Manitoba Hansard — 27 April 1978 (Sitting 30B, 31st Legislature, 2nd Session)

31-2-30b

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

ISSN 0542-5492 Second Session - Thirty-First Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS Vol. XXVI No. 308 26 Elizabeth II Published under the authority of The Honourable Harry E. Graham Speaker 8:00 p.m.Thursday, April 27, 1978 Printed by P.N. Crosbie - Queen's Printer for the Province of Manitoba

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Thursday, April 27, 1978 Time: 8:00 p.m. SUPPLY- HIGHWAYS MR. CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen, we have a quorum. Committee come to order . When we broke off at the supper hour, the Member for Lac du Bonnet was asking some questions, but he is not here at present -(Interjection)- All right, we recognize the Member for Lac du Bonnet, formerly from Brokenhead . MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence, although I wouldn't have minded if you had proceeded with someone else.

I was pursuing the question of Highway 228, 229, across the Interlake when we broke off and I wonder if the department has any comments to make on that?. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Highways. MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , there are several routes involving different combinations of different provincial roads that try to encompass that request or that idea of having one or two or another corridor established through that region east-west. There are some that favour a combination of 415, 416 coming up through the Shoal Lakes , there are those living in the Lundar-Oak Point region favouring a more northerly route .

Then there 's those that would want to see the extension taking place from 228. We are doing some work on 415, 416 I believe, and that's admittedly in the southern portion of the Interlake . Whether or not a future hook-up could be contemplated between 419 perhaps to 16 is, I suppose , a possibility but there are no immediate plans on which survey and design work , for instance, is being done in terms of the question raised by the Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. USKIW : Well , Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that the Minister of course needs some time to try to develop policy with respect to that question .

We did have a policy and my interest would be in whether that is going to continue or whether it's going to be altered. If you look at the map, Mr. Chairman, I think you would readily see that any consideration of using 415-416 would not seem to be practical from the point of view of an east-west connection and from the point of view of people wanting to travel up towards Lundar, Eriksdale , and across the Narrows for that matter . It would be somewhat of a back-tracking situation if you were to come back south via 416-415, for through traffic in particular .

Now, I don't want to argue with the Minister with respect to the need fordoing any work on 415 or 416. I'm not trying to suggest that there should be an exchange between the two, but certainly I would hope that logic prevails and that we have somewhat of a shortest route possible across the Interlake at some point in time , connecting up with No.9 and No.6 at some point in the reasonable period ahead . We've already got a

section of that program built, namely, the portion from Inwood to Teulon, and of course the remaining part on the east side is to No. 8 . MR. ENNS: Which is in this year's program. MR. USKIW: Which is in this year's program -that's the portion, is it? MR. ENNS: Yes. MR. USKIW: It would seem to me logical , then, that we should pursue from tuat point on in a westerly direction, north-westerly direction , 229, that's a very logical approach. Now, I'm willing to MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman , if I can interrupt the member, perhaps I misstated it, I was going from memory on where some work was being contemplated in this year's program and that involves 415 and 416 because of the conditions of those roads. I don't hold that out as being the alternate to that route, in fact , just taking a second look at the map right now, I would find myself not in disagreement with what the Member for Lac du Bonnet is suggesting, and that that would appear to be the more common-sense road that would service a greater

part in attempting to complete that connection. I am simply indicating to the Committee that for the immediate future, and when the immediate future is, I'm talking about this year, we are doing that portion of 228, that is, on the east side. I think the Member for Lac du Bonnet will at least concur to this extent that that is at least a part of the link that he's referring to and it's certainly entirely within the hopeful realm of possibility that we would want to pursue that route . MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, then, I want to take the Minister along the map to the area in Swan River, or near there, and inquire from him whether there is any desire on the part of the department to deal with either 268 or 366, and I don 't know which it should be, but I believe there was some debate on either one of those two routes as being the route that should be upgraded, but not both. I can't 1383

Thursday, April 27, 1978 remember where the arguments were, whether it was the route to Lenswood or the route from Minitonas to Birch River, and I'm only speaking from memory, Mr. Chairman . I believe the former Member for Swan River mentioned one of those two routes and I don't know whether I was in agreement with him or not, but in any event I know that there was some discussion there . MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman, I again take note of the member's remarks but would refer him to the specific program as published as being the works that are being undertaken in that part of the region, againn , in the immediate future . MR. CHAIRMAN: Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman , I wonder if I could inquire of the department whether there was some issue or some dispute over which of those two routes were to be slated for upgrading at some point in time . Perhaps I am not remembering correctly, Mr.

Chairman , but I thought there was some issue there between the two' and whether that is stalling any decision or not? MR. ENNS: I can only reply , Mr. Chairman , at this time the department hasn't brought that question to my attention and we haven't- doubtful on the question in the manner in which the member places it, that, you know , we are alternating between choosing routes .

The Member for Swan River may be able to be of some assistance to me at this time as to his priorities in that particular area, and I would invite the Member for Swan River to indicate to the Committee and to my benefit , what he thinks ought to be done up there . MR. CHAIRMAN: Member for Swan River . MR. GOURLAY: Yes, the road in question was No. 268 which runs from 10 highway to Lenswood, a distance of some 15 or 18 miles. It has been under some considerable discussion for some time now and it was that route that was being requested for upgrading. MR. CHAIRMAN : Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman , I don't want to belabour that. I know that either of those two routes seem to be practical and I just thought that I recollected some discussion, that is some dispute about which way it should go since those two routes are so close together , and that which one would serve a greater public service. But at this point I am not pursuing it. Perhaps the department could advise us a year from now for that matter , no problem with that. I then want to ask one more, then I will let someone else get up, Mr. Chairman . Highway 23, is it? I think it is 23, and it goes into Morris. MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, as I recall the discussion over the last couple of years, there was some interest in upgrading 23, from highway 59 to Morris , and I believe that is not on the program, or is it? Is it on the program? MR. ENNS: Yes, Mr. Chairman , we are doing considerable amount of work on Highway 23 on several portions of the road, one in the south-central part from Holland west or Rolt, and wes pardon me, and then there is also the portion of 23, starting from Morris east. Rather substantial amounts of work are being contemplated for Highway No. 23 this year. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for St. Johns . MR.

CHERNIACK: Mr. Chairman , I wonder if we could spend a little time about reviewing the financing of the operations of the department , and I'd like to thank the Honourable Minister for giving me a breakdown showing the moneys carried forward from year to year from 1973-74 until the present. There are some figures that are not too clear to me and I thought I'd like to go into it at this stage and that's in order .

The statement confirms the previous oral statement made by the Minister to the extent that some $65 million estimated was actually expended in the year 1977-78, as compared to the $41 million that are shown in the Estimates sheet on the left-hand column . The $41 million shown on that Estimates sheet is not clear to me. I wonder if the Minister could clarify how it was arrived at, since it is not the same as in last year 's Estimates sheets. That would be under the Highway Construction Program . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Highways . MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman , I will again attempt to explain that to the best of my capability and that of my staff . I should perhaps make it clear to the Honourable Member for St. Johns that I really would defer to the Department of Finance for that fuller , or final , or finite explanations of the manner and way in which capital moneys came to the department or were spent , or were shown at any given time. I say that not from a point of view of attempting to evade the question that the Member for St. Johns is 1384

Thursday, April 27, 1978 putting to me, but simply that neither myself nor the capable members of my staff, you know , run the Department of Finance . And , indeed , I would even put a caveat in it right now that we are, you know, satisfied that we are giving you the information to the best of our knowledge .

We are aware of what capital borrowing authority we have or haven't got, but that I would- as indeed has been suggested to the honourable member for the past week- that the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance are, in the final analysis, the best party and the best persons or departments to direct the very specific kind of questions that he is directing at us.

We have the information that we have given to the committee the other evening , that the $65 million that were spent last year on new constr uction program consisted of the $41 million as shown in the left-hand side of the Estimate Book for the 1978, plus the $27 million carryover of previous year 's capital and plus a further $2 , 400.000 involving the City of Winnipeg for a total of $29,563,185 which brings that total up to $149 million , again I am sorry , I am going back to the gross figures for the department, going to our Estimate Book at the bottom line, it bumps up that , on the left hand column that $119 million figure , to $149,510,000 as compared to this year's request for $160 million in the gross .

MR. CHERNIACK : Mr. Cha irman , I appreciate the diff iculty that the Minister has in relation to the financial aspects and the fact that he doesn 't have the direct imput in that , I unders tand that , but the Minister must also understand that we have on the record , in print, a statement fro m the Minister of Financ e wh ich is in direct cont radiction , the way I read it, to a statemen t made by the Honourab le Minist er. The Minister of Finance said that the constru ction program is a third mo re than last year ,

whereas the Mini ster of High ways has said that it is seven percent , and there is such a treme ndous difference that the Min ister, I know understands, having been here through some of the debate in Agr iculture , that there are certain items that have not been revealed to us. And I believe that the Minister of Agriculture attempted to be forthright and told us what he learned and knew , and I believe that the Minister of Highways will be, but I think we have a right to probe as to how the financing will be arra nged , based on how it was arranged , just to make sure whether or not there is extra funds.

So I go back to the statement which the Minister was kind enough to give me which deals only , I believe , with co nstruction of provincial trunk highways and that seems to me in contradiction to the figures that we have just been given by the Min ister , that's why I would like to run through it.

Now , dealing with the $41 million that is shown on the left hand column under construction, I believe that $41 million is made up of , and I would like the Min ister to help me with this , of 25 to 26 million in current account shown in last year 's Estimates plus some $15,246.8 million which is shown under Capital Supply Bill column in the sheet he gave me, which comes awfully close to $41 million.

In addition to that there is an indication of a Capital carry-over of $15 million that I didn 't know about , which would now bring this to 41 plus 15 is $56 million, I believe, plus on the same sheet a Federal contribution of $12 million , would make it $68 million which is exactly what it says, Total Construction Funds Provided . Now , that is related to the $41 million that actually shows in the Minister's statement so we know it has been ballooned up by the $15 million Capital carry-over which is not shown and by the Federal contribution wh ich is not shown .

That amounts to $27 million, which somehow is a different $27 million, I believe , than the Minister spoke about but it is the same amount. MR. ENNS: No, no, it is precisely the amount that I have spoken about. MR. CHERNIACK: So it says here that $68 million is funds provided; $65 million spent, which will imply a $3 million carry-over. MR. ENNS: There is a $2.5 million carry-over from the city allotment, which comes close to closing that gap between the 65 and the 68 that the member refers to . MR. CHERN lACK: Can we get that $2.5 million straight? Is that moneys paid out or received, to be spent?

What is that $2.5 million , city? MR. ENNS: That was money in effect overspent, in the sense that the city had authority for $10 million, and $12 million was drawn down . We have to pick that up. MR. CHERNIACK: Pick it up out of last year 's allocation? Has that been paid? MR. ENNS: It was, I am advised , taken out of last year 's Capital. MR. CHERNIACK: When was that done? MR. ENNS: It was paid last year . MR. CHERNIACK: Paid to the City of Winnipeg? MR. ENNS: Yes. 1385

Thursday, April 27, 1978 MR. CHERNIACK: And drawn from Capital and therefore included in the $15 million Capital Supply Bill amount? MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman . I repeat again , I now do believe that you are asking the kind of questions that my departmenta l people are not necessarily equipped , nor am I myself , to answer . I say this again without any attempt to evade the questions , I believe that those are questions that have to be answered by the Department of Finance and will be answered by the Department of Finance .

We have not the final authority in terms of how and where Capital moneys have been moved from one column to another column . The Member for St. Johns as a former Minister of Financ e is qu ite aware of how that does take place and has taken place during his period of time in office and under other governments .

I would suspect that possibly what this whole debate is demonstrating better than anything else, and certainly anyth ing the government could do , is the wisdom of getti ng away from an obviously archaic and hard to understand system of accounting and to in fact go to the combined accounting system that has been adopted by the new govern ment where at least a year from now we will not be repeating this debate .

But the accounts were always kept straight and the accou nts here , I believe, will be straightened out as far as the cash flow is concerned except for - and the Minister knows full well what I am getting at- except for the fact that in tue intervening period there was a change in government and the new government was full of protestations about improvident spend in9 and tremendous deficits and a mess and a horror and the Minister , unfortunately- unless he enjoys it- is caught in that position of having to justify the extravagant statements made by his government.

Therefore , we are in the position of try ing to figure out how truthful were those figures . So when the Minister of Finance says, "Why, in Highways we are jumping from $41 million to $75 milli on , which is one-third over ," we question that. Then we find out - for one thing we wondered whether this government had gone wacky on Highway programs when it was cutting everyth ing else, soc ial services , human resources -so we wondered , is are they really nuts , are they really prepared to forget the services been called to question from ti me to time by members - I remind the Hon ourab le Member for St.

Johns by members perhaps from both sides of the House , but I can indicate to the hono urable member that the practice that undoubtedly was followed by that administration , by the previous administration and indeed by this administration , that certainly any Government Information Services bulle ti ns emanating out of my office , unde r the Minister of Highways , requ ires scrutiny and initialling or signature for approva l. I can assure the honourable members that that particular Governmen t Information Services bulletin never was seen in the Departme nt o f Highways .

It bears not the signature of my Deputy Minister nor my own . Now , as to the greater question and , you know , we are satisfied and I am satisfied that the record of this committee will show clearly and succ inctly the total moneys that Highways spent last year on actual road construction . And I remind the Honourable Member for St. Johns that you are speaking to a Highways Minister and his engineers , and his administrators , and his staff of the Department of Highways , and not the Department of Finance .

And I simp ly ask once again , with some request for some reasonableness on the part of the honourable member , that he first of all accept the correctness of the figures that were presented to him the other evening as the actual amount spent on highways last year- that is the $68 million- and as to the actual amount of new construction , we want to keep it to the area of construction that we are asking for on the right-hand side of the column to spend this year- $75 million .

And that there can be no dispute - at least between the members on this committee - as to the actual increase in Highways spend ing th is year . Now , I further ask the honourable member that the manner and way in which, through a transitional period , capital funds were carried over from not just the previous year but from three , four , five previous years , were accomplished that it is not an unfair request to make of the honourable members of this committee that those quest ions be directed to the Minister of Finance . MR. CHERNIACK: Mr.

Chairman , I really understand the position of the Minister of Highways . I want to say this: Th at we gave him an opportu nity yesterday to clarify this situation for the entire Budget , when he voted against a motion that would have canc elled and lapsed all previous cap ital authority and then would have made , particu larly his statement , apparently , his Estimates , crystal clear . Since he has told us that there is no carr y forward of capital moneys in his Estimates , then his would stand on their own feet without any fudg ing as occurred in the Department of Agriculture .

And had he agreed to that , and I'm not blam ing him for not doing it; well , I am. That's not true ; I am blaming him . It would have been crystal clear . So 1 will leave it at this : To point out to him that these are his Estimates , that there is a Reconciliation State ment on the first page of his Estimates wh ich show a cap ital authority used in the last fisca l year totalling something in excess of $25 million ; that that has not been clarified to us. What he has clarified to us is a Cap ital Supply Bill of $15 million . If he is not able to do that , then let's just leave it that he is not able to do it.

But there is a tremendous discrepancy between the $25 million , the two items shown in the Reconc iliation Statement of his Estima tes, and his own statement wh ich he was kind enough to give me today , wh ich showed a Cap ital Supply Bill of $15,246.8 mill ion and a federal contribution of $12,088,000.00. 1 point that out because I don 't have that breakdown and I do n't know why I have to wait for the Minister of Finance to deal with every depa rtment seriatim in order to expla in to me the reconc iliat ion they made. 1386

Thursday, April 27, 1978 Having said that, I am prepared to move on because it's a non-productive exercise to keep pressing the Minister to give answers to which he and his Deputy are not privy . So I am prepared to move on, unless he wants to respond to what I have said and then I'll move on. MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , I am not prepared to leave on the record the suggestion that the Minister and the Department of Highways are not absolutely clear with their position that they presently face financially with in the department. And that is that there is no carryover capital.

That, of course, is somewhat different than the situation facing this committee in the matter of the discussion of the Department of Agriculture , for instance . And I want to make that very clear. That's been made very clear to us by Finance , that we are in fact in the combined request for capital expenditures for this year in effect leaving no carryover capital in any accounts . We are abundantly clear as to how and where the moneys requested for on the right-hand side of the Estimates - where they are coming from and precisely how much .

What we are not quite clear about , and what I am suggesting is not quite cricket to ask us to attempt to put us into the corner on , in terms of how , dur ing the transition period, various previously voted capital funds- carryover capital funds- were handled by the Department of Finance . I think that is a legitimate request to make of the honourable members of the committee that that matter be dealt with on Monday, or at the earliest possible moment , with the Minister of Finance.

I might also add that I reject the statement that has been made, not just on my Estimates but to the Minister of Agr icultu r e, that have been made just a few moments ago by the Member for St. Johns that this , in effect , was your last opportunity to raise this matter in the Department of Highways . It is not your last opportunity to raise this matter w ith respect to the Department of Highways, or any other department that you have dealt with. There are other opportunities open to members in the House , concurrence motions that are moved on the final consideration of Estimates and additional moments .

If I had my House Leader here, he would undoubtedly indicate some other occasions where the matter can be raised specifically with respect to each individual department. So members of the opposition are not losing an opportunity by deferring for a moment this information that really has become apparent to all members without, I may add, without a partisan bent to it. That obviously it's information that is being sought that can be given only to the satisfaction of members of this committee by staff and the Minister of Finance. MR. CHERNIACK: Mr.

Chairman , there is really no disagreement between the Minister and I. I'm sorry for that grammatical error; there is no difference between the Minister and me on the question of what he knows and what he is expected to know in relation to his Estimates. I must caution my colleagues not to be entirely misled by him on the question of further opportunities.

There are many opportunities that he and I can point out where you can make a speech, but this is the only opportunity you really have to talk to the Minister and expect an answer, and have an opportunity to press a question and he has the staff herewith him to respond. So that this is the only real opportunity to do it. Oh, I must also say that I don 't believe that cricket is part of his cultural heritage , nor mine. So, I'm not sure that playing cricket is the way that he and I have learned to govern ourselves. The Member for St.

Vital, that's part of his cultural heritage although I suspect that soccer is more like it. In any event, Mr. Chairman , let's get to the $65 million estimated actual expenditure. Now I want to know, was the money actually disbursed? Up to what date was it actually paid out? Now, that is within the knowledge of the department. MR. ENNS: My information is that that was the actual amounts of moneys paid out by the end of our calendar year , March 31st. MR. CHERNIACK: That means then that it does not include commitments made, contracts, work in progress, that none of that is included in that $65 million? MR.

ENNS: In the Department of Highways, and we've discussed it at some length with the other members of the committee here , we have - and again it's admittedly perhaps confusing in the manner and way in which we have used the term "carry-over programs" . I was asked earlier by the Member for Ste. Rose, were separate moneys set aside to carry on the carry-over construction program of highways.

Well , when we refer to a carry-over program in the construction aspect of highways, it simply means that physically that road wasn't built last year for contractual delays orfor weather delays or for other reasons because we didn't get the right to acquire the land, that that carry-over is put into this year's new construction program and the moneys allocated to it, is $75 million that we intend to expend on this year 's construction program encompasses both carry-over programs that weren 't finished last year and new programs initiated this year . MR. CHERN lACK: I understand that , Mr.

Chairman, what I'm asking specifically is that work was being done somewhere by that department on March 31st and the next day, the next morning at 8:00 o'clock or whatever the crew reported back to work. I want to know whether this figure of $65 million included payment for March 31st work and/or included payment for April 1 work? MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , any payments made by the Department of Highways, commencing April 1st, come out of the new Budgets , out of the $75 million that we are now asking for . 1387

Thursday, April 27, 1978 MR. CHERNIACK: Well , then it is clear that this approximate $65 million item is actual dollars paid out up to March 31st. MR. ENNS: That is correct. MR. CHERNIACK: And that means that there is no pre-payment of any kind fo r work yet to be done , is that correct? MR. ENNS: I think if you refer to the list that I gave you , I speak to the Ho nourable Member for St. Johns , that the final figure of the actual expenditure in the extreme right hand side of the sheet which indicates some $65,600,000, the letters "est." are in front of that.

There is in terms of the final closing up of the books , you know , there could be another $100,000 or min us $100,000 in there . MR. CHERNIACK: I'm clear on the fact that the figure is not exact , but I am clear that I am being told that whatever the final figure will be it will be moneys that were actually paid up to and including March 31 and nothing beyond that. Now , I have to come back and point out to the Honourable Ministe r, and I think that although he wants to defer all this for the Minister of Finance , he has to know th is. I pointed out some discrepancies to him .

I point out a further discrepancy to him , in my mind, and that is that he told us that the cupboard was bare , but the fact is that I believe there is still money in general pu rposes carried forward from previous years . Whether he will get that or not will be a matter for him yet to fight out , but there is money and indeed the money that he shows in his column entitled "capital supply bill ", was not actually voted by the Legislature to the Department of Highways, but really allocated by Management Comm ittee I assume and is less than the amount that was expected to be available to Highways .

So I want the Honourable Minister to know that altho ugh he was given the impression or maybe some decision was made - that he cannot tap unauthorized , un allocated capital availability, it is still there in my opinion , I've yet to get that information . I also point out to the Honourable Minister that according to the unaudited nine month statement and his governmen t is now producing quarterly reports and no doub t expects us to be influenced by what we learn , that in the Highways program in the first nine months of the fiscal year , over $33 million was expended out of capital.

I'm told that there is are a recovery of $1 .5 million on that , so that would be in any event, in excess of $30 million taken out of cap ital in the first nine months , wh ich does not quite jibe with the figures that the Minister has given to us and I tell him that, because I think he will want to ascertain for himself how this bookkeeping has been carried out for his own knowledge even though he is not able to tell us that now . Now , Mr. Chairman , I want to move to this year.

The Minister knows that he is expecting to spend $75 million on the highway construction program of wh ich some $24 millio n is work in progress or wo rk planned in the previous year and he expects that this wi ll be an actual expenditure , not just a commitment.

Can he indicate - no, I won 't go in that directio n - can he just get the information for us, I assume that it's not available yet , what portion of the $65 million was paid out up to say Novembe r 1st and what portion after November 1st, 1977, in the light of the fact that there are figures here that are already in the unaudited third quarter stateme nt. MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman, I would have to take that kind of a quest ion as notice . MR. CHAIRMAN : The Member for St. Johns, or can we move on to another member? MR. CHERNIACK : Not at this stage , thank you . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Ste. Rose. MR.

ADAM: Yes, Mr. Chairm an. no doubt the Minister is having some problems in this transitional period that is causing some .. MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , I am not having any problems at all , I've got $75 million to build some highways in the provinc e of Manitoba for which I'm very grateful and happy and I am going to do my best job at doing that , I've got no problems . MR. ADAM: Mr. Chairman , the Mini ster is having problems to answer questions posed to him which he states that . . . MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , on a point of order . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Highways . MR. ENNS: On a point of order .

I'm not having any problem with questions that are appropriately posed towards me or the members of my staff. The kind of questions that are being posed are, as has been said before . more appropriately posed to the Department of Finance . 1388

Thursday, April 27, 1978 MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: Mr. Chairman , the questions that we are asking the Minister , he indicates should be posed to the Department of Finance and the problem that we have is that the Minister is asking us to pass certain Estimates for Highways and we are being asked to do this without having all the answers .

I would point out to the Min ister that in the Department of Agriculture they had at times, three members from the Department of Finance to assist the Minister of Agriculture to answer some of the questions that were posed to him , and I'm wondering why the Department of Agriculture could have staff here from the Finance Department to try and clarify some of these matters for us, and the Minister of Highways is unable to or doesn 't want to. MR. ENNS: Well , Mr. Chairman , -(lnterjection)- MR. ADAM: Mr. Chairman , on a point of privilege .

We have I know a financier from Minnedosa here but I wish he would ask you , Sir , if he wants to take the floor and make his contr ibution . Otherwise he should keep quiet. MR. BLAKE: I don't understand it either , Peter , but I keep my mouth shut ; I'm not like you . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Highways . MR. ENNS: Mr. Cha irman , I just refuse to leave on the record that the Department of Highways is in any way presented wit h difficulties in understanding what they are about to do or what they are requesting this Committee to do .

We are requesting this Committee to pass a total of some $160 million to enable the department to proceed with its work in this construction year, of which $75 million is for new construction composed of $23 million or $24 million, approximately , of carry-over work ; composed of some $80-plus million of moneys necessary for the maintenance of our highways. Now , there is absolutely nothing fudgy about it; there is nothing unc lear about it and there is noth ing that should be troubling the members of this Committee's minds in terms of their immedia te responsibility in addressing themselves to these Estimates.

If yo u want to take issue with the fact that the Department of Highways or this Minister is not spending enough money then raise those questions . If you want to take issue with this Minister or the department that we are not spending the money in the right places, then take issue with the Minister or the department. Or in fact , if you think that we are spending too much money and we should be spending less money , then take issue with us on that matter. But that surely is the purpose of the Committee at this particular time , to deal with these Estimates .

And if you think that in these Estimates we have a disproportionate amount of moneys set aside for a particular part of the department ; or if you think that we have too many administrators and not enough actua l maintenance people ; or if you think the Department of Highways is running too many vehicles ; or what have you , that surely is the question before this Committee. Or if you think that the department is building lousy highways or using the wrong mater ials or building bridges where they shouldn 't be built - these are the questions that the Committee wants to deal with.

I am merely point ing out and I want to leave on the record -and I have to make this kind of statement, I'll desist in the future - but the repeated attempts by individual members of the Committee to suggest that (

a) the Department of Highways doesn't know what they are doing or that this Minister doesn 't know what he is doing , simply are not correct. You may not like what we are doing and that is entirely a fair comment around this Committee . Members on my side of the House are not going to express total agreement with the manner and way in which the $75 million of new construction money is being spent and that is fair game .

But you are attempting , and it is now becoming obvious that it is a deliberate attempt on the part of the opposition that they are not really concerned about the Highways programs as such; they are not really concerned about whether roads are being built or where they ought to be bu ilt. They are more prepared to keep repeating the question that is simply not appropriate for the Department of Highways to consider at this time. Thank you , Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: 1.(b)(1 )-pass - the Member for St. Johns . MR.

CHERN lACK: I can 't let rest on the record the statement by the Minister of Highways that we are not concerned with the roads , the construction of the roads , the locat ion of the roads, the program itself ; that is not true , not at all true. I sat here and I heard discussions and I even participated in my mind about the highway and I can tell the Minister exactly what highway I was considering debat ing except for the fact that he was amenable to a suggestion by the Member for Lac du Bonnet , so it is an untrue statement. But , Mr.

Chairman , let us get something else straight and that is the posture of this government , this Conservative government , of straightening out all the loose ends , cleaning up the mess, taking care of all the horrors- and incidentally , I ave not heard any horror stories yet from this Minister on this department. But , Mr. Cha irman , what we have to know is what moneys are being planned to be spent , and the Minister of Highways told us what he is expecting to spend . So did the Minister of 1389

Thursday, April 27, 1978 Agriculture . But it took a little while for us to find out that he was planning to spend $3.5 million more, more than 10 percent more than his Estimates showed . And the reason that he was able to plan to spend it is because of unlapsed authority of a Capital nature. Now the Minister of Highways has told us that his program is $161 million and that is what he is going to spend .

But until we know and have an assurance that there is no money available to him under any Capital Authority in existence today, then we don't really have the assurance that that is all that will be spent in the department except what would be otherwise be raised by Special Warrant. And the problem is that the government chose to put it that way . And the problem is that the Minister of Finance chose to present it that way and say that the combined spending of the province will be kept to 2.9 percent , which we now know is not true.

Therefore, I have been pressing the Minister to the stage where I now am satisfied that he doesn't have the answer in th at respect and I understand why he doesn't. I'm not saying that in criticism of him although he has been around the last couple of days and maybe he could have acquainted himself of the facts, but he hasn't and I understand that. But the fact is that I don't know to this moment how much , if any, Capital Authority is still available to be used for Highways . And he doesn't know that either ; I believe that. If he knew it I think he would tell us.

But the fact is that when we have the knowledge that as of March 31 , 1977, there was $27 million in General Purposes and another $82 million was voted last year and we do not yet know how that money was spent or how much of it was spent , we can assume- and I think we can assume with a great deal of certainty- that there is still Genera l Purposes money available to the government if it chooses to use it. I point out that his posture was combined spend ing as revealed here and we now know it isn't.

But when I gave the Premier who was here at the time - (Interjection)- Yes, he was ... . and members of the oppositio n, I pleaded with them to speak and they wouldn't , and then we had a vote to say cancel that , get rid of that unknown, unrevealed amount and start from scratch and I believe that the Minister honestly plans that there will be no other moneys coming to him other than is in this department but he can't say it because his government has not made it possible for him to say it.

So let him not say we are not interested in this Highways program , nor what he is planning to build, nor how he is planning to build it. We are and we are debatin~ that. But he cannot get out of the fact that we have a right to know how much, whence and what is bemg planned , and he doesn 't know that. MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , I will again not attempt to go out of my way to continue this debate which by the Member for St. Johns own admission is proving not to be productive any longer.

But let me not leave on the record his implication that the Department of Highways is aware of or has additional moneys under the table, up their sleeve, anywhere else other than those shown and requested from this committee , and I remind the committee members that that is the purpose of this committee . I am asking this committee to give me authority to spend $160 million on Manitoba highways this year, combined .

I must also tell the committee that I asked for more and the members of my caucus asked for more , but I can tell the members of this committee in as clear and precise a way as I can that the government of the day has seen fit to give the Department of Highways $160,545,400 and not a penny more , and that there are no unexpended capital moneys that I can draw on or lean on . I have been advised by Finance that that is the situation and that is alii can do. Now, if the Member for St.

Johns wishes to cast doubt or wishes to leave implications that somewhere somebody has more money coming for highways , then that question I respectfully submit has to be asked to the Minister of Finance . MR. CHAIRMAN: Member for St. Johns . MR. CHERNIACK: Mr. Chairman , we are still not in disagreement. I did not suggest that the Department of Highways has hidden under the table money available to it. I had reason to and proved that that was the case in Agriculture. I do not have reason to and I don't assert that that is the case in the Highways.

I just want the Honourable Minister to know that it is my conviction that there is money available to the government to be used under the general purposes

section of Loan Acts which could be used for Highways and it is not a question of the department being able to draw on it but it is clearly the possibility of the government drawing on it and alloca ting it to Highways . Now this Minister, I don 't know what he will do if he discovers that he's got a good case to spend another $10 million , the weather is good , the season is right and says to the Management Comm ittee or to his own Cabinet , " I know there is $10 million still in unused capita l authority from 1976 or 1975, I would like it", and he could get it if he is persuasive enough.

I would not fault him for it, except for the fact that he is making the statement so clear that th is is all he is going to get on a combined spending basis . The only problem is that in the Department of Agriculture we had that impression , we found it to be wrong and the other problem is that his Minister of Finance has confused the issue by statements he made.

The only fault I attributed earlier to the Minister of Highways was that he apparently knew for some time that the report of the government agency , I don 't know whether heads have rolled there yet , is incorrect, and he knew that for some time and didn 't reveal that quite as quickly as he would like to think he did . That is maybe the only fault I have for him , I really don 't blame him for not knowing enough about the capital structure of the government for last year, it's not for him to know .

I don't think I've disagreed with him as to what he knows and what he is saying he knows and I'm not suggesting that he is concealing information from us, but he shou ld know th at there is, I'm qu ite sure , money available that could be allo cated to the Department of Highways if the Cab inet sees so fit to 1390

Thursday, April 27, 1978 do. Therefore I don 't have the assurance that that is all he's going to spend especially since they refused to lapse all that capital authority yesterday and voted against it which means they want to have that nest egg . They want it to be available , that is the only

interpretation I can give . If they want it to be available , then it is availab le, then the posture of a 2.9 percent only increase which has already been proven wrong continues to be suspect . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Selk irk. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Chairman , I just want to say that I regret very much the utterances by the Minister of Highways that the Members of the Opposition are not interested in discussing the road program .

We spent all afternoon discussing particulars relat ing to the highway program as distributed by the Minister of Highways himsel f and that discussion was of such a nature that it dealt with actual road construct ion . Now , for the Min ister of Highways to over -react as he had this evening to questions posed to him by the Member for St.

Johns , is simply because he doesn 't feel all that secure in dealing with some of the areas raised and wishes to relate those to the Min ister of Finance , and as a result thereof to suggest that the oppos ition party is not interested in his highways program only indicates to me that the Minister unfortunately is demonstrating an over sensitivity in this respect. I do wish that the Minister would withdraw his utte rances because for the entire afternoon we've discussed the road program as per this booklet as was distribu ted by the Minister . We have posed questions to him .

We dealt with the prog ram in some detail and I find it very sad that after half an hour of the Minister discu ssing finances with the Member for St. Johns , he should launch into an attack , that the opposition therefore is not interested in his road program. I do feel that the Minister would like to correct the record in that respect particularly when the ent ire afternoon 's discuss ion which will be recorded in Hansard indicates the very reverse . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Minnedosa . MR. BLAKE: Mr.

Chairman , just further to the remarks of the Member for Selkirk , I feel that I should also con tribute something to the record because while we did discuss the highway program this afternoon, it was pretty obvious the tack that the opposition members were on . The two former Finance Ministers were tied up with the Department of Education Estimates asking exactly the same questions that they are asking here , and they are hopping from one committee to another because they think they are on to something with the type of bookkeeping that is being brought into play.

There is no question about it , the methods that they are using , try to embarrass the Minister on his Estimates because there is some little foggy area in the method of showing the capital or carry-over expenditures . Mr. Chairman, it is obvious what the two former Finance Ministers who are fully conversant with the method of accounting that is being employed and know the answers and they are just hopping from one committee to another and tying up the discussion on the Estimates. The Member for Selkirk can protest all he wants but he knows exactly what is going on . MR. PAWLEY: Mr.

Chairman , on a point of privilege . If the Member for Minnedosa felt he was bailing the Minister of Highways out of the stream, he only succeeded in pushing the Minister in a little deeper . MR. BLAKE: Nobody has to bail him out. MR. PAWLEY: I can't speak for other members of the committee but it certainly . MR. BLAKE: That's why you made progress this afternoon because they were both in there at the other committee , and you know it. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Chairman , I do have the floor .

I bel ieve that it is not fair, it is not correct and it's unfortunate that the Member for Minnedosa should impute motives to those that entered into detailed discussion this afternoon in connection with the Highways Estimates . He knows that he is misleading the committee in his references and he is contributing not one iota to the enhancement of his own position in launching into such a harangue , and he has embarrassed I believe the Minister of Highways . MR. BLAKE: The harangue has been launched by the two former Finance Ministers, that's where your harangue is. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR.

USKIW: Mr. Chairman , the Member for Minnedosa alleges that the discussion that we had with respect to the change of government accounting did not serve any public good or purpose. (Interjection)- Well , Mr.

Chairman, the Member for Minnedosa is suggesting that the opposition is trying to project an image that isn't there when in fact in the debate on Agriculture we found out that we were quite right , that there were moneys hidden, that the government was not honest in its presentation with respect to its intended spending and that that came about as a result of a change of bookkeeping which was not properly noted in the Estimates so that the Committee could properly 1391

Thursday, April 27, 1978 understand those Estimates. That came out after a great deal of questioning . Now , Mr. Chairman, I don 't think you can fault the Members of the Opposition for pursuing each department in order to determine how many additional millions of dollars tha t we might uncover that the government is spending without having shown in the Estimates .

That's the exercise and I'm afraid that unless the government comes up with a statement for all departments showing how many dollars they intend to spend that are not in the printed Estimates , then the only way we can get at that is by pursuing every department individually. They could save a lot of time if the government was prepared to give us a statement saying , "These are the printed Estimates ; these are the additional amounts we intend to spend that you have not seen on the Estimates sheets." And if that were done , we would not have this problem .

Now , the Minister of Highways indicates that he doesn't have knowledge of any additional funds that might be available to him . He didn 't say that there wouldn 't be any , Mr. Chairman ... MR. ENNS: We could say we've got hope for a few more bucks certa inly and I'll take every buck I can . MR. USKIW: I think that's fair game; the Minister hopes that he might get more money for Highways construction . But , Mr. Chairman , there are sums of money available, as the Member for St.

Johns has indicated, in General Purposes Capital voted in previous years but unspent, and it is quite possible that Highways may receive a portion of those funds for this year's program , additional to the proposed Estimates that they have illustrated for this Committee . So I can't agree with the Member for Minnedosa that the opposition is unfair in pursuing that question department by department , unless we were presented with a statement by the government covering the whole government, all the departments and agencies , with respect to its total spending intentions .

In the absence of that, we have no choice , Mr. Chairman . MR. CHAIRMAN: To the Members of the Committee, I don 't think the Member for Minnedosa said that the opposition was unfair . He was explaining what he thought their tactic was, in his opinion . (Interjection)- Oh , it wasn't gentlemanly? MR. ENNS: I don 't think we should be having too much editorial comment from the Chairman , do you think so ... ? MR.

CHAIRMAN: I know that we are going to have at least an hour to three hours on that matter of finance on every Committee and as Chairman , I know it is coming and I'm prepared to accept it. 1.(b)(1 )-pass- the Member for St. George. MR. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman , I have to also go on the record because of the statements made by the Member for Minnedosa where he imputed motives to the members on this side that they really weren't interested in discussing the Highways portfolio . Mr. Chairman, I for one sat here and I don't intend to come to Committee and waste my time .

I was rather pleased with the response and the answers and the questions that are raised with the Minister of Highways in terms of the specific areas of program that he has presented .

But the fact still remains and I raised it the other night where the Honourable Minister himself said, "Argue with me if I'm not spending enough ." The fact of the matter is your Finance Minister in his press release came out and said that Highways Estimates were up and I will quote from the press release : "Highways spending as shown in the printed Estimates is up by one-third , from $120 million in 1977-78 to $160.5 million in 1978-79." Now we have the Minister of Highways , and rightly so, the other night saying , "Look, my Estimates are really not up by one-third; they are really an increase ...

" I think if I recall his words , it was," .. . of somewhere around 8 percent." So, I take him at his word. But the fact of the matter is that the method of presentation as made by the Minister of Finance has created a totally erroneous impression not only to the Members of the Opposition but to everyone in this province , saying , "Hey , look, they are going to build an awful lot of roads . MR. BLAKE: It even fooled your leader. MR. URUSKI: That is correct ; it fooled everybody.

And now the Member for Minnedosa wants to go out and suggest and say, "Look , you have no business questioning how these finances are," when in fact his own Minister of Finance came up and made a statement to the effect they were up by one third and the Minister of Highways says 8 percent. Now , who do we believe? -(Interjections)- Who do we believe? The Minister of Highways comes in here and says, "Look , I am not building as many roads as the Ministe r of Finance said." You know, as a matter of fact, all his colleagues weren't sure of who to believe .

They sat here dumbfounded the other night when I made the statement. I said, "Gentlemen, look, there are not going to be any more roads built this year than there were in the previous years ." And the Minister of Highways agreed with that. Mr. Chairman , there is no doubt that the comments made by the Member for Minnedosa certainly are not to be treated seriously in the comments that he made because he certainly , I believe , really 1392

Thursday, April 27, 1978 didn 't mean what he was talking about. And if he did , he certainly should apologize to the Members of this Committee . MR. CHAIRMAN: Is the Member for St. George finished? MR. URUSKI: Yes. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Membe r for Selkir k. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Chairman , I wonder if the Minister of Highways, in view of the fact that the questions have not been cleared up that were posed by the Member for St. Johns ; in view of the fact that when we did sit with the Minister of Agriculture, Department of Finance officials were called in, and I must say, Mr.

Chairman , they did an excellent job, I thought , of assisting us in arriving at answers so that when we left the Department of Agriculture we knew exactly, clearly and precisely what the true picture was- if the Minister of Highways himself would not wish to reconsider the approach he is taking . Because in the approach that he is taking , he is leaving doubt , he is leaving uncertainty . He is rely ing upon a prem ise that at some point the Minister of Finance is going to arrive and to resolve all these unanswered question .

But we don 't need that if he would pursue the route that was followed by the Min ister of Agriculture , and I would commend the Ministe r of Agriculture for the route which he took -I think it was a sensible one , a constructive one- if the Ministe r of Highways , in view of the fact also that that precede nt has been estab lished , if he would not call in the Finance off icials so that we know before we leave this department exactly what the financial picture is, so that the Minister of Highways himself would know that he has dealt with all problems relevant to his own department. MR.

CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Highways . MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , I now do have to take except ion to the line of questioning that is being put to the Ministry . Firstly , and recognizing because I did sit in part of the Department of Agriculture's Estimates where the Department of Agriculture clearly indicated that he was in effect planning to use some unexpended Capital moneys , which then caused a considerable amount of debate and some confusion with respect to how those moneys were accounted for in his Estimates.

But what the Members of the Committee now are attempting to do and it is a rather serious matter, you are now questioning the truthfulness of my statements when I and the Deputy Minister sitting beside me indicate to you . .. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Chairman , on a point of privilege . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Selkirk, what is your point of order? MR. PAWLEY: I don't recall at any time questioning the Minister of Highways ' truthfulness . The Minister of Highways very clearly advised the Committee that he was unable to answer all the questions being posed to him by the Member for St. Johns .

He begged for an opportunity to have those questions referred to the Minister of Finance and all that was suggested by myself, that he might wish to consider calling Finance officials to this Committee as soon as possible so that it could be dealt with here , not being left to the Finance Minister's Estimates . No one accused him of untruthfulness and it is unfortunate that the Minister apparently wished to throw a red herring into the discussion between him and myself in that connection . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Highways . MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman , that is precisely the point that I am making and if the honourable member was listening, the situation that arose in the Department of Agriculture does not exist here. I have indicated to you clearly , with staff beside me, that these are the total expenditures being requested by this Committee to vote .

Now, the questions that are being raised as to whether or not they will be in effect the final figures - certainly there is the opportunity of, I suppose if for some unforeseen reason and for that very reason that mechan ism is there, if we find out that in the end of our construction year that we have overspent by half a million dollars or $200,000, then the requirement is there and the former Attorney General is well aware of it - the Special Warrant is there to cover precisely those oversights .

But there is no attempt being made here , and it has been made very clear , to suggest that these are in total the figures that the department is asking for to expend on Highways. Now , that wasn't quite the same situation with respect to Agriculture . But the members are persisting to attempt to bring the same set of circumstances into this department's considerations of Estimates. We have indicated to you that the Department of Finance has indicated to us that we have exhausted any Capital moneys available to the Department of Highways in this current year and that these are the total moneys .

Now , any . other way that you want to cut it, if you want to persist on that line of questioning , leaving the implications that you are not being given the full information as to how much money the department requires for this year's operation , then there can be no other

interpretation on it, that you are simply not accepting the veracity of the statements being given to you by the Minister 1393

Thursday, April 27, 1978 of Highways and by the Department of Highways. 1 might also suggest , you know , that it has occurred to me that the devious manne r and way in which funds were shuffled back and forth in the last eight years -(Inte rjections)- Well , where all of a sudden the Department of Highways found itself responsible fo r $1 million to purchase buses , where we find ourselves shuffled into responsib ility for providing funds for northern winter roads . More appropriately it should have been in the Department of Northern Affai rs. Or any other way.

You know, you fellows have had considerab le experience in that area.

But I'm telling you and I am indicat ing to you that for not the first, second or third time but in fact when 1 said earlier- and I have no difficulty acknowledgi ng that we did discuss the actual road building program this afternoon - but I would want to remind honourable members of the Committee and the records would show it, if we took a look at the transcripts of the period of time spent to date on Highways , remembering the full evening several nights ago when we started on Highways , which was devoted entirely to the matters of finance and again tonight, the hour and a half spent to date has been devoted to finance - so, yes, we put in an hour on the road bu ilding construction .

I let the record stand for itself with respect to any remarks that I made about the true interest that the members opposite have shown with respect to getting on with the business of the Department of Hig hways . But I have to leave on the record and I refute categorically the suggest ion that we have a diff iculty here. You gentlemen are manufacturing a difficulty here , or attempting to manufacture a difficulty here where none exists . We are not indicating to you , have not ind icated to you tuat we intend to spend some unexpended capital authority , in fact we have indicated precisely the opposite .

We've indicated to you that we intend to spend $160 million this year. We've indicated where the $160 million is coming from . We spent a good deal of time with that the othe r night and the Member for St. Johns accepts the veracity of the statements as to where the money is coming from. What you are speculating about is will I maybe spend more . Well , if you can't accept the statement that I will not be spending more then I have no other alternative but to simply accept the fact that you are not prepared to accept the Minister 's statement as to what his spending plans are for the Department of Highways .

I happen to have a reasonably high regard, a regard that was thrown in some disrepute I might say for the legislative process that when the Estimates are passed and finally passed in the Legislature that that is the authority that I have given to me by the people of Manitoba to spend in the departments that I've got the responsibility for, knowing that there may be contingency situations arising where using the tools available to any government , a Special Warrant may be requ ired to cover unexpected nominal increases in costs .

I can assure the honourable members opposite that the Special Warrant tool will not be used with such unlimited degree that was used in some of the years of the previous administration where upwards of many millions of dollars were raised in this way . That in fact the printed Estimates in the last eight years had a great deal of difficulty in reflecting the actual spending of the government.

Certainly in the last year , the immediate past year of the previous administration didn't reflect the true spending inten tions of the government when as late as in September of last year the Minister of Finance indicated a projected deficit which later proved to be so far from the truth, so far from the truth that it belies description . So, Mr. Chairman, honourable members opposite are among the last to talk about their great concern that these spend ing Estimates as printed on the right hand side of the column accurately and totally reflect the spending intentions of the government.

I will tell you one thing, we will be a hell of a lot closer than you fellows came to it just last year . When I say that , I do not say that with respect to the Department of Highways spendings , it has always shown a remarkable degree of being pretty 1 well dead on in terms of their allotments of moneys received from the Legislature and their actual expenditures . That was proven again by the statements that were made to you with respect to the actual spending of the department last year as compared to the request. So, Mr. Chairman, we can carry on the Debate , but I have no intention of carry it on any more.

I leave very clearly on the record (

a) that I have no difficulty in answering the questions that are indeed app ropriate for this committee to address to the Minister and that are within the jurisdiction , with in the capac ity of me and my staff , to assist the committee in their search for answers and to provide those answers . I reject the kind of implications that are constantly being left on the table that this department has to answer in total , because that's really what it amounts to for the operations of the Department of Finance and how the Department of Finance is raising and allocating dollars . MR. CHAIRMAN: I have three speakers .

In order they are Ste. Rose, Lac du Bonnet and Selki rk. If one of them wants to give up his position in the cycle for the Member for Selkirk , that's fine. The Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: Mr. Chairman , I don't want to leave on the record the statement unchallenged that the Minister made when be said that the opposition think that the Highway Depa rtment don 't know what they are doing. I don't want to leave that on the record , Sir, that is not the case , that is not true . I want to get that straight.

You know the Member for Minnedosa never ceases to amaze us because he makes a statement that two members of this legislative Assembly have no right to come in and ask questions of the Ministers . I think that's ridiculous. Particularly since we found in the Department of Agriculture that there was going to be an additional 11 percen t being spent. That is not the worst situation, but the thing is that it took us 24 hours to wiggle this out. It took us 24 hours to find out that there was going to be 11 percent more . 1394

Thursday, April 27, 1978 MR. ENNS: On a point of order. I want to make this very clear. Iff it means spending 24 hours in this department to wiggle another $5 or $10 million dollars for my department to spend we'll spend the 25 hours. We'll spend the 25 hours. Any and all donations are gratefully received , right about here. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: Now , if the Minister of Agriculture decides to spend the whole $5.134 million, that is a difference of 20 percent over his Estimates. Now , nobody can blame us for asking ques~ions .

The Minister of Finance indicates that the spending for Highways is going to be 30 percent higher than last year's Estimates . The Minister of Highways says it's only 8 percent, that's a difference of 22 percent. MR. ENNS: On a point of order. Again there is this deliberate attempt being made- the Minister of Finance has never indicated that. MR. ADAM: Well , it's right in his

article . MR. ENNS: That is not the Minister of Finance . MR. ADAM: We can read it for your , Sir , if you wish . A MEMBER: What date is that. MR. ADAM: That's March 31st. "The Estimates tabled Wednesday by the Minister of Finance, Don Craik , call for combined expenditures of $1,648,657,800 compared to $1,602,539,400 for the fiscal year ending March 31st, 1978." MR. ENNS: Show me the Minister's signature on it please . MR. ADAM: He indicates that there is a 30 percent increase in his

article here for Highways, and so -(Interjection)- Yes, the million dollars of deficit that occurred in last year's account. On the other hand, only a few weeks ago the Minister of Finance reluctantly had to reveal that there is more money coming from Ottawa than they had been led to believe. There was an upward revision . Therefore , you know, we can have a lot of fun talking about whether we are projecting accurately , or aren 't projecting accurately and whether we are living within the bounds of any set of Estimates from year to the other.

I think the best that can be said about the process is that everyone attempts to present a pretty fair picture as they see it at the time and many circumstances may arise that could change it, significantly or not significantly.

So really the Minister for Agriculture shouldn 't put himself in that untenable position of telling us today that as long as he is involved in government and his government is there that they will not experience those kinds of problems because those are indeed the nature of the problems of government , and they must be for very obvious reasons, and that is that the government is really the body that has to deal with public problems and has to be in a position to respond. Whether they have current capacity, budgetary capacity or not. You know, Mr.

Chairman, a good example is the several millions of dollars that were spent on feed assistance in one year , unbudgeted for . There is an item in the Estimates of the Department of Agriculture of $16,000 for Emergency Measures or assistance . Mr. Chairman, the ueason there is an item in the Estimates is to allow for expenditures of any level, but that there is an item to cover the need . And so you could spend $16,000 or you could spend $16 million or $160 million if that was the desire of the province, the government, the people of Manitoba.

And so that is the nature of the beast and we should not be faulting anyone for having to put up from time to time with either miscalculations of economic performance or emergency situations that arise from time to time. The issue here is not that, Mr. Chairman , the issue here is whether or not we are receiving an honest presentation of the Estimates. That is the only issue and the Minister of Highways has indicated to us that his presentation is indeed accurate and that he does not intend to spend any more money than what we are voting on here in this Committee, which is a total of $160,545,400.00.

So I am prepared to accept that, Mr. Chairman, that that is his intention. However, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Agriculture gave himself a little bit of elbow room in his comments when he said that if there was a need, of course there is always the Special Warrant provision and that they might have to use them but they would be reluctant to do so. Well, I may be wrong, Mr. Chairman , but it seems to me that if you have money under

Schedule "B" Loan Act, General Purposes Capital , I don 't believe that you have to draw a Special Warrant to use any of those dollars. I believe those dollars can be transferred interdepartmentally on the decision of Management Committee . I don 't believe it requires a Special Warrant. Now, I may be wrong but I don't think so. And therefore it is possible that if this department wanted to seize on an opportunity to either complete a project or enter into one that was not planned for and they didn't have any money, it 1395

Thursday, April 27, 1978 is quite conceivable that they could go to their Cabinet meeting , the Minister could , and ask that he receive another $10 million or $15 million out of Unused Capital- General Purposes and that that be transferred to Highways . Now that is conceivable and I wouldn't fault him for it. I want to know from this Minister whether he is telling us that under no circumstances is he going to draw or ask that moneys be drawn from General Purposes Capital and that the only procedure that he would employ in expanding his program beyond $160 million is by means of a Special Warrant.

Perhaps that would help us if he would tell us which procedure he would use, or if any . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Selkirk . MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Chairman , I am somewhat taken back by the Minister 's long-winded response to a question which I posed to him ... MR. ENNS: I haven't said a word in the last half-hour . MR. PAWLEY: But you did speak for the half-hour prior to that. I want to say to the Minister that the government is stewing in its own juice .

It attempted to create the impression that it replaced a government which was excessive in its spending habits; a government which had piled up an enormous debt and on the other hand it was a government which was trimm ing down on expenses . Well, Mr. Chairman , in the last month we have discovered that the deficit was $40 million to $50 million less than what had been projected , reluctantly acknowledged by the Minister of Finance .

We found out in the Ministry of Agriculture that there was an over $5 million expenditure which was going to be used which hadn 't been indicated earlier, $5 million more that this government was going to spend than what it was representing to the public of Manitoba . Then this Minister , this Minister befo re us is amazed and taken back and surprised that the opposit ion wishes to question him . Immediately he assumes because the opposition is wishing to question him, that we are questioning his honesty , his truthfulness.

I don't recall using the word "honesty" or "truthfulness" at any point but what I did ask the Minister was if he would consider bringing forth, around him , Finance officials , as the Minister of Agriculture did , to answer the questions which were posed to him by the Member for St. Johns ' which he chose not to answer . I want to just leave it at that. If the Minister wishes to continue this debate, he may do so for the next half-hour, but the Minister , with his government , is stewing in its own juice.

They have created the situation; the opposition will make no apologies for questioning Minister by Minister its expenditures because we are intending to demonstrate that there has been somewhat of a hoax being perpetrated upon Manitobans by the present government. MR. CHAIRMAN: 1.(b)(1 )-pass ; 1.(b)(2)-pass ; 1.(

c) Computer Services-pass-the Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: I wonder if the Minister could give us some information on the Computer Services. There seems to be an increase- is there 4 '12 or 5 '12 more SMYs than last year? There is a $25,000 increase on both items, I believe, approximately $25,000.00. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Highways. MR. ENNS: On Item (1) there is an increase of $25,000 as noted by the Member for Ste. Rose which provides for '12 additional SMY programming .

It provides for a general salary increase and normal annual increment provision which again is not precise, but a percentage figure has been put in there . MR. ADAM: This list shows 5 '/2 SMYs more in Computer Services, or there is 1 '12 term less, is that it, the decrease? Yes, that's a decrease . MR. ENNS: We have done a little moving between department to Computer Services and we end up with a net gain of 1/2 SMY. MR. ADAM: Could the Minister give us an outline of what is happening in the Computer Services? MR.

ENNS: This division provides for staff, programmers, keypunch operators, etc ., equipment and expenses for Highways Division computer systems requirements . Highways has their own remote terminal with printers and does their own keypunching , giving the department remote access to the main computer and better control over the programming in computer operation . Wherever possible , the department takes advantage of systems that have already been developed by other Highway jurisdictions, resulting in substantial savings in the development cost. How 's that? MR. ADAM: That's good .

Do we contract any of this computer work out? MR. ENNS: No, I believe that it is done all internally , not to date in any event. MR. CHAIRMAN: (c)(1)-pass ; (c)(2)-pass . Because of the Ministe r's Salary, we don't pass Item 66; we go on to Item 67 - Management Services and Engineering . 1396

Thursday, April 27, 1978 2.(a)(1) - Salaries and Wages $527,000-pass- the Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chairman , I would like to ask the Minister to give us a statement on their tendering policies . There are a number of ways to tender for work to be done or for a product to be supplied and I am wondering whether the Min ister can indicate whether there has been any change since the new government assumed its responsibilities in the tendering process? MR. ENNS: I am advised , Mr. Chairman , that there has been no change. MR. USKIW: Can I be then more spec ific , Mr. Chairman .

A contract can be let or tendered either in whole or in several parts and of course the department could decide whether it wants to deal with several contractors who happen to collect ively have put in bids that total up less, or a contract can be tendered in whole and then that contractor sub lets to othe r people in the industry. What is the procedure of the department with respect to that quest ion? Do they tender large contracts or do they allow small contractors to bid on port ions? Is there an opportunity for small contractors to participate? MR.

ENNS: In most instanc es, partly in some instances because of rather stringent bonding provis ions , the very small contracto r finds hims elf not always in a posit ion to tender . We deal in the main with the prime contractor but exert no furth er influence on whether or not that prime contractor then wishes to suble t parts and portions of that work to smaller contractors. MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman , if I could pursue it further , if we are going to tender out 20 miles of highway construction, I suppose one could have that go out in one block or one could invite tenders from two or three people who might do eight miles each , so to speak, and one would have to see the result s of that tendering process to know which would be more economical for the province . Perhaps the department has experience in that regard and perhaps maybe they can indicate why they have chosen the route that they have taken , whatever it is. MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman , that decision is essentially made for us by circumstances that we face , depending on the kind of work that is being tendered, the kind of plant that is available . The number of, for instance , concrete paving plants within the province varies from time to time , contractors leave the prov ince from time to time . That is a fairly general question , Mr. Chairman , that we find ourselves pretty well having to adjust our method of determining size of contract, and in the manner and way in which a contract is written up by (

a) the knowledge that the department has of what is available out there to them, and to make these contracts reasonably attractive that will invite hopefully as good a number of tenders as possible.

I may indicate that currently in the beginning of this construction year , indicators are that there is very active bidding for highways work and we are receiving upwards to 10-12 tenders or bids on relat ively small jobs , $60,000-$70,000 jobs, which we believe gives , in the final analysis , the best possible protection for the public in terms of satisfying ourselves that the final prices having to be paid are pretty realistic . MR. USKIW: Well , Mr.

Chairman , I believe it's possible to either have several contractors on one project or one contractor on one project who then sublets to several other contractors . There are two ways to do th is, and my question is, which way is going to come out cheaper to the province. If you preclude the possibility of a number of bids because of the size of the project being all lumped into one , then that takes away from the competitiveness of the tendering process. Now , there is the other question that arises in connection with that , and that is if you are going to grade and gravel a

section of highway , you could break it down between the grading and the gravelling. In other words , one contractor could do the building of the road , any number of contractors could tender on the aggregate supply . It may be that sometimes you will get a lower bid if it's all lumped together , and other times you will end up better financially if you had it split up between two or three who are in competition with each other .

If a tender goes out where it is a requirement to not only build the grade , but to provide all the aggregates and whatever other services that go into the total project , you often find a situation where the parent company doesn 't have too much competition, if any, in the tender and then tends to have other sub-contractors compete vigorously for those sub-contracts, and in essence the parent company . -(Interjection)- Mr. Chairman , I don 't know what the joke is but I gather there is someth ing here that is worth looking at.

It could often be that the parent company who has managed to have its tender accepted at a very high rate could end up with a very exorbitant profit position by brow-beating the sub-trades into very severe compet ition and in essence that is not in the public interest because it starves the little companies and does not provide for a low-cost pro ject for the public . That 's the reason I raise that question, Mr. Chairman . MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman , the tende ring process or the whole approach the project begins with our departmental people , our engineers placing an estimate on projected costs , and then using the experience , the knowledge that they have developed over the years as to what is available to them in the construction industry to sew right up the ir contracts to assure that the interests of the province are at all times maintained. 1397

Thursday, April 27, 1978 MR. USKIW: I would like to follow up on that question . Is the Minister indicating to us that there are additional funds in other departments beyond the $160 million in this department for highway construction and maintenance or whatever? Many of the examples that the Member for Lac du Bonnet referred to are in fact common practice . Quite often aggregate work is done by one contractor that has a crusher in place and for certain advantages can tender lower than the prime contractor .

I think in general it is acknowledged and accepted as a basic principle by the Department of Highways that it is to our advantage to maintain as many , large and small , contractors in the business .

It becomes a unhealthy situation when that's not the case and that by the way also to some extent enters into trying to develop an overall program in the terms of the expenditure of the $75 million of new construction money to attempt, where possible, to see that a certain amount of concrete work is being done in any given year , a certain amount of asphalt work is done in any given amount a year, earth work or aggrega te work, gravelling work , to keep the industry alive and ticking . MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chairman, just one last point of clarification , cou ld the Minister give me a very specific description of the kind of a tender that would be let on say 20 miles of road building, grading, gravelling , paving? How would that contract be let, in one part, two parts , ten parts? What is the sort of normal? MR. ENNS: The specific example used for the Member for Lac du Bonnet, in most instances would probably consist of three separate contracts . It's unusual that a contract wou ld include the grad ing , the gravelling and say the surface , the paving treatment at one time . MR.

CHAIRMAN: 2.(a)(1 )-pass; 2.(a)( 2)-pass ; 2.(b) -the Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: Mr. Chairman , I just wanted to ask a question on the tendering . Is the policy being changed with regard to the tendering for Northern Manitoba? Is that done away with where we used to or would that be under this department? All construction is coming under the Department of Highways , all highway construction

whereas before there was Northern Affairs involved , Highways , Tourism . MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , for the information of the Honourable Member for Ste. Rose, that has not, in effect , taken place although it has been talked about. The practice is, that we are now discussing, involvethe traditional Highway Department's approach, this program that's been outlined to you. The Department of Highways has not changed its tendering practices in any way .

The tendering practices that are in effect , or will be in effect for the coming year that have been up to now, and perhaps will continue in the Department of Northern Affairs , those questions would have to be directed to the Department of Northern Affairs . MR. CHAIRMAN: 2.(a)(2)-pass -the Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , I'm presenting the Estimates for the Department of Highways for which I have the immediate responsibility for . I know what the honourable member is after ..

It would be my understanding in all likelihood there would be additional funds , some emanatmg fr~m , and hopefully , quite frankly, as a result of renegotiations with the Northlands Agreement, havmg to do particularly with additional northern roads . MR. USKIW: Well, Mr. Chairman, then let me pursue this . If other projects are undertaken that are not shown in these Estimates, would they be handled by this department or would they be handled by other departments? MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman, I want to be very clear on it, it is a possibility.

I believe some mention or recommendation of that taking place has been made by the Task Force for instance , but the members are well aware that those are recommendations to government to be acted upon or not to be. acted upon . 1 can only indicate to the members of the Committee that no decis ion s have been made m that regard. MR. CHAIRMAN: 2.(a)(1 )-pass ; 2.(a)(2)-pass ; 2.(b)(1) -the Member for St. George . MR. URUSKI: Thank you. Mr. Chairman .

The area dealing with the lab and materia ls, could the Minister indicate as to the surveys and the continuous checking being made for supply of aggrega!e , how is that proceeding , and 1 believe there is a revolving fund in terms of the purchas~ of matenal supply for a year in advance or at least to replenish ~he department . Could he .g1ve us some information in that regard as to the supplies of aggregate m relevant parts of the provmce. Are there any shortages, and how is the fund being used? MR. ENNS: Well , Mr.

Chairman , this division deals principally with our capability of mai.ntaining , you know , a constant cueck on various kinds of activities that involve design of concrete m a~phalt pavements, inspection of production methods , adv1smg on the testmg of acceptance of matenals . It 1398

Thursday, April 27, 1978 has a fur ther responsib ility of initiating plans and conducts reports on various research projects, investigates special prob lems and grade failures We have different soil structures in the province, notably are the prolems that we have in some of the river bank areas where we have failures and slides , bridges collapsing on us as a resul t of that ; a geophysical engineer trains and supervises technical subsec tion wh ich is responsible for locating and checking and testing and recording grave' deposits which I think is the principal quest ion that the honourable member asked .

Route locations, work and other projects with respect to gravel supplies , I believe that I have some information that I can indicate to him , but in general terms aggregate and gravel is not an endless supply in the province. Regrettably whi le we have some major deposits of gravel they are not in the right places, in terms of where many of our road requirements are.

I am advised that further down on the Estimates under 15.(a), we have the acquisition you know of the physical assets which involves the gravel pit accounts and that account has not been changed from previous years , standing at roughly $100,000 which is included in the total amount shown il' Item 8, totalling some $16 million .

I can indicate to you that in the south-central part of the province we are getting extremely low on gravel deposits and it is 8ffecting a cost productions in terms of hauling and distances involved . w~ have substantial deposits of gravel in the north and hopefully some of them of course will be used for opening the north , but that is the general situat ion . MR. URUSKI: So there are shortages then , Mr.

Chairman , shortages in the vein where there are fairly long distances of haul ing similar to what may be experienced in the future in the area of Winn ipeg for example , where there is large scale home building go ing o n on large gravel deposits which will over the next decade or so force the construct ion industry to move a greater distance and will add greatly to the cost of construct ion within the City of Winnipeg . You're being faced with that in southern Manitoba as well. MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman , while it's not within the jur isdiction of this department , but I can indicate to the honourable member that the Committee on Land Use was that was referred to earlier in the hearings or this sitting, the PLUG Committee , has and is dealing with that particular problem, about the zoning and use of that kind of land with underground deposits of gravel that future subdivision or development should not take place on these what are becoming more and more valuable resources . MR. CHAIRMAN: (b)(1)-pass ; (b)(2)-pass ; (

c) Surveys and Titles: (c)(1)-pass; (c)(2)-pass; (d)

(1) Bridges-pass - Member for St. George . MR. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman, I think the Minister indicated that there is a large scale of funds remaining this year insofar as the highways strengthening which primarily deals with the bridges within this province. Could the Minister give us some indication as to the nature and how many bridges across the province do they anticipate working on in this year as part of the highways strengthening program . I don't want the

part icular location, but is there a rough guesstimate with a dollar figure attached to it? MR. ENNS: Mr. Chairman , perhaps while my Deputy is supplying me with that answer I can only ind icate to the honourable member that he will recall earlier on in the fall, the department having announced the increase in gross vehic le weights on several routes on the major highways, he is quite correct , the bridges very often are the bottleneck in our capacity to do this.

We are carrying on with the replacement of those bridges , particula rly on these routes that have been recently graded up to the 110,000 lbs. for instance. I haven 't got the number , but how much money? There in the programs individually listed in the pink report. I am informed, Mr. Chairm an, that a total of some $18 mil lion is being spent in total for the highway strengthening program which includes bridges . The breakdown would have to be taken out of the actual program to determine what amount is bridges and what amount is highways, you know, improvement to the highway surface itself .

It is a substantial program and I would have to perhaps take this occasion- there may be another occasion to do it more appropriately to indicate that when the highway-strengthening program was signed by the Department of Highways , it was a very good and prudent contract in that they indexed it to take account for inflating costs . MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Member for St. George . MR. URUSKI: Could the Minister indicate whether or not the design section, I believe that's under this

section of the departm ent, is handling the majority of the designs on the bridges or is some design work being farmed out? MR. ENNS: I am advised , Mr. Chairman , that last year with the exception of two particular structures in the north the rest of the work was done 100 percent inside the department. MR. CHAIRMAN: (b)(1 )-pass -the Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: Mr. Chairman, we had a catastrophe in the last- two years ago I think on bridges. All 1399

Thursday, April 27, 1978 the bridges have been replaced now that were taken away by the great flood . MR. ENNS: Well , Mr. Chairman, there is one notable bridge that has yet to be replaced and that was in the constituency of my leader , Souris -Killarney, the Wawanesa bridge is still to be replaced. It is included in the program that is before you, but in the main I am advised that the brid~es have been replaced . But that is a notable exception . We have some particu lar soil difficulties there that precluded us from doing it earlier , at least that's what I kept telling my leader. MR. CHAIRMAN : (d)(1)-pass ; (d)(2)-pass ; (e)

(1) Traffic-pass- the Member for Ste. Rose. MR. ADAM: Has there been any stud ies made on traffic to put in- what do they call those things anyway? It's done in the States a lot to ... Electronic- it's just like a radar that they put on bridges , underpasses , anyw here so that the motoring public travel .. . and they see what speed they are travelling . MR. ENNS: The department is aware of these devices and has looked at them but to date has found them too expensive to use under our circumstances and have chosen not to do so. MR. ADAM: Apparently in the States it's slowing down the travelling public .

You know , they realize when they see the speed - they see it right on the speedometer I suppose , but when they see it registering on a traffic control , they slow down . MR. ENNS: Well , Mr. Chairman , I have chosen a different route to slow down the travelling public in Manitoba by going metric , and with the implied reduced speed limits there . MR. CHAIRMAN: (e)(1 )-pass ; (e)(2)-pass ; (f)(1 )-pass ; (f)(2)- pass; (g)(1 )-pass - the Member for St. George . MR. URUSKI: Mr. Chairman, has there been any changes of late in the method of inspection.

I recall that there were some difficulties experienced by the traffic inspecto rs using personal vehicles and the like while attending scales and having their own personal vehicles and then trying to apprehend so-called violators of people who miss the scales and keep on going. Are departmental vehicles being utilized and what has happened on this to date? MR. ENNS: Mr.

Chairman , the practice has been, and it's in use at the moment, that yes, they are using their own vehicles in the course of their normal duties , but a government vehicle is stationed at the weigh scales that is used when a situation arises where it has to be used in pursuit of somebody passing through or has to be stopped down the road a piece . In other words , they are not using their personal vehicles in apprehension work . MR. CHAIRMAN: (g) (1 )-pass ; (g) (2)-pass. Resolution 67: Resolved that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $8,784,000 for Highways-pass .

The hour being 10:16 P.M. and in getting through Item 67, is it the committee's wish to rise? MEMBERS: To rise. MR. CHAIRMAN: Committee rise. SUPPLY- EDUCATION MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to direct the hono urable members to the gallery where we have the 82nd B. Company Girl Guides, numbering 11 , with Mrs. Nemeth , from the Honourable Member of Osborne 's constituency , just to my right. I would also direct the honourable members to the gallery on my left where we have 18 students from the Steinbac h Junior High School , Grade 9 students , under the directorship of Mr. J.

Siemens , from the Honourable Member for La Verendrye 's constituency . I would ask the members to please welcome our visitors . I would direct the honourable members to Page 25, Department of Education , Resolution No. 41. We are under the Clause 1.(b)

(1) Salaries - the Honourable Member for Seven Oaks . MR. MILLER: Thank you , Mr. Chairman. Mr. Minister , firstly I want to congratulate you on taking on this portfolio . It is not an easy one and I speak from some experience because when I first took it over it was combined as it is now , and so I know that you are carry ing a considerable load . I was listening to the introductory comments that the Minister made the other day , and some of the comments today . And I was sitting back and listening and it seemed to me that there 's constantly talk about change .

But it's amazing to me how everything seems to stay the same, and the same in education is consta nt change . That 's been the history in the educational field for decades . And I 1400

Thursday, April 27, 1978 guess in every generation there is a feeling amongst those beyond the educational system- that is the adults in the community - who feel that somehow the educational systems has changed and because they don't understand it, perhaps , or because it is simply different from what they had - whether these are adults from the 80s thinking about their educational system in the '30s, or those in the '60s thinking about their education in the '40s- that they become very uptight and very edgy and fear that somehow changes are taking place that are beyond their ken, they don't quite understand it.

So, the Minister is going to have to contend with that. And frankly, I was pleased to hear that he has rejected the kind of talk we heard for a couple of years certainly- not just in this House but in the press, the media, among certa in groups in society, the Manufacturers Association, the Chamber of Commerce - where they developed a pretty regular constant theme on there is something wrong with the educational system . Not just in Manitoba; this is general! think across Canada and North America.

The cry that something had happened and that things were going from bad to worse , and that we were bringing up a bunch of children of illiterates, and we should swing back to the good old days . And inevitably the good old days were associated with the 3 A 's, reading, writing and arithmetic .

And I'm pleased , if I heard the Minister correctly, that he has no intentions to just follow that course blindly and that he is well enough aware of the necessary changes in the educationa! system to continue to be relevant , to continue to meet the needs of children , that he isn't going to succumb to that sort of pitch, if I can call it that , to try to go back to something, to a day which is behind us and you can never retrieve .

When the Chamber, when the Manufacturers Association, when other groups of similar nature in our society start deploring the products of the school system, I have to accuse them of having tunnel vision and thinking purely of their own self interests, because what they are basically saying to the people in the field of education , this Minister of Education or former Ministers of Education or the syst em generally , what they are really asking for is for the school system to produce , whether it be K- 12 or whether it be as graduates of secondary or graduates of post secondary, they want the system to produce for them a finished product who can be taken out of a classroom on graduation and fitted in to their particular industrial need .

I can 't fault them for it, it is very nice. If the state and public at large will train people to fit into their particular operation, be it an industrial , be it a service kind of business, whatever it happens to be, they would love that because of course it saves them the need for training the young person coming in for the first time . This is not new.

This same kind of approach and this same kind of criticism has been heard for many many years and many decades and you know, the fact of the matter is that in today's society, the children going into grade 1 today, 1978, are going to graduate high school in 1990, and I think the Minister understands that you cannot go back to a period when you can somehow teach or impart to a student certain specific knowledge that 12 years hence on graduation , he will have acquired enough of it to stand him in good stead for the rest of his working life.

The changes in technology, the changes in our whole social fabric, are so rapid and so quick, with knowledge doubling every five years , that it is inconceivable that a school system can produce that kind of finished product.

That in fact , and the Minister knows this, more and more people are recognizing that education doesn't stop with graduation and if indeed the person feels on graduation, be it high school or post secondary, that his education is complete and he can now sit back and simply work and earn money and earn a living on the basis of what he learned on grad uation, then he is kidding himself, because the technology and the rapid changes are so vast and happening so quickly that there is a need for continuing education all through adult life and it is now projected that people will be having two and three careers in their lifetime and during their working life to age 65.

A far cry from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, when someone could expect on graduation to fit into some business or some profess ion or trade and feel pretty secure that that will stand him in good stead until the time comes for him to retire and to call it quits .

So I think the Minister- and I hope I heard him correctly- is in fact turning his back and rejecting the idea that we simply go back to the days when students are going to be taught specific information which they will regurgitate every year in June , through central examinations in Grade 11- it used to be in Grade 9, or Grade 9 and Grade 11 at one time and then it was Grade 12-that he's rejecting that, and that in fact he is recognizing what is recognized everywhere, that what we have to do for our children and for the entire future generations is simply to- it's not simple, I shouldn 't use the word simply because it sure isn't simple- is to try to help that child develop sufficient self-development, sufficient ability to develop to th ink for himself , to be able to think for himself, to recognize a new situation as it arises and learn how to cope with it.

In other words , to develop his thinking abilities, his ability to analyze, to question, and his ability to adapt to changing conditions as they will occur; and they are bound to occur , not just in 1990 as I say, but probably within five years there'll be total changes again which, if they graduate tomorrow from the school system, will have to change in order to adapt and to fit into or else he, too , will be left behind as many have over the years.

One of the reasons why there is such a need for re-entry into the Post Secondary level by adults today is because the schooling they got in the forties and the fifties and even the sixties was inadequate to help them keep pace with the changes in society that they've encountered as they've gone on. That's why there's a need for adult education all the way through , whether it be through Community Colleges, whether it be through local programs offered , either through the department itself or in conjunction with the school board.

Because without that, there's no way that any child, becoming an adult and five or six years in the work force , can continue to cope with the realities of a changing world. He indicated that in Manitoba that things weren't all that terrible, as a matter of fact, in the educational system and he, however, doesn't want to give credit to the former government. He says it 1401

Thursday, April 27, 1978 was restraint practised by the teachers in the field who saved the educational systen: in Ma_nitoba. Well the fact is, Mr. Chairman, that it was the former government that made 1t possible for teachers in the field to have far greater flexibility in how they taught and in much of the programs that they taught than ever before . Now, we didn't go as far as other provinces. We didn 't go as far as some other provinces .

But it was the Department of Education, through the administration , which gave guidance which al_lowed the school divisions and the teachers, therefore, the kind of flexibility that was needed . We didn't go as far as other provinces where the core program was considerably less than in Manitoba , we never went that far , and as the Minister , I think, has now acknowledged that in fact the core subjects taught in Manitoba- the basic ones- were still there.

There was simply greater latitude left , allowed to the teachers themselves , in those subjects beyond the core and certainly the program of studies and the way it was taught was lett a great deal more to the teachers so that they could respond to the needs of their students , depending on where they worked -whether it was a core city , or rural Manitoba , or northern Manitoba - where there were differences .

Now I recall , when we first took off ice, being told about remote schools where there were still signs which said that on these premises and in the school grounds no other language but English would be allowed . And you can imagine the cultural shock to a native student coming into a foreign school , literally , a foreign building , without any English if any, and suddenly being faced with a situation where they couldn't even - amongst themselves - speak their own native tongue . So you talk in terms of cultural shock.

I suspect it was traumatic enough to not just turn them off school but to perhaps frighten them so that the going to school, which is required by law,was something that not only didn't encourage them to continue but probably would turn them off from any possibility of learning . Now , of course , things have changed . And probably the greatest impact I would suspect in northern Manitoba is not the change in the school system but it is what I would call the parallel educational system , and that is the media - television in particular .

And with television now becoming available throughout the north the impact on infants , native children, hearing the language in their own homes will have a far greater impact on the ir language skills and a far greater impact on their ability to join the mainstream - enter into the mainstream of the Manitoba community - than anything that the school can possibly do for them . So that I don't quite appreciate , nor do I agree , that it was the department that somehow failed but it was the teachers who saved the educational system in Manitoba .

Because , in fact , it was the teachers who were given far greater leeway , and many of them , frankly , were afraid of it and I think the Minister knows this . Many of them, when we said you don't have to stick to the prescribed number of hours per week for this subject and that subject, and others subjects , I recall getting letters saying, "Please tell us; should we spend 18 percent of our time or 14 percent of our time?" Fortunately, those teachers are probably out of this system now , and there is less and less of them . Mr.

Chairman, with those few comments I would like to zero in on some of the things that the Minister brought out in his opening remarks . He referred to a change in the formula for financial support to the school divisions . I think he said that this year they would be switching to a $260 per pupil grant, which would be a combination of the old $125 per pupil and the previous maintenance grant , the supply instruction which was on a per pupil basis rather than on a per teacher basis . Soi s he now saying that in fact everything will be paid on a per-pupil grant?

The number of children in a classroom will be used to calculate the grant and the teacher therefore , the fact whether they have one teacher or two teachers really is of no consequence here , it doesn 't matte r. So I want to ask him , whether in doing that he is therefore now departing from the formula and the principle which was that a teacher grant should be related to the qualificat ions of the teacher . If not , how is that going to be calculated, because if they're lumping all grants together into a per-pupil grant and saying it's $260 per pupil , will that school division get $260 for every pupil?

If they have a thousand pupils, they get $260,000 irrespective of the number of teachers they have, and irrespective of the qualifications of the teacher . Will they get it if the teacher is a Class 1 teacher , or a Class 3 teacher, or a Class 6 teacher , will the grant be the same? I'm just posing that question because it's a question I think that certainly the teachers would be interested in.

It is a departure from the previous policy wh ich tried to encourage school divisions to hire teachers with higher qualifications . and in that way assure that by and large , the odds being what they are, that the most highly trained teachers would be in the school system and those divisions that have teachers with higher qualifications received the higher grant. I ask the Minister that particular question and perhaps he could answer that specifically .

He did refer to the staffing , and he indicated as my reading of it, that taking a snapshot in time and I assume that's what he did , let's say March 31 , 1977, versus March 31 , 1978, whether he used that month or another month , but he used the same month, I imagine- that the staff man years in the department were in 1977-78 , 1 ,695, but that there were 138 vacancies , so that left 1,555 people who were actually being paid.

The fact that they were SMYs unfilled and because the former government had put a freeze on hiring and ordered a vacancy rate- what was known as the ten percent vacancy rate- that even though the SMYs were there , the fact is the positions were not filled , and therefore the money wasn't paid out. So that 1,555 positions approximately were what the former government was paying for . This year , on other hand , I think he indicated that there were 1,542 positions which are budgeted for - and actually the funds are being asked for somewhere in these figures - therefore , as I 1402

Thursday, April 27, 1978 understand it, the difference is about 13. Now contract- he talked about today and I don't have those figures- so the difference of about 13 as between the number of people that actually were on staff at that snapshot in time in 1977-78 and what he anticipates for 1978-79. So the large layoffs, the large dropping of staff apparently has not occurred in these departments, in these two departments that are now one . I assume that we will probably find them elsewhere, but so far from this Minister I gather we can't see that.

Now, earlier on just before we adjourned , I asked the Minister whether he would get information with regard to the capital loan acts last year and previous years. The reason we are very concerned about it is this, I will be very candid with the Minister, because of the new format where everything is being combined both capital and current, there is no longer any such thing as capital and current, it is all current and what we are concerned about is that the authority, the authority which was voted in previous years under

Schedule Band in the reconciliation there are two figures shown adding up to $18,800,000.00. It's necessary for us in order to be able to make head or tail out of the expenditures, it is necessary to know to what extent that amount shown in last year's reconcilliation has in fact been spent or some of it in the process of being spent.

There are no vouchers yet, it would be in other words committed , everyone knows it is going to happen, it may even have started, whether it is construction or the acquisition of certain materials, technical vocational equipment and so on, but that in fact, the money has not been spent, but will be spent this year, in the coming fiscal year.

This is the kind of information we seek because to the extent that any amount of money at all is going to be spent in· 1978-79 the figure, the total figure for the department should reflect the spending, even though the authority for that spending was passed by the legislature in previous years, be it 1974, be it 1975, 76 or whenever it took place. I know in the Community Colleges, for example, The Loan Act, the Community College 's capital there was unexpended authority going back to 1975, as late as July of this year, pardon me, July 1977.

So, it is that sort of information that we seek and I know we are entitled to and which I hope the Minister will be able to give us, if not tonight, then perhaps tomorrow. As well , I would like to know the reference in the reconcilliation. There are two amounts of transfers of functions. One I think I understand, and that is the $6,500,000 to Municipal Affairs, that probably has to do with grants in lieu of taxes. -(Interjection)- Yes, okay . I find it interesting that there is no increase over last year but I won't ask you that, I will have to ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs about that.

And the other is the $2.9 million for Public Works. What is the nature of that transfer? Is it construction?- I don 't know, the purchase of buses, I really don't know . Perhaps the Minister could tell us what they are and has that money all been expended particularly in the case of the $2.9 million, has it all been expended, that is money spent and gone, not something that is going to carry over into 1978-79? And if the Minister has that information I of course will gladly sit down and let him answer. If not, I could go on to something else. Mr.

Chairman, the Minister, I think incurred and recognized that they are not just in the core of Winnipeg but elsewhere throughout Manitoba, there are pockets, sometimes comparatively large as in The Pas, where there are problems of culturalization, where there are problems of people with different backgrounds coming into a school system and having to try to adjust to the mainstream of -llllanitoba life and that I hope he recognizes that they cannot simply be treated as just any one else, but in fact, every effort must be made to try to help those children, within their generation, to make the break and to adjust to a new society , a newer one than what they've come from.

And I am wondering whether in fact the Minister will continue to support programs like the nutritional program in the core schools, like the program whereby aides were made available with provincial assistance, native speaking aides in many cases or other foreign languages, in city schools where there are large numbers, if not majorities , but certainly large numbers of native children, of immigrant children, aides in the classroom to assist the teacher and to assist the children to make that easier transition into the English milieu which they now find themselves.

And the same can be said in a sense for The Pas which has for many years had a problem because they didn 't have the resources necessary to assist their own teachers, to give their own teachers the kind of assistance they felt was needed in the form of teacher aides and other assistance to help the teacher and give the teacher time to do what she is supposed to do or he is supposed to do, is teach, and at the same time work with the children to make them feel more at ease and more confortable in the school system .

So, these are some of the questions I pose and some of the others I will leave as we come to the actual heading at the university , community college, where I may have far more to say, but at this point I would like to leave it because we are dealing with Administration and Athings I have talked about really come under the Administration because the eminate from the Minister and Deputy Minister's office. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Minister . MR. COSENS: Thank you , Mr. Chairman.

Before I address myself to the remarks of the Member for Seven Oaks I would like to reply to a question from the Member for Burrows regarding the figure $1 .194 million under salaries in 1977-78. 1 believe the member had some question there as to how that figure was arrived at and I would go over that now . It is a bit complicated and I think this results whenever you amalgamate a couple of departments, but if he has a pencil handy we can go through 1403

Thursday, April 27, 1978 that at this time . Again , we are dealing with 1977-78, the old Department of Education , $928.6 million, and for that old Department of Education , the G.S.I. , the General Salary Increase allocation was $30.3 million . The old Department of Continuing Education and Manpower $243.8 million . And the G.S.I. there $11.0 million .

The total there would be $1 ,213.7 million however , one must subtract two SMYs there that were transferred to Item 16(7) and so yuu subtract 19.0, giving an adjusted vote figure for 1977-78 of $1,194.7 million which I believe is the figure stated here in the Estimates . And of course, the figure for 1978-79, $1 ,142,800.00. I must remark that I enjoyed listening to the educational dissertation of the Member for Seven Oaks . I know that he, at one time was the Minister of Education and gained considerable respect from many people while serving in that particular office .

I find that generally there are few of his remarks that I take great exception to, and if I do take exception it is perhaps mostly in degree . He talks about going back is not the thing to do and I have to agree with him that certainly there is no going back, we must go ahead, and if there are people who advocate that we should go back in education it's because they think that's the only way that we can restore the skills of students that they consider so basic to the learning process .

I suggest it is not necessary to go back to do that , we can go ahead and insure that those skills that people feel , and justly feel , are essential to the whole learning process are provided . I would suggest to the Member for Seven Oaks in regard to his remarks on the per-pupil grant and on the teacher grants and so on that when we get to

section 3 .(

a) which deals with the Foundation program and other grants which I am sure he is familiar with , that this would be a better place to deal with these, and if he will be present at that time I would rather leave that type of discussion until that particular time . The Member for Seven Oaks, of course has alluded to the Reconciliation Statement, and the problem of Capital here under Transfers of Functions , and particularly the Public Works item of 2.9.

My information on this item, Sir, is that this is money that was allotted to the Public Works fc maintenance and renovation and so on at the community colleges , and that this money w expended. -(Interjection)- I'm not sure that it is classified as capital fund, but as operating money MR. CHAIRMAN: 1.(b)(1 )-pass -The Honourable Member for Logan. MR. JENKINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman . I just want to first try to elicit a little bit of information from the Minister where I should ask him certain questions. Number one , I would like to know under what

section of the Estimates I could deal with the Equalization grants that are in current vogue with the City of Winnipeg, Public School Division No. 1 and the surrounding school divisions in the Unicity area. Secondly, I think somewhere along the line we should have a philosophical debate on the Task Force report on Education. Now the Minister can either have it here or he can have it on his Salary, but one way or another we want to pick his brains a bit to see exactly how his philosophical bent agrees with some of the recommendations that we have seen come out from the Task Force .

Especially it's unfortunate that the Minister- he was here earlier this evening and I had wished to address a few remarks to the Honourable Minister Without Portfolio, the Minister in charge of the Task Force . Since the Task Force report was tabled in this House , and we have tried to elicit certain information from him of what people he contacted, or his Task Force contacted in the specific and main, since we're dealing with Education, with the people in the educational field in the province of Manitoba.

There are some very serious recommendations and some very serious veiled threats to the local autonomy of school boards that have come through pretty loud and clear in the Task Force report. The Minister has said that he has not had time to really make a thorough study of the recommendations of the Task Force , but there is one

section that the Finance Board should use

Section 268(4) of the Public Schools Finance Board Act to withhold funds from a public school division for a more efficient operation .

I checked P268(4) of the Public School Finances Act, and it deals with withholding of grants, and states, "N otwithstanding the provisions of this or any other Act of the Legislature, the Board may delay payment of all or part of any grant payable to a unitary division under this or any other Act of the Legislature until the unitary division has complied with any requirement under Subsection 3." Well, Subsection 3 of the Act also states that reports , etc. from the unitary divisons, "The Board may require unitary division to prepare and submit to the board such reports and returns as the board deems advisable , and to submit to the board for any inspection, any contracts or documents relative to the affairs of the unitary division , and the board may make copies of such contracts or documents ." But nowhere in that Act does it say this board is going to be the final judge and jury , that the board is not operating with fiscal responsibility .

I think that it's a damn big slap in the face to the unitary division boards of this province . Having been a member of t

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	31-2-30b
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	31st 2nd hansardpdf 30b.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	e9a88a48da8585e2db59c521a77610e902f5082e

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