili zing it s re source s and bringing programs to be ar upon probl ems. You know, I, Mr.

Chairman, take some note that afte r a cert ain amount of de bate in this House of the Throne Sp eech the Minister of La bour - I hate to bring him into the de bate because I know what it' s goi ng to bring about, but I'll take that risk - all of a sudd en establi shed a Committee of Cabine t on Manpower and Empl oyme nt, which I applaud him for. It's la te but it' s at le ast ther e, and I think that's certainl y, Mr. Chairman, all - now I've done it. I can see it coming. The problem is, Mr.

Chairman, is that was simpl y not enough, because what we were saying when we talke d about setti ng up a manpower council to do that is that the whol e probl em of taking young pe ople from an inner city and gi ving them the capacity to make it in this world in vol ves more simply than go vernment, it al so in vol ves the business community and la bour and wide varie ty of peopl e who, if wer e in vite d, would come tog ether and put their ener gy and applic ation to work, and again, we're not see ing any indication of that kind of progress being made.

Ce rtainly it 's not bei ng expre ssed by the Minister of Education, and when the Minister of Corr ections says, "Well maybe it' s not his job to do this, " well, all I can say, Mr. Chairman, is that as far as I can see, he's the only one so far who's got a million and a half dolla rs to spend to do that. No one on this side of the House has got that ki nd of do ugh to do it with. He' s got it .

He should be addr essing his al lo cation of re sources, which is not insubstanti al , to that ki nd of pl anning which is sorel y nee ded, and until we get those kinds of ways and means of identifying the pro bl em and then bringing al l the re sources togethe r and putti ng ... both the ed ucational pack age in order, and then using it as a way of totaliz ing it with other parts of go ver nment and with the private sector, then simpl y, Mr. Chairman, we're goi ng to be wasting an awful lot of ti me.

1034 April 7, 1975 SUPPLY - EDUCATION MR. CH AIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Fort Garry. MR. SHERM AN: Th ank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that if we ever needed any tangib le evidence of "fat" in the government's spending program that we've got it in this Pl anning and Resea rch budget item, at least insofar as it has been revealed to us up to this point.

What the Mini ster has said is he's got $1 . 7 million to spend on hewing out and car ving out new directions, new horizons in education, and for that $1. 7 million we're co ming up with a program of milk and cookies, and that is the sum and substance of what he' s revealed to us in the Pl anning and Re search area up to this point. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Mini ster to identify for us the per sonnel involved in this Plannin g and Re search Department, who they are, what they are, what they make in their individual stipend s?

I'd like to know how qualified they are, and I'd like to know - I think we' d all like to know whether we' re getting our money' s worth from this operation. We'd like to know what these people are doing, and we would like specific s on that. What kind of planning is being done? What kind of rese arch is being done ? Th e Member for Fort Rouge has referred to some areas. Th ere are a numb er of specific areas that I would like to ask the Mini ster about.

One of them I think that deserves very conscie ntious attention from any planning and rese arch body or any planning and rese arch board in government , is the cost of governme nt programs, the cost of education. What is the Pl anning and Re search group doing about co st of education? These are some of the specifics that we want to zero in on, Mr. Chairman, there are many of them but I would like to invite the Minister to respond at this point as to who these people are, how qualified they are. Is this some kind of esoteric exercise ?

If it is, this is the kind of a thing that we've been asking for six years for this government to cut out. A MEMBER: Name the basket weavers. MR . SHERMAN: This program ... A MEMBER: Name the basket weavers. MR. SHERMAN: We' ve be en asking the government for six year s, Mr. Chairman, to try to get a handle on inflation and run-aw ay spending and run-away costs and unless , , , A MEMBER: We want to know who makes the baskets. MR .

SHERM AN: ... and unless this particular group is doing something effective, something worthwhile, something meaningful , and we're getting our money' s worth out of it, then it should be very sharply modified. I wonder if the Minister could re spond to that, Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Mini ster of Education. A MEMBER: The littl e old red school house, let's hear from him. MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please. The Honourable Member for Swan River . MR . JAMES H. BILTON (Swan River) : Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

W(;l have li stened to a great deal of detail so far this evening and I intend to ask a few more questions, but earlier on the Mini ster did mention an item of $200, OOO for nutrition. I would like him to elaborate on that and tell the House exactly what this is for, and whether or not that is divorced from the milk program in Northern Manitoba for some $200, OOO, and is this something that is confined to the City of Winnipeg alone ? I person ally can't see fami lies send ing off their chil dren to school in the morning without their breakfast.

And is there some sort of segregation that goes on as to what child has had its breakfast and what child has not had his breakfast ? I'd like the Minister to tell the House exactly what this is all about, and how important it is. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Education. MR . HANUSC HAK: Mr. Chairman, firstly, I would wish to re spond to the comm ents made by the Honourable Member for Fort Ro uge, and one of his concerns was what evidence do we have, whether the students today are functioning as well in terms of their acquisition of basic skills as they should be.

I'm quite certain that I did ment ion it in my opening rem arks this afternoon when I introduced my estima tes, when I indicated that on the basis of a stand ardized test, which is administered in many provinces across Ca nada, the Canadian test of basic skills, which is administered in Grade 3 and Grade 6, and it was found that the Manitoba students performed better than the Canadian norm, in fact the performance of the students in Manitob a had been increasing over the past number of years.

He also spoke at considerable length with re spect to decl ining enroll ment s and what are we doing to cope with that problem. Several months ago I established a co mmittee , an

April 7, 1975 1035 SUPPLY - EDUCATION (MR. HANUSC HAK cont'd) ..•.. inter-organiz ational comm ittee with partic ipation of my department, and also involving the Manitoba As sociation of School Trus te es, the As socia tion of School Superintenden ts , school business officials, and the teacher s, in an inter-organiza tion al committee on school financ e, which one of its duties of course would be to address itself to the matter of declining enrollme nts as that in turn relates to the whole question of school financ e.

Th at committee is busy working and will be reporting back to me hopefully within the next few months, which in turn would as sist me in bringing forth proposal s for conside ra tion by myself and my colleagues in Ca binet with a view to any chang es in governmen t policy that we may see fit to make at that time with res pect to the financing of education - but work on that I would like to as sure the honourable member is proceeding, and in the mean tim e, in the mean time there are other things being done, Mr. Chair man.

And as a matter of fact in the Lakeside School Division I believe --(In terj ection)-- at Lakeshore School Division, Lakeshore and Lakeside, are - not Lakesi de, I'm sorry it's Lakes hor e. It's a school division to the north .. A MEMBER: The re's nothing wrong with Lakeside. MR.

HANUSC HAK: Nothing wrong with Lakeside I know - which is involved in the REAP program, which is a program designed to determine ways and means of coping with declining enrollments in some school divisions , and then there are also school divisions ... and the school division in which the Honourab le Member for Lakeside resides is no doubt one of them where in one part of a school division you may have a declining enrollment and another part, the portion closer to Winni peg , which is gra dually getting built up and there building problems arise which must be coped with.

A few years ago there was considerable discussi on about declining enroll ments and con siderable fear of its conseq uenc es; there was considerable fear in the Winnipeg school divisions of the effect of declining enrollments . . . in pa rticular upon the schools in the downtown area , Victoria Albert, Norquay , Hugh John Macdonald , and possi bly ten or twelve around there, those in particul ar , where there was some evidence of a declining enrollment.

You know, pre dictions were that by about this year , or pos sibly no later than next or the year after there would be all kinds of vacant clas srooms in that area. Th at didn't materialize be cause of some of the rec ent influxes of immigra tion that we have had, many of whom are living within that area; and hence the need for that classroom space is still continuing. I would just like to ... now, I mentioned the RE AP program. The bound aries question , it's a difficult one to co pe with; it' s something that would have to receive the approval of the trustees and of others. I would like to . MR.

ENNS: It' s not so. MR. PAULLEY: Yes, it is. MR. ENNS: It' s not so. 1v'IR. PAULLEY: You wouldn't know. MR . ENNS: Mr. Chair man, on a matter of privilege. Just as a matt er of corre ction there was a time when we had a courageous governm ent that decided the boun daries and put them in effect as Or der of Council , five of them in the Interlake Area. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Education. MR. HANUSC HAK: I'm not sure how the Honourable Member for Lakeside would want to run his departmen t if he were Minister •.. MR. PAULLEY: But never will be. MR.

HANUSC HAK: ... but I would like to as sure the Honourab le Member that if any such chang es were to be brought about now we would want to make absolutely ce rtain that we have the support and the approval of the com munity, and namely the school trustees.

In the mean time, well, in the portion of Manitoba repres ented by the Honourab le Member for Rhineland and the Honoura ble Member for Morris-Macdonald, and Morris- Macdonald School Divisions , Ga rden Valley, Red Ri ver Bo undary , are involved in a co-operative program for the opera tion of a decentralized vocational education program where some of the courses are tied in, are offered their existing facilitie s, or if anything additional has to be built if it was of a minimal natur e, for example, to provide for the agricu ltural program at Morris, you know, just the Butler type of steel structur e was put up to house the neces sary equipment for the students, and during the portion of the day that they are involved in their agr icultural pro gram, that's where they go to work without going to the expense of having to build a hu ge, ex pensive centralized structur e.

And the same is done in three other localities within those four

10 36 April 7, 1975 SU PPLY - EDUCATIO N (MR. HANUSCHAK cont' d) ..... school divisions, as well as co- operati ve arrangemen ts for the provision of other edu catio nal support services in the fiel d of chil d guid ance, and so forth. So that is al so being done. Now speaking of declin ing enr ol lm e nts, I just want to bring to th e honourabl e members' atte ntion, you know, what our enroll ment patte rn had been over the pas t eight ye ars, from 1967 to 197 4, and this is the average enroll ment for each of those ye ars. In 1967 , the average enroll ment in the Manitoba School s was 218, 391.

Today it 's 221, 532. It had be en higher in betw een times, ye s; it was up at the 23 0, OOO mark, but stil l the point that is brought to you now is it is somewhat higher than it was eight ye ars ago at which time, and the Honourabl e Membe r was concerned about te acher s, at which time the re were 9, 804 te acher s emplo ye d in th e Manitob a School syste m and today with an increase of 3, OOO stud ent s from the enr ol lm ent of eight ye ars ago, ther e are 11, 81 9 te achers emplo y ed. 2, OOO te acher s more. Now wher e are those 2, OOO te achers emplo y ed?

Th ey're emplo ye d in the offering of enriched educatio nal programs in our school syste m by offering a wider range of course options in some of the country high school s, by offering many of the other cour ses which add to the enrichment of the educati on program, music, arts, physical education, and so forth. So, it hasn't quite had the , you know, the negati ve effect on the te aching profession that the Honourable Membe r for Fort Rouge seemed to imply that it had. The . . . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourabl e Membe r for Fort Rouge . MR. AXWORT HY: Mr.

Chairman, based upon the statement just made by the MinL_,,Pr, is he stating that th e re has be en no re duction in the te aching staff for the additional educational progr ams such as art, drama, music, as a re sult of th e fall- off in enroll ment over the past three ye ars? Ar e you stating that that has not been a probl em, that you have no evid ence to see that that' s a proble m, because it cert ainly works contr ary to th e evid ence that I'm re ceiving that it is a proble m . MR.

HANUSCHAK: This, las t ye ar th ere were - these are th e most re cent statistics that I have - the re are 11, 81 9 te acher s. Last ye ar the re were 11, 759 te achers, so in fact the number emplo ye d is ev en gr eat er. An d that' s the way it went, 9, 8 04, 10, 526, 11, 07 2, 11, 443, 11, 70 7, 759, 81 9. Now the Honourabl e Membe r for Swan Rive r expressed a concer n about our school nutri tion program, and I re gre t that he is not in his seat. The Nutrition Program and the School Mil k Program are tw o distinct and sepa rate programs.

Th e Mil k Program is in Frontie r School Divisions; the Nutrition Progr am is de signed for the Winnipeg School s. I could lis t the school s that are participating, that wil l be participating in the Nutrition Program, Norquay, Pinkham, Shaughne ssy Park, St rathcona, Vi ctoria-A lbe rt, We ll ington, Will iam Whyte, David Livingsto ne, Champla in, Duffer in, Fort Roug e, Gr eenway, Jo hn M. King, Ke nt Road, Ki ng Edward, Laur a Se cord, Lor d Robert s, Lord Se l kirk, Machray and Margaret Scott.

ThP Honourabl e Membe r for Swan River need not fe ar that the re wil l be any dange r of disc" 11ination against any stud ent or any segr egation. Each school decides on the typ e of program the y are going to offer - and by the way, I shoul d mention that for the first ye ar this will Le lim it ed to stud ent s in kinder garten to Gra de 3. An d on whatev er nutrition program is dacided upon, be it a breakf ast or a lun ch supple ment, or mid- morning or mid- after noon snack, th en that is what is serve d in al l those grades.

An d I should al so mention another point that is a signifi cant one, and which is not common in many other nutrition programs, and the re aren't that many in this country but in other countries in the North Am erican contin ent or in other coun trie s of the worl d, but tied in with our Nutrition Program is al so a Nutrition EducationP rogram, a Health Program, ... prope r eating habits , the value of differ ent nutrients to the body. and so forth, and that wil l for m part of th e educatio nal compon ent of the pr ogr am.

But .. • Pardon? --(I nte r jection)- - .. . and of course the Honourabl e Membe r, I'm sure that he re al iz es th e fact that th ere are many working mothe rs, mothe rs who may have to le ave for work befor e a re asonabl e hour of the day or morning for the serving of an adequ a t e breakf ast for th e chil d, or th ey're not home for lu nch if the y are home for breakfast, and the re are those probl ems, which pe rhaps th e Honourabl e Mem ber isn't awar e of the fact that those proble ms exist, but th e y do exist in our society, unfortunate ly, and the y have to be coped with the be st we can.

In the be st way we can. Now the Honourable Membe r for Fort Ga rry want ed to know who was emplo ye d in pl anning and re search, how qualified are th e y? An d he raised a number of other questions, and to the

April 7, 1975 10 37 SUPPLY - EDUC ATION (MR . HANUSC HAK cont'd) ..... best of my recolle cti on, the questi ons that he raised were contaihed in an Orde r for Return fil e d by th e Honourabl e Me mber for Brandon-- West. That Orde r for Retu rn is bei ng compile d and as soon as it is comple te it will be tabl e d and no doubt - those w et e th e question s raised by the honourabl e member - it will contai n many of the answers of that typ e which he had.

And then if those questions , or if the answers to those questi ons should be inadeq uate, then th ere'll be an opportunity for the filing of anothe r Orde r for Retu rn if there would be no other opportu nity in the House to respon d to the honourabl e member's questi ons. Now, th e Honourabl e Me mber al so wante d me to outline to him the function of Pla nning and Re search and ... MR. PAULL EY: Ju s t a minut e. Le t the Ministe r fi nish his remarks ... MR.

HANUSCHAK: Perhaps I could start off by stating in brief that th e functions of Plann ing and Re search, one - these are in broad te rms, and I hope I will have the opportu nity to el aborate on this.

But just briefly I could stat e that, (1) to de crease, to find ways and means of de creasing ine quality in educational oppo rtu nity; (2) responding to community need s - we do beli eve that the community should have an opport unity, and does have an opportu nity to state it s nee ds to us, to us as go vernment, and it ought to be our duty to respond to those nee ds; and 'he third, th e broadeni ng of ed ucational programs, and this I suppose is part of the concept of decL'asing in equality of ed ucati onal opportun ity.

",,,,Now, pe rhaps if there are any more specific question s that the honourabl e member has about' th e rol e and functi on of Pla nning and Re search, he'll have the opportu nity to ask furthe r questions and I'll be only too happy to respond. MR. CHAIRMA N: The Honourable Ministe r of Labour. MR, PAUL LEY: Mr. Chairman, I wond er whether or not it would meet the convenience of committ ee, to adjourn at this parti cular ti me. I'm sure that honourable members will have some questions to ask my coll eague the Ministe r of Education to morrow. It's now 10: 00 o'cl ock and I would suggest, Mr.

Chairman, committ ee rise. MR. CH AIRMAN: Committee rise. Call in the Sp eaker . Mr. Speak er, the Co mmitt ee has considered ce rtai n resolutions and reports progress and asks le ave to sit again . IN SESS IO N MR. SPEAKER: Th e Honourabl e Me mber for St. Vital. MR, D. JA MES WALDING (St. Vit al) : Mr. Sp eake r, I move, seconded by the Honourabl e Me mber for St. Matthews, that the report of the Committee be rece ived. MOTIO N pres ent ed and carried. "rn. SPEAKER: Th e Honourabl e Acting House Le ader. 'Li]{. PAULL EY: Mr.

Speake r, I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable the Min ister of Urban Affairs, that the House do now adjourn. MOT ION prese nt ed and carried, and the House adjourned until 2:30 Tu esday afternoon.

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	30-2-37
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	30th 2nd hansardpdf 37.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	9fbaf0f80bafd8c759d65e98c88ccb57a40b0e27

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