Manitoba Hansard — Sitting 39 (35th Legislature, 4th Session)

35-4-39

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

MG-8048 Fourth Session - Thirty-Fifth Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS {HANSARD) 41 Elizabeth II Published under the authority of The Honourable Denis C. Rocan Speaker VOL. XLII No. 39-1:30 p.m., THURSDAY, APRI LS, 1993 ISSN 0542-5492

MANITOBA. LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thlrt)r-Fifth Legislature Members, Constituencies and Political Affiliation NAME ALCOCK, Reg ASHTON, Steve BARRETT, Becky CARSTAIRS, Sharon CERILLI, Marianne CHEEMA, Guizar CHOMIAK, Dave CUMMINGS, Glen, Hon. DACQUAY, Louise DERKACH, Leonard, Hon. DEWAR, Gregory DOER, Gary DOWNEY, James, Hon. DRIEDGER, Albert, Hon. DUCHARME, Gerry, Hon. EDWARDS, Paul ENNS, Harry, Hon. ERNST, Jim, Hon. EVANS,Ciif EVANS, Leonard S. FILMON, Gary, Hon. FINDLAY, Glen, Hon. FRIESEN, Jean GAUDRY, Neil GILLESHAMMER, Harold, Hon. GRAY, Avis HELWER, Edward R.

HICKES, George LAMOUREUX, Kevin LATHLIN, Oscar LAURENDEAU, Marcel MALOWAY,Jim MANNESS, Clayton, Hon. MARTINDALE, Doug McALPINE, Gerry McCRAE, James, Hon. MciNTOSH, Linda, Hon. MITCHELSON, Bonnie, Hon. NEUFELD, Harold ORCHARD, Donald, Hon. PALLISTER, Brian PENNER, Jack PLOHMAN, John PRAZNIK, Darren, Hon. REID, Daryl REIMER, Jack RENDER, Shirley ROGAN, Denis, Hon. ROSE, Bob SANTOS, Conrad STEFANSON, Eric, Hon. STORIE, Jerry SVEINSON, Ben VODREY, Rosemary, Hon. WASYL YCIA-LEIS, Judy WOWCHUK, Rosann Vacant CONSTITUENCY Osborne Thompson Wellington River Heights Radisson The Maples Kildonan Ste.

Rose Seine River Roblin-Russell Selkirk Concordia Arthur-Virden Steinbach Riel St. James Lakeside Charleswood Interlake Brandon East Tuxedo Springfield Wolseley St. Boniface Mimedosa Crescentwood Gimli Point Douglas Inkster The Pas St. Norbert Elmwood Morris Burrows Sturgeon Creek Brandon West Assiniboia River East Rossmere Rembina Portage Ia Prairie Emerson Dauphin Lac du Bonnet Transcona Niakwa St. Vital Gladstone Turtle Mountain Broadway Kirkfield Park Rin Ron La Verendrye Fort Garry St. Johns Swan River Rupertsland PARTY.

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

1534 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Thursday, AprilS; 1993 The House met at 1 :30 p.m. PRAYERS ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS PRESENTING PETITIONS Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, I beg to presentthe petition of Peter Unik, Tom Partridge, Allan Smith and others requesting the Family Services minister (Mr. Gilleshammer) to consider restoring funding for the friendship centres in Manitoba. Mr. Leo nar d Evans (Brandon East ): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of Val Shorting, Gerry Cadman, Rod Freeman and others requesting the Fa mily Services mini ster (Mr.

Gilleshammer) to consider restoring funding for the friendship centres in Manitoba. *** Mr. Doug Martindale (Bu rrows): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of Darryl Livingstone, Tanya Johnson, Danielle Fournier and others requesting the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) to consider restoring funding for what was an excellent program, the student social allowances program . Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of Wally Stewart, R. Bjornsson, Jean Jacques and others requesting the Minister of Family Services (Mr.

Gilleshammer) to consider restoring funding of the student social allowances program . *** Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River) : Mr. Speaker, I beg to presentthe petition of Loretta Gott, Frank Genaille, Gordon Ferland and others requesting that the Family Services minister (Mr. Gilleshamm er) con sider restoring fundin g to friendship centres in Manitoba. READING AND RECEIVING PETITIONS Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the honourable member (Mr. Martindale). It complies with the privileges and practices of the House and complies with the rules.

Is it the will of the House to have the petition read? [agreed] Mr. Clerk (William Remnant): The petition of the undersigned citizens of the province of Manitoba humbly sheweth that: WHERE AS Man itoba has the highest rate of child poverty in the country; and

WHEREAS over 1 ,000 young adults are currently attempting to get off welfare and upgrade their education through the student social allowances program; and

WHEREAS Winnipeg already has the highest number of people on welfare in decades; and WH EREAS the pro vincial government has already changed social assistance rules, resulting in increased welfare costs for the City of Winnipeg; and WHE REAS the provincial government is now proposing to eliminate the student social allowances program ; and WH EREAS eliminating the student soci al allowances program will result in more than a thousand young people being forced onto city welfare with no means of getting further full-time education, resulting in more long-term costs for city taxpayers.

WHEREF ORE your petitioners humbly pray that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba may be pleased to request the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) to consider restoring funding of the student social allowances program·. ORAL QUESTION PERIOD Budget Property Tax Credit Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier some questions dealing with the budget and the budget statements released in the House.

It has been reported that the $11 4 million that represents the revenue increases throu gh a reduction in property tax credits and the tax measures introduced by the government would

1535 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MAN ITOBA April S, 1993 have been equivalent to a rise in the provincial income tax of 5.7 points or an increase o1' 1. 4 percent in the provincial sales tax. In light of this report, I wonder whether the Premier would tell Manitobans, does he feel the way he has apiPiied these revenue incr eases in prope rty tax credits-does he feel these have been applied in a fair way to Manitobans? Hon. Gary Fllmon (Premier): Yes, Mr. Speal,er. * (1 335) Mr. Doer: I am glad the Premier has confirmed the 5.7 percentage increase in the rise in the tax equivalent, or the 1. 4 percent.

Budget Property Tax CredH Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): My question to the Premier is: How much of the $53 million in property tax reductions comes from the minimum provision for property tax, and how does that fit with the Premier's description of a fair and compassionate budget? Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to say with accu ra1�y-l asked the same question of the offi cials in Taxa tion. They said it depends which measure you want to loo k-[i nterjection) Well, for the member for Thompson (Mr.

Ashton), of course, who is such an expert at filling out the T1 C-1 Manitoba form,, he would not recognize that all of these credit ben1�fits and indeed the property tax, they are all woven together on that form . So it depends which area he wants to look at first. I can say roughly the impact, the $53 million, in rough terms, half of it is as a result of the reduction in the property tax credit, and the other half of it is a result of the new

definitions associated with the application of income that now has to be taken into account for tax credit purposes, not for income tax purposes but for tax credit purposes. Budget Property Tax Credit Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Our calculations are, and that is why we asked the government, that some $23 million of the changes in the property tax credit system arise from a change in a provision, a new introduction of a minimum tax for property taxpayers in Manitoba. Mr.

Speaker, we have looked through a number of examples across the province, and we are getting a number of phone calls from people, from seniors, from others, who cite the fact that this $250 minimum will represent a tremendous burden on low-income people. Some 25,0 00 people mak ing under $20,000 a year will actu ally now have their property taxes going up by two or three times because of the minimum prope rty tax provision from the government.

I would like to know from the government: Does it still consider it fair for a person in Transcona who paid $75 in taxes last year because of their $400 property tax now, with the minimum, will pay 230 percent more under the minimum tax provisions of the provincial government? Hon. Gary Fllmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, what is really interesting is that this individual, who so loudly condemns every individual item that he can pick out of the budget, will not give an alternative as to what he would have done, Jacks the courage or Jacks the ability to come up with an alternative.

When asked pointblank by reporters, repeatedly, he says he does not have any alternatives. But he has Jots of criticism. What we can, of course, assume is tha t the sha do w mo uthpiece for the New Demo cratic Party, the Choices people, are the alternative that really is the Gary Doer New Dem ocratic alternative. That woul d be an $800-million deficit instead of this deficit, as well as an additional increase of a couple of hu ndred million dollars in taxation.

That is the alternative that the New Demo crats offer through their shadow group, Choices, because they do not have the courage or the understanding to provide the answers themselves. Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, the Premier did not answer the question of fairness. A person like Terry Stratton gets a $75 increase in their property taxes. A senior in Transcona, somebody in Burrows, som ebody in Broadway , many people in rural Manitoba now are going to get three and four times that amount of taxes. Budget Property Tax Credit Mr.

Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): You know, most people in this country are calling for a minimum corporate tax. What we see by the Tories opposite is a minimum tax on people. Those are the policies of this Premier.

April 8, 1993 LEGI SLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1536 I would like to ask the Premier (Mr. Rlmon), how many people making under $20,000 a year will now see their taxes go to $250 as a minimum tax? How many people making under $20,000 a year will see that? • (1 340) Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, the member was wrong in his facts. He said there would be a $23 -million global impact on those who now would have applied against them, a $250 threshold before property tax credits take effect. An Honourable Member: You did not know a few minutes ago. Mr.

Man ness: No, I did not say that, to the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) . He did not ask about the minim um; he asked about the im pact of the property tax credit, and I gave him the global. As far as the min imum application, that will have a $9-million impact. Mr. Speaker, obviously the members are again, in their research, either just shooti ng at num bers on walls or indeed they are doing no research at all. The member wants to know how many people will be impact ed.

I say to him that by our analysis, about 6,000 homeowners who previously paid no property taxes, who made no cont ribution whats oever to services provided to municip alities, will now pay. The memb er talks about un fair tax. Let Manitobans recall in 19 87, the greatest attack on those who are so-called, the poor, was the 2 percent tax on income without reference to the ownership. Individuals earning $10, 000 a year were forced after that tax to pay $200. That was the ultimate in poll taxes ever applied in this provi nce, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance nor the Premier (Mr.

Film on) did not answer the question of how many people under$20,000 a year will have to pay the minimum tax and what will the impact be. The minis ter answered in a very selective way about how man y hom eo wn ers. This tax also (interjection] I asked the question. That is the purpose of Question Period. You know, the Premier is only off a quarter of a billion dollars in his deficit, Mr. Speaker. The Premier has only been off on four election promises on taxation. Read my lips, Mr. Speaker.

The ques tion is: How many people under $20,000 a year had this new min imum tax introduced, because the government selectively answered the question? This also impacts on low-income renters who will also have to pay this tax . I would like to ask the Premier: Is it fair for these low-income renters, many of whom are senior citizens, now to have this radical increase, in essence, of their taxes through the measures introduced by the Filmon government in their budget two days ago? Mr. Manness: Mr.

Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition shows his total ignorance in the understanding of the 6,000 people to whom I have referred. He makes the assum ption that, if you live in a lowly assessed home, you have no income. That is an erroneous, false decision because there is no way we have of knowing- when an assessment comes down and we provide a credit against a tax bill, we have no way of knowing what the income of that individual is because we do not cross reference. I do not think members opposite would want us to cross-ref erence the assess ment, the value of the home, and the income tax.

Surely the members opposite do not want big gove rnment to step in and to have that on the files. So I cannot answer that question, and he could not answer that question if he were in our position. The reality is, it cannot be answered. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to know the im pact, as I said yesterday, on an individual who is earning $27,500 or less, I am saying to him, there will be a reduced impact under that level on the $75 aspect of the property tax credit. Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, I asked about how many people are im pacted un der $20 ,000.

The Department of Rnance used to keep track of that. I guess the Tories have ordered them not to keep track of it now because they do not care about the impact. I asked how many total- Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh. Mr. Speaker: Order, please. • (1 345) Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, I have asked a number of questions whic h the government did not answer today about fairness. They canno t answer the

1537 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 question of fairness because the introduction of a $250 minimum that is not tied back to the income tax form-as answered by the Minister of Finan<:e to a question I did not ask, it is not tied to the $27,000- will be a much more regressive tax for poor pe<lple, for senior people, for people across Manitoba. We are getting calls and calls into our office llrom people about the Rlmon poll tax and the mini111l um tax in the provi nce. I would like to know how many renters will be impacted. The minister has indicated 6,000 homeowners.

How many low-income renters will be impacted by the introduction of a minimum tax? Is it consistent to have some of these pe•ople who are ac tually in tough financial circu mstances have their taxes go from zero to $250 or from $75 to $250 or from $1 00 to $250, massive percen1age increases in their taxation,

whereas other peo,ple, for example in Tuxedo, have very little increase in their percentage increase in taxes? Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, $1 3 million repres4�nts the total saving in reducing from $325, the minim um, to $250. Thirteen million dollars is the total saving. I would guess that roughly two-thirds of that wc>uld be with respect to those of us who receive the benefit right away at the time that we pay our property tax, and the remaining portion woulol be those renters who apply through the tax form . School Divisions Restructur ing Mr. Kevin Lamoureux {Inkster): Mr.

Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education. The government admits it cannot find new revenues except through new taxes. It has failed to address the need for restructuring the government func tions. On the one hand, we have a government that is cutting the educational budget, which will have a negative imp act on the quality of education to the students of the provi nce, while on the olther hand, restructuring of the numb er of school divisions would save the taxpayers money and improve the overall qu ality of educat ion. Wha t is this government doing about restructuring of the school divisions?

Nothing. My question to the Minister of Education is: Why is this gov ernment doing nothing to deal with the restructuring of the number of school divisions? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey {Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, first of all, the member does I believe make an error by suggesting that the number of dollars put into Education is strictly what maintains the quality of education or dictates the qua lity of education, because we know that that is not necessarily true. In addition, the member asked about restructuring of school divisions.

He obviously has not been paying attention to the number of major initiatives that Education has been a part of, including the reform of The Pu blic Sch ools Act and the introduction of Francophone governance, all of which have to take place in an or derly way for the next stage to be considered. Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. If she does not believe money has anything to do with education, why is she spending $7,000 to have children go to Ravenscourt? Point of Order Hon. Clayton Manness {Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, that is a colossal cheap shot.

The memb er had better reflect on his approach to the way he throws these slurs, these commen ts across the floor, because two and three and 56 can play that game, and if he wants to continue that-and he has been abusing the rules and playing dangerously around the edges now for three weeks with respect to that. So I stand to call him, and I demand he retract and withdraw that comment to the Minister of Education. He has personalized it. He does not treat the member like an honourable memb er, like indeed the rules dictate, and I say to him, he has to withdraw and apologize to this House. Mr.

Lamoureux : On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, absolutely no way will I withdraw those comments. They were legitimate. It was coming from- · Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honou rable member for Inkster, kindly take your bench now, sir. Mr. Steve Ashton (OpposHion House Leader): On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think it is unfortunate, first of all, that when the government House leader rose on the point of order, he also used language which has been ruled by this House as being unparliamentary, suggesting that the member for Inkster has been abusing the rules.

In fact, he shoul d not, in moving a point of order, break the rules as well, although I think perhaps--and I appreciate the comm ents made by the member for Inkster may not have been intended to be personal

April S, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1538 comments, but we have had, I think, enough personal comme nts in this House, that perhaps the member may wish to withdraw it in terms of any personal commen ts. I think tha t mi ght do something to improve the House. Mr. Speaker, we often take shots on issues, but we should not take shots on a personal basis. * (1 350) Mr. Speaker: On the point of order raised by the honourable government House leader, I would like to remind the House of Beauchesne's 481 (f), that a member would not make a personal charge against anot her member.

The member for Inkster did come dangerously close, and I would just caution the honourable member for Inkster, and in a future occa sion, of that rule, because we are all honourable members in this Chamber. I would ask all honourable members to treat each other as such. So I caution the honourable member, pick and choose your words very carefu lly. School Divisions Restructur ing Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr.

Speaker, if you happen to live in the north end in the city of Winnipeg, you pay the highes t percentage of property tax, primarily because of the Winnipeg School Division No. 1 and the geographical area in which you happen to live. A $70,000 home, for example, in Winnipeg No. 1, property tax should be $1 ,034; in St. James, $756; in Assiniboia South, $879. To the Minister of Finance or to the Minister of Educati on: Is this the sharing of the tax burden equally? Does the minis ter support the inequities that exist- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put his question. Hon.

Clayton Manness (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, I am glad I asked my colleague the MLA for Emerson, to the extent that the Liberals su pported the reassess ment changes -[interjection] -the member for Inkster-because we acknowledge that there has been tremendous assessment diffe rential throughout not only the city of Winnipeg, but I dare say, through all of the province of Manitoba. This government had the courage to deal with that. We recognized that we are at '85 ass essmen ts now and in a year we will be to 19 91 assess ments.

We have done what we could with the su pport of the Liberal Party, with the support of that member opposite to address those shortcom ings. I say we are to be given some tribute, all of us in this House, who have tried to deal-to try to deal with those problems, and within a few years, those differences will be taken care of. Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, I am talking about the school divisions. The Minister of Finance should be- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. It is not a time for debate. School Divisions Restructur ing Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): As the Minister of Finance says, Mr.

Speaker, property tax has noth ing to do with ability to pay. I am asking the government: When is this government going to deal with the issue of restructuring the school divisions so that individuals will be paying their fair share of taxes? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, as I said to the member, we have a number of issues that are ongoing in the Department of Educati on, and I let him know wha t so me of th ose are, the implementation of Francophone governance , looking at The Public Schools Act and any changes that we will be making in that area-a number of issues.

We would like to proceed in a very orderly way because we understand that school divisions have a great deal of work to do, and we said at the time that that would simply be deferred until the other issues were com pleted and were well organized. Budget Impact on Seniors Mr. Leonar d Evans (Brand on Ea st) : Mr. Speaker, I have a ques tion for the Minister of Finance. Senior citizens in this province have paid to wards education all of their lives, and even Sterling Lyon, a former Premier of this province, recognized and wanted to offset school taxes.

Now we have this government hitting senior citizens by effecti vely adding $1 75 to their property tax statements through elimination of the Pensioner s' School Tax

1539 LEGISLATIVE ASSEM BLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 Assistance Program . Indeed, thousands and thousands of seniors are being hit in this way. Why does this gov ernment, Mr. Speaker, single out seniors and others who are vulnerable to bear the burden of tax increases and expenditure cuts in this provi nce? Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, what Sterling Lyon realized was that you could not pay tomorrow on the basis of aU the bills and all the debt you amoun ted today. When the member talks about the propert)' tax credit-and I can go through the history if he w�Lnts.

Indeed, when he was part of the Sch rE•yer gov ernment and there was an increase in some of the levels, that was done on the basis of borrowed money for the most part. I am here to tell you tc!Ciay that if indeed we were able to borrow money still at the rate that the former member of that gove rnment, indeed that the Pawley gove rnment had, maybE• we would not have had to make a reduction in the credit also. * (1 355) I say to the memb er opposite,

whereas his government ma de its contribution on the basis of borrowed money, Manitobans today realize the folly of that, want today to see this deficit reduced and are in strong measure supporting this budget and, I say to hi m, basically realize that it is leading the land in the approach it has taken and are supportive'. Mr. Leonard Evans: I remind this minister, in '88 he had an opportunity to even eliminate some o·f the public debt, but he did not do so. He chose to ignore that opportunity. Mr.

Speaker, I would ask the minister: How can this minister be so callous by adding a burden c,f up to $1 75 for senior s in addition to a loss of the property tax credit? Seniors who remember the acute protracted restraint program of the Lyon go vernment will have even more reason to remember this government for targeting the poor and the vulnerable. Why are you picking on the senior citizens of this prov ince? Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, we are not pickin9 on the senior citizen of this province.

We are doing nothing different than the NDP did, between the ages of 55 and 65, when they means tested that group in society. Now we are means testing everybody from 55 and older. So when the member talks upon the senior citizen, why did he allow Mr. Kostyra to bring down a 2 percent tax on a senior citizen earning $1 2,000, flat tax? Why did he allow Eugene Kostyra to bring forward a 2 percent flat tax on the single person who was earning $1 0,000? Why did he allow him to do it? So I say to him, he cannot be pious in this whole area.

No government since the beginning of time in the province of Manitoba has hefted a larger tax, a larger poll tax, than the NDP did in the 19 87 budget. Mr. Leonard Evans: Mr. Speaker, we had all kinds of offsets to help and protect those people on low income, and the minister knows that. My final su pplementary. I want to ask this minister: Just how many dollars in total is he going to take away from the seniors of this province because of the changes in the property tax credit system and the Pensioners' School Tax Assistance Program? Just how many dollars are you taking away in totai- Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

The honourable member has put his question. Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, this measure, for the most part, is based on the ability to pay. So if the member can tell me what percent of the seniors are earning incomes above $25,000 and which are under, I can answer his question. But, I am telling him, we make the decision on the basis of income ranges. We do not make the decision on the basis of age. We have introduced the ability-to-pay concept with respect to our tax credit syst em. Health Care System Equipment/Supply Costs Mr. Dave Chomlak (KIIdonan): Mr. Speaker, quo te: The government will not introduce user fees.

Use r fees do nothing to encourage ef fective utilization of health servicAS, and they may serve as a barrier to needed services for some people-Minister of Health, May 19 92. Why has this government broken its promise by introducing user fees, or contributions, as the minister calls them, on health services and an on health supplies such as colosto my bags, walkers, other equipment? Is this not totally contrary to the minister's so-called health care reform ? Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr.

Speaker, we have introduced contributions by users in the health care system for the very sim ple and underpinning reason that the dollars could be reinvested to further enhance commun ity-based care initiatives.

April S, 1993 LEGISL ATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1540 Mr. Chomlak: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the Premier (Mr. Filmon). What will the Premier tell the sick, the disabled and the elderly, why he has broken · his government's promis e and introduced user fees for such things as crutches and assistance for the disabled? What would the Premier tell these people who are phoning our o ffices every single day? • (1 400) Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate my honourable friend's concerns for the citizens of Manitoba.

We have those concerns as well, and that is why, when we made a number of our budget changes, we took a great deal of care to consult and colla bora te with the other prov incial Health ministers, Finance ministers to try and achieve some consistency between provinces in terms of service provision in the Ministry of Health and oth er ministries. That is why you will note that we chose as a maxim um, where affor dability was there in terms of a per diem and personal care homes, to choose the Ontario example. Mr.

Speaker, dis cussions with Saskatchewan showed that they saw fit in their health care provision services to introd uce very simila r measures in home care that my honourable friend is now criticizing in Manitoba. Mr. Speaker, I simply say there are no easy decisions in government today unless, of course, you have the luxury of being in opposition saying one thing from opposition and changing your mind whenever you get to government. Mr. Chomlak: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not deal with the question of breaking his word. It is in this docu ment, and Manitobans know it. Mr.

Speaker, will the government reconsider the income threshold levels for the 7 4 percent increase that they have levied on nursing home fees because of the hardship this sudden increase will have on some pensioners? In fact, we had an individual phone this morning; because he will be paying the maxim um, he will no longer be able to afford such luxuries as haircuts, glasses, cloth ing, housecoat , slippers and the odd ice cream cone whenever he gets to go out of the nursing home. Mr. Orchard: Mr.

Speaker, I would be very pleased if my honour able friend-if he is at liberty to do so-would share the individual's name with me in confidence, and I will h ave people from the minis try contact him, because I simply want to say that from time to time the information my hono Urable friend the member for Kildonan and his cohorts have put out in the public venue h as not exactly been accurate .

I would like to deal with this individual's complaint if he has the ability to provide that individual's name, because, Sir, there is no pensioner who does not have the ability to pay who will be im pacted whatsoeve r by that decision to raise the max imum contribution. It is based on ability to pay.

It does not compromise, as my hono urable friend alleged yesterday, an independent living spouse in the commu nity, because those are considerations that we took fully into care when we made the decision to raise the maximum per diem on the ability to pay by seniors in personal care homes receiving all of their care needs at the taxpayers' expense. Department of Health Administrative Salaries Ms. Avis Gray (Crescentwood): Mr.

Speaker, perhaps this government s hould go back to the classroom and learn about the three Rs, reform, restructure and revenue generation, because they have failed miserably in all three of these. The budget document that this government has presented really has not dealt with any real reform towards commu nity-based services.

When we look at the budget amou nts for '93-94, as an example in the Department of Health, we see that senior managers in administration and directorates have increases in the budgets, but when you look at the budget lines where there are actually services to real people in the commun ity, we have seen a decrease. Can the Minister of Health explain why he has allowed for an increase in salaries of administration and directorates when in f act the budget lines related to services to the people in the com mu nity have seen a decrease? Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr.

Speaker, I would be more than pleased to share those sorts of details at Estimates, because I think my honourable friend would find, with exploration of the budget which is presented in the Ministry of Health in a somewhat more informative way, that her allegation does not have su bstance.

1541 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 Home Care Program Budget Ms. Avis Gray {Crescentwood): Mr. Speaker, 1 am wondering if the Minister of Health could pra<:tise the government's philosophy that they like to talk about-about open, honest government. I would ask the Minister of Health if he could tell us why we see an actual decrease in the Home Care Assistance budget and this minister had promised that we would see an increase in home c:are services. Why is there a decrease? Hon. Donald Orchard {Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I just so happen to have the budget in front of me. Page 80,

Section (

b) Home Care:

(3) Home Care Assistance, this year's budget $63, 18 7,500; last year's budget $62,081, 000, an increase, nc't a decrease as my honourable friend alleges. Ms. Gray: Mr. Speaker, with a third supplemen1ary to the Minister of Health. The minister indicates that the budget line says there is a $1 .7 increase, but the minister also knc•ws full well that Home Care overspent their budget last year over $2 million so that in fact, when you lool< at the money spent last year- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The question is? Ms.

Gray: Can the minister explain to this Hous e why Home Care Assistance budgets and grants to External Agencies and Gerontology, which •are services to seniors, why we have seen a decrea!;e? An Honourable Member: I think she has you this time, Don. Mr. Orchard: Thank you for the message. Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend's presumpt1'1on under Home Care, as I have indicated in the bu�1et, is not a factual assess ment.

In addition to that, my honourable friend failed to take into consideration an answer I believe I gave yesterday or the clay before in terms of the changes in service provis1ion which we estimate will be approximately $3 mill1ion compared to last year. We did not remove that budget of $3 million. We left it, in fact, in the Home Care budget to provide a higher level of mc>re sophis ticated services in the Home Care budget to provide more needed care rather than Jess, Sir. Now, Mr.

Speaker, in terms of some of thefuncled agencies which are a part of this budget, they wore sub ject, as were all funded agencies, to a minw� 2 percent in their grant level, and that accounts for the reductions in some of the areas of my department. That is similar to the appro xima te reduction in hospitals and other institutions. That is not inconsistent with the rest of government. Children's Dental Program Alternative Services Mr. Steve Ashton {Thompson): Mr. Speaker, the Conservative budget indica tes there is a new oxymoron. We have seen industrial park, military intelligence, Progressive Conservative.

Now it is Tory fairness. They call a budget fair that targets seniors, working people, aboriginal people and the poor, and they are also targeting rural children. An Honourable Member: Is there a question? Mr. Ashton: Indeed, there is a question. It is to the Premier (Mr. Almon), and I hope he will answer. I would like to ask him where rural children are going to go to get the mo re than 12 0,000 services that have been performed by the previous child dental program, now that this government has cut the program. Where are they going to go for dental treatment? Hon. Donald Orchard {Minister of Health) : Mr.

Speaker, my honourable friend will be well aware that the education prevention portion of the Children's Dental Program is being main tained. Unfortunate ly, and I say this sincerely, we made the decision to eliminate the treatment program which involved extractions and the com pletion of fillings. Now that was a difficul t decision, and we are expecting that children who had access to that program in rural and northern Manitoba will access regular dentistry for that care.

It is the same difficult decision that Saskatc hewan dealt with in their budget and removed the treatment portion of their childreil's dental health program. Significant changes have occurred in the some 18 or so years the program has been in place in that there has been a greater proliferation of dentistry throughout rural and northern Manitoba. Mr. Ashton: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows and the Premier (Mr. Almon) knows, there just are not dentists in a lot of small rural commu nities, and it is going to create a major har dship.

I would like to ask the Premier, the government talks about sharing the burden here, it talks about pulling toge ther. When they talk about contributions, are they now expecting that the people of rural Manitoba, many poor people who

AprilS, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MAN ITOBA 1542 cannot afford dental care, are now going to have to contribute the teeth of their kids so that this gov ernment can balance its supposed deficit, Mr. Speaker, bring it down? Is that what we are talking about, having kids- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put his question. * (14 1 0) Mr. Orchard: I know my honour able friend will make that accusation in Manitoba but would not make that accusation in Saskatchewan , where an NDP government removed the children's dental health program . Mr.

Speaker, since I have been a Minister of Health-and this program was ongoing beforehand many more com mun ities in rural Manitoba have been sup ported by taxpayer-funded grants to fluoridate their drinking water, for instance. It is those initiatives plus the new education and understanding around prevention of dental disease that has led to a generation of children whic h have a far greater dental health than has ever before been achieved.

Sir, it is not uncoinciden tal that that also occurred in Winnipeg and Brandon, where there was no dental treatment program under the children's dental health program , because there is a new understanding by parents, by children as educated in the school sys tem, which will be continued, which emphasizes prevention as the best, best method of preserving good, sound teeth. Budget Property Tax Credit Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River ) : Mr. Speaker, the tax increases introduced by this gov ernment are some of the cruelest we have seen in this country.

Rural Manitobans are being hit extremely hard even though they are having the lowest services, reduced health care and reduced educational services. People across my consti tuency are calling with their concerns. I would like to share one example. A resident who last year paid $1 34 will now pay $250, an 85 percent increase in taxes. How can the Minister of Finance justify increases to people on the lowest income and also people who have the lowest services in this province? Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Finance): Mr.

Speaker, I am sure it was a very important question, and the member would want a full answer. I would ask her to rephrase it, if she could. Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for Swan River, would you kindly repeat your question, please. Ms. Wowchuk: The tax increases that this government has introduced are some of the cruelest in the country. Rural Manitobans are being hit extremely hard even though they have the lowest incomes and some of the fewest services, reduced education, reduced health care by this government. People across the consti tuency are calling, and I would like to share one example.

A resident who is typical of man y of the ratepayers in my consti tuency paid $1 34 and now will pay $250 in taxes, an 85 percent increase. How can the Minister of Finance justify such an increase in taxes from low-income people who are getting very little service or reduced service from this government? Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, I justify the action because the debt of the province on a per capita basis is $1 1 ,500. That is the indebtedness of every one of us, regardless of where we live, regardless of the type of conditions in which we live, regardless of our occupati on, regardless of our age.

That is the per capita indebtedness. Most of that debt accrued, if the member opposite wants to see this chart afterward, during the years '81 -82 to 19 87-88, Mr. Speaker. Most of that debt accrued during those six years, so alii have asked in this bu dget is that everybody pay some contri bution towards that, ackno wledging that those individuals who are now receiving $325 credit, they will have that reduced to $250 and lesser amoun ts, under an income of $27,000. Ms. Wowchuk : Mr. Speaker, the mi nister is admitting, because of his mis management, he is going to correct his mistakes on the backs of the poor.

How can he jus tify senior citizens who are on low income, on fixed income, paying $47 in prope rty tax-that is all they were paying-and now they are going to pay $250, again, correcting his mistakes on the backs of the senior citizens? How can he justify-

1543 LEGISLATIVE J!�SSEMBL Y OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put her question. Mr. Manness: I do not know if the memb er opposite has seen the tax form of her cons tituent or not. If she has, Mr. Speaker-{inte�ection] The income tax. If she has and it is as low as she reports, ·that constitu ent of hers is receiving a tax credit of sev,e�ral hu ndreds and hu ndreds of dollars under the richest tax credit system in the land which is not included in that tax form. So, Mr.

Speaker, that constitu ent of hers now will receive a lesser amount but still hu ndreds and hu ndreds of dollars of tax credit rEtlief under still the richest tax credit system in the land. Budget Social Assistance Recipients Mrs. Sharon Carstalrs (Leader of the Secctnd Opposition): Mr. Speaker, there is no question that this budget has had its greatest impact on those who have the least amoun t of revenue. There is no question about that. I would like to know what k.ind of analysis that the Department of Finance did with respect to measuring it.

For example, can the Finance minister tell the House today, what has been the impact on the disposable income o f a social welfare recipient who will now have to pay op tical, dental a.nd pharmaceutical benefits that were previously paid for, will no longer get tax credit changes, will pay an increase in the sales tax? Not called a tax by the Minister of Finance, what is the impact of the disposable income? Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Flnanc:e): Mr.

Speaker, the member in her question assu mes that the needs-in her case, to use her example, this particular welfare recipient-are all in the areas: of glasses and of other requirements. I would say to her that in the detail that we have under a number of breakouts, that specific example has not been provided to me. I would sense that on balance there is not an individual in this pro vince, who is receiving welfare or amounts more, who is not being imp acted to the tune of $1 25 by the results or indeed by the announcements made in this-in oth er words, as a minim um, $1 25 for ev13ry Manitoban. Mr.

Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired. ORDERS OF THE DAY BUDGET DEBATE (Third Day of Debate) Mr. Speaker: On the adjourned debate, the third day of debate, on the proposed motion of the Minister of Rnance (Mr. Ma nness) and the proposed motion of the honourable Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) in amendment thereto, standing in the name of the honourable Leader of the Second Opposition (Mrs. Carstairs). Mrs. Sharon Carstalrs (Leader of the Second OpposHion): Mr. Speaker, as all members know, there are two major debates in this House each year.

One is the Speech from the Throne and the other is the speech that those of us in this Chamber give in reply to the budget speech. I had thought when I gave my speech in reply to the Speech from the Throne last November that that would probably be my last speech as a Leader on one ofthese two major addresses because I thought the party would have by this time chosen a new Leader, but that is not to take place until the 5th of June. So I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to speak on this budget as a Leader for my party. I wanted to spend some time in reflecting about what kind of speech I wanted to make.

I wanted to know whether I should do what is typical of all Leaders of the Opposition, whether official or third party, and do the usu al everythi ng-is-bad and-nothing-is-good type of speech, and I have given those speeches. I make no apologies for having given those speeches.

But I was filled with such sadness at this particular budget speech that I chose to not do that kind of haranguing type of speech, which I have done in the past-and easy to do, particularly on this speech presented by the Rnance minister. • (1 420) I decided that I would do my best to show the gove rnment that they indeed had choices and to examine as clearly as I could some of the choice options I thought that they had, and to ask them why they made the choices that they did, instead of some alternative choices which I hope to lay out for them tod ay, because in fact I think there are some choices they could have made and they chose not to ma ke those choices.

Mr. Speaker, you know , we go outside of this Chamber and we see that the snow has melted and

April S, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1544 pothole season has arrived. It is spring. Maybe that is why most budgets are presented in the spring, because it is su pposed to be a time of hope. Go vernments usually, in this moment and spirit of hope, try to put together a package that will make people feel better about themselves. They someti mes list in those statements forecasts of increased revenue and forecasts of new jobs. They quote from-last year, the Conference Board of Canada which said, this was going to be the best province in the country in terms of growth.

Well, it was quite interesting, but this speech did not have any of those forecasts. It is the only speech, in going back a number of years, that I found that did not have those forecasts. It would appear that perhaps the reason they did not have any forecasts was because the forecasts are not very good. The forecasts are all negative. So although spring is a time for renewal and spring is a time for rebirth, there did not seem to be that message of hope and renewal and rebirth in the speech of the Finance minister. You know, this is also the gardening season, Mr. Speaker.

It is a time when those of us who like to garden start looking over the seed catalog ues and start examining the plants that we would like to plant in our garden. We also do some looking at what did well last year and what did not do so well, and we make decisions about, well, I will not plant that in that particular spot, because it did not really come up very well. To some degree- (Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Speaker, in the Chair) An Honourable Member: You planted the seeds upside down. Mrs. Carstalrs: No, I did not plant the seeds upside down.

It just happened to be too, unfortunately, shady and because I was planting in a new area, I did not realize the foliage would spread quite so much as it did. The sense that we want to do this is I think almost part and parcel of our sense of ourselves. I was reading a book not too long ago by Germaine Greer in which she talks about the menopausal woman looking to plant flowers, that she cannot have babies anymore so she looks to plant flowers. Well,l am a menopausal woman, and I think, wow, you know, is this why all of a sudden I am getting interested in gardening? Is this the thrust that is getting me going?

I do not know whether that is it. I have , I have to say to you, taken more interest in the garden in recent years, and I really do take more pleasure as I see those plants come to life. So I, in examining this budget, decided I would also examine what kind of growth was I seeing in this gov ernment, what kind of growth opportunities was I seeing for citizens. I think there are a lot of parallels, quite frankly, between gardening and a government, because if one wants to use the metaphor to its extreme, the seeds for Manitoba's future are our children. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) talked about that.

He talked about the need to give our children a future that was less debt-ridden than perhaps the future of the past. But that is not all our children require. Our children require nurturing. Our children require care. We want our children to remain in this pro vince. We want them to be able to maxim ize their pot ential. We want them to be able to contri bute. We want them to be able to invest in Manitoba's future. The plan has to be that there is some provision for that to take place, that the gove rnment has to have a plan so that there is a future for our children.

I did not see a plan, because the plan had to include a fundamen tal restructuring of how our government operates. I do not mean tinkering, and I do not mean hack and slash. I really mean a thorough re-examin ation of the scale of gove rnment. We were hopeful that the government would do this, that they would be bold and that they would really be brazen, that they would take a brazen new look at the way a gove rnment must ope rate. We know that the government has looked at some ideas that we have made in the past and so we hope to offer them some alternatives this time as well.

Not everything in the budget is bad. We supp ort the gov ernment's initiative to reduce aviation and diesel fuel taxes, because we think that is forward looking. Those industries are essential to the future growth of Manitoba and by reducing those taxes, we have made ourselves a little bit more competitive. I am not sure that it is going to attract new industry, but it is going to at least make us competitive and that alone makes it of value. (Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair) We have to ask ourselves some very fundam ental questions about what role a government is to play

1545 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 in the economic climate of scarce fiscal resourc:es. The Finance minister is absolutely correct. There is a scarcity, a paucity of fiscal resources for every single government in this country, no matter what their political stripe. That is a truth nobody l�an deny. The phenomenal wealth creation that we saw in the '70s and '80s in land development is passe. lrhe Reichmanns, the Cam peaus and the Trumps and all of those who invested in that kind of land development-and that did stimu late the market-are not going to be able to do that kind of thing in the '90s.

Just yesterday, for example, the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), in his reply, talked about the boom of Ontario in the late '80s and the impact that this had on this province in terms of trans:fer payments. He said it is not going to be there in ·the '90s, and he is absol utely right. We are not goin�J to have the windfall mining revenues that we had jus t a few years ago, because world prices on mining products generally are way down. So we cannot depend on windfalls to solve our problems. Neither is it enou gh to just tinker with the way gove rnments do busine ss.

We know that governments cannot be all things to all people, lOut we do believe that government has to provide leadership and on occasion intervention and on occasion incentive. We are at a cro ssroads, and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Man ness) has had the opportunity to ma ke a dif ferenc e. We jus t do not think, unfortunately, that he has. We believe that we mu st re-examine how gov ernment departments oper:ate and are structured. We have to consider com bining departments, program s, boards, comm issions, agencies and counc ils.

The government mado a step in that direction with the consolidation of 18 administrative and perso nnel branches, but they could have gone further. They chose not to. Why have they no t moved to eliminate some' of those departments? For example, the government has ma de a mockery of-and I cannot call it without putting a prefix before it-the so-called Seni·ors Directorate. We c alled for this initiative.

We thou ght it was really a way for the Senklrs Directorate to quite frankly make contact with health, to make contact with social assistance, to be kind of a guiding light, if you will, for the needs of seniom in our com mu nity. That has not happened. Nothing has happened in the Seniors Directorate that has changed the day-to-day lives of seniors. Why has the Minister of Finance not adm itted that it is a farce and eliminate it, if that is all it is going to be, an in-name-only department? Why does this government continue to fund garden parties for mobile seniors when seniors are asked to pay for walkers?

I sim ply do not understand a government that can do one and not deal with the other. Why has this minister failed to develop a bold new policy for the future when so many of us are prepared to work together, if only they will give us some hope for the future? The member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) , yesterday, talked about the issue of prairie integration. You know, the Can ada West Foundation has come out with a bold concept that there is a possibility we could save $5 billion. I do not know whether it is $5 billion. That seems like an awful lot of money.

It is the amount of money basically in this pro vincial budget. * (1 430) But even if it could save many mi llions of dollars, it is monies that could be reallocated to direct services for people who live in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Why, for example, is there still no merger between city and provincial public health? Why are we running two bureaucracies when one could do?

Can it be that preserving turf is more important to those running City Hall and running this gove rnment than the provision of service?-because we have to get money out of administration and we have to get money down to the service level. I have heard the Premier say many times, and I agree with him, these are difficult times, and we have to make difficul t choices, but we also have to make the right choices.

It is the responsibility of all elected officials, not just the government, but of all elected officials, to make these difficult choices within the context of our economic circums tances and to always be careful of those who are most vulnerable. You know, we are going to have a deficit of $367 million, accor ding to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness). That is higher than the projected deficit when he introdu ced his budget last year. Everybody talks about how he is getting the deficit down. Well, that is hard, quite frankly, to provide some explanation for. I am not talking about the fact

April S, 1993 LEGISL ATIVE ASSEMBL Y OF MANITOBA 1546 that the deficit for this year was $762 million. I am saying that he budgeted last year for $330 million in deficit. He is budgeting this year at $367 million, and he says I am getting the deficit down. It does not make any sense, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reality is thatthe public are becoming so cynical of all of us that they sim ply do not believe any of us. We have to curb government spending. There is no question about that, but we have to look at brand new ways of running the go vernment.

That means we have to go back to the planning table and ask which programs can government provide and which prog rams mu st it prov ide, which can be self-sustaining and which mus t be eliminated. The government had choices, but the choices it chose were always to hurt the most vulnerable. For example, the government decided that grants could be cut to advocacy groups, but part of their definition of advocacy group includes, it seems, whether you are a friend or a foe of the government.

How else do you jus tify funding for the Consu mers Associati on, a valid, valuable organizat ion, where you cannot find mon ey for the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization, you cannot find mo ney for the Manitoba Foster Family Associat ion, you cannot find money for the Indian and Metis Friendship Centres? Su rely this government recog nizes that these groups represent the most vulnerable in our society.

If this Finance minister were bold, he would have taken $5 million out of Industry, Trade and Tourism , where there is duplication of services and, in some cases , triplication, and he could have applied $2.5 million to the deficit if that is what he had wanted to do and $2.5 million to the friendship centres, the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization and to the Manitoba foster families. Where were the priorities? Were they with his political cronies in the Economic Secretariat where salaries actually increased with no benefits directly or indirectly to Manitobans.

They certainly do not lie with the working poor who will now have to pay sales tax on baby supplies or nonprescription drugs, which increase daily as more drugs are delisted, and school supplies, or with the sick who will have to pay more for their prescription drugs. Madam Deputy Speaker, I find it jus t a little ironic that the Finance minister recognized that a tax on books was a tax on literacy so he refused to impose it, but he did not recognize that for most children literacy training takes place in schools, and he taxed their school supp lies.

Now, is it any worse to tax the book than to tax the math set, or are they both bad? They are both bad. You do not tax the books, but you do not tax the school supplies either. Does the government's priority lie with the Sport Directorate which has an increased budget? It does not lie with those who are trying to get off social assistance to go to school. Does it make sense for the go vernment, just yesterday, to spend thousands of dollars on newspaper ads for training programs when you have cut training, and cut 1, 200 young people off student social allowance? Does it make any sense?

If I go back to the garden, it is like they threw up a handful of seeds into the air with the hope they would all land on fertile ground and multiply, but you know not all land has the same quality and not all people have the same advantages. Perhaps the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) does not understand that when the rich getthe same reduction in a tax credit as the poor, then the impact on the poor is so many times greater. I just took a look at the property tax credit. I took the income of $27,500. I took off the $75, and I said, all right, what is the percentage of $75 on $27,500?

It is .2 of 1 percent, not a huge percentage, it is .2 of 1 percent, but do you know what it is on an income of $1 50,000? It is .0005. It is 400 times greater at $27,500 than it is at $1 50,000. [interjection) It is. Take .2 and .0005. Well, you take $75 out of $1 50,000, Gary, and it will come out at .0005. Take $75 out of $27,000 and it comes out as .02. An Honourable Member: One is just six times the other, so all it can be is one-sixth. Mrs. Carstalrs: Six times, 600 times. An Honourable Member: It cannot be that way. Well, I am glad you do not teach math. Mrs. Carstalrs: No, $75.

It is not the same percentage. It is a d.ollar amount. Madam Deputy Speaker, the reality is that the impact on the person of a large income of paying another $75 is minimal. It is very minimal, but is not minimal when you are budgeted to the point where you are counting your pennies and your dollars. People with a family of four earning $27,500 in this province are barely above the poverty line. I do not

1547 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 understand, if they were going to look atthe pro��rty tax credit-and they did, they decided to do thaHvhy did you not differentiate accor ding to income? Why did you not say that those of us with upper incomes had to pay more? Why do I have a tax credit of $:325 reduced to $250 when lots of people have m1 Jch lower incomes than I have and are not going to get the same benefit that I am going to get? I do not understand that. pnte�ection] • (1 44 0) Well, you know there is quite a bit of differenc1� of $75 ,000 than $27,500 .

All I said was that somebody at $75,000 in income could afford to I>SY the actual cost of child care. I think somebody at $75,000 a year can pay the actual cost of child a11re, but I do not think, quite frankly, that some bod�' at $27,500 should pay exactly the same as somebody who earns $75,000 or som ebody who earns $1 50,000. It is very simple. Madam Deputy Speaker, there is no question tlhat a plan for Manitoba mu st include deficit reducti,:>n. However, this government is content to use, lam afraid, arbitrary hack-and-slash techniques. That is really regrettable.

I think it is very sad, because it is really essential that we generate more revenue for Man itoba and for Manitobans. We did not see e1ny of that in this budget. We have to work together to attract new busimtss to Manitoba, new business which will not just te1ke the tax break and then lay off personnel. We he1ve to have new business that will create perman1mt jobs for Manitobans and which will attract other new businesses to Manitoba. The government has said, for example, that it is com mitted to making Man itoba an information centre.

Well, then how does he explain that thore have been cutbacks to that particular initiative within his own budget? Surely, he has admitted that we have to redouble our efforts in this initiative, and yet it looks as if those cutbacks have taken place. Vet we have an Economic Development Board whiich seems to only collect salaries. We have not seen it produce anything. We can no longer wait for thc'se results.

This is where the minister should have been honest and honourable in terms of his goals and recognized that there was a real folly in setting up the Economic Secretariat where the commitment to research and development has jus t not played out. In the las t Speech from the Throne this government used the word "inno vative" nine times. Nine times they talked al:>out innovation, but we have not seen anything innovative. Manitobans want jobs. Manitobans want to work. Putting Manitobans to work in com petitive and sustaining industries will reduce the deficit, but we see nothing in the budget to do that.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the Minister of Rnance (Mr. Manness) told us in his budget speech that because of public debt costs money was simply not avai lable for priority health and education services for Manitobans. On this side of the House we were wondering how this government decides on its priorities. For example, why is there a 2.5 percent in crease in the salaries of the execut ive admin istration of Culture and Heritage? Why is there still $2 million alloc ated for Commu nity Places grants-$2 million? Let us examine for a momen t, Mr.

Finance minister, just what these Commu nity Places grants have been allocated for. You know, last year it was $50,000 given to the Winkler Golf Club; $50,000 was given to the Virden playground; $50,000 was given to Binscarth to build a new pool. Now, we too are concerned about the quality of life in rural Manitoba, but the government is attacking basic education and social programs in those same rural commu nities. We do not understand their choice. It was a choice. [interjection] Well, I know, but 1-y ou have to make tough choices. You are the one who is saying you have to ma ke tough choices, Mr.

Rnance Minister. I know they put $1 0 million into that program. I am well aware what the NDP did, but why do we still have it when we have tough times? Madam Deputy Speaker, a tennis court is not going to help a family who cannot afford to buy basic necessities, and there are very few aboriginal children who were provided with services at friendship centres who own tennis rackets and are out there playing tennis on tennis courts-very few of them. Ask an abused woman in Rin Ron whether she needs a shelter or a recreation facility.

You know, that is the kind of tough choice that has to be made, and it is not the tough choices that were made. A quality education system is essential to ensure that Manitoba has a skilled labour force. We all pay

April S, 1993 LEGISL ATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1548 lip service to that rhetoric. Unfortunately, it is just rhetoric. We have been calling as a party for reform for Manitoba's educational system since 19 86, but the only action we have seen is cuts to education funding . The gover nment sim ply do es not demons trate a real comm itment to the future of Manitoba's children. I mean, last November in the Speech from the Throne they said education is the key to a healthy economic future.

What do they do? [interjection] Well, they did not knock the door, they locked the door, unfortunately, and some are pounding at it trying to get in. The budget does not introduce any reform initiative to fundamental problems with the syst em. It does not help our schools cope with new technology. The public schools of this province have taken a funding cut of 2 percent, but they have also taken a cut of 66 speech pathologists and hearing clinicians in rural Manitoba, which has resulted in uncertainty aboutthe quality of education for those children, especially those with special needs.

Fundam ental education reform is long overdue, and it is time the go vernment paid more than lip service to it. Why have we not started that boundaries review? Restructu ring an d amalgamating school divisions could ensure that nearly every dollar in education is spent on delivering programs to Manitoba students. We have the highest adminis trative costs in education in the country, and it is not coincidental that we have the second highest number of school divisions. It is not a coincidence. An Honourable Member: Who has No. 1 ? Mrs. Carstalrs: Saskatche wan.

The picture looks as bleak for post-secondary education and training. Un for tunately, the government clearly does not understand that a well-trained, kno wledgeable workforce is essential in improving the economic situation of the pro vince. The sad part about it is, again, those of us who are better off, our children, we'll make sure they get their educatio n. We will help them. We will give them that boost. We will give them that support. It is always those who are from disadvantaged homes and disadvantaged families, they are the ones who are going to suffer.

They are the ones that saw their student assistance grants cut. * (1 450) You know, the financial assistance program under student loans has been cut by 7.8 percent. Who do you think those children are that were applying for those student financial assistance loans and bursaries? Do you think they were children of upper middle-class families? Of course not, unless that family has kicked them out, and that is not a frequent occu rrence. These are young people who have come from homes where there has not been the same value in education, often because they simply could not afford it.

And summer jobs have bec ome for some youngs ters almo st an impossi bility to get. It is not that they do not want to work or they will not work, it is they cannot find employment. You know, we thought there was a glimmer of hope just a few days before the budget. We saw that the Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey) anno u nce d tha t there was going to be a consolidation of the skills training program. We were going to get rid of some of the adm inistrative hierarchy, and we thought, good, sounds positi ve. What do we find in the budget?

Well, we found, unfortu nately, thatthe new advanced education and skills training division has taken a reduction of almost 1 0 percent. The cut includes significant decreases for programs such as employment enh ancement and youth prog rams and apprenticeship programs, not adminis trative cuts, the program cuts. Madam Deputy Speaker, this province has the lowest rate of young people enrolling in full-time commu nity colleges of any province in the nation. We know that. We have an underdeveloped communi ty college syst em, and it is becoming more and more underdeveloped as the years go by.

Eight percent of our high school students enroll in commu nity colleges. In some provinces that is as high as 27 percent. As a result, Manitoba youth has very little to look forward to. Not only has the quality of education and training in this prov ince been undermined, but cuts have been discouraging young people from con tinuing their educat ion. Student social allowance programs which enabled people to acquire the skills necessary to find jobs have been eliminated. You ng people are realizing that a lack of education almos t guarantees them a life of

1549 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 unemployment or of marginal employment. I do not know how they think young people are goin�r to make it in this province without a little bit of help. Su pport for child care has been eroded, but who has been eroded? Did they increase the ove,rall fee? No, they could not do that, because when they did that last time without a sliding scale people took their children out of child care. So they knew they could not increase the upper limit again, so what did they do? They went and attacked the people at the very bottom.

Those who were not even paying the $1 a day subsidy are now going to be asked to pay $2.40 in su bsidy. Where do they think they are going to get it from? They were not paying the dollar in many cases because they could not come up with the money, so where are they going to get $2.410 a day? It sim ply defies imagination, and yet the only conclusion that I can come to is that they want thE1se people to stop working. They want them to quit their jobs and stay home, because they are not goin£1 to be able to afford the child care. If they cannot affc>rd the child care, they have to quit their jobs.

Is this the drive behind this? Is this the incentive? Is this what they want to do? Well, you know, we heard about the need to share the pain. Madam Deputy Speaker, who has really been asked to share the pain? Does this minister really think that those with upper incomes are going to share the pain? Does he really think that,. if property tax bills go up for fam ilies whose incomE' is six figures, they are really going to feel that pain? No, they are not. They are simply not going to f4�el that pain. People in lower incomes will, they will f4�el the pain. That is what I do not understand.

I do not understand how a government cannot recognize that some feel the pain more than others and adjust their policies accordi ngly. I asked the minister today if he knew just what the im pact would be on a social assistance recipiont who had los t their dental, their optic• al, pharmaceutical benefits and some of their tax credits and now would be asked to pay provindal sales tax. I do not want to misquote him, but I think what he said was that he figures the minimum minh t be about $1 25. Well, $12 5 for some families is a lot of money.

It is not a lot of mo ney for rne. [inte�ection] Well, it is a lot of money for someone at haH of your income, too, or a third of your income or a tenth of your income. I do not know the Minister of Finance's income, and it is none of my business. The reality is-if we just take an MLA's salary in this House, with the nontaxable portion, make it $48,000 a year. If it is $48,000 a year, the impact is going to be far less than the mom with a couple of kids living on social assistance who is getting $1 4,000 a year. That is what I find difficult to understand.

I find it difficult to understand why foster families are being asked to take $2 less a day. If the government did not think that money was too much a couple of years ago when they gave it to them, why do they think it is too much now? That is what they are really saying: We think you are getting too much, so we are going to take it from you. More than that, I do not understand why they took the money away from their associati on. To me that was the far more dangerous cut, because what they did was they removed their support syst em.

They took from them a sense of their own ability to talk with others who were suffering from the same difficulties that they were. I do not understand why they would feel that a cut like that, which might really jeopardize the opportu nity for an individual to take a foster child, why they do not understand thatthe cost of that will be far greater. H Manitoba foster parents choose not to take children, then the cost to this government will be ever so much more than the cost of funding that association. I think the government almo st sees that as a threat. They should not consider it a threat. It is not a threat.

Foster families, the ones I have spoken to, have said, we will no longer feel secure taking those children. We had almost our own kind of safety net, and they have taken that safety net away from us. So we do not feel as secure to take on new foster children, and that is why they are going to choose not to do that. That is a tragedy, both for the children, but also for the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness), because it is going to cost him more to look after those children in alternative facilities.

It is time that we looked-and I have said this before in this House, and I will say it again-at a guaranteed annual income. I would prefer it to be a federal program, but if we cannot, then let us re-examine what we have done in the past in this province and let us lead the way in Canada and begin with a kind of mini-com (phonetic) income package again in this province and show that we

April 8, 1993 LEGISL ATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1550 can, in fact, get rid of adminis trative waste and ma ke sure the money goes directly to service, because that is what it has to be all about. I want to speak just briefly about the health care initiative, because we have supported it. We have supported the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard). We have watched the same initiative basically picked up by the New Democratic Party in British Columbia and the gove rnment there. We com pared the two books that came out, and the program from B.C . was almost identical word for word to the program from Manitoba.

So you cannot say that the plan of the government here was so awful. Others are looking at it. But we did call on the minister to put into place a health moni tor, so we could be upfront with the public, so that he could report to the people so that they could in turn-the mo nitor grou p-report to gov ernment, that they could identify the problems out there and that correc tions could be put into place quickly. I think many of the difficulties that the Minister of Health is encountering, quite frankly, is because of misin formation or lack of informa tion.

I think that if he had been more upfront, some of this would not have occurred, but we are finding that in this budget, the action plan that he said he was going to put into place does not show itself in the budget. If we are really going to move to commun ity-based services, why has there been a cut of 15 .8 in Healthy Public Policy? Why has there been a cut of 29.6 in Health and Wellness? Surely, part of health reform is wellness, and a theory and a concept of wellness which means prevention programs. Why has Acute and Ambulatory Care taken a 12 .5 percent cut?

Why has home care, if one compares not budget to budget but expenditure to budget, gone down? * (1 500) Only a week ago, the Minister of Health seconded a Pharm acare card syst em, but we are told by the Minis ter of Finance that people have to pay more for their Pharmacare. I hope the government, if it is going to look at additional premiums for Pharmacare and, unfortunately, that is the only solution I can see as to how you can have increases accor ding to his budget, is that he is looking at another one.

Well, if he is going to do it, then would he look at the possibility of putting in a sliding scale, because that Pharmacare deductible is getting so high for people on low and fixed incomes that they simply cannot pay it. Some of them are denying themselves drugs, and we know that. This gov ernment has eliminated the dental care program under the Children's Dental plan. We were pleased to see that the prevention componen t of the plan was still in place, but I have spoken with the head of the northern dental plan, who was the head of the northern dental plan for a number of years.

She talks about the requirement to remove rotten teeth of children in the North for prevention so that the second teeth can come in, in satisfactory form . Is that prevention or is it treatment? Accor ding to this budget, it is treatment, and yet if that treatment is not pro vided, Madam Deputy Speaker, there will be no prevention. There will be no healthy second teeth. What pro vision is there going to be for those who need that kind of dental work and whose famil y sim ply canno t provide it?

I have some understanding of a willingness to not provide dental care for those whose incomes are sufficien t that they can pay for their own children's care but what about the poor? What about those who do not have that money? What protection have we put in for those families? I see nothing in this budget. We heard this government talk about compassion but, you know, I do not see any com passi on. I certainly do not see any compassion for the epidemic of violence against women in our society. We have a Pedlar report. We know what mus t be done.

We know what the social costs are of ignoring it and yet there is nothing in this budget that would suggest that there is going to be any more resources. Indeed, there will be fewer resources because courts will not even be open to hear some of those cases on Fridays in the summertime. It is a little ironic, it is almost as if you are saying do not abuse on Thursday night or perhaps you should abuse on Thursday night because you cannot go to court on Friday. The whole concept leaves me terribly befuddled in terms of what the program is and what the real direction is.

You know there has been some restructuring in the government. We cannot object, for example, to the consolidation of the Information Technology Branch with the Industrial Technology Branch. It sounds reasonable. We cannot be too concerned about the disap pearance of the Sectoral Development Branch. Those are changes which obviously can be made. It makes sense, indeed, for

1551 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 them to be made, but we have noticed that 1he govemmenfs knife cuts very selectively. NowhE•re is this more important and more apparent than in I, T and T. It was spared from the consolidation of 1he Economic Development Board of Cabinet. Remember the Economic Development Board of Cabinet? Remember that? We have not heard very much from it. We have not been overwhelmed with activity, Madam Deputy Speaker, and we criticized it last year because we said that it was just another layer of economic management bureaucracy.

We were worried that nothing would come of it and we were right because nothing has come of it. We do not understand why, if we are supposed to share the pain, you share it, unless of course y1:>U are a close advisor to the Premier (Mr. Filmon). Tli1e Premier should end his charade and be honest w1ith the people of Manitoba with respect to this. He should cut the Economic Development Board and save the $850,000 in administration plus untc•ld numbers of dollars in salaries for the Premielr's select group.

If he really believes in total quality management, and he certainly is promoting it in terms of health care, then TOM demands that the planning and economic analysis functions of the Economic Development Board be transferred to the Business Services and Strategic Initiatives Division, because the first thing TOM says is to get rid of layers of bureaucracy. Wipe them out. So if he believes in it, do away with it. We have also noticed that the government has spared its overpaid and much flaunted Economic Innovation and Technology Council.

Here, too, we criticize the needless duplication of activity, and here, too, we do not see any activity. We Slile staffing. We do not see anything in the way of ne'w programs. Here, too, the government seems to have chosen to protect the salaries and per diems of its friends on the council. There is not a single activity that this council performs that is not mandated and could not be handled by the department. The government has chosen to protect the salaries of the part-time council members at the expense of line administration staff in that departm ent.

While we are looking at restructuring, we have to look at the commitment to serve our province to give something back to one's province. I wonder if the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) actually went to all of the people who sit on boards and commissions, some of whom are paid, you know, $1 30 fora half day and $21 0for a full day. One chair is paid $31 0 for a full day. Did they ask them to donate their service to the province? I mean, that is what they are asking the Manitoba Foster Family Association. They were paid people. They are asking them now to become volunteers.

Why do you not ask those who are getting these per diems? pnterjection] Get rid of them entirely. That is what you did to the Manitoba Foster Family Association. You eliminated it. Eliminate the per diems. Say, do it in honour of service to this province. Do it because you feel that volunteerism is important. We have heard the Pr emier talk about volunteerism. Well, let him get out there and all of his patronage cronies. Let us have a little volunteerism. Let us eliminate the per diems. I mean, you want the volunteers for the friendship centres and the crisis centres and the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization.

You want all those people to become full-time volunteers. So how about a few of the per diems? So we come back again to the choices that the government has had the chance to make for six budgets now. It has had a chance to develop an economic plan for Manitoba's future. For six budgets now, the government has chosen not to introduce a plan to take us into the 21 st Century. We will continue to watch how the government handles economic development in rural Manitoba, but it seems that their entire program for rural development is based on whether you win a gambling pot or not.

You know, we were cautiously optimistic when the REDI Program was first announced. We were concerned that standards be established and guidelines be set in place. But we have not seen the money flow as it was promised to us when RED I was formulated, and we have been particularly concerned to note some of the questionable uses of the REDI Program. I mean, we want to know, for example, what a parking garage does in stimulating economic development in Altona. Is that really what the purpose of it is? Yet that is where the REDI money came from.

We were hopeful that the Minister of Finance would take this opportunity of a lifetime, because I

April S, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1552 think he did have some public support. I think he did have some public understanding that economic times were tough and that tough decisions had to be made, but I think he failed to be fair and he failed to be equitable. He has lost a great deal of that good will, and that has been truly unfortu nate, because they recognize that we have seen a budget carved out on the backs of the poor.

They recognize that golf courses and snowmobile trails will still be supported, unfortunately, by this gove rnment for their aff luent friends, that services to the vulnerable have been cut or eliminated. I want to end with this. I am particularly concerned ab out our greater and greater dependence upon lottery revenues. You know , if one sits and watches television just occasi onally, one cannot help but get an ad which encourages people to buy lottery tickets, encourages people to go to gambling casinos, encour ages people to spend on the VL Ts.

I do not think we fully understand, first of all, that it tends to be those who have the least who spend money in these areas, but we also fail to understand the long-term social impact of the encouragement of people to spend their money this way. * (1 51 0) I will be honest. I have never been in the Crystal Casino. I bought a Lotteries ticket once because I wanted to know how to buy one and I played the VL Ts once, again because I wanted to find out how to play them. I do not know why people play them, I mus t admit. I will be honest with you.

I do not understand what is appealing about them because I did not find them very appealing, but the reality is that millions and millions of dollars are being spent in this province on gambling. Hon. Harr y Enns (Minister of Natural Resources): And outside of this pro vince. Mrs. Carstalrs: Well, you know, the Minis ter of Natural Resources (Mr.

Enns) says, outside of this pro vince as well. [interjection) Yes, it is big time, but I would suggest to the minister that there are many more millions that are being spent in this pro vince by Manitobans on gambling than they ever took out of this prov ince to gamble-many more millions. The problem is that it is destroying the fabric of society. I mean you have to be concerned, all of us, when you hear from the RCMP that people have left sui cide notes and attributed their suicide to playing VLTs . Hon. Albert Driedger (Minister of Highways and Transportation): How many cases ? Mrs.

Carstalrs: I do not care how many it is, to the Minister of Highways (Mr. Driedger). One is enough for me. Two is too many for me. I mean surely, as people, and I do not blame the Tories for this because all kinds of governments are getting into it, but surely as a society we have to examine why it is we are doing this, why it is that we are encouraging people to take money from often their children, food and clothing needs of their children, to play VLTs and to gamble in casinos.

I have to wonder whether we as a government should be encouraging it, whether we as a gov ernment-! say we, meaning all of us, all 57 of us together-should be doing this and whether we should not really seriously be looking at the long-term implications and not just the short-term mo ney. We are becoming mor e and mo re dependent, and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) know this, on those revenues, that it is going to be almost im possible to reduce them.

We think that, unfortunately, this go vernment has chosen to be remembered as dream weavers because that is what those ads represent to me-dream weaving, freedom. Freedom. If you win a lottery-freedom . That is not where freedom comes from. Freedom comes from within. Therefore, I move, seconded by the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray), that the amendment be amended by adding thereto the followi ng words: And further regrets that (

a) this government has failed to adequately invest in the education and training of Manitobans as witnessed by the cuts to student social allowances, to university funding, to the advanced education and skills training divisio n; · (

b) this go vernment has failed to address the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society by cutting speech pathologists and hearing clinicians for children with special needs, by requiring parents who require su bsidized daycare to pay more than they can afford , by raising nursing home resident fees, by reducing payments to foster fam ilies, by redu cing dental, optical and pha rmaceutical benefits to social assistance recipients, by cutting funding to friendship centres; (

c) this government has failed to ensure the universality of the medicare system by introducing user fees for clients under the home care plan, by

1553 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 placing a cap on medical fees and by discon tinuing the treatment portion of Children's Dental servic•:�s; and (

d) this go vernment continues to obfuscate the governm ent's financial sta tements with its continued use of the Fiscal Stabilization plan. Motion presented. Hon. Glen Cummings {Minister of Envlronmer11t): Madam Deputy Speaker, sitting here for the last day and a half and listening to the addresses of the two Leaders of the opposition- An Honourable Member: How you have sufferod. Mr. Cummings: -and how I suffered, that is right, how I suffered.

I have to say that again it has been reco nfirmed that neither of the opposition parties has the faintost idea of what some alternatives might be as to he>w to deal with the financial situation of this pro vincEI.

We have seen a long litany of complaints not only from the leader of the of ficial opposition but, just listening through the speech of the Leader of the Second Opposition, she presented a very compassionate and caring point of view and was worried about the future and the sensitivity of government decisions, but she should not assu me, nor should the offi cial opposition assu me, that the•re is any less compassion on these benches or that there is any less concern about those who e1re vulnerable in society or that there is any less willingness on this side to take care of those individuals in our society and make sure that they are looked after when they can not fend lor themselves.

Madam Deputy Speaker, when the com munity of Manitoba points the finger, looks somewhere to point the finger as to why these decisions have to be made, the decision is going to have to be to point the finger to those members opposite who have contributed massively to the amassing of a defici1 in this pro vince that now drives us to making these kinds of decisions.

Now I am sure that if they had thought that the economy of the country, the economy of the world, as a matter of fact, was going to be impacted by some of the things that happened on a global bas,is, they would have started making some changes when they had the opportunity to do so, but they did not see that coming. They continued to borrow, as did federal governments, as did all sorts of other governments across the country, as a matter of fact, across the world.

Madam Deputy Speaker, when we look at the debt that we have amassed over the last 10 years in this pro vince, governments have been doing very much what society itself was doing, which was to borrow against inflation. I would think there are a good number of us in this room who at one time or another have made a few dollars on inflation when there was consis tently a growth year over year in the values of items for sale for items of our -{inte�ection] Well, yes, I am sure the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) wants to hear this.

I better get a little closer to my mi ke. * (1 520) In am assing the kind of debt that we did, inflation was driving it and it was driving inflation. We have all heard lots of discussion in this House about where that has led us. But, when we talk about protecting the future of the young people of this country then I think we have to really put it into perspective, because I agree that there are decisions that we made that we would rather not have had to have made.

Frankly, whether it was when the years when the members opposite and their party were governing this province or even in the first years of our mandate, if we had been able to deal with the debt more aggressively we would not have been faced today with as dramatic decisions as we are being faced with. We shoul d never sugge st tha t dealing aggressively with the financial problems that face this provi nce, that face this country, are not important or that they do not need to be dealt with sensitively. Then we are sim ply burying our heads in the sand. [inte�ection] Well, the member for Dauphin (Mr.

Plohman) says, sensibly and fairly. I challenge him. I challenge him to present the alternatives, Madam Deputy Speaker. What idea has he got, the bereft of ideas from the time they were thrown out of go vernment. In this House, they cannot credibly present an alternative to the type of decisions that are being made. Madam Deputy Speaker, a number of people point to our great neighbour to the South, and they will say, look at the economic situation there. Look at what President Clinton is going to do. The fact is that the Americans have not yet faced the kind of tax load that we have in this provi nce.

Those who would suggest that following the route they are

April S, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1554 going to have to follow over the next short while as an example to governments here forget that they have all sorts of taxation room that the people in this country have already been subjected to. We only need to look at gasoline prices as a shining example of the diffe rence in the pressures that are on their econom ies and their taxation system as opposed to this country. [interjection] The member opposite, inadvertently, has pointed to one of the most important and crucial decisions that we have made in this budget.

That is to make sure the very fabric of this province that the Leader of the Second Opposition (Mrs. Carstairs) wanted to talk about is protected in terms of our health care, is protected in terms of the basic responsibilities that we have to the less fortu nate in this society.

His idea of protecting that is to use a phrase that my colleague from Portage Ia Prairie coined not very long ago, and that is a fiscal child abuse, because what we are doing is imposing on the future generations of this province the lack of access to programs that we have been privileged to enjoy for the last 25 years in this province. [interjection] Madam Deputy Speaker, I am not sure what the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) was saying. It seems to me that her Leader jus t spent a fair bit of time expressing her concern, pointing to areas that she felt should have been handled differently.

She expressed her concerns in terms of her priorities. I invite the opposition to challenge us on what they see as the priorities. If they are so bold as to do that, let them lay out some alternatives. There has not been one reasonable alternative come from that side of the House, not one. I listened carefu lly. There was not one reasonable alternative that was presented by the second opposition, not one. I am a little hard of hearing on one side but I heard every word almost that the mem ber for- An Honourable Member: Almo st. Mr. Cummings: Well, yes.

One occasionally lets his mind drift during the middle of a 40-m inute presentation. Madam Deputy Speaker, we have seen some rather interesting turns of events in this House since the budget has been presented. Over the last number of weeks, when some of the rather difficult decisions we have had to ma ke have been presented to the public, we have seen the spectacle of members opposite standing up.

In one particular case, the member representing Flin· Aon talking about wanting to bring forth concerns about protecting the basic infrastructure and the economy of this province at a time when literally millions are being spent and being supp orted by this gov ernment to make sure that the mining industry in northern Manitoba has an infrastructure of which to ship to for their smelting ac tivities and, at the same time, saying that we are not protecting the economic infrastructure. At the same time, ever since we came into government-and the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) will want to praise us for this.

If he looks back over all of the previous budgets to this one, we have protected the rate of growth and cost for education, health and social services. Every one of them have grown at a rate that far exceeds inflation. Every one of them have been protected for the people of this pro vince. He is unwilling or unable-and that is more likely the case -to recognize that the reality is that we now have to deal with the real responsibility of what con tinuing and burgeoning deficits can do.

A very simple analogy, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that every time there is a half-a-million-dollar deficit in this province- An Honourable Member: Half a billion. Mr. Cummings: -half a billion, another $50 million worth of expenditures is added annually to the bottom line of the budget of this provi nce. Fifty million is five times the cost of running the Department of Environment, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am really disappointed.

I thought maybe the Envir onmen t critic for the offi cial opposition or for the Liberal Party would want to discuss in some portion of this debate what is happening in terms of dealing with environm ental issues in this province. They are afraid to realize that this gov ernment has struck a balance and they will have to explain to their electorate what it is that they would do diffe rently. Certainly their Leaders have not yet shown what that route is other than to increase the deficit. Madam Deputy Speaker, what would they do? Would they completely eliminate the Department of Natu ral Res our ces? I dou bt it.

Wou ld they completely eliminate the Department of Justice? Of course they would not. They have to start making some important choices, and as we see some econ omic strength return to the province of

1555 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBL Y OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 Manitoba and to other pro vinces across this coun try, then we can begin to deal with what is the ongoing cost of carrying the debt. I look around and I have one piece of informati,on that I have garnered over the last couple of yeai'S, what I think demon strates rather dramatically what happens to a province such as ours when we allow the debt to grow, when we borrow indiscriminatEIIy and when we do not recognize what the worldwide impacts are on the cost of the bottom line of this provi nce. You know, the memb er for Dauphin (Mr.

Plohman) was in cabinet-1 am not sure if he was a member of the Treasury Boar d-when some of the loans were floated in Japanese yen. The member for Dauphin, I am sure-1 know he was part of the government and I su spect he was part of the decision-when at one time the Pro vince of Manitoba borrowed money in Japanese yen.

When we came into government and subsequen tly began to face the real costs of paying some of these loans, we realized that all of a sudden that someone over there had not contemplated what would happen when the value of the Canadian dollar changes or the value of the fore ign cu rrency begins to increase . [interjection] Well, he may be proud of the fact that he was spreading it around, but does he know what he was spreading around?

I think not because by the time we were able to pay off that loan, we were paying the equivalent of 28 percent interest, and he is proud of that record? * (1 530) An Honourable Member: That is spreading it around? Mr. Cummings: He may have been spreading it around, but in that spreading were the blood, sweat and tears of the people of this provi nce.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the member for Dauphin is getting a little uneasy about having this type of informatie>n put on the record, but if he was half as smart as he would like to portray himself, he would have realiz1�d that they should be more conscientious about recognizing what they did to this province during those inflationary years leaving us with a debt that is now driving us to these decisions. [interjection] The member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) says add it all up and average it.

What he does not recogni:ze is exactly the point that I have been trying to mal<e and that is that he will not cont emplate the fact that Manitoba is part of a worldwide economy and the decisions we are being driven to make today are as a result of occurrences in financial markets here and around the world, not only financial markets but the real ma rkets of the trading of goods and the growth of societies around the world.

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is very well and good to talk about that general picture and where do we go, but we have to here, day to day, make the decisions that will put this province in the best position to deal with those problems and to put us in a proper footi ng for going forward in the future. In dealing with that, there are very few options that go beyond reasonable levels of intelligence. Now I am not so sure how that reflects on the previous admin istration but, if they wish to listen for a sec, let us talk about alternate forms of inco me.

We have the mem bers opposite viole ntly opposed to VLTs and, in many respects, putting forward arguments that they expect members of society want them to put forward but, when we have that money now to put against the deficit, all of a sudden they are saying, well, that is not the priority of where it should be put. It should be put into other decisions. Every one of the decisions-{inte�ection] Well, I cannot put on record what is being said around here, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I guess I have managed to either bore or drive out a number of memb ers who are not of the party of the government.

As a representative of a rural riding, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hear a lot of people saying that rural Manitoba, in may respects, has had to start making a lot of self-disciplining decisions within the last six to seven years. When we look at one of the challenges that this pro vince has had, it is to make sure that the basic growth areas and the basic industries of this province are in fact stabilized, are in fact positioned to compete in the worldwide market in which we all operate. Whether we are operating in a niche market or not, it is still reflected upon by the events that happen around the world.

Madam Deputy Speaker, when I talk to my friends, my colleagues in rural Manitoba, by and large they recognize that the imp act of the GRIP program that was implemented under the leadership ofthis gove rnment in co-operation with Ottawa is the one element that has inserted some level of stability into the economy of rural Manitoba. It is on that basis that they now look forward with some

April 8, 1993 LEGISL ATIVE ASSEMB LY OF MANITOBA 1556 confidence to being able to reap the benefits in the next year or two of some strength in the markets and some stability in the sale of the products they are putting forward . We only need to point to the cattle industry, the hog industry. They are doing very well. They are now starting to put those dollars back into the economy.

The $50 million that that costs the government annually was the cost of being able to make sure that industry was stabilized, not the cattle industry specifically, not the hog industry specifically, but the rural agricultural cu ltivated acreage that we have in this pro vince. The people who are the tenants and the owners of those lands were able to look with some confidence to their banker and re-establish themselves in a changed world situation. That is the kind of discussion that there has not been one member of the opposition who has been willing to enter into discussion on-not one.

They may criticize whether or not the payment is sufficient on a particular class of land. They may criticize whether or not the payment is sufficien t north of a certain line in the province, but not one of them wants to enter into the debate about whether or not this has meant anything to the stability of the economy of this pro vince.

It is only an example of how rural Manitoba integrates with the rest of the province, because the same tenets hold true in all of the other industrial and technological areas of this pro vince and how we position ourselves to take advantage of the markets in which those industries will need to develop and grow. Madam Deputy Speaker, we look atthe initiatives. The members opposite are quite anxious to point to the Economic Development Board, point to the Economic Comm ittee of Cabinet, and they say, what are we acc omplishing? Where are we going?

I suggest they have the blinders on about the things that are occurring in this provi nce, jus t the same as they had about the implementation of GRIP in this province. Manitoba has established itself with some sta bility in the technological areas of competition on the same basis that they have established themselves to be able to compe te favourably with rural econom ic ini tiatives. [interjection] No, that was a thumbs up. The member for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie) cannot tell one digit from the other, I do not think. It was a thu mbs -up sign. I am sure he would recognize that if he were to contemplate it.

It was not a one-fingered salute. It was the thumbs up. Madam Deputy Speaker, again, I ask, where are the alternatives that the opposition is prepared to present? Where are the alternatives? The member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) says he is going to go out to McCreary next week and use my name in vain and point to the things that I should be doing on behalf of that part of the province. I would challenge him to provide the whole list of what we are doing for this pro vince, not a selective reading, as he is prone to do.

I digress, but I have to acknowledge that we had a little fun at his expense in Grandview the other night. That is something for which he will probably want some retribution. Yes, the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) and I actu ally had a very receptive audience. We quite enjoye d ourselves at the expense of the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman).

Madam Deputy Speaker, broadly viewed, I am very concerned about the type of criticism and publicity that the members opposite would like to levy against what I believe has been a budget that is characterized by fairness and equity. pnterjection] The member for Dauphin says, well, you have 20 minutes left. Perhaps he would like me to point out a number of the other discretionary areas that he has been unwilling to deal with.

When gove rnment is faced with decision making that has reached the point of where the income that government can expect to receive is not growing at the rate which we, in this society , have been used to finding in our wallets, if you will, at the end of the day, finding in the coffers of the provi nce, then the setting of priorities and the choosing of particular approaches to delivery of service is !TlOre than a challenge in terms of what programs will be delivered and what programs cannot be delivered.

It is also a challenge of how you fairly manage the programs that do continue. [interjection] Madam Deputy Speaker, the constant twitting of the member for Dauphin does not provide much enlightenment for the people of Manitoba, because during the years, when they had those buoyant incomes, did they do anything to restructure the ad min istration of govern ment? Did they do anything to economize the delivery of programs? Did they do anything as the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay) did delivering a new $50 million program with the same or less numb ers of

1557 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMB LY OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 employees out there. They never even dreamed about it. * (1 540) When I compare what has happened in this province to what is happening in the province to the west, which is presently being administered by the NDP party, and the decisions that they are making as a result of the agricultural catastrophe that has come down around their ears, they are being compounded beyond belief.

The members of �his province who are involved in the industry that I am talking about are in far better position to deal with the problems that they are facing with their bank1ns than the members to the west will be under what is presuma bly a caring an d sharing NDP admin istration. Madam Deputy Speaker, when the people in 1he Swan River valley and the people in the Grandvi1�w look to the west, they are not looking with envy. In fact, let me talk for a moment about the social side and the services that we delivered, and I had some comm ents from a numb er of members abCiut daycare, about child care alternatives.

One of the people of my acquai ntance who works very long and hard on behalf of the daycare institutions in rural Manitoba had occasion to go to Saskatoon and speak there about what was happening in Manitoba and how they were managing and how they we•re delivering programs. That person when she carne back said to her friends and colleagues: I was happy to get home. When I saw what is happening in the neighbouring pro vince, it was like returning to heaven. That was the comment of the lady who works in the daycare program. She said there is nothing but despai r. No thing but despair.

That is what happens when the budget does get out of contr ol. (interjection] The member opposite says that is the legacy of the previous go vernment. Of course, it is. I did not just fall off a turnip truck. I am talking about the debt of these prov inces and what happens when you do not deal with it. Madam Deputy Speaker, before I step on my notes here-[interjection] When he fell off the truck, he got run ove r. Is that what happened?

This government, this province has put a lot of money, more money on a percentage basis than any other gove rnment in Canada towards daycme and towards the improvement of the situation in foster care services. For the members of the opposition to now stand up and talk about the fact that we have had to put some limitations on that growth is tota lly unreasonable-totally unreasonable because they are not looking at the larger picture. They refuse to look at the larger picture. They want to pick on individual small programs and say, look what has happened here, look what has gone wrong here.

All they have to do is look at the larger picture and they will see. They will clearly see that the much needed basis of infrastructure is being main tained in this prov ince, and it will be to their chagrin, Madam Deputy Speaker, their chagrin in the long run that this go vernment has done a better job of protecting those services than any government in the recent history of this pro vince. I stand by that commen t.

Again, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have spent some considerable amount of time working with people in the services to the mentally handicapped, com mu nity service groups, and they all acknowledge that if the dollars have to be sa ved, if the dollars have to be put to priority use, they will acknowledge that they have to go into the area of service. They need not go into the service of lobby ing; they need not go into the service of broad structure to supp ort a lobbying group across the provi nce. The dollars have to be prioritized for the service of those who need it the most.

They will question and they will argue and they will yell and they will shout and they will complain about whether or not we chose those priorities correctly or whether we added enough or whether we subtracted too much, but at the end of the day the people of this province will acknowledge that the services that are in place in this provi nce, the ones that the people of this province truly value and want protected, will be protected for the future generation.

I take some considerable umbrage at the comm ents that came from the second opposition today during Question Period about equating of dollars with educational opportunity. Having spent a number of years working with the educational communi ty as a trustee, I believe that people of this pro vince do not necessarily equate, nor should any of us necessarily equate, the qua lity of education with the volume of dollars that is attached to it.

There is not one teacher in my acquaintance that would not acknowledge that the job they do is more directly related to the supp ort they get in terms of the backing of decisions that they make, in terms of the su pport that they get from the com mu nity, in

April S, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 1558 terms of the support they getfrom the administration on the decisions they make-there is not one teacher of my acquaintance that would not acknowledge that this is what makes the most difference in how effective they are in teaching the children in today's schools. The efficacy of today's schools is- An Honourable Member: How about if they put 40 kids per classro om ? Does that have an effect? Mr. Cummings: The member opposite says, what happens when you have 40 kids in the classroom?

Madam Deputy Speaker, the su pport syste ms through the schools need to be in place. The teachers need to know that they are important to society. They need to know that they are important to the parents whose children they are teaching. They need to know that they are important to the commu nity in which they are working, but they do not equate that with the bottom line that they get in their pay cheque every day. They equate that with their dedication to their job.

Not for one mom ent would I suggest that they should work for free, but I would never accept the argument that the member opposite puts forward, that if the teachers do not receive an increase in pay every year that they will not continue to provide the services to the children in the classro om . I have far too much respect for the teachers of this province to even entertain that type of an argumen t. [interjection] The member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) says, cut their wages and see how their morale is. That may be the way in whic h he wants to portray it to the public.

I have talked to a numb er of people in the educational com mu nity. I have talked to friends and acquai ntances who are totally dedicated to the service of the educational people of this commu nity, and they will indicate that we all have to be part of the solution on how we deal with the problems of this province. If the educational com munity are not the leaders in how we deal with those problems, then we will have even more problems in our society in dealing with it in the long run.

Their thinking, their advice, their leadership is needed and cherished every bit as much as anyone else in this society, and the reflection that the member opposite puts forward on how teachers view some of the decisions that have been made is a total misrepresentation of the value and the quality of the people we have out there in the trenches and the job that they are doing. The messenger is ov er there. The mess age that I am getting coming directly from the teach ers is the opposite to the one that he is trying to portray. Madam Deputy Speaker, the same thing is true in the Civil Service.

The same thing is true in the health care field. The same thing is true in all levels of responsi bility in our commu nity. I continue to meet people day after day after day who are saying, we want to be part of the solution. Contrary to the vision of the people opposite who are busy portraying everyone out there as being opposed to having some solutions to the direction of this province and how we will manage aff airs in this province, day after day, I h ear people saying, what can I do in order to make this work better?

It is very interesting that I have, on a continuing and ongoing basis, members of the staff in my own particular department saying that they believe that this has been a fair and equitable way to deal with some cost conta inment in the department, and they are preparecHinterjection] Well, if the members opposite are referring to these people as looking for promotions, I think that was the implication of one of the commen ts over there-a comp lete misrepresentation of the attitude of the public, and they are the ones who will pay the price.

They will pay the price because they do not understand the depth of understanding and knowledge that is in the public. * (1 550) The public recognizes with a greater sense of reality and urgency what needs to be done in this province as opposed to those who sit over there with their heads under their desk. Madam Deputy Speaker, I heard the word "scapegoa t" being thrown out over there.

Obviously, the selective thinking of the members opposite is not going to be receptive to the idea that there are a large percentage of people in this society who recog nize that the protection of what is good in this society is more important every day when we see what is happening around the world. If we do not protect what is good in this society against the ravages of interest and the ongoing cost of the debt that we have had, then I will not be able to look my grandchildren in the eye when they come back to me and say, you had an opportu nity to do something about it, old man.

Why did you not take the opportunity?

1559 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBL Y OF MANITOBA April S, 1993 The members opposite had the opportuni ty and they squandered it. They threw it away. They ignored the reality of the world they were living in. They have buried their heads in the sand ancl refused to accept reality. When we look at the concerns of people across the province, they are parallel to the concerns of th� people across the cou ntry. Cana da has '" reputation as one of the most caring, compassionate and welcoming nations in the world.

In order for us to mai ntain that stature, in order fo,r us to be able to maintain the services to th•� commu nity which they have come to expect, w•� need to be able to have the funds to do it. Madam Deputy Speaker, the member opposit•� says we have done worse. Well, I think the on•� thing he has forgotte n is if you look at the tax level1s in a number of other countries, you see the results of not dealing with the issue, and you can point very simply to the GST. You may not like the GST. You may resent it.

You may not like the administration, but there are a number of countries out there when� the GST equivalent is 20 percent, 21 percent, 2:3 percent. Do they not read? Do they not look at th4� larger picture? Do they not know that this is wha.t has had to occur in other countries? They only believe that we can continue selling our raw materials and our natural resources until they are gone. Well, we cannot continue on that rout•� any longer.

We need to be able to develop a socie�f that is not just dependent on our raw materials and our natural resources, but is dependent on th4� intelligence, the ingenuity and the resourcefulnes:s of the people who live there. That is what we need to do when we look at the budgets of this country. We have to have confidence in the people that an� resident in this country and what they will do with an opportunity. We have to create those opportunitie1s by not strangling them with more taxes.

More taxes will simply put them in a position where they will, as they began to do under th•� increasing taxation regime that they see in som•� parts of this country, they begin to say, why should I care? Why should they care? Madam Deputy Speaker,looking atthe economic opportu nities that our young people are going to b•� faced with, and I know it is hard to talk even to my own children about the fact that they have to manage their affairs and husband their resource1s for future requirements, but, nevertheless, they are ready to accept the challenge to deal with that.

The educational opportunities in this provi nce are enormous. When the members opposite talk about wh at is ha pp ening in terms of educational opp or tunities, particularly in our com mu nity colleges, and they point to statistics that seem to indica te something other than what is really happeni ng-they point to statistics that say something different than what is really happening, and they say, look, you have gutted the commun ity colleges. That is what the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) just said.

That is what the member for Dauphin says, and if he believes that, then he is going to be the laughing stock of the constituency of Dauphin, because that is the exact opposite of what is happening.

The people who are looking at the commun ity colleges for challenges and for opportu nities for their young people are finding that the courses that are avai lable now are the courses they need, the courses that are relevant to the future of this province, relevant to the future of the young people who want to go forward and earn a living and be contri butors to this society, and they are now having an opportuni ty to get the type of education that is relevant. After all, Madam Deputy Speaker, we were faced , believe it or not, with a situation where there were welding instructors on staff who did not have class

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	35-4-39
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	35th 4th hansardpdf 39.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	be56e0034ea1529e05054aa28e083086c763d74e

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