Manitoba Hansard — 6 June 1985 (Sitting 64, 32nd Legislature, 4th Session)

32-4-64

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Thursday, 6 June, 1985. Time - 2:110 p.m. OPENING PRAYER by Mr. Speaker. MA. SPEAKER, Hon. J. Walding: Presenting Petitions . . . Reading and Receiving Petitions . . . Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees . Ministerial Statements and Tabling of Reports . Notices of Motion . . . Introduction of Bills . ORAL QUESTIONS Pay equity legislation - status of MA. SPEAKER: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MA. G. FILMON: Mr.

Speaker, my question is for the Premier and it has to do with reports of the government's intended introduction of the pay equity legislation in this Legislature. My question for the Premier is, what consultation has taken place with the private sector in arriving at the proposals that will be included in the legislation on pay equity? MA. SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour will reply to that question. MA. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Labour. HON. A. MACKLING: Mr.

Speaker, the question of pay equity has been before the people of Manitoba as a policy concern for some many months and it has been the subject of discussion by numerous groups. I certainly have had the benefit of reading and hearing, verbally, the views of many people and certainly I think that the legislation that I believe will be introduced in a relatively short time will reflect a consensus of views of Manltobans. MA. G. FILMON: Mr.

Speaker, in view of the fact that private sector employers account for the employment of something in the range of 400,000 people in Manitoba, what consultations have taken place with private sector employers on the proposals that are to be contained in this legislation? HON. A. MACKLING: Mr. Speaker, as I've indicated earlier, the principles of pay equity have been under consideration. by various organizations and certainly the Initiatives that we will be proceeding with will not come as any surprise to any organization.

The principles are not all that unclear and it's a question of the manner in which these proceedings are developed. MA. G. FILMON: Wh at are these principles that are not all that unclear? HON. A. MACKLING: Mr. S"peaker, I know the Honourable Leader of the Opposition is most anxious to see the bill and we will provide him with that opportunity within the near future. MA. G. FILMON: Mr. Speaker, actually my questions surround the discussion process and the manner In which the government has arrived at its proposals, and they have nothing to do with seeing the bill.

That's not part of my request at the present time. I want to know what consultations have taken place with the private sector, and if the Minister Is unwilling to share that, I wonder If he could indicate whether or not, in establishing value for positions under the pay equity proposals, whether or not the value of those positions In the private sector will be taken Into consideration. HON. A. MACKLING: Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Leader of the Opposition is trying to, by question, have me abuse the Rules of the House. I should not, Mr.

Speaker, be endeavouring to respond to the probable provisions of legislation, until that legislation is before the House. MA. G. FILMON: I wonder then, Mr. Speaker, If the Minister would undertake to give his assurance that no public revelation of these proposals, no announcements at other forums will take place before this legislation Is tabled here in the House? HON. A. MACKLING: Well, Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Leader of the Opposition Is now trying to get at me from two directions at the same time. First of all, Mr. Speaker , he's saying what consultations have you had in respect to the principles?

Then, in his last question, he wants an assurance that there will be no elaboration of principles unless it's In the House. Now I really don't know how I can operate in that fashion. Mr. Speaker, there's no question but there are broad principles Involved In legislation that have to be discussed in a public forum and there has to be consultation in respect to them, but the precise details that the honourable member is seeking about proposed legislation is something that has to take place In the House and it takes place when the legislation Is tabled. MA. G. FILMON: I don't ask these questions without cause.

We had the Minister of Education reveal In a news release and In a direct letter, the precise information, the precise details of her legislation on early retirement provisions for teachers, six weeks before it was released here in the House. So I am asking for the assurance of the Minister, not that the broad principles won't be discussed publicly, because one would hope that there would be the consultation, but that the details of the legislation will be announced outside of this House before they're tabled in this Legislature. 2703

Thuredar. 8 June, 1QU MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question is of course obvious, should be obvious to everyone. I think what is important is that the Leader of the Opposition, rather than trying to come through the back door attacking the principle of pay equity, come through the front door, Mr. Speaker, and advise this Chamber and advise Manitobans where he stands on the principle of pay equity. SOME HONO URABLE MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Speaker, the Premier's a fool. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. MR. G.

FILMON: I told him where I stood on pay equity during the Throne Speech Debate . . . MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. I would remind all honourable members they should use parliamentary language in this Chamber. Order please, order please. I would ask the honourable member to reconsider his words. The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the Premier not try and put words in my mouth. MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. I have suggested to the honourable member that he reconsider his remarks.

I will ask him now to consider whether he should not withdraw those remarks. The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. G. FILMON: I will be happy to withdraw my reference to the Premier being a fool. That was indeed an unparliamentary remark. Mr. Speaker, I was exercised because the Premier is attempting to put words in my mouth and attempting to say things about me that I have not said. Mr. Speaker, I do not want the Premier to engage in that sort of specious and cheap politics in this Legislature.

I will ask him a very direct question to enable him to stick to the topic and to give us some answers that we require in consideration of the legislation. The direct question Is, does the government have an estimate of the cost of implementing its proposals on pay equity legislation on the Civil Service? HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to correct what appears to be - the Leader of the Opposition has got himself, as he acknowledges, overexercised - I didn't put any words in the mouth of the Leader of the Opposition, I simply asked the Leader of the Opposition where he stood.

We know, as a result of the last three months that the Leade r of the Opposition flip-flops back and forth; the Leader of the Opposition has no position in respect to any policy position brought forth. Mr. Speaker, insofar as the cost, the cost will be a great deal less than was reported in today's press and the information will be brought forth at the time of the bill but it will be considerably less than the exaggerated report in today's paper. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Speaker, I'm interested to hear about flip-flops from the Premier who talks about free trade.

On the one hand he's opposed to free trade and then he comes back a convert and an advocate. He can tell his members about his flip-flopping, not me. My question to the Premier is, does the government have an estimate of the cost of implementing its pay equity proposals on the Civil Service? MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable First Minister. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has clearly revealed the shallowness of his position. He is only concerned about cost, he cares not about the principle of pay equity. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. G.

FILMON: Mr. Speak er, any competent administration would normally know the costs of the measures that it's unde rtaking. Of course, the shallowness of my thinking is that I've assumed that this is a competent administration from time to time, and that's where I've gone wrong. Mr. Speaker, I want to know from the Premier, in view of the fact that part of the proposals appear to involve third party determination of value of positions, what will this do to the collective bargaining process with respect to the Civil Service in Manitoba? HON. H. PAWLEY: Again, Mr.

Speaker, unlike the Leader of the Opposition's colleague, the Leader of the Ontario Conservative Party, the Honourable Frank Miller, who included pay equity in respect to women in his Throne Speech the other day without, I'm sure, any calculation of the costs, I can assure the Leader of the Opposition that the Minister of Labour will be advising the Leader of the Opposition and all members of this House of the costs when he introduces the bill, unlike the kind of incompetent demonstration that we receive from members of the opposition on a daily basis. MR. G. FILMON: Mr.

Speaker, the Premier has just demonstrated that he doesn't have the information and he doesn't know what he's talking about. Mr. Speaker, will any ... MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable First Minister on a point of order. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, I gave my word in this House that the Minister of Labour would be introducing that information when he introduced the bill. Mr. Speaker, I thought it was the usual custom of this House for one member to accept the word of another member. MR. SP EAKER: Order please, order please. If honourable members used the oral question period 2704

Thunday, 8 June, 1885 properly to seek information without giving information to the House and the answers to those questions were given in a short, concise manner, we might make progress. The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Speak er, my question for the Premier is, will any job classifications or salaries be reduced as a result of the pay equi ty proposal that's going to be implemented? HON. H. PAWLEY: Again, I ask the Leader of the Opposition to do what is customary and wait for the bill. A MEMBER: You don't ask questions about legislat ion. MR. G. FILMON: Mr.

Speake r, in view of the fact that this proposal was a proposal four years ago of this NDP admin istration when they were runnin g for government; in view of the fact that we are In the last month probably of this Session of the Legislature, when is the legislation going to be introduced? HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speak er, soon. Pay Equity legislation - increase in cost of program MR. SP EAKER: The Honourable Member for Elmwood. MR. R. DOERN: Mr.

Speaker, I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour or the First Minister on this topic and ask them, in view of the obvious Increase In cost of this program, does the Minis ter think that the public can bear another round of inflation and another round of tax increases to pay for it? MR. SP EAKER: Order please. The honourable member is seek ing an opinion. Would he rephrase his question to seek Information? The Honour able Member for Elmwood. MR. R. DOERN: Mr.

Speak er , I simply ask the Minister of Labour how he intends to pay for this obvious increase of some $40 million to $80 million, because of this new proposal? MR. SPEAKER: The Ho nourable Minister of Labour. HON. A. MACKLING: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member is suggesting a state of facts with which I do not agree.

He is also continuing in the way In which the Leader of the Opposition continued just recently and persists in asking questions when he knows that there's been an assurance that ther e will be full information given when the legislation is introduced. it's Improper for members to be asking questions of legislation until all members have an opportunity to see that legislation. Pay Equity Legislation - Effect on salarie1 MR. R. DOERN: Mr.

Speaker , assuming that the Minister of Labour is familiar with the principles and is also familiar with the details of the legisla tion, I would ask him whether he can confirm that there will be no downgrading of salaries, but only increases in salary classifications and figures? HON. A. MACKLING: Mr. Speaker, the hono urable member will have all of that information before him and it is not open to me at this stage. it would be improper for me to be piece-meal discussing the principles of legislation before it's introduced. MR. R. DOERN: Mr.

Speak er, I would ask the Minister whether the government is considering in conjunction with this proposal, an increase either in provincial sales tax or provincial income tax to pay for these new schemes. Teacher�' pen1ion1 - cost to government MR. SPEAKER: The Honou rable Member for Morris. MR. C. MANNESS: Mr. Speaker, in deba te on second reading on Bill 26 the other day, the bill granting teachers no penalty provisions for retirement at age 55, the Minister indicated at that time there would be a $6.2 million cost, present value. She then indicated a day later to a question posed by the Member for St.

Norbert that on a cash basis, the cost would be over $1 million a year. Can the Minister confirm that the total cost to government, cash-wise, over $30 million or $40 million, of the bill now granting teachers no penalty provisions for pension at age 55, the total cash cost would be $40 million to $50 million? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Government House Leader on a point of order. HON. A. ANSTETT: Mr.

Speaker , I would refer you and hon ourable mem bers to Citation 359(12) which specifically provides, "Questions should not anticipate a debate scheduled for the day, but should be reserved for that debate." The debate is on the Order Paper and scheduled with regard to Bill No. 26.

Sir, the Citations I referenced two weeks ago, I believe, today, respect ing the provision of specific information to the House and then asking the Mini ster to confirm that also is an affront to our rules which require members to ascert ain the accuracy of information before they bring it to the House; and the reason for that rule is very clear , Sir. I submit, the question is out of order and that form and line of questioning which is persistently used by members opposite, particularly in the last month or two in this Session, should be consistently ruled out of order. MA.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Mem ber for Lakeside to the same point. MR. H. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order. If the member's question was, In fact, asking about a specific detail contained In the bill, the Government House Leader may have a point of order, but that Is not the question that my colleag ue Is asking. 2705

Thurada� 8 June, 1985 He's asking about very serious ramifications to the public purse, in the order of $30 million, $40 million, $50 million, which is not contained in the bill but is extremely necessary for members to be apprised of that information before we have an opportunity of debating it in principle and taking our position. That question is a legitimate question of information that only the Minister of Education has, with the help of her staff, her research people, but it's fundamental to the principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker.

He is not asking for a specific detail of the bill, so I submit to you that the Government House Leader does not have a point of order. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Government House Leader to the same point. HON. A. ANSTETT: Mr. Speaker, the appropriate place for questions on the principles of a bill is at the time appointed for debate of the principle of the bill. Members opposite currently hold the adjournment of that debate.

If they wish to comment or ask questions on second reading, there are 23 of them who can ask those questions, Sir, in debate, and the rules provide for the Minister to close debate, can answer all those questions In closing debate. That's what our rules provide. The purpose of question period is not to be a vehicle for rehashing second reading debate or anticipating second reading debate.

I suggest the Opposition House Leader is guilty of the same offence under our rules in repeating extravagant amounts, bringing them to the attention of the House and the people of Manitoba without any verification of them, in violation, Sir, of May's Citation respecting the order regarding form and content of question, May's 20th Edition, Paragraph 2 on Page 338, as well as Beauchesne's 4th Edition, Citation 77. Sir, we referenced those earlier In this question period.

This effrontery to question period and abuse of it is continuing and I think members should be called to attention for it. lt does not serve the purposes of members or the people of Manitoba. lt serves only as an attempt to grab attention. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Lakeside to the same point. MR. H. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order. I do not wish to prolong it but you, Sir, have been witness, as indeed all of us have been to the regular occurrence of members, when having bills Introduced, to stand up to ask for questions of further clarification.

That is a very traditional procedural part of our House. For the Government House Leader to hide behind rules to prevent a very legitimate question from being asked or answered, Mr. Speaker, is an abuse of the rules. MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. lt is a rule of Oral Question Period that members should not ask questions on matters which are set down on the Order Paper for debate, and the Honourable Member for Morris should not ask a question contained in Bill No. 26 or the contents of it.

However, perhaps he would like to rephrase his question with no reference to that bill and if it is on a question which is wider than contained within that bill, it would then be In order. The Honourable Member for Morris. MR. C. MANNESS: Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister of Education if she would provide for me an estimate of cash costs associated with the present legislation that is presently before this House, over the next 30 or 40 years. I would ask If she would provide that.

I also ask if she would provide to the Opposition a breakdown of the 70 to 30 share to be paid by the MTS versus 30 percent by the government with respect to the new provisions provided within Bill 2. Churchill - serviced residential lots MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Swan River. MR. D. GOURLAY: Is the Minister making any provision for additional serviced residential lots in Churchill? Perhaps the Minister could advise as to whether there any serviced lots available at this time In Churchill. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Housing. HON. J.

BUCKLASCHUK: Yes, my understanding is that there are a number of serviced lots available. I've just, In the last few days, asked for confirmation of the number and we'll be examining the possibilities of providing additional land for housing development, should the interests be expressed by the residents of Gimli -of Churchill. MR. D. GOURLAY: Perhaps the Minister had better check on his figures with residential lots. Maybe there are some in Gimli but I understand there are very few, if any, In Churchill. A further question to the same Minister.

In view of the fact that there are several one-bedroom elderly persons' housing units just recently built in Churchill, and in view of the fact that these are located in a place that's not very convenient for seniors In spite of the fact that the government was advised not to build them there -these houses or units are empty -would the Minister consider renting these one-bedroom units to couples or individuals In Churchill at the present time, until this Minister can get his act together with respect to additional housing for the people of Churchill? HON. J.

BUCKLASCHUK: Yes, I'd like to think this Minister is probably doing more in trying to meet the housing needs of Churchill that has been done in the last number of years. The member is quite correct in stating that we have just completed, I believe, the 10 units of seniors' housing in Churchill very recently. I don't know the status as to what degree they're filled, but certainly If there are not the residents in the very near future, we will -with Canada Mortgage and Housing who have some interest in housing there -come up with ways of using those units for the benefit of all the residents of Churchill. MR. D.

GOURLAY: Mr. Speaker, a further question to the same Minister. Can the Minister advise that Mr. 2706

Thur8day, 8 June, 1985 John Romanchuk, who owns and rents several housing units in Churchill, also serves as the chairman of the local housing authority and is also President of the Churchill NDP Association? Does the Minister not feel that there is a conflict of interest situation? SOME HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable Minister of Housing. HON. J. BUCKLASCHUK: Mr. Speaker, I will confirm that Mr. John Romanchuk is a member of the Churchill Housing Authority.

Whether he is or is not the president of the association, I don't know; whether he is or is not a landlord is really none of my business. SOME HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Oh, oh! City of Winnipeg Act - introducing of amendments MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. The Honourable Member for Fort Garry. MR. C. BIRT: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Urban Affairs. Will the Minister of Urban Affairs be introducing any amendments to The City of Winnipeg Act at this Session of the Legislature? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Urban Affairs. HON. L.

DESJARD INS: There are some minor amendments, but if my honourable friend is referring to major amendments, that will not be done at this Session, no. MR. C. BIRT: On December 24th, Mayor Norrie wrote to the then Minister, Mary Beth Dolln, requesting an amendment to The City of Winnipeg Act, to allow the City of Winnipeg to adopt a freedom of information by law. Will the Minister be proceeding with that requested amendment so that the city can place their own freedom of information by-law on the record books? HON. L. DESJARD INS: I've never seen that correspondence. I'll have to check and get back to the member.

MR. C. BIR T: Once the Minister checks the correspondence, will he provide an answer to the House as to whether or not he will introduce amendments to The City of Winnipeg Act at this Session, so that the city can implement its own freedom of information by law? HON. L. DESJARDINS: I certainly will, but there's nothing prepared at this time, and I doubt very much if anything will be presented. But I'll double-check and give the information. - (Interjection) - I'll have to go to Paris and ask Bill what . . . PCB Contamination - Western Scrap Metal Yard MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable Member for Niakwa.

MR. A. KOVNATS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to pose my question to the Honourable Minister of Environment, Workplace, Safety and Health. There's still some concern about PC contamination in the North Point Douglas area. SOME HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. MR. A. KOVNATS: I apologize to the House. I don't have the same opinion as the honourable members of government, who feel that it's quite humourous when we talk about PC contamination. A MEMBER: PCBI MR. A. KOVNATS: I apologize for the error. If I was walking on crutches and I tripped, I hope you wouldn't laugh.

Anyway, I was talking to one of the residents this morning and he had viewed an exact location where, at Western Scrap Metal, there was some breaking up of some transformers. Will the Honourable Minister give these people peace of mind, the residents and the owners of Western Scrap Metal, and do some tests in the areas where we think there's a possibility of PCB contamination? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister for the Environment. HON. G. LECUYER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As has been stated a number of times already, altogether there have been over 100 tests taken throughout . A MEMBER: No, 38. HON. G.

LECUYER: There have been 38 of air samples, but there have been 46 of soil samples. Over three periods of time, Mr. Speaker, almost the entire scrap yard has been made holes of and tests taken over a period of time in which the citizens were very closely and directly involved. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the drafting of the testing, they were involved and had an input in the actual parameters that we established in order to conduct the testing program. We have a letter from the City of Winnipeg after the first round of testing was done in 1982, stating that no further tests should be conducted. They were not warranted.

We have, in spite of that, Mr. Speaker, conducted tests. We have continued to conduct tests in 1983, over a period of time, in February of 1983 and May 1983, in November 1983 and in June and August of 1983, we took air sampling of that area, Mr. Speaker. We are satisfied that additional testing would not provide us added information. The area where levels are slightly or marginally above the 50 parts per million that were found were in a clay-type of soil which was tightly bound together. The best technical advice we 2707

Thuraday. 6 June, 1985 got was that the best thing to do in regard to that was to leave it un touc hed and not to conduc t any construction over that particular site. MR. A. KOVNATS: All I would ask the Min ister is to give peace of mind to the residents and to the owners at a location that was absolutely viewed at the breaking up of transformers at a particular location that has never been tested . Will the Honourable Min ister give these people some peace of mind and test that particular area? MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable Minister for the Environment. HON. G. LECUYER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I did indicate to the member a moment ago that, In fact, those areas we tested were those areas that were Indicated to us by the citizens living in in that area. There's only one site that hasn't been tested because. Mr. Speaker, it is buried under tons of scrap. Now, that is the area, that is the only one left that hasn't been tested and that's the one they want us to test now. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable Mem ber for Niakwa. MR. A. KOVNATS: To the Honourable Min ister, if the Honourable Minister was advised that there were no longer tons of scrap over that area, would he test that area? MR.

SPEAKER: Order please. I believe the honourable member knows that is a hypothetical question. The Honourable Memb er for Niakwa. MR. A. KOVNATS: Mr. Speaker, this scrap has been removed from the area that the Honourable Minister is sugges ting. Would he now test that area? HON. G. LECUYER: Mr. Speaker, the scrap has not been removed . Old age pensions - de-indexing of MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Rlel. MRS. D. DODICK: Has the Premier had an opportu nity to assess the impact of the de-indexing of the old age pensioners on the Manitoba seniors? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable First Min ister. HON. H.

PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker , I thank the Honou rable Member for Riel for posing that question to me. During the past we ek, I have had an opportunity to speak to numerous groups of senior citizens in various commun ities as well as senior citizens homes in the Province of Manitoba. Mr. Speaker, I have rarely seen a situation where there Is such a united voice from senior citizens, the deep impact that the recent Federal Budget has had in respect to the pensions of senior citizens.

They will have not only this year an impact of some $10 0 per year; five years from now an impact of five-hundred-and-some dollars per senior citizen. Mr. Speaker, petitions are being put together by senior citizens throughout the province for forwarding to the Minis ter of Finance, Mr. Wilson, and to the Prime Minister of this countr y. In view, Mr.

Speaker, of the obvious concern that the Opposition raised in respect to elderly abuse, just two days ago in this House, I would assume that the Opposition might be prepared, just might be prepared to take a decisive stand and support a resolution directed to the Federal Government to withdraw this dastardly de-indexing of senior citizens' pensions. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Premier would agree then to meet so that we could draft a joint reso lution on the matter. SOME HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Oh, oh! HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr.

Speaker, I trust . MR. SPEAKER: Order please. SOME HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Oh, ohl MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. Order. The Honourable First Min ister. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the Leader of the Opposition toda y, unlike 10 days ago, now acknowledges that the Federal Budget was unfair and a harsh Budget upon Canadians. I'm delighted. SOME HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. Order please I The Honourable First Minister. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr.

Speaker, just In case there's any misunder standing, we are just delighted to prepare a resolution that will properly describe the impact of this Budget upon the senior citizens of this province and request imme diate changes on the part of the Federal Conservative Government in Ottawa. We're delighted. We 're delighted to jointly prepare such a res olution. Vicon - tabling of agreement MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. The Honourable Member for Roblin -Russell. MR. W. McKENZIE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Premier. He's in such a genial mood this afternoon.

Are he and his government prepared to table the Vicon Agreement this afternoon? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr. Speal<er, that is a question that I thought was placed to the Min ister of Industry, Trade 2708

Thursday, 8 June, 1985 and Technology and is presently under advisement by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. MR. W. McKENZIE: A question to the Honourable Minister of Trade and Technology and I ask him at the same time if he's prepared to announce the site that Vicon has selected in the province in order to qualify for the $1 million forgivable loan? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Culture. HON. E. KOSTYRA: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I Indicated I think this will be now the third occasion to the same question that is under advisement with respect to that agreement.

I indicated that I have launched a review in terms of that specific agreement as to whether or not it can be tabled, indeed, any other development agreements with private companies. There has been a practice in this province with other companies that those kind of agreements have not been tabled. it would be my intention unless there are any legal or commercial impediments to that to have that agreement tabled. In terms of whether or not they have chosen location, I'm not aware at this point if they have indeed chosen the specific location for their plant in Manitoba.

Prejudgment interest - introduction in House MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. Norbert. MR. G. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Government House Leader. About three or four weeks before the House first met on March 7th, I wrote to Legislative Counsel and requested him to prepare a Private Member's Bill on prejudgment interest. Then on March 7th, the government included a reference that legislation on this subject would be introduced at this Session of the Legislature.

Could the Government House Leader Indicate whether that legislation will be introduced at this Session or, if not, would he undertake not to object to my introducing a bill which would provide prejudgment interest to claimants in Manitoba? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Government House Leader. HON. A. ANSTETT: Mr. Speaker, I'll take the question as notice on behalf of the Attorney-General with respect to whether or not the specific provision to which he refers is provided for either by separate statute or in statute law amendment.

My understanding is that it was the Attorney-General's intention to deal with that this Session as announced in the Throne Speech to which the member refers. I was not aware, Sir, that the member was contemplating bringing in such a bill and this is the first indication that I have had. I don't know if he has discussed this with the Attorney-General, and on behalf of the Attorney-General I will take it as notice. it is certainly the government's intention, if the member opposite is indicating it's the opposition's intention, then regardless of who brings in the bill, obviously it's assured speedy passage. MR. G.

MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, would the Government House Leader then undertake to advise me at the earliest opportunity whether the government will be proceeding with prejudgment interest legislation at this Session because there has been no further mention made of it since March 7th and, if not, I would like to introduce a Private Member's Bill to deal with it, as I indicated to Legislative Counsel prior to the Session, I think it's an important matter. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Government House Leader. HON. A. ANSTETT: The member appreciates, Mr.

Speaker, that his consulatlons with Legislative Counsel are just that, his consultations, and they are confidential. This is the first that I am aware of his interest. I've taken the question as notice for the Attorney-General. I will remind the Attorney-General that there is some expressed urgency and I will try and get an answer for the member as soon as possible. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The time for Oral Questions has expired. The Honourable First Minister. HON. H. PAWLEY: Mr.

Speaker , in view of the expressions that were ·clear just a few moments ago, I wonder if we could have leave of all members of the House to introduce an emergency resolution on de indexation of the Old Age Pensions. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition to the same point. MR. G. FILMON: Mr.

Speaker, I had indicated that I would be prepared to meet with the Premier to draft an appropriate resolution on the matter of de indexation, as long as there is no attempt to play some cheap political game, to throw in all sorts of things, we will get together and I will meet with him on the specific issue of our concern about the effects of de indexation on pensions; and as long as that's the case, then I'll be happy to get together with the Premier to draft such an appropriate resolution. MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. Is there leave to introduce such a resolution? HON. H. PAWLEY: Excuse me, Mr.

Speaker. I think the request by the Leader of the Opposition Is reasonable. How about us having a 15-or 30-mlnute adjournment so that the Leader of the Opposition and I -or recess -can draft a joint resolution? SOME HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Oh, ohl MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. The Honourable Member for Lakeslde on a point of order. MR. H. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, I'm sure the Honourable Premier and the Opposition House Leader, along with 2709

Thursday, 8 June, 1985 whomever they wish to take to whichever respective office they wish to go, can do so and draft the appropriate amendment. I see no reason for delaying the busine ss of the House to preclude that from happening. I know that our side would certainly grant leave to then have that reintroduced into the Chamber at any time when that work has been done. MR. SPEAKER: Leave having not been granted, Orders of the Day. The Honourable Government House Leader. HON. A. ANSTETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recognize that leave has not been granted to proceed with an emergency resolution.

To accommodate the request of the Leader of the Opposition, and in view of the fact that it would have been our intention to go directly into Supply which may preclude, once we're in Supply, coming out to deal on an emergency basis, I would suggest, Sir, that a recess may be the only appropria te way to do so. If members are agreeable, I would ask, instead of leave for an emergency resolution, leave for a 15-minute recess. MR. SPEAKER: Is there leave for the House to recess for a short break? The Honourable Member for Virden on a point of order. MR. H.

GRAHAM: On a point of order, the Government House Leader has suggested that by going Into Committee of Supply that we cannot come back and conduct government business? That does not fit the rules of this Chamber, Mr. Speaker. A MEMBER: He's trying to play games. MR. SPEAKER: Order please, order please. I will ask again, is there leave to have the House recess for 15 or 20 minu tes? (Agreed) The House will accordingly recess for 15 minutes. Order please, order please. I am told that some members had said no to a recess. I will ask again, and if members object, would they say so clear ly.

Is there leave to recess for 20 minutes? - (Interjection) - Does the honourable member say no? Leave has not been granted. ORDERS OF THE DAY MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Government House Leader. HON. A. ANSTETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would you please call Bill No. 26,

An Act to amend The Te achers' Pensions Act. ADJOURNED DEBATE ON SECOND READING MR. SP EAKER: On the proposed motion of the Honourable Minister of Education, Bill No. 26 -the Honourable Member for Morris. MR. C. MANNESS: Stand. MR. SPEAKER: Stand. The Honourable Government House Leader. HON. A. ANSTETT: Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable Min ister of Employment Services, that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty. I would ask, Mr.

Speaker, if there is leave to dispense with Private Members' Hour today. MR. SPEAKER: Is there leave to dispense with Private Members' Hour today? Leave has not been granted. COMMITTEE CHANGES MR. SPEAKER: The Honour able Member for Emerson. MR. A. DRIEDGER: Mr. Speaker, I have a change on Law Amendments Committee: Hammond for Driedger.

MOTIO N preeented and carried and the Hous e resolved itself into a Committee to consider of the Su pply to be granted to Her Maj esty with the Honourable Member for Burrows in the Chair for the Department of Emp loyment Services and Economic Secu rity, and the Member for River East In the Chair for Department of Agriculture. CONCURRENT COMMITTEES OF SUPPLY SUPPLY - EMPLOYMENT SERVICES AND ECONOMIC SECURITY MR. CHAIRMAN, C. Santoe: Committee, please come to order. We are still on Item No. 3.(b)

(1) Employment Dev elopment and Youth Services: Salaries; 3.(b)

(2) Other Expenditures; 3.(b)

(3) Employment Programs. The Honourable Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: When we rose yesterday, we were discussing the Careerstart Program, and I had just asked the Minister about the number of positions and the answer he gave me reflected 635 positions in the agricultural sector that had been approved under Careerstart. I wonder, could the Min ister give a breakdown as to those jobs. Where were they actually -on the farm, any of those jobs? MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister. HON. L. EVANS: Mr.

Chairman, of the 635 positions in the agricultural sector, 574 were actually in farming operations and the balance, the 61, were in various related activities, clerical service and construction. Unde r agriculture, of course, we include farm operations, horticultural industries, veterinary services, soil preparation, planning services, agriculture management, consulting services. So the vast bulk of those positions were in farming per se, 574 out of 635. MRS. C. OLESON: I know I had complaints from my constituency last year from farmers who didn't get 2710

Thund•y, 8 June, 1985 people under the Careerstart Program and they felt that was unfair, that there wasn't enough consideration to farm operations and others of my colleagues had complaints from farmers who felt that the Minister was downgrading the importance of agriculture as a career. By the guidelines that were in place, I guess In the field offices, that were approving these programs, I just would make the Minister aware of this, there was some concern that agriculture was looked upon as a second rate career and that certainly is not the case.

I'm sure the Minister would agree with me that when you get the the No. 1 industry in the province, you cannot downgrade it as being a poor career. In the Careerstart program also, I noticed on the application form on the questions for the applicant to check the type of application, they listed businesses and then they listed co-operatives and credit unions separately as well as then community, municipality, local government, or Indian Band Council. What would be the reason for specifying co-operatives or credit unions as opposed to other businesses? Would they not all be in the same category? HON. L.

EVANS: lt was simply to make it clear that they were eligible, Mr. Chairman. That was the specific reason. We just thought that we would assure that people would understand that they could be covered. Just on the other point, I want to assure the Honourable Member for Gladstone that we are in no way downgrading the agricultural sector. We appreciate the significance to the Manitoba economy. I just want to remind her of a figure I gave yesterday.

In the labour force information we get from Statistics Canada, 8.9 percent of the Manitoba labour force is engaged in agricultural pursuits; 8.9 percent, that's both the farm operator himself or herself plus the staff, 8.9 percent, whe reas, we have appro ved 11.2 percent in the agricultural industry. We're actually approving or have approved a greater percentage of the positions to that particular industry.

On that point, I just wanted to make this - and I guess we did this last year again - it was becoming very apparent that this program which was to cover all of Manitoba- it's not a rural program, it's a program for everybody including the City of Winnipeg which has approximately 60 percent of the population - that the City was not getting anywhere near its fair share. A few years ago, it was only 28 percent; 28 percent of the money was going to Winnipeg and it had 60 percent of the population. lt was felt that we had to achieve some better balance. Now, we're not spending 60 percent of the money in Winnipeg.

We've moved up from the 28 percent. We're into the 40 percentage points, in that range. Part of that movement meant, of course, that there would be a bit less money available to some of the other regions. That's why some people, whether they be in farming or , indeed, some other kind of industry, in some sectors got a refusal because we got to a point where we ran out of money; you priorlze them, you give the best jobs, you spread it around the best way you can.

The Member for Kirkfield Park, who is sitting beside you, I hope would agree that there should be some equity and some balance and that's what we've tried to do. The other thing is that the bulk of the unemployment of the youth are in the City of Winnipeg. The City of Winnipeg is where the bulk of the youth unemployed are - (Interjection)- well, there may be. I think you'd agree that If you wanted to be very strict about this, you could argue that 60 percent ·of this money should be going Into the City of Winnipeg. Well, we've haven't achieved that level, but we don't think that 28 percent is at all adequate.

We've moved away from the 28 percent and that has caused perhaps some of the problems that the member refers to. MRS. C. OLESON: I'm sure the Minister is aware that there are not a great number of jobs out In the rural areas and a lot of the youth have to leave their home area to find jobs and that's probably why the bulk of the unemployed are in Winnipeg. lt's one reason. I don't think it's the only reason.

Last year in Estimates I was asking the Minister about spot checks his department might be making on Careerstart Programs to see if they were actually worthwhile projects when they were under way and what sort of a check he had on the value of the programs and so forth. He said that they did do spot checks.

At that time, I was mainly thinking of the value of the programs, but since that time that it's come to light in the newspapers and I've had some calls about it too, of abuse of the program by individuals - or alleged abuse - I wonder when the Minister's staff were doing spot checks on the viability of the program and so forth, if any of this sort of abuse had come to light and is it something that Is creating a problem within the system? HON. L. EVANS: The

article that the honourable member referred to that was in the press, talking about a fraudulent situation was an incident that occurred when the Conservatives were in government; and since then the staff have changed the forms so that the employee has to verify that he or she has been hired by that individual, and also, I think that it's not only one time, but throughout the program, each time that there's a claim, so that we know for sure that there Is a young person on the program. And the other thing, we do have sort of an Inspection system and we use our staff in that way, but we haven't recently.

That problem that the member alludes to was a problem that occurred more than three years ago. lt was in the courts and that's why it was in the papers recently. MRS. C. OLESON: Yes, I'm aware of that, but I just wondered if there had been . . . no doubt, that came to light and that was the reason why the forms were changed and so for th, and does the Minister feel satisfied that he has that safety net in place? HON. L.

EVANS: We're satisfied we've taken some necessary steps to prevent that, but if an individual businessman or woman or person who wants to cheat, I suppose, it's pretty difficult, but we do our best to try to prevent that and spot that; but I can't sit here and say, never again will this ever occur because, human nature being what it is, I don't think- we try to minimize it; we do our best. 2711

ThuNdar. 8 June, 1985 MRS. C. OLESON: What sort of a variation is there in length of jobs that are created by Careerstart? Are they all just July or June to September duration or are some of them for longer periods of time or is this all by students who are going back to school? HON. L. EVANS: The program applies to students, but also to young people, and some who are not necessarily students at that point. In some cases, the young people are not going back to university or college or whatever, but we still think it's worthy of assist ing them.

Most of the work is In what we consider to be the normal summer time In the province. Under the program, the minimum Is six weeks. An employer must at least give six weeks of consecutive work to a young person. The maximum under the program is 16 weeks. The average that we have calculated, the average length of employment is 12.9 weeks. MRS. C. OLESON: And that's still with the same type of funding as last year, I mean, as from the student's point of view. Is it still the $4 an hour for non-profit groups and $2 for private business? HON. L.

EV ANS: That approach is the same but the minimum wage has gone up so it's $4.30 now. MRS. C. OLESON: So it will reflect the change in minimum wage? HON. L. EVANS: Yes. MRS. C. OLESON: I think the other questions that I have are to do with programs that are not included in this unless this other Employment Resource Centres, do they come under the Trading or are they in this? HON. L. EVANS: They're on the next page. They're, I believe, (f)(3). Employment Support Services. lt's the next page, Page 60. MRS. C. OLESON: (f)(3). Okay. MA.

CHAIRMAN: We can pass this one? 3.(b)(1 )-pass; 3.(b)(2) -pass; 3.(b)(3)- pass. 3.(c)( 1) Immigration and Settlement Services, Salaries; 3.(c)

(2) Other Expenditures-the Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: Could the Minis ter explain the function of this department? Does this sponsor evening courses for adults while they're working or is this English as a second language, I guess is what I'm referring to. Is it for immigrants who have just arrived or is it an ongoing process of evening courses? HON. L.

EVANS: I don't know whether I heard the first part of the question that we do - (Interjection) - well, there are various programs under this particular branch and English as a second language is funded through this particular area of the department. - (Interjection) - There's a correction here. We are involved in providing English as a second language In terms of administration. We have a joint adminis tration with the Department of Education but the actual instruction goes on in the community colleges. Now the department is engaged in a variety of services.

Under The British North America Act each province has to be consul ted by the Federal Government regarding immigration and settlement matters and so we do have liaison with the Federal Mi nister of Empl oyment and Immigr ation, the Honourable Flora MacDonald and her staff, from time to time reviewing the procedures and so on. For instance, we review government policies and procedures respecting the admission of medically inadmissible Immigr ants, sponsored Immi grants, temporary movements students and workers and so on.

We are asked by the Federal Min ister from time to time to give recommendations to them regarding immigration policy. We have a whole series of newcomer service programs. We have the Newcomers' Guide to Manitoba that the member may be familiar with. Jt's quite a useful document. lt's been translated into several languages. A more recent development has been the setting up of an Immigr ant Access Service.

We found that there are a great deal of problems, in effect, mental Illness among Southeast Asian refugees, and it was a matter of helping them access the existing health system that we had here and the existing social services. So have set up a new program to help these people in a variety of areas: employment, health, education, child and family matters, corrections, as well as Income secur ity. There's a group of people who I think collectively speak more than 10 languages among them. So this is a new service that was identified.

But generally we work with various immigrant groups and support them In as many ways as we possibly can. So it's quite a wide variety of activities. Most of it is centred in Winnip eg because this is where the concentration of immi grants happens to be. MRS. C. OLESON: Does this department do any funding to the International Centre or is connected with that at all? HON. L. EVANS: We have a series of grants, including the International Centre.

I have to advise, we haven't given a grant to the International Centre In the past year per se, but In the past and from time to time we support various groups. lt's a very small grant program, $25,000, and we try to spread it around as much possible, to Filipino organizations; the Philippine Nursing Association was one for a special program that they had. I'll give you some other examples: Inter-Faith Immigration Council, a small program affecting inter faith and other settlement agencies with regard to housing for them.

We have a women's club, again helping them with various matters, including English as a second language for the women, heritage language classes for the children, identifying these systems for referrals to immigrant serving agencies and so on. We are working closely with the International Centre on all kinds of programs, so even though they don't get a grant, doesn't mean that we have no involvement with them. But there are other organizations, the lndo-China Chinese Association. They have an employment project.

Westman Multicultural Council got a small grant for producing a Newcomers' Guide for the Westman area. 2712

Thuraday, 8 June, 1985 We felt that the one we had in Winnipeg was mostly geared to this area, so we have now one for the Westman area, or it's being produced I guess, it's not quite finished yet. Teaching of English as a second language. There was a conference. We paid a bit of money towards the conference for those teachers of English as a second language. We gave a small grant to the Committee on Wife Abus e for the abused women in the immigrant community. lt's not a big grant program and we've tried to spread it around, depending on the needs, the requests that we receive. MRS. C.

OLESON: I have in front of me the press release on the Committee on Wife Abuse grant. I wonder could the Minister indicate what the grant was used for? Was it mainly to study the problem or was it actually spent to deliver a service to the people that needed it? HON. L. EVANS: As I understand, it was a Community Outreach Project to assess the needs of immigrant communities related to wife abuse, the culturally specific needs, and also to assist in the development of some resources and to provide a greater awareness of wife abus e issues among that group of people.

I might add that the grant we provided was jointly funde d by the Federal Go vernment, Canada Immigration and Settlement Department and also Canada Works provided a grant as well; so we were one of three organizations. MA. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Klrkfield Park. MRS. G. HAMMOND: On the grant to the Committee on Wife Abuse, for the newcomer support services, did they find any problems that, say, didn't exist for non immigrant women? Was there anything, any different circumstances? HON. L. EVANS: Mr.

Chairman, I'm advised the grant was made in March and the project's still ongoing, so we haven't had a report back from that organization. MRS. G. HAMMOND: I just have a couple of questions on immigrants and I'm not just sure if it would be federal or if it's provincial or does the province handle all the money dealing with immigrants? I'm thinking in terms of, say, clothing allowances when immigrants come in. Who would handle that? HON. L. EVANS: That's normally the Federal Government. MRS. G. HAMMOND: They look after that, then. What is the part that the Provincial Government takes care of then? HON. L.

EVANS: Mr. Chairman, I could advise the member that we don't do anything with regard to income support, financial support, except if it turns out that the relatives of sponsoring an immigrant family, for whatever reason, don't uphold their bargain with the Federal Government to support these people in the initial instance, then they could fall under our social allowance program on a sort of emergency basis and we would help them there; but that of course is not under this particular branch. I was describing the programs of the branch. Perhaps the member wasn't here earlier. MRS. G. HAMMOND: I'm sorry I wasn't.

HON. L. EV ANS: Well, it's various kinds of support services. Well, I don't want to repeat everything I said. We do co-ordinate with the Federal Government. Under The BNA Act every province has to be consulted by the Federal Government with regard to overall immigration matters and settlement matters and there is co-operation and liaison . I' ve written to the Honourable Flora MacDonald, for example, if she writes to us. We look at doing whatever we can to assist people by means of grants to organizations. We have English as a second language. We are involved In the administration of that.

We have other kinds of materials for newcomers; not only the Newcomers Guide but we got The Welcome News. We're providing health and employment information. There's quite a variety of programs; co-ordinating volunteers, doing whatever we can to help. MRS. G. HAMMOND: Yes, English as a second language, that I take it would be taught both during the day and in the evening. What cost is there to the new immigrant? HON. L. EVANS: The immigrant is not required to pay. MRS. G. HAMMOND: Then how long would you base this?

Is it someone say that's been here for say for a year or does it go on in any extended period that they would have this service? Could they drop in and out of it is what I'm trying to get at? HON. L. EVANS: lt varies. There are some people, Mr. Chairman, who do drop out and then they come back and so on. We don't like to say no as long as that individual feels that he/she needs the training in English as a second language, they're welcome. So, there's no hindrance.

Where the Federal Government is actively Involved in sponsoring an immigr ant, then the Federal Government itself, that department actually chooses the immigrants who qualify to take the course. MRS. G. HAMMOND: I guess I'm a little bit confused here. I was under the impression that the Federal Government was in on all the immigrant services and how do they arrive at a division? HON. L EVANS: Excuse me, are you talking about entry into the country, or are you talking about English as a second language? MRS. G.

HAMMOND: English as a second language and then the services when you brought - that only certain immigrants would be getting this service through the Federal Government? 2713

Thursday, 8 June, 18e5 HON. L. EVANS: What I was referring to is strictly the English as a second language service. My understanding is that a great bulk of them are financed by the Federal Gover nment. The Federal Government chooses the people who should enter that program, English as a second language. Then there's another category . lt's compli cated. Well, there's the one category that's sponsored by the Federal Government because then these are people who are chosen to go into the labour market to take specific jobs.

Then there's another group that is administered by the Winnipeg No. 1 School Division and then they bill back the Secretary of State Department for the costs. That would be the wives or spouses to persons not in the labour force. MRS. G. HAMMOND: Wel l, I guess that's the next question I have, the women at home who have young children, is there any kind of day care or babysitting or just how do they work it for these women to get out of the home and take language training? HON. L.

EV ANS: What we've been doing at the provincial level with our limited resources, we're working with various immigrant groups and there is a program for parents and preschoolers involving some assistance with transportation and a little bit of literacy skills upgrading as well as English as a second language. So, there is an effort to work with organizations that involves day care and so on. As I can underst and, we try to get as many volunteers involved as well. We don't have an army of civil servants out there doing all this.

We have a very small staff working with organizations trying to get them organized so that a lot of these good things can happen. So, we'r e definite ly, however, zer oing in on these matters including, I might add, helping with immigrant women look for work giving information on job search techniques and so on, but certainly helping them with other programs like day care and so on. There's a Jot of activity going on out there. The ideal in a way is to get these organizations mobilized to help people within their groups. MRS. G. HAMMOND: Mr.

Chairman, does the department find that most of the immigrants and Immigrant women , I would say, are focused in on specific groups? Like when they come here, do they get sort of lost in the neighbo urhood or do the specific groups tend to pick up the immigrants as they come into the comm unity? How do they access to these different groups? HON. L. EVANS: lt's hard to give a simple answer to that. lt varies depending on where the immigrant group comes from. For instance, there are a number of people from Poland here.

Obviou sly, they're in a different situation than say the group of lndo-Chinese coming from Southe ast Asia. There's a different cultural background under different organizations to relate to. I w ould just say, as a general observation, people coming here from Poland probably have an easier time of it. it's western culture; there are a lot of Polish organizations here to help them and so forth,

whereas if you're coming from a part of the world that has never had anyone here settling, say, 40 or 50 years previous and who can assist them because they know English and the language of that particular countr y, then you're in a much more difficult position. I have attended one or two or three of these new ethnic groups in Winnipeg and what I find is that there is a great esprit de corps, a great coming together.

I notice that all of the young, I think there may be problems but this is nothing new, with the young ones that are born here and raised in Manitoba or Canada who probably know a little bit more maybe about our culture than the parents who are still trying to learn about it.

I was at the Laos organization and I noticed all the little children spoke perfect English, running around the halls and that, talking to one another in English, and probably were more with it then -I'm not trying to discriminate against the parents, but it just seems that the young people absorb everyt hing and they're into it; but I think it varies, depe nding on the organization and the numbers that they have. Some ethnic groups have very small numbers and others have very, very large numbers and it depends on their religion and so on. it's pretty hard to generalize. MRS. G.

HAMMOND: Just one more question on that particular issue. When someone comes to the departm ent, as I imagine they land on the govern ment's door somewhere along the line just to find out things. If they haven't got, say, an identified group, where would · the department direct them, because there must be some people coming in who maybe don't read ily identify with any larger group, and I'm just wondering what happens to the few that would fall into that catego ry. HON. L. EVANS: The honourable member refers to a problem that does exist and to address it we recently set up a new Immigrant Access Service.

This is a group of people who themselves a background of being new Canadians and, collec tive ly, as I was saying earli er, they speak more than 10 different languages among them, including Eritrean, Laotian, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Polish, Chilean, etc., etc. , but their job is to help immigrants, newcomers, se ttlers, to access the health service, to access the social service system, to access every thing that's out here. We don't think we need medical specialists to deal with people coming from some part of the wor ld. There's been some mental illn ess apparently occurring among some southe astern refugees.

There was a problem, is a problem, and one way to help them is to make sure that they can access the medical system that we have in place, the hospital system, the doctors that we have. So this is a new program; it's only been going just a very few weeks, as a matter of fact. lt's been organized. We 've got the staff, opening officially in July, and this is a general social service and co-ordination and access ing type of service and I think that's a major step that we're taking to help those individuals that you talk about. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Gladstone. MRS. C.

OLESON: The Mini ster mentioned the Immigrant Access Service which will be getting under 2714

Thursday, 8 June, 1885 way. I see, in the Annual Report, that there's an Immigrant Settlement Volunteer Program. Are those two - would be working together , I would imagine, and are the Volunteers in Public Service involved In this type of volunteer program or is this separate from that? HON. L. EVANS: We have one volunteer co-ordinator now assigned to this branch and that perso n's job is to get volunteers busy to help these people, but that's in addition to this access service; that's another thrust. I'll just give you a specific example and make it a little easier to understand.

We organized a group of volunteers who actually translated the Newcomer's Guide from English into Punjabi. lt was done by a group of a dozen or so people; it was all on a voluntary basis, so the volunteer co ordinator would help to get these volunteers organized to do that, so that totally separate from the Immigrant Access Service. MRS. C. OLESON: How many people involved in administering the Immigr ant Access Service or will be involved? HON. L. EVANS: There's a co-ordinator, a clerk-typist and four full-time access workers and two half-time. MRS. C.

OLESON: In an Order-in-Council of April 24th, No. 438, Employment Services and Economic Security Department -grant funding not ex ceed ing an aggregate of $1 50,000 to be provided to emplo yers of additional workers unde r the Recognition Ma nitoba Work Experience for Profe ssionally and Tec hnically Trained Newcomers Program. Is that to help employers integrate newcomers into their staff? HON. L EVANS: Yes , that is a separate program funded under the . . .

Monies originally come from the Jobs Fund and it Is to provide . . . it's something comparable to Graduates in Business; it's along that line, but we're zeroing in on people who are profess ionally and technically trained, but they have problems In not understanding the language as fully as they might, or they may have some cultural problems and so on. Their credentials may not be recog nized but nevertheless they may be very highly trained people.

So this small program is then designed to give an opportunity to those recently naturalized Canadians or qualified landed Immigrants, to obtain meaningful work experience in their field of expertise. So it's a small program. lt's not administered by this department, but this branch is involved. - (Interjection) - Pardon me? Correction, it does administer this program but the money does come from the Jobs Fund. MRS. C. OLESON: Is this geared to these newcomer profes sionals, getting their accreditation to actually practise their profes sions in Manitoba? HON. L. EV ANS: Ye s.

We work with the various professional organizations involving engineers, accountants and so on, and with their co-operation, hopeful ly, Identify job opportunities and people get the experience and so on. We try, with the co-operation of these profes sional organizations, to perhaps get a refinement of the recognition of the qualifications of the newcomer and to clarify that because there's a lot of misunderstand ing. A profess ional organization may not be aware of the university or educational instftute in the different count ry, and are not aware of what kind of training is offered and so on.

So that information I guess comes to light in this process. MR. CHAIRMAN: 3.(c)(1)-pass; 3.(c)(2)-pass. 3.(d)

(1) Federal-Provincial Programs Co-ordination: Salaries; 3.(d)

(2) Other Expenditur es; 3.(d)(3)(

a) Selkirk Training Plant, Salaries; 3.(d)(3)(

b) Other Expenditures; 3.(d) (3)(

c) Less: Recoverable from Other Appropriations. The Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: Last year the Mini ster reported that 80 people were in this program at the Selkirk Training Plant. Is that still approximately the same number and is it still a 26-week program? HON. L. EVANS: The number of trainees accepted during the 1984-85 fiscal year were 101; 1985-86 we're planning 102. Now there's always some sort of a drop out, but that's the number that we're acce pting into the program. What was the other question, I forgot? - (Interjection) - 26 weeks. Yes there's no change in the programming. MRS. C.

OLESON: Is there any change in the actual production of the plant, like I understand they make park furniture and that. Is that a continuing thing or are there changes from time to time in the thrust of the program? HON. L. EVANS: lt's largely the same product as they were putting out before, although this past year they were engaged in a very unique exercise -maybe a once-in-a-lifetime exercise - and that is they prepared various furniture and structures for the visit of His Holi ness the Pope. MRS. C. OLESON: That isn't likely to happen very often. HON. L. EVANS: No. MRS. C.

OLESON: I see that there's a $1 02,800 decrease In this department. Could the Minister explain why? HON. L EVANS: The expenditures you see are net expenditur es, so we anticipate an increase In the revenue from sales of the products. The salary level and the operating expenditures are up slightly, but the revenue from sales is up considera bly, so that the bottom line shows a decrease of $1 47,000.00. MRS. C. OLESON: What sort of a success rate Is there with the people that are being trained In this plant, with job success succeeding their training? HON. L.

EVANS: In 1984-85, 46 graduated, that finished the program; 27 were placed In jobs. So 57 percent 2715

Thursday, 8 June, 1985 obtained jobs immed iately; and we don't know exactly what happened to some of the others. We know that they weren't Immed iately employed. Some, I might add, go on to other training. They may go to a regional secondary school or go to Red River College or Asslnlboine or whatever. MRS. C. OLESON: How many staff does it take to operate that training centre? HON. L. EVANS: 14 staff years. MRS. C. OLESON: And that is partly funde d by the Federal Government as well? HON. L. EVANS: Ye s. MRS. C. OLESON: The NEED Program. Is this still in operation? HON. L.

EVANS: The NEED Program ended March 31s t of 1985. lt's totally ended as of March 31, 1985. lt was actually a program that was most active a couple of years before and a few projects were rather slow in getting finished, so federally and provincially we agreed to some extensions, but March 31s t was the deadline. MRS. C. OLESON: I see, and it's not going to be reinstat ed? HON. L. EVANS: lt was a fed erally-initiated program. We've consulted with them. They don't seem to be interested in reac tivating it. There may be some other programs but not the NEED, as such. MRS. C. OLESON: Not exactly the same name.

They may do something else and change the name. HON. L EVANS: Ye s, that's right. In answer to a previous question about cost-sharing with the Federal Government of the Selkirk Training Plant; of the $592,000 in the 1985-86 year, we expect to recover $219,5 00 from Ottawa. lt's not quite 50-50 but 40 percent anyway. lt's a fairly big share. MRS. C. OL ES ON: And the Commun ity Assets Program. I understand the Mi nister has recently announc ed that will be in effect again for this year? HON. L. EVANS: Ye s. MRS. C. OLESON: Have the application forms been prepared and are ready to go? HON. L. EVANS: Yes they are.

MRS. C. OLESON: Does the Minister send them out, for instance, to people that were turned down last year or is there any mailing list kept? HON. L. EVANS: Ye s, what we normally do - well we do have a mailing list of the organizations that would be interested and we would send it out. At any rate, we have a mailing list and we send out application forms, as wel l as put a few ads in the paper and we put out a news release. MRS. C. OLESON: I see that there's a list with the press release that came out concerning the program.

They were listed, centres were . . . service offices, is this program operated similar to the Careerstart and other programs in this department that those service offices gather in the applications that would be pertinent to their area and then decide who gets the funding? HON. L. EVANS: The field staff are very much involved with the organizations because this is more complicated in Careerstart . They quite often help them actually fill out the application form and so on.

For many of these organizations, it's the first time they've ever been involved with this kind of a program, unlike Careerstart where emplo yers are often coming year after year, and all the screening, vet ting and so forth is done. The final decision is made central ly. MRS. C. OLESON: How many applications did the department receive for this program last year? HON. L. EVANS: We received 415 applications in this past year. MRS. C. OLESON: How many were accepted and how many rejected ? HON. L. EVANS: We ll, 243 were approved . There were a little more than 243 approved, but some of them subsequently dropped out.

Currently, there are 243 approved so if you just subtract that from 415 , it's a little under 200. MRS. C. OLESON: When was the deadline that the program had to be under way so that they could get that funding? HON. L EVANS: Well, they were to be completed by June 30th of this year. Now, having said that, we found in the course of events there were several organizations - well not that many out of the hun dreds -there were a few organizations that had some problems and we tended to take a flexible approach and we allowed them an extension of the deadline.

For example, there was construction by a municip ality of a bridge in Northern Manitoba and it's just impossible for them to get started because of the high level of water. We wouldn't want to be unreasonable. MRS. C. OLESON: Does the Minister have ministerial discretion on these projects? For instance, can he override the decision of the field staff? HON. L EVANS: The final decision, all of it eventually is approved by Cabinet but the decision making is by committee in Winnipeg. MRS. C. OLESON: Back for a moment to the ones that, for instance, would not be proceeded with.

Was the Min ister able to grant and allocate funds because some of them were unused? Has that all been sorted out and has money from last year all been expended? 2716

Thureday, 8 June, 1985 HON. L. EVANS: Ye s, whenever there was some slippage we had a waiting list of those who had been initially rejected and we did approve several subsequently as slippage occurred. The answer is yes. lt is possible that some of those organizations that didn't get money last year could qualify this year. lt's a very difficult job; very, very difficult to try to be fair and equitable and so on. I would hope that many of those that weren't approved last year would apply this year for assistance. MRS. C.

OLESON: The picture sort of emerged with this that there see med to be more emphasis put on programs that were labour intensive. Of course, then you could use the num bers for emplo yment statistics. There didn't seem to be, from ones I heard of anyway, as much consideration as they would have liked to the project itself and its im portance to the community as there was to the jobs attached. What came out of it was that people with a very worthwhile -and I'm thinking of one in particular, one town that had a very worthwhile project outlined but they were going to use a lot of volunteers.

That immediately took down the labour value of it from the point of view of the Minister's department. lt seems to me that if the community is willing to set up a program, raise a great deal of money and then do most of the work by volunteers for a very worthwhile addition to their commun ity, it seems that they're being penalized for something that should be encouraged as doing volunteer work.

I know some of them were very disappointed at being turned down because they feel that their project would, as I say, contribute a great deal to the commun ity. lt's something of lasting impor tance where we all know of projects that happen and they're not of as long-range value as others. So, it seems to be that our society is evolving in a way which does not encourage volunteers. I think we all know that a lot of these communities, in rural Manitoba particularly, would not exist if it wasn't for volun teers. Volunteers have built service clubs, chur ches, arenas and you name it.

There would not be much of a community life in most small rural communitie s if it wasn't for volunteers. They are the absolute backbone of it and they would fade away. There would be no cultural ev ents. There would be nothing if it wasn't for the initiative of people over the years. That's what built the rural areas in our province and th at's what keeps th em going. To discourage them in this way is somehow not quite fair. HON. L. EVANS: Wel l, I certa inly agree with the member.

In rural Manitoba, in particular, a lot of great things have happened strictly because of volunteer ef fort, but as the member herself recognized, this is a Manitoba Jobs Fund Program. The whole reason for the program is to create jobs. We don't want to take away from volunteer effort in that respect . Obviously, we do require, the refore, that people are employed.

There are other programs, or there have been other programs, under Tourism, for example, Culture, Heritage and Recreat ion and so on -. where there are facilities that are given grants and there are no strings attached to whether you hire people or whether you bring in volunteers. Over the years, I can think of recre ational grants that are made available to different organizations around the province and it's up to those organizations to get the labour as they will, either paid or voluntee r.

We felt that we didn't want people to be involv ed in make-work programs and we challenged the people of Manitoba to come up with some thing worthwhile and they did in overwh elming numbers, so much so that we couldn't possibly approve all this. This doesn't prevent them, you know. Most of the organizat ions did not get all they asked for, and the reason for that is because we were requested in the initial instance -well, around $16 million or so -and that's more money than we had, so a lot of the organizations didn't get the $75,000 they asked for. They may have got a portion of it.

In some cases they have had Phases -Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3 - so we helped them with a particular phase. There's nothing prev enting that organization from using their volunteers and doing anything else they wanted to do, on top of what we approved. We approved a certain thrust: so many jobs, a certain amount of work to be done, so if they hired the people who have created the jobs, that's fine. If they wanted to bring in volunteers to do other things, great. In fact, that did happen. I know it happened. There was a lot of additional supplementary work that had to be done and it was done by volunteers.

No program is perfect but I'm convinced that through this program a lot of good things were done throughout Manitoba. I was in Ninette a couple of weeks ago at the official opening of the hall there. The hall that they had for a long time had been partially subdivided for a senior citizens drop-in centre. They didn't have enough space for a dance and a banque t and all that, so they wanted to expand their facility and this program enabled them to do so. They had some money left over from their Centennial from a couple of years ago, and this helped make it possible.

They have a beautiful hall that's been completed. lt's totally finished inside and is great and they're so pleased with it. lt's not finished outside. I'm sure they're going to have to use some volunteer labour to finish it outside, unle ss they can find some money. MRS. C. OLESON: I'm not downplaying the importance of jobs and I know unemployment is high and they're all looking for ways to stimulate job creat ion. Most of these projects however do not stimulate anything close to a full-time job.

They're very, very short-term usually, so they'r e not a long -term job, unless they keep a particular construction company going and enable them to keep on their staff if they get several of these jobs. From a local point of view in small towns, they'r e not usually a long-range job creat ion. Now I just wanted to sort of brief the Minister on a little problem that I had. Some people can get different ideas of how this works, and quite rightly so. The Premier was touring in the Ste.

Rose constituency ear1ier this spring and the subject came up that one of the people that was attending the function he was at had trouble getting into the building because there were no ramps - and this was in a building in Neepawa. So the First Minister said, "Oh well, we provide grants for building lifts and ramps," and I cer tainly got a phone call. These people would like to put a ramp on the side 2717

ThuNCiaJ, 8 June, 1985 of their church, so I said, "I'll see what I can find out. If the First Min ister said they provide these grants, I'm sure that this will happen ." So after numerous phone calls, I got up in the House one day and asked the Minis ter and he said, "Well, of course. You should know this, the Jobs Fund pays for this." So I phoned the Jobs Fund Office and they said, "No, we have no particular grant for ramps or lifts. Whenever the Community Assets Program comes up again, tell them to apply." So this Is the problem people get into.

They get promised things and it's said as if there was a special grant and there isn't. HON. L EYANS: Did they apply? MRS. C. OLESON: They probably will apply when this new one comes out and I'll make sure that they get an application form. But If I have all this trouble finding out and I've got a directory for all the civil servants In this building; how is the average person going to find out what the Jobs Fund does and what it doesn't do? HON. L EYANS: One way is to advertise. MRS. C. OLESON: No, that doesn't tell them. A MEMBER: No, not really . MRS. C.

OLESON: No, but the First Minister shouldn't be making false . . . HON. L EYANS: What we've done In the past and what we'll do this year again, Is to identif y all these hundreds and thousands of community organizations out there, chur ches, community clubs, service clubs, etc., etc., who we think might be interested in this and we send them a form and it gives them a lot of detailed information and the ads in the paper say, "If you're interested, clip it out and send it to us or phone us, and we'll send you the informa tion." MRS. C. OLESON: Put the Austin United Church on the list.

They would like to have a ramp for their church. HON. L EYANS: Austin United Church, okay.

I might add that in the very first page of the handbook on the program explaining the kinds of projects, we specifically mention that we want to encourage the development of proposals Involving construction, renovation, expansion or general repairs of facilities promoting social services or comm unity benefits, including -and we specify these to sort of encourage people - day care facilities; facilities for the senior citizens; the physically or mentally disabled; projects to approve acces sibility for the physically disabled, it's specifically mentioned; a community resource centre; tourist facilities; libr aries; museums; environmental Improvement; recre ation; cultural facilities.

These are just listed to sort of encourage people to think of ways and means that they might want to utilize this money for. Having said that, we did approve quite a numb er of projects for access for the physically disabled. MRS. C. OLESON: Oh, I'm sure you did, but it's to find out ... HON. L. EYANS: Okay, we expect the good ML As to jump to ... MRS. C. OLESON: lt took a lot of time but I found it. Those applications or the brochures pertaining thereto, have they gone out? HON. L. EY ANS: Some have gone; others are in the process of going out. MRS. C. OLESON: Okay, thank you. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Member for Kirkfield Park. MRS. G. HAMMOND: On the ext ended program, if an organization has received funding for Phase 1, are they able to apply for Phase 2? MRS. C. OLESON: They can apply. MRS. G. HAMMOND: And will they get money? HON. L. EYANS: The answer is of course they can apply. When you get the applications In you have to com pare what else has been going on In that area, who hasn't had money before, and whether there are any com peting worthwhile organizations with good projects, etc., etc. So it's a judgment call but certainly they can apply.

I'm not saying apply and you'll be turned down. I'm not saying that at all. Apply, you might get some help, but it's going to depend -for instance, in the Kirkfield Park area or In the West Winnipeg area - I mean if there are 10 other excellent projects come forward out of the woods that never had a nickel before, obviously we would want to give them some preference, if they had some good projects. So the answer Is yes. MRS. G. HAMMOND: Mr.

Chairman, just further to that, with their applying, some of the projects -and certainly the one I'm referring to is the Kirkfield West wood Communlplex which amounted to a fair amount of mone y. it was a pretty extensive program that the community certainly Is heavily Involved in. I'm just wondering what happens, when they are given help in Phase 1, was there any encou ragement at all that they may receive funding further In the seco nd and third and fourth stages, however - (Interjec tion) - they might be. HON. L. EYANS: The Minister of Cultural Affairs asked whether the Premier was here or not. MRS. G.

HAMMOND: If that'll help, I'll invite him. HON. L. EYANS: I'd like him to come to my riding, he's great. No, the staff couldn't advise any organization to stand ready for Phase 2 or Phase 3 because the decision had to be made whether or not to proceed . The Cabinet ultimately, the Jobs Fund Comm ittee, of which the Mi nister of Ind ust ry, Trade and Te chnology is the Chairperson, that comm ittee would have had to make a decision. it did make a decision that was positive, recommended that Cabinet approve and the staff were 2718

Thursday, 8 June, 1985 advised and material's gone out; but they couldn't necessarily say, wait for next year for Phase 2 because nobody knew whether we were definitely going to have Phase 2, but we are having it, so I guess this is Phase 3. The first year it was the Municipal Community Assets Program, so this is the third round. MRS. G. HAMMOND: I guess then that the Minister and the staff and Cabinet will be looking at the same thing, the big criterion is jobs in this, so if a project is still worthwhile, it'll be worthwhile in the second phase. HON. L. EVANS: As they said, they would be invited to apply. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In last year's Community Assets Program, the Minister had announced it in two different sections, I think at least two, I believe it was $3 million for the North and the same amount for the southern part of the province. Is it being done the same way this year? HON. L. EVANS: Yes, the Northern program is under the Department of Northern Affairs. That $3 million would be now administered by the Minister of Northern Affairs.

Our program was a $6 million program, but we supplemented it with an additional $2 million because of the terrific amount of applications. At that, as I said, we were only able to accommodate a little less than half of what had been requested. I'd just like to make ·one observation. Perhaps members are aware of this, but it's very interesting that we obtained from the sponsors, on average, a little better than $2 for every $1 we put in, so it wasn't just spending, therefore, $6 million, $7 million or $8 million or whatever amount of government money.

You had double that from the community sector, so in total there's quite an impact. MRS. C. OLESON: So the numbers that you gave me as the numbers of projects approved, would that be just for the southern Manitoba one? HON. L. EVANS: Yes. MRS. C. OLESON: Can the Minister tell us how many were approved for the North? HON. L. EVANS: Excuse me, I have to qualify. We do have the major urban centres for the North in this program, but what we don't have is the remote, smaller communities which is covered by Northern Affairs; but the City of Thompson, Flin Flon, The Pas would be in this program.

So when I said the Northern program, 1 meant or I should have qualified, it was the remote areas of the North. So what was the question again, please? MRS. C. OLESON: How many projects were there in the North then? HON. L. EVANS: Under this program that we're talking about, we had 11 projects in the North. That's not part of that $3 million. Those are the urban centres that were in this program; it has nothing to do with the $3 million. MRS. C. OLESON: lt was all administered by the Northern Affairs. HON. L. EVANS: The $3 million would be administered by them, but we would . . . MRS. C.

OLESON: So that would be dealt with in his Estimates. HON. L. EVANS: The $3 million, yes. That's right. MRS. C. OLESON: Thank you. MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready to pass this one? MRS. C. OLESON: Just a second, I'll see whether the . . . yes, the Northern Employment and the Southern Employment Service. This would come under this; and the Northern Summer Education Program? HON. L. EVANS: That's under Item (f). MRS. C. OLESON: Oh, that's right. Sorry about that. MR.

CHAIRMAN: 3.(d )( 1) - pass; 3.(d)(2)-pass; 3.(dX3Xa)-pass ; 3.(dX3Xb)-pass; 3.(dX3Xc)-pass. 3.(eX1) Training Agreement Administration: Salaries; 3.(eX2) Other Expenditures -the Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: Last year in Estimates there was a discussion about a study of the Provincial-Federal Agreement. Was that study completed and has the Minister implemented some of the recommendations of the report? HON. L.

EVANS: I believe what I may have been referring to, what I would have been referring to is the fact that the agreement was coming to an end, the Federal-Provincial Agreement. lt's called the National Training Agreement and we have agreed with the new Mini ster, the Honourable Flora MacDonald, to extend it for one year, the old agreement, simply extend lt for one year and during that period of extension the staff are in discussion with the federal departmental staff to work out the details of a basis for a new agreement with the Federal Government.

But that agreement, incidentally, is the basis for us obtaining monies for all of our community colleges. All the community college money is based on the agreement that we reach here. That's one component, plus it includes the industrial training agreement. That is a component; that is training monies to employers in the work site. But never1heless, our job is to try to get as many dollars as we can for Manitoba, so basically that's what it is. There's another smaller component called Critical Trade Skill Training, but it's still on-the-site training. MRS. C.

OLESON: The study that I'm referring to was done by WMC Associates and it was discussed last year in Estimates, but it was still ongoing, I believe, at 2719

Thurect.y, 8 June, 1985 that time, and I wondered if it had been completed and what it had cost, the report. HON. L.

EVANS: That study was basically to provide us information for a new training strategy and we've used that material in discussions with the other provinces and now the Federal Government and we've come to some changing . . . well, we are evolving our strategy collectively in Canada, along with the other provinces and, in fact, it was discussed at the First Min isters' Conference in Regina last February, different emphasis, different ways of going about training Canadians, making it. lt was the No. 1 topic at the First Ministers Conference in Regina, so that kind of research was fed into the system for our discussions with the other provinces and the Federal Government and is still evolving.

MRS. C. OLESON: You don't have the final cost of that report? HON. L. EVANS: We don't have it; we can look it up. MRS. C. OLESON: The Minister mentioned discussions with an overall Canadian training program. Is it ever a practice of the provinces to set up a training program for something specific say, and exchange students from one province to the other instead of setting up a training program in several places? HON. L. EVANS: That can and does happen. We finance a training centre at the airports called the Stevenson Aviation Training Centre and we have people from Saskatchewan who come and train.

What they train is to repair small aircraft, mechanical work, etc. MRS. C. OLESON: . . . (inaudible) . . . HON. L. EVANS: They pay full costs to use it, people from Saskatchewan. MRS. C. OLESON: In the Manitoba Co-operator newspaper, there was an

article on training programs, Women in Trades training. I wonder if this department has any input into that or is it just strictly the Labour Department? HON. L. EVANS: That's the Department of Labour. MR. CHAIRMAN: 3.(eX1)-pass; 3.(eX2)-pass. 3.(fX1Xa) Employment Training and Regional Services, New Careers, Salaries; 3.(fX1Xb) Other Expenditures the Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: The New Careers Program, Mr. Chairman, is it still ongoing? HON. L. EVANS: Yes. MRS. C. OLESON: How many people are involved in that training and what centres do the training? HON. L. EVANS: There's northern and southern.

This one is south; the northern is in the next one. However, I can give you the general information. Generally, it's training on the job where we locate a job opportunity and with the individual who has potential for training, maybe disadvantaged, place them in that particular job where they're trained on the job. The trainees in the past year were located in various communities throughout the province; Winnipeg, Pine Falls, Birch River, Portage, Scanterbury, Berens River, Riverton, Brandon, Dauphin, Swan River, all over.

That's not an inclusive list that I mentioned. lt involves all kinds of jobs: family, child and family service workers, museum technicia n, drafting technician, community resource worker, medical interpreters, Native trainers, storekeepers, retail store managers, aircraft mechanics, etc. There's quite a variety . We had the co-operation of various organizations, a long list of organizations who assisted us in identifying people and also in providing employment for them on graduation; the Native Clan Organization, St.

Boniface Hospital, the Salvation Army, Native Alcoholism Council, Children's Aid Society of Central Manitoba -I'm just picking a few at random here -Swan River Friendship Centre, Frontier School Division, CBC, etc. There's quite a variety. MRS. C. OLESON: Are there any private sector companies or indiv iduals that train and then subsequently employ these people? HON. L. EVANS: Yes, there are few, particularly in the retail sector. I've got one example here; the Codville Company and Dakota Village IGA. MRS. C.

OLESON: Something that I read said that the New Careers Program had a great many people, a major training agent to use in the area of Native child and family service workers. Is that a new thrust that is just evolving? HON. L. EVANS: No, it's been operating since 1981. MRS. C. OLESON: Is that helping to upgrade staff for the day care centres? HON. L. EVANS: No, that would be child workers, family social workers. Similar to CAS staff. MRS. C. OL ESON: The Limestone Trainin g Employment Agencies and centres, is this department at all involved with that?

Do they supply staff or funding or is there any involvement in this department in that? HON. L. EVANS: Yes, we are involved but so are other departments. All the funding for special training for Limestone is from the Manitoba Jobs Fund. There is a training agency but reports to a committee headed by the Minister of Energy. Our staff, however, are involved in liaisoning with the Federal Department of Employment and Immigration; the whole referral system getting information out to people about the potential opportunities and so on.

There are other departments involved as well such as the Department of Northern Affairs and Industry, Trade and Technology. The Min ister says he's not involved in the training part, no. MRS. C. OLESON: The BUNTEP Program, the program with the Brandon University; is that still ongoing and how many students are involved with that now? 2720

Thursday, 8 June, 1985 HON. L. EVANS: That's financed by the Department of Education. We're not involved in that. MRS. C. OLESON: You're not involved in that at all. Did it not used to come under this department? HON. L. EVANS: No. lt was always Education. MRS. C. OLESON: The Northern Development Agreement ... MR. CHAIRMAN: That's (f)2., I haven't called it. Are we ready to pass (f)? 3.(f)(1)(a)-pass; 3.(f)(1)(b)-pass. 3.(f)(2)(

a) Northern Development Agreement - Canada-Manitoba -New Careers, Salaries; 3.(f)(2)(

b) Other Expenditures; 3.(f)(2)(

c) Less: Recoverable from Northern Affairs -the Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: How many projects that are funded under this agreement, under this program and what cost is there? I notice there's the Northern Youth Corps, what other programs? HON. L. EVANS: The Northern Youth Corps is another program. This is strictly New Careers North. it's the same kind of a program as we've been talking about only for Northern Manitoba. The Northern Youth Corps is (f)(4), which is on the next page. MRS. C. OLESON: How many people then are involved in the New Careers Program in this department? HON. L.

EVANS: How many people are involved? In New Careers North there are 68 staff years. That includes administration and training positions. There's 54 student staff years, but there's 14 1 trainees at this point in time. The actual administration is done by 14 staff. MRS. C. OLESON: Wh at is the funding for that program? HON. L. EVANS: The request for'85-86 is just slightly over $2 million, of which $1, 600,000 is recovered from the Federal Government under the Northern Development Agreement. Excuse me, there's a correction.

The recovery is 60 percent of the $2 million, so it's 1.2 million that's recovered from the Federal Government. MRS. C. OLESON: How long of a duration are these jobs? Is it a summer program something like Careerstart? HON. L. EVANS: In most cases it's about two years training. These people usually end up with permanent jobs after they're finished. MRS. C. OLESON: This is on-the-job training. What sort of wage assistance is provided then? HON. L.

EVANS: There are formulas, it's usually a percentage of the starting salary of the particular job that they're filling. lt starts at 70 percent and goes up 5 percent every six months. So if you were starting as a corrections officer , if you were classified as a Corrections Officer, Grade 1, I guess, then you'd get 70 percent of that salary the first year. it's really an apprenticeship type of program .. MRS. C. OLESON: That development agreement and the federal agreement you were talking about before, you were mentioning it's being negotiated at this time, how soon is that likely to be in place?

That will just affect next year's plans, is that it? HON. L. EVANS: The member, I believe, was talking about the national training agreement. This is a different agreement, this is the Northern Development Agreement and it has another three years to go. MRS. C. OLESON: This is the one that was just signed, say a year ago or so? HON. L. EVANS: Two years ago. MRS. C. OLESON: The Minister's Department put out a - I don't know whether it falls under this department or not, it may not -but put out a bulletin in November of'84 on high demand occupations.

Does this have a bearing on the training programs that you plan for the future? Do you take results of this report for instance into account in planning your training programs? HON. L. EVANS: We certainly take that into account. That was produced by Research and Planning Branch. MRS. C. OLESON: it's interesting to see the projections for use of some of these programs and I was most surprised to see that computer -it says light demand for programmer analysts and systems analysts which surprised me, because it seems everybody's going into computers. HON. L. EVANS: There are so many people in that field already.

MRS. C. OLESON: I think maybe we could . MR. CHAIRMAN: Pass this one? MRS. C. OLESON: Just a minute until we see. The Northern Summer Education Program, where do we find that? HON. L. EVANS: That was really under the item called Employment Development/New Services, but we could deal with it when we deal with No. 4, I guess, under 4.(f). MR. CHAIRMAN: 3.(f)(2)(a)-pass; 3.(f)(2)(b)-pass; 3.(f)(2)(c)-pass. 3.(f)(3)(

a) Employment Support Services, Salaries; 3.(f)(3)(

b) Other Expenditures -the Member for Gladstone. MRS. C. OLESON: This is the southern and the northern education summer program. 2721

ThuradaJ, 8 June, 1185 HON. L. EVANS: Mr. Chairman, these are the field officers that del iver all these programs, Careerstart, Jobs in Training program, etc., in southern Manitoba. MR. CHAIRMAN: Can we finish this page? We've got one minute left. We might as well finish this page and start afresh . MRS. C. OL ESON: The Southern Employment Resource Centres, the annual report lists centres where these are located and gives programs administered and del iver ed. Do they process all the applications for these programs? What is the thrust of this? HON. L.

EVANS: For Careerstart and Jobs in Training, which are our two big programs, all those decisions are made in the field. MRS. C. OLESON: Do the staff in those centres help design those programs? HON. L. EVANS: We invite them to make suggestions, there are staff conferences from time to time and we get ideas from them. If there's a problem with a previous year's form, we might want to make some changes if they tell us there's a lot of problems and so on. Do you have any other que stions on the field staff? MRS. C. OLESON: Just on that Northern Summer Education Program. MR. CHAIRMAN: That'll be the next item. HON.

L. EVANS: We can discuss that under 4. MR. CHAIRMAN: 3.(fX3Xa)-pa ss; 3.(fX3Xb)-pass. The time being 4:30 p.m. and there being another committee tonight, the Law Amend ments Committee, I think the committee shall rise. SUPPLY - AGRICULTURE MR. CHAIRMAN, P. Eyler: Comm ittee, come to order. We are considering the Estimates of the Department of Agriculture, Item 8., Income Insur ance Fund -the Member for Arthur. MR. J. DOWNEY: Mr. Chairman, I would like the Minister to withdraw the statement that he made the night before last. I think it's fairly serious on his part.

I know that he made an explanation yesterd ay, but I'm not satisfied with it. I make reference to the committee meeting of the night before last and it's on Hansard, Page 2656, and it's fairly serious, Mr. Chairman, because the Minister has misled th e comm ittee, the meeting of the night before, and I'll quote from Hansard: "HON. B. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member should be aware that the gentleman in que stion had resigned when he made his intention to apply for the position as chair of the commission.

The resignation, there's a letter I believe on file indicating his res ignation as chair of the Farmlands Protection Board ." - (Interject ion) Whenever the job was bulletined, Mr. Chairman. "With respect to the members of the committee, the Selection Committee in both instances were different mem bers of the com mittee. Mr. Chairman, the honourable member holds his nose. I will repeat to him, that the Conservatives if you happen to be a known New Democrat and apply for a position in the Civil Service, you can't get hired ." Mr.

Chairman, the rest I don't believe has to be read into it and that's the end of Hansard quote from Tuesday, the 4th of June, and we go to We dnesda y, 5th of June, where the Min ister in answer yesterd ay, indicated: "Last night the honourable mem ber asked questions re garding the appointment of Richard Loeb as the Executive Director of the Farmlands Ownership Board. Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the honourable member that we did not terminate his appointment as Chair of the Farmlands Ownership Board, until we approved his position through an Order-In-Council hiring him.

"Although he indicated to me that he was resigning and applying for the job, I did not take in a separate Order-in-Council in terms of terminating his appointment until the entire job process was through." Mr. Chairman, I'm not very satisfied with the fact that the Minister, the night before, when under considerable pressure on this matter, was very well aware of re ally what happened, or maybe he was, in fact, trying to mislead the Ass embly and tried to get out of it yesterd ay.

I wonder if he has any comment in that regard on a point of order, because I would hope that the questions and the answers the night before were just not trying to mislead or to cover up really what happened and what he said the next day and I would ask him if he would give a short explanation on that, Mr. Chairman. HON. B. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman, I indicated to the honourable member, because I did have discussions with the Chair of the Farmlands Board about his resignation and his application for that position of executive director . Mr.

Chairman, it was under my advisement, and I thought I did have a letter on file - I do not have the letter on file - We did have discussions with the honourable member because there were discussions and I recall and I did not . . . when we checked our files there was no letter on file but there were discussions with the gentleman. lt was on my advice that the gentlemen did not terminate his position and the bulletining went through. We did termina te his position once the bulletin went through on one day and, of course, appointed him the very next day. MR. J. DOWNEY: I just wanted the record to be clear, Mr.

Chairman, and although I certainly do not accept the practice of what he carried on with, I will accept that he now admitted that he did not have a letter on file and that it could have been somewhat misleading from the night before. HON. B. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman, just to indicate to the honourable member what transpired, we had two members of the board who had resigned due to ill health and we had not reappointed them at the time th at this position came up. Had I accepted the gentleman's resignation at the time, we would not have had a quorum on the board. There were three people 2722

Thundar, 6 June, 1185 left on the board which is the minimum quorum, and it was on the basis of that advice that Mr. Loeb stayed on in that position, but it was on my advice, not on his. He wanted to resign, to deal with the question. lt was at my advice that he stay on. MA. J. DOWNEY: Mr. Chairman, as well -and I agree that I would be out of order in speaking to it now and I can wait till the Minister's Salary, providing we get there today to that particular

section - I do want to bring to the Minister's attention at the outset -and I don't want to make reference to his presence or non presence in the House earlier today -about the grasshoppers. Yesterday he indicated to the Assembly, and I'm quoting from Hansard, "We were assured at the meeting that there are ample supplies available for farmers," that being grasshopper spray. Mr.

Chairman, the reports I'm getting today, I want to indicate to the Minister at the outset that I have again had communication with the Union of Municipalities where they have been doing some co-ordinating of spray and there is, in fact, a serious shortage of grasshopper chemical in Manitoba. Saskatchewan, as I indicated yesterday, are airlifting it into the Province of Saskatchewan and now have a 24-hour truck service hauling chemical out of the United States. We do have a severe, critical shortage of grasshopper control chemical in the Province of Manitoba.

There aren't adequate supplies and I would again, at the outset of this portion, request the Minister to answer right now as to the kind of organization that he's put in place, the kind of system that he's put in place to make sure that quantities are being brought Into Manitoba, because it is critical, as I pointed out yesterday. As well, I have some criticism for him, Mr.

Chairman, that last year his department told him that the grasshoppers would be two and a half times as bad as they were last year and he hasn't got in place, in storage, available chemicals to look after the needs of the farm community. lt is a serious criticism, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday he was telling the public that there were ample supplies, that there weren't any difficulties, while In fact there were. There were difficulties with supplies. I want him to now stand up because I think it's that important to tell us that he has a system in place that's making sure that adequate supplies are available . HON. B.

UAUSKI: Mr. Chairman, I want to advise the honourable member that when I made the statement yesterday ... MA. J. DOWNEY: You didn't know. HON. B. UAUSKI: . . . we were advised, as a result of the meeting in Regina . . . MA. J. DOWNEY: That's a week ago. HON. B. UAUSKI: Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the honourable member that as a result of our questions yesterday, our staff were meeting with the chemical companies. We are advised that there Is presently supply of chemical in stock within Manitoba to supply and spray 460,000 acres, from two of the main suppliers.

There is a third that is yet being contacted, but of the two that we had discussions with, that is the amount of Furadan and Sevin. Those are the two chemicals. There is the third chemical of TCs. We're checking with that supplier and getting a report on that . We are advised, as well, and have been informed, that a chemical as of -towards the end of next week there will be in place chemicals to cover an additional 300,000 acres by the suppliers that I've mentioned. So, Mr.

Chairman, when the honourable members says we didn't know, we could only give the assurance to the honourable member, it would be the same assurance that we were given by the chemical companies last week in Regina at the trl-provincial meeting. But we didn't take that for granted. We went ahead and we met individually with the suppliers and both sevin and furadan are in stock to cover just about a half-million acres at the present time . MA. J. DOWNEY: Well I won't prolong this, Mr. Chairman. At this point we'll conclude it on his wages. But I just want to as well . . . HON. B. UAUSKI: Mr.

Chairman, while I'm on my feet, I want to give you some Information. MA. J. DOWNEY: I'm recognized. HON. B. UAUSKI: I'm sorry. MA. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Agriculture on a point or order? HON. B. UAUSKI: No. Well, if the member will allow me, I should have given it to him earlier. Mr. Chairman, he asked yesterday for two pieces of information and one is the Manitoba Government questionnaire on the U.S. pork countervalling duties investigati on .

I want to give him a copy of the information that was submitted to the authorities; as well as a copy of the Memorandum of Intent that was signed by the Federal Minister of Agriculture and the four Provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, dealing with tripartite. That Memorandum of Intent was signed on the 24th day of July, 1984 in the City of Winnipeg during our agricultural conference. MA. J. DOWNEY: I thank the Minister.

But just in concluding my comments for this particular time on the grasshopper situation, as I informed him earlier, the secretary of the Union of Municipalities had indicated earlier today to me that there was In fact areas that there were shortages of chemicals and I'm just relaying the message to him. As well, I indicated farmers had contacted me and indicated a lack of availability, however the farmers were close to Saskatchewan and, of course, as I indicated to him, Saskatchewan have made a major move to bring In massive amounts of chemical.

Alberta has introduced a farmer's program to support the farm community. I don't agree with the Minister's comments In the press yesterday saying there wasn't a farmer support 2723

ThuradaJ, 8 June, 1985 program because, in fact, there is one and I wish he would have got the proper information before he again goes ahead and misleads the public and the farm community. Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to yesterday's discussions dealing with the stabilization program and I do it, particularly at this point, dealing with the Beef Stabilization Program. He indicated numbers yesterday of the deficit for the beef program was something like $13 million to this point as a loan from the province to the beef producers.

I ask him the question of how many beef producers are in the program, and what does he expect the draw down to be for the next quarter? Will they reach the $20 million maximum that is available from the province? How many producers and what will be the draw down after the next quarter payout? HON. B. UAUSKI: Mr. Chairman, we won't have those figures here as to what the possible draw down will be. But I want to tell the honourable member that in terms of capital, there is other capital available. Authority has been provided in the event that it is required. The numb er of produc ers in the program, Mr.

Chairman, is just under 4,900 producers. There was 4,816 at the original sign up. We had 188 terminations, many of those were right at the beginning who were neither in nor out; and then we've had the remainder of just around 200 sign up during the last two years. We've had an additional 200 sign up. MA. J. DOWNEY: Mr.

Chairman, and I want to be clear on this because I don't think that the producers are clear either - I know some of them aren't and I'm not - that the money that is being paid out under the Beef Stabilization Program is a loan to the producers; that they are in fact - (Interjection) - it's a loan to the fund, but the fund, as he indicated yesterday, would have to be reimbursed from the producers, okay? it's a loan from the province to the fund to the producers, so that when a farmer gets paid a shortfall from what the cost of production calculation is to what they actually get - okay? - that money that Is being paid to them is not their money forever and a day but is actually a loan to the producer?

Is that correct? HON. B. UAUSKI: Mr. Chairman, that is correct. That's the very wor kings of a sta bilization plan. Any stabillzation plan is banking on one area, that that free and open market is going to work. When it works, Mr. Chairman, when In fact producers will receive - and we all hope they will receive - prices over and above the level of support, so that when the money is paid out during the low market prices, that that money will come back and replenish the fund and that's the workings of stabilization. MA. J. DOWNEY: Mr. Chairman, so I understand it correctly.

Every farmer who has received money under the stabilization program, whether it be hog or beef program, they are actually indebted to the stabilization program; that it Is in fact a loan. They're paying a premium themselves to participate and they are borrowing the money from the stabilization program. So it is actually the same thing as if an Individual goes to a bank or a financial institution and borrows money that someday will have to be paid back when the prices get better. Am I correct in my assumption?

Because I'm sure a lot of farmers, in receipt of that stabilization money, feel that it is theirs forever and ever, that the end is there. If they get, for example, $100 in addition to what they get for their steers out of the stabillzation program, then that $100 is theirs, and it is theirs for the time being. But the truth of the matter is that at some point in the term of their livestock production, as long as they're in that program or before they leave it, they will be called upon to pay that money back, Mr. Chairman. Am I correct in that assumption? HON. B. UAUSKI: Mr.

Chairman, future deficits within the fund will be repaid by premiums levied and paid by producers and a portion of the premium of course that is paid by the province as a contributory share, and that's how the fund will be repaid. And of course, the assumptions in any stabilization plan are that in times of depressed market prices, that the plan will pay out, will show a deficit, because there may not be a surplus at the time and when market prices improve, at that point in time, repayments will be made on the basis of the premiums of the day.

They won't be made In any other way, other than the premiums that will be there during that period of time that repayment is being made. MA. J. DOWNEY: Mr. Chairman, as I understand it, there will be two repayments. There'll be a major repayment or a massive repayment from both the hog and the beef Industry when the province which has signed a Memorandum of Agreement joins - (Interjection) - No, when the federal program clicks in with the provinces participating - the Minister is laughing about it because he must have some concerns about it. What I'm saying, Mr.

Chairman, there'll be a repayment of all the monies at that time by both the beef producers and the hog producers. Am I correct in my assumption? - (Interjection) - I asked the Minister if I'm correct in my assumption that that's correct, that both the beef and the hog producers will be called upon to pay back the money into that fund when joining the federal program, is that correct? HON. B. UAUSKI: Mr.

Chairman, that isn't correct because one doesn't know where the negotiations will lead at the time and how the decision will be made, and on the assumption - the honourable member is making an assumption that I don't know anyone in this Chamber or I think anywhere in this country will be able to say one way or the other what will the assumption be, what will the market be on the day that the federal plan comes in? We don't know. First of all, we don't know what the federal plan will be. I would like to see, Mr.

Chairman, at that point in time that there be a surplus in the fund, that the market prices rebound, that the producers of beef and hogs are doing very well and that, in fact, the reverse could be the case where producers, in fact, receive an amount out of the fund. You see, the honourable member, I guess, the free marketer that he is, he has no faith in 2724

Thuredey, 8 June, 1815 the open-market system, Mr. Chairman. He's shaking his head in the negative. Mr. Chairman, then how could they stand in this House year after year and say that the only market that really is the best market is the free market and here he's shaking his head saying really it doesn't work because the fund, the deficit that you've got is going to -on his assumption -grow. I don't share his pessimism but in the event that it is, Mr.

Chairman, -now I'll take his assumption -and say in the event that there is a deficit, it will be one of those issues that will have to be dealt with in negotiations with the Federal Government on how it will be repaid. lt would not be my expectation - (Interjection) - that a lump sum payment would have to be made by the producers in the event that there be a large deficit on the day that the federal plan comes in. We would be totally insensitive to the needs of producers if - (Interjection) - we were doing that. MR. J. DOWNEY: Well, I'm clear of one thing, Mr.

Chairman, and that is the Minister does not know what he's doing or where he's going in this whole area of stabilization. There are two things that I do know; that after yesterday's comments that he said the hog producers would have to pay back, I assume the beef producers would be In the same category at some point is what he's saying. He's saying from his seat "at some point." There is a tremendous misconception. I say this, Mr. Chairman, I had a tremendous misconception and maybe it's because I really didn't understand what the Minister was doing. Maybe I thought it was a lot better than what it really is.

Yes, I think the majority of cattle producers think that they are getting money from a stabilization program that is really not theirs on a loan basis -that's what it is -it's there on a loan basis. lt is not there on a gift basis, but on a loan basis that every dollar -and he says absolutely -that goes out in the Beef Stabilization Program, if a farmer gets an additional $1 00 per animal, steer or heifer, out of the Stabiliza

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	32-4-64
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	32nd 4th hansardpdf 64.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	d7c93fbd470d2d7d5ef8ee4ba96548b435ec04f3

Source file is stored in the law ingest library (pdf).