Manitoba Committee Hansard — 21 July 1993 (PUNR Committee, Sitting 12, 35th Legislature, 4th Session)

35-4-punr12

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

MG-8048 Fourth Session - Thirty-Fifth Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba STANDING COMMITTEE on PUBLIC UTILITIES and NATURAL RESOURCES 42 Elizabeth II Chairperson Mr. Marcel Laurendeau Constituency of St. Norbert VOL. XLII No . 12 • 9 a.m., WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1993 ISSN 0713-9454

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thirty-Fifth Legislature Members, Constituencies and Political Affiliation NAME ALCOCK, Reg ASHTON, Steve BARRETT, Becky CARSTAIRS, Sharon CERILLI, Marianne CHOMIAK, Dave CUMMINGS, Glen·, Hon. DACOUAY, 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, Clif 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. ORCHARD, Donald, Hon. PALLISTER, Brian PENNER, Jack PLOHMAN, John PRAZNIK, Darren, Hon. REID, Daryl REIMER, Jack RENDER, Shirley ROCAN, Denis, Hon. ROSE, Bob SANTOS, Conrad STEFANSON, Eric, Hon. STORIE, Jerry SVEINSON, Ben VODREY, Rosemary, Hon. WASYL YCIA-LEIS, Judy WOWCHUK, Rosann Vacant Vacant Vacant CONSTITUENCY Osborne Thompson Wellington River Heights Radisson Kildonan Ste.

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

Liberal NDP NDP Liberal NDP NDP PC PC PC NDP NDP PC PC PC liberal PC PC NDP NDP PC PC NDP Liberal PC Liberal PC NDP Liberal NDP PC NDP PC NDP PC PC PC PC PC PC PC NDP PC NDP PC PC PC PC NDP PC NDP PC PC NDP NDP

321 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC UTILITIES AND NATURAL RESOURCES Wednesday, July 21, 1993 TIME-9a.m. LOCATION- Winnipeg, Manitoba CHAIRPERSON- Mr. Marcel Laurendeau (St. Norbert) ATTENDANCE -10- QUORUM- 6 Members of the Committee present: Hon. Mr. Enns Ms. Cerilli, Mrs. Dacquay, Messrs. Gaudry, Helwer, Laurendeau , Penner, Reimer, Sveinson, Ms. Wowchuk Substitution: Ms. Gray for Mr. Lamoureux at 9:40 a.m.

APPEARING: Reg Alcock, MLA for Osborne WITNESSES: Ray Rybuck, Association of Private Land Owners in Manitoba Provincial Parks Ivan Balenovic, President, Manitoba Timber Quota Holders Association Brian Pannell, Canadian Bar Association Jan Greaves, Private Citizen Walter Matlashewski, Private Citizen Herb Peters, Private Citizen Heinrich Mayer, Private Citizen Carol Willson, Private Citizen Barney Kovacs, Executive Director, Mining Association of Manitoba Lyla Shingleton, Private Citizen MATTERS UNDER DISCUSSION: Bill 41 -The Pr ovincial Par ks and Consequential Amendments Act *** Mr.

Chairperson: Will the Standing Committee on Public Utilities and Natural Resources come to order. When the committee last met, it was hearing presentations on Bill 41 , The Provincial Parks and Consequential Amendments Act. I have before me a list of persons' names registered to speak to Bill 41 . For the committee's benefit, a copy of the list has been distributed to each member; also, for the public's benefit, a copy of the list is posted on a board just outside the committee room. For persons making presentations, please check the board for where you are on the list.

If there is anyone else in the audience who is not registered to speak to Bill 41 and would like to do so, please let the staff at the back of the room know and they will add your names to the list. Just a reminder for the committee members and members of the public, the committee has agreed at its previous meeting last night to have a 20-mi nute time limit on presentations, including the qu estion-a nd-answer part as well. I would appreciate the co- operation of committee members and the public in following the limit in order that we may effectively hear from all persons registered to speak.

As well, the committee agreed last night to hear from out-of-town presenters first. If there is anyone here today to speak on Bill 41 and is from out of town, could they inform the Clerk and we will call their names first. I would like to call upon Prasad Gowdar at this time to bring his presentation forward. Prasad Gowdar? Kim Monson. Kim Monson ? John Kro wina. John Kro wina? Jan Greaves. Jan Greaves? Ray Rybuck. Mr. Rybuck, do you have a written presentation? Mr. Ray Rybuck (Association of Private Land Owners In Manitoba Provincial Parks): Yes, I handed it in last night. Mr.

Chairperson: We will just be one second. Go ahead, Mr. Rybuck. Mr. Rybuck: Good morning, Mr. Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen.

322 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21 , 1993 My name is Ray Rybuck, and I am president of the Association of Priv ate Land Owner s in Manitoba Provincial Parks. Our association was formed to protect property rights which the Parks Branch of Natural Resources has been attempting to take away from us since 1984 when they began to assess service fees to private landowners without offering any services, without providing any, without consultation and without a vote.

I might add that in 1984 and to the present there has been no attempt to define the services or to recognize that property owners have rights that are different from those leasing Crown land. Whil e there are less than 400 private landholdings in the parks, taking into account the immediate family members, extended families and property owners in general, our cherishment of property rights is shared by many thousands of people all over the province.

After all, if the government is prepared to deny property rights to us cottagers without any just cause or even a strong excuse, what are they likely to do next and to whom? We feel strongly about this matter; we feel our democratic rights are threatened. If department bureaucrats can foist legislation like Bill 41 on their ministries and obtain their blessing, then indeed democracy is in danger. It is no surprise that the public has lost respect for the political system and public institutions.

I believe that, although what I am going to say to you is on behalf of the members of our association, it could also be taken as the view of fair-minded democratic people and property owners in general throughout Manitoba. Just for a bit of an historical overview, in 1984 the Parks Branch prevailed upon the minister to provide, by regulation under the parks act, that private landowners be subjected to the same service fees as cottagers and Crown leases.

Even though Parks did not provide us with any services and did not consult us, they could not see any difference between the rights of lessees and private landowners. On a number of occasions, when we met wi th park managers to arriv e at some understanding and resolution, we were called fat cats. Some of the park management really believe that all cottagers are wealthy. Their overzealous attitude, often over petty matters, betrays their belief that the people are their servants and not the other way around.

Private landowners organized to oppose the fees because they did not regard them as legal or even fair, and certainly they could not trust the Parks Branch to be fair. The private lands in question date back prior to 1930 when the Province of Manitoba obtained jurisdiction over lands from Ottawa. Many of the properties were acquired as federal land grants, while others were derived under homestead laws, mineral claims, et cetera. All of the holdings predate the setting up of provincial parks.

Most of the current owners have acquired their lots at fair market value, which carried a high price due to the fact the land was not taxed. The private lands in the present park boundaries were never taxed because there was no municipal jurisdiction and consequently no costs and no services. Services such as park roads and boat ramps, whil;h are provided to the general public with funding from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, were not and are not a service to the landowner, but we were willing to pay the park pass where applicable, even though that too was restricting our rights of free access to our properties.

Private landowners hold the right to elect the representatives as a sacred right and are not prepared to accept taxation without representation. After all, property taxes, even if they are called service fees, are a tax for service within the community and exclusively for the benefit of the people taxed and not to be used to operate provincial parks. Landowners have been told on numerous occasions by park field staff as well as directors and program managers that they are not entitled to any service.

One simple example: every time that Park s is grading roads or snowplowing, they systematically avoid the same service to roads in private subdivisions. They simply pass by the subdivisions and have always done that. *

(0910) Having been unable to obtain and having been denie d public services, landowner s forme d community associations long before 1984 for the purpose of governing themselves and assessing themselves for services required, and that way we do pay taxes. Ad mittedly, they are low by comparison with most municipal jurisdictions, but that is because we physically do most of the work ourselves. Taxes vary among municipalities as well based upon the level of service, economic activity and quality of administration. There has

July 21 , 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 323 never been a notion that municipal services and taxes must be equal across the province. We built and maintain our own roads, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of material and labour for shoreline protection and development, docking facilities and ramps. Absolutely none of these expenses are incurred by lessees. Landowners do not want a free ride. They merely want to be treated like all other property owners in the province, that is, the right of representation and to govern themselves in the most efficient way possible.

If good management leads to low costs, that is to our advantage. It does not qualify for sharing with Parks Branch or anyone else unless we choose to make a donation. Service fees under the method implemented by Parks are, in fact, picking our pockets. Service fees by agreement: While the New Democratic government initiated the service fees in 1984, they later recognized the shortcomings and the unfairness, and in September '87 directed the Parks Branch to ask our association to negotiate an agreement for services and fees.

Negotiations in late '87 and early '88 were conducted between Parks Branch and our association in good faith. Key elements of the agreement reached were: private landowners would be entitled to the same services available to cottagers on leased lots, and no new services would be introduced without consultation and agreement; unoccu pied lots would not be subject to a fee; agreement was tor a term of 10 years and to be renewable; fees agreed upon were somewhat lower than those set by regulation and subject to adjustment not more than once each year according to the change in the Consumer Price Index.

Having reached agreement, we were prepared to pay the agreed tees upon approval by provincial governm ent cabine t. The governmen t was defeated in March 1988, and we learned in early '89 that the agreement was not referred to the cabinet or the minister. The reason given by the director of parks was that he had no idea what their services cost, and therefore could not support the fees we negotiated nor the higher fees provided by regulation.

So there is an indi cation that the department has no control of its costs, cannot provide accounting, even though the present act requires that cost of services be recovered. Which means that you have to know what the costs are if you are going to recover them. Yet they unceasingly attempt to administer and tax our property without representation. Mr. Prouse indicated in 1989 that a study of costs and changes in accounting would be undertaken. He assured us that we would be permitted to participate in the study, but that has not happened. Instead, they continued to strive to obtain new powers.

During '89 to '92 we continued our efforts to arrive at some mutual understanding with the minister. We were told that there would be a review of the Parks' requirement for service fees and that the government wanted to have Parks concentrate on operation of parks and leave the matter of cottage services to others. That is the way it should be. We indicated that we would be willing to enlarge the local associations to cover an entire park or significant portions of it, and in that way democratically administer the service program to cottagers.

We were led to believe that a system of self-government would be developed, and we were ready to participate in its formation. We always recognized that we would need to co-operate with Parks, because being within the park we unde rstand that there are cer tain standards to be met and certain things could not be done. So we understand that very well. Such was not to be, however, because Parks Branch had its own agenda. They did not seem to, and do not seem to, want to have their empire constrained. They want to grow in status and power even at the cost of people's property rights. We had Bill 21 last year.

This bill to amend the parks act was introduced by the current minister in February 1992. Honourable Harry J. Enns then stated it was necessary to provide the government with authority to collect service fees and additional fees to those whose chief place of residence is in a provincial park. He complained then that people living within parks did not pay any property tax and utilized services at the expense of others. Nothing could be further from reality, because the facts on park services, municipal services and public school funding tell an entirely different story. Bill 21 was eventually withdrawn.

Let us look at services by Parks Branch. They provide garbage collection, waste disposal sites and road maintenance to cottagers on leased land. Only waste disposal sites are available to cottagers on private land, but usually they take their garbage

324 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21 , 1993 bag home. Garbage collection, road construction and maintenance of roads, inc luding spring snowplo wing, have been refused to private landowners. Private landowners have formed organizations with_in their subdivisions to provide themselv es with services they requ ire. Assessments are made and works organized. Park s Branch col lects service fees from cottagers leasing Crown land, and they are the only landlord that gets away with charging a service fee on top of the land rent.

All cottagers that obtained a lease in order to build a cottage were provided with a road and were promised basic services when the lease was initiated as part of the rented property. This practice continued until 1983 when service fees were introduced to Crown lessees. In a few areas within the parks, private land is adjacent to leased cottage subdivisions, and in such cases, a few private landowners receive basic road service and garbage collection but not by design, rather it is by an inability to omit. Services that are provided to lessees are minimal.

Costs of the parks are incurred for the benefit of the general public and tourists and are the responsibility of all taxpayers and not just cottagers. The real value of cottage services is less than the service fees collected, and that is demonstrated by the fact that parks had agreed to lower fees when we negotiated with them in 1987-88. Municipal services. This minister and parks people before him have suggested that additional fees related to a chief place of residence are requi red because such people obtain free municipal services at the expense of taxpayers within those mu nicipalities.

The fact is that nonresidents do not and cannot avail themselves of any services unless they purchase them. Usually those are commercial services. Municipalities and businesses within them are only too glad to have nonresidents come in to do business with them, because it results in an economic benefit for the community. There is one exception, however, and that is schools. Residents living within parks, on both private and leased lands, are mostly retired people or government employees.

Many retirees may be considered as having their chief place of residence within the park, but in reality they spend much of their time in warmer climates. With few exceptions, they do not have children attending schools, so student populations are not a significant factor. Most non resident students who obtain free education at the expense of the Provincial Treasury come from unorganized territories outside of the parks, many of them from families who lease lots from Indian bands and are therefore not taxed.

There are students from provincial parks attending public schools as follows: From Falcon Lake-West Hawk area, 42 students attend Falcon Lake of Frontier School Division, and from the same area, eight students attend Steinbach. From the north side of the Whiteshell Park, 1 0 students attend Agassiz School Division, and from Clearwater Park and surroundi ng areas 131 nonresident students. Only 25 of those are from Clearwater Park. They attend Kelsey School Division at The Pas. *

(0920) Most of the students from the Falcon Lake-West Hawk area are the provincial government employees who are required to live there due to their employmen t. Other students from the Whiteshell are from families engaged in providing commercial services. Families from Clearwater have, on numerous occasions in the past, offered to pay tuition fees to Kelsey School Division and have been refused. There have been instances where students attended Flin Flon schools and were charged tuition fees.

In the case of students from government employees, the government is required legally as well as morally to ensure educational facilities are available to them. It can do so by directly funding the schools or by adequate remuneration in their salaries. It apparently chose direct funding through the Frontier School Division which operates the Falcon Lake school and compensates Steinbach and Agassiz schools for the other students of the Whiteshell.

Now the reason why Kelsey School Division has been turning down tuition fees that were offered is because un der an agreement between the province and Kelsey for students from Clearwater Park and other areas around The Pas, which is mostly students outside of the park, the province has since 1964 provided special funding to Kelsey School Division to cover that portion of the costs which ordinarily would be raised through local taxation if the student was from a resident family.

July 21 , 19 93 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 325 Because of deliberately choosing to fund the schools directly, school divisions cannot charge tuition fees to nonresident students from parks or elsewhere for that matter. Students from within parks account for a minu te fraction of all nonresident students funded by the province. I have just named a few.

Legislating fees on some families through the parks act will not bring about any fairness or equality with respect to education costs, because the bulk of the education budget is funded through the Consolidated Revenue Fund to which park residents already contribute. In addition, the parks act would not ensure a contribution to education by families who receive free education but live outside of provincial parks. So it is the wrong way to go. School funding.

In the 1991-92 school year, the provincial government spent approximately $750 million to support 68.6 percent of the total of all of the 55 school divisions operating budgets. In addition, the capital budgets are exclusively funded by the province except for insignificant items which the province would not approve. In such cases the cost is handled by fundr aisers and interfund transfers within the school division. Provincial funding principally comes from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which is generated from taxes of every kind, which all citizens are required to pay.

It is, therefore, obvious that legislating a special tax which only a few families would be required to pay could hardly bring about fairness in light of the many thousands of students who are funded by the province but live outside of provincial parks. Example: Frontier School Division operates 37 schools with an operating budget of $48 million, of which it raises only $625,0 00, or 1.3 percent, through local taxation. Back to Service Fees. About four years ago, provincial Parks initiated a case in Small Claims Court to collect service fees from an individual.

When defence counsel arranged to elevate the trial to Court of Queen's Bench, Parks refused to proceed with the case, presumably satisfied that the case would be lost. On numerous other occasions, Parks officials stated they lacked the necessary authority to collect service fees. The minister, in a news release on February 19, '92, introducing Bill 21 to amend The Park Lands Act, admitted that the government lacked authority to collect service fees.

After such an adm issio n, the government con tinu ed the billing in 19 92, foll owed by threatening letters and phone calls from the Parks Branch to those who refused to pay. These efforts of coercion and blackmail were made knowing that the services fees were illegal. There have been instances where Land Titles coerced the owner to pay up the illegal service fees before they would register a land transfer. One particular transfer involved 30 acres of bush land under one title. This land is totally undeveloped, unused and certainly did not and could not utilize any services.

Where and how did Land Titles ob tain the authority to refuse registration of a transfer and thereby aid by blackmail the illegal collection of service fees? Mr. Chairperson: Order, please, Mr. Rybuck. I would just like to inform you, you have two minutes remaining. Mr. Rybuck: This amounted to some $1,700. On March 30, '93, a decision in Small Claims Court in Winnipeg, on application of a Margaret McShane, ruled the service fees illegal, thus confirming our contention since 1984.

Given that blackmail and the coercion were applied in many ways and because the minister admitted they did not have authority, all fees collected should be refunded. Sustainable development. The agenda of the Parks Branch aimed to enhance its status and power at the expense of property owners has been suspected for a long time. It was hidden behind the service fee regulations and was made much more obvious in '92 when the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns) distributed the work paper and questionnaire representing it to be about sustainable development.

This document was supposedly put together by the Manitoba Round Table on Environmen t and Econom y, and is entitled Sustainable Development Workbook on Natural Lands and Special Places. This work paper has six policy areas and recommendations, the last one having to do with changing The Provincial Park Lands Act. A review of the document reveals that the first five policy areas are contrived to provide the reason for changing The Park Lands Act. Clearly, it was written for and by the Parks Branch. The Manitoba

326 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21 , 1993 Round Table would appear to have been hijacked and manipulated to stand behind something the Parks Branch wanted. The hearings conducted all over the province during late 1992 were attended by and, with the exception of the round table panel, were organized by Natural Resources and Parks Branch in particular. The real purpose of the hearings was to assist the Parks Branch in demonstrating that there was a province-wide consultation.

They have analyzed the presentations of those hearings and produced a what-you-told-us booklet, but a request to the minister by our association on May 17, 1993, to provide us with a copy of the full transcript has not been answered. I did get a letter just a few days ago from the minister telling us where it may be seen, but we do not think that is good enough. We should be provided with a copy, especially when one was requested. We believe that the entire exercise about sustainable development is one orchestrated to satisfy whims that have nothing to do with sustainable development.

If it were otherwise, why do we not see real progress on issues directly related to sustainable development first rather than the relatively minor, although repulsive, legislation like Bill 41 , designed to allow the unelected to trample over and wipe their jackboots on property rights. Now Bill 41 , derived from the very expensive proceedings of producing the work paper and the hearings about sustainable development. After such an exhaustive process, taxpayers who constantly hear about financial constraints can justifiably accept solid legislation by which our parks could be governed.

Such is not the case, however. The legislation proposed in Bill 41 is therefore written like a long list of ideas and suggestions but nothing that binds the Parks Branch or the minister to any particular mode of operation. There is nothing in it to ensure that our parks will in fact be protected or enhanced, and there is nothing that will set out at least the ground rules of resource or commercial activity within the parks.

None of the undefined and uncommitted suggestions or ideas contained in Bill 41 are prohibited by the existing Park Lands Act, so it merely depends on whether or not there is a will and commitment to the good intentions. Even though the minister has said that a new act would im prove di rection and accountability, it is not there. The only parts of Bill 41 that are clear and confirm the long suspected agenda of the Parks Branch are those dealing with private property. Here are some examples: the private lands act and the regulations under it apply to private land as well as Crown lands. That is

Section

Section 7( 1) provides that the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council may by regulation designate a land as provincial parks. It does not exclude private land, which may therefore be designated as provincial parkland. This is totally undemocratic, unless the private land is expropriated, under laws now in place. *

(0930) Section 17 provides for powers to control and limit the use of lands and buildings but that such restriction does not constitute a loss or deprivation or a taking of property by government for which a compensation is payable. Now, here is a way to regulate private property into abandonment without need for expropriation, for which compensation is payable.

Section 18 pays lip service to the insistence by property owners that they have a voice in the administration of property, servicing and taxation.

Section 18(1) hints that the Lieutenant-Governor in-Council may, but is not bound to, by regulation designate provincial parks or areas of provincial parks as park districts.

Section 18(2) says when, and this may be never, a park district is established, the minister shall provide owners and occupiers an opportunity to review the estimates and the costs of services in that district. Great, but the minister is not bound to listen. Fur thermore,

Section 18 (3) provides that estimates of costs of services, direct and indirect, including costs of administration, shall be used to determine service fees. So it is all and sundry, anything can be thrown i� Mr. Chairperson: Mr. Rybuck, could I have you stop for just one minute? I would like to advise the committee that Mr. Rybuck has passed the 20 minutes. Is it the will of the committee to allow him to just finish his three pages? Some Honourable Members: Yes.

July 21, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 327 Mr. Chairperson: Okay, carry on, Mr. Rybuck. Mr. Rybuck: With all these additional indirect elements of cost, which may have nothing to do with services, a review of the minister's estimates may be meaningless.

Section 19. After pretending to give the owner and occupants of land a say in the setting of service levels and fees and then obfuscating that process with a reference to indirect and administration costs in

Section 18 ,

Section 19 provides that the Lieu tenant-Gov ernor-in- Council may make regul ations respecting ser vice fees and adjustments thereto for deficits of prior years. So there is no limit on how the bureaucracy can milk the system.

Section 20 provides that financial statements shall be maintained for review of owners and occupiers of land in the park district, which may or may not be established, but does not provide for any criteria as to wh at would con stitute a meaningful accounting. We should be suspect because the present act requir es that Parks recover the cost of service, but they have no idea what the cost is. Here is a violation of the present act, so what is the point of again requirin g accountability that is not defined?

Section 21 provides that owners and occupiers of a chief place of residence within a provincial park should pay a levy to the minister as prescribed by regulation. The regulation, when made, will also define what may constitute a determination of a chief place of residence , interest payable on arrears and requires owners and occupiers to provide any information that the minister may require respecting occupation of land in provincial parks. This surely could be defined in legislation and need not await a regulation. Requir ement to provide information smacks of a police state.

Section 21 (3) states that a levy for a chief place of residence need not be related to the cost of providing services or defraying expenses. In other words, this would be a tax for general purposes, a tax not applied to all property owners in the province. This is extortion from a minority.

Section 22. No matter how unfai rly or dishonestly service fees may be prescribed, this

section woul d enable the minister to issue a certificate for registration in the appropriate Land Titles, a lien against the property for which a fee or levy remains unpaid. The certificate would be registered without due process of the courts, without an affidavit of execution, and the resulting lien may be realized as if it were a mortgage. Here is a process for dispossessing an owner of real property without reference to the courts and without any encumbrance or action taken by the owner to incur such an outstanding.

Section 23 to 26. These sections provide extensive powers for the enforcement of the act and its regulations. Considering that it is also intended to apply to private property which, under this act, would be treated as public property, i.e., provincial parks, it is an unwarranted intrusion into private affairs and a circumvention of common law as well as property laws. It exceeds the powers contained in The Municipal Act, which are operated through the elected administration, as compared to Parks Branch, or unelected and certainly untrained to be masters of the universe.

Section 40 . This

section provides for the amendment of the existing Park Lands Act by making the new provisions of Bill 41 respecting application, collection and enforcement of service fees retroactive. This measure is taken even though The Park Lands Act did not provide for services to private property and did not authorize service fees. A court decision on March 30 confirmed that the collection of service fees was illegal. Furthermore, the minister knew before then that the fees were illegal.

A step in this di rection tells us that the government of Manitoba does not consider itself bound by any laws because if at any time it is proven to operate outside of the law, it will merely alter the law retroactively to make it suit its purpose. Well, can you imagine the implications if such a procedure was used for a government who was proven in court to be in breach of the law for shooting individuals who oppose certain illegal action by the government and the government subsequently changes the law to make such shooting legal when done in support of its own agenda?

In conclusion, Bill 41 is by no means satisfactory to democratic-minded people and certainly not for the adminis tration of private property. It far exceeds reasonable bounds of authority within government without any justification for doing so.

328 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MAN ITOBA July 21 , 1993 A refusal to pay the service fees could never be demonstrated to be an action of disobedience or one of thumbing our noses at government. Rather, it was a refusal based upon our genuine desire to protect our property rights and the rights of generations that follow us. We cannot be blamed for problems the Parks Branch may be having in its financing. Our actions in refusing to pay the service tees were and remain reasonable.

We have demonstrated repeatedly over the last nine years that we are paying our way and are willing to negotiate an agreement tor an arrangement at least that meets the needs and aspirations of the Parks Branch as well as private property owners. We have consistently strived to do that but with little or no response from government or Parks. The only exception was in September '87 when we were invited to negotiate. Bill 41 is very one sided, single purpose and a ruthless piece of legislation that has no place in a democratic society. It should be recognized as such and should be withdrawn promptly.

Our members are fair minded and reasonable people. They have always and remain ready to come to terms with government through their association. All that is needed is we be given a change. In the last few days, there has been indication that we may indeed be negotiating, and we welcome that. Service fees should be eliminated throughout the parks. Lessees and landowners should elect councils through which services can be bought from Parks Branch or others. We should be allowed to participate in decisions respecting park planning, development and operation.

In that way, people would be committed to the decisions they have bought into. The governmen t may feel awkward about backing away from the path it embarked upon and that it is more important to collect the $250,000 it believes is outstanding compared to refunding a simila r amount which it coll ected ill egally. Resolution of this matter should not be determined by desire to save face. Instead, it should be resolved by genuine good will and good intention on the part of both sides to the issue.

There are many more significant examples of waste and poor admini stration, and these can occur in any government, whether intentionally or otherwise, but to regard private landowners within provincial parks as ones who are freeloaders and who have a special advantage of not having to pay taxes to support a high-cost administration is not a matter worthy of major dedication of effort. There are many other particular kin ds of advantages enjoyed by other specific segments of our society which are not available to all segments.

To try to correct every kind of known or perceived difference from the norm is beyond our abilities. Even if we as a society attempt to go back to the beginning and attempt to reinvent the wheel, we will fail to achieve an absolute balance. The Soviet Union tried it and failed. Let us dedicate our efforts to more noble options. At the very least, the overzealous ambitions of parks management must be reigned in. If ministers do not control their departments, we certainly cann ot allo w the departments to govern them. Thank you. Mr. Chairperson: Thank you very much, Mr. Rybuck. *

(0940) Committee Substitution Mr. Nell Gaudry (St. Boniface): Mr. Chairperson, I move, seconded by the memb er for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray), with the leader of the com mittee, that the honour able member for Crescentwood replace the honourable member for Ink ster (Mr. Lamoureux) as a member of the Standing Committee on Public Utilities and Natural Resour ces , effective July 21, with the understanding that the same substitution will also be moved in the House to be properly recorded in the official records of the House. Mr. Chairperson: Is that agreed? [agreed] *** Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr.

Rybuck, for your presentation. There were no questions. We have one out-of-town presenter. We have agreed to hear the out-of-town presenters. So at this time we are going to hear from this out- of- town presenter, Mr. Ivan Balenovic. Mr. lvan Balenovlc (President, Manitoba Timber Quota Holders Association): I have had a fairly rushed morning. We had about a 30 -kno t headwind, so I was running late. Thank you very much for seeing me first. I am here on behalf of the Manitoba Timber Quota Holder s Association. My name is Ivan Balenovic. I am the president of that association.

July 21, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 329 Our membership includes the southeast, the Interlake, the mountain quota holder associations, and we represent timber quota holders throughout the provi nce. In Manitoba our ind ustry is responsible for one job in 45 . This number is significantly higher in rural Manitoba. We understand that this committee will hear many concer ned and interested Manitoban's during this process, and we will therefore try to be brief and concise. Our comments will be limited to issues as they pertain to harvesting of timber in provincial parks.

Timber quota holders in Manitoba are generally supportive of Bill 41. On the surface it appears to address concerns of many groups that have an interest or a stake in provincial parks. It is, of cour se, one of those issues that may have conflicting points of view. There are many different types of values within a park. Some values are easier to identify and quantify than others, but that in itself is not necessarily the deciding factor. We in the fores t prod ucts indus try fully understand many of the values and benefits of parks. Most of us live in rural Manitoba in close proximity to one or more parks.

Our families spend much of their leisure time enjoying the recreational benefits that parks have to offer. We also understand .the important economic benefit that provincial parks offer to our industry and to the provi nce. The major ity of our employmen t is in rural areas wher e job opportunities are limi ted. The primary wood products industry is a vital component to the economic base of a number of rural Manitoba communities. The second paragraph of the

Preamble in Bill41 refers to the principles of sustainable development. We su pport the concept that sus tainable development is a common-sense approach to economic growth, environmental protection and human health which recognizes the strong connection between the health and well-being of people, the environment and the strength of the economy. It meets the needs of the present without compromising the ab il ity of futur e generations to meet their own needs. As operators, we continue to be sensitive to the principles of sustainable development.

Many of the now provincial parks have been logged by our industry for over 1 00 years. For them to still be considered as natural and pristine areas is indeed a compliment to our industry. Sound forest management techniques are required both within and outside provincial park boundaries. When a tree becomes mature, diseased, damaged by wind or hail or infested by insects, it should be harvested to generate jobs instead of being left to die and become a fire hazard.

Let us be sure to continue to benefit with the wise use of our forest resources rather than allow them to deteriorate to a point where they will become an economic bur den. Sound forest management based on the principles of sustainable development can and will enhance opportunity for new growth and generally contribute to a healthy forest, while at the same time reduce the risk of wildfire. Bill 41 provides for the classification of provincial parks. Restrictions in parks that are currently important to the forest indus try could have a devastating impact on the social and economic conditions in certain regions.

These classification decisions carry with them enormous consequences that must be made responsibly. Because it is our lives that may be most directly affected, we must be involved in that process. The bill also provides for land use categories, and we are certainly cognizant of the fact that there are specific sites that should be protected because of their natural, cultural, recreational or heritage value. We will continue towards helping to identify these areas and recommend appropriate land use categories. We note that under

Section 9 the bill provides for an opportunity for public consultation and will seek advice about proposed regulations. The Manitoba Timber Quota Holders Association makes itself available to the process in the hopes that we can play a key role in helping to shape the future of Manitoba's provincial parks. We appreciate this opportunity to address the committee. The wise use of our natural resources based on the fun dam entals of sustainable development can meet the needs of all Manitobans now and in the future. We must work together to achieve and maintain the goals of sustainable development.

Our collective future depends on it. Thank you. Mr. Chairperson: Thank you very much. Would you mind taking just a couple of questions?

330 LEGISLAT IVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21, 1993 Mr. Balenovlc: No, not at all. Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Thank you very much, and thank you for making the trip in from Swan River to make your presentation. When we were hearing presentations last night, there were people who said that this legislation would lead to more conflict between those people who were involved in the logging industry and those who were opposed to activity in the parks.

Do you see this bill as leading to conflict, and also a second part of the question is, how do you see this bill benefitting those people who are in the logging industry? Mr. Balenovlc: Currently many companies, such as the company I work for, are dependent on resource extraction from provincial parks. The Duck Mountain Park, which is an area that you are familiar with, Ms. Wowchuk, is an area that has been harvested, in one of my examples, for over a hundred years.

The potential threat, that that type of activity might cease, is probably more harmful to industry because it makes us a little bit weary of capital investments, in the area of not knowing if that resource will be available to us in the future or not. That to me is probably the largest benefit if the park is determined to be classified as a natural park, for example, and lim ited resource extraction is allowed.

I think that the confidence in resource availability to the company would help industry invest in their companies, whether it be expansion or modernization or value added or just being able to better utilize the resource. Ms. Wowchuk: One of the concerns that has been raised is the need for the 12 percent set-aside, and I know that there has been a lot of work done by groups in the area to identify areas that can be set aside in their natural state in the Duck and Porcupine Moun tains.

Is your association in support of setting-are you doing any work to identify areas that can be set aside, that will not be logged at all in the future? Mr. Balenovlc: The 12 percent is an issue that we are in support of in concept. Whether it is exactly 12 percent, we do not believe that is a number that people should hang their hat on. In some instances, in some regions, perhaps it should be more; in some regions, perhaps it should be less. Again, a region that you are familiar with is the western uplands su rrou nding Swan River, encompassing the Duck Mountain, the Porcupine Mountain and the Ri di ng Mountain.

In that example, I think the Riding Mountain National Park, which should qua lify under the Brundtland Commis sion as under the 12 percent rule , it encompasses more than 12 percent of that region. We do not believe that that should be the limiting factor. We know that there are areas in the Duck Mountains, like the Roaring River Canyon, for example, that our people are familiar with, our quota holders, I should say. We believe that those areas should also be set aside. So I think the reverse would also be true in perhaps other areas, where it may be a little under the 12 percent. *

(0950) Ms. Wowchuk: Did your association spend much time lobbying the government to bring in this bill? Did you feel it was so difficult to work under the previous parks act that you had to have changes, and did you do work with the government? Did you lobby for these changes? Mr. Balenovlc: Well, as the president of the association, I wish I could take credit for doing that. Unfortunately, we were not involved in the process at all and none of the quota holders that I am familiar with were involved in the process.

The area of concern has always been the threat of the possible restriction of logging in provincial parks. That is one issue we have probably lobbied fairly strongly on, being sure that areas that rely on resource extraction from provincial parks are not adversely affected by the restriction of logging in the parks. Ms. Wowchuk: I am looking through trying to find a previous presenter. I canno t find the presentation right now, but one of the people who spoke last night also indic ated that it was unrealistic to have parks called parks and still have logging in them.

She suggested that they perhaps should be called resource reserves and that parks should be moved, have parks designated in another area. Do you think that by identifying areas that would be used for logging it would be more useful to identify them as resource reserves rather than trying to identify them as parks and have the conflicts but also identify certain areas as parks that would not be logged at all?

July 21, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 331 Mr. Balenovlc: Well, the naming of the specific area, I am not sure how significant that is. I would again use an example of the Duck Mountain Provincial Park, which was initially a forest reserve established for the purpose of sustaining industry in the Swan Valley region, Roblin, in that whole area.

Had the industry had an inkling back then that today there was a possible question of restricting logging in that area, I am sure that there would have been a lot of lobbying taking effect to make sure that the area was never called a park, but the park was postage stamped right in the middle of the forest reserve. The industry respected that. Th ere are certain regions that are high recreational use zones that the industry stays away from and respects other areas that there are conditional type of harvesting activities taking place. We have not had a problem with that.

If the thinking is that all parks should be zero commercial resource extraction activities, then I would suggest that there are many parks that should not be called parks, and they should be called forest reserves or resource reserves. Ms. Wowchuk: I would just like to thank Mr. Balenovic for his presentation. I want to say that I understand. I have lived in the area for all my life and I understand the need for these activities and the economic value to the area. There will be difficulties in working out how we can continue to have both the economic development and also have recreational areas. Hon.

Harry Enns (Minister of Natural Resources): Thank you, Mr. Balenovic. Was it not just about a year ago that you and I were on the banks of the Seal River at this time of the year, at the end of the session? Good to see you again, Ivan. Mr. Balenovlc: Good to see you. Mr. Enns: Just a clarification on the question that the member for Swan River, Ms. Wowchuk, raised. It was indeed suggested by another member, Mr.

Storie from Flin Flon, late last night that industry, or we would be better served if we just carried on as we currently are carrying on if the act simply remained silent about resource extraction in the parks. In fact, we are being criticized for being, quite frankly, up front and honest about it, and I am in terested in the concept of-and I do not particularly take umbrage at the fact that perhaps we should not call these regions parks anymore.

So, if there is serious consideration by the community that we depark these areas and call them resource areas, that is going to be given serious consideration, but the question I want to ask you as a representative of the forestry industry: How does that impact on your industry whether it is, in this case, forestry or mining, whether or not we kind of salve our collective conscience about it and are silent about it, but knowing all the time that it is an activity that is frowned upon and is being challenged? Does that add to any stability within your industry?

Does that give you any degree of confidence to make the necessary investments to maintain the industry as you require it from time to time? Mr. Balenovlc: Mr. Minister, as I mentioned in my presentation, do not undervalue the fact that our industry has been logging for over 100 years in certain parks, and as I said in my presentation, that if those parks are the areas that are now considered as natural and pristine, we believe that could continue for the next 100 years, and 1 00 years from now they would still be considered as natural and pristine areas.

The fact that there is any question at all about the possible restriction of logging in the parks makes the industry very insecure. I know that, for the company that I work for, it would have an impact of several jobs and would make us a part-time operation. We currently run 12 months of the year. We would probably end up running eight months of the year. I am not saying that we would close down and all go home, but 75 percent of our employees certainly would. In just our company alone that represents maybe 150 people when you consider the contractors.

Unless we are misunderstanding the process in regard to Bill 41 , we are under the impression that by putting this on the table there will be a decision made once and for all that, yes, this park is a park where you can extract resources, and we can count on that and plan on that in the. future. I think if they said you cannot do it, well, then we will plan accordingly, and we will just scale down and we will do that. But living in that area of not knowing is probably the worst thing. Mr. Enns: Thank you, Mr. Balenovic. Ms. Marianne Cerllll (Radisson): Thank you for your presentation.

It is interesting, the comments that you just made at the end, that if an area was

332 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21 , 1993 designated as prohibited from resource extraction, then you wo uld jus t look elsewh ere. I am interested in seeing how your organization views this bill changing the way that competing interests or land use allocation will be designated. Mr. Balenovlc: Just to clarify. When I said we would look elsewhere, I was not referring to that we would look for resources elsewhere because that is not a possibility in most any region of Manitoba. I mean, you are limited to a certain proximity to your mill in order to keep product com ing in at a reasonabl e cos t .

What I meant by lo oking elsewhere is, I meant we would have to look elsewhere as a business concept. In regard to the second part of your question, I think that we have been involved in-a nd I am not sure I want to use the words "conflicting interest," because I think we have been able to work side-by side with many of the other interests in parks currently, whether it is recreationai use or sites, as I mentioned, that have a heritage value or cultural value. So I do not necessarily see that any of that would change.

I only see that now it would be something that we could-it would be on a piece of paper and we could look at it and say, you know, we know where we are going in the future. Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Balenovic. Mr. Balenovlc: Thank you very much. Mr.

Chairperson: I woul d lik e to advise the committee that when I opened up the committee proceedings, I advised the committee as well as the presenters that I was going to be dealing with out-of-town presenters first, and we had two presenters who left the room to take care of some business, thinking that we would be a few minutes before we started on the actual list, and that was Mr. Jan Greaves and John Krowina. Mr. Krowina was not here, but he was being represented by Mr. Pann ell, representing the Canadian Bar Association, Manitoba Branch, Environmental Law Section.

At this time I would ask if it is the will of the committee that I just revert to those two names. * (1 000) Point of Order Mrs. Louise Dacquay (Seine River) Well, just on a point of order, Mr. Chairperson, our rules have always been that we go through the list in the order here, and that the names then move to the bottom of the list. I have no problem hearing Mr. Pannell this morning, but in the interest of fairness there were people sitting in this room at 1 0 to nine and then he would supersede their presentation.

I think, in the interest of fairness, my preference would be that we continue through the list, and we agree to hear Mr. Pannell closer to the time when we have committee rise, or at least as one of the presenters this morning. Ms. Wowchuk: I think, as you indicated, you had said that you were going to hear out-of-town presenters first, and it was anticipated that it would be some time since there were two out-of-town presenters.

You read through the list anyway before you heard those out-of-town presenters, so I think it would be fair to revert to those two names sinc3 we were of the impression that out-of-town presenters would be heard first, and then we would begin the list. Ms. Cerllll: I think last night there was also an example where someone was just out in the hall and missed their name being called and then came back right away, and they were allowed to speak. I think, rather than keeping people here who were up on the list, that we can hear them. Mr.

Chairperson: So it is agreed then that I will call these two names back? [agreed] *** Mr. Chairperson: Okay, at this time I will call on John Krowina, but I understand that it is Mr. Pannell representing the Canadian Bar Association. I apologize to you for before, but there is an order that we do operate the committee, and I appreciate your assistance. Mr. Brian Pannell (Canadian Bar Association): I understand, and it is hard for us to figure out how to break in and get your attention, so you have done very well. I appreciate the consideration that you have given. Mr. Chairperson: We have the presentation. Mr.

Pannell: Yes. Let me begin by saying that because the Bar Association has not been able to move with the same swiftness as the Legislature, this must be considered a draft at this point in time, and if you wish to consider it the work of John Krowina and my self, that is fine. It will be consider ed by the Manitoba envir on mental subsection of the Canadian Bar Association, and when it is finalized, I will send copies to you.

July 21 , 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 333 Let me begin by saying that overall I think this bill is unfortunate. It does not really represent the kind of legislation that one would like to see entering the 19 90s or close to the next century . It is anthropocentric, that is, human-focused. There is really no emphasis on animals and plants for their own right. One would expect a change for a parks act in the direction of giving more intrinsic value to things that are not human. It has very little in the way of protection of those plants and animals in the park.

One would have thought a parks act would have done those things. Its restrictions on activity even in the most restricted areas, which is wilderness areas, is quite modest. You can still, for example, set up a manufacturing plant in a wilderness area. One wonders why that would be, you know. Should we call it, rather, industrial parks instead of wilderness parks. I think these are reasonably debatable issues, given the way this act presently reads. The brief that you have before you sets out mostly suggested amendments, and I might say that we did not come to these amendments from an idealistic perspective.

We tried to incorporate what the government's agenda is and make suggestions which were consistent with what the government is attempting to do, even though, for the most part, we do not agree with that. So these amendments are attempting to improve

an act consistent largely with government policy and principles and direction. I would like to go through them in some detail so that you understand them. Recommendation 1 deals with two new WHERE ASes that might be added to the beginning of the act. The first one would be,

WHEREAS nonhuman biota are valued both intrinsically and for their contribution to sustaining human existence. So what this would do is add a value to animals and to plants that presently does not appear anywhere in the act. So instead of having the present anthropocentric act that we have, it would say, there is a value to plants and animals all by themselves. That is what that WHERE AS would do. The second

WHEREAS reads, and

WHEREAS the provision of wilderness habitat undisturbed by consu mptive human use is a necessa ry prerequisite to the well-being of Manitoba's biota and people. That is along the lines of the same one, just saying that not only is biota intrinsically valuable but, therefore, the wilderness and the habitat that supports it is also intrinsically valuable. Going on to recomme ndation 3, because recommendation 2 is just a language correction, assuming you adopt the first recommendation, recommendation 3 incorporates the goal of the 12 percent protected areas.

Nowhere in the act do we find a place where the 12 percent, which I might add is supposed to be a minimum, is actually stated. Now, the policy of the province of Manitoba is in fact to comply with the Brundtland Commission Report and try and find at least 12 percent of lands to set aside for protected purposes. One would have expected the parks act, which is our, parks are to the extent that they provide some protection for our most protected areas. They are not very protective, as you know from the discussions here. Some of them provide some protection, but they are as close as we get as a society.

Since parks are that, one would have thought that we would try and build in this notion of trying to get protection for 12 percent into the parks act at least as a goal. So this WHER EAS reads, and

WHEREAS the province intends to protect at least 12 percent of our natural lands as recommended in the United Nations report, Our Common Future, and parts of the provincial parks system will offer this protection. You will note, I have said that parts, because it is clearly the government's intention to differentiate amongst parks, and some parks will offer extensive protection and others will not. Consequently I have left it as parts of the park system. It would seem to me that is consistent with government policy and capable of being incorporated into the act.

Recom mend ation 4 deals with the last WH ERE AS that is presently in the act, and it suggests deleting the last phrase which reads, and appropriate economic opportunities are provided. I think it is fair to say that the envir onmen tal comm uni ty consider s the high emphasis on eco nomi c opportunities in the park, whil e consistent with what the government expects to be happening in the park, too much. It is too much emphasis and sounds like you want the parks to be economic drivers of the nation. That, perhaps, is more emphasis than is necessary.

In that WHER EAS, there is already a reference to sustainable development, and one wonders

334 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21 , 1993 whether that might suffice. So I have deleted the phrase, and appropriate economic opportunities are provided, and rely instead on the phrase, sustainable development, which is already in that WHE REAS. Later, I make a recommendation to define sustainable development and draw the definition directly out of the Brundtland Commission Report and hope that that will suffice to set the goals along economic development lines, but less harshly than this wording does. *

(1010) Recommendation 6 on page 2 deals with the ded ication in the act. The act is presently dedicated to the peoples of Manitoba and peoples visiting Manitoba. Just as before in the

WHEREAS clauses, I recommended that we take a less anthropocentric view of things. Similarly, in the dedication paragraph, perhaps we could dedicate the parks as well to biota, since that is, in fact, what we are trying to protect. That suggested wording is, provincial parks are dedicated to the biota and people of Manitoba and the world and should be maintained and made use of so as to leave them unimpaired for the benefit of future generations of biota and people. Recommendation 7 is a technical change in the wording. It deals with

Section 5 of the act.

Section 5 is the purposes of the act. Just to make sure that it is very clear that the purposes are not all to be ascribed to every park, because not every park is expected both to be a place for the preservation of genetic diversity and for economic development, I have changed the wording so that it reads, the purposes of the provincial parks system are. So there is only really the parks system as a whole that is expected to carry all four of these purposes. Any one park would only carry some fraction of these purposes. Similarly, I have made a change to item (

d) which is, again, the economic opportunities purpose. I have suggested that the economic opportunities purpose be written so that it is made consistent with the previous three purposes. So the recommendation reads, to provide restricted economic opportunities consistent with (a), (

b) and (c). In fact that is what the act does later in

Section 7(3)(c). Remember that a variety of economic opportunities are not available in wilderness parks, and certain designations of categories are not available for wilderness parks, and for all the remaining category designations, they must be consistent with the purposes of the act, pursuant to 7(3)(c). So better to be up front about it in 7(

d) and say that the economic opportunities must be consistent with the other purposes of the act. This is really no change, but it puts it further up in the act. The one change that is added here is the word "restricted," and I think it would be a useful modifier to your use of economic development. It is in fact what you do through the act. You are restricting development in a number of ways and it would again take the harshness out of the constant emphasis of economic development in the parks. Recommendation 9 would be changes to Clause 7(2)(

a) and it would read, a wilderness park, if the main purpose of the designation is to preserve or recreate wilderness areas. I rater you to the bill, and 7(2) is that provision which sets out the classifications of different kinds of parks. However, there is some problematic wording, I think, in a number of these descriptions. The first one says, a wilderness park. If the main purpose of the designation is to preserve large areas of our natural region, well, I do not understand why it would be limited to large regions. I do not even know what large means.

Large is a relative term, very difficult to use in legislation. It has to be relative to some reference point to know what large is. If you do not have a reference point, then large has virtually no meaning, but even if you could have a reference point, why would you restrict wilderness parks only to large areas? Why woul d it not be whatever area is deemed appropriate by the professionals in the field?

So I would highly recommend you remove the modifier "large." That is partly what the recommen dation does, but it also goes further and says, you do not just want to preserve wilderness regions, there are some that you want to recreate. We have examples in Manitoba of wilderness areas that have been recreated, so why not use that kind of language-- recreate, rehabilitate. The result is again, and I will read the recommendation, a wilderness park, if the main purpose of the designation is to preserve or recreate or rehabilitate wilderness areas.

July 21 , 19 93 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 335 The last change there, so you note, is, I have changed the wording "natural region" to "wilderness areas." Recommen dation 10 deals with the same

section , bu t (b) , which is the natural park description. Here I think it is fair to say that while you have taken generally a step process, calling one region one thing and then when its char acteristics change calling it something different, there are sorts of jumps made and this is the first jump. Here you not only have a goal of protecting preserved areas, but you also want to permit resource use and recreational opportunities. Well, resource use is a step up from recreational opportunities.

I would have thought that the next category excluded resource use and dealt with only natural areas preservation and recreation. You give a name to that and then you would have another categorization for those two things, plus resource use. So you are actually taking a stepped approach. This one jumps over and adds two categories, instead of one at a time. My suggestion therefore would be that national parks only permit natural region preservation and recreation.

You create instead a third category of park, that then goes on to have resource use in addition, so you actually have an incremental approach, because I think that there will be parks where you do not want to have both recreation, resource use and the protection of the species in the park. So that comes through recommendation 11, and I suggest we call it a multiple-use park, which I guess is the issue that has been circulating around the committee for a little while.

I do not care what the name is, frankly, but it should be different and it should be less in stature than a natural park because you are adding resource use. Recommendation 12 takes us to subsection 7(5), or what I woul d propose to be 7(5), added immediately after 7(4) in the bill. 7(4) tells us that land in a wilderness park may be categorized only in the wilderness, heritage or access land use categories.

Again, assuming that we restrict natural parks to only protection of the park itself and recreational opportunities, then I would think you also want to restrict the land use categories that would apply to natural parks, and so 7(5) would restrict the land uses in a natural park to the same list in 7(4) but with the addition of recreational uses and then what is not permitted again in natural parks would be resource use. I believe all these changes to be consistent with the thesis that the act sets out but to be decided improvements on the way it is carried out.

Recommendation 13 refers to what is presently Clause 7(5)(

a) and that sets out a list of things that cannot happen in wilderness parks and that list includes logging, mining, development of oi l, petroleum, natural gas or hydroelectric power. The first comment is that this is a very short list. Wilderness parks are going to be at the top of the parks pyramid and granted the greatest protection. If this is as short as the list is, it is very poor protection indeed-very poor protection. Again, I gave the example right at the beginning of this discussion of manufacturing. Is there any real good reason why you want to permit manufacturing in a wilderness park?

If not, let us add it to the list. Is there any real good reason why you want to put multilane highways through a wilderness park? If not, let us add to the list any highway greater than two lanes. Is there any reason why you want to put 500 kv power lines through a wilderness park? If not, then let us add electrical lines, you know, greater than 60 kv. There is a whole host of things that you should consider add ing to this. I have limi ted my comments to those three. I think you should press yourselves, because if you do, you will get some credit for it.

Right now the bill is considered, essentially, an abomination by the environmental commu nity. Why not try and smooth some feathers. Adding to this list, which is the most protected area, would go some ways toward doing that. I do not know if you want to go as far as hunting and that sort of thing, but that, of course, would be- those would be big changes favourable to the act.

Again, assuming that you· want to limit natural parks and create another category when you add resource use, limit natural parks to environmental protection and recreation opportunities, then you should have a list and, I would say, the same list that applies to natural parks. That would be consistent with the suggested amendments of creating a different approach for natural parks. *

(1020) 336 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21 , 1993

Section 9 of the act sets out an equivalency process for using the Clean Env ironment Commission when a development in a park will cause The Environment Act to come into effect. I think that is a good provision, but I think that we should use The Environment Act more frequently than that, and in particular when you want to downgrade the status of a park. You would have heard a number of occasions now when people said, is this act a place to remove parks? There was a fellow here, who works for the department, last night, in the heritage department. He said, I am suspicious about the combination in

Section 35,

Section 7,

Section 8; is this a way of pillaging parks, of getting rid of parks? He apparently thought that was a significant possibility, and the act does permit that possibility. Whether it is true or not is inconsequential. It is an important decision when you increase the number of uses that park permits, and if you are going to do that, I suggest to you, that is a significant enough decision that it should attract The Environment Act.

So I propose adding a provision that says- well, I will read it first- any redesignation of a provincial park from one to another of the cla ssifications pursuant to subsection 7(2) or from one to another of the land-use categories pursuant to subsection 7(3) that increases the permitted land uses in the parks shall be considered a Class 2 development for the purposes of The Environment Act. I think here this is the idea. I do not believe it actually captures the fellow's concern whom I am referring to.

The point is, if you are going to increase the uses in a park, whether it is an existing park under the present act or whether it is a park created under these regulations, if you are going to increase the uses by regulation then that regulatory decision should go off to Clean Environment Commission as a development. If you do that, you will create a great deal more happiness because it will be deem ed as an objective control and sub jective decision mak ing to decrease the functioning of parks. Recommendation 15 concerns paragraph 10. Paragraph 1 0 sets out regulations that can be made by the minister.

These regulations have a wide impact potentially, and so I recommend adding an objective test to the minister's discretion. The objective test would be added right at the end at the conclusion of the paragraph and read: "provided that such regulations conform with the main purpose of the park cl assification as described in subsection 7(2)," so that the minister's power to make regulations would be curtailed to the extent that they had to be consistent with the purpose of the park.

That is not inconsistent with the theme of the act and is again one of the things that gives comfort to people concerned about this act. I do not think it is different from the intention of the drafters of the act either. Recommendation 16 would go a long way to making this act a more positive act overall and again giving com fort to the environmen tal community without, I do not think, prejudicing the intention of government. What it would do is create an offence to take out plants or animals from the park. There is nowhere in this act that says it is an offence to remove plants or animals from provincial parks.

If these are protected areas, that is what we want to make them and that is what we have been talking about, even though it is not codified in the act that we are trying to make these protected areas. If that is the practicality, why do we not make it an offence for people who are tramping off with plants and animals? Then if you want to have exclusions, you have it already built in, the regulatory power to create exceptions, and then you are beginning to have

an act that maybe sounds like it is in the 21st Century. Mr. Chairperson: Mr. Pannell, I just wanted to advise you, you have two minutes left of the 20, but carry on. Mr. Pannell: Thank you. The text that you have on this point reads, no person shall remove any plant or animal from a park except in accordance with this act. And I might add, which you do not have before you, something else that reads, nor plant nor introduce a foreign species, which is the reverse side of the coin. You do not take them out and you do not bring them in. Those would be my recomm endations.

I understand you are on time limits, but I have noticed in the past you have been prepared to amend those time limits and for the purposes of qu estions only, if you have them, I would be prepared to answer any questions. Mr. Chairperson: We have time for one question. Is there a question for Mr. Pannell? Mr. Enns: I will certainly defer to the members of the opposition to ask the question. I just wanted to

July 21 , 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 337 express my appreciation to Mr. Pannell for his presentation. My Parks director is present and we have, of course, the availability of the transcript of these comments to peruse and from that we will look at them with a great deal of seriousness. I also appreciate that, as you indicated in your introduction, you probably are among those who consider this bill an abomination. I regret that.

It is not a view universally shared, I might say, within the environmental community, but I appreciate nonetheless, in my judgment, your approaching your job before this committee in the proper way, that is, still giving your best advice as how to make a bill a better bill, without compromising your position with respect to your acceptance or nonacceptance of the bill. I appreciate that kind of a presentation. Thank you, Mr. Pannell. Ms. Cerllll: Thank you for your presentation.

I am interested in hearing more about the difficulties or the results of some of the conflicts in the bill, some of the things that you outlined where part of the bill is saying to protect a certain area and then there are also provisions for economic development. What kind of results can we expect from this bill if it was challenged in court? Mr. Pannell : Well, I think the problem is that this bill is not easily challenged in court, and it offers very little protection for parks. The list, as I said in I think it is

Section 7(5), is extremely short. Yes, you could go to court and you could keep a mine out of a wilderness park, maybe, because there are other provisions that say that there is discretion to set land uses, and maybe there is some uncertainty in some of the provisions there, but I do not know why you want to create a system that works that way. * (1 030) I think that the government has said there should be a hierarchy of parks. All right. Let us accept that. There should be a hierarchy of parks from the most protected to the least protected. Well, then, let us actually do that.

Let us set the most protected and let us make sure the most protected are protected from just about everything, at least everything bi g- this li st does not even hit everything big and significant-and then go on down the list. That is why I had suggested that there are more incremental stages than this bill permits as you go from most protected down the list. So there is very little protection the bill presently offers and there is very little that anyone could do to go to court to obtain greater protection. One would hope that changes will be made to correct those things. Mr.

Chairperson: Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr. Pannell. Mr. Pannell: Thank you very much. Mr. Chairperson: We will now call on Mr. Jan Greaves. Sorry I missed you the first time, Mr. Greaves. Mr. lan Greaves (Private Citizen): That is fine. Mr. Chairperson: We have already got your presentation being handed out. You can just carry forward. Mr. Greaves: Good mo rning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jan Greaves. In Manitoba, as elsewhere in North America, lands that once supported wildlife are increasingly being conver ted to agricultur al, industria l , commercial and residential uses.

As a result, plant and animal populations are rapidly diminishing. One way that Canada and the Province of Manitoba has acted to safeguard portions of our remaining wildlife is to establish parks. Some of these parks are managed for the needs of flora and fauna that depend on them. The intention is to provide an abundance and diversity of wildlif e services in perpetuity for the use and enjoyment of all Canadians. I am here this morning because I view Bill 41 as a threat to our Manitoba provincial parks. If this bill becomes law, Manitoba parks will become, without a doubt, endangered spaces.

Bill 41 is a legal mandate to log in our natural parks. Passage of this bill could doom large parts of Nopiming, Duck Mountain, Whiteshell, Grass River and Asessippi Parks.

Section 7.2(b ) : "a natural park, if the main purpose of the designation is both to preserve areas of a natural region and to accommodate a diversity of recreation and rE!source uses." With the greatest areas in a number of our parks coming under this definition, a large percentage of our parks will be threatened. This makes the whole act a big concern to me, and I feel that we should scrap our provincial park syste m with words li ke "resource uses."

Section 5(d): "to provide economic opportunities in accordance with park classifications and land use categor ies. " This is not an appropriate

338 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21 , 1993 management principle for parks. Economics should be a by- product from parks, not the sole purpose. All Manitobans should have the enjoyment of parks, not the economic purposes to which they have to.offer. Asessippi Provincial Park is such a park where a commercial development will degrade it from a natural to a recreational park. This park is located in the Westman Parkland of Manitoba. At present, sections of this park are under a threat by a proposed ski hill. This ski hill is planned for the southeast

section of the park. As I have mentioned earlier, economics should be a by-product of a park, not the sole purpose of its existence. This proposed ski hill will have nine ski runs; these are 75-to-1 00-foot-wide cross-country ski trails, a 75,000- square-foot parking lot, 6,000-to-8,000 square-foot ski lodge, and to be developed later in the life of this project, year-round facilities to enhance the cultural history of the region. The proposed site of this ski hill is an excellent habitat for birds. Such a site is rare in the rest of the province, and indeed, in the country.

As part of the environmental impact assessment study, a breeding bird survey was done by George Holland of Planned Environment Services Ltd., and this was compl eted in Jun e of '92 . This sur vey discovered that of 93 species of birds recorded in the park, 35 of these species had 152 established and defended territories within the area of the proposed development. A large number of these species are neotropical songbirds.

These are species that breed in the temperate North America, then migrate south to spend their winters in what is known as the neotropics or New World tropics: the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, Central and South America. There is evidence that there had been at least 43 species nested in the area. The tall, old forest canopy offered ideal habitat for woodpeckers, vireos, orioles, great crested flycatchers and hawks. The ground cover and understory offered optimum habitat for these birds. Along the river bottom land, the habitat provided a suitable environment for a number of species.

The dense understory is an area ideal for sheltering and protecting small songbirds. All across North America, scie ntists have determined that the population of neotropical birds is steadily declining. Many of the forest songbirds have declined at a rate of 2.3 percent per year, a rate that will rapidly deplete their populations. Several explanations have been suggested:

a) habitat loss and increase in habitat fragmentation in the breeding range due to inc reased human impact, especially agricultural, residential, and urban development; (

b) increased nest predation, cowbirds and predators;

c) deforestation in the wintering grounds in neo-tropical immigrants; (

d) complexes of factors that predispose certain taxonomic groups to decrease in response to several kinds of human-caused environmental changes. In the appendix, I provide a listing of the 35 species found in the area of the proposed ski hill. I included the species name, yearly median, as well as tt 1e overall percentage increase or decrease of that species in Manitoba from '66 to '89.

This data was provided by the Breeding Bird Survey, an organization of professional and amateur birders across North America who have systematically and diligently collected information on bird abundance each year for 27 years, up to '93. The Breeding Bird Survey had confirmed the basic link between bird and forest. Our massive global removal of forest is depleting our bird life. Please note that a very large percentage of the birds in Asessippi have shown a downward trend in Manitoba for the past 23 years.

For example, the yellow-bellied sapsucker, minus 87 percent; the veery, minus 72; the white-throated sparrow, minus 69 percent. You might well ask if any of these birds are endangered, threatened or uncommon. Some of these species fit into all three of these categories. The Bachman warbler fit into all three of these categories. This bird is now extinct. Indiv iduals have asked me, if the trees are removed to accommodate the ski hill, could the birds go somewhere else? Well, the area adjacent to the proposed ski hill is similar terrain.

It must be assumed that similar habitat in close proximity is already used to capacity by other individuals of the same species. Therefore, these birds will be under more stress by fighting for territory and competing for food. Why should we care about this wilderness in Asessippi, Duck Mountain, Nopiming, Grass River or Porcupine Provincial Parks? For one thing, you cannot create wilderness; you can only destroy it.

July 21, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 339 That which exists today in Manitoba and elsewhere is all that there will ever be. What we see fit to save now is all that there is, all that will be left of the forces that have brought about the incredible richness and diversity of this park and particular bird habitat. At present, there are many forms of wildli fe where their sole existence depends on large tracts of wilderness. There is no substitute for Arctic wilderness for the existence of polar bears or musk oxen.

There is no substitute for forest wilderness for the existence of animals such as wolverines, cougar, lynx, or woodland caribou. Some animals need great spaces, remoteness from humans and their works. They are not like raccoons, grey squirrels or even white-tailed deer. Some of these songbirds listed in the appendix need remoteness. These bi rds are not lik e robins, grackles, or black-capped chickadees.

Some of these birds are not able to nest in human-al tered habitats, for example, the yellow-throated vireo, chestnut-sided warbler, American redstart, or even the mourning warbler. * (1 040) I have talked a bit today about this habitat because it is worthy of protection. We know that we could lose it if this development is allowed to proceed. What have we already lost in areas that did not have proper environmen tal im pact assessments? Canadian naturalists play a crucial role in monitoring our migratory birds. The results of many years of scientific studies have given us a clear message.

If we want to continue to enjoy a diversity of bird and wildlife, we must act on what science is telling us. We must conserve what remains of our intact forests. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Greaves. Are there any questions? If not, thank you very much. We will now move on to Walter Matlashewski. Floor Comment: This Frenchman sure is having trouble. Mr. Chairperson: This Frenchman has trouble with Ukrainian names. I had trouble with the French names last night. Do you have a written presentation ? It is being handed out, Mr. Matlashewski. You can carry on. Mr.

Walter Matlashewskl (Private Citizen): Mr. Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Walter Matlashewski. I am secretary-treasurer of the Association of Pri vate Land Owner s in Manitoba Parks. I speak today as a member of the association and as a concerned Manitoban who lives in Winnipeg and owns land inside one of Manitoba's provincial parks. My presentation will deal with my experience as a private land cottage owner within a provincial park. I spent 1966 and '67 attempting to lease a lot within the Whiteshell. None were available. In 1968 I purchased a private lot.

My friends who were living in cottages built on leased land laughed and jeered me for being a sucker for paying a large amount of money for a private lot which had no infrastructure. Their infrastructure had been provided for by Parks Branch. They were leasing their lots at the time for $30 a year. These were lakefront lots, while mine was only a back lot. (Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair) A public road allowance existed for access to my lot, but there was no road.

My neighbour and myself banded together and formed an association, elected executives to run the association, put monies in to it and constructed roads with accompanying ditches, culverts, gravelling, et cetera, all at our own expense. We were turned down by Parks personnel, who said it is private land. At the lakefront there is a public reserve approximately a three-quarter acre in size. We requested Parks to maintain this public reserve. Of course, we were turned down. Our association took up the slack and turned this reserve into a little park with chairs and tables and picnic areas.

To this day we maintain this park. We even bought a community lawnmower to cut the park grass. The same lakefront park is on the Winnipeg River system, and because of erratic water levels it was rapidly eroding. Again we approached Parks to shore up the shoreline using prisoners at Bannock Poin t. Of course, our request was refused as usual. We bought truckloads of rock, formed work parties of men, women and children and we shored up the lakefront so that today there is no further erosion. While my friends on leased property were having this done by Parks, we had to do so at our own expense. We bought truckloads

340 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MAN ITOBA July 21, 1993 of gravel in order to construct a beach. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to see real democracy and co-operation in action come to our meetings or join our work parties. While the Whiteshell is sitting on a huge pile of rock and gravel, there have been years when we had to haul gravel for our road from a distance of 30 miles outside the park because Parks people would not allow our trucker to use park gravel. Parks, during summer months, operates toll gates on highway entrances to the Whiteshell.

This means that our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, parents and friends are charged a gate fee on a public highway to visit us at our cottages at the lake. For years, we ourselves had to pay this toll. The monies raised in this way do not even pay for the wages of the employees who operate the gates. What I said about our road association is typical of others who banded together to build and maintain necessary roads, provide street lighting, public reserve maintenance, neighbourhood watch, digging wells, building boat ramps and docks, contracting for snowplowing, all this with their own resources and funds.

In 19 83, the provincial government woke up suddenly and announced that all lands in provincial parks were sub ject to The Park Lands Act. However, in all the years prior to 1983 whenever we asked for permits with regards to construction of cottages or of other facilities on private land, we wer e told by Park admin istrators and representatives that it is private land, and we have no jurisdiction. One of my neighbours had his boat stolen. He asked the park ranger for assistance in recovering it. He was refused because he was a private land vacationer, and Parks was not obliged to provide or give any assistance.

In 1984, Parks proclaimed their service fee or tax on all cottage lots, whether privately owned or leased. They monkeyed with Manitoba Regulation 97/84. Previous to this, all cottages on leased property paid a rental. Starting in 1984, in order to tax private land, they changed the leasehold rental into two parts, service charges and a rental fee. Landlords in the rest of the province who attempted the same method of rent collection were struck down by Queen's Bench court and appeal court of Manitoba.

However, the biggest landlord of all in Manitoba continues to break the law and collects a service fee and a rental fee. The service charge or tax was brought about withou t any consu ltations or holding any information meetings. In itself, these service charges were ill conceived. They are structured for various lakes. My back lot, on a nonregulation homemade road without sewer or water, was assessed at $1 00. Falcon Lake site, with sewer and water services and paved roads, was assessed at $210. Anyone on private land would gladly have paid that amount for a deal like that.

Private landowners held various meetings and discussions and formed the Association of Private Land Owners in Manitoba Provincial Parks in 1985. We concluded that because we had deeded-land, had never entered into any contract with any government for any services, that service charges were and are illegal. We would pay either by some sort of agreement or where we could exercise our franchise. It must be remembered that we asked the Natural Resources minister whether we would get any services. The reply was no services.

You must continue to maintain your roads, provide your own snowplowing of roads, maintain the public areas, et cetera, as before, with absolutely no services from us. To prove it, they gravelled all the roads in the Whiteshell except the private roads. They did the same thing this summer. These roads are on Crown land designated for that purpose and in reality are public roads. The public at large cannot be denied access to them. With the above as background, we had our first meeting face to face with a Minister of Natural Resources in the spring of 1986. This meeting was not very fruitful.

One of the first things that we were told by the then top bureaucrat when we explained our position was, if you do not like it, why do you not leave? In my astonishment, I addressed the Natural Resou rces mi nister as follo ws : Mr. Minister, where would like me to go? The minister apologi zed for his bu reaucrat. This attitude prevails among the bur eaucrats in the Parks department to this very day. They have told various people, we will get you. The last incident of which I have knowledge was made in the spring of this year on our road in the Whiteshell.

Notwithstanding the hostile attitude of the bureaucrats, we continued to hold meetings with

July 21 , 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 341 them, expressing our willingness to pay service charges only by agreement because we could not forfeit our right to vote. In late 1987, the then New Democratic Minister of Natural Resources told the bureaucrats to negotiate an agreement. By the end of February 1988, such an agreement was hammered out. Before cabinet could approve, the government was defeated and the succeeding Conservative government has refused to honour the agreement. Ins tead they persisted with attempts to collect under the pretense of a law which Mr.

Enns, Minister of Natural Resources, recently admitted, and a court has ruled, that he has no legal right to levy service charges on private land. *

(1050) In the fall of 19 89, during a meeting of our association with Mr. Prouse, Director of Parks, stated that his department has no idea what their operating costs are. He promised us that we would partake in such a study to be undertaken shortly. That was the last we heard of the study. Similarly, his superior, Mr. Harry Enns, Minister of Natural Resources, wrote Mr.

Ray Rybuck, the President of the Association of Land Owners in Manitoba Provincial Parks, and I quote from his letter of May 14, 1990: As mentioned previously, my department is undertaking a study that will examine fees for the vacation home lot program in all provincial parks. This study will include vacation homes that are located on crown land, as well as privately owned land, and will in clude a number of concerns that your association has raised, such as assessment and taxation, chief place of residence, local services, and park gates.

Once we are further along in the review, your association will have an opportunity to provide input. I look forward to a future meeting with your association to discuss these important issues. Yours truly, Harry J. Enns, Minister Mr. Enns, like Mr. Prouse, did not keep his promise. The next time we heard from them was the hammer which was Bill 21 . Bill 21 , brought to amend The Park Lands Act, proposed collection of service fees-pro perty taxes-on both leased and private lands and cottages in provincial parks.

In addition, a special tax would be collected from those-pri ma rily seni ors-w ho mi ght be considered to have a permanent residence within the park boundaries. All the taxation will be without the right to vote and have some influence over services and expendi tures. Thus the Parks bur eaucracy proposed to install itself as the almighty. The minister has not revealed to the public or to the Legislature that landowners have always been ready to pay by agreement, which he has refused to implement. Withdrawal of Bill 21 was followed by the Manitoba Round Table on the Environment and Economy study.

Among other aspects ofthis study was a so-called review of The Park Lands Act. Our association presented a brief and I attended all the meetings in Winnipeg. Bill 41 is nothing like what I heard at these meetings. Now I come to the reason we are here, it is Bill 41 . Bill 41 is a Jekyll and Hyde bill. It cannot be allowed to pass in its present form. It tramples democracy into the ground and it gives unlimited power to the bureaucrats. It takes away all our rights, including our dignity.

Among the many other insults and indignities proposed in Bill 41 , the government is by way of this act, No. 1, attempting to validate past service charges which a court has declared ultra vires, No. 2, attempting to register liens against properties for service charges without due process of a writ. Service charges referred to in this act are civil debts, therefore this government must not be allowed to circumvent present civil law by direct registration of liens. Mr.

Enns, Minister of Natural Resources on June 2, '93, on second reading of Bill 41 said, the government consulted with Manitobans and what they wanted in a new Park Lands Act. The Association of Private Land Owners in Manitoba Provincial Parks has been consulting with Parks since 1986 and submitted a nine-page brief to the round table , and yet I see nothing of their submis sion or consu ltations in Bill 41 . The government may have consulted but were wearing earplugs. I now wish to speak about democracy and Bill41 . This bill is not democratic.

It gives the minister responsible the power to dictate what taxes and service fees he will di ctate and im pose on occupants in a park who may be private-titled landowners, lessees or full-time occupants.

342 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MAN ITOBA July 21, 1993 This bill flies in the face of democracy, and in a democracy the process is to elect the people who tax you. The principle here is taxation without representation. In a democracy there is a process of assessment of property, whether you occupy that property occasionally, full time, lease the property or have title to the property. In a democracy there is a process of appeal known as the Court of Revision where you can appeal your assessment. Bill 41 denies this process and leaves it to the mercy of a dictator, the minister of Parks.

In a democracy the people who tax you are accountable to the people they tax, how the tax money is raised, how it is spent and where and when it is spent. Un der Bill 41 taxes will be placed in a Consolidated Revenue Fund with no accountability to the people who paid it. This is undemocratic and an unethical abuse of power. We all know that power corrupts and absolute power corru pts absolutely. Bill41 must be withdrawn or at least held up till a more democratic process is developed.

Together with the minister of Parks and his staff and in conjunction with the Association of Private Land Owners in Manitoba, provincial parks work out this process. There is a more democratic way and I refer to co-management. Co-ma nage ment is not something new. It exists in all forms of regulations between the government and taxpayers and has resulted in accomplishing results that were never successful before. Before we find ourselves losing our democratic rights, let us give co-management a try. I have added a short codicil to my presentation.

In our meetings with Parks Branch, we heard a lot about user fees for private landowners. I would like to zero in on user fees as it applies to Parks Branch cam pgrounds. I will only talk about my observations of the campgrounds at Nutimik Lake. The Nu timik cam pgroun ds were built at enormous cost to the taxpayers, and still are very costly to the taxpayer, as approximately a $220 seasonal camping fee must be only about 5 percent of the operating costs with no return on infrastructure. These campgrounds are classy.

They have 24- hour-a-day maintenance and policing, manicured campsites, children's play areas, flush toilets, hot and cold showers, either paved or our roads, dock and boat launch areas, dump stations for those camping in mobile homes, winter storage areas, and the list goes on. (Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair) Compare this with a private landowner at Nutimik Lake. He had to build his own road, provide his own hot and cold water showers and flush toilets, provide his own children's play area, no policing. We had two boat motors on our road stolen about two weeks ago.

One of the motors was worth more than $2,000. Parks Branch is throwing a lot of stones at the private landowners. The cottages on private land were built on heavily forested plots of land, had no infrastructure at all. Any infrastructure that now exists was put in place and is maintained by the landowner himself. In comparison, the Par ks Branch bu ilt and main tained all the infrastructure for cottages on leased land as well as for the campers. I will just mention the word Hecla Island. All of you know the cost to the taxpayer of this operation. Where are the user fees there?

The government thinks of private landowners as a future milking cow. It could be that this cow could dry up, too. Pr ivate landowne rs at Nutimik Lake are not millionaires. They build their cottages themselves. They provide local employment instead of taking winter holidays to exotic places like Hawaii. We build our cottages in Manitoba and not in Ontario. So we provide, and continue to provide, local employment, unl ike the large mi gration of Winnipeggers and Manitobans that flock to Ontario. I am sure that there are members of this body that own cottages and vacation in Ontario. A

(1100) I wish to say, again, that private landowners are here today because this government is trying to provide itself with sweeping powers to charge private landowner s and occu piers inclu ding leaseholders any fee they deem necessary without justification or representation. The contents of this bill actually state that its intention is to make the cottage occupiers pay for all service within park boundaries which would include paying for all public campsite costs, labour and wage costs, tourist attraction, forestfire and police protection, et

July 21, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 343 cetera, and anything else that they deem necessary, at their discretion. I wish to repeat that there is a more democratic way, and I refer to co-management. Thank you. Mr. Chairperson: Th ank you, sir, for your presentation. We will now hear from Mr. Herb Peters. Your presentation is being handed out, Mr. Peters. You can go ahead. Mr. Herb Peters (Private Citizen): My name is Herb Peters of Winnipeg, and I own property on the Steeprock Road in Nutimik Lake area. My property is surrounded by the Whiteshell Provincial Park.

Although I am speaking principally for myself, since I have been president of the Steeprock Road Association for six years, which has 22 cottages, I also carry messages from them. Since 1984 when service fee billing started, I have had many meetings and discussions with Parks department officials as well as Parks staff at Nutimik Lake. I am also vice-president of the Land Owners Association in Provincial Parks and have, together with our president and secretary-treasurer and area reps, twice visited the Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Mr. Harry Enns.

I am also the author of "The Ghost of Jessie Lake" which appears in the His tory of the Whiteshell North, and a copy of it is attached. I will make reference to this later on. Although there are many areas of Bill 41 I disagree with, I want to draw your attention to one specific area in your thought process when studying this bill, simply, service fees and private land. Some of that you have already heard.

During my conv ersations with Parks or government I have always been appalled at the realization that nobody seems to understand, or refuse to admit it, that the private landowner does not get the services given to leaseholders. Even Mr. Enns seems not to understand. He says to the media that a complete inequity exists, one pays and one refuses to pay for identical services. Let me show you what he said in the Legislative Assembly as late as June 18, 1992, in answer to the qu estion from Clif Evans, and see copy attached of Hansard, and I will read just the underlined

section of this attachment No. 1 : " ... then, we have another group who have isolated little islands of private land, particularly in the Whiteshell area, whose land was never absorbed as part of the park but live right within the park and enjoy all the services that we provide, and pay nothing at all for that privilege. "Once they have found out that, in fact, by law we do not have the abili ty to collec t, our list of uncollectibles is growing, particularly at a time when every dollar"-1 lost my place here, I am sorry, but you can read what he says about all the many dollars.

He says, "I mean, I am getting calls from other people who pay $400 or $500 regular park fee to the department .... " He does not say that these are service fees. He just throws that out because he wants you to believe what he wants you to believe. Okay, this inequ ity, he says, "n eeds to be corrected." I will refer to that line later on. So you see that in spite of us, the Land Owners Association, on two occasions, telling Mr. Enns that we were not getting any of the services that leaseholders are getting, he still pretends that we are getting them , and he is telling other people the same thing.

The Whiteshell District Association, he keeps on badgering them that the reason theirs are going up is because we refuse to pay. Mr. Enns simply did not listen, or if he listened, he did not hear; or if he heard, he did not comprehend; or if he comprehended, he did not care. All we know for certain is that we told them that we were not getting any services. I also have repeatedly mentioned this absence of service, some of it in writin�r-you will see some in an attachment-to the ever-changing Director of Parks-first Mr. Gordon B. Davidson, Mr. James Potton, Mr. Gordon Prouse, Mr.

Richard Goulden, and Acting Director Claudia Engel. I will read the letter that I wrote to Mr. Potton dated January 16, 1986, and you will see that you cannot say it any simpler than that. If you look at attachment No. 2 to Mr. James Potton: This is in reply to your letter dated June 26, 1985, where you attempt to persuade me to pay the $100 service charge on my Nutimik Lake property. You quote Manitoba Regulation 97/84, which does not apply. My land is not part of the provincial park. The park is around my property.

The property was purchased in fee simple prior to the existence of the park and is subject only to the grant from the Crown, which clearly indicates that

344 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMB LY OF MANITOBA July 21, 1993 my right to the enjoyment of my property is paid for and also clearly states for which purposes the Crown may trespass my property, and pretending to give me unwanted services is not one of them. Until you purchase the property from me, I simply am a neighbour to the park. You also attempt to impress me with the services that you have provided and how the charges are the same as for leaseholders of Crown land. However, you do not seem to understand that I have not received any of the services, nor do I want any. Mr.

Potton, as Director of Parks, you know or should know that the five specific benefits that you mention are simply not true, and if you cared at all, you would check it for yourself. First you mentioned refuse disposal area and water wells. The near est well, wh ich is contaminated due to sewage entry from the park camp, is 2.3 kilometres away. There is a good well 6.5 kilometres away on Highway 307. The refuse disposal area is 3.5 kilometres distance. The bear cage disposal area is 1.5 kilometres distance. Very simply, I must take my drinking water from Winnipeg and cart my garbage back to Winnipeg.

Next you mention forest fire surveillance. I think I will leave that part out. You mention park supervision and regular patrolling. Now that is a laugh. The last regular patrol was about three years ago. His only purpose was to count the number of boats that I could park at my boat dock. I now pay $10 per stall per year. Four years ago someone stole my boat from my locked boat port. I called the park ranger within hours of the theft. The answer I received was that priva te properties are not in his jur isdiction, and I shoul d call the RCMP at Whitemouth. Needless to say, I never saw the boat again.

I will leave out the part about wildlife and fisheries. You men tioned respons e to emergency si tuations. I, for one, can only ju dge your performance as no response. See two paragraphs back. In the last five years, I have had occasion to rescue the occupants of two boats that overturned in Sturgeon Falls. No park ranger or RCMP ever bothered to see what was going on, despite everyone at Nutimik Lake knowing about it. Entry permits. I have always paid for mine and will continue to return one sent to me, even though I agree that I should not have to pay to use a provincial highway to get to my own property. Mr.

Potton, I have built my own road. I have dug my own drainage ditches. I have planted trees. I have built my own ramp and docks. I have paid for many yards of sand and gravel for beach and road. I have mov ed large boulder s to impr ove the lakefront. So why would you want to charge me for services that are not available to me and that I have not asked for or received? You can add my name to the many private landowners who refuse to pay. * (1110 ) ! realize this is before the present minister's time, and also before the present government.

I added, on page 3, to the honourable Premier Howard Pawley, the following message: There are 314 private land owners in the Whiteshell Park alone, at last count. Each one is of course affected in a different way. I have talked to many of them, even some that have paid. All, however, agreed that they were very noticeably discriminated against by the Park people. I will give you one example. Two winters ago, my neighbour had his highway approach road and culvert damaged by equipment clearing snow on Highway 307. When spring arrived he found the damage was so severe, he could not enter his property.

He called the local Park ranger, who promptly sent out a work crew to the location. When the crew arrived, the foreman realized that this was a road going into private property-so they refused to make the repairs . The ranger supported their decision because it was not Park property. Can you imagine that? Also attached are photocopies of two of the total of eight inv oices that I have returned with messages advising I was not getting any services. You can take a look at 3 and 4, and I want to draw your attention to the notes that I wrote on there when I sent them back: "Have not ordered or received any services.

There will not be any fee paid for services not rendered." On the other one, the same note. In addition, I "am also returning the park pass herewith. I have purchased one for $10 at the gate." And they still think that they are giving me services. Although government was unable to collect from us due to an omission in the text of The Park Lands

July 21 , 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 345 Act, it should also not be able to collect for services that are not provided. Please note, for example, that I, and most of the 22 cottages on my road, returned the park passes which might be perceived as acceptance of a service from the park. Here are some of the examples of lack of service:

(1) The leaseholder property had roads built in gravel and periodically graded, usually spring and fall, by the Parks department staff and equipment. We built our own roads, gravelled them and graded them at our own cost with equipment from outside; worse yet, we are not allowed to get gravel from a pit from inside the park. We must haul it from outside-an additional cost for gravel and a much longer haul.

(2) The leaseholders have garbage collection cages at the end of every block road, easy walking distance from each cottage, and the cages get emptied by Parks staff and hauled away by them. We have no cages and therefore must keep our garbage in the garage or in the trunk of a car to keep the bears away until we can drive to the dump 6.5-kilom etre distance or take it back to the city.

(3) Leaseholders have wells for drinking water within easy walking distance from their cottages. We must drive many kilometres to get to a well. Usually we bring jugs of water from the city with us. I will read one paragraph from The Ghost of Jes sie Lake (Nut im ik). I will read only the underlined

section on page 243. I have added the rest of it, so you can gain the benefit of some of the excellent history of Nutimik Lake: Life on these properties is very different from living on leasehold land. The owners are all fiercely independent yet very cooperative in comm unal affairs. Each road has its own villa ge structure. They vote for their managemen t team each year and also democratically decide on what services they require and also what their fees will be for the year.

Since all the work inclu ding road building, drainage, boa t ramps, dock maintenance are self-supplied and do not come from the Parks Department, a high degree of cooperation becomes necessary. Mr. Enns is correct, an inequity exists. One gets service and the other gets nothing, and both get billed. When I first read Bill 41 , I was delighted, especially reading 18 (1 ), we will get our own district; 18(2), the government will consult us; and then 18(3), the realization suddenly sets in that this is the same old crap tax.

The district will just keep on pretending that they give us service that we do not want or get, as they have done for the last nine years. It gets worse: 22(3), the billing without court action will become a lien on titles; worse yet, 31 (1 ), someone who contravenes a provision of this act or regulation is subject to a $1 0,000 fine or six months in jail or both; still worse,

Section 40(4), a law that makes an invalid act retroactively valid and enforceable. Ladies and gentlemen of the standing committee, if such

an act can be enacted in this country, then I am out of here. Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Peters, for your presentation. We now go to No. 8, Heinrich Mayer. Have you got a written brief, Mr. Mayer? Mr. Heinrich Mayer {Private Citizen): Yes, I do have. Mr. Chairperson: The Clerk will pass it, and you can carry on. Mr. Mayer: Mr. Chairperson, members of this committee, Mr. Minister, I wish to thank you for this opportunity to appear before you to address this committee.

My name is Henry Mayer, and I am a cottager on privately owned land situated within the boundaries of a Manitoba provincial park that came into being well after such private land was granted, documented and registered. I appear before you today to express my personal opinions and opposition to certain proposed regulations, primarily those dealing with private lands by Natural Resources and parks.

So as not automatically to be tagging along with or accepting Bill 41' s totally false fundamental premise, namely, that for administrative simplicity and convenience, all lands within the boundaries of provincial parks automatically are the prerogative of the ministry and parks, to be dealt with at their pleasure and discretion. No way. Let us be quite clear about this from the beginning that in this country and in this province, we do enjoy the concepts of private property and certain associated rights and privileges, and private landowners intend to defend their rights.

346 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA July 21, 1993 Now Bill 41 . This bill appears full of generalities and lip service regarding sustainable development, protection of the environment, promised systems plans, classification of parks, land use categories, management plans. However, if you notice, it defers specifics or details for later development by the minister. In other words, it seeks broad, general powers immediately to allow implementa tion by way of regulation and decree of what it cannot or will not disclose or wishes to subject to the scrutiny of a political process. Some examples are

Section 6(1), 6(2), 10(1), 10(2) and 11. * (1 120) By the sleight of hand techniques proposed in 40, 41 , 42 and 43, it is quite clear that this bill primarily zeroes in on and seeks to enforce fees and levies on cottagers, especially on private lands, immediately following Royal Assent of the bill. However, other parts, such as the detailed specific systems plan, the parks classifications, the land use categories, the management plans, which one would think are supposedly the primary priorities of this bill, appear of no great urgency at this time.

In other words, they are to be developed later by the minister without saying how or when. Clearly, these tactics represent a colossal sham, pretending to represent the harbinger of a great new era for provincial or Manitoba parks. It was a comprehensive parks plan, supposedly developed utilizing much public input, when in reality, all Bill41 represents is a di sguised, crude qu ick fix on enforcement of various fees and levies, especially those found previously as not legally enforceable by Natural Resources or Parks under the existing act.

Clearly, those who drafted this bill and those who are trying to force it onto the public as is either do not understand some of the serious implications, or they are simply willing to look the other way for the sake of expediency, as this minister tries to implement harsh Draconian legislation that is, in reality, totally unwarranted and, I might say, in a less than sincere or forthright manner at that. For example, Parks Districts: Service Fees, 18(1) to 18(3).

While Bill 41 states that owners and occupiers of land shall have opportunity to review the levels and costs of services, it coyly or maybe inadvertently om its the key requir ements of approval or rejection by those who would be directly affected. As well, our experience to date with this minister and this director of Parks shows they do not really seek or value input from those affected. They do, however, proceed through the motions for appearance's sake via surveys and hearings whose results are then simply shelved while a preconcluded, predetermined agenda is followed. As well, Bill 41 is open-ended.

It states, but need not be limited, referring to direct and/or actual costs and amounts required to defray administrative and other costs; in other words, it is open-ended, really whatever is decided by the minister of parks, which is completely unjust and unacceptable.

The problem with all that vagueness and open-endedness is that normally accepted valid concepts of matching fees to real or actual costs of ser vices contracted for and provided are completely obliterated and in reality taxes are extracted from cottages without providing or allowing them the customary and required proper legal structure for democratic representation and the voting right.

Actually, the sham was and is completely unnecessary, ladies and gentlemen, especially vis-a-vis the private landowners, who in fact negotiated and concluded an agreement with Parks Branch under the auspices of the then Deputy Minister of Natural Resources in late February of 1988.

There is an addendum for your overview clearly setting out the specific terms and conditions regarding the services and related fees which, upon the change of government in April of '88, the new and present admin istration through this minister and this director of Parks have refused to honour and thereby have prolonged and are compounding an unnecessary dispute. It is really not necessary at all. Regarding the termination of real services and related fees upon private lands within parks, as well as the orderly collection of legitimate and agreed to fees, the addendum, if you study it, clearly sets that out.

Chief place of residence levy 21 (1 ): Whatever the real intended rationale, which incidentally is not spelled out, nor is a clear, valid status definition given, this m

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	35-4-punr12
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	35th 4th hansardpdf punr12.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	c69bd28b28bfee7effc848fd49c2dda4c92430cf

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