Manitoba Hansard — 15 June 1978 (Sitting 64B, 31st Legislature, 2nd Session)

31-2-64b

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Thursday, June 15, 1978 TIME: 8:00 p.m. SUPPLY - LABOUR MR. CHAIRMAN, Mr. Warren Steen: Committee come to order . The Chair recognizes the Member for Logan. MR. JENKINS: Thank you , Mr. Chairman. I just have two or three questions I wish to put to the Minister . They are dealing basically with Workers Compensation. MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill, could you put the mike closer to you. MR. JENKINS: Oh, I am sorry .

They are dealing basically with worker 's compensation and I want to know, has the Minister had any meetings with the Injured Workers Association, and has this organization requested any changes in the Workers Compensation? I imagine that they have. They used to approach us when we were government , and I have sort of an idea some of the requests that they may be requesting off the Minister.

The other question I wanted to know : Is the Minister , through her depart ment or even a com mittee of her caucus, studying the presen t Worke rs Compensat ion Act with a view to making recommenda tio ns for changes in the Workers Compensat ion Act? I don 't think that there is any problem that perhaps bugs MLAs more, you know , t han the fact , I think we are always being asked by people who have either rightfully or wrongfully , feel that they have not been treated right by the Compensation Board , and I am not knocking the Compensat ion Board. Don't misunderstand me, Madam Minister.

One thing that we thought would make a big change a few years , we put in the Medical Review Panel, and I think it would be a fair assessment to say that the Med ical Review Panel hasn't worked out as well as we as members of the Legislat ive Assembly had hoped that it would. This was really one of the questions I asked the Minister this afternoon was the , well it was that he was supposed to be a workers ' medical advocate for people appearing before the Med ical Review Panel on a request.

We don 't have such a person and I am not blaming the Minister in this respect because we didn 't have one either , even though there was mention that we were trying to get thi s position . Another thing I would like to raise with the Ministe r and again I will adm it that I have raised this before when I was a member of the government. I was never too successful. I don 't suppose I will be any more successful with this Minister than I have been with past Ministers .

But I just want to know if the Minister has given any thought to the creation of rehabilitative facilities , much as the same manner as they have in the Province of Ontario at the Workers Compensation , where they have facilities where people who are severely injured and who are put through the rehabilitat ive centres to prepare them to re-enter and resume their place in the work force .

I know it is going • to cost money and I realize that the Minister is not going to be able to put it in this year or maybe even next year , but all I want to do is sort of plant the idea with the Minister that she would look into it, and I think if she checks with the Province of Ontario and the Workers Compensation you will see that they have, I think, two or three of those centres in operation and from what I understand they work quite well.

Another thing that I would like to raise as far as the Minister is concerned , a few years back and then we discontinued it and I thought it was a good idea, was we picked up a bit of spare television time on TV, you know if there was a minute here or something between programs, the Compensation Board did put in tips on safety for people . I think that's something that we really should be looking at. While I'm at it, I will also make my pitch. It's too bad that the people from the television media are not here, because I make this pitch every year, too.

I suggested on numerous occasions when we discussed Workers Compensation that CBC, CTV and now CKND TV many times have spare time left over at the completion of a program, two or three minutes, and I have always made the pitch to the TV media that they should maybe, as a public service, put something on dealing with 3791

Thursday, June 15, 1978 Workers Compensation, how to file a claim and things like this. I don't think that it would be that expensive and exorbitant to set up that type of procedure. I know that the Board puts out what to do if you are injured, and what not , but it's like everything else, people don 't read the booklets . In many cases they wind up in the scrap bins and when a worker is injured then he really doesn't know the process that he should go through.

Perhaps if we could have that as a public donation by the TV services in the province, that when they have spare time that they could put in this sort of a fill-in . I mean, it's quite nice to see on CBC or CKY, or CKND when they have a three or four-minute period , have a musical interlude and show the beautiful lakes, and what not. That 's fine; I don't disagree with that , too , but I think that we all are agreed, even though we may disagree philosophically , I think we are agreed that we want to see people work safely.

We want to see people to be able to make the correct moves to make their claims when they are injured . And I think that the visual way of putting it across is much better than the written word.

I know, as I've said, we have haq booklets put out "What To Do If I Am Injured in the Workplace" , and we have had them where I have worked and we have told our people , "You keep that book so you know what you should do." But lo and behold, I would say 90 percent of them disappear and people don 't know what to do when they are injured, and that 's unfortunate, and know what their rights, and even what process they might have to go through to file a claim, and if they have to be on compensable earnings from the Workers Compensation .

I know that's not on the Minister's realm, and I'm just putting it on record because I have done it practically every year, as far as the news media is concerned, especially the television media because I think their message would be far more clear than anyone elses. That's basically, all the questions that I have at the present time for the Minister. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Labour. MRS. PRICE: As the Member for Logan has guessed I have had many meetings with the injured workers. Yes, they have presented a brief. No, we haven 't done anything about it at this point.

We have listened to them though on numerous occasions. We are looking into he Workers Compensation Act and I haven't got the Province of Ontario's, but I will see that we get one. I am sure that they have one at the Workers Compensation Board, but I don't have one and I will. With regard to your suggestion of TV time . I think it has a lot of merit and with the concent ration so great on safety in the workplace I am sure that it wouldn't be that difficult to get some of them to give us some of their spare t ime and I can assure that we will look into it. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Membe r for Selkirk . MR.

PAWLEY: I would just like to add a few words in connection with the Workers Compensation Board. I had felt that the principle of compensation versus tort liability and payment of genP-ral damages is one that is good and in fact I have indicated that I feel that Autopac should be proceeuing in the same direction .

Sometimes I have some reservations because I am not sure about that, and I don't claim to be any expert by any means in this area, that the Workers Compensation Board in some way, shape or form sometimes lacks the necessary flexibility and mechanism in order to deal with claims expeditiously and properly .

I would like to just say to the Minister that I am wondering if it is time that there was a thorough review as to whether the injured workman - mention has been made about the injured workman knowing his rights, how to deal with the Compensation Board - but I also wonder for instance if I could just give some examp les insofar as the Medical Review Panels. I think when a decision is made to deny a workman his claim the workman requ ests a Medical Review Panel, that that Medical Review Panel should be estab lished as expeditiously as is possible.

Workmen without remuneration cannot afford sometimes - I there have been instances of months for a Medical Review Panel to be established. I don 't know just what is required . I am just raising this to the Minister as an uneasiness on my part that all is not working quite as well as it could be, and I have expressed these thoughts before the present Minister assumed her position . It is an area that I think that there should be some thorough review. I know the injured workmen complain about the neurosis panels .

I haven't had opportunity to thoroughly review their complaints, but I know that there is an uneasiness. Certainly we have seen the dissatisfaction expressed by injured workmen in Ontario recently, frustration which went to unfortunate levels. • I think it's important that that frustration doesn't build up in the same way in Manitoba . I just wonder if the Minister could advise us as to whether she intends to examine or to review the Workers Compensation Board as to whether it is successfully providing the benefits and the remedies as is seen necessary . I would like her to specifically comment 3792 :;

Thursday, June 15, 1978 on the appeal procedures, particularly whether there are adequate appeal procedures in her view insofar as the operations of the Workers Compensation Board . MRS. PRICE: I think that the Member for Logan was referring to the Injured Work ers Association when I was responding to him , not Injured Workmen. MR. JENKINS: Yes, I meant the same group, yes. MRS. PRICE: Oh.

With regard to the Medical Review panel , there were some changes in it due to, I think, somebody was too busy, and somebody else - they presented other names , nothing of a political nature, I will assure you, it's just a revamp due to some people's times at the beginning of the year. They are in the slots now and working and I think you will find it's quite a group of well-known doctors that are in it; I can 't tell you their names offhand. With regard to the appeal procedures, I can 't honestly tell you just how they are working right now , but I will look into it and come back to you on it.

I do know that somebody had expressed concern because they had their cases tried and the appeals and such all took place in the building, and they felt an uneasiness about it and I think maybe this is worth looking into to give the person that is lodging their appeal , to give them a feeling of a little more confidenc. By being out of the building there into a different environment it could have a dieect help on them mentally and we are looking into it. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Lac du Bonnet . MR.USKIW: Yes, Mr. Chairman .

Last week the Min ister undertook to clarify for us what she meant, or the arrangement with respect to welfare payments being made available in addition to income from jobs, people working in low income industries. I am wondering whether the Minister is today in a position to elaborate for us. MRS. PRICE: I just had to jar the Chairman so he'd ask me to respond . I believe that question was the one that you asked me in the House in reference to something from the Minister of Health too, wasn 't it? That I was to check with him, and I'm sorry to say that I haven't got back to him on it yet but I will.

I promise at the beginning of the week, I'll have an answer for you. MR. USKIW: Well, Mr. Chairman , it puts us in somewhat of an awkward position because we are at the point of finalizing the discussions on the Department of Labour , and that particular answer will substantially indicate the government's policy with respect to labour in this province . ....... ................. That is really a cornerstone, as I see it, of government attitude and philosophy towards the whole question of wages and employment.

So it's somewhat awkward to try to finalize the discussions on these Estimates not knowing that particular answer. MRS. PRICE: I think there are a few other considerations with regard to the forms of welfare such as Manpower Training, low rental housing , old age benefits, that have to be taken into consideration. They are not in my realm but I believe from what I have heard from the other Ministers that they are in their consideration , and that all ties in as a package with the minimum wage.

As far as welfare is concerned, that i not in my department and I can't sit here and make any statements for the Minister of Health. MR. USKIW: Well, yes, I appreciate that the Minister can 't illustrate for us just what the Department of Health does in the whole welfare field . However, in the debate that we had here over a number of days, the Minister did indicate that people who were on minimum wages, who found it difficult to manage or to survive, so to speak , on those minimum wages had recourse to public assistance .

But she said that without being definitive as to the form of that public assistance and that makes it awfully difficult to be able to put those two components together in order to establish sort of the adequacy or otherwise of the standards of living of those people . It is very difficult to debate the question of the minimum wage in that kind of a vacuum, unless we have the other side of the ledger. MRS. PRICE: Well, I can only speak for my side of the ledger., though. That's what I'm saying. There is the other half is with the Department of Health, the Department of Housing, etc.

To fight the poverty, the minimum wage is not enough, you have to have all these other ... Welfare benefits or supplementary benefits play an important role in it also. And that is not in my realm to sit here 3793

Thursday, June 15, 1978 and tell you just what kind of supplementary benefits can be forthcoming. MR. USKIW: Well, then, Mr. Chairman, I guess I am forced to speculate somewhat on what the overall policy of the government is but it seems to add up to a policy of low wages that would be supplemented by some form of welfare programming, although not properly defined for us for debating purposes.

But so be it, even if it is not properly defined, it seems that the government's policy then is that we will maintain a system of lower wages than we have in the past or maintaining a relativel y lower position in terms of the minimum wage group to that of the other sectors, as compared to what we have benn doing over the last decade, or almost a decade, and that therefore we are in that policy introducing a lot more dependency on different forms of social assistance. I really have to object to that, Mr. Chairman, for a number of reasons.

In principle it's wrong because what we are doing is introducing greater numbers of people into welfare programs than what we would be doing if we had more adequate wages. The welfare syndrome is really not being reduced, it's being expanded through that kind of government policy.

I'm sure the Minister knows what I'm talking about when I refer to the welfare syndrome and that is the fact that once you introduce the system to people, there is always a percentage of that group who tend to more and more depend on it as their means of livelihood and that is certainly something that we shouldn't be encouraging or promtting.

What is truly bothersome in that connection is that when your government was in the Opposition, or when the present government was in the Opposition, they spoke at great lengths about excessive amounts of welfare in the Province of Manitoba in a period where we had - at least to that point in time - the most aggressive employment program ever devised through the public sector as a means of taking people out of that category over several years.

So, you know, I find it rather ironic that this government who was bemoaning so much that we are spending too much money in the welfare field, that we now find that they are going to rely more and more on the Welfare Department to furnish for people the basic minimum standards of livelihood that they must have in order to survive. In essence then, that means that we are going to get back into the position of subsidizing industry through low wages and picking up the tab through the public system through welfare payments.

It's hardly what I would consider a very progressive policy, economic policy as well as social policy , from the point of view of the government. It seems that we've gone back 25 years in our thinking, Mr. Chairman . In fact, probably more than that. It's one hell of a backslide - if you don 't mind the expression - in such a short period of a new government to slip that far back in our thinking and our approach to economic policy. MRS. PRICE: Well, to the Member for Lac du Bonnet, I hardly feel that a small increase in the minimum wage will combat poverty.

What we need to have is a healthy economy; that's still the best solution and while your philosophical ideas and this government's are entirely opposite , we feel that the most important thing right now is to get this province into a healthy economic position and that's what we are going to rely on for being able to raise the salaries, the wages, but we certainly don't think that a small increase in the minimum wage is going to reduce the poverty. MR. USKIW: Well, Mr.

Chairman , you know, if you want to use that mechanism, the wage -:: mechanism, the idea that if you keep wages suppressed and have a healthy economy, then how would the Minister answer for the fact that in those countries of the world where the wages are ':Jery low, that indeed their economy is not healthy that we are the ones that are subsidizing their economy and you can look at Africa and parts of Asia and South America, and Central America , ~II of those countries have very low wages. But their economies are not healthy whatever. I wonder where the economic logic is in that kind of a statement, Mr.

Chairman, because worldwide the evidence is to the contrary , that where you have low wages you have a very poor economic system :: and where you have high wages, you have a much improved system. You can look at the Maritime provinces of Canada as an illustration right here within the country's boundaries where historically their wage levels have been depressed and their economies are not healthy. They are always so dependent on the central government for their support and livelihood.

You know I can recall at one of our conferences in Newfoundland where we were taking a bit of a tour to see some of the countryside in Newfoundland and the Federal Minister was joking about Newfoundland's entry into Confederation and the big question was whether there would be any benefits from Newfoundland joining the rest of Canada as another province.

And we happened to see a sign that said, "Roads to Resources", and so the Minister couldn't help but point out that that was a Federal program and of course meant that that highway qualified for Federal money that was building that Road to Resources and we wanted to know what the resource was Mr. 3794

Thursday , June 15, 1978 Well, it happened to be national park at the end of it. That too was Federal money . So this brings me to this very point that you cannot depend for economic recovery on low wages. It's certainly a fallacious argument in my opinion , it cannot be substantiated by any group of economists that I'm aware of, or has never been. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Labour. MRS. PRICE: Well, to the Meer for Lac du Bonnet, the countries that he mentioned, firstly, have no training , no skills so I don't think he can put this as a comparison to Canada .

In my response to the Member for Logan yesterday in the House with regard to the minimum wage, I think I made our government's position quite clear of what our stand is and I don 't see the purpose of continuing this conversation this way and I also will remind the meer that I did make a statement that I would be having the Minimum Wage Board meet very shortly and that's all I can tell him on it. There's no use continuing on this, we're just going back and forth with each others philosophies. MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman , I suppose that's what this process is all about because in the end what is being attempted is the attempt is to convince the people of Manitoba as to which philosophy is going to work better in the public interest, so there is nothing wrong with the exercise and if that is all we achieve here tonight, that is the clarification of the philosophy of the government on one hand and the opposition on the other, that is quite an achievement if it can be so illustrated to the people of Manitoba. And so in that connection , it's obvious, Mr. Chairman, that for the first time the waters are not so muddy .

We do have a clear illustration of where the government stands with respect to incomeS policies , standards of living. We do understand fully from the statement of this Minister, that their philosophy is that we should hold wages down and that we should put a damper on the wage groupings in this province, whatever their requests are, without the same kind of restraint on other sectors of the economy. So in essence we have a government that is oriented toward the exploitation of labour more than we've ever been oriented that way in at least three decades.

And that's why I say that we're going back 25 years inside of a six or seven month period. It's back to the old philosophy of the previous Conservative government, in fact, it's further back than that, Mr. Chairman. Because the Roblin administration was considerably progressive compared to the Campbell administration that preceded it. So we're really slipping back pre-Campbell, to the pre-Campbell era, Mr. Chairman, and that has to be a very sad commentary in terms of this government 's attitude towards their responsibility towards the wellbeing of all Manitobans.

And I don't mean just those few Manitobans who happen to be at the top of the income scale, Mr. Chairman . The bulk of the people in this province are relatively low wage earning types and it is totally irresponsible and certainly it's unfair for the government to use its clout in trying to hold back some decent review of the welfare of that particular group in terms of the attitude of the government on wage policy . And to the extent that we hold down this bottom line and indicate to the private sector that that is really what we prefer as public policy, then it's inevitable, Mr.

Chairman, that we are going to have a tremendous amount of labour unrest and a lot of strife in .,.-/ terms of our labour management relations in this province, both public and private. And rather than avoiding the conflicts we are going to be encouraging wide open warfare as between the working groups and the management teams of this province, both in the public and the private sector. I think it's tragic, Mr. Chairman, that this is the course that this government is following.

I would have hoped at least that we would have tried to evolve more towards a co-operative society as between management, government and labour, to try to somehow share the benefits of our production as opposed to rolling the clock back to the old stand-off position of 20 or 30 years ago. MR. CHAIAN: The Member for The Pas. MR. RONALD McBRYDE: Well, Mr.

Chairman, I would like to address a question to the Minister which is further to one I asked in the House some time ago and in order to do that I would just like to read from a resolution passed at the Woodworkers Convention Annual Meeting at The Pas last weekend and this in is in relation to Workplace Safety and Health Inspector. "Whereas in the past an inspector was stationed in The Pas on a permanent basis; and

whereas upon the election of a Conservative government last year and fearful of loosing his job due to severe restraint of the line administration, pulled out when another job was offered him; and

whereas this vacancy has never been filled causing a severe hardship for workers in an area where major industry is located. Therefore

be it resolved that this union through the Manitoba Federation of Labour demand that the provincial government fill the vacancy imm ediately ." I wonder, Mr. Chairman , if the Minister would care to comment if she is going to be taking steps to rectify that situation and . . . 3795

Thursday, June 15, 1978 MR. CHAIRMAN: I might tell the Member for The Pas that his colleague the Member for Flin Flon asked that question this afternoon, but it is a short reply that the Minister gave him, so perhaps she would do it again. The Minister of Labour . MRS. PRICE: Yes, at the present time the inspection is being taken from an inspector in Winnipeg and it's been working out quite well, but we are in the throes of getting an inspector to go up and be a resident up there and as soon as we can succeed there will be a resident inspector at The Pas. MR. McBRYDE: So the position is being advertised now? MRS.

PRICE: Yes, we're trying to get it filled. MR. McBRYDE: Another question, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister is the problem in the forest industry in terms of safety training films, safety training information. I believe there is some material available on general workplace safety but the material available in relation to the Manitoba forest industry is 20 or 30 years old. I suppose it was prepared by Abitibi at one time. I wonder if the Minister sees any steps being taken to rectify that situation, update and improve the safety training material and safety training aids that are available for the forest industry.

MRS. PRICE: We will look into it and if it's outdated, as you have said, and it needs revising, then it will be revised. MR. McBRYDE: Another question, Mr. Chairman, relates to the Women's Bureau and its function.

I wanted the Minister's comment or the Minister's opinion on if she would see the Women's Bureau or the Department of Labour playing any role in a situation where the male employees in a particular operation were doing fairly similar work and were automatically paid more than the female employees doing similar although not identical work, you couldn't classify - I suppose it would fall within the category of the resolution of the Member for Fort Rouge in relation to work of equal value - if the Department of Labour or the Women's Bureau would take any action in that regard?

And similarly, whether the Department of Labour or the Women's Bureau would be concerned of a situation where male staff can be hired immediately on a permanent basis but female staff seem to have to work for a considerable period of time on a part-time basis before they can work their way up into permanent employment, whether the Department of Labour or the Women's Bureau would be concerned or would be able to do anything in that type of a situation? MRS. PRICE: Well, I've been in the work force for more years than I care to tell you and I have certainly never found any discrepancies as to a ruling such as that.

In a !ot of workplaces, they will have a month to three-month probationary period but it applies to male as well as female. I would like to mention to the Member for The Pas that our Women 's Bureau is quite active . Our acting chairman was in a seminar last month down east on the women 's problems and relating to equal pay for work of equal value. She's going to be going down in the middle of July, down east, to another with regard to the labour legislat ion so we are keeping abreast of the women and the problems relating to them.

When you mentioned about men and women working in a similar job, that's where the difficulty comes in in defining equal value. Sometimes they are similar but they are not equal and that is the problem that apparently is run into by other jurisdictions . I know in the United States they are some 10,000 cases behind in people being brought up for not having pay of equal value and they just can't seem to keep abreast of it. MR. McBRYDE: Well, Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Minister could indicate what the Department of Labour or the Women's Bureau might do in those two examples.

You know, other than attending seminars on the subject , whether they are able or prepared , or is there any role, does she see any role for them at all in those two examples I gave? MRS. PRICE: Well, if there's any discrepancies in treatment of women versus men, the Women's Bureau will certainly bring it to the attention of the department and we will look into it immediately . MR.

McBRYDE: What would the Minister's response, or the Department of Labour's response be if those issues became issues of collective bargaining or if a case occurred where the employees, through their union, decided to make this an issue in collective bargaining because they felt that 3796

Thursday, June 15, 1978 the Department of Labour and the Minister of Labour were not able to really assist them with this kind of a situation and it became an issue in collective bargaining , what would the Women's Bureau and the department's role be in that kind of a situation? MRS. PRICE: Well, where there are situations where the two parties are at the bargaining table, I think that's where the problems have to be solved , at the bargaining table, not with an intervention by me. MR.

McBRYDE: On those items where the government does have a policy or the department does have a policy , what is the Minister 's basic approach? Is it to wait and let the employees , through their union, fight some of these issues or does she think that the department should be activist in terms of trying to settle some of these issues before they reach the bargaining stage? MRS. PRICE: Well, I'm not prepared to go out looking for the problems .

I think if there are problems they 'll certainly be brought to the department in short order, and I think the first place for them to try to solve the problems is the employee and the employer at the bargaining table without government intervention . MR. McBRYDE: I wonder if the Minister would be prepared at this time , Mr. Chairman , to - if she could outl ine the key issues that are presently facing the dispute with the Retails Clerks Union and the Safeway Stores. MR.

CHAIRMAN: I might point out to the Member for The Pas that a similar question to that was asked of the Minister this afternoon for an updating in the various union strikes that are before us now, and the Minister gave some indication on the Retail Clerks, the Breweries and the Construction Industry . MR. McBRYDE: That was fairly recently , I take it. MR. CHAIRMAN: This afternoon , when we were in committee . MR.

McBRYDE: I wonder then in the Minister's comments on that particu lar dispute , the Safeway and the Retail Clerks Union, whether either of the issues I mentioned , the one of equal pay for work of equal value within that retail complex and the probationary periods appearing to be different for males and females , whether that has been pointed out to her as part of the issue in that particular strike? MRS. PRICE: At this point , when they are trying to get together to negotiate, it would be complete folly of mind on my part to be interfering and even inquiring into it.

This is something that has to be settled between the Safeway and the Retail Clerks, without my intervention. MR. McBRYDE: I take it from that answer , then , Mr. Chairman, that the Minister did not outline these as outstanding issues in this particular strike? MRS. PRICE: I think the Chairman had misunderstood you .

One of the members, it was the Member for Kildonan I believe asked me, what progress , whether there were conciliat ion officers attending these three different strikes that are going on and I answered him that we had been in attendance day and night for the Retail Clerks and Safeway, also with the construction but the breweries have chosen to work outside of the parameters of the Department of Labour and haven't asked for any help as yet. MR. McBRYDE: Well , that being the case, Mr.

Chairman, I wonder if the Minister would care to comment on the key issues separating the parties in this Safeway Retail Clerks ' strike. MRS. PRICE: No, I would not care to comment on them at all. MR. McBRYDE: Mr.

Chairman, I wonder if the Minister could update me, and if she has answered this question before , I'll go back to the Hansard and locate the answer, but if that hasn't been the case, I wonder if she could update me on the workings of the clause in the Act which was implemented by ourselves when we were in government in response to a request for a first agreement clause similar to British Columbia which was requested by a number of unions in the Manitoba Federation of Labour , and the NDP government brought in another clause somewhat different than that requested, and I wonder if the Minister could bring me up to date on how that is working , 3797

Thursday, June 15, 1978 whether it is working or not, and whether she is considering implementing what is known as a first agreement clause within our legislation in Manitoba. MRS. PRICE: Well, there hasn't been any change in the format in the Conciliation Department. Anything that you have brought in is being followed because there hasn't been any changes ~ whatsoever . MR. McBRYDE: Well, Mr.

Chairman, I know that there hasn't been any changes, that was not my question, I wanted to know how the change made by the previous government, I believe it was two years ago now, whether that change is in fact working in solving the problems outlined by the unions in the Manitoba Federation of Labour, or whether in fact we made a mistake and that particular

section is not solving the problems raised, and whether we would have been better off to implement a clause similar to the B.C. Legislation which is known as a first agreement clause? MRS. PRICE: Well, firstly with the conciliation officers, the repor ts I get back isn't a report point by point of how they have arrived at their decisions, the settlements between the companies and the employees, so I can't tell you by what means the conciliation officer and the two parties were to arrive at their ending of it, because I don't inquire into it, and they don't tell me.

They just tell me whether they have been solved or not, but I don 't go through the inner workings of it. MR. McBRYDE: Well, Mr. Chairman , there has been some discussion recently in other jurisdictions , and I know that the new government in British Columbia has seen fit to maintain the first agreement clause within their legislation , in spite of other reactionary steps they might be taken, they've chosen to keep that clause within their legislationS, and I wonder if the Minister is considering such a clause for the Manitoba Legislation? MRS.

PRICE: We haven't gone into the B.C. clause, but as I say, we haven't made any changes, anything that you have implemented in the past eight years has remained in the Act. Nothing has been changed . MR. McBRYDE: Well, Mr.

Chairman , I'm not sure if the Minister has the information, or doesn't have the information, but irregardless of what party's in office, I would be very curious to know how the clause implemented by the previous government, which is not really a first agreement clause like B.C., but was basically a change in the timing of when a union becomes certified and how changes and dates might in fact have incraased the possibility of a first agreement, and I wonder if that is working, or not working, or partly working , or how the officials are finding the legislation that has been in place?

What has been the working experience with that

section of the legislation? MRS. PRICE: I know they have been using it to some degree. I can 't tell you what the results are, but if you would like I can take it as notice and find out what degree of success they are having in that regard. MR. McBRYDE: Okay , Mr. Chairman, there has been a lot of questions already asked of the Minister.

I suppose the comment that I would have in relation to the salary of the Minister is that my first inclination was that the Minister of Labour had really very little understanding for the labour matters within the Province of Manitoba, or labour matters in general, and that that was a major problem for working people in the Province of Manitoba . During the review of the Estimates , I think the bigger problem facing the working people, and the working peop le that are unionized within the Province of Manitoba, is the whole appr oach and attitude of the Conservative Caucus.

The Minister appears to reflect the attitude of her rural anti-labour colleagues fairly accurately, and of the First Minister fairly accurately , but I think that because of that general attitude and general approach to working people within the Province of Manitoba , it is very difficult for me to support a full salary for the Minister because of that attitude and that general approach to working people in Manitoba . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Selkirk. MR. PAWLEY: Mr.

Chairman, I would like to just briefly commence by indicating equal concern with the concern expressed earlier by the Member for Lac du Bonnet in connection with the minimum wage issue. That concern is heightened by the reports which we have received this part week of possible increases in rent and low-ren tal accommodation. True enough it's now been deferred until November of 1978, not so long distan t though, and I would hope that the Minister would certainly not hesitate to establish major adjustment in minimum wage before there would ever be such a sharp, sharp increase .

I can see a sharp increase in the public housing rents taking place after 3798

Thursday, June 15, 1978 the Federal election is well out of the way, and let me say because of the large number of families that live on minimum wage in our public housing units , this would be certainly a real difficul t situation that would be created. I want to also say to the Minister that we certainly make no apology for discussing philosophy with the Minister. The philosophy of our party is certainly sharply and distinctly at odds with the philosophy of the Minister's party.

Certainly the economic philosophy of the New Democratic Party is one that believes that the increase in purchasing power among those that form the major bulk of our population can be best enhanced by policies which will bring about improvement in the living conditions of those on low income and minimum wage areas. -(Interjection)- It's difficult to get up a wind of steam when the Minister is being presented with a red flower . MR. KOVNATS: From the Members of the House in respect to our Honourable Minister of Labour. MR. McBRYDE: Well, let me add my . . . MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Member for Lac du Bonnet on a point of order. MR. USKIW: I wonder if the Member for Radisson would explain to us if that rose is to offset the thorns of that side of the table. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Radisson on a point of order. MR. KOVNATS: Mr. Chairman, I think it's a carnation, not a rose, but it's out of my respect to the Minister of Labour, one of my colleagues, and I happened to get it ... you know, I'm not going to belittle the gift but I just came back from the opening of the ICON architectural group and they were giving them away free.

Norma, I saw that my wife got the first one and I brought that one back to you. MRS. PRICE: Thank you. MR. CHAIRMAN: Back to the Member for Selkirk. MR. PAWLEY: Well, now that the point of order has been disposed of, Mr. Chairman, I want to just say that I fear that the present policies that are being pursued by this government have in fact generated much of the pressure which is now developing among working people in the Province of Manitoba .

You just cannot hold health facilities down to 2.9 percent increase, expect workers of low income to accept a 3 percent increase in earnings , while there is an 8 and 9 percent increase in the cost of living, and if this approach which has been established this year, 1978, which is a _.; classical - I must say a classical capitalist approach to economics is pursued over the next several years, then, Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt that in fact we are in for difficult times, worker-management , in the Province of Manitoba.

Now I would like to ask the Minister if, and I don't find this tasteful but I believe I should ask the Minister during her Salary, because it's the most appropriate time, if she prefers to wait for tee First Minister to respond to the questions posed by the Leader of the Opposition, fine, but I do believe we should obtain from the Minister some explanation before the passage of her Salary to the advertisement which appeared in today's paper in connection with Sun Life ad and the fact that there is an impression created that the Minister is engaged in work as a sales representative for Sun Life, and I just want to ask the Minister if she would like to. . . -(Interjection)- Well, the Attorney-General asked how's my law practice?

I didn't practise law while I was Attorney-General and I trust that he is not practising law on the side while he is Attorney-General. HON. SIDNEY SPIVAK (River Heights): On a point of privilege, Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIAN: The Minister without Portfolio. MR. SPIVAK: The question was asked in the House and the First Minister indicated that he would look into the matter and would report to the House. . . MR. USKIW: Oh, come on, she doesn't need any protection. 3799

Thursday, June 15, 1978 MR. SPIVAK: No, she doesn't need any protection , but obviously she can, but I think there is a question of privilege involved here . There was an ad referred to, and I am assuming this is - the same ad; I don 't know that , and the First Minister indicated that he would look into it and he would report to the House and I think that the matter has to stand with the First Minister at this time, Mr. Chairman .

Under normal operations of the Legislature and the courtesy that would be given to him as First Minister , he would be given the first opportunity to respond to the questions that were asked , and from there any member I think would be able to deal with the matter as they see fit . But certainly the matter having been ealt with in the House , the First Minister having indicated that he is prepared to examine it and in fact report to the House , I think it's up to him to make that report first before there is a debate or discussion on it. MR.

CHAIRMAN: If I might comment , as Chairman , I might point out to my colleague, the Minister without Portfolio , that the Membe r for Selkirk in asking the question , said that perhaps this Minister might prefer to leave it in the hands of the First Minister , and she may have responded that way. MR. SPIVAK: Well I really , Mr. Chairman , on a point of privilege , I think on the privilege of the House, I don't think that hhat question has to be left to her.

I think tha t the privilege of the House would simply suggest , that the First Minister having indica ted that he would take it as notice essentially, and report to the House , that that imposed the obligation on him and I think would require the members to refrain from dealing with it until in fact it has been dealt with by him. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Kildonan on a point of order . MR. FOX: Mr.

Chairman , I would suggest that the Honourable Member for River Heights doesn 't have a matter of privilege , he's got an opinion which he's stating , that no rules indicate that this has to be the procedure, the opinion that he expressed. I do believe that the Honourable Member for Selkirk did indicate that the option was up to the Minister of Labour . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Selkirk on the same point. MR. PAWLEY: Well, Mr. Chairman , I don 't know really what the Member for River Heights point of privilege is, because I am making no effort to compel any respon s e from the Minister of Labour.

I know that if I was sitting in the Minister of Labour's chair , I might wish to provide some response at this point. If the Minister of Labour prefers not to, then I am quite satisfied. All I was doing , Mr. Chairman, was trying to provide the Minister of Labou r w ith an opportunity to provide some response and if she prefers not to respond , fine. I have my own feelings about what is implied in that advertisement but I don 't know , this may be an out-of-d ate advertisement , maybe there is a si-mple explanation. But, Mr.

Chairman , if you wish to accept the Minister's without Portfolio's privilege that the Minister of Labour not respond , then I will understand that you do not want the Minister of Labour to respond and therefore , Mr. Chairman , upholding the intervention, appears to be an anxious intervention for some reason or other by the Minister without Portfolio. MR. SPIVAK: . . . on a point of privilege. I indicated it a point of privilege , it may very well be a point of order instead of a point of privilege, and that I guess it's debatable .

But the suggestion you know, on the part of the Member for Selkirk , that a sort of anxious intervention, is nonsensical. There was a suggestion, Mr. Chairman , with respect to rules relating to potential conflict of interest, by the Leader of the Opposition, and the question was taken as notice and everyone who was in the House is aware of that , and I think that there should be the opportunity for the matter to be in fact answered by the First Minister , and that's the point that I mention.

Now, you know, the members opposite can alllude all they want. .. - (Interjection)- well, I think that's implied , but I think that at this point to suggest anything anxious is nonsens ical. I think that I have a right to bring that to the attention of the Chairman and to the Committee . MR. CHAIRMAN: Before I recognize the Member for Lac du Bonnet , let me point out under

Chapter 3 in our Rule Book, Item 31 , where it says no member shall revive a debate already concluded during the session or antic ipate a matter appointed for cons ideration , or of which notice has been given. So perhaps if the . . · . and I wasn't in Question Period today and if the First Minister did take that question as notice , perhaps he will be reporting back to the House in due time as to an answer to the question posed by the Leader of the Opposition . The Member for Selkirk . MR. PAWLEY: Well, I then assume that you are respond ing that the Minister of Labour is ... are you preventing the Minister of Labou r from responding? Is that the Minister of Labour's response 3800

Thursday, June 15, 1978 as well? MR. CHAIRMAN: No, I'm not preventing the Minister of Labour from responding, but I did point out that in our rules that it does state that if the matter is under consideration in the House, which I would believe it is if the First Minister took it as notice, then the Minister doesn't have to answer the question, and it can pass or wait. . . i MR. PAWLEY: Well , I've made it very clear right from my first words.

I wasn't suggesting or wasn't trying to force a response from the Minister of Labour, in fact if she just simply tells me that she doesn't wish to respond , it's dropped here and now, Mr. Chairman . I tried to make that clear right from my opening word s. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Labour . MRS. PRICE: To the Member for Selkirk , I have already spoken to the First Minister , and as you have said , it's sligttly out of date and he will be bringing it forth no doubt tomorrow, if he's in. MR. PAWLEY: Well, I'm very glad to hear that, and I think that the Minister of Labour was wise to so indicate that tonight .

Just one final question and that is dealing with the Civil Service Commissioner and the dismissal and the efforts , has there been any settlement yet dealing with the Civil Service Commissioner and his dismissal? MRS. PRICE: Yes, there was a settlement. When the former Commissioner was contacted back last October , he said that he preferred to take his retirement and have it looked into and as of the 1st of April, I believe it is, it was April and I think it's the 1st, he has been on his superannuation. MR. PAWLEY: So you say there has been a settlement arrived at? MRS. PRICE: I believe so.

He was offered to go on the re-employment, and he said that he chose to take his retirement instead . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Logan. MR. JENKINS: Mr. Chairman, I wish that I could say that this has been a pleasant experience that we have gone through here the past few days, but unfortunately I can't say that . The fact is that we have not had the opportunity since receiving lack of confidence of the government in the Minister's ability to handle her department and to force closure upon the opposition to curtail the debate on the Minister's Estimates.

Since it seems to be the policy of the Progressive Conservative government or its lack of policy in dealing with the minimum wage since the Minister represents the government in this field, and since she has stated in debate both in this Committee and in the House, we are forced unfortunately to move the following resolution. I move, Mr. Chairman, that in view of the heartless and uncompassionate stand of the Minister in regard to the minimum wage and her refusal to increase the minimum wage, that the Minister's compensation be reduced to the amount of $2.95. MR.

CHAIRMAN: For all the members of the Committee, I believe you have all heard the motion. The Member for Kildonan . MR. FOX: Before you put the question, Mr. Chairman , I just wish to say a few words. It has been a very sad situation that this government , having come in, having placed restraints , has not seen fit to be fair in the way it managed its restraints. I would agree that we should all pull our belts in, but I believe that there are some people who need assistance, who need compassion. The people at the minimum wage heven 't got anyone to help them .

What they live by is exactly what comes in at that particula r week for whatever they earn , and the unfortunate thing is, that in today 's paper it was that the wage and salary incomes rose by 1.3 percent during March from a month earlier to 9.58 billion, Statistics Canada reported yesterday . The incomes were only 2.3 percent higher in March than in the comparable month a year ago. During the same .12-month period, consumer prices rose by 8.8 percent indicating an erosion for income of wage and salary earners .

Now that affects all of us, but it really affects those people at the bottom of the income , because to them it means that they have that much less to eat. Generally people at the minimum wage are 3801

Thursday, June 15, 1978 living almost entirely ... their wages go towards food, and a little towards shelter , whatever they can afford . And when the prices of food goes up, it means that they have to tighten their belts and eat a little bit less. I would have imagined that after 22 months, this government would have at least said, within 3 months or within 6 months, we will increase the minimum wage to give those people some kind of hope . And unfortunately the Minister and her colleagues deem it unfit to even give those people any kind of hope .

They have just said no, and that's it, and at the same time they have created a number of problems for those same people . Transportation costs have gone up for those people; a number of other areas have gone up; milk has gone up; a number of things have gone up during that particular period of time that they have been in office and they have not had the compassion to say we will try to help those people out . They keep continually referring to the fact that we have to be competitive, and I'd like to know what we're going to be competing for?

Low paid industries to come in because that is what's indicated by the fact that we indicate that we want to be competitive, and the only thing, if you keep the minimum wages low, that will come in on that competitive level is low paid industries, so therefore it doesn't help our economy . The other thing that the Minister and her colleagues overlooked is the fact that every nickel that the people at the minimum wage earn is immediately put into the economy because those people are living at a subsistance level and there's an immediate spinoff effect which, if they want their economy to improve, is a factor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman, I regret that we are in the position of having to put such a motion. It is a motion that isn't too often resorted to, at least in I believe 13 or 14 Sessions that I have been involved, I don 't believe we had more than half a dozen such motions and it usually is a motion that would highlight the feeling of the opposition due to a number of things that have occurred in the debate on the Minister's Estimates .

In this connection I think it's fair to recap some of those things, just to put the motion in its proper perspective. And that is that we really haven't been receiving the kind of concise policy answers that we were asking for , that the government, and I'm not saying this Minister, because this Minister is reflecting the wish of the government and indeed the Leader of the Conservative Party, we have been getting very wishy-washy answers, and some answers that were in contradiction.

We were not able to find out from the Minister the question of their policy with respect to wages in a definitive form relative to welfare and so on. It's true that we haven't had a decent approach to the question of minimum wages in this province, since this government has been in office . It's now just under two years since there has been an adjustment in the minimum wage, and we find that the government is not at all intent on moving in that direction, at least they haven 't been able to indicate so.

And that is not a logical position for the government to take in view of the cost of living increases, the inflationary pressures in the economy, and in view of the fact that people that are earn ing a lot more money, high wage earners , have asked for and have received wage increases this year, others are in the process of asking for higher wages. Quite a number in Manitoba are now on strike over the wage argument , but their demands are fairly substantial. They would far outweigh the adjustments that the government might make with respect to the minimum wage.

The government itself is negotiating with the MG8E8A for a new contract and the Minister was not able to tell me that there will be no increase to the Civil Service pay

schedule for 1978-79. She was unable to say that, but she was eble to say that she is not adjusting hhe minimum wage, and that to me is a very serious discrimination because on the one hand you have a group that is relatively well paid in the Civil Service, and the other group wiich is dramatically underpaid . And therefore , Mr. Chairman , there is no way that I could support that kind of policy and my only way of opposing it and showing my opposition is to show my displeasure through a negative vote on the Minister's salary . I want her to know that that is nothing of a personal nature. Thank you. MR.

CHAIRMAN: Would the members like the question read again or just comment? MR. USKIW: Question . MOTION presented and declared lost. A MEMBER: Yeas and nays. MR. CHAIRMAN: We will have to recess and go into the House. Committee retired to the House . SUPPLY - HEALTH 3802

Thursday, June 15, 1978 MR. CHAIRMAN, Mr. Abe Kovnats: I would draw the honourable members ' atten tion to Page 43 in the Estimates, Health and Soc ial Development. We are on Resolution No. 63, Clause 7. (

k) The Alcoholism Foundation of Manitoba. The Honourable Minister . MR. SHERMAN: Just before we rose at 4:30, Mr. Chairman ' the Honourable Member for Churchill had asked me for a run-down of the services and centres in operation under the aegis of the AFM in northern Manitoba . The list includes the following, Mr. Chairman - this is the northern regio n: At Thompson there is a detoxif ication centre, in-patien t and out-patient facility, there are community services provide d and there are outreach worke rs who service other communities such as Wabowden , Thicke t Portage , Jenpeg , God 's Lake and the like.

In The Pas, there is a detox centre , in-patient and out-patient facilities and community services . Churchill is an out-patient opera tion and , as the Honourable Member for Churchill knows, the Lynn Lake-Le af Rapids operation - and the Lynn Lake facility has had funding cease - was a community services type of operat ion.

I had explained by virtue of a memo that I sent to the Hono urable Membe r for Church ill the rationale for term inat ing the funding of the Lynn Lake centre and that explana tion covered off the various aspects of experience of the workers associated with that partic ular opera tion, the judg ment as ascertained and assessed by the AFM itself and the service that is available to tha t communit y from other communitie s i n the north. That' s the breakdown for the northern region , Mr. Chairman . I could do a similar report for the other regions but the Member for Churchill asked me about the north. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Churchill . MR. COWAN: Yes, thane you , Mr. Chairman . I asked about the north in specific because I know that we are trying to move these Estimates along as fast as possible so I will content myself with that information for the moment. I would ask the Minister then if there have been any cutbacks in funding to the operations in Thompson or the operations in The Pas. MR. SHERMAN: Essentially, Mr. Chairman, the answer to that question is no. Essentially the budget for Thompson and The Pas are hold-the-line budgets .

Hold-the-line budgets throughout the spectrum reflect the government's restraint purposes but they are not cutback budgets . The actual amount budgeted in the treatment program area for the northern region in 1976-77 was $226 ,900; in 1977-78 it was $345,700; in 1978-79 we are asking the Legislature for $356,100 which is a hold-the-line approach . MR.

COWAN: Yes, well then I would just like to say a few words on behalf of those two centres, or actually on behalf of the residents at those two centres, Sir , because I don't think that I could stand in the House today , or sit in the House today ' and let those two cutbacks go unnoticed . If I did, I'd be remiss in my obligations to those who elected me.

In the case of the Churchill health centre out-pat ient cutback , the Minister said that it was because of a decreasing population in the Town of Churchill and I don't think anyone can argue that the population in the Town of Churchill has decreased drastically in the last number of months , in the last number of years actually , becau se it is a process that's been ongoing for some time now. I think that this cutback in the Town of Churchill is just another blow although it's minor in terms of one employee .

It is just another blow to a town that can 't seem to get its balance back , that can 't seem to get back on its feet after a numerous series of blows.

For that reason, I would ask the Minister to look very carefully at what is happening in Churchill , to look very carefully at the purpose of the out -patient cent re, to look very carefully at the way that centre was perceived by the residents of that community and not to be so hasty to say, " Well, because the population has decreased and because we are operating on a per capita basis , that it necessarily follows that we have to pull another person from that community.

" Because what is going to happen - and it's not conjecture on my part, it's not theory , it's happened far too often in the past and it's happening right now - what is going to happen when a town suffers a series of blows like that , some of them imposed by his own governmen t - and I mention the prefab plant. Probably in the last half year or the last year , the hardest blow to that community has been the pull-out of the Provincial Government in funding the prefab plant.

So what is going to happen there and is happening, is that the people are going to become demoralized and they are going to become depressed and that does not reflect bad ly on the people of Churchill. That would happen to you or I; that would 3803

Thursday, June 15, 1978 happen to anyone under the same circumstances. Put in that situation, we would become depressed and demoralized . The alcohol abuse because there is a lower population is not going to decrease. The extent of the alcohol abuse is going to increase because that's what those people are going to turn to when they can't turn to productive work and when they can't turn to having a faith in their own community . They will turn to alcohol as a way to salve their sorrows .

So, when there is a time now that they should be placing more emphasis on preventative treatment and more emphasis on preventative education we find them doing exactly the opposite . We find them polling personnel and in this case only one person. But the intent is obvious. We find them pulling personnel and pulling money from that out -patient centre and it can do no good to the community of Churchill.

I would submit - even though Churchill lies up on the Bay and is isolated and someone once referred to Churchill as a spaceship in the Province of Manitoba because of that isolation - even though it does lie in isolation, even though it is far from most Manitobans minds, I would suggest to the Minister that what hurts Churchill, hurts the entire province .

And that we have to show, not a decrease in faith or a decrease in determination to serve those communities, but we have to show an increase - or his government has to show an increase - to renew the faith of the people who live in that community and to renew the faith of the people throughout the province , in the community of Churchill.

So I was looking forward to having this discussion with him after having questioning him during the Question Period on the cutbacks in Churchill and at that time, if I recollect correctly and I don 't have the Hansard before me, he said that he, too was looking forward to a detailed discussion during the Estimates procedure .

He also indicated at that time , if I recollect correctly, that he would be looking forward to that discussion on the basis that we might be able to - if not make the government change its mind on that cutback, at least talk about coming in next year and putting in the services where they stood this year . So before I go any further on that, I would like to ask the Minister , is that a possibility? Is this cutback a permanent cutback for the com munity of Churchill or is there a possibility of getting the services back up to their full complement in the coming year? MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister. MR.

SHERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I wish to assure the Honourable Member for Churchill that I don't view it as a permanent cutback whatever. It was a position taken in a difficult budgetary exercise facing a new government and a new Minister . I'd be happy to discuss the Churchill situation with the Honourable Member for Churchill at any time between now and the preparatio n of the Estimates for the next fiscal year. MR. COWAN: I assure the Member for Fort Rouge, who I remember waiting for me on another debate , that I will be brief or as brief as I possibly can be.

I won 't take up too much of the time of the committee, but I would like to continue on this vein for a short while . Can the Minister assure us that when they look at the budget for that out-patient clinic in the next year , tbat they will do so, not from a perspective of what it costs per capita, because I think he will find out, I know - and I think the Minister will find out if he doesn 't already know - that you cannot look at northern Manitoba from that perspective. You cannot look at northern Manitoba from that perspective because it has a number of isolated communities.

It does not have the population density . And , therefore , any service you provide it is going to have to be at a higher per capita than any service you provide to the southern centres , or even the rural centres, I might add , because of the distances between and the small pop ulatio ns within the communities.

So I would ask him not to look at it from a per capita perspective , but to look at the problems that are being created in that community, and those problems are going to result in more alcohol abuse and to look at what happens in the next year, so that when we do come back here to discuss these Estimates next year - and I'm sure the Minister and I will have discussions in between that and this time as to the needs of the Churchill Centre %% but so that when we do come back here next year, we can do so with the knowledge that we are going to be providing full services for the community of Churchill.

As for Lynn Lake, to give you a brief history on what is being cut back there, Mr. Chairman, it was a Lynn Lake community and I believe its counselling and resource centre which was formed a number of years ago - ttN"ee, four years ago - and I know this, because I was in that community at that time and 1 was, although not one of the participants, I was one of the peripheral participants in forming that counselling and resource centre, and I've watched it grow since .

And it was formed because there was a vacuum in that community, to serve those who were just having problems, not only with alcohol , but to serve those that were having problems with relating to northern living , to the isolation , to what we call cabin fever that would settle in after the long winter, to those who 3804

Thursday, June 15, 1978 were having trouble relating to the cutbacks that were happening in that town because of private industry, because Sherritt-Gordon Mines, in a weak copper market, and because they had run out of nickel in one of their mines , were closing down, and the population of that town was also decreasing. And because the population of that town was decreasing, people again were becoming depressed , morose; they were having problems relating to that; they were having problems dealing with that.

So a group of people in that community got together all on their own and brought forth a survey, brought forth a petition, and decided to appeal to the government for funding, to fund a resource centre that would be run on a volunteer basis, or at least on a very small staff basis, using volunteers to aid that small staff so that people could come and seek referral services - not so much counselling, but to be referred to other areas throughout the north and areas in the south for their problems and it served that community well for a number of years.

And then we find out that this year, in times of restraint and in times of budget cutbacks, we find out that that centre has also been disestablished by this government. And when I asked the Minister about it - and I thank him fpr the information he gave me; it was quite complete and it was appreciated, I assure him - when 1 asked the Minister about it he said that it had been done with the full co-operation, the full knowledge and the full consent of those people who were at that time involved in running that centre.

So I talked to those people - that sounded strange to me; I knew them as friends, I knew them as co-workers - and I talked to them, and they on the other hand assured me that it was not done with their consent, and that they had felt a bit betrayed , and that they were wondering how the Minister could say that . So I'm not saying that and I'm not trying to infer even that the Minister has misled us; I don't think he has.

But I think perhaps through his own channels of communication the message has become somewhat distorted, and I'd just like to take this opportunity to tell him now that the staff and the volunteers and the workess at that Lynn Lake Counselling and Resource Centre never consented to the disestablishment on that, and that he should seek to find out where the problem in his own lines of communication exist. And I think he should know that, because he's going to have to make these decisions over and over and over again throughout his tenure, however short, however long it may be he is Minister of Health.

And as he makes those decisions , I hope that he has adequate and accurate information in his hands, and so I tell him not to belabour the point, not to begrudge then, not even by way of recrimination . I tell him because I think there is a problem there and that he should, as Minister , try and endeavour to sort that problem out. And while on the subject of the Lynn Lake Counselling and Resource Centre, I have to, at this time , reaffirm my faith in that centre.

I have to inform the Minister that , to my way of thinking, and to the way of thinking of the people of that community because they , too , reacted negatively to the disestablishment of that counselling centre, that that counselling centre was serving a useful purpose. I would also suggest to the Minister the manner in which it was run, with a very small staff complement and very large volunteer based help. And that's something the Minister talks about is having more volunteers becoming involved.

That this was a perfect example of what I think and I may be wrong but what I perceive the Minister is striving towards: A volunteer organization with some professional or even non-professional but para-professional support staff to help them out. And we have lost that in Lynn Lake. And I know how much trouble it was to set it up in the first place. It was a long, hard battle and it was wiped out very quickly. The person who was staffing that is moving from the community. They have lost the expertise of that person and it's going to be a very long, hard, difficult battle to reinstate that type of program.

I think that is at cross purposes with the announced inintentions of the Minister to have volunteers become involved in these sorts of programs, so I would just at this point reaffirm my faith that that program is working.

I would suggest to the Minister that he try to find out where the incorrect information was coming from, and that he take another look at the Lynn Lake Counselling and Resource Centre as an example for a plan that he says he wants to see put forth in more places in this province , and that he also look at the Lynn Lake Counselling and Resource Centre with the idea or the hope of gettingnext year when he tells us or he infers that restraint will not be as onerous as it has been this year that he will reinstate that program for the mutual benefit of all Lynn Lakers. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AXWORTHY: Mr. Chairman, thank you for the recognition. I was interested in the remarks from the Member for Churchill and while he was exactly right in what he was saying, he unfortunately only scratched the surface of the problems related to the treatment of alcohol in this province and the way in which this government really providing, I think, an example of some of the most disgraceful kind of public service that we could possibly imagine ecause when he talks about cutbacks to the 3805

Thursday, June 15, 1978 two centres in the nort what he doesn't recognize is the same kind of major surgery,! guess you might even call it butcher has gone on with every single private external agency dealing with the treatment of alcohol in this province. I have a list in front of me, Mr.

Chairman , of all thee external programs funded by the Provincial Government: X-Kalay, cut 50 percent this year; Salvation Army , cut by 40 percent this year; The Pas, as we have found out, cut by 40 percent; Native Alcohol Council , zero increase which the Minister says, " We're holding the line." As the Minister well knows that is a decrease, a substantial decrease , just by the nature of inflation and costs. The Alcohol Drug Education Services cut completely. Churchill - 30 percent decrease. Fort Alexander - 0. Kia Zan - 20 percen t down. Main Street Project - 0 increase. What it really points out to, Mr.

Chairman , is a pattern of indifference towards the problems of alcohol in this province, demonstrated by the total lack of commitment of any even minimal support for the treatment of that particular problem, at a time when another government report prepa red by the Management Secretariat had indicated that close to 75,000 in this province are in some way enmeshed in the problems of alcohol and drug treatment in the province , when members in this House have risen to their feet with the greatest dripping of platitude that one could possibly hear about the necessity to raise the drinking age and at the same time we are cutting back on the treatment and care of those who are consumed by alcohol.

If that isn' t

an act of hypocrisy, I don't know what is. At a time when there is a total lack or a virtual lack of any form of counselling or education in the schools , there is one community worker in the entire Winnipeg region to provide any kind of educational services . When you find that there is in the budget schedules of the province a great pride belaboured in the Report of the Liquor Commission that we will at least absorb a $70 million profit this year in the taxes and sale of alcohol , that we have to cut back on the actual treatment. Now that is just the beginning , Mr.

Chairman , but it does point to the fact that I don't think this Minister can any longer skate away from the issue, that his so-called restraint and austerity cutback program is in fact a savage rduction in a necessary service to a large group of people who need very serious support.

To try to pass it off as some kind of an accounting, a bookkeeping managerial problem for this year , that it is only temporary aberration, means that what he is really doing is condemning a lot of people for at least twelve months and probably a lot more, because I don 't have much confidence that things will get that much better , to neglect. I don't think I am prepared to take the kind of kind words of assurances and guarantees because this problem is just too serious , and the actions of this government are just too neglectful for words to honey over the actual position that we find ourselves in.

So here we have a province that is garnering huge profits in the sale of alcohol, which has expressed its own deep concern about the problem of drinking with young people, and yet is in the exercise of cutting back substantially in the very programs that would serve and help those most seriously in need . Now I don't think one has to be any clearer or blunter tn that to find out just sort of what austerity means in the Province of Manitoba . It really means a degre e of callousness that I don't think has really been measured quite to the same extent before. Beyond that, Mr.

Chairman, I would also take very strong objections and would feel that before we leave or in any way pass these Estimates , we must tak e a very careful look at the way in which the delivery of services is provided to the Alcohol Foundat ion itself, because I think there are very serious questions about the management and the administ ration and delivery of services through the Foundation in a degree to which they are gett ing any kind of an effective service, again for those in need. 1 think there is increasing evidence that there is seriou s morale problems in the personnel of that organization .

There is certainly serious questions to judge and be critical of its ability to provide a service . I guess what concerns me, Mr. Chairman , is when I see the kind of a cent re as we have in Gimli , where there is some $85,000, $90,000 being spent and almost virtually no clients being served . That begins to disturb me when we can have the nerve and gall to cut back on the private agencies, which are working, and at the same time continue to support a number of regional centres , where the clientele may be 00 or 30 at the most , some cases virtually none at all, at very expensive proportions.

When you can take a project like the Main Street Project , which works dealing on the street level and a community outreach service , workers paid an average of $7,000 to $9,000 a year, and say that they can 't get any more money , but we can increase the increments for the administrative side of the Alcohol Foundation of Manitoba by about 15 percent, 10 to 15 percent . That again seems to be something virtually and fundamentally wrong in those kinds of cases, Mr. Chairman .

I think that the Minister has got to do some serious looking at that kind of proposition, that there are real problems about the way we are dealing with the problem of alcohol ism in the Province of Manitoba . We can take a look at some of the things that bother me, some of these are small perhaps , 3806

Thursday, June 15, 1978 but I think that they maybe indicate a kind of necessity to fight a paper war rather than a real war , which is on the streets, and that is where you would find in the latest report from the Foundation , which indicates that they had something like 3,437 clients in 1977, when in fact our own inter al reports show only a client load of 1,975. I wonder why we are getting these kinds of discrepencies and why the need to sort of pad these kinds of figures out? What are we trying to show and what are we trying to prove? In other words, Mr.

Chairman , the treatment and delivery of services for alcohol in this rrovince is in very bad shape, and I think that it is not only in need of an overhauling administratively and organizationally, but also it needs to be substantially better funded than it is, and funded probably in a different way.

I think that before we leave here we should be taking a look at the ways and means that that can be accomplished , because the failure at this point in time is most seriously affected by those who are both suffering the problems of alcoho l, their families who suffer along with them, and those who might eventually sfffer from it because they are not getting the proper kind of preventatiVe measures bestowed on their behalf . Mr.

Chairman , in the debate on the Private Members' Bill to raise the drinking age, I reported on conversations I had had in several of the high schools in my constituency and discussions that I have had with young people in those areas, and as I said at that time they seem to have a better fix on what the nature of the problem was and how to deal with it than what we as legislators have been able to provide . They were talking about the need for the kind of preventions necessary, the kind of places to go to get information , to get education, to get counselling, that's what they really required .

That is what they were asking for and no one was providing it for them . And yet we look at this Budget reduced over last year with no addition of any kinds of services in those areas. I really find it hard to believe that members in this House are going to vote for that bill when those kinds of facts face them, that they are prepared to vote for these Estimates and vote for that bill at the same time . It really is

an act of total inconsistency in those areas, that if they are really concerned and interested, bothered by the problems of alcoholism and trying to deal something with the future of prevention of it with young people, then it would seem to me they should be putting their money where their mouth is, rather than simply bringing in these kind of token gestures that we are presently debating in this House. So, Mr. Chairman, I would, I have several other comments and criticisms to make.

They are done hopefully with the purpose of seeing if we can get the Minister this evening before we pass these Estimates to make some commitments , both to change the style and delivery of the programs , to look at a way to improve the fund ing of those private agencies working in the field, and to perhaps grasp on the other ones and really decide how he is going to bring together the kind of resources and the kind of organization that is needed to fully respond and deal with the problem as it should be dealt with.

I think he probably knows, as well as I do, what the figures are and I would trust to his own sense of fairness to recognize that he is committing an unfair act at this particular time on these level of Estimates, and the figures will bear that particular contention out. So, Mr. Chairman, I would open with those remarks, but I would ask the Minister in particular to address himself to any kind of justification whatsoever if he could possibly find one, for the kind of 30, 40, 50 percent cuts in the grants to those agencies dealing with treatment and prevention in this province in the private field .

Secondly , what he intends to do or what is presently in place to look at the declining caseload of the Alcohol Foundation, the fact that there are empty beds in its in-patient clinic, the fact that there is a severely declining ratio of staff to patient loads, at the same time that the expenses and costs are going up, and that the administrative costs, management costs, get an increment but the service delivery doesn't . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Ste. Rose. MR.

ADAM: Yes, I wonder if the Minister, when he answers the questions posed to him by the Members for Fort Rouge and Churchill if he could also comment on what is happening with regard to the All Care Centre in Ste . Rose, which is not really a detoxification centre but rather delivers a rehabilitation program . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Health. MR. SHERMAN: Mr.

Chairman, I don 't disagree with the contention of the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge that as Minister I have to do some serious thinking and some serious looking at the alcohol addiction problem in Manitoba; the method of delivering our services; the form and type of our services; the method of funding; the effectiveness and productivity of the programming that exists in that field. I want to assure him that I am doing and have been doing some serious thinking 3807

Thursday, June 15, 1978 and some serious looking at it since assuming office. That's one of the reasons why, while conceding that there has certainly been restraint imposed on the AFM budget, there have been no traumatic or revolutionary or precipitous changes made in the form and method of delivery and the type of service delivered , because it takes some months, as the honourable member will appreciate, to separate the valuable approaches and concepts from the less valuable, and determine that a certain course of action is precisely the right course of action.

That effort, on my part, will be continued this year with a view to finalizing an identifiable approach this year, this calendar year, that I will have to be able to represent to members of the Legislature and the province generally as one that will do the job, or at least go some distance toward doing the job that the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge and many others in this House, and I, would agree need to be done .

But first of all, let me say, Sir, that the information that the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge has with respect to alleged slashing and cutting of programs and bleeding of services in external agencies is incorrect. There were 12 agencies , external agencies that were funded by the AFM in 1977-78, and with the exception of the Alcohol and Drug Education Service and the Lynn Lake operation, which we've discussed , all the rest, the other ten, will continue to receive financial support in 1978-79 .

The Lynn Lake situation is a particular one, and the Honourable Member for Churchill has made considerable reference to it. I can only say with respect to Lynn Lake that it was essentially , Sir, a community counselling and resou rce centre, it was not essentially an alcohol addiction assessment and treatment centre. The alcoholism service sort of got tacked on to the community counselling and resource work done there, and no one would argue that there is a counselling and resource role and service that can be justified in Lynn Lake.

Whether it should be done through another aegis branch or quasi official component of government is a good question , and something that probably the Honourable Member for Churchill and I should discuss. But the operation of an alcohol treatment unit there was really an appendage to the unit that had been established to function in the family counselling field , and could not, as I've suggested to him, in our view at any rate, be justified at the present time. The question about the alcohol and drug education service, ADS, is one that troubles me very much .

I want to correct any misunderstanding that the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge may have about its demise . Funding for ADS was not suspended or terminated by the present government. Funding ceased for the ADS last year.

I have not satisfied myself that the ADS should be left in limbo and should be forced to seek recourse to other sources of funding as its sole chance for survival, and I have, in fact , made arrangements through the chairman of the Alcoholism Foundation to help with some limited funding that we will scrape around and try to find somewhere in the budget to enable ADS to survive for a little while while other efforts are made to pick up outside sources of funding and to resolve the question as to where we're going with ADS.

As the Member for Fort Rouge probably knows, the ADS approach to alcohol addiction, prevention and education is at the centre of a considerable debate across Canada , at least, if not right across North America at the present time, and we have to be sensitive to and responsive to the kinds of arguments and the kind of documented evidence and testimony that is coming forward from other jurisdictions, which is in confliflict with the ADS approach.

I don't minimize or denigrate the efforts that the ADS has made over the years, the great work that they have done under persons like the late Bill Potoroka and others familiar to all of us, etc., but the fact of the matter is that research into the subject has demonstrated fairly clearly, in fact I could say, very clearly, without exageraexaggeration, that the most effective results at the teenage, the juvenile level, in the field of alcohol and drug education , are achieved through teachers with whom the students themselves can relate, and to whom they can relate , and what the evidence and the research really boils down to is that outsiders coming into the classroom one hour a week to offer a lecture to the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge, when he was 16, or to me, the Honourable Member for Fort Garry, when I was 16, as to whether we should stay away from drugs or not is not half, not a quarter as effective as training our classroom teachers, the teachers that we relat e to, to do that job.$$ This has been the role that the alcohol and drug prevention organizations across the country have been pursuing in recent years, and that has been essentially the philosophy behind the AFM approach .

I'm not expertise enough to suggest to the honourable member that that is the only way to approach alcohol prevention at the teenage level, but I do suggest to him that the philosophy of the ADS, although their work deserves our undying gratitude over the years, the philosophy is now somewhat in question. In the meantime, as we're trying to resolve that question . I want to assure the honourable member that I am scrambling and scraping for a few support funds to keep them alive.

Now the other 10 external agencies , five of them, Sir, received the same amount of funds or the same per diem rate this year as they did in 1977-78 . Those agencies are the All Care Resort Centre in Ste. Rose du Lac, which was the subject of the question asked by the Honourable Member for Ste. Rose; the Fort Alexander Centre and the Main Street Project. I want to assure the Honourable 3808

Thursday, June 15, 1978 Member for Fort Rouge that the Main Street Project has not been cut backnor has the Native Alcoholism Council or the River East School Division. Now, of the other five, three agencies will receive less. One is the Churchill Health Centre which we discussed, has been scaled down from three workers to two, and scaled down in budget to something approximating only half of what they had before. Kia Zan is receiving less, $12,000 less, because of a shift in emphasis from in-patient treatment to a -Halfway ouse concept.

The Salvation Army is receiving less but only the Yukon and British Columbia directly support the Salvation Army, and at that they only do it on a partial basis . The Salvation Army is still receiving funding from the Province of Manitoba through the AFM, but as the honourable member knows, the Salvation Army has other sources of revenue and other means of fund raising, and in this province, it's been in something of a unique position in the direct support funding that it's received.

The reduction, in our view, and on the basis of advice from my officials, knowledgeable of the Salvation Army's operations and its capacity to generate resources from other areas of the community , is not expected to militate against the agency's effectiveness or ability to operate in any way.

One agency, The Pas Health Centre, will receive less cash, but due to a rollover of surplus, will have the same level of funding at its disposal, and the remaining agency, X-Kalay, which is in my own constituency, will receive less cash through the AFM, but is getting increased support from other departments of government and thus will be maintaining its 1977-78 budgetary level. So that in fact, Sir, there is not the bleeding or the strangulation, or the crippling of the external agencies that perhaps some sources of misinformation or misguided information have suggested to the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge.

I'm not exalting over the situation; I don't disagree with him that it would be worthwhile to increase the funding for all of these agencies, no doubt, provided their effectiveness continued to be measurable and demonstrable, but in this particular year when we have asked Manitobans generally, and imposed upon all of our colleagues in government in the Legislature generally, pressures of restraint, I don't feel that I have to apologize for the support that is continuing to be forthcoming from the AFM for those external agencies. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Churchill. MR. COWAN: Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. I have to rise to my feet once again to follow up some comments that the Member for Fort Rouge had made. He mentioned in his short presentation that The Pas Alcohol Foundation Program had received 40 percent less this year than they did last year, and the Minister in his comments explained there was less cash being put into that program this year because there was a surplus of funding last year , and due to that rollover, they would be maintaining the same budget . I am wondering if the Minister can confirm that the decrease in cash was in actuality of the magnitude of 40 percent. MR.

SHERMAN: I'll need a minute on that, Mr. Chairman . I am advised by my officials that the decrease in cash amounted to 16 percent, Mr. Chairman. MR. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well then, Mr. Chairman, I will have to seek further ., clarification, because what I see happening here, if I have all my information correct, and I will ask the Minister to confirm that in one moment - what I see developing is a pattern, and I would just like to isolate it and take a closer look at it if I may.

If I have my information correct, operating north of the 53rd, AFM was funding programs in Thompson, The Pas, Churchill, and Lynn Lake. We have seen major cutbacks, 16 percent in The Pas, Churchill 30 percent, Lynn Lake 100 percent, yet at the same time the Minister tells us that the overall budget has increased for the 1978-79 year to $356.1 thousand from $345.7 thousand last year .

What I would ask the Minister to do, if that information is essentially correct, is to give us a more detailed breakdown as to exactly what the Thompson, what The Pas, what the Churchill, and what the Lynn Lake Centres got for the 1977-78 year which made the total of $345.7 thousand , and what they would be getting for the 1978-79 year . MR. CHAIRMAN: Resolution 63(k) - the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AXWORTHY: Mr. Chairman, perhaps while the Minister is going over some of the figures, there are some that I would like to check out as well.

I think that if you look at the total estimated budget cutback for the AFM, it comes well over $600,000, which represents about 12 or 13 percent cutback, not just to hold the line . In most other services we provided - even those paltry little sums that we gave to the hospitals and schools were 2.9 or 2.2 additions. · Here we have an actual 12 to 13 percent cutback.

Now if you add up a 9 percent inflation rate over the past year or so, we're talking virtually in effect well over 20 percent cutback in actual expenditures in real dollars related to the treatment, care, prevention, of the abuse of alcohol in the Province of Manitoba . 3809

Thursday, June 15, 1978 So all the verbal dancing that the Minister is engaging in, doesn't erase the very fact that the provincial government is cutting back over 20 percent in its commitment to the treatment of alcohol in the prorovince, at a time when its own prof its have gone up by over 12 percent in terms of what it gets from the distilleries and breweries in this province. Now, you know, I find that frankly pretty hard to take. I find the Minister 's assurances hard to take on those grounds and I find the general approach to be repugnant. It just doesn 't make any sense.

Now if you get down to the individual cases, what we are also cutting back, I think you have to look at the sectors that we're dealing with, that there is a lot of difference in the way in which alcohol can be treated or dealt with . I quote from a report that was prepared for the Board of Governors of the AFM which says, "The present treatment system does not lend itself to providing needed care in the appropriate manner for the mast majority of alcoholics in the Province of Manitoba " - from a report prepared for the Board of Governor of the Alcohol Foundation of Manitoba .

Now I don't think I could put it any more concisely than that ; that we are virtually lacking in those care facilities , continuum care is probably the contemporary word . So here is the Board itself saying . . .. . . why is that one in any way, shape or form. It's just not possible to do. And I think, frankly, before we get out of here, he should change his mind . We should get a change in Estimates before we get out of here.

Now, I know that's generally unheard of and it's not precedented , but I think maybe we've got a Minister who can accept logic and rational argument for a change , and that 's what he's being faced with right now. On the specifics that he gave, he said, look , it's not all that bad after all, five are going to get the same as they got last year, which is probably about a ten percent decrease, and the others are going to get - maybe some of my figures are out, maybe it 's not 30 percent, maybe it's only 15 or 20, whatever it may be. X-Kalay has gone down from 96,000 to 51,700.

That sounds like a pretty big chunk of a cutback. The Churchill Health Centre, 92,000, down to 32,000.00. Well, he said 16 percent' I've got a different figure. Maybe he's changed it since we last raised the issue, from 92,000 down to 32,000.00. Main Street projects, right , $352 ,000, same as last year. The problem is, Mr. Chairman , I don't know if the Minister has been down on the strip lately and spent much time there and has seen what's going on. Has he seen the substantial increase of the population the Main Street project is trying to deal with , it now adds up, five, six, seven thousand a year .

I don 't know if he's taken those figures into account, but again, I recommend for his reading some reports that were prepared by the Secretariat of the previous government. Maybe they don 't read reports prepared by the previous government, but they indicate that the native population moving into Winnipeg increases by five or six thousand a year. Many of them arrive in the city and because of the low incomes and the lack of jobs and lack of skills, many of them become involved with alcohol treatment.

And really , only one of the effective treatment responses in there is the Main Street project that we're holding the line on. That's good management , I'm told . Good management to the point that you're going to allow a lot of people to simply become more seriously consumed by that problem, get no treatment, and therefore be engaged in hospital care at probably twice or three times the amount that it would take to hire one or three or four additional workers in the Main Street project. Mr. Chairman, I see it, it's happening in my own constituency .

I was at a meeting last night called by my own constituents, who are saying, hey, you've got to do something about the vagrants and the panhandlers and the drunks along Osborne Street. And when you ask, what service is there to call upon? There isn't any to call upon. Main Street has its hands full on the strip, and if I went to them and said, look, can you get me a street worker to handle things in my constituency, they're going to say, sorry , the provincial government isn't giving us any more money this year.

Sorry, guys, we know there's a problem, but we can't do anything about it because there's no more money. And yet we know that the problem is there, and then if you find some kid sniffing glue on the river bank, or three or four guys, sort of hanging around the bridge , the only recourse right now is to call the police . That's the only recourse that we have for people that are affected with that problem. And we've got the Minister standing up there, saying, you know, it's restraint, austerity, tough times. It's an awful lot tougher down there than it is in here, Mr. Chairman.

I think that the kind of answers that we're receiving just won 't stand up. I think that he's got to start doing something about it, to make these kinds of changes . The figures that I have in front of me on the external agencies, are that there is a cutback of close, if you add up the figures, between this year and last year, going to the external agencies , the 12 that he administered, it is close to $500,000 , over $500,000 cutback for external agencies. That adds up, I think, to a substantial amount of cutback .

He may have altered those figures somewhat but in the budget year 1977-78, there was 4.7, we now have 4.25. That counts up to a big cutback. I think it's reflected in the kind of delivery service , particularly when you lay it against the fact of the programs being provided to the AFM itself are not being provided in that kind of community outreach context, that the very 3810

.. ... ... Thursday, June 15, 1978 formula that was presented to the board of governors as being the way to deal with the problem , is, in itself, not being responded to by this government. So it comes back, Mr.

Chairman, it's not very logical and it doesn 't make much sense, and when, if we go through this Estimates book and find the other areas that have received substantial increases, I would ask the Minister, perhaps w can put it in its most basic terms - and we've debated this before - that in the scale of priorities, I would like to know why it is that his government can increase, as they have, budget for highways, for people who drive cars, trucks, carry out their commerce, by whatever it may be, the amount that it has, we argued with the Minister, 9 percent, 15, 20 percent, compared to a 20 percent cutback cutback for the treatment of alcoholism.

That really sort of adds up to the case I'm making. And I'd like an answer to that question. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister of Health. MR. SHERMAN: Mr. Chairman , I think some of the figures that the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge is working from are the figures that the agencies may have requested in 1977-78, but not necessarily the figures that were voted . What we're looking at here, for 19771978-79, over 1977-78, is a total reduction of $621,500 .00. We're asking the Legislature for $4.069 million as against $4.691 million.

Now, that $621,500 breaks down the following way: Reduction in prevention programs, mainly attributable to reduction in printed and taped resource materials and reduction in training and staff development, $138,200; reduction in evaluation and research projects, $144,500; no funding for the alcohol and drug education services - that that's not purely accurate but technically accurate, no funding for ADS or Lynn Lake , a total of $85,900 ; reduction in the program at Churchill, $54,600; reduction in support to the Salvation Army, $44,000; X-Kalay funding going over to other departments of government , $44,300; reduction in provincial administration, $41,500; other net decreases, including financing of the deficit , which has been reduced, $68,500; for total reductions of $621,500 .00.

Now, Mr.

Chairman , I have not argued that the program in Churchill has been reduced in size, or I mean I've not disputed that, or that the Salvation Army direct support from this government is not as great as it was in the past, or that ADS is in difficulty and that Lynn Lake has had its funding terminated , but else where , what we're looking at is reduction essentially, in administration, in printed and taped resource materials, all of which are valuable, to be sure, but I think the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge would agree they're probably not the first priority line of action in the vanguard of the fight .

If we have to try to effect some restraints in a budget, I would rather effect them there than at the treatment level. Reduction in training and staff development, not desirable , but it just means that the staff that we've got have to work a little harder this year. Reduction in evaluation and research projects, not desirable, but I'd rather have the treatment, I'd rather have the work in the field than the evaluation and the research. That's the kind of year it is.

I don 't accept the argument that we're not doing the work on Main Street or at Kia Zan, or among the native population, or among the sufferers from alcoholism throughout the province generally , that needs to be done. We're doing that work at the street level, but some of the ancillaries have been reduced, tightened, squeezed down in this year of restraint. The whole form of service and delivery is under review, pending a determination as to how best to deliver these services in the future.

I can't answer the honourable member 's question with respect to the Department of Highways, except to say that the government is the government of all the people, for all the people. It's a government that must do its best to serve those people who are members of families and members of neighbourhoods who are suffering from the ravages of alcohol. It's also a government that must do its best to serve those people, half a million of them, who depend on the roads and the highways of our province, for their livelihoods, their commerce , and their general social and economic activities.

One doesn't, at least we didn't , measure these things in terms of what component of the province deserved more consideration than what other . There are a great many challenges that have to be met in the field of alcoholism ; there are also a great many challenges that have to be met on primary and secondary highways in this province outside of Winnipeg. We're try ing to be equitable in our approach to those problems. That is the government 's approach.

I he~specitic answer ot the Minister of Highways would have to come from the Minister of Highways, rather than from me, but I don't believe that we have either crippled our work in the field of alcoholism, or abdicated our responsibilities, and I don 't accept, necessarily , the contention of the Honourable Member for Fort Rouge that every problem in the world can be solved by taking another $2 million and throwing it at the problem .

There are things that can be done by effort, by extra effort, by putting out a little more by individuals, just as the Member for Fort Rouge has to do in serving his own constitueRcy . I'm sure that he could make better use of money in serving his own constituency, but because he doesn't have the money, perhaps he puts in the extra effort and the extra hours, and we all do that. And the Chairman of the Alcoholism Foundation has assured me that his staff and our people working in this field are doing the same 3811

Thursday, June 15, 1978 thing, and the that the recipients, the consumers of services in the alcohol field are not suffering because of these restraints , because our staff and our people are working harder . Everyb ody in Manitoba is working harder this year because of budget restraints .

I don 't think that another $2 million or $3 million thrown into the pot would necessarily solve the problem until we find some answers to the questions of what does the best job , the questions the Honourable Membe r for Fort Rouge has already asked me, which is going to take me a few more months to answer, if I ever have the answer . If he's got some of the answers, I'd be glad to receive them from him .

But befo re we throw that additional fistful of money at the problem, let us seek out some of those answers as to what the best form of approaching and tackling those problems is, what , i ndeed , thos e problems really are, whether we're really going at it the right way at all.

In the meant ime, I can assure him that he can count on the extra overtime efforts of the people who are working in the Alcoholism Foundation and in the external agencies who are being funded by the Foundation , so that the persons in Manitoba who suffer from the ravages of this disease are not suffering as a consequence of this year' s budget. They might well be doing better if we had been able to double the budget , but there 's no guarantee of that, and I don 't think the Member for Fort Rouge can guarantee me that a doubling of this budget would cut the problem in half. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MR. AXWORTHY: Mr. Chairman , I wouldn 't want to provide that guarantee, but whatl would like to be assured , is that the serious decline in services , which I expect will be taking place, is somehow going to be made up by this kind of rhetorical flourishing about, put your shoulder to the wheel and all the rest of that kind of muck. It just won't wash. It's nice to talk about from the platform, but when it comes down to the reality, the delivering of service, you need some people working in the field .

And when he indicates to me that , we're working on the street - you're not. You're doing the minimum . And the minimum 's happening because the problem is growing wider, a bigger proportion . Let me, for example, Mr. Chairman , raise with the Minister, and he may want to change statistics, but is it true, for example, that in January of 1977, the intake of outpatients for AFM was 226; that in January of 1978, it is now 69; that in February of 1977 it was 226; February of 1978, it was 44; that in March of 1977 it was 211; it is now 41. And that in April of 1977 it was 169; this year it's 26.

Now that strikes me, Mr. Chairman, as not sort of serving the same need, responding in the same way, giving the same level of service, it seems to me that it 's a substantial, almost a 75 percent decline in those kinds of services. It may not be attributable directly to the amount of budgeting - I don't know the causes for it - but it is certainly a substantial decline in service . A substantial decline in service .

Maybe we're not getting a maximum amount for what we're spending , but it certainly indicates then that we are not doing enough if there has been that precipitous drop in dealing on an outpatient basis to the facilities of the AFM . I would think the Minister , by his own measurement , would have to concede, that that may be an indicator that would cause some problems . I stand to be corrected on those figures , but I think that they are generally accurate and should be looked at. It does demonstrate, I think, the fallacy of the argument that he is using .

Also, I think we should dispense once and for all, with some of these arguments that somehow, we're going to throw money at a problem and it's going to be solved. I'm not asking him to throw money ataa problem , I'm asking him to expand and encourage those which are working well. One of the useful attributes, I thine , of the AFM, over the past couple of years, has been the development of a pretty good evaluation service that gives a very clear, sort of diagnosis of clients and backgrounds and problems .

I don 't think you have to sort of go through another great evaluation , but certainly if the Minister is saying, give me time to work up a new strategy , I'll say, fine, but why in God's name in the meantime, are you making a 20 percent cutback while you're in the existing services .? How do you justify tha t? Sure, you can have all the time you need to re-organize and re-design, come up with something new or better, but in the meantime don 't sort of pull the rug out from under those who are providing the services as it is.

Even in the figures he gave us' he was talking about cutting back tapes and microfish and things like that , I know what is going on, I think the fact of the matter is that he is still cutting back on that service to external agencies if you add it up, a couple of hundred thousand dollars from last year 's Estimates . Not the agency estimate, the Estimates from last year's Estimates book, and budget figures. Those are where the cutbacks are taking place.

So all we're saying is that you're facing a situation where the capacity to respond to the problem appears to be on a sharp decline or slope; you're spending less money on the problem , not just in absolute terms less money, not just in relative terms, absolute terms ; and yet the kind of problem 3812 .. '·

- Thursday, June 15, 1978 and issues being faced by many of the agencies treating it is growing in proportion at the same time . It would be nice if we could isolate certain parts of the problem and say, don 't grow any faster, but I think that you have to measure the effort, both in accord to the day by day, this responding to crises problems that you've got . accord to the day by day, just responding to crises problems, that you 've got guys who are drunk on the streets or going to the Lydia Tank, and someone has to deal with them.

At the same time, you are also missing - as the AFM annual report says, problem there's a large of alcoholism in the upper middle income groups in our population, and there is no service being provided for them .

Doctors don't refer them to the AFM; there's not any referral service coming out of there; their own statistics show that they basically deal with lower income working class guys, because the referrals are coming from the police and from the agencies, and yet a substantial problem of alcoholism is in the white collar, middle income areas, in the Fort Garrys, in the Fort Rouges; there is no service being provided for them , nothing new being started, and no seeming efforts. So when you talk about lack of - the Minister asked yesterday for some patience.

I gave him a little bit of patience on the question of corrections, one year's patience. Tonight I have about one hour's worth of patience with him, and that's about all. I don 't think he has yet been able to give any substantial argument to justify this cutback in this program , this absolute cutback.

Even to have held the line, I suppose, might have made some sense, just say, okay, we're tightening our belts - I wouldn't accept that , I'd still be arguing against them for it - but to have an absolute cutback, $600,000, and probably a couple of hundred thousand dollars for external agencies, perhaps more, I think it's closer to $350,000 in external agency support, that just is not acceptable, Mr. Chairman , in any way, shape or form.

And I would ask the Minister to go back to his colleagues, to go back to Cabinet next week and say: I want more money for this particular program; I want to bring it up at least, to last year's level. I think he should be prepared to do that, because there is an overwhelming weight of evidence to suggest that that's the least he could be doing in this area. I've also compared it, Mr. Chairman, to other areas in the Estimates book. I'll make a deal with him. Let's do some bargaining. Don't do any more than you've done for the other social services and agencies. Do the 2.9 that you did for the hospitals.

I mean, there's going to be a lot of squeeks, -(Interjection)- or 2.2. At least that's an awful lot better than what you're doing now. Let's be consistent. If we're going to be sort of measly, let's be consistently measly. Let's not be sort of excessive in one area and only moderately sort of niggardly in the other. I think the Minister even can accept an argument of consistency. Why here? Why the major cutback in the one area where I think the demonstratd need was perhaps more severe than most others.

Give them the 2.2 or 2.9, however you do your computation, the way that you've given to the hospitals and many of the other agencies, and ask your colleagues for it. Then you'll get a little time to redesign your program and look at it. I think that there are some serious problems, because the range and modes of service that are being supplied, I believe, Mr. Chairman, are falling into the same trap that I tried to diagnose when we talked about the field of juvenile corrections.

We tend to be resorting back more towards a kind of a government -sponsored run form of organization, as opposed to allowing a kind of creativity to emerge out of a variety of private initiatives being taken in this field . But if you look at those areas that we have been shrinking, sort of, the role of private agencies increasingly over the past three or four years, then bringing them in under wing, I think that to get back you've got to start letting them go out again . That's where you're going to get your experimentation and your innovation coming up.

Some are going to be awful, but some are going to catch on. Some of them are going to be working in that community that you have to work in. Some of them are going to try different responsibilities than we have tried, rather than bringing things into a nice , neat, organizational chart that you can measure and say - you know , organizational charts are only good for organizational engineers . What we're talking about here is the delivery of a human service to individual human beings.

It doesn't always fit the neat lines of an organizational chart, and it is an area where I think there is a need for a lot of different ploys and methods to be tested out. I agree with him on that. I don't have the absolute answers either. I'm a layman in the field, but I see the problems. I saw the problems in my own family; I see the problems in my own constituency; I served on the board of agencies dealing with it; I just know how desperate the problem is and how desperately we need in this province an effective approach to it.

It really makes me cringe when I see what's going on here in these Estimates.3 I suppose, Mr. Chairman, there's a lot more that might be said about the AFM. I'm not going to do that. There's lots of other material! could raise. l'llleave it at that, but I think that to demonstrate some degree of honour in the dealings in these areas, that the least the Minister can do is go back and ask for the same increase that he has been prepared to give to at least the other serving agencies 3813

Thursday, June 15, 1978 in this province, and not to engage in an outright, absolute cutback in the delivery of services in this field. MR. CHAIRMAN: (k)-pass - the Honourable Member for Winnipeg Centre. MR. BOYCE: Mr. Chairman , in sitting , listening to the Member for Fort Rouge and the Member for Churchill and the Member for Ste. Rose on this particular item , I kept hearing the word "restraint , restraint, restraint ." I'm thinking of the semantics of the word .

I think the Minister has an excellent command of the English language , but he is somewhat inconsistent in the use of the word "restraint," where one time it appears to be 2.9 and 2.2, then zero, and then actually a decrease. It's still restraint. But it finally dawned on me just exactly what is going on. In asking a friend of mine one time what was the difference between the two words , strategy and tact ics, because the semantical difference I really never understood , my frie nd told me that strategy is when you grab somebody by the hair and tactics is when you pull it.

But with this government, their overall tactics are just somewhat different in this regard. Their stra tegy is to grab the people by the hair , and then even when they turn it loose , it feels good . But Mr. Chairman , I think anything we would say would be a repet ition of what has gone on in the last month . The Minister has been given a certain amount , which he forwarded to the board of directors , and the board of directors trimmed their sail to cut the cloth , and this is what we're facing .

Perhaps I have to suggest to the Min ister that this is the time to consider having some of the cost of alcohol in our society apportioned directly to that which is generated as revenue . I had said earlier that we should be in the scheme of things as a matter of priority and be allocating some ten millions of dollars in th is regard , but even in this year, I would not recommend that amount of moneys being spent , because you have not the capacity to deliver that type of service.

But I had thought , with the natural growth of things , regardless of what particular avenue the Minister pursues , in-House, external, whatever , the capacity has to be developed over the next two, three, four years, as we evolve, because if we don't, we're not going to solve the problems. It is hard to have direct tax dollars transferred for this payment.

There is a certain rationality to apportioning a specific amount of the tax generated , and I doubt very much if this Minister will have any more success with his Minister of Finance than I did with mine, because the Ministers of Finance are very reluctant to have this policy involved . All across the country this is the case, not just in Manitoba.

But if there 's any reason to say that people who drive cars should pay the cost of insurance, or automobile accidents, then perhaps those peop le who want to have alcohol in our society should accept the cost of the risk which I mentioned earlier is about $150 million - extrapolating LeDain 's figures to Manitoba population inflated dollars , roughly, that is the cost. I'm not suggesting we spend $150 million in this field.

I don't recall the figure at the time , but one time I had asked them at the Alcoholism Foundation to toward , 1 think it was 25 cents on a bottle of spirits, 5 cents on a bottle of wine , and a penny on a bottle of beer, type of thing , that this would generate, perhaps, enough revenue to take ca

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	31-2-64b
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	31st 2nd hansardpdf 64b.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	d9d5f8d6ff6b184f2253160846954473c83ebd80

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