Manitoba Hansard — Sitting 27A (32nd Legislature, 1st Session)

32-1-27a

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Monday, 5 April, 1982 Time - 2:00 p.m. OPENING PAA YER by Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER, Hon. D. James Walding (St. Vit al): Presenting Petitions ... Reading and Receiving Petitions ... Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees ... MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS AND TABLING OF REPORTS MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Go v ernment Services. HON. SAMUEL USKIW (Lac du Bonnet): Mr. Speaker, I wish to table another information piece with respect to the Crow package for the benefit of all members of the House. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Natural Resources. HON.

AL MACKLING (St. James): Mr. Speaker, I have a further report in respect to fl ood forecast and it continues about the same, really no change. MR. SPEAKER: Notices of Motion . . . INTRODUCTION OF BILLS HON. EUGENE KOSTYRA (Seven Oaks) introduced Bill No. 2, The Residential Rent Reg ulation Act. (Rec ommended by Her Honour the Lieutena nt Go vernor) . MR. USKIW introduced Bill No. 17 , Ttie Proceeds of Contracts Disbursement Act. (Reco mmended by Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor). HON. LEONARD S.

EVANS (Brandon East) intro duced Bill No. 21 , The Community Child Day Care Standards Act. (Recommended by Her Honour the Lieutenant Go vernor) . MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Health. HON. LAURENT DESJARDINS (St. Boniface) intro duced Bill No. 22, The Manitoba Lotteries Fo undation Act. (Rec ommended by Her Honour the Lieut enant Go vernor). INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS MR. SPEAKER: Before we reach Oral Questions may I direct the attention of honourable members to the gallery, where we have three students from the R. D. Parker Col legiate. These students are under the direction of Mrs. Ashton.

The school is located in the constituency of the Honourable Memb er for Thompson. The students have just returned from the Operation World Schol arship Exc hange to Gu yana and Barba- 1098 dos. They are accompanied by three students from Guayana and three students from Barbados who came to Canada as part of this exchange. The stu dents will be visiting the constituency of the Honour able Member for Thompson. On behalf of all of the honourable members I wel come you here today. ORAL QUESTIONS MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Fort Garry. MR. L.R. (Bud) SHERMAN (Fort Gar ry): Mr.

Speaker, my question is to the Honourable Minister of Health. I wou ld like to ask him who gave the authority, or who assumed the authority for resumption of tinkering and fiddling with the redevelopment plan in the first phase redevelopment of the Health Sciences Centre? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Health. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Speaker, I don't know if there's any tinkering but nobody has given any authority. If the honourable member is talking about the Children's Hospital, I was surprised as he was when I saw the announcement in the newspaper.

I've requested information from the Commission; it hasn't come to the Commission or to the Board of the Health Sciences Centre either. This is something at the staff level only, I am told at this time. MR. SHER MAN: Well, Mr. Speaker, there certainly is tempering and fiddling.

The President of the Health Sciences Centre is quoted as saying, "It's not a fixed, frozen plan at anytime." Can the Honourable Minister of Health confirm that the President of the Health Sciences Centre and the Board of the Health Scien ces Centre is operating at the present time under the illusion and the misconception that it is not a fix ed plan? MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Speaker, that question will have to be asked of the President.

As far as I'm con cerned, the information that I have; this hasn't come to the Commission or to myself, of course, nor to the Health Sciences Centre Board; I'm told this is only an exchange between the staff at this time and we'll cer tainly - especially now that we are aware of it, we'll be very careful, I can assure you that there's not going to be any ready acceptance of this concept. MR. SHERMAN: Mr.

Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Health whether anything was said of any revisions to the plan for Children's Hospital during a recent meeting or any recent meetings between the Minister and the President of the Health Sciences Centre; the Chairman of the Board and the Vice President of Pla nning? MR. DESJARDINS: Absol utely not. MR. SHERMAN: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that

Monday, 5 April, 1982 progress on the redevelopment of the Health Scien ces Centre was frustrated for some 12 years due to continual revision and planning and replanning, and what I refer to as tinkering and fiddling; and that steps were taken to terminate that and get on with the job of construction, Can the Minister confirm to this House that it is his intention and the intention of his govern ment that position be maintained? MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to say to the honourable member that I'm very concerned with the long-time planning.

It seems that things are changing constantly and tha t is the reason fo r changing the plans, and I'm certainly not very happy with that. I've instructed staff to review the situation, to start loo king at the situation immediately to see if they need any little bit of coaxing or prodding or take over from the government because we can't keep on like this. I'm told that we spent the last twelve years or so just in planning, it has been a fabulous or fantastic sum. I'm inquiring into this at this time and I'm sure that we will discuss this during the Estimates, I'll be only to pleased to. MR. SHERMAN: Mr.

Speaker, in view of the fact that the Health Sciences Centre unilaterally undertook the resumption of adult cardiac surgery without approval from the Minister. or the previous Minister I might say; in view of the fact that the senior off icers of the Health Sciences Centre are now tal king about phasing Children's Hospital, in effect, out of existence as a separate entity, again without the approval and even apparently without the knowledge of the Minister; can the Minister advise the House as to who's running the Health business in this province? MR. DESJARDINS: Mr.

Speaker, I certainly can tell the honourable member, as he knows, that approval of anything, any change or approv al of the funds, has to come from the goverment, the Department of Health, and we'll be very careful before any approval is given. MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Member for Arthur. MR. JAMES E. DOWNEY (Arthur): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture. I'd like to ask the Minister, in fact one of the reasons fo r a delay in the introduction of a beef program, the Minis ter kept indicating that he was consulting with pro ducers. or producer groups.

Could he tell this House what producer groups he consulted with before introducing the beef prog ram that he has just announced last week? MR. SPEA KER: The Honour able Memb er of Agriculture. HON. BILL URUSKI (Interlake): Mr. Speaker, if the member had been in the House last week he'd have taken

part in the debate when informa tion was pro vided to the honourable members of the Ho use at that time. MR. DOWNEY: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe that one of the rules of this House, Mr. Speaker, is not to make reference to whether a member is in this House. Mr. Speaker, I was in the House until the House adjou rned on Wednesday to go to Brandon Fair, which I attended, and continued on to meet with some of the constituents in the southw est corner of the province to discuss with them some of the current agricultural issues and concerns that the agricultural community are facing. Mr.

Speaker, on to the question; the Minister appar ently does not want to answer the question of who he consulted with, or what farm group he consulted with to advise to him what they wou ld feel was in their best interests as a support program for the beef industry. I will ask him again, Mr. Speaker, what farm organiza tion or producer group did the Minister meet with and discuss his proposed program with that he announced in the House last Thursday? MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, I'll take back the remarks that I didn't want to attribute to the honourable member, but he unfortunately was absent when the discussion took several hours in this Chamber. - (I nterjection)- Wel l, Mr. Speaker, we were on Esti mates for approx imately an hour-and-a-half to an hour-and-three-quarters last Thursday, and informa tion was provided. I indicated that for the honourable member and if he wishes to check Hansard, he will have that information, Mr. Speaker. MR. DOWNEY: Mr. Speaker, the Minister as I am aware he either has to answer or not.

It's his preroga tive whether he does or not and he is not desirous of answering who he consulted with, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister, Mr. Speaker, tell this House and the people of Manitoba that he has the support of the majority of the farmers, the beef producers of the Province of Manitoba, on the new beef program that he has just announced? Does he have the support of the majority of beef producers? MR. URUSKI: Mr. Speaker, I am so rry that the hon ourable member is not able to read Hansard to get the informa tion that was provided to honour able members.

If he wishes not to avail himself of the opportunity, I apolog ize to him and to his constituents that he could take that time. 1099 Mr. Speaker, with respect to support, this govern ment has the mandate of the people of Manitoba. We have consulted with beef producers and we're hoping that beef producers will recognize, and they have indicated, that they are in trouble.

After being sabot aged in terms of a program that was ending on March 31 st of 1 982 which was scuttled by that former admin istration, I find it very hol low in terms of their concern for beef producers who they told last fal l that there was no support for them when they, last July, came and met with them and said there was no support for beef producers. I find those statements very holl ow, Mr. Speaker. MR. DOWNEY: Mr.

Speaker, I'm sure the Minister is aware that Hansard is not out yet for the debate that took place last week, some of the Thursday Hansard, but the total debate is not available at this particular time and if it is, I haven't had time to peruse it. However, Mr. Speaker, another direct question to

Monday, 5 April, 1982 the Minister, he is unable to answer the first ones he received so one would have to question or in fact take the assumption, Mr. Speaker, that he does not have the support of the beef industry as far as this program is concerned. Mr. Sp eaker, is it correct that he has hired Mr. Joe Dunsmore to head up the new beef income or income assurance program or beef support program or to head the commission? Has Mr. Joe Dunsmore been rehired, the individual who was in charge of the old Beef Income Assurance Program, Mr.

Speaker, that was not done away with by our administration, but in fact, the producers decided by their own decision not to continue on with the pro gram - has Mr. Dunsmore been hired to operate the program? MR. URUSKI: Mr. Speaker, yes. MR. SPEAK ER: The Honour able Memb er for · Lakeside. MR. HARRY ENNS (Lakeside): Mr. Speaker, just one further question to the Minister of Agriculture. Has the Minister targeted a particular date for the start-up of the beef program? MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, as soon as the contracts are developed, I would hope that within about eight weeks that there should be contracts and discussions to fine-tune the various points of the program that are still in the consultative process with producers. When those points are covered and decided upon, then the program and the contracts will be available for sign ing with beef producers in this province. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. Norbert. MR. G.W.J. (Ge rry) MERCIER (SI. Norbert): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Ur ban Affairs.

Could the Minister indicate whether or not he has received a report from Ms. Shapiro, an interim report with respect to the inquiry she's holding on the expropriations in the Logan Avenue area? MR. KOSTYRA: No, Mr. Speaker. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that report is apparently to be in the hands of the Minister relatively shortly, will he undertake to distribute a copy of that report to members of the Legislature when he receives it? MR. KOSTYRA: Mr. Speaker, once I'm in receipt of the report, I'll determine whether or not it will be distributed and when it will be distributed. MR. MERCIER: Mr.

Speaker, a supplementary ques tion to the Minister of Labour. I wonder if the Minister could advise whether or not public hearings will be held before any changes are made to the minimum wage. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Labou r. HON. VIC SCHROEDER (Rossmere): Mr. Speaker, there is a Minimum Wage Board which traditionally holds hearings with respect to that issue. MR. MERCIER: Will the tradition be fol lowed, Mr. Speaker? MR. SCHROEDER: The Minimum Wage Board has already met and made a determination. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, were public hearings held then? MR. SCHROEDER: No, they were not. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Tuxedo. MR. GARY FILMON (Tuxedo): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education. Does the Minister support the proposal put forth by the outgo ing President of the Manitoba Teachers Society that Manitoba adopt the so-calle d 20-20 plan, that is, that teachers be limited to a maximum of 20 hours instruc tion time per week and class sizes be limited to a maximum of 20 students? MR. SPE AKER: The Honour able Minis ter of Education. HON. MAUREEN HEMPHILL (Loga n): Mr.

Speaker, as is the tradition and practice of the Department of Education and the Minister of Education, I am await ing the presentation of the resol utions that were passed at the teachers' general meeting and I will be discussing them and reviewing them at that time. I have not received them yet. MR. FILMON: Mr. Speaker, I wonder then ifthe Minis ter could indicate whether or not she supports the resolution adopted by the Manitoba Teachers Society in its recent annual meeting that provincial aid to private and parochial schools be terminated. MRS. HEMPHILL: Mr.

Speaker, as a matter of cour tesy I think that it is fair that the first discussion that takes place related to the resolutions passed by the teachers take place between the teachers and I. MR. FILMON: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of courtesy perhaps to those people who support private and parochial schools in the province, could the Minister indicate whether or not her government has a position on this? I understand that it is under review and I wonder if therefore the Minister can give us an indica tion of what her position is on the matter since it is of concern to many thousands of Manitobans? MRS.

HEMPHILL: Mr. Speaker, I did indicate pre viously that all educational funding and all financing of educational matters in the Province of Manitoba were under review and aid to private schoo ls is one of those matters that will be looked at. I might also indicate though that the present fund ing that is in place in the existing budget which we can discuss during the Estimates review is the amount of money that was put in place by the previous govern ment for support to private schools, Mr. Speaker, for 1100

Monday, 5 Apr il, 1982 which thete was no increase given. It is the same amount of money in the budget as was put in the budget by them. MR. SPEAK ER: The Honour able Memb er for Robli n-Russell. MR. J, WALLY McKENZIE (Roblin-Russell): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Honourable Minis ter of Agriculture. I wonder can the Honourable Minis ter of Agriculture oblige the Hous e considering now that the supplementary supply passed by the Ho use will give MACC money to look after the farmers, when will the farm loans some of which have been held back since January be approved? MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, it is my understanding that loans were in the process of being approved after the Corporation ran out of money by the end of December. We approved internally sums that had to be repaid from MACC to the Department of Finance. We held those up so there could be initial financing and now that this Loan Act has been passed, loans should be processed as they always have been in the normal ma.finer. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Stur geon Creek. MR. J. FRANK JOHNSTON (Sturgeon Creek): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Labour.

Wili the Minister of Labour be tabling the recommenda tions of the Minimum Wage Board? MA. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Labo ur. MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Speaker, I ex pect to be tabling those recommendations shortly. MR. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, my question then is to the Minister of Economic Development and To ur ism.

If the Minimum Wage Board did no t hold any hearings to determine the recommendation that has been made to the Minister of Labour, was there any discussion with the Minister of Economic Develop" ment or was there discussion with small business in Manitoba before the determination of the report that was sent to the Minister of Labour? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Eco nomic Development. HON. MURIEL SMITH (Osborne): Mr. Speaker, issues such as that are always under discussion in the Cabinet and my col leagues and I are in a regular consultative relationship.

Whenever I've met groups or individuals representing the small business sector, it is also afi iss ue which comes up and the relationship of labo ur costs, wages to their particular economic circumstance and the com petitive environment they operate in is under constant review. MR. JOH NSTON: Mr. Speaker, this is a different question, but it's to the Minister of Economic Devel opment and Tourism. Last week, the Minister informed the House that there was a five-man board being 110 1 appointed to study the applications for the Interest Relief Program for small business.

The money has now been passed, the applications are out. I wonder if the Minister could inform the House the names of those small businessmen from private enterprise that will be on that board. MRS. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, there are five people on that board and at the moment, my memory slips on the fifth person, but I am prepared to give the names of fo ur of the five. The Chairperson is Jean Edmonds; the Vice-Chair is John Mundie; members of the Boar d are Maureen Prendiville and Richa rd Finkel. -(I nter jection)- The fifth person is Gor don Peitsch. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Portage La Prairie. MR.

LLOYD HYDE (Portage La Prair ie): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question to the Minister of Agri culture. A week ago today, I asked a question in this House as to whether he was going to continue the program to supply the pumps and to assist the farmers that were in need of the use of these pumps and my question was to him, is that program going to be continued. He indicated to me that he wou ld have an answer for me in the near future. MR. SPEAK ER: The Honour able Min ister of Agriculture. MR. URUSKI: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that program is going to be continued.

There will be a charge for them, but the pumps are being made available as they have been in the past and the program is being continued. MR. HYDE: Mr. Speaker, I wo uld like to ask the Minis ter just what that charge is going to be. In the previous administration, that service was made available to the farmers in need and today we understand from what he's telling us that there is go ing to be a charge. I wonder what that charge is goi ng to be. MR. URUSKI: Mr. Speaker, that charge will be similar to that imposed in 19 77, 19 78, and 197 9 with some inflation factor added to it.

I will go from memory; I'm not absol utely sure, but I believe the charges are somewhere around $200 to $225 per dugout as they were in previous years, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for La Verendrye. MR. ROBERT (Bob) BANMAN (la Verendrye): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I direct my question to the Honour able Attorney-General and would ask him to inform the House as to what steps the government will be taking with regards to the problems that municipali ties are facing in colle cting outstanding accounts related to calls they received for fire assistance on provincial highways from RCMP? MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Attorney-General. HON. ROL AND PENNER (Fort Rouge): Yes, I would

Monday, 5 April, 1982 like to take that as notice and respond to my learned friend opposite as soon as possible. MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Mem ber for Lakeside. MR. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, I note that Mr. Richard Klassen, the former Chairman of the Manitoba Agri cultural Credit Corporation, and the entire boar d have been fired or released and replaced by new members.

The new chairman, being a Leonard Harapiak, who I understand and the Member for Swan River certainly appreciates is a fine teacher, I believe, a high school principal also a pretty good pol itician whom the Member for Swan River ran againsttwice and defeated; my question to the Honourable Minister was the con dition for the other directors also them having a New Democratic Party membership card? MR. SPEAK ER: The Honour ab le Minis ter of Agriculture. MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, the new Board of Direc tors of the Manitoba Aricultural Credit Corporation is representative of farm people from all over the prov ince and I believe that present -(I nterjection)- wel l, there is some commentary about high school princi pals and teachers and farmers and the like - I believe that the credentials of the present board match any group that is appointed by any government in power.

Certainly, I am very pleased to have been able to have accepted for the new board the number of peopl e that have put their services forward and I'm sure that they will be doing an excel lent job fo r the people of Manitoba. MR. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, I have no quarrel with that -it's, I suppose, members of the fou rth estate that I'm addressing. It's only when Conservatives do this from time to time that we tal k of patronage and hiring of pol itical friends. My specific question, Mr. Speaker is, are there active farm members, people involved in the farming business involved on the Board? MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, every member that is on the Board is active in farm ing whether it be fi shing because there's a fisherman on the Board as well because of his involvement in the fishing industry; and my knowledge of the members on the Board, they are all active in farming; including the Chairman because it's been alluded that the Chairman is and has been a school teacher. That is correct, but he's also active and is now in ful ltime farming as he's always been connected with the farming indust ry in his area. MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Member for Arthur. MR. DOWNEY: Mr.

Speaker, along the same lines of questionning as my col league from Lakeside; could the Minister confirm that one Mrs. McDonald from Dunrea, Manitoba; is she actively farming or is she the wife of one of the Crop Insurance adjusters who work in that particular community? MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Mi ni ste r of Agriculture. MR. URUSKI: Mr. Speaker, she may be both. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Fort Ga rry. MR. SHERMAN: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Honourable Minister of Health.

I wo uld like to ask him whether he has received any response or reply from his general letter to the medical profession of April 1s t? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Health. MR. DESJARDINS: No, Mr. Speaker, I didn't expect any either. It was more information and the govern ment's position that I want to make sure that they realized they understood . MR. SHERMAN: Could the Minister advise the House, Mr.

Speaker, whether he has in respect to that letter or any other aspect of com munications in the present situation received any communication from the Pres ident or the leadership of the MMA since last week? MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Speaker, there is quite a bit of noise from other people speaking, I hope I under stood the first question. The letter, or the answer that I gave was believing that the question was the general letter that I wrote all physicians, yes. Now, I think the member is asking any answer from the MMA Exec u tive? No, there hasn't been anything new at this time. MR. SHERMAN: Mr.

Speaker, is the Minister con templa ting striking a fee

schedule for 198 2-83 and implementing it? MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Speaker, we're look ing at the situation hoping that nobody is penalized at this time; none of the doctors giving their services, nor the peo ple that are receiving help fro m the medical profes sion and I wo uld imagine that we should have a state ment fairly soon of the next action of the government. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Swan River. MR. D.M. (Doug) GOU RLAY (Swan River): Mr. Speaker, I wo uld like to ask the Minister of Municipal Affa irs whether or not he has appointed a new Munic ipal Board? MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Munici pal Affai rs. HON. A.R. (Pete) ADAM (Ste. Rose): Mr. Speaker, there has been some members appoi nted to the Boar d and there will be further appointments in due course. MR. GOURLAY: I wonder if the Minister could advise the House as to the names of the new members that have been appointed to the board. MR. ADAM: I don't remember all the names, Mr. 1102

Monday, 5 April, 1982 Speaker. I can get all the names that have been appointed up to this point in time and make them available to the member. There's an O/C, Mr. Speaker, that has been passed so it's public information. MR. GOURLAY: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister could advise the House whether this Order in-Council has been filed at this time? MR. ADAM: It has been passed by the Cabinet, Mr. Speaker, for those members that have been appointed but whether it's been filed, I'm not sure. I can check that out. MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Member for St. Norbert. MR. MERCIER: Mr.

Speaker, my question is to the Honour able Attorney-Gener al. I wonder if the Attorney-General could indicate whether he supports the position of a Senior Crown Attorney who has recommended to a Bar Assoc iation meeting that per sons convicted of impaired driving for the second time should be given the maximum penalty of 14 days in jai l. MR. PENNER: Mr. Speaker, I am trying very hard as a matter of pol icy not to, in any way, make it appear that in my position which is essentially a political position, I'm interfering with the jud iciary.

I think the jud iciary has to, with in the confines of the law, as it is presently enacted, which is federal law and within the general guidelines laid down by the Court of Appeal, exercise its function. If on appeal - and the Crown does appeal, the Court of Appeal wishes to issue any statements as to principles of sentencing in such cases, I think that is pre-eminently a question for the Court of Appeal. Ho wever, there is something which can be done and perhaps ought to be done through our department. As the Honour able Member for St.

Norbert knows, instructions were issued by himself when he was the Attorney-General as to those cir cumstances which ought to pertain when someone who has been charged for the second time when the charge should be laid technically as a second charge, which wo uld then attract the possibility of the jail sentence.

The present position which was announced by the previous Attorney-General, I think, in 19 80 is cur rently under review by the department and it may be that after reviewing it we will decide to issue instruc tions to Crown Attorneys that second charges or a charge should be laid as a second off ence should be made somewhat more readily than has presently been the case.

So the pol icy that was the policy of the former Attorney-General is under review and I'm say ing that not critically, but as the former Attorney General knows we must always review these things in the light of the incidence of a particular crime and I ex pect to have a position on that very shortly. MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Mem ber for Emerson. MR. ALBERT DRIEDGER (Emerson): Mr. $peaker, to the Minister of Agriculture, could the Minister indi- cate whether there has been any changes in the Farm lands Protection Board to this date and if so, who has been replaced? MR.

SPEAK ER: The Honour able Min ister of Agriculture. MR. URUSKI: No, Mr. Speaker. MR. DRIEDGER:. To the same Minister, I am not quite sure what he said no to, whether he was going to answer the question as open government does, or whether there have been any changes taking place. Have any changes taken place on the Farmlands Pro tection Board? MR. URUSKI: No, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Swan River. MR. GOURLAY: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minis ter of Northern Affa irs whether a new No rthern Development Agreement has been signed by the Federal Gov ernment yet? MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of North ern Affai rs. HON. JAY COWAN (Churchill): At this time I can indicate to the member that we have not yet reached conclusion of our negotiations with the Federal Go vernment. As I indicated to him earlier, we are at the stage where I believe it is appropriate that the two Ministers involv ed initiate discussions, the staff hav ing carried forward as much as they can under the circumstances. I have asked the Honourable Herb Gr ay for a meeting this week when I will be in Ottawa.

If in fact he does meet with me at that time, I should be able to report back with more detail next week. MR. SPE AKER: The Honour able Memb er for Emerson. MR. DRIEDGER: Mr. Speaker, I have a little problem here.

I don't know whether it's a point of personal privilege or not, but under an Order-in-Council passed March 3 1, 19 82, Order-in-Council No. 356 indicates that changes have been made under the Manitoba Agricultur al Lands Protect ion Board and new members have been appointed. -(l nterjection) The Min ister has just indicated that there have been no changes and according to the Order-in-Council, that I just indicated, the Board has been changed. 1103 MR. SPEA KER: The Honour able Min ister of Agriculture. MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, I took the honourable member's second question to ask about the Farm Machinery Board , and I said "no." If the member tal ked about the Farmlands Protection Board, that's another question, Mr. Speaker, and I apolog ize if that was the question. I didn't get it that way, I took it as the Farm Machinery Board and that's why I answered "no" twice. If he asked the question about the Farm-

Monday, 5 April, 1982 lands Protection Board, absol utely, Mr. Speaker, there's been a change in that board. MR. DRIEDGER: Mr. Speaker, I have a little problem with that because twice I made reference to the Farm lands Protection Board. If the Minister has had a little problem hearing it, that's fine ... MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Emer son may proceed. MR. DRIEDGER: Mr.

Speaker, not to be repetitious, I wonder if then my first question, under the rules of the House I don't want to be repetitious, but I wonder if the Minister could now then answer the question the way I had asked it the first time - if there have been changes and then who has been replaced, if there have been changes, under The Farml ands Protection Act? MR. URUSKI: Mr. Speaker, the entire board has been changed under the Farmlands Protect Board. MR. DRIEDGER: To the Minister of Agriculture then, has the whole previous board then been fired, is that what he's indicating? MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, I should tell the honour able member I have to say that while I've been apol og izing, I couldn't hear his question because of the chat tering from the members of his own side of the House. To tell the honourable member specifically, Mr. Speaker, we have thanked all the members who have served on the boards for many years in terms of their service to the Province of Manitoba and their appoint ments are at the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor in-Council. Mr. Speaker, we are making those changes as the times expire and/or we decide that there should be changes made. MR.

DRIEDGER: Just once more, Mr. Speaker, the Minister then is confirming that the whole previous board has then been fired, is that right? MR. URUSKI: Mr. Speaker, no board member, no board appointments that the appointments are made by the Lieutenant-Governor are fired. They are at the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council and, Mr. Speaker, they have been replaced by other members. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Niakwa. MR. ABE KOVNATS (Nlakw a): Thank you, Mr . Speaker.

I've listened with great interest to the Hon ourable Minister of Agriculture and I wo uld like to direct a question to the Honour able Minister of Agri culture concerning the beef income security plan and the Beef Marketing Board , which is being looked at to being set up. The Honour able Minister has advised that he has been checking and loo king into the advice of producers in Province of Manitoba in setting up this Beef Income Assurance Plan and Beef Ma rketing Board.

Can the Honour able Minister advise whether in fact he has checked with any of the consumers, of which there are more than 1 million in the Province of 1104 Manitoba, on this Beef Income Assurance Plan? MR. SPEA KER: The Honour able Mini ster of Agriculture. MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, seeing as the market place has not returned producers an adequate return for their produce, this program in the marketpla ce hasn't worked to the benefit of producers: obviousl y this assistance will be a direct assistance to consu mers in terms of making sure that there will be ade quate suppl ies of beef in the Province of Manitoba and that we hope that this will enhance the slaug hter ing capacity in the Province of Manitoba to make sure that the packing houses in the province have ade quate suppl ies of beef and the packing industry stays viable within this province. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Mem ber for Swan River. MR. GOURLAY: I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of the Environment, and ask whether the Minister can advise the House as to the problem with the odor in the Chamber and whether it wou ld be harmful to the members and spectators in the gall ery? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of North ern Affa irs. MR.

COWAN: Speaking as the Minister not only responsible for the Environmental Management Divi s ion but as the Minister responsible for Workplace Safety and Health, I can assure the Member for Swan R iver that those complai nts have been brought to my attention today, and in some detail from members on this side of the House. I welcome his comments as wel l. I fully anticipate contacting the staff of the Work place Safety and Health Division, Mr. Speaker.

I inform you of this action in this way to ask them to inquire as to what possible and potential problems could arise as a resul t of the vapours and the fumes which are obviously being emitted by work which I believe is being done to repair the roof of the Legisla ture. Havi ng done so, I will ask him if there is any cause for any of us in this room to exercise our right to refuse to work under what we believe to be unsafe and unhealthy conditions. MR. GOURL AY: I wonder if the Minister could tell us how much longer this situation will prevail here. MR.

COWAN: That brings us to the seco nd right in the tool box of workers as they attempt to build safer and healthier work places as we obviously are trying to do here today, and that is the right to know, and I will make inquiries to the appropriate Ministers as the opportunity presents itself in order to determine if in fact the work which is ongoing at the present timewill be continuing for some time and to try to derive from him a

schedule so that we can make our actions accordingly. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Mo rris.

Monday, 5 April, 1982 MR. CLAYTON MANNESS (Morris): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have a questic;m for the Minister of Trans portation. Last we ek, the Minister indicated in ques tioning that at the request of of ficials, the government would be available to meetings on the Crow rate issue, and this would be in the rural areas, in order to make the present government views on the matter known. Ca n the Minister disclose the names of the people either in his department or the Depa rtment of Agriculture who would be made available to go to these meetings if they were called upon? MR.

USKIW: I believe the House Leader intends to make an announcement with respect to a presenta tion to the members of the Asse mbly out in Room 254 and that time, of course, members will become more knowledgeable as to who is involv ed and will indeed, if they have some suggestions as to who should be involved beyond that group. I'm willing to take that advice, Mr. Speaker. MR. MAN NESS: Thank you. Included in that group is the name of Mr. Bill Janssen. Is he included as one of these people? MR. USKIW: Mr.

Speaker, the person in question is not solely preoccupied with that particular area of responsibility. although he has played a co-ordinating role. It's essentially John Ra e·s department or branch that is heading the technical advisory group. MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Minister of Munici pal Affairs. MR. ADAM: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member for Swan River asked a question a whil e ago in regard to the appointments to the Municipal Board, I would like to advise the Hous e that wha t we have done is tried to appo int people to the Municipal Board from the "dif ferent regions in the province, and we have six appointees up to this point in time. I can now provide the honourable member with the names who have been appointed - one Mr . Gunnar Hel gason from Riverton, Mr.

Ray Howard fro m Birtle, Everett Leader from Portage la Prai rie, Jennie Keenan from the City of Winnipeg, Mayor Serfaty of the City of Brandon and Roger Smith of the Vil lage of Ste. Anne. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The time for Oral Questions has expired. The Hono urable Member for Minnedosa. MR. DAVID R. (Dave) BLAKE (Minnedosa): Yes, Mr. Speaker. I wo uld like leave of the Ho use and your permission to make an announcement of a non political nature. MR. SPEAKER: Does the member have leave? The Honourable Member for Minnedosa. NON-POLITICAL STATEMENT MR. BLAKE: We were pleased again, Mr .

Speaker, to host a Midget Hockey Tou rnament in Minnedosa. Due to the fact that they have artificial ice there, the Wes man region and Ham iota were the actual hosts of the prog ram, but due to losing their ice, they moved the tournament to Minnedosa. We were treated to some excellent hockey by teams from Dauphin, two teams from Winnipeg, Brandon, and representing the Tier I Midgets of the province. The hard-fought Round Robin Tournmant, Mr. Speaker, was won by the St.

Boniface Saints and that team by winning secured the Air Canada Cu p for their club and will move on next weekend to Victoria, British Col umbia to play in the Rig ley Tournament for that particular cup. I had the opportunity to visit with their coaches and management personnel and they're very desirous, Mr. Speaker, of obtaining some Manitoba crest pins to take with them on that particular tournament. My supply is a wee bit short at the moment, and I sug gested that I wo uld speak to their member and the Minister of Fitness and Recreation and see if we could secure enough pins for them to take with them.

But I'm sure all members of the House wou ld like to con gratulate the coaches, the managers and the players themselves on bringing this glory to their club and representing Manitoba. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Health. MR. DESJARDINS: Mr. Speaker, I have no problem joi ning with the honourable friend in congratulating these players who won the Manitoba Championship. There will be an awful lot of pressure on me to make sure that they get the pins because one of the players is my grandson, but I want to assure the House that they will not be treated any differently than any other. 1105 MR.

SPEAK ER: The Honour able Min ister of Education. TABLING OF REPORTS MRS. HEMPHILL: Mr. Speaker, by leave of the Ho use, I wou ld like to table a memorandum I sent to all school board chairpersons today. MR. SPEAKER: Does the Honourable Minister have that leave of the House? (Ag reed). ORDERS OF THE DAY ORDERS FOR RETURN MR. SPEAKER: The first one is standing in the name of the Honourable Member for Turtle Mountain. Do es it stand? (Sta nds) ORDER FOR RETURN - NO. 2 MR. SPEAKER: The second one stands in the name of the Honourable Member for St. Nor bert. MR. MERCIER: Mr.

Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Fort Ga rry, that an Order of the House do issue a return of the fo llowing info rma tion as listing by original department and agency of all transfers of staff since Nov ember 30, 1981, and showing: (1) name;

Monday, 5 April, 1982 (2 ) position or title, classif ication and annual salar y prior to and after transfer; (3) department transferred to; and (4) reason for the transfer. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Go vernment House Leader. MR. PENNER: Just before I respond, for clarification only, and this involv es the next couple of returns as well, when the return asks for the information since No vember 30, 1981, am I to understand that it's from November 30, 1981, to the date of the request? There's no termination date here.

I wo uld like to know that because I've noticed that Orders for Return of this kind have a term ination date. Th ey can't be open-ended . MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, it's up to the date this is · accepted. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Gov ernment House Leader. MR. PENNER: Accept the order. MOTION presented and carried. ORDER FOR RETURN - NO. 3 MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. No rbert. MR. MERCIER: Mr.

Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Lakeside, that an Order of the House do issue a return of the fo ll ow ing information: For each department and agency - the name, posi tion, classification, annual salar y and qualification of each person hired since No vember 30, 1981, and also showi ng: 1) How that person was appointed, i.e., Order-in Council, contract, term; 2) If a civil service competition was held, and if so what the competition number was; and 3) If the person was a civil servant and what position and salary did that person previously hold? MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Government House Leader. MR. PENNER: Yes on the same understanding, accept. MOTION presented and carried. ORDER FOR RETURN - NO. 4 MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. Nor bert. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Pembina, that an Order of the House do issue a return of the fo ll owing information: The number of permanent, term, contract and other employees, and the total number in each department and agency as at: 1) November 30, 1981; and 2) The date this order is accepted. MR. PENNER: Accept. MOTION presented and carried.

ORDER FOR RETURN - NO. 5 MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. Norbert. MR. MERCIER: Mr.

Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Tux edo, that an Order of the Hou se do issue for a retur n of the fo ll ow ing information: For each department and agency a list of all per sons whose employment ceased since Nov ember 30, 1981, and also showing for each person: 1) Name and address; 2) Postion or title, classification and annual sal ary; 3) Emplo yment status, i.e., permanent civil servant, term employee, contract employee; and 4) Nature of termination and in the event of dis charge, the cause for termination. MR. PENNER: On the same condition, accept. MOTION presented and carried.

ORDER FOR RETURN - NO. 6 MR. SPEAK ER: The Honour able Memb er for Lakeside. MR. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, I move, seco nded by the Honour able Member for St. Norb ert, that an Order of the House do issue for a return of the fo llowing information: A list of all insurance contracts or policies pur chased by the Province of Manitoba during 1981- 1982, in all department and agencies showing for each contract or policy:

a) Depar tment or agency pur cha sing the insurance;

b) What is the insurance for?

c) Annual cost of the policy or the cost for the term invol ved in the policy;

d) The name and address of the agency or broker;

e) The name and address of the insurance company;

f) Exp iry date of the current pol icy or contract. MR. PENNER: Yes, a quest ion to the honourable member. I'm not quite sure what is meant during 1981-1982. Is that fiscal '81'-82 ? MR. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, I'm referring to the fiscal year '81'-82. MR. PENNER: On that understanding, accept. MOTION presented and carried. 1106

Monday, 5 April, 1982 MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Go verment Ho use Leader. MR. PENNER: Yes, Mr . Sp eaker, I mo ve, seconded .. . MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Member for St. Norbert. MR. MERCIER: Yes, I wonder if I might just ask the Go vernment House Leader a question? Wo uld he indicate when he expects to call the government reso lution on the Crow rate this week? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Govern ment Hous e Leader. MR.

PENNER: Yes, I've been discussing this question with the Honour able Min ister of Hig hw ays and Transport, and if we could, by agreement, waive the Private Members' Hour on Wednesday for the techni cal briefing, we'd be prepared to call it on Thursday, if that's satisfactory to . . . MR. MERCIER: I'll advise the Govern ment Hous e Leader later. MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Minister of Go v ernment Services. MR. USKIW: Yes, before the Ho use Leader moves to com mittee, I would like to table the Highw ays Department Construction Prog ram since it is going to be in the other committee. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Govern ment House Leader. MR. PENNER: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I've advised the Act ing Opposition House Leader that it wo uld be our propos al to go ahead with Private Members' Hour today to see if we can dispose of the Resolution stand ing in the name of Mr. Fil mon, and with that announcement I would like to move, seconded by the Honour able Minister of Natural Resou rces, that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the Hous e resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Maj esty.

MOTION pr esented and carried and the Ho use resolved itself into a Com mittee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty with the Honour able Member for Fliri Flon in the Chair for the Depart ment of Agriculture and the Honourable Member for The Pas in the Chair for the Department of Highw ays. CONCURRENT COMMITTEES OF SUPPLY SUPPLY -HIGHWAYS AND TRANSPORTATION ACTING CHAI RMAN, Mr. Reeves {Clerk of the House): Gentlemen, since the Chairman of this sec tion of the committee is, shall we say, temporarily indisposed, we will require a temporary C{hairman. Mr. Penner. MR.

PENNER: I nominate Gerard Lecuyer to act as Acting Temporary Chairman, whichever you prefer. ACTING CHAIRMAN: Mr. Lecuyer, would you please take the Chair? MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, Gerard Lecuyer {Radls son): This committee will come to order. At this time we will start with the Estimates for Highw ays and Transportation. Mr. Minister. HON. SAMUEL USKIW {Lac Du Bonnet): Mr. Chair man, first of all, I want to thank everyone for their patience.

We did lose track of our Chairman and have yet to determine his whereabouts and I appreciate the fact that members here perhaps may want to get on with the business of the building of highways. I would like to begin by simply pointing out that the go vernment having been elected so late in the year and indeed not sworn in until December of this year, that it was somewhat awkward for me as Minister to enable me to receive all the briefs from various people throughout the province that wo uld be normally the case.

The prog ramming of the whole government, indeed the Treasury Board operations were such that we had to set many things aside in order to get the Legislature convened and therefore a lot of the requests for meetings that came from municipalities and various interest groups throughout Manitoba had to be delayed and in fact some of them have yet to appear before me to the extent that they have not yet been able to present their views to me or to my department.

I wou ld suppose one wo uld have to assume from that these Estimates will not reflect that input and I think that is something that is at this point unavoida ble. Ther e were just not enough days to receive all of the delegations that wanted to be heard. That process is ongoing however.

I don't look at the Hig hways Department as a one-year shot in any event and it's my hope that before the current year is o ut that we will have had an opportunity to meet with all groups who have something to offer by way of suggestions and recommendations with respect to the Department of Highways whether it be its general program or whether it be the construction end. You will notice that in the first page of our Estimates that we have all ocated just under $200 million, $195.7 million in this year's program.

That's not quite accu rate as a comparison to last year's program in that there's another couple of million in an enabling vote which wo uld really bring it up to 197, but the arran gements are different this year as I understand it vis a-vis the Norther n Affa irs section, so there is that slight difference in the presentation.

On an equal presentation basis, the figure would be 197.9, so there's a difference of 2.160 that will show up elsewhere. 1107 You will notice $100 million is the figure for con struction and the other large figure, of course, is $49 million in the Highways and Airports Maintenance Prog ram. That's an area where costs are increasing at a very rapid rate because of the fact that it's an energy-related area and so is construction for that matter. $100 million against $84 million probably

Monday, 5 April, 1982 won't build us any more roads than we built last year for more doll ars in other words; so that in essence, inflation is having its impact on the totality of the road program ming, both in the maintenance area and in new construction. I believe in the maintenance area we have covered off for the full effect of inflation . I don't believe that we have allo wed ourselves room for an improved pro gram; at least I'm not aware of it. There may be slight improvement in different areas, but by and large it's a figur e that represents the increasing costs of operating. Mr.

Chairman, I have tried to put together a con struction package that responds to the best interests of the people of Manitoba and I know that is always subject to

interpretation. It is indeed the kind of department that is subjected to a tremendous amount of pressure from various groups for particular high way projects and it's always an area of discretion when one decides to go or not to go with a particular proposal, so it is somewhat a political department in that sense that one has to interface, not only with members of the Legislature but with municipal coun cils and various organizations and try to respond and yet, at the same time, maintain a direction with respect to where highways want to be in the long-term.

One of the areas that I hope to examine in the next year or over this fiscal year is perhaps a slight change - I'm not sure how much of a change -- in sort of giving preferential treatment to requests for new roads or road reconstruction or highway reconstruc tion. It's only my own particular notion at the moment, but I think we have to examine it in any event and that is that since the doll ars that we have for highway programming are always limited, we do have to then make choices.

We have to approve some projects and not approve others that we will have to give some consideration to, in particular in rural Manitoba as it relates to agriculture and, of course, as it relates to the resource industries, we may have to pay a great deal more attention to tonnage movements as opposed to just traffic movements in terms of upgrading or rebuilding a road system.

That's sort of my bent at the moment and I do say that I haven't concluded on that particular opinion, but it's the direction that I think is somewhat obvious, given the fact that we've had a number of ra il lines abandoned throughout the province over the years and given the fact that there may be others and that the emphasis of movement of goods in the rural areas has shifted quite a bit to the larger trucks on country roads. We will have to take a very in depth approach in that one, I believe, in order to come up with a traffic system or a highw ay system that will be able to respond to those needs.

That's sort of the emphasis that I wo uld want to place on where we are going with respect to highways into the future. The demands in the immediate area around Win nipeg, of course, are phenomenal, to say the least, in terms of doll ars that are required to respond to those demands. There is a legitimate argument to be made for a fair amount of fo ur-laning on a number of high ways leading into the City of Winnipeg or out from the City of Winnipeg and those are indeed ex pensive miles that have to built.

I think we have to sort of take on a certain amount of that kind of work each year 1108 along with the other priorities of rural and northern Manitoba. You will notice in your package, the pro gram itself, that we intend to make some start with respect to fo ur-laning of 75 Highw ay south of Win nipeg and indeed continue on with the extension of the four-laning of 59 and indeed Trans Canada High way. All of those are going to continue. Highw ay 75, for the first time, will have a

section built this year hopefully, all things going in the positive direction, and I know that one sometimes sticks one's neck on the block because one doesn't know the technical hurdles that might have to be overcome in order to achieve those objectives, but that's the sort of direc tion in any event. Winnipeg has become more and more a major con centration of pe ople, unlike other provinces where there are five or six cities to our one.

We find that the pressure for access into Winnipeg requiring four laning and fairly expensive structures such as clover leafs are eating away at our construction doll ars quite significantly as compared to other areas in the coun try. That is a bit of a handicap in that sense because one interchange, as all members wo uld appreciate, runs into many millions of doll ars and the density of population that we have here in Winnipeg does indeed require, over time, a great number of these inner changes in order to bring about a fairly safe flo w of traffic in and out of the City of Winnipeg.

So, essentially, those are the overview comments that I wish to make at this time and wou ld hope that members would be constructive in their recommen dations as to where we proceed in the year ahead, Mr. Chairman. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The Member for Pembina. MR. DONALD ORCHARD (Pembina): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the Minister for his opening remarks. I'm pleased to see that the Minister is enunciating some basic policy for the Department of Highw ays and Transportation that I think has been in place for a number of administrations.

It was cer tainly much in line with what we were attempting to do in the four-year term that we have just nicely finished and to comment on the Minister's last statement about the transportation needs around the City of Winnipeg, he certainly will be faced, as Minister, with a great deal of pressure to make a number of improvements to Trans Canada West between Head ingley and Winnipeg, as he is probably well aware of; 75 South; and No. 7 North, the interchange that's proposed there, and they are, I full wel l appreciate, major consumers of construction dolla rs at a time when construction dollar s are not terribly easy to come by.

But I'm encouraged by the Minister's remarks in terms of attempting to provide for the communities in rural Manitoba a good highway system that's possibly targeted towards the, not necessarily the daily vehicle traffic counts, but indeed the tonnage counts -t ruck movement - because the Minister has identified something that has been gradually growing over the last half dozen years, and that being more and more major use of the truck to replace rail service in a number of areas, not only where abandonment has taken place but areas where the truck has become an

Monday, 5 April, 1982 alternate mode to the rail even though rail service is still there. That requires roads that are a lot stronger in terms of their carrying capacity than the present system. It wo uld appear from the Minister's remarks that he agrees that for rural areas of rural Manitoba to grow they must have year-round access by truck which is, if not unrestricted, as close to unrestricted in the springtime as you can get.

In that regard I think the Minister will be able to find that, for instance, in southern Manitoba on No. 14, I believe it is, between 75 and west over into the Altona and Winkler area, when we upgraded there in the last fo ur years we upgraded with the objective of providing the 11 0,000 lb. loading unrestricted year round, because that belt of communities along Hwy. 14 up to Morden have really developed a number of industries in the last several years that depend a lot on truck traffic and their economic viability in rural Manitoba is depen dent on year round unrestricted truck moves.

The industries there cannot afford to have a six to eight week period in the spring where they can't compete with a Winnipeg competitor because they can't get the products out by truck. I am pleased to see the continued emphasis on bringing upgraded roads and preferential treatment to requests for road reconstruction to a number of these communities because I think it will make them a more viable centre for future industrial ex pansion and growth. I think the Minister shares with all of us that desire to have all of Manitoba take

part in any indus trial expansion and not ju st have it centred in Win nipeg. I think if there's one problem with Manitoba, compared to say Saskatc hewan and Alberta, it's the fact that Winnipeg essentially stands by itself in terms of a major centr e

whereas Saskatchewan of course has Regina and Saskat oon and a number of smaller centres competing for industrial expansion as does Al berta with Calgary and Edmonton and a number of other communities. So, I will certainly support this Minister in any effort he undertakes to provide our various rural growt h centres with the best road system that we can afford to put in place. I am pleased to see the Trans Canada West from Alexander is on the next leg of twinning.

I think the Minister will find the first leg from Kem nay to Alexander removed the death. curb in there that's been a very troublesome spot on the Trans Canada for some 25 years. I think that was welcomed by all the motoring public; traffic on Trans Canada has been increasing as it has on the Yellowhe ad, and I would suppose that. in the not-too-distant future if traffic growth continues, particularly the truck traffic growth, we might have to continue the twinning program beyond Virden right to the Saskatchewan boundary; that's a possibility.

The tw inning of 75 and the first stretch below Winnipeg, of course - I appreciate the Minister's comments that he's hopeful to get that going. I was hopeful to get that going a year ago and that target seemed to slip by without being realized. The Minister has indicated that he wants to adopt the preferential treatment to requests for road recon struction rather than branc:t-new roads and I would assume he means brand-new four-laning projects that might from time to time come up, or indeed requests for new roads. Tha t is a problem he's going to have to wrestle with.

We were, I suppose, unduly saddled with a lot of effective railway abandonments from 1977 on where a number of rail lines were pulled up and we responded by providing better than 50 percent of the construction doll ars on the P.R. system over the last two or three years. Perusal of the con struction Estimates when we get to that line will indi cate whether the Minister sees that as an ongoing need and worthy of that kind of support and the con struction dollars .. I would hope that the Minister is able to fo llo w up much more speedily with the Federal Minister of Transportation than I was able to.

I'm not faulting myself on this, I'm more faulting the Federal Depart ment of Transportation. On the subject of fol lowing up with the Federal Go vernment a program of cost sharing and road reconstruction in areas affected by rail line abandonment, the Hall Commission Report had indeed recommended that prior to abandonment an attempt should be made to the Federal Govern ment to come up with cost-sharing with the provin ces. I think if the Minister goes back to his files, he will find Dr.

John Rae and the transportation group had developed what I thought was probably the most - and I don't use this in a polit ical sense - the most conservative estimate of increased cost to the prov ince that could be developed. We could have devel oped a wildly optimistic set of figures and absol utely floor ed the Federal Go vernment and then negotiated from there down to some reasonable figure. But we chose not to do that and we developed, I think, some very real costs to the province on reconstruction that could be attributed solely to the abandonment of rail lines.

And that report, if my memory serves me cor rect, was delivered to a Federal Minister in about Ja n uary of '81, and subsequent fol low-up in May and June, and indeed July left us with the answer that yes, the report had been received, and yes, they were tak ing a look at it, and yes, they were analysing it.

But quite frankly I didn't detect that we were getting any where and had I had the opportunity after the elec tion, that was certainly an.area that I thought should be pressed with the Federal Gov ernment because we're on what I thought to be the best of - could I call them constitutional grounds in demanding that. Because all the previous reports on rail line aban donment had recommended a course of action which we were suggesting.

I would just close by saying to the Minister that if he needs the combined support of the House to lobby, if that's the proper term, the Federal Govern ment for an implementation of that kind of a funding program, he certainly has it.

Because not only would it serve to recognize the additional cost to the province, and the the individual taxpayer in the Province of Manitoba, but it wo uld provide Department of Highways and Transportation with much needed construction funds that the Minister is wel l aware, and as I was wel l aware, are in constant demand and you never can find enough dol lars to meet the need. 1109 So I want to thank the Minister for his opening remarks and, Mr. Chairman, we could proceed. MR. USKIW: Well, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to respond on that last point. And that is that the discus sions with Mr.

Pepin broadened quite a bit far beyond

Monday, 5 April, 1982 the railways that have already been abandoned, in light of the Pepin announcement on where they want to go with transportation rates for the movement of grain, and especially if they are going to take the variable route direction which will mean more aban donment of railways. Until that is clear we really can't give to Mr. Pepin a final package of costs that we can attribute to that decision. But they are certainly enlarging very quickly the potential for much greater spending in Highw ays at the provincial level with the direction that they have chosen to take.

So while we were preoccupied with a number of lines that have already been abandoned or sl ated for abandonment fairly soon, we really won't know the total parameters of our problem until we know where we're heading with the issue of the Crow rate. MR. ORCHARD: Well, Mr.

Chairman, if I might offer some advice, and it's free and the Minister can do with it what he likes - but we were aware that the Federal Go vernment for some time has been toying with the Crow rate proposal and the y also bounce around from time-to-time this elusive western development fund of $4 billion that has been on and off some three times now. And I think that the Minister can make, it's going to be a number of years before the fal lout of any change, if any change takes place on the Crow rate before that is truly recognized,

whereas we can iden tify right now some costs that we're going to be incur ring over the next several years and I believe that funding for areas affected by rail line abandonment is a separate entity that can be pursued on its own and that's why I had the Transportation Division draw up that very extensive report. I think my advice wo uld be that if the Minister intends to pursue a joint action Crow rate and end the area affected by rail line aban donment funding, you're liable to draw a great big blank from the Federal Go vernment because they'll study it for another five years

whereas I do believe you've got specific and definite grounds to approach them on a separate program right now. I wou ldn't want to see the Minister lose what little momentum there was there in pursuing that one as a separate entity. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: No. l. (b) -pass; l.(b)( 1) the Member for Pembina. MR. ORCHARD: Has the Minister got a sheet where he can show us the SMYs as compared to last year, this year? We had done that in past years, so that we don't have to bother asking each department, is there people up, people down to get a general idea. That wo uld be sufficient. MR.

USKIW: I don't believe we have a handout, Mr. Chairman. We ha ve the totality here. Mr. Chairman, perhaps the member would want to clar ify. I have the sectional numbers and I have the total number. For 1981 -82, the total number was 2983.9 staff marryears; now that's 1981-82. If the member is referring to Item (b). we have 67 staff man years in the Administration section. MR. ORCHARD: I don't want to go through each sec tion and find out what they were last year, this year.

I 1110 think the Minister could have the department develop just quickly a last year, this year to give us an idea of where SMY s are up or down. On Item (b). wou ld that be where we wo uld be able to discuss the Minister's Special Assistant? MR. USKIW: Yes, I believe that's co rrect, Mr . Chairman. MR. ORCHARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister indicate Mr. Shafransky's duties for this department? MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, the nature of a Special Assistant varies from one department to another for obvious reasons and that is the nature of the depart ment, but essentially a Special Assistant is a person that has very general responsibilities with respect to the functioning of the Minister's office and that's an all and sundry approach. We have not assigned and I do not intend at this point to assign any specific duties to the Special Assistant at the moment, but it is general office routine duties that he's pursuing as an assistant to my office. MR. ORCHARD: Mr. Chairman, is Mr.

Shafransky's duties in addition to - does the Minister have an Exec utive Assistant as wel l? MR. USKIW: Yes, that is correct. MR. ORCHARD: Where is Mr. Janssen's contract open for discussion. Is it under Administration? MR. USKIW: Yes. MR. ORCHARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I questioned the Minister some months ago, he indi cated that a contract was being prepared. Has the contract for Mr. Janssen been prepared and could the Minister indicate the details of the contract, how long it's extended to and the dollar amounts involved?

I assume that it's strictly a contract; it has no Civil Service status to it and what Mr . Janssen has been undertaking as duties as a result of this contract with the Minister. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman, the consultant that we have retained has been primarily involved with co ordinating the Crow issue along with John Rae's staff to date. Although he is a general consultant to the department, he is on a six-month contract that I believe has a renewal option, but the six months ter minates I believe in May. MR. ORCHARD: And the val ue of the contract, Mr. Chairman? MR.

USKIW: I don't know if I have the specific number here, but it's somewhere in the· order of $5,000-some-odd doll ars per month plus expenses. MR. ORCHARD: Did Mr. Janssen have any duties as far as arr anging the beef support program? MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman, the member would have

Monday, 5 April, 1982 to go to the Department of Agriculture Estimates to determine that. Mr. Janssen has been primarily involv ed in inter-relating between Agriculture and Highw ays with respect to the Crow issue. Whether or not he's been used otherwise by another Minister is not my responsibility to respond to, Mr. Chairman. The Department of Agriculture Estimates are before the committee in the House and that is the proper place to put that question. MR. ORCHARD: Was this department drawn up with the Department of Highways and Transportation as the employer and paying the $5,000 per month plus expenses? MR.

USKIW: The Department of Highw ays has a con tract with the individual and the Department of High ways is paying the contract costs. MR. ORCHARD: Then, Mr. Chairman, although the Agriculture Estimates are on right now, surely the Minister who hired him wou ld be able to answer as to whether he had involv ement with the Department of Agriculture in drafting a Beef Income Assurance Plan because after all, it's this Minister who's paying him and not the Minister of Agriculture who quite properly could tell us to ask the Minister of Highw ays and Transportation who's paying him. MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, I believe the member is pursuing a line of questioning that is totally irrelevant to this department. Whether or no t that particular individual has assisted or will assist or whatever, another department is obviously an open question and whether it's for a fee or not for a fee is an open question.

I believe it's recogn ized that the person that we are talking about has, over time, offered a tre mendous amount of free time to, not only the gov ernment but indeed the pol itical party that the gov ernment represents, so to say that there's never been a communication link between that person and the Minister of Agriculture wo uld be an erroneous state ment. It may have occurred on different levels, Mr. Chairman, to the extent of which the person was used in helping the other Minister prepare pol icy, the member will have to direct that question to the other Minister. MR.

ORCHARD: The Minister then I take it could assure us since he's paying Mr. Janssen's wages out of his departmental appropriation that none of the wage requirements or expenses incurred have been expended in having Mr. Ja nssen undertake work for any other department than the Highw ays and Trans portation Department. MR. USKIW: Wel l, Mr . Chairman, I don't know the extent, if any, of his involvement officially in another department, but for ease of adminstration to the extent that it occurred if it did, I don't believe that it matters much as to which department picks up the costs of the consultant.

It's something similar to seconding a person for a time period. I don't believe that presents a problem to anyone, whether if you're using one person for two departments, you can choose to split the costs, or one department might 111 1 choose to absorb the costs and yet another depart ment may use the services of that person; but again I wou ld suggest to the member that I really don't know to what extent at the official level that the other department had use of this person, although there may have been. MR.

ORCHARD: Wel l then, the Minister cannot indi cate whether in the past several months with the ex penditure of the $5,000 per month and expenses that none of those expenses, say, were incurred undertaking discussions on matters other than High ways and Transportation issues, namely the Crow issue, as the Minister indicated this person's prime responsi bility would be coor dinating the Crow issue ... MR. USKIW: I meant between the two departments. MR. ORCHARD: ... as between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Highways, but the Minister cannot now assure us that this individual on contract, Mr.

Janssen, has not submitted expenses and part of his time allo tment to the development of the beef income ass urance scheme that was announced just recently, that assurance can't be made at this time? MR. USKIW: Wel l, no, I can make an assurance. I believe the totality of the fee for that consultant will be paid out of the Department of Highw ays appropriation. MR. ORCHARD: Agreed.

We know that, but the Min ister cannot assure us that all of the work for which we are being billed in the Department of Highways was Department of Hig hways and Transportation work and that some of it was indeed not work for the Department of Agriculture in draw ing up a Beef Income Sssurance plan, that assurance can't be given, that part of his wages did not go towards that? MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, I am not aware as to what extent there was any involvement with respect to the development of the Beef Income Assurance plan on the part of this person, although he may ha ve been involved, but I don't know to what extent, if any. That is not something that I would be concerned about in any event. If there was involvement due to his own expertise, that is between him and the Minister of Agriculture. If in the course of their discussions on Crow, they entered into other discussions, that again is something that I could not relate on at this point in time.

I wo uld have to get that information, but it is not a situation where one department does not allow the use of a person to another department. That's a com mon occurrence in government as between directors' levels or Deputy Ministers' levels or almost at any level, there is cross-referencing, there is a borrowing of time if you like for the use of a person either offi cially or unofficially from time to time, so I really have no reason to be concerned about that. I think; it is a good practice. MR. ORCHARD: Well, Mr. Chairman, certainly I'm not arguing with the Minister's ability to have Mr.

Janssen undertake any sort of consultative process

Monday, 5 April, 1982 on behalf of the government. After all, the government has hired him. We're not arguing with whether he has the ability to do that. That's entirely the Minister's prerogative. All we're interested in knowing is whether he did have a hand in the drafting of the Beef Income Assurance plan because that would certainly be val u able information and if the Minister of Transportation who is paying the bills can't provide that, then we will pose that question, I suppose, to the Minister of Agriculture. In the general administration, are there any other people on contract, other than Mr.

Janssen, providing consulting services to the department? MR. USKIW: No, not that I'm aware of. Perhaps the Deputy has knowledge of someo ne. No. There will be a change, however, and I should have all uded to that in my opening remarks. There is going to be a person brought in, at least initially one person, that will have responsibility for employment programs within the department and employment programs through the contracting-out system, that is the tender system. That is yet to be developed, but there is a staff man year provision here for that to occur over the next fiscal year. MR.

ORCHARD: And what will be the hoped-for result of that person's involv ement in the hiring prac tices of the department? MR. USKIW: Wel l, Mr. Chairman, the department is assuming a role of a fair degree of affirmative action with respect to groups in society, and in this case, it will concentrate quite a bit on Native communities to achieve a greater involvement on their

part in the mainstream of Manitoba's economy and certainly government has to play a leading role in that respect, and we intend to facilitate that course of events over the next 12 months on somewhat of an experimental basis and developmental basis, after which we will either modify or ex pand the program. It will involve assisting people in securing employment opportuni ties within the department.

It will also involve assist ing people in securing employment opportunities through the general contractors who provide services or bid on government contracts, namely the Depart ment of Highw ay contracts, but it's still too early to be able to define fully the parameters of that program. So far, we have decided on bringing in one person for the department to set up such a program and over the course of time it will likely involv e a number of other people. MR. ORCHARD: Who is that person, Mr. Chairman, or does the Minister have that information now? MR. USKIW: Well, no, we have not yet employed that perso n.

The doll ars are in this budget which in essence is a budget starting April 1 of 1982, so we have not brought a person on staff prior to that time. MR. ORCHARD: Possibly the Minister could provide us with the Civil Service status of the person that's going to be hired. What sort of a - I think the Minister knows ... 11 12 MR. USKIW: What classification? MR. ORCHARD: Yes. MR. USKIW: That is an open question at the moment. We have not yet decided that. It will be a high-profile position.

It has to be a high-profile position in order to have the ability to interface with all of the sectors within the department and indeed to interface with the construction community outside the department. It has to be a prestigious position to say the least, Mr. Chairman, if it's going to have any meaning to it whatever. MR.

ORCHARD: Is the Minister hoping to employ this person in a role of moral persuasion with the contractors who from time to time bid on jobs, and I wou ld assume that a lot of the target jobs will be any job s that are, say, in Northern Manitoba, the Split Lake-Gillam Road being probably the most high profile one right now.

Is it the Minister's intention to use moral persuasion with the contracting commun ity, the construction community, or wo uld he envision a change in the contract specifications which wo uld require a certain amount of Native hiring, for instance, in contracts that are close to Native communities. MR. USKIW: That is a policy are that has yet to evolve and it will evolve subsequent to the employment of such a person who will then put a program together for our consideration. In other words those are all questions yet to be answered. We don't have the answers to those questions at this point.

I'm not cer tain but I wou ld want to investigate the possibility of a requirement in any tender process that is undertaken. But just what the log istics of that concept are I'm not fully knowledgeable and that's why I don't want to commit to that position. But that is certainly an area that we are loo king at, that if possible, we may have a requirement that a certain amount, a percentage of works must be undertaken by people involved through that kind of an office which may involv e either in House or outside training components or on the job training components and so on.

But again, at this point, we're not in a position to be definitive. MR. ORCHARD: I wo uld assume from what the Min ister has said the key to making this decision wou ld be any recommendation that this person might make when hired to fill that position is his recommendation or her recom mendation might be pretty key to the form ulation of whether it would be a moral persuasion policy or a required quota hiring type policy. MR. USKIW: Agai n, at this point in time, I have quite an open mind on it.

I tend to lean to the idea that there ought to be some requirements, but that is something that I have to refine in my own thinking. The other point that I wou ld like all ude to is that the Member for Pembina as many do automatically infers that this wo uld primarily be something that we wo uld be very much preoccupied with in Northern Mani toba, and I want to suggest here that Native communi ties are located in every part of Manitoba, so that this program will not be confined to merely the north but to all of the geography of this province.

Monday, 5 April, 1982 MR. ORCHARD: Will the Minister be developing this program after the person hired has consulted with the, say the Manitoba Heavy Construction Associa tion, the association I think that represents a lot of the major contractors who bid on government wo rk, will they have a significant hearing in the form ulation of this policy? MR. USl<IW: Yes, I have already given that indication to the Road Builder's Assoc iation at the recent conference. MR. ORCHARD: Where was that, Sam? MR. USKIW: At Phoenix. It was a good place.

I did indicate to them that we will be setting up a consulta tive process with the industry in order to introduce this new employment program within the department and they were most interested in that kind of dialogue and I think we can develop something that wo uld be mutually beneficial. And indeed beneficial to society as a whole. MR. ORCHARD: No w, Mr.

Chairman, the Minister also mentioned when he introduced this concept that the SMY s for this fiscal year, and depending on the success, I would assume he's going to be moving fairly quickly on this because the construction season is going to be starting up within hopefully a month or five weeks. Will that allow the Minister sufficient time to not only get the pol icy in place, but indeed to provide the kind of analysis of its success that he alluded to as to whether he's going to continue with the program in the next fiscal year? MR. USKIW: I don't envisage that we will set a pattern that will not change.

After the initial thrust I believe what will happen is that it will be an evol utionary process that will refine in an ongoing way that kind of a thrust, that kind of a program. And we, of course, will want to measure the successes and the failures in order to do that refining, but we are committed to the fact that we must play a leading role - the public service must play a leading role - in trying to bring certain groups in society who have not been in the mainstream into that mainstream so that they can at some point hopefully , sooner, rather than later, be able to do this very thing on their own initiative.

It is referred to by many as an affirmative action approach. Give it whatever name you wish, I do indicate that we have a desire to move very much in that direction in a major way. MR.

ORCHARD: One final question then - I don't know whether I misinterpreted or misheard the Minis ter - when you mention capability of the people to get into that line of work on their own initiative, does this mean an effort to support say Native contracting companies that wou ld solely bid and undertake road contracts, the department supporting a contracting outfit, in order to get into that kind of an equipment investment so that they could undertake properly bonded road construc tion contr acts for the department? MR.

USKIW: Well, essentially, that may evolve over time and it will depend on the interest of the Native people themselves. But, essentially, what we are involv ed with here is getting the Native people more involved in what is ongoing and that is the department itself, which has some 3,000 people within which there may be job opportunities that will be opened up, on the basis of retirement or attrition, or whatever, where certain of these people will be brought in either without training or with a training component or whatever the package is that we will be put together.

But an effort will be made to introduce them to play a role as employees in their government the same as all other sectors of society do to a much greater extent than they have. Likewise to play that role within the contracting community that the department will be doing business with. It's not a process that will be developed overnight. It's going to take some time.

Certainly I don't believe a great deal will happen in the first year, but the groundwork is important to put in place in order that we put together a program that is acceptable to the government, is acceptable to the industry, and indeed is appreciated by society gener ally. I believe that is what the aim is. 11 13 MR. ORCHARD: So, then the program basically has two thrusts, not only the individual opportunity, creat ing and developing the opportunity for the individual, but also to allo w groups of minorities to get into the direct contracting business. No, the Minister shakes his head. MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, we have not been involved in that kind of discussion. I only all uded to it in the sense that it has taken place in the past and I'm not one that is going to determine whether it will or won't take place in the future. If the opportunity will be there, certainly we will have to respond to whatever is there, in a competitive way, or whatever.

I can only think of winter roads where there is an involvement of that nature on the part of the Native people, where it's not on a competitive basis, but that has to do with our obl igations, if you like, or arrangements with Indian Affa irs who are funding part of those programs. I'm sure the Member for Pembina knows what I'm all ud ing to there. One doesn't have both hands free on some of those decisions, but no, generally this thrust has nothing to do with the setting up of Native com panies or anything of that nature. That is not what we are attempting to do. MR.

ORCHARD: So , then it will be primarily enhancement of an individual's opportunity? MR. USKIW: Yes, that's correct. MR. ORCHARD: The Minister keeps adding more questions by saying, at this point in time. MR. USKIW: Only in the sense that I can't predict the future, Mr. Chairman. MR. ORCHARD: I thought you could, Sam. MR. DEP UTY CHAIR MAN: The Memb er for Rhineland.

Monday, 5 April, 1982 MR. ARNOLD BROWN (Rhineland): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wo uld just like to make a few brief com ments in regards to the Minister's opening statement. The Minister certainly seems to understand what the responsibilities of the Department of Highw ays are. He made mention of the fact that the Department of Highways and rural Manitoba as it relates to agricul ture should be wor king in close co-operation and we certainly all agree with this. This is really where most of it's at.

In my particular area, for instance, we have a tre mendous increase in tonnage of product movement and where we are moving from 80,000 to 1 10 ,000 very rapidly. Many needs are required and many changes are developing in our road system. We had a good start on a road system program within the last few years, No. 14 had been built to 110 ,000 pound restric tions. No. 30 also had been built to 110,000 load limit and this certainly has helped to a very large extent.

I notice however that a lot of these programs have been dropped and the Minister apolo gized for the fact that he had not been able to meet with all the municipali ties and with all the members in order to discuss some of the needs and we realize this. We took this under consideration and I suppose that some of us were naive enough to think that the programs, at least for this year wo uld pretty wel l be continued as they had been planned on previously.

I happened to look through the construction program and I notice that many, many areas in my particular area at least have been discontinued and this, of course, gives us some concern. I hope that we will be able to get the Minister familiar with the areas, with the requirements. He has been out of the area for a couple of years; we haven't seen too much of him although I believe that he is fairly wel l fa miliar with the area. As Minister of Agr i culture, we've seen him around a number of times previously and we hope that he is going to come around and take a look at some of the problems that we have.

The Minister said that his department was a very political department and of course we notice this because that department certainly determines where the monies are going to be going as far as road con struction is concerned. I'm sorry to see that his Execu tive Assis tant isn't here at the present time; I wou ld just like to say that I hope that he takes his job seriously and we're look ing forward to wor king with him.

We're familiar with him from another picture, so to speak, and we know that he's a person that we can work with and we hope that we are going to see co operation from both the Minister and the Executive Assistant. MR. USKIW: I presume the member means the Spe cial Assistant because the Exec utive Assistant has not been in this committee. MR. BROWN: The Special Assistant. MR. USKIW: Rig ht, Mr.

Chairman, I would hope that we will have the best effort on the part of that individ ual and I'm sure that members who have come to know that person over the years wo uld know his abili ties and his limitations if there are any. I believe in the role that he is going to play, he will be able to function 1114 quite well. He is a person that relates fairly well politi cally and I mean politically in the sense of interfacing with other political groups whether it's municipalities or town councils or whatever, delegations generally.

So I don't believe we will have any reason to expect some diff iculty in that area. MR. BROWN: Those are really the only comments that I had to make on (b), unless there's somebody else. MR. USKIW: Maybe I should get back to that, Mr. Chairman. I know it's easy to get off that one. I hope the member appreciates that not all projects can go at all times. Perhaps there are programs that are not on this year that the member wou ld wish were on, but someone hasn't made that case to me and if there's a case can be made for them there's nothing saying that we can't put them on in subsequent years.

I have to make my judgm ent within the framework of the dol lars that we have available, as members can appre ciate. We are look ing at $100 million of new construc tion and within that, we have to decide which programs are in and which are out. I know that it's easy to get into the area of political debate on that one and we certainly did when we were in Opposition. I believe that the program which you have before you reflects perhaps a greater balance politically speaking than we've had over the last three or four years.

That doesn't mean that there's an attempt there to satisfy every particular individual who is a member of the Assembly from rural Manitoba. There probably are gaps there, no doubt, but the reality of it is the limitation in doll ars. If you look at No. 12 as an exam ple, a tremendous amount of doll ars have gone into No. 12 and there are a tremendous amount of doll ars that have to yet go into No. 12 and the interchange on Trans Canada Highway. If one wanted to be purely political, one could put that on hold for three or fo ur years, but I don't believe that wou ld be in the public interest, Mr. Chairman.

But that one project's going to cost several million dollar s and it doesn't service a political bent from our side of the political spectrum; it services the needs of Manitobans and so that project is going to continue. There are others that have less priority and they are treated accordingly. I don't believe to have the magic that can determine precisely without any doubt what the best priorities are for the whole of Manitoba. I can only use my judg ment in light of the information that I have before me and in light of the pol itical pressures that I have, Mr. Chairman. I mean let's not escape that.

Tha t is the reality of this department. And putting all those together, we have come up with a construction pack age which I hope is reasonably well accepted although I recog nize that it won't completely satisfy all members. I think I wo uld also want to repeat that it probably will come closer to satisfying all members than has the prog ram of this department over the last three or fo ur years. MR. BROWN: I don't particularly want to get into specifics because we can wait until we get to the construction program and to the bridge building pro gram and so on. However, when I was tal king about

Monday, 5 April, 1982 the No. 30 highway and how it had been upgraded to 110 ,000 pounds. This was absolutely necessary because this highway services CSP Foods and there is very much traff ic on this. Ho wever, we have one bridge on that road which will only carry 80,000 pounds and this has been a big sore spot in that particular area and noticed this especially last fall.

We had wo rked on the 201 , the 201 had been constructed from the No. 32, the No. 75, and because we couldn't use that particular bridge while it was raining, we had to put the heavy traff ic on the 201 and we did consid erable damage to the new road on the 201 and that bridge really is a very essential part of the road system in that particular area. MR. USKIW: Well , Mr. Chairman, if the member wou ld look on page 18, it's in the program, Buff alo Lake Fl oodway Bridge and Approaches. Highw ay 30, South of PTH 14. MR. BROWN: Very good, I must have missed that one. Thank you. MR.

DE PUTY CHAI RMAN: The Mem ber for Minnedosa. MR. BLAKE: Wel l, Mr. Chairman, I see you loo king at the clock and if there wo uld only be one or two min utes before we go into Private Member's Hour, I would maybe just as soon wait and get the few remarks that I have to make made at once and the answer all in one sitting.

I'm not that unhappy with the work that's being done in my area that has to be done but there is one particular area that's been near and dear to a great many people out there with the abandonment of three rail lines in the one area, as the Minister is well aware and - in fact, I've had three calls today, the rumour is out that 250 north of the Rivers is not going to be repaved and the fello ws all in grain in there are start ing to raise cane already so the Minister will be getting lots of heat from there and so will his engineer incid entally, who I think they maybe suspect him now more than they do me - so I may get some reprieve and the engineer is going to get the flack.

But, if you don't mind, Mr. Chairman, I would like to go into it maybe in one session and have the answer all at once. MR. DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The hour is 4:3 0, we'll interrupt the proceedings and ... MR. ORCHARD: I just want to clarify with the Minis ter if we want to get into any discussion on the department's role in Crow rate, is this the appropria tion to do that, under No. (1 )? MR. USKIW: Well, Mr. Chairman, one can choose to undertake that, but there is John Ra e's department or branch. MR. ORCHARD: Yeah, well that's what I mean. MR. USKIW: Or even on the Minister's Salar y. MR.

DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The committ!le will rec onvene at 8 o'clock SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE MR. CHAIRMAN, Jerry T. Storie (Flin Flon): This meeting will come to order. We're continuing discus sion on the Estimates of Agriculture, Item No. 1. Gen eral Administration, 1.(

b) Planning and Management, 1. (b)

(1) Salaries -T he Member for Arthur. MR. DOWNEY: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make some specific observations if I may. First of all, when I look at the report of the Department of Agriculture for the past year I see an ou tline of the basic overall outl ine of the department and the reporting to the Minister, within that report the Minister has referred to quite a few areas. I know that he is reviewing particu larly MACC and some of the other policies within the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Chairman.

I will try in my opening remarks to make an overall broad obser vation of what I've have seen to date with the Minis ter's activities and the department's work. I think that it's worth noting, Mr. Chairman, that particularly the department's efforts over the past fo ur years certainly had a major part of the overall devel opment of the structure of the department in the way in which they felt would work effectively and they could have input into the overall programming and operations of the department.

I wo uld hope that the Minister wou ld make some comment on whether he plans to change the overall structure of the depart ment. As he has indicated, Mr. Chairman, he has changed quite a number of boards. 11 15 In Question Period today, again,.,he has confirmed that there have been certain number of boards changed. I wou ld hope, Mr.

Chairman, that in the changing of these boards that the Minister is not developing or adopting a pol icy where he is just put ting in people who are not strong agr iculture repre sentatives, or people who are going to speak on behalf of the agriculture community in dealing with whether it be credit, whether it's dealing with crop insurance, or whether it's dealing with farmlands pro tection; whether in fact, he himself is going to now take over the control of the Crown corporations directly, and those individuals who have been appointed to boards are merely figure heads and representatives of the farm community, he has indi cated; or whether they are more representative of the political philosophy that he himself adheres to.

So, I wou ld hope, Mr. Chairman, that is not the case, but I do think it's one area that I have some pretty major concerns; that we understand the policy direc tion that the farm community want comes from the farm community, not a particular dogma that he as a Minister feels is only the way that is right for the farm people of Manitoba. We, Mr. Chairman, will be watch ing in any kinds of activities that will be taking place. I refer to this in General Administration because I believe that's where the Deputy and the administra tive staff's wages fall with in. I wo uld hope, Mr.

Chairman, there wo uldn't be any major changes to weaken, I say, Mr. Chairman, to weaken the position of the farm community in speak ing within a government that that truly have very little representation in the farm community. That, Mr. Chairman, is of course, a pretty major concern to me as the Agriculture critic.

Monday, 5 April, 1982 I have to say again, the Minister has certainly made some comments about the difficulties that have plagued the farm community in the past few years. The fact that they've gone through excessive weather conditions or no t normal weather conditions with extreme drought and then other areas of the province that have had extreme flood ing conditions. But I guess, Mr.

Chairman, the major issue that the agricul ture community are faced with today, and the Minis ter's Deputy and administrative staff have to be very much aware of and keep pretty close contact with, and that's the day-to-day diff iculties that the farm community are facing, particularly with the increased cost of production not only with the interest charges but the energy costs, which I believe very strongly are going to be one of the major costs, one of the major deterrents to continuing health within the farm com munity.

I think that has to be addressed and certainly the pol icy guidelines which are established by his · staff , the administration are in tune with. I don't have any specific figures, but I hope the Minister is going to be keeping very close contact with the farm community when it comes to those numbers. of farmers who are in extreme diff iculty with some of the financial problems that they are going to be facing. I have to again go back to making comment, and I've had one opportunity in the Capital Supply Bill, Mr. Chairman, to refer to it.

I do not believe, and I'll put it on the record again, I do not believe the Interest Rel ief Prog ram has any meaningful meaning to support the total farm community with interest relief to those pro ducers, Mr. Chairman. I wo uld hope that they don't continually try to mislead with propaganda and press releases, that there is a program there that will be of meaningful help to those people who are facing extreme financial difficulties with high interest rates, high energy costs. Mr.

Chairman, I think it would only be fals e leadership on the part of the Minister and this government to ever indicate to them that they are able to help a lot of the farm people with the high costs of interest at this particular time. It's an overall major problem that the agriculture community are facing, and as much as the Minister may want to try to fool the people that he has substantial funds, he certainly is not.

I again go back to one of the other criteria that he has referred to, and his department, I'm sure, have been part of development of this, one of the criteria that has been used that you do not qualify for an interest relief program on land incurred debt. We ll, Mr. Chairman, if you're going to lose your farm today, the first thing that you wo uld lose wo uld be the prop erty which you farmed on, or in most cases that's what you wou ld lose and you would be out of business. So, again, I think the program has not been conceived as far as a meaningful program to help the farm community. I have referred, Mr.

Chairman, to my thoug hts on the overall administration or the departmental report ing. As I have indicated to him and will continue to indicate, I think the department has been structured, reorganized, during the past fo ur years so that it does have its system of reporting both ways so that the Minister and his policies can be administered to the farm people and that in fact the farm people can, 1116 through the system of the administration that reports to him, get their message back to him and there is a responsive mechanism in that particular area. Mr.

Chairman, I wou ld have to say to the Minister, who I'm sure hopefully is taking on his job in a responsible way, that he is privileged or going to be privileged to work with one of the most sincere and committed group of people in society today. The farm community have been known to be the backbone of this province. They're committed to feeding not only Manitobans, but all Canadians, and produce food for the international and world market. They've done so, Mr.

Chairman, not only at times when it's been profit able but when they've come under extremely difficult periods and that is what I've referred to that they're facing at this particular time. The old saying goes that "farmers live poor and die rich." I don't subscribe to that, I don't believe that it should be that way, I think they should have every right in society to enjoy the same standard of living that everyone else does, and still be able to retire in an admirable way. I think, Mr.

Chairman, it's important that the mech anism of working with the farm community that has been established, the direction that the administra tion has gone with the last four years, that they haven't been directed to work with any specific group in the agricultural community. I considered the Department of Agriculture resource people to work with all the farm community, to work with the food processing sector in a way in which was a team approach. I believe that the whole chain of events, right from the production, to processing, to transportation, to the consuming world has to run smoothly.

It cannot work very wel l under a confrontationist-type system. And one of those examples of particularly how it can't work under a confrontationist type system was last fal l, Mr. Chairman, when we saw the strike at Thunder Bay; when we saw the chain of movement of grain from the prairies through Thunder Bay being disrupted because a certain group in society took advantage of a system that is available to them and, Mr.

Chairman, I have to say that too many people, all the people of Manitoba, the farm community and everyone else are victims of that kind of a shutdown and it cannot afford to be allo wed to carry on. I feel very strongly about that, Mr. Chairman, and I'm sure that the overall efforts of the Department of Agricul ture should be directed to try and discourage that kind of activity. Mr. Chairman, I wo uld say that I've enjoyed my wor king with the staff that the Minister has available to him, that they were dedicated people.

I'm sure that if they give him the same kind of dedicated effort that was put into our administration he will be well served. Mr. Chairman, the Minister has made some kinds of reference to the fact that he has dealt, specifical ly last week, with some of the new programs and policies that he's introduced. My criticism of him wou ld be that we have not seen any new or any pol icy direction coming from him. He has also indicated that he hasn't had time to give a full review of the Estimate process, or the Estimates that are before us.

I hope as the Minister who is responsible for introducing of the Estimates, that he does fully support what he's laying before us. I wo uld hope that we will be able to have all our members, who the majo rity of them are truly

Monday, 5 April, 1982 either representative of the farm community or speak for a large

section of Manitoba, participate in the Agricultural Estimates. I'm sure that their input will hopefully be helpful to not only the Minister but his department and in a meaningful way help the overall direction that we feel as a party that the Department of Agriculture should go. So, Mr. Chairman, I will again revert back to some of the initial questions that I had in this overall general administration, and hope that we can get on with some of the departmental Estimates.

And the specific question is, does the Minister have any particular intention, or any intentions of making any changes to the departmental structure, the overall administrative staff, the people who are involv ed in the roles that they're now performing in the future? And does he, or does he not feel that the appointments to the boards that he has made, the changes that he made, that they truly represent agriculture and are going to give direc tions to those Crown corporations, or does he as Minister plan to give the direction that the corporation should go? MR. URUSKI: Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, I appreciate the comments made by the Member for Ar thur, and I will try and deal with some of the comments that he made. Specifically, Mr. Chairman, dealing with the departmental structure, I want to tell the honourable member that there are now discussions on their way within the department dealing with the organization of the department and responsibilities within the department.

The Minister knows the present structure and he knows that certain responsibilities by staff members - and there are Assistant Deputy Ministers who have heavy responsibilities in terms of the work load, and in terms of the whole area of staffing under certain people, and less under other Deputy Minis ters, or Assistant Deputy Ministers. We are reviewing that area of responsibility to see whether or not some shifts can be made and improved upon in terms of the linkages between the departmental central staff, and the regional staff, and the farming community who we are ultimately responsible to.

So we are look ing at some restructuring in terms of the workload of some people, but that is still being discussed and there are no final decisions made in that area. We haven't made any final decisions. The member made some specific comments with respect to the board and board appointments and changes in the board structure and the reporting of same. It is my hope, Mr. Chairman, that the boards that we do appoint, and the Minister knows the struc ture of the department, that the Crown agenc ies do report through to the Minister directly.

It is my hope that I, as Minister, will have an opportunity to prior, and I've tried to do this, prior to having the boards take their position in terms of their assigned responsibili ties to have a discussion with them. They're briefed by staff in terms of their duties and their legislative authority as to what their duties are, but as well I, of course, would want to, as Minister, share some of my concerns and my thoughts as to how boards operate.

The boards of directors will continue to make the day-to-day decisions based on discussions and dia logue between gove rnment, but the ultimate decision ultimately has to rest with the Minister based on the policies that are derived upon. Of course, and there should be continued consultation and development of pol icies whereby the boards should and would want to reflect the thinking of the government and not go off on their own way.

I think it wou ld be a comple te abandonment of responsibility on behalf of the Minister who would say, you do as you please and you're there and we've appointed you and you can go off and make the deci sions that you want. I don't intend to operate that way, Mr. Chairman, but I do intend to share some of the feeling that I have in certain areas and I wo uld hope that the board members wo uld in return say, we have some ideas and that there wou ld be a continued dia logue in process in terms of when the Board members get into the operation.

Some views ultimately change in terms of perception of how an organization or a Crown agency should operate.

One, sitting on the sideline of that type of an operation, may see and have an impression that it wou ld be plausible and desirable for that organization to move in a certain direction, but once you get in there and look at the administra tion and see what is happening, one then has a better perspective and many times, one's views change once he is in, as one's views change one is in the position of power of being a Minister versus at times, being on the opposite side of this Chamber in terms of how one's views can change and how one's perspective can change on different issues. Mr.

Chairman, the member as wel l, raised the issue of the major problems in agriculture. We, as a party and as a government, have recognized that the econ omy over the last number of years and specifically in the agricultural ar eas has not been buoyant and farmers have been in great diff iculty. We have argued very strongly for changes in thrust with the former administration, in the ways that governmental poli cies and programs should go and obviously we will be getting into discussion areas on some of those specif ics later on.

I want to indicate specifically to the honourable member that there have been two major thrusts and the member indicated that there was no policy thrust of this government in the period that we've been in. We have announced a very major program of assis tance to the beef industry in this province. What I wou ld call the fine-tuning of the administrative details have to be worked out and we will want to do further consultations with producer groups as we ll as the maj or announcement in the early part of the year dealing with the interest rate program. Mr.

Chairman, I acknowledge - and when we made the announce ment on the program we said that this was not going to solve all the ills. This was a one time limited pro gram. In terms of who it will affect, Mr.

Chairman, in terms of the numbers our statistics tell us, at least those that we were suppl ied by FCC and other agen cies that more than 70 percent of the farmers of Mani toba fall within those guidelines and we did not as has been suggested by members at times from the Oppo sition indicating that you promised that no one wou ld lose their farms, homes and businesses, we indicated during the campaign that it wo uld be on the account of high interest rates, Mr. Chairman. While we recognize that this program is limited and the number of funds are limited, there is one portion 11 17

Monday, 5 April, 1982 of this program that will be of benefit to us in govern ment and hopefully if need be we can certainly fo llow up with respect to our lending policies through the MACC. and if need be further legislative action if that deemed be the government policy at that point in time; that is, Mr. Chairman, in the agricultural sector. We will now be able to determine or at least find out the extent to which farmers in Manitoba are in severe financial difficulty.

We can talk all we want in this House, but there is nowhere in government any statis tics or any information available to us to say, yes, this sector is in trouble; these are the numbers and this is the extent of the problem. This exercise, if anything, will certainly give us information to tell us the problem is more severe than we anticipated or the problem is not quite as severe. My own gut feeling and I give that as such. my own personal feeling, is that the farmers of Manitoba are in many areas quite in financial diffi culty. Ther e are excep tions, Mr . Chai rman.

I acknowledge it. -(Int erjection)- The members are agreeing with me, Mr. Chairman, we at least didn't go through the process of leading up to the election indicating that everything is rosy; everything is going to be fine. We are not saying that as wel l right now. Mr. Chairman, the Member for Mor ris seems to be flabbergasted - I'll use his own word - or astonished at my statement. If he was in this Chamber in 1981, he could have made up his own mind as to the position of his mem bers and his col leagues as to how they viewed the economy of Manitoba and particularly the agricultural economy. So, Mr.

Chairman, while we readily admit that the interest rate program is not the panacea to assist the entire agricultural industry, but we do indicate that there will be some meaningful assistance to people who are hardest hit with respect to the rising interest rates, there is no way that any governments per se are able to - I don't believe that they even contemplated ass istance; in fact, their program which they announced a week before the end of the election dealing with homeowners' interest rates, one can cer tainly lead into a lot of commentary on the merits of that kind of a program.

I don't believe that there was any detailed analysis done by the former administra tion in terms of the extent of the problems that homeowners and other people in society face.

We will have a better handle at least in the agricultu ral area how we should determine and change our lending policies and to make sure that the financial institutions in the Province of Manitoba are in fact as supportive as we have been led to believe; that they will continue to carry the farm industry in times of distress; that they are not pulling the pin on farmers in Manitoba; that they will be living up to their obliga tions and not foreclosing on the farmers in Manitoba; that they will carry them through these hard times. Mr.

Chairman, this will be certainly an exercise that we will be able to assist some farmers and by having our staff people involved with people in financial diffi culty, we may be able to give them the best advice in management expertise that the department has in the field and to be able to assist those farmers in making some management decisions in reviewing where they're really at in terms of their total operations. Mr.

Chairman, I believe that the exercise. while we have said that it's not going to solve all the ills, it will certainly give us a window and a picture of the extent of the diff iculties that many people face in agriculture.

With respect to some different increased costs that farmers are facing and the member mentioned them, there is no doubt that the agricultural sector is one of the most vulnerable in society in that they have yet to utilize their col lective muscle to be able to make sure that they receive adequate support and adequate remuneration from the marketplace to make sure that those costs that they have to incur are met and that agriculture in Manitoba can prosper and continue to flourish in a reasonable way and that we can look forward within Manitoba to a steady, consistent, and a stable growth in agriculture and tha t people in the rural areas will, to the best possible way, retain their livelihoods and their desired lifestyle as best we can and best they can.

We will try and mold our policies that we develop over the next months and years ahead to encourage and allo w the family farm to stay option to be a thrust of this administration to allo w young people again into the farming area, so that agriculture is maintained a No. 1 industry in this province. MR. DOWNEY: Mr. Chairman, I thank the Minister for his comments on the overall general layout of the department. He has indicated that he is reviewing it and he does have some changes planned for it. He is indicating that not necessarily may be the case, how ever, he is looking at the overall layout of the board.

Does he have any major changes or any plans to change the ad ministrative staff that is emplo yed by him; any ma jor shifts or moves of people who are now in the administrative roles within this

section of the department? MR. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman, when one deals with reorganization and any changes, there from time to time will likely and may be different duties assigned to staff in terms of - but when the member mentions anything major, I really don't fo resee at the present time that there will be any major shifts, but there will be, and the discussions are going on in terms of staff duties and responsibilities that are being looked at there. But whenever there is reorganization of any magnitude, there will be some reassignment of duties and changes of responsibilities. 111 8 MR. DOWNEY: Mr.

Chairman, there was the position of Ass ociate Deputy Minister that I believe became vacant as of the end of December. Has the Minister, or is the Minister going to continue to carry that posi tion? Has he fil led it, or what is the status of the Assoc iate Deputy Minister of Agriculture? MR. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman, that position has not been fil led at this point in time arid because there is a vacancy, that's the reason for the process now to look at possible reorganizational changes within the department. MR. DOWNEY: Mr.

Chairman, I would hope that when the Minister makes his decision, if it's within the time that the Ho use is sitting, that he wou ld table any proposed changes or any new administrative changes that are with in the department before the House so we are aware of who is carrying out the different respon-

Monday, 5 April, 1982 sibilities and the positions that are available. I have some serious concerns, Mr. Chairman, when the Minister confirms one of the concerns that I have had in the last few weeks with the replacement of a lot of top qual ity agriculture people who have been members of our boards and com missions, Mr. Chair man, not to say that the new members aren't qual ified people, I'm not indicating that at all.

I wou ld not want them to feel that I'm making those kinds of comments, but I wou ld like to indicate to those members, who were on the boards and commissions, and we are fortunate to have an individual who is now a member of the Legislative Assembly and possibly more, but the one that comes to mind is our new Member for Morris who acted, I think, in a nonpartisan and in a very effective way as the Chairman of the Natural Products Marketing Council, as wel l as many other people througho ut the agriculture community, Mr. Chairman, who put in a lot of time and a lot of effort to service the diff

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	32-1-27a
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	32nd 1st hansardpdf 27a.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	d5a18f967ecb2e4c5a80ccbbb5391946f20b059f

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