Manitoba Hansard — 93 ISSN 542 (Sitting 18, 35th Legislature, 4th Session)

35-4-18

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

MG-8048 Fourth Session ·Thir ty-Fifth Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS (HANSARD) 41 Elizabeth II Published under the authority of The Honourable Denis C. Rocan Speaker VOL. XLII No. 18 -1 :30 p.m., WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 19 93 ISSN 0542-5492

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thirty-Fifth Legislature Members, Constituencies and Political Affiliation NAME ALCOCK, Reg ASHTON, Steve BARRElT, Becky CARSTAIRS, Sharon CERILLI, Marianne CHEEMA, Guizar CHOMIAK, Dave CUMMINGS, Glen, Hon. DACQUAY, Louise DERKACH, Leonard, Hon. DEWAR, Gregory DOER, Gary DOWNEY, James, Hon. DRIEDGER, Albert, Hon. DUCHARME, Gerry, Hon. EDWARDS, Paul ENNS, Harry, Hon. ERNST, Jim, Hon. EVANS,Ciif EVANS, Leonard S. FILMON, Gary, Hon. FINDLAY, Glen, Hon. FRIESEN, Jean GAUDRY,Neil GILLESHAMMER, Harold, Hon. GRAY, Avis HELWER, Edward R.

HICKES, George LAMOUREUX, Kevin LATHLIN, Oscar LAURENDEAU, Marcel MALOWAY, Jim MANNESS, Clayton, Hon. MARTINDALE, Doug McALPINE, Gerry McCRAE, James, Hon. MciNTOSH, Linda, Hon. MITCHELSON, Bonnie, Hon. NEUFELD, Harold ORCHARD, Donald, Hon. PALLISTER, Brian PENNER, Jack PLOHMAN, John PRAZNIK, Darren, Hon. REID, Daryl REIMER, Jack RENDER, Shirley ROGAN, Denis, Hon. ROSE, Bob SANTOS, Conrad STEFANSON, Eric, Hon. STORIE, Jerry SVEINSON, Ben VODREY, Rosemary, Hon. WASYL YCIA-LEIS, Judy WOWCHUK, Rosann Vacant CONSTITUENCY Osborne Thompson Wellington River Heights Radisson The Maples Kildonan Ste.

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

Liberal NDP NDP Liberal NDP Liberal NDP PC PC PC NDP NDP PC PC PC Liberal PC PC NDP NDP PC PC NDP Liberal PC Liberal PC NDP Liberal NDP PC NDP PC NDP PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC NDP PC NDP PC PC PC PC NDP PC NDP PC PC NDP NDP

724 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Wednesday, March 3, 19 93 The House met at 1 :30 p.m. PRAYERS ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS TABLING OF REPO RTS Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister of Sport): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table the Annual Report 19 91- 92 for the Man itoba Hor se Ra cing Commission. INTROD UCTION OF BILLS Hon. Clayton Mann ess (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might have leave of the House to introduce a bill for the Minister of Justice? Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable government House leader have leave to introduce a bill? Some Honourable Members: No. Mr. Speaker: No. Leave is denied.

Blll 16 - The Public Schools Amendment Act Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, I move , seconded by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Praznik), that Bill16 , The Public Schools Amendment Act; Loi mo difiant Ia

Loi sur les ecoles publiques, be introduced and that the same be now received and read a first time. Mr. Speaker: The ho nourable member's bill is on the notice paper, not on the order paper. The honourable Madam Minister would need leave to introduce Bill 16 . Does the honourable minister have leave to "1ntroduce Bill 16 ? Some Honourabl e Members: No. Mr. Speaker: No. Leave is denied. ORAL QUESTION PERIOD Special Needs Programs Service Availability Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): House business is being managed like the finances of this pro vince. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier.

We were raising questions all this week about the impact of gove rnmen t decision s on kids and students in this province. Yeste rd ay we learned , and we have had confi rmation from parent s and others, tha t specialists working with special needs kids in rural Manitoba have been told that they will be laid off at the end of June, some 66 st aff working in hearing impairment issues, speech impairment, behavioural pro blems, working in rural Manitoba, have been told they will be laid off in the prov ince of Manitoba. Mr.

Speaker, I would like to know from the Premier what impact these layoffs will have on children with hearing impairments, with learning impairments, with behavioural impairm ents and impairments that are, unfortunate ly, germane to some kids in rural Manitoba that need special needs programs. Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, yes, it is true, a ser vi ce that we have pr ovided through our department for the past 20 years is now a very well-established servi ce . It is well established within the divisions.

So what we have done is we now, through our funding form ula, provide both the operating costs and also the administrative costs for school divisions to hire these clinicians within their own divisions. It is simply a change in who employs these clinicians. Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, I wo uld quo te the minister from May 7 of 19 92: Due to the large number of students with speech and language probl ems, the service is stretched and follo w-up activities are not always as extensive as we would like them to be . These kids are the most vulnerable kids in rural Manitoba.

I was talking to parents today and they fear if the diagnostic services are not available, if the

725 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 services on hearing impairme nts, on speech impairments, on behavioural impairments are not there at the earliest possible age, we will have these kids going through our social and economic systems for life and not have the head start or the opportunities that all of us may enjoy. I would like to ask the Premier how he can justify cutting back these services to special needs kids in the province of Manitoba? Is that the priority of this gove rnment for the children of rural Manitoba? •

(1335) Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to give the member all of the information. Nineteen school divisions presently provide this service. Ten of those school divisions operate outside of the city of Winn ipeg, including My stery Lake School Division, including Frontier School Division. So we do know that school divisions have accepted this model, have been operating in this model. Now we have that same concern for young people and their parents. I would like to assure this House that there will still be the funds flowing through our funding form ula to emplo y those specialis ts.

However, they will be employed at the local level at the school board level, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, I do not know how the Tories across the way could clap for a decision like that on the children of rural Manitoba. Mr. Speaker, there is a declining enrollment in school divisions of rural Manitoba. Your funding form ula, which of course has been cut back 2 percent since you made your announcement last year, school divisions will not be able to have the expertise for special needs kids.

They cannot hire one hearing impairment person, one behavioural person, one speech person in each school division across Manitoba. That is why the smallest school divisions need this provincial prog ram . I would like to ask the Premier to overrule his Minister of Education, to overrule the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) and his cutting back on special needs children in this province and maintain those services for all kids across Manitoba through their grants. Mrs. Vodrey: Mr.

Speaker, let me say again that we have a strong belief that this service continue and because of that we have, through our funding form ula, increased the grants for a clinician, increased the grants to $45,000. We did that last year because we believed that the service was so important. This year through this action, we are now saying to school divisions that they would become the employers, they would then have the control. Mr.

Speaker, in terms of special needs let me also make it clear to the member that we increased our special needs funding last year, and this year through our announcement we have also increased the amount of money flowing into Level II and Level Ill grants to pay attention to those particular concerns and issues . Distance EducaUon Employee Layoffs Mr. John Plohman (Dauphin): Mr. Speaker, the minister knows very well that the services and the funding that she is providing is tot ally inadequate to meet the needs in rural Manitoba. She knows that and she should not be attempting to mislead this House.

Because of the cuts that this gov ernment has made over the last number of years and this year as well, which has resulted in the fact that there are no options available in many schools, classes are combined. There are teachers teaching three and four classes in one classroom, different courses in one classroom . Because distance education is one of the only hopes for equality of opportunit ies in education in the small rural divisions, Mr.

Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Education how she can justify the cutting of six positions from distance education, which is providing this only hope, this bridge, for rural small school divisions in Manitoba. Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Yes , we ha ve ma de some rearrangements in our distance education for the purposes of a better delivery, because we have understood, Mr .

Speaker, as a result of listening to Manitobans, that distance education should no longer just be a separate part of education but in fact should be an integral part of educatio n, should be an integral part of our curriculum development and our service development. That is what we have done. Mr. Plohman: Mr. Speaker, this minister did not answer the question, how she is justifying the cuts of six positions when she says in the Estimates, in her own words last year, that this was a priority and an expanding area. How can she justify the cutting of six positions?

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 726 Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Speaker, the honour able member obviously did not hear me. What I have said to him and to Manitobans is that this is a very important part of education in Manitoba. In fact, we have had a task force working on this area. We also have listened to Manitobans. One message that we have received is that dis tance edu cation is important and integral, and should be considered along with all of our education, both in K-12 and in our post-s econdary area. So we will be considering it in a holistic way with the other issues on our K-12 side. Mr.

Plohman: Mr. Speaker, since school divisions are telling this minister and te lling us daily in commun ications and phone calls and letters that in fact the services to children are being affected by her draconian cuts, by her deep cuts in education, I want to ask this minister: Will she now admit to this House and to the people of Manitoba that in fact the services to children are in fact being impacted in a negative way, and will she now admit that this has been acceptable for her right from the beginning in her decision making? Mrs. Vodrey: Mr.

Speaker, again let me say, services to children are of utmost importance for this department, and because services to children are so important, within our funding form ula this year we did what we said. We mo dified that funding form ula, we adapted the funding form ula. We did so particularly out of interest to children who need support for extreme behavioural and emo tional dis orders and hearing imp air ed chil dren. We incr eased the funding to make sure that was available for the children of this pro vince.

We have also said, as school boards consider their budgeting process this year, to please look at areas of budgeting that do not affect children and programs. *

(1340) Education System Reform Program Development Support Services Ms. Avis Gray (Crescentwood): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education. The minister has told us in this House that she is interested in education. She has told us that she is engaged in a reform process, yet every day we see actions which belie any leadership and any real reform initiatives. Today we hear that program development support services will be decima ted. Over 50 staff years will be gone, and services will be cut.

Will the minister explain to this House how this decision fits into her education reform, a reform which to date is illusionary? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, let me say first of all that the Child Care and Development branch will not be decim ated, that it will conti nue to support school di visions. It will provide for school di visi ons supervision for those clinicians whom they hire, that supervision that is very important for clinicians to get their certification. We will also continue to moni tor the ADAP or the special education plans.

We will also continue to act as consult ants. We will also assist those school divisions in their hiring process. If they would like some assistance in the hiring process, then we are more than prepared to do that. In answer to the reform part of the question, Mr. Speaker, I have answered that this afternoon. We have understood that in some areas, and I will use distance education as a very specific example, that distance education is no longer seen as a separate part of education. In the process of refo rm, we are moving to integrate it into education in Manitoba. Report Tabling Request Ms.

Avis Gray (Crescentwood): We have no difficulty with this gov ernment embarking on reform in education. Will the minister take a page out of her colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) and take some time and actually write a docu ment that talks about education reform? Mr. Sp eaker, education offi cials, people concerned about education in Manitoba, want to know what the reform process is. Is the minister prepared- Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh. Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Cresce ntwood, your question, please. Ms.

Gray: This is a serious issue becaus e education officials want to know what the education reform plan is. It is not enough for the minister to stand in this House and spout out sentences. We want to see a reform plan, a blueprint. Will she table that document? Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put her question. Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): I think it is important to remind my honourable friend again that the education officials

727 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 have been involved in the process as we move into educational refo rm, that we have made sure that their views of what reform should look like, how that reform should be acc omp lished , have been integrated and that we have taken a great deal of time to work with those groups. We have worked with parents in Manitoba to make sure that the views of parents are considered, the views of labour and business and industry, so that the goals of educ ation and the acc omplishmen ts of education are also views that they would like us to consider, too. Ms.

Gray: The Minister of Education asks that we listen to her. We ask that she listen to what education of ficials are saying in Manitoba. They know nothing about this reform process that is going on. She is pitting rural school division against urban school divisions. Mr. Speaker: Question, please. Ms. Gray: Is she prepared to table a document to let us know what type of education reform she has planned rather than just slashing and cutting- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put her question. Mrs.

Vodrey: I certainly reject any suggestion of rural and urban school divisions having to compete for attention to listen. I have made an attempt to visit personally as many school divisions as possible. I have made sure that I have met with their executive groups and have taken into consideration how they would like reform to look. Mr. Speaker, what my honourable friend seems to say is that she would in her own mind develop a document, then put it out and then say to people this is what it should be, but we have in fact taken a much different tactic.

We have taken the time to listen to what the goals of that reform might be to then put together the goals of reform , and as we annou nced in the throne speech, we are moving towards the education inno vation for um, where the process of reform can be discussed. *

(1345) Health Care System Reform Pediatric Surgery Restrictions Mr. Dave Chomlak (KIIdonan): My question is for the Minister of Health. The minister's own action plan talks about moving treatment from more expensive facilities to less expensive facilities. The minister's own plan on page 15 says that teaching hospitals cost $775 per day while treatment at a com munity facility could be for $410 per day. Why is this minister dictating that all children's surgery in the city of Winnipeg, almo st up to 3,000 procedures a year, must be carried out at the four or five operating rooms at the Children's Hospital? Hon.

Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): My honourable friend also might acknowledge that within the proces s of health care reform , we have indicated that the direction for the urban hospitals and the teaching hospitals is establishment of centres of excellence. Mr. Speaker, I would like to claim the original credit for est ablishing Chil dren' s Hospit al conceptually and developing it as a ce ntre for excellence for inpatient care for ch ildren, but unfortunately that has been a policy of successive gove rnments since 19 75. Sir, that is what is being accomplished with this consolidation.

That consolidation of inpatient services, including surgery, including medical needs for inpatient care of children in Manitoba, is being consolida ted at the Children's Hospital for two reasons: fi rst of all, Sir, they have the ability and the finest expertise in Manitoba to provide for the mo st complex needs of ch ildren in Man itoba - su rgical and medic al; secondly, by maintaining pediatric departments in a number of other hospitals, inpatient is a duplication of resource at a time of constrained resources, and it makes not only program sense but very good economic sense to consol idate the Childr en's Hospital.

Mr. Chomlak: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the minister can clarify since there is so much confusion out there, will the minister advise this House, contrary to what is being said by the head of his health reform , that outpatient surgery for children will also be consoli dated at the Health Sciences Centre? Wha t is it? Will outpatient surgery also be consolida ted or not? Mr. Orchard: I am quickly thumbing through my book, Mr. Speaker, because if I can just find-we ll, I cannot find the direct quote.

My honourable friend the new critic for Health, and the New Democ rats, would do himself well to make more corrections of false impressions that he has left on the airwaves, as he did yesterday, to his credit, Sir, where he stepped out of this House and

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 728 said, yes, emergency services for children will con tinue at St. Bon iface Hospital and other services. He did not say that when he alarmed the people of Manitoba by saying the St. Bon iface Hospital would be closed to all children's services. Sir, that would leave families who wish to access emergenc y and postoperative care the wrong impression. It might compromise their ability to receive emergency care at St. Bon iface and other commu nity hospitals if they believed the words that my honou rable friend misinformed the public with some three weeks ago.

Sir, inpatient services are consol idated to the Childr en's Hospital. That means admissions of children to hospital beds, but outpatient services will con tinue in mo st, if not all, of the locations currently, including St. Boniface, Victoria - Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Mr. Chomlak: I have one more supplementary. Mr. Speaker, I am thankful the minister finally clar ified the di stinction that one side of his department was saying one thing and he is saying the other. He has clarified now what the question is. I hope he will tell the head of his health care refo rm.

My final supplementary to the same minister, Mr. Speaker, is: Will the minister also clarify, since we are at this and since his own health reform head will not be able to clarify this for members of the public, will15 - and 16 -year-olds now be considered adults or children for purposes of admission for surgery, because we are told that 15 - and 16 -year-olds will now be adm itted as adults because they cannot acc omm odate all the children at the Health Sciences Centre? * (1 350) Mr. Orchard: Mr.

Sp eaker, I guess I hav e prob lems with my honourable friend because coincidentally the other day, when he was having yet another press conference on this issue of service consolidation-and I note with interest that the Premier-no, well, a member of the cabinet that made the decision to conceptualize the Chi ldren's Hospital as a centre of excellence is in the gallery today -1 975, yes. I fully acknowledge, Mr. Speaker, that when New Democrats are in government they sometimes get things right, but when they are in opposition they seldom do. I recognize that. I fully recognize that.

Let me tell my honourable friend that he should seek advice from Dr. Aggie Bishop, head of the Chi ldren's Hospital, who, after the press conference he held saying it was going to be a disaster, spoke to reporters and others outside in the hall saying, look, we can accomm odate inpatient services for children in Manitoba very, very reasonably, effectively, with quality, with patient care, with love and with the needed care being met, Sir. Post-Secondary Education Grant and Bu rsary Assistance Mr. Reg Alcock (Osborne): Mr.

Speaker, in the last full acad emic year that has been reported on, fully 30 percent of the students at the University of Manitoba received some sort of financial support, 50 percent of the students at the University of Winnipeg and 70 percent of the students at Brandon University. I would like to ask the Minister of Education one simple question. Why is she moving to a loans-only program and increasing the debt load of the 2,700 students who received some grant and bursary assistance in this province last year? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Mr.

Speaker, presently, as the member knows, the system is Cana da student loan first and then Manitoba supplements the Canada student loan. That has been the process within this province. There are changes that are expected on the Canada student loan side, and we are looking forward to seeing what the federal gove rnment will do on that side. In terms of any changes which we might then move to within our pro vincial government, the member will have to wait until the budget to see what that will be. Mr. Alcock: Mr.

Speaker, what I want this minister to do is to give the students of this province an assurance that they will have the same level of grant and bursary assistance in the coming year that they have in the current year. Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Speaker, I speak to the students of this province. I had them into my office yesterday as well. May I say, at that time they were very pleased that this gov ernment has capped tuition fees at 5 percent. In terms of any further assurances, Mr. Speaker, they will have to wait until the budget is brought down in this House.

729 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 Mr. Alcock: Mr. Speaker, this gove rnment has increased student fees at the universities by over 80 percent since they came into office, and another 5 percent increase is inconsist ent with the cuts that they are making at the other faci lities. Un iversities Capital Assistance Mr. Reg Alcock (Osborne): I would like to know, from the minister, why she has chosen not to provide any capital assistance to the universities in the coming year. Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Educati on and Training): Mr.

Speaker, in the announcement that I made last Thursday to the universities, I announc ed their operating funds. I told them, at that time, that the announcement regarding capital would occur at the time that the budget comes down in this House. I would like to remind the member that, by and large, university funding is not usually announced as early as this time and before the budget, but the universities did ask this year to please note, where possi ble, their operating grants. That was an important request from them. This government listened to their request. We were able to oblige in the opera ting.

The capital will come with the budget announcement in this House. Social Assistance Health Benefits Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr. Speaker, last week the Minis ter of Fa mi ly Ser vi ces announc ed yet another attack on the poor when he cut health benefits by $3 million. At the same time the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), in the same government, was negotia ting a contra ct with a consultant in the range of $4 million to $6 million.

Can the Minister of Family Services explain why this cut was made at all, a cut which affects low-income people, those who have the least ability to pay for their own optical , their own dental, their own medical expenses? Why has he eliminated covera ge, especially for proce dur es like root canals? • {1355) Hon. Harold Gllleshammer (Minister of Family Services): Mr. Speaker, I indic ated last week, when we discussed this, that we have had a 65 percent increase in the funding for social allowances over the last three budgets.

As a result of that call on public money, we have had to make some adjus tments to be nefits to social allowance recipients, which still leaves them mor e than adequate coverage, certainly much better than citizens of this province receive who are regarded as being the working poor and others. The delay that we have put into place is the same delay that civil servants respect when they come onto the job and that private plans have as well. So in order to preserve a system, we have had to make some adjustments to it and those ad justments were announced last week. Retrain ing Programs Mr.

Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr . Speaker, has the Minister of Family Services or his staff studied the issue of impro ving or making changes to the work ince ntive for people on social assistance, and if so, what did those studies show? Is the gove rnment prepared to make any changes there, especially progressive changes to encourage people to get off social assistance and get into the workforce ? Hon. Harold Gllleshammer (Minister of Family Services): Mr.

Speaker, the member raises I think a critical issue that is facing governments across North America, and I know in discussions with the member he is aware that the Premier of Ontario was talking about going to a form of workfare in that province. We spend something like $12 million on programs for social allowance recipients and moving them into the workforce. Part of the difficulty, of course, is the difficulty of finding jobs for people without the appropria te skills.

This is a challenge that I think we as go vernment will be looking at in the coming months and years, and one that all gove rnments are looking at, is how to use those funds to get people back to work. I can tell you in discussing this with my collea gues across the country who are responsible for social allowance programs, this is an area that needs reform and we are looking very carefully at what other provinces are doing. Work Incentives Mr.

Doug Martindale (Burrows): Will the Minister of Family Services give serious consideration to improvi ng the work incentives since there are many people who are willing to work? For example, working as enumerators in the referendum last fall,

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 730 one individual earned $500, was only allowed to keep $50. People need a positive incentive. It could be built into the system so that people are able to keep a much greater percentage of their earnings instead of having them taxed back, effectively at the rate of 1 00 percent. No one in this country pays taxes at the rate of 1 00 percent except people on sociai- Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Hon. Harold Glllesh ammer (Minister of Family Services): Mr.

Speaker, certainly the member is aware of the tremendous number of reforms that we have brou ght in in the last two years, ve ry supportive . I think of the change in the liquid assets test and the head of household changes. There are other reforms that we are looking at. Manitoba Public Insu rance Corp. No-Fault Auto Ins urance Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): I have a question for the minister responsible for MPIC. Manit obans continue to be ver y angr y and concerned about the excessively high Autopac premium increases that they see under this government.

They see a government that is doing absolutely nothing to keep the cost do wn. In answer to my question of March 1, Mr. Speaker, on the outrageous 75 percent increase given to the new chairman of the board of MPIC, the minister replied that they are looking at, and I am quoting from Hansard, "some very serious changes in the MPIC program ," and he went on to infer that Autopac 2000 is coming forward. Mr. Speaker, will the minister advise, does this mean that this government is now finally prepared to establish the pure no-fault system as recommend very strongly by Judge Kopste in? Hon.

Glen Cummings (Minister charged with th e administra ti on of The Manit oba Public Insurance Corporation Act): Mr. Speaker, I was not making any announceme nts, but I think the member should not rise from his place and try to ignore the fact that he was part of the administration that was looking at a 30 percent increase. Cost Efficiencies Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon Ea st): Mr. Speaker, if the minister will not implement a no-fau lt system, can he explain to the people of Manitoba how he and his government expect to keep costs from escalating in the future as they have done in the past?

In fact, rates have risen year after year under this government. People are very annoyed, very concerned. What is this government going to do to keep costs from rising in the future? Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the admini st ra ti on of The Ma nitoba Public Insurance Corpor ation Act): Mr. Speaker, we have indicated, and I have indicated very publicly on a number of occasions, that we are looking at all aspects of the Autopac coverage that is required by law in this pro vince. We are also assu ring our selves, through the corporati on, that the operations are efficient.

We will be doing a number of things within the respon sibility of the corpora tion. The corporation is actively pursuing some options today which will, in due course, be presented. Mr. Leonard Evans: It is still regrettable that Judge Kops tein, who rec omm ended a system that would have reduced Autopac premiums by 21 percent, is being ignored, Mr. Speaker. *

(1400) No-Fault Auto Insurance Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): My final supplementary to the minister is: Has this minister received any representation in the past few months from the Manitoba Bar Associa tion, or any group representing the legal profes sion, in opposition to a no-fault system, since such a system will reduce litigation costs substantially by tens of millions of dollars? Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the admi nistrat ion of The Ma nitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I have received any communic ation from the Bar Association recently.

I certainly received some a number of years ago. I have also received represe ntation from the Man itoba Socie ty of Seniors. I saw representations thatthey have made regarding their concerns. Labour Force Adjustment Strategy Tabling Req uest Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour. The labour force in the province of Manitoba has been go in g through a ma jor sh ift in the manufacturing industry. We have seen the loss of over 10,000 jobs since this government has taken

731 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 office. We see, in terms of retraining and training programs, that this government has been taking a reactive approach in addressing the needs of the workers for today and tomorrow. My question, Mr. Speaker, is for the minister. I would ask: When will he table a detailed plan on the labour force adjustment that will put Manitobans back to work now and prepare them not only for now but also for the future? Hon. Darren Praznlk (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Education (Mrs.

Vodrey) has indicated several times in this House, the work that is now going on with the Canada-Manitoba agreement, which includes the Apprenticeship and Training branch of this department, and tha co-ordination of a host of training programs across this province is now underway, and we are working towards concluding that agreement. I would point out to the member opposite that over the years, through various administrations in this province, both federal and provincial governments have built a host of programs often duplicating each other.

Now, over the last while, myself, the Minister of Education and the cabinet of this province have been working with our federal colleagues to sort that out and give direction to it. So that should be moving along shortly. Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting he points to the Minister of Education. I am aware of a student at Red River College who made application for the industrial electronics course and was told that in fact there is up to a two-year waiting list and then in January was told that he could come up on March.

Now he has been told that in fact he might have to wait till September because of the budget and potentially the course being cancelled completely, and he quit his job for it. Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Question, please. Labour Force Adjustment Strategy Department Co-ordination Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): My question is: When will the minister take steps to ensure that there is a collaboration between departments so that trainin g and retra in ing programs are co-ordinated in their efforts to put Manitobans back to work? Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Mr.

Speaker, first of all, I would just like to address the innuendo that the honourable member has raised in this House regarding courses. There has been no announcement yet. For the student and the individual case, I am happy to look at that particular student's case, but one of the difficulties that Red River College will be correcting in the upcoming academic year is to look at those waiting lists, because waiting lists in the past have included the same person's name several times.

We are now looking at making those waiting lists much more accurate so that then we know exactly what the intended enrollment will be at the colleges. In terms of working with my colleagues for a labour market strategy in this province, I would like to say that there are two working groups. In fact, there is a working group that is working within departments. There is also a working group that is working among departments and thos e departments include the Minister of Labour (Mr. Praznik). They also include my colleague the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Mitchelson), I T and T.

So we have been very inclusive in developing a labour market strategy in this province. Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, then can the minister explain to me why the registration fee would be accepted and then the course be cancelled? That is not innuendo. That is, in fact, what has happened. Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Speaker, as my honourable colleague first stated the case, he stated a proposed change. So he would have to present to me the specifics of the individual involved and, of course, I will be more than happy to look at those specifics should he present them to me. Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co.

Older Worker Adjustment Strategy Mr. Jerry Storie (FIIn Flon): Mr. Speaker, while all of northern Manitoba is suffering under the lack of economic leadership by this government, the community of Snow Lake and-{interjection] The Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) knows full well that the Minister of Energy and Mines bungled the Hydro contract. In the communities of Snow Lake and Flin Flon, as a result of five mine closures and two mill closures over a 30-month period, some 490 workers are going to be laid off. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Labour. Can the Minister of Labour explain to the

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 732 House why, after receiving a copy of a letter dated October 6 from the employment and personnel administrator in Flin Flon at Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting, asking the go vernment to begin to establish a program for older worker adjustment, the Province of Manitoba as of a week ago had provided no response and no leadership on an issue that affected as many as 120 older workers in Flin Flon and Snow Lake? Hon. Darren Praznlk (Minister of Labour): Mr.

Speaker, first of all, I would remind the honourable member for Flin Flon that the Department of Labour through our Labour Adjustment unit has been working very closely with the com munity comm ittee in the town of Snow Lake on a host of adjustment issues of which POWA is one. We have a staff person who has been assigned to that com munity working with them. He has been in Snow Lake, travelled there on many occasions to work with the commit tee and the conclusion of potentially a POWA application is part of that whole process.

I would remind the member for Flin Flon, the terms of the POWA agreement are fairly restrictive. Before even a candi date would be eligible for consideration, they would have to be out of work for at least a year. So it is not as if there is an issue today that has not been acted on. That process is part of the adjustment process in which we have a staff dedicated and assigned to the Snow Lake communi ty, as the member well knows. Mr. Storie: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not answer the question. The question was why has the gov ernment not responded.

Can the minister tell the people of Flin Ron and Snow Lake, who obviously are anxious about their jobs and their future, whether in fact the provincial gov ernment will be supporting a program for older worker adjustment for the Flin Flon and Snow Lake layoffs that are underway? Mr.

Praznlk: If I understand the member correctly, I believe he is referring to the POWA program, the program for older worker adjustment, where in essence the federal and pro vincial governments buy an annuity for an individual, I believe over 55 years of age, who is not able to be retrained, but the criteria for that particular agreement is extremely restricted. I would say to the member, before you can ask whether or not a government would support that application, we are not even sure whether or not there (

a) will be any applicants who will qualify, or whether the commu nity will qualify, but I can tell him that we have staff assigned who have been working through the Labour Adjustment Comm ittee in the process, which is the route to go, and that has been ongoing since the initial announ cements from Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting. Mr. Storie: Mr. Speaker, the minister has not even read the letter. The chairperson of the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Worker Adjustment Comm ittee identified in his letter that there were 122 people who would be eligible, or he believed would be eligible.

My question is a simple one: Will the government of Manitoba at least be supporting the establishment of a program for older worker adjustment for the Rin Flon, Snow Lake layoffs which are going to deci mate the com munities? Mr. Praznlk: Mr. Speaker, because the president of Hudson Bay-i n fact, this must be the first time that the New Democrats have accepted the word of a president of a mining company holus-bolus without judging it against criteria. Mr. Speaker, there are criteria by which that program operates.

One of them is that those individuals are not eligible or have not been able to be retrained within a year of being laid off. If they are eligible, we will consider that application. I have to say this to him, that the process is underway. This department has assigned staff to that process, but if he is asking me for a commitment here today, whether we do not even know if this layoff will be eligible, that would just be silly. * (1410 ) Crow Benefit Government Position Ms. Rosann Wowch uk (Sw an Ri ver) : Mr.

Speaker, cuts by this department are having a devastating effect on rural Manitoba, and other decisions that they are taking are causing much uncertainty. Last year they participated in the transpor tation talks dealing with the method of payment, the subsidy paid for the transportation of grain. Even though farmers voted overwhe lmingly in favour of keeping the system the way it is, this gov ernment continues to particip ate with the federal gov ernment to push on this matter. I want to ask the Premier to state very clearly his gove rnment's position. Does he feel the payment

733 LEGISlATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 should stay as it is, or are they supporting the idea that the payment should be changed to the farmers? Hon. Gary Fllmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, we in the economy of Manitoba, the economy of Canada, the economy of the world are under tremendous pressure. There are forces out there of change that are rather large, that are causing all of us to take a look at every opportu nity to increase investment, to increase job creation and to ensure that we can strengthen our economic base.

That is true of every area of the economy, including agriculture. Of course, we ar e going to want to be open-mi nded, to look at all opportu nities to increase the value of our product ion, to increase thQ revenues to our individual producers and to ensure that we do not ignore any opportunity for economic growth in our farm commu nity. We will always evaluate the options available to us with that in mind.

We will not have a narrow, blinkered view, as is being expr essed by the member for Swan River who says, do not consider any change; do everything the way it used to be done 50 years ago and cond emn our farmers to poverty. That is what she is asking us. I will not do that, Mr. Speaker. Our farmers deserve the opportunity for economic growth, for economic prosperity like everyone else in society does, and we will ensure that as we evaluate our policies, we keep that first and foremost in our mind. Mr. Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired. Introduction of Guests Mr.

Speaker: I would like to draw the attention of honourable members to the loge to my left, where we have with us this afternoon the honourable Howard Pawley, the former Premier for the Province of Manitoba, former MLA for Selkirk. I would like to welcome you here this afternoon, sir. Nonpolitical Statements Ms. Judy Wasylycla-Lels(St. Johns): May I have leave to make a non political statement? Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member for St. Johns have leave to make a nonpol itical statement? [agreed] Ms.

Wasylycla-Lels: I would like to bring to the attention of this House the amazing achievement of a Winnipeg artist and perform er, Ma-Anne Dionisio who was recently chosen from among hundreds of talented individuals to play the lead female role in the $20 million production of Miss Saigon set to open in Toronto in May at the Princess of Wales Theatre. This is a remarkable accomplishment and a matter of great pride for Ma-Anne's family, the entire Rlipino commu nity and Manitoba as a whole.

It means a big boost for Winnipeg and it puts the city once again on the map for our young talent and our rich, artistic commu nity. I, along with several other members in this Ch amb er, had the privilege of witnessing Ma-Anne's extraordinary voice and amazing talent when she performed at the Walker Theatre on Fe bru ary 21, along with young Angela Jill Gui ngcangco, another well-k no wn, extre mely talented member of our com munity. I would like to offer, Mr.

Speaker, on behalf of mem bers in this Asse mb ly, ou r he ar tfelt congr atulations and best wishes to Ma-Anne Dionisio and on behalf of everyone here express our thanks by saying Salamat po. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Speaker, may I have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? Mr. Speaker: Does the honou rable member for Ink ster have leave to ma ke a non political statement? [agreed] Mr. Lamoureux: I want to join in with the member for St. Johns (Ms. Wasylycia-Leis) in the words that she has put forward with respect to Ma-Anne.

You know, I have had the opportunity to go to a number of different events and functions and am somewhat familiar with Ma-Anne's performances, not only on the radio and so forth but also in diffe rent organ izations where I have seen her perform ing. In particular, just over Valentine's Day at the Radio 27 Club, which is another organization where we see a lot of talent, Mr.

Speaker, and a lot of this talent is allowed to come to the surface because the com munities, all of the different ethnic commu nities, get behind the individuals and promote and ensure that there is a platform for them in order to get more and more people involved in listening to the different arts and the different heritage groups and so forth. I did want to congr atulate Ma-Anne on the wonderful job that she has done, and I am sure that she will do Manitoba proud in her performance coming up in Toronto. Thank you.

March 3, 1993 LEGISlATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 734 Committee Changes Mr. Nell Gaudry (St. Boniface ): I move, seconded by the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamour eux), that the com position of the Standing Com mittee on Public Accounts be amended as follows: Osborne (Mr. Alcock ) for Inkster (Mr . Lamoureux) . Mr. Speaker: Agreed and so ordered. ORDE RS OF THE DAY Hon. Clayton Manness (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, will you call Debate on Second Readings, the bills in the order that is presented on the Order Paper? DEBATE ON SECOND READINGS Bill 2- The Endangered Species Amendment Act Mr.

Speaker: On the proposed mo tion of the honourable Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns), Bill2, The Endangered Species Amendment Act; Loi mo difiant Ia

Loi sur les especes en voie de disparition, standing in the name of the member for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie ). Is there leave that this matter remain standing? [agreed] Mr. John Plohman (Dauphin): Mr. Speaker, this is the second time that we have seen this issue before the House since the election of 19 90. This government did not get it right the first time. This is ver y co mmo n in m any of the bills tha t the government brings fo rward.

They do not have a very good screening process in place to ensure that the bills have gone through all of the requirements and that they will not have to come back before the House and demons trate their confusion and mismanagement when it comes to managing bills in this House. We have seen this many times. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) knows that and is rather embarrassed about it.

I would be, too, if I was him, because in fact they have been in governm ent five years now and should have been able, by this time, to put in place a process that ensures that bills brought before the House are not rushed and brought in in a haphazard way, an ad hoc way, therefore requiring all kinds of changes later on, bec ause it does take a lot of the time of this House, as the minister will probably realize by the time the debate in this House is over on this bill. It does take a lot of time and expense for the taxpaye rs.

Any government that wants to proclaim itself as efficient and as custodians o f the taxpayers' dollars should, in fact, ensure that their legislation is brought in in a way that is complete, accurately reflects the intent and has passed all possible scrutiny so that we will not end up with the problems that we have with many pieces of legislation by the go vernment. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I realize there are some new circums tances that have developed since 19 90 and that is why the bill, Bill2 dealing with endangered species, is befo re this House as well.

So it is partly the fact that the government did not do it right the first time. They had the opportuni ty, this gove rnment, only two years ago-three years ago, in 19 90. Also not only did they not do it right, but ther e were some other circu mstances tha t developed since that time, regulations put in place at the national level that require some changes to the provincial act to conform . Having said that, I can see there is some validity then to bringing the act in. My understanding is that there is a commi ttee on the status of endangered wildlife in Canada, Mr. Speaker, that has nationally recognized

definitions of terms. Since that has established a norm and a standard across the country, it ma kes sense to ma ke sure tha t Manitoba's act conf orms. I believe that information was available to the government in 19 90 when they brought in the previous act, and they should have been able to enact it at that time, rather than just going ahead and ignoring the national standards and facts that were in place. [interjection] * (1 420) The Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey) seems to be particularly interested in this bill, paying close attention, but he is interrupting me at this time.

I wanted to bring to his attention, Mr. Speaker, that he will have an opportunity to speak on this bill-1 am sure he will want to-at great length at some point in the near future, because the government does not have any real agenda for this House at this present time. What has happened, Mr. Speaker, is they are hoping that the opposition will be able to fill the time for them because they do not have their act together. They are afraid to bring in a budget. They are afraid to bring a budget before the people of Manitoba until other provinces have brought in their

735 LEGISlATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 budgets. So they are kind of dilly-dallying, waiting, whiling away the time in this Legislature, wasting the time of this Legislature on bills. I think it is time that this go vernment brought forward its agenda for this legislative session that they said they were going to bring forward, if they want to be straight with the people, in the throne speech. I think their agenda is shifting. In fact, we are not even seeing the list of legislation that was promised in the throne speech coming forward. So we are having to deal with these bills at this time.

The gove rnment is hopeful that it is this side of the House that is going to bail them out because they do not have an agenda for the people of Manitoba, and I would say by delaying the budget, Mr. Speaker, they are in fact managing inefficiently and wasting taxpayers' mo ney in the provi nce of Manitoba. This should be noted and is noted on the record. I think the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey) should be relevant when he discusses issues in this House. I have found it very difficult, Mr.

Speaker, now that he brings forward the topic to find out exactly what he is referring to when he is answering questions or speaking in this House, because he has a great deal of difficulty being relevant to the subject. Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to pr10vide a brief bit of history to the Minister of Northern Affairs and other MLAs listening closely on this important issue. This matter of endangered species was one that has been pioneered at least in Legislatures in this cou ntry, a gr eat deal by the previous New Demo cratic go vernment. As a matter of fact, we had initiated a process to establish such

an act, an Endangered Species Act, way back in the mid-1 980s. Nc1w we are talking about eight years ago when this process started. It was recognized even before that We had done a lot of the groundwork. We had all the bills ready to go and, as a matter of fact, would have been introduced in the House in 19 88 prior to the unforeseen election that took place in the spring of 19 88. The government then took another two years following that to bring forward an Endangered Species Act so they had a couple of years. What I said earlier., Mr.

Speaker, is that they did not have an adequ ate process for scre ening legislation to ensure that it was accu rate and reflected the intent. So what we saw is that the bill that was brought in in 19 90 was severely flawed and needed some updates. Now they are telling us that new circum stances have resulted in a need to in fact change things in this bi II. So if we take them at their word, there are some changes that are a result of a change in the situation regarding endangered wildlife, endangered species in this country as a whole, and they have brought in some changes.

We have some concerns, I would not say, Mr. Speaker, about the defi nitions, because the

definitions on endangered species, extinct species and threat ened species are mo re clear and consis tent with the national standards and so that is okay. However, there are some aspects of this bill dealing with the minister's powers.

Now that is always a frightening thing when we talk about the minister's powers, because when we have powers placed in the hands of the irresponsible as we have in many cases here in this Legislature, in this gove rnment, it is pretty scary for people because they have, in many cases, across the board carte blanche authori ty to make decisions that affect in this case not only human beings in this province with regard to social services and health care and education, but also endangered species of wildlife. No w, the Mi nister of Northe rn Affairs (Mr. Downey) talks about endangered species.

I think that he better start looking in the mirror, because it is going to be a fact that they are going to see a vanishing species across the road as we approach the next election, and it is becoming more evident. The real extinct species is going to be on the other side, so they should try to preserve themselves-! admit that they are- and take all the step s necessary, perhaps using this act to preserve themselves. In the final analysis, they will be a vanishing breed, Mr. Speaker, and they are at the present time. Let me say that with regard to the powers of the minister, there is going to be a

section within the bill that will allow the minister to issue a permit that would permit the killing of an endangered species member. That is of serious concern because they use the term 'scientific purposes" and they say that would be the reason, but it has been pointed out by my colleagues, and I think very importantly so, that 'scientific purposes" has not been adequately defined. If you do not have a definition and a guideline under which the minister must act, then we are giving the mi nister, as I indi cated earlier, a

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 736 dangerous expansion of power. In fact, there could be interest groups that would want to take these animals for their own purposes, that could lobby the minister and end up with a permit that would not be truly for scientific purposes or necessary scientific purposes. We have not even talked about the necessity of this and whether there are alternatives. What about the possibility that there are all kinds of other species that could serve the same purpose for scientific study? They would not have to actually go after one of those that are rare and endangered.

We would think that the gove rnment would consider that, but there is no definition in this bill that deals with this issue. That, of course, is very frightening, as I said earlier. In fact, we have seen the misuse of power by this gov ernment, by these ministers on many occasions in the last number of years, and perhaps no more aptly demonstra ting, Mr. Speaker, than in the deep and difficult, the extremely painful cuts inflicted by the government on children in this pro vince, on the poor, on the vulnerable, on the people who are ill, on the elderly.

Groups that are vulnerable in society tend to be picked on by this govern ment. In that way, with that exam ple, you have to wonder whether, if we were to compa re those species that are endangered in animal life, we could look at that comparison and that parallel between what they do with the mo st vulnerable in society when it involves human beings and what do they do in a situation like this. Do they really care? Is there any chance that we could point to examples that would show that this government really cares about the most vulnerable in society? We have seen their track record.

Why would they care about animals? Why would they really care about finding out whether a scientific project of research was really necessary on that endangered species? Why would they really care? They do not demon strate they care. They seem to be more concerned with pursuing their ideological bent and philo sophy with regard to privatization and cuts on essential services than they do with compassion for those who are mo st impacted in society, Mr. Speaker. We saw that with the kind of flippant responses from the Premier (Mr. Filmon) to the member for Thom pson (Mr. Ashto

n) yesterday when he raised a very serious issue about one of his constitu ents with regard to mental health services in this province. We saw the kind of political attack by the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) who said he was just grandstanding. That is the kind of response that would demo nstrate to us that this government is not a caring government, does not concern itself with the plight of those who are the mo st vulnerable and are being hurt the mo st in society and in fact hurts them even worse and smiles, Mr. Speaker, oblivious to the blood that is being shed around them. * (1 430) I say, Mr.

Speaker, any time a government of this political stripe, with this callo us attitude towards life, towards peopl e, to those vulnerable in society, we should be concerned when they bring in

an act that gives expansive powers to the minister, in this case the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns), to make decisions with regard to animal life. Many times many people consider animal life as sacred as human life. In fact there are many people who risk their life, who spend much of their life defending various species of animal life in our world, not only in our country but across the world. The Greenpeace organization might be one example. They give their own lives in some cases. They give their own lives to preserve and save endangered wildlife. (Mr.

Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker, in the Chair) So we consider that human beings value wildlife and species, and of course we see that it is endangered in so many areas of the world. We are losing species, plant species, wildlife species at an alarming rate at the present time with the burning of the rain forests and the destruction of other habitat for wildlife. We are losing hundreds of species perhaps a day in some of the information that I have seen. It is extremely scary and a tremendous loss to our world that these species have indeed been wiped off the face of the earth forever.

So there are those who draw this to pub lic attention, who spend much of their life defending those that cannot defend themselves, those that canno t speak for themselves. Just like we have the vulnerable in soci ety who can not speak for themselves in many cases, they ask the voice of the opposition to bring forward their concerns. We have wi ldlife, indeed, who can not speak for themselves as well. When this government is

737 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 callous in their treatment of our environment and our wildlife, as ;nany like gove rnments across this world are, like-minded governmen ts to this go vernment I might say, then there must be someone who will stand up and speak for them. That is what we intend to do with this bill, to speak for those who are at risk, be it wildlife, be it human beings, because both are very valuable to our people, to our fragile planet, as my colleague the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) says in adding her piece to this bill from her seat.

I am certain that my colleagues will want to add their contributions on this bill time and again over the next while to bring forward their deep concerns on the issue of endangered wildlife and plant species in this world, certainly. I want to just alert the gove rnment that we not only are vigilant when we are dealing with human life and those who are vulnerable in society and endangered by the actions of this government, endangered. The parallel is very clear. In fact, Mr.

Acting Speaker, we will be vigilant not only when it endangers the human species, but also when it endangers the various species of wildlife and plant life in this country, in this world and in this province in particular. Mr. Acting Speaker, I will close my remarks at this time with the one final statement that I can make to the minister, that he, the Mi nister of Natural Resou rces (Mr.

Enns) , when reading these remarks, undoubtedly in great detail, at some time in the future, will carefully consider whether in fact he should define scientific purposes in this act, so that there will be some legislative guidelines for decision making by the minister, not wide open. Although the minister and his colleagues may feel comfortable for another year or a year and a half, they are-and they have to realize-te mporary custodians of the decision making of government in the province of Manitoba, temporary custodi ans.

So, within the passage of time, within a year, a year and a half, perhaps as long as two years, they will no longer be in their positi ons. They can see those days being numbered. They may think, just as we do not believe that they can be trusted to do the right thing all of the time, even some of the times, tney may think that we cannot be trusted when we are in go vernment to do the right thing all of the time. They should ensure that they like this legislation not only when they are in government, but they find it acceptable when they are in opposition too.

If they used that as a guideline for any of the legislation they bring forward, to consider whether it is acceptable to them if they were sitting in opposition as it is when they are sitting in government, if they use that measuring stick, then in fact they will definitely be more representative of people's wishes than they are at the present time, because they certainly are not using that. They are not using that, Mr. Acting Speaker. They have to remember, it could be in the hands of the opposition in gove rnment only a year and a half or two years hence.

Would they like those powers in the hands of the opposition when in government? That is the yardstick I said they should use. I hope that they will endeavour to consider those things when they make decisions of this nature. Because they are not going to be there, as I said, for a very long time, and they will have to consider the implications of that to their future as well. Mr. Acting Speaker, I am going to just indicate that we will want to hear what the government has to say in support of what they are proposing here.

We will want to hear whether they have some way of dealing with the concerns that we have raised that are satisfactory to us. My colleagues will undoubtedly want to raise a number of oth er issues related to this bill at the very earliest opportunity. As a matter of fact, I understand that they will need some of those papers very soon. Thank you. Committee Change Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimll): Mr. Speaker, I would like to make some changes to the Public Accounts Com mittee. The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Would the honourable member for Gimli have leave to make changes to one of the commi ttees?

Leave. [agreed] Mr. Helwer: I move, seconded by the member for Assiniboia (Mrs. Mci ntosh ), that the com position of the Standing Comm ittee on Public Accounts be amended as follows : The member for Portage Ia Prairie (Mr. Pallister) for the vacant position that we have on the commi ttee. * * * The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading-{inte�ection] Oh, it is standing in the name of the honour able member-that is correct. I am sorry.

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 738 As previously agreed, this matter will remain standing in the name of the honourable member for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie ). Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Acti ng Speaker, I assume that there is still permission to remain standing in the name of the member for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie ). Okay. Mr. Acting Speaker, I am glad to rise on The Endangered Species Amendment Act, which is

an act of three or four pages which intends primarily to offer some wor ding changes, some definition changes to The Endangered Species Act. Its purpose in altering some of these

definitions is to bring them in line with both national and international wordings and

definitions, and I think, Mr. Acting Speaker, that is generally a good move, one where in fact we perhaps ought to be looking at other acts in much the same way. In the New Democratic Party and on this side of the House, of course, we have always fought for nati onal standards in so many areas of government. * (1 440)

Definitions, scientific regulations and connections across prov incial boundaries I think have always been important, and one of the things in fact that I thought was one of the better aspects of the constitutional proposals of Manitoba was that it argued for a stronger voice at the national level for the environment as well as for post-secondary educatio n, and that was an all-party report, Mr. Acting Speaker.

It did not in the end, I believe, form pa rt of this go vern men t's pr oposals at the constitutional table, but I do believe that it was some thing which was approved of by mo st Manitobans in the hearings that we heard from last year and the year before. So the move towards national standards even in such a small area as this is one that in principle I approve of and would offe r some support for.

I would hope that the government would at some point go back to that all-party comm ittee on the Constitution to look at the submissions which were made by people who were looking for national standards and national approaches to the difficulties that Canada is facing in the environment and in post-secondary education, and perhaps take to heart and try and make some changes on and in the national forum in both of those areas, both of which cry out for a national approach to the probl ems that all provinces are facing, and problems which do not stop at pro vincial boundaries.

The second thing I think that is interesting about this act, Mr. Acting Speaker, is that it is

an act, perhaps, much like The Heritage Resources Act where gove rnment is acting to regulate and to protect a national or a prov incial inheritance, a public, a common inheritance for the people of Manitoba. I am of ten su rprised when this par ticu lar gove rnment does make that approach, because this is a gove rnment which is adverse to regulation and to protection.

It is a gove rnment which I believe has a real agenda in fact to retreat from go vernance, to retreat from the protection of the rights and the commu nity supports and of the programs that we held in com mo n, a party and a government which is aiming in almost everything that it brings to this House to reduce the role of gov ernment, to reduce regulation, to reduce any kind of constraint upon international markets, multinational corpora tions. Mr.

Acting Speaker, when government is weak, it is the people and the poorest people who suffer, and that, I believe, is the real agenda of this government in almost every area which they touch. So it is with some surprise that I do see that they are, in fact, dealing with, or making as part of their agenda,

an act which does attempt to regulate in a very, very small way some elements of the provincial or common inhe ritance. The pr otec tion of endangered species is som ething that can not be done by individuals. It is something that cannot be done by individual commu nities or by

section s of the province or indeed classes or volunteers so much beloved of this gov ernment, but it is something which must be done by all the people together. So it is with some surprise that I welcome the interest of this gov ernmen t in some forms of regu lation and in so me forms of common inheritance. There are times when I look at the actions of this government in dealing with education, in dealing with the health care system, in dealing with family services, when one wonders if there will be any th ing left for the next gener at ion of Manitobans. Will there be any common inheritance left?

There may, in fact, if we look at this, be perhaps some endangered species left in Manitoba, and so I congratu late the government at least on dealing with something which I would think ran counter to their basic assumptions and their basic agenda for this pro vince.

739 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 This particular act, as I said, reminds me very much of The Heritage Resources Act, which the NDP government put in place, but there are, of course, some differences. The Heritage Resou rces Act aims to protect and regulate special places and buildings of historical significance. It is

an act which provides for surveys, for evaluation, for designation, for public hearings and for appeals. It is quite a complex act, Mr. Acting Speaker. At the time when it was instituted under Eugene Kostyra, it was the mo st progressive piece of legislation in heritage conservation in the country. Since1 then, there have been others which have improved upon it, as is the case in our federal system and, to some extent, in Ontario, which surpassed it in the latter part of the 19 80s. But it was a good piece of legislation. It is still in place.

It is one that I think has resulted in a much greater awareness of the value of endangered places and endangered buildings. The provision for the designation of municipal buildings and municipal special places, I think, has resulted in wide recognition and a great deal of com munity activity, particularly in parts of southern Manitoba. So I would think that this government, which represents much of southern Manitoba, might have seen the value of the surveys, the public input, the right of appeal and the monitoring of heritage resources and heritage-desig nated places in Manitoba.

It does surprise me perhaps that some of those principles were no t used when the amendme nts to this act were developed, and it is some elements of that I wanted to turn to, Mr. Acting Speaker. One of the difficulties in this bill is, in fact, that it provides for a listing of endangered species and for really a process of watching decline.

It does not provide for enforce ment; it does not provide for fines; it does not provide, perhaps more importantl y, for the very first basis of any kind of wildlife management program or heritage management program or management program of any kind of conservation resources, and that is, first of all, an inventory of the existing species, their habitat, their con dition, their numbers, and dev•�lops longitudinal studies of those particular species and animals.

That, I think we will find when w•� get to the public hearings, will be one of the diffi culties that environmen tal group s and peopl•� concerned with heritage and conservation generally will address.

I guess we all are grateful for the advantages we have in Manitoba having all bills go to public hearing so that we do have the opportunity to address issues such as this on which we might all be able to agree, in which there might be a consensus and where it might be possible for the minister at that stage to address the issue in conj unction with the commu nity and with the opposition and to find some way of addressing the public concerns that are out there.

Those public hearings are always well attended and, I think in some cases, not in all but, in some cases, there has been very productive use and there has been the opportuni ty to develop a consensus in a number of areas and to provide amendments that do address the issues that the public brings before us. In this case, Mr.

Acting Speaker, I think that there might well be presentations which do point out to the minister the difficulties that Manitobans have in looking at endangered species when we have so little information upon their recent history and we have so little information that wou ld give us essentially an inventory of which animals and which species are in greater or lesser need of protection and which ones in fact are present and in what numb ers and how their num ber s have been changing perhaps over the last five to 1 0 years, the ver y basic kin d of inve ntory that any small businessman, as the gove rnment I am sure will well rec ognize, any managemen t of any resou rce, whether it is a human resource or whether it is, in this case , a species of wild animals.

You have to know how many there are; you have to know what rate they have been changing at and where they are and how those habitats have been changing. One of the difficulties in Manitoba is that we do not have those moni toring provisions and we do not have those inventory pro vi sions. Many other jurisdictions do. I think particularly you will find that environmen talist s will point to Am erican jurisdictions and to new legislation in the United States which is particularly strong on this issue. So that is one area I think that the government might want to address.

I think a second issue that is important to all of us on this side of the House is the capacity of this particular department to indeed take on very basic management processes such as an inventory of these species. This is a government which a number of years ago fired over 200 people. This is a department which, I am sure, will suffer greater losses again. It is a department which is going to a fou r-day week. How can you have a department of

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 740 Natural Resources which is charged with, which is mandated to protect endangered species and to give a wide variety of services to the people of Manitoba who are being consistently undercut, und erm ined, unde rfunded by this

part icular govern ment?

It is not simply a response to the issue of financial resources in the gov ernment, because I do fundamen tally believe that this government, without a financial crisis, would have taken steps and mo ves to reduce government, to retreat from governance, to retreat from the role of a com munity in defending and preserving its resources and its inheritance. • (1 450) It is a clear ideological divide, one I think which we are seeing now put in place very consistently when the gove rnment believes that it will have public support for its particular ideological bent under the guise of a financial crisis, but we should not be mislead or fooled by this.

There are a good proportion of the cabinet, a good proportion of the members of that side of the House who clearly see that limits to governm ent powers are ones which will act in the interest of those who are powerful and wealthy and who have influence in our com munity. It is a clear ideological divide, which I believe the people of Manitoba are becoming more clearly aware of, particularly in the city of Winnipeg, where the economic cleavages are becoming much more dramatic and much more evident.

I think it will become increasingly clear as the effects of these gov ernment cuts are felt throughout the province in school boards and universities and institutions of health and family services as they begin to trickle down. I think the real trickl e-dow n legacy of this gov ernment in fact will be that recognition that there is a clear ideological divide between the peoples of Manitoba and in fact the government, which is choosing to reduce and to retreat from its rightful role as the voice of the com munity and as the protector and conserver of our resources and our programs.

There ar e concerns about a num ber of endangered species in Manitoba. Some of the ones that have been mentioned most recently are on both sides of Lake Winnipeg, for example the woodland caribou . I think there have been some changes that have been made in the area to the east side of Lake Winnipeg in some logging practices in order to protect parts of the woodland caribou herd. As far as I understand it, these changes and these limitations placed on logging in order to protect the woodland caribou have com e at the request, at the pressu re of conser vation group s and of the environmen tal movement.

They have not, as I understand it, although I stand to be corrected on this, come at the insis tence of this no-regulation gove rnment.

Public interest groups out there are indeed concerned about this and, certainly in the case of the woodland caribou, have acted to force the govern ment to act, but it is a gove rnmen t department which has fewer and fewer employees and, of course, does find it more and more difficult to be ahead of the process, to be there monitoring the state of the woodland caribou or of the brown trout, for example, in the Nelson River system, another species which peo ple have suggested is also in danger.

So I would suggest, first of all, a reconside ration of the role of the Department of Natural Resources of the staffing levels to look at whether in fact they are able to manage the cons equences of acts such as this. I would suggest to the government that they consider an inventory, that they have the basic management tools at their fingers so they can indeed reasonably enforce this act. I would suggest also that they do consider having some pro visions in this pa rt icular bill for enforcement.

There is very little in here that gives one any hope that there will be serious enforce ment, partly because of the staffi ng levels of the department, but also partly because of the nature of the bill itself. That would be something I think we might want to consider in co mmittee as well. One area that has also been brought to our attention is the issue of permits in this bill. The permits by the minister, which are mentioned in one particular

section towards the end of the bill, where the minister is now permitted to authorize a person to kill, take, collec t or ca pture an endangered species. That, I think, will bear some further investigation at committee. An Honourable Member: Trust us. Ms. Friesen: The minister says, trust us. Well, the minister will forgive me if a slight smile appears on my lips. An Honourabl e Member: You like that, eh? Ms. Friesen: Yes, just a little.

741 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 There are comparable provisions in The Heritage Resources Act, and I wanted to draw those to the attention of the minister because The Heritage Resources Act, I think, has elements which could be useful here. The minister here is allowed to give permits for the killing of animals, and I assume that the origin of this is animals perhaps who might be badly wound ed and who, under the actual specific wording of the previous legislation, could not be killed.

So it may be for the pro vision of- the point that I wanted to make about the permits is that it may indeed be seen to be correcting some of the limitations of the earlier wor ding, but there are some prob lems with it, and I hope that we will be addressing these in comm ittee. In The Heritage Resources Act, for example, the mini ster is allo wed to provide perm its for archaeological investigations; some, in fact, are given regularly.

But there is the provision for an advisory commit tee to the minister, the Heritage board which does look at, over a period of time, not every permit, but once a year at the nature of the permits which have been given. It may be possible that within the Department of Natural Resources or within one of the existing boards of government that some review could be provided for in that area.

That might be something that we could look at-that sense of public reassurance that this is not being done in an unnecessary or a cruel manner and one where it is being done, in fact, in sympathy with the spirit of the legislation. So there are some concerns there, Mr. Acting Speaker, and I hope that we will be looking at them in more detail later on. Manitoba has lost many species over the cou rse of its history, and I suppose the mo st famous of these is the buffalo, but it is not the only one by any means.

In earlier times, there were in fact great millions of carrier pigeons in the Red River region, so much so that in fact they became one of the major sources of food at certain times of the year. It was by the hand of man and by the introduction of guns that many of these pigeons were decimated and eventually became an exterminated species in the Red River Valley. There have be.;m others. Fish, for example, perhaps is one of the mo st notable ones which has suffered serious declines throughout Manitoba history.

We tend to think that it is the buffalo which was the staff of life for people in this area and for people to the west of us on the plains, but indeed I think mo st of the recent archeological and historical

interpretation is suggesting that the buffalo was one of the more recent additions to the basic staple of life for the people of this area. Recent archeological investigations both in Manitoba, Pembina Post, for example, and in the Qu'Appelle Valley have shown enormo us pr od uc tions of fish ma teri al-the preparation of fish pemmican, for example, amou nts which were feeding very large numbers of people over long periods of time and which enabled them to assemble in quite large tribal groupings.

So the provision of fish and its loss over the years I think is one of the things that we should remember as we are addr essing endanger ed species in this particular bill. * (1 500) For the mo st part fish was lost, not just by the hand of man alone, but in a sense by the unregulated market economy.

Much of the fish of Lake of the Woods, much of the very large fish, the sturgeon of Lake of the Woods, was lost in a very short perio d of time, between about 18 80 and about 18 90, a 1 0-year period, when American fishing com panies moved into this area, established themselves largely with Metis labour along the shores of Lake Manitoba and in the Lake of the Woods area and, in a sense, mined that resource.

Out of Selkirk, for example, they took the railway and they transship ped the fish down to Chicago and to Detroit, and those provided a ready market and an initial and quick cash market for the fish resources - of the area. To a large extent the fish resources of Lake Winnipeg have not recovered from that onslaught of the open market. Of course, the people who suffer from that are those for whom the fish had become an important part of their diet.

So the Metis of that area in the 18 90s and beyond not only lost some of their labour opportunities that they had in the earlier period , but they also did not have the same opportunities for the management of that resource that they had in the past. So the loss of species has had tremendous impact upon different comm unities in Manitoba, 2,000 years ago, 200 years ago and even perhaps almo st within recent memory, at the turn of the 19t h Century. The loss of the buffalo is a more complex issue. It is an interesting one perhaps.

We tend to think that it was only at the hands of the European hunter that the buffalo declined, but the mo re recent research suggests that it was a great variety of

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 742 complex mechani sms, one of which was the opening in the 18 30s of an immediately available market in St. Louis and at the smaller towns along the Missou ri. The people of Manitoba: Metis, Assiniboin, Dakotas and Cree, through the Mandan trade reacted very quickly to this new market economy.

The expansion of the buffalo hunt amongst all groups in Manitoba, I think, was very rapid in that period and was one of the factors that pushed the buffalo further west and led to the migration of people out of Manitoba essentially into Blackfoot territory where the buffalo conti nued to arrive. A number of complex factors there did result in the loss of a very significant resource for large numbers of the people of this province.

The final culmination of the loss of the buffalo was of course due to the railway and to the expansion of white settlement and to the introduction in the United States of non- native hunters who did make very rapid inroads into a declining resource . It was not without the appeals of the people at the time. The Council of Assiniboia in the 18 50s did consider in fact regulating this particular resource and did look upon it as an endangered species. Cer tainly there were other times the Northwest Council of the 18 70s also examined the case of the buffalo and its loss as an endangered species.

When the Cree of western Manitoba and of eastern Saskatchewan approached the government to make treaties in the 18 70s, one of the elements that they asked for was in fact exclusive control of the buffalo resou rce , because they knew it was a declining resource and, as they said at the time, we must find ways to feed our children. They asked-in fact, in the late 18 70s, the Indians made repeated reques ts to the Northwest Council for game regulations on the buffalo that would enable them to find a living for what appeared to be the last generation of buffalo.

So this is not the first time that Manitoba by any means ha s looked at endanger ed spec ies. Manitobans have not always acted I think in the best interests of the species, and we have lost a number of species and we still have species which are in imminent danger.

We have a govern ment which prefers not to regulate , which prefers not to mon itor or to inventory, which prefers not to have a bill which provides for penalties in this area but which offers a small movement towards national standards at least in vocabulary and which is trying to perhaps offer some public relations effort to people who are concerned about the envir onment.

I do look forward to the commi ttee hearings, where we will have an opportunity for questions and perhaps to find some consensus where we can ameliorate some of the elements of this bill and to perhaps find some openings of opportunity in the area that it offers to us. Thank you. Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr. Acting Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on this bill, because I think endanger ed species are very important and it also gives me the opportunity to start off with some theological reflections, which is something that I like to do with every bill, but it is not always easy to do that.

In this case I believe it is. I think that a good place to start is with our theology of life on this Earth and how we view it and how we as human beings are responsible for preserving life and protec ting life. The best word for that is stewardship. We are stewards of our environment. We have the opportuni ty to be good stewards or bad stewards of our environment, and much of this thought and language comes from the book of Genesis, where God gave humankind dominion over the earth and all living things, and this passage has been inter preted in differen t ways. For example, ther e have been two pri ma ry

interpretations of this passage. One is that humans can do anything, because huma ns are superior and have a God-given mandate to do anything they want. Historically that

interpretation held sway for many, many centuries, and some people still hold to that interpretatio n. There is another and I believe more enlightened

interpretation, one that has much better scientific support, and that is that to have dominion implies being responsible and being good stewards of our environment. I believe that biblical inte rpretation and ethics support this second

interpretation. So, in our society, we have not only competing theological concepts, if you want to look at it from the biblic al poi nt of view, but you could say-[ interjection] The member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey) wants to know if I use the same script on weekends, and the answer is yes. I would say exactly the same thing in the pulpit that I am saying now in my speech. If the member would like to come and listen to me in the pulpit I would invite him to do that too.

743 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 So another way of looking at this is that these are two co mpeting philo sophies, or these are two competing world views. One view is that as human beings we can use up the world's resources, that we do not have any respon sibility for how fast we use up the world's resources or in what manner we use them because, as human beings, that is our right, that is our privilege. It is up to us to make all those decisions.

The other world view is that we should be good stewards, we sho uld be very concerned, we should be very careful of how we use the world's resources and to what extent we protect them. We have an Endangered Species Act in Manitoba. As far as the act goes it is good as far as it exists. However, thero are many shortcomings in this act which I will describe. The act in the

Preamble recog nizes that plant and anima l species are of ecological, educational , aesthetic, historical, medical, recr eational and scientific value to Manitobans and the residents of Manitoba and, due to the activities of persons unte mper ed by adeq ua te concern for the preservation of native plant and animal species or other factors, plant and animal species in Manitoba from time to time become extinct or so depleted that they are threatened with extinction. * (1 51 0) Well, that is good enough as far as it goes. I can agree with that.

I can even agree with the purpose of the act, which is to ensure the protection and to enhance the survival of endangered and threatened species in the pro vince; second, to enable the reintroduction of extinct species into the pro vince; and third, to designate species that are endangered or threatened with extinction in the province. So the purpose of the act is a good one. However, we have serious problems with the fact that the act does not go nearly far enough.

For example, if one looks at fines in Manitoba, which is an important part of enforcing the act, it is my understanding that in Manitoba the fines are a maximum of $5,000 or six months in jail. If you contr ast this with the equi valent Amer ic an legislation, you wil! see that in the• fish or wildlife endangered species protection act of the United States Senate, which was originally passed in 1 969, that the fines are twice what they are in Manitoba.

For example, the fine is $1 0,000 or imprisonment of not more than one year. [interjection] Well, I seem to hear the member opposite asking me if I like the American way. This may surprise her, but I am going to talk a lot about the American endangered species protection act, because it is much better legislation than exists in the province of Manitoba. Yes, there are things that we can learn from the American example. I am not adverse to borrowing good ideas, nor should we, nor should her gove rnment be adverse to borrowing good ideas from the United States when that is appropriate.

I see the minister agrees with me. I am glad to see that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. Mcin tosh) agrees with me. Now I would like to direct my attention to Bill 2, The Endangered Species Amendment Act. The main problem we have with this is that it does not go far enough. It only lists the endangered species and the requirements to catalogue various stages of extinction. In fact, I came across a wonderful quote. I am sorry I do not have the person who said this, but someone said: We will be the only species to minutely monitor our own extinction.

I think what that means is that after we monitor the extinction of all other species, humankind will be the only ones who are left. In our society, we have actually gained quite a bit of expertise and knowledge in monitoring certain things. For ex am ple, we are wonderful at monitoring air and water pollution, or air quality and water quality. However, in Bill 2, we are going to increase monitoring the extinction of species, but we are not going to do anything more about protection of species, and that is a shame.

In the American legislation all agencies, fish and wildlife service and other agencies are required to enforce the endangered species act. In Manitoba, I believe The Endangered Species Act is merely a public relations gesture. There is no compulsion for a recovery plan or to do anything other than to catalogue the extinction of species. In fact, the opposite is happening. As a result of budget cuts by this gove rnment, they are elim ina ting and dismantling the infrastructure in the Departm ent of Na tural Resources. They are slashing the budget in Natural Resou rces.

They are slashing the staff in Natural Resources. The staffperson who was responsible for ecological reserves is gone. So not only are we not protec ting the habitat and protecting species, but we are going in the opposite direction. We are

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 744 provid ing fewer and fewer resources so that this might happen in the present or the future. I learned today that there was an endangered species scratch-and-win ticket, which suggested that the government was concerned for endangered species. It suggested that the money that was raised this way might be used to protect endangered species.

However, when the staff of the Wildlife Branch wanted to get some of this money to protect endangered species, they were not allowed to access it, which suggests to me that the endangered species scratc h-a nd-win was an ot her public relations exercise. The Department of Natural Resources used to have a library. They used to have an excellent librarian. What happened? It is gone. What did they do with the infor mation? They dumped it on the Parks Branch, but gave them no resources for the public to make use of it.

What we have on the one hand is the gov ernment's profe ssed allegiance to preserving and protecting the environment and on the other hand budgetary decisions which are going in the opposite direction and provi ding fewer and fewer resources toward protecti ng the environment and endangered species. What does Bill2 do? Well, it lists various stages that species go through. The list in this bill is endangered species, threatened species, extinct species and extirpated species.

Well, I think that they have the last two out of order, probably should have been extirpated species and then extinct species, because what extirpated means is that the geographical limit of a species is limited. They are only found in a parti cular area, and the next step after that is they are gone, that they are extinct. So it would actually be more logical to say extirpated and then extinct. But what does this bill do? What is the intent of it? Bill 2 only catalo gues the decline of species, nothing more. There is no compulsion for action.

There is nothing to prevent the situation from getting worse other than keeping a list. I ac tually have a friend who works for the Department of Natural Resources or Ministry of Environment in the Province of Ontario, and before he was hired on by go vernment, he had many interesting jobs wo rking at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and at other places, and one of the things that he does is that he catalogues species, particularly plants. He is considered an expert in some varieties of plants, particularly in the province of Ontario. He has also travelled across weste rn Canada cataloguing species.

In fact, he once got a phone call from NASA in Houston , Texas, because they had pictures of northern Ontario and northern Manitoba and something showed up that was a particular colour and they did not understand what it was. So they phoned m y friend John Riley in Toronto, and they said, what are we seeing in these photographs from outer space? He said, what you are seeing is a particular plant at a particular stage and it gives it a parti cular colour, and that is what you are seeing. He knew this from studying these plants in the Hudson Bay lo wlands.

So I have had some interesting discussions with my friend John about how we protect endangered species, plants and othe r things. This kind of challenged my thinking, because one of the things that he said was it is not always the right thing to do to have government set aside a parcel of land in order to protect a species, because what that does is it lets everyone know that a particular species of plant or anima l or whatever is in a particular geograph ical area.

The example that he gave me was an endangered species of plant somewher e in the Ni agara Peninsula, and someone had the idea that they should buy a plot of land to protect this endangered species. He said, well, there is another way of doing this, and the other way of doing it is to have the property owner protect it and then the public can only come on the property with the permission of that property owner. In his view, it provided better protection than having it as public property because once something is public property then the public have certain rights and certain privileges.

So I have an open mind on what is the best way to protect endangered species. One example of how this government is, I believe, not protec ting the environm ent and not protecting endangered species is to look at the level of fines. If the minister responsible for Hydro would like to look at the level of fines collec ted in Manitoba and in other provinces, you would see huge differences in the level of fines collected. For example, I understand that in B.C. and Alberta over a million dollars a year are collected in fines levied under envir on mental legislation .

In Mani toba, it is one-tenth of the revenue that is collec ted by Alberta.

745 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 I think this is a measure of the seriousness with which government enforces their legislation. * (1 520) In Manitoba, what do we need? We need an inventory of species, an inventory of all species. In Manitoba, we do not know how many species we have. We do not know what their distribution is. We do not know where they are located, and no government department has a mandate to do this. Now, of course, the members opposite will say, how much will this cost? How are we going to pay for it? Well, it does not mean that it has to be done overnight.

It does not mean that you have to spend millions of dollars to do it in the next year. It could be done in stages. You could work you r way through the province in stages, either going from one rural municipality to another or going through biologic al areas, through one ecosystem after another, or you could requir e that Cr own corporations and companies conduct an inventory of species when they apply for an environmen tal licence. For example, Manitoba Hydro could be required to do an inventory of species when they apply for a licence. (Mr.

Speaker in the Chair) Unfortunately, this government has found a creative but unfair way of doing this now, and that is, with Ducks Unlimited, theydidtheir own inventory of species. They did their own assessment, and then it was used by the gove rnment to justify the project, hardly an objective way of doing anything, to have the group that is applying for the permit do their own assessment. Even if they are experts in particular areas, it does not appear to be a just or fair way to do it.

In Manitoba, we have species that we need to be concerned abo ut; for exam ple, the woodland caribou that my colleague for Wolseley (Ms. Fri esen) men tioned .. The wood land cari bou apparently is in danger in certain parts of the pro vince, endangered because of logging activity north of the Whiteshell and the Nopiming Park area, and they exist all the way up to Churchill. In fact, my colleague for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes) could probably fill me in on the woodland caribou . Presently, there is no mon itori ng.

There is no money in the department's budget to monitor the woodland caribou and the effects of logging on this species. I suggest it is because the government does not want to know what the effect of logging is on woodland caribou because then there might be some threat to the logging industry. The other ex ample for Man itoba that my colleague mentioned was the trout in the Nelson River. At one time, the trout in Manitoba were the subject of articles in Fish and Wildlife and sports magazines because they were a trophy fish.

Now what has happened because of the construction of dams by governments of all three political parties in Manitoba is that these fish are almo st gone. One of the ironies is that there is going to be eventually, I assume, a full environm ental impact study on a potential Conawapa dam. What will it show? Well, it will show that the dam will not harm the trout because there are so few trout left that there is nothing to harm. So it is a case of being too late and shutting the barn door after the horse is out.

By contrast, the American legislation is much better and much stronger than Canadian, at least provincial Manitoba legislation. So I would like to talk a little bit about the American legislation. For example, it compels recovery plans. It compels an inventory of habitat. It looks at the impact of developments. It requires correcting conditions which endanger a species. One of the famous examples that has come to media attention is the spotted owl in Washington state and elsewhere in the American northwest.

The American legislation which was, I believe, originally passed in 196 9 is called the fish or wildlife endanger ed species protection act. Their act requires that it be reviewed, I believe, every three years or every five years.

There is very interesting dis cu ssion in the environmen tal communi ty, also in Congr essional Quarterly, and I have a periodical called Energy Envir on me nt-n o, I have the Congr essional Quar terly Almanac for 19 91 , and I have the Congr essional Quar terly Almanac for 19 78, excellent publications which my colleague should be using in preparation for speeches, if you want to com pare American legislation with Canadian legislation. For example, in the 19 78 Con gressiona l Quar terly, the Endanger ed Species Act was amen ded, and som e of these amendm ents strengthened the act and made it a better act.

It required public hearings by the interior department for designa tion of endangered species' critical habitats. The hearing had to occur in the same area

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 746 where the proposed site designation was located. The amendments restricted the author ity to apply for an exemption to governors, the federal agency concerned and the holder of a federal permit or licence to build and ope rate a pro ject. The amendment allowed any person to appeal the review board's decision in cou rt.

These all sound like reasonable and positive improve ments to the act, kind of the opposite of the way this Conser vative go ve rnm ent went in Manitoba with the Ducks Unlimited bill, by which they made it easier for nonenvironmen tally sound practices to be carried out on certain kinds of public lands. Some of you may rem emb er some of the controversy about this legislation in the United States, because the Supreme Court there said that a dam could not be built because of an endangered species, the snail darter.

So there was lots of media coverage about this and great debate in the House and Congr ess about the usefuln ess of this legislation. To quo te from the Congr essional Quarterly: In the view of many, it was bizarre that a federal law that protected such storied creatures as the grizzly bear and the bald eagle should be extended by the Interior Dep artme nt-whose Endangered Species Office designa ted which species were to be protected -to cover obscure, seemingly insignificant little things like mollusks, beetles and snapdragon plants.

Brushed aside was the environm entalists' argument that even the smallest elements in the Earth's ecological system are vital. You can see that the devel oper s found themse lves to be in conflict with the environmen talists, or the developers were in conflict with environmen tal legislation, in this case the endangered species legislation. In addition to placing a species under the federal mantle, maximum penalties for harming or capturing a protected creature was a year in jail and a $20,000 fine, double the fines in the province of Manitoba.

In the United States, there were 17 7 animals and 15 plants listed as endangered as of September 19 78. Of the almo st 6,000 consu ltations between the office and builders to see if a project met the law, only four had reached court up through September 19 78.

So in the first nine years that the legislation was in place in the United States, only four times did developers, in this case, builders, come in conflict with the act and take the gov ernment to court, which sugges ts that in by far the vas t majori ty of cases-6,000 consul tations are referred to-the act seemed to be working and doing what it was supposed to do. The debate in the House was quite interesting.

For example, a Democrat from Iowa, John Culver saichJohn Culver led what was often an emo tional floor debate-quote: "It does on the surface seem stupid to save something like a snail darter, some crazy bat, some crayfi sh, something called a Furbish lousewort," he told the Senate, referring to other species that threatened the future of certain projects.

But he conti nued, and I quo te again: "It is also true, in my judgment, that we have the ethical and moral responsibility to pass on to future generations, in as pristine a state as pos sible, what we in turn have inherited." Then he goes on to point out how we are losing species and how this is going on at an accelerated pace over the history of human evolution on this earth. He says that during prehistoric times only one species was extinguished every 1 0,000 years.

Around the year 16 00, the rate increased to one every 1, 000 years, until "today, from one to 20 species are exti nguis hed from our glo bal environment every single year." "The cause of our accelerated pace of natural extinction is man," Culver said. So we see what happens. We start off with a very slow extinction of species. It picks up speed as development increases and becomes faster and faster until one to 20 species are extinguished from our global environment every single year.

This was a speech made in 19 79, so I would suggest that it has probably increased since then. * (1 530) There have been positive changes since then in our society's thinking about the environment. We now have the concept of sustainable development, a concept which has been greatly abused and is interpreted in various ways. Hopefully, if we interpret sustainable development in a positive way, it means that we do not endanger species and that we only go forward with development where it does not harm the environment. Unfortuna tely, Mani toba legislation, I believe, is not strong enough to protect species.

In fact, Bill 2 has only minor technical amendments, and The

747 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 Endangered Species Act in Manitoba only requires that endangered species be mo nitored, and that they be listed, and does nothing to protect them from further extinction. One amendment proposed by Nelson, which was als o adop ted, req uir ed pr epar ation of an environmen tal impact statement on the threatened species, or its critical habitat, before the board could grant an exception. An environmen tal impact statement is something that I think would be helpful in Manitoba.

If we look at the Congressional Quarterly from 19 91 , we see what happened in the mo st recent review . The lawmaker s introduced and held hearings on bills to stem the decline of the northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest, restore several endangered species of salmon and steelhead trout that ran the Columbia River watershed , and continue helping the Atlantic striped bass.

Now the result of this discussion is that it brought to the fore the conflic t between the logging industry and environme ntalists; that is, it brought to the foreground the conflict between those who wanted to cont inue in the logging industry and those who wanted to protect the environment. So that was a very interesting debate. "A particularly bruising battle was waged over the spo tted owl. The controversy pr odu ced a hodgepodge of bills that attempted to deal with it.

"They ranged from timber-indus try-supported proposals to make end runs around the Endangered Species Act and judicial review of timber policy, to environme ntalist-supported measures that would give ironclad protec tion to whole swaths of the owl's ancient forest habitat." It is interesting to follow that debate and to see what happened.

One of the things that was introduced, which is a go od idea, which I think should be adopted elsewhere, is: "Bills were introduced in both chambers to require the government to consider entire ecosys tems in managing public lands." In fact, that is something that we should probably include in Manitoba and something that we should probably talk about when we talk about parks boundaries, because right now when we designate an area as a park we tend to have straight lines for boundaries, but the ecosystem does not follow straight boundaries. Ecosystems tend to follow drainage basins and things like that.

So these are irregular shapes. It makes more sense to protect a species by its ecosystem rather than by drawing straight lines on a map. To continue from the Congressional Quarterly: "Biodiver sity was much talked about during battles to save the habitats of the northern spotted owl and red squirrel. Supporters of habitat preservation argued that subspecies, such as the two in question, were a distinctive and important part of their ecosyste ms ....

"Most scientis ts estim ated that there were between 1 0 million and 1 billion species of plants and animals on the Earth and only a fraction of them had been identified. "Many in the scientific com munity worried that the loss of biodiversity would deprive mankind of potential medical and agricultural breakthrou ghs." Is this relevant in Manitoba? Is it impo rtant here? Yes, it is. We could have species in Manitoba that need to be protected for the same reasons, because of their potential medical and agricu ltural breakthro ughs.

So it is not enough in Manitoba to just mo nitor species as they become extinct and to list them as they become extinct, but we need to preserve their habitats so that they do not become extinct. An amendment was introduced similar to the bio div ersity bill: "to amen d the National Environmental Policy Act of 19 70 to require that the impact on biologic al diversity be considered in the preparation of environmen tal impact statements." Another good idea.

"During the House consider ation of the Bureau of Land Managem ent reauthorization bill, fierce debate centered on an addition to the bill to compel the bureau to manage its lands with 'biological diversity' in mind. "Opponen ts did not try to strike the pro vision. In fact, an amendment offered by Jontz strengthened the biodiversity provisions of the bill by ordering that the BLM restore its land to its 'natural produc tive capabil ity. m This is somet hing that is not happ ening in Manitoba.

If you drive through the Birds Hill area, for example, there are gravel pits which are an eyesore and a blight on the environment. Many of them have been emptied of their gravel, but they have not been restored to their natural state. There are laws in Ontario, for example, that are much more progressive than in Manitoba which require that berms be built so that you cannot see them from the

March 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 748 road, that require landscaping and trees, but in Manitoba you can see the empty gravel pits from the road. This American legislation says that they have to be restored to their original state. Certainly that would be a great impro vement if gravel pits and other developmen ts in Manitoba were restored to their natural produ ctive capabi lity. In the Senate, hearings were held on biod iversity legislation. "Scient ist and author Stephen Jay Gould testified at the Envir onmen t and Pub lic Wo rks Subcom mittee on Environmen tal Protection hearing on July 26.

He of fered an aesthetic justification for efforts aimed at preserving biologically diverse habitats." This is an interesting quote: "What a bleak world it shall be if none but the hardy city dwellers remain, and we come to share our planet only with pigeons, rats, cockroaches and flies." Cert ainly it would be a bleak environment if we shared it only with pigeons, rats, cockroaches and flies. If we do not do something about protec ting not only endange red species, but protecting the environment or the habitat in which they live, that is whom we will be sharing the environment with. So, Mr. Speaker, in

summary, I believe that this bill is very inadequate. All it does is it requires that endangered species be listed. What it does, in effect, is it mon itors various species as they go through the categories from endanger ed to threatened to extirpated to extinct and then they are gone. Then it is too late to bring them back. So what we need is much stronger legislation that protects their habitat and keeps these species and does not just mon itor them as they go out of existence.

I believe that we could lo ok to the American legislation that I have quo ted from extensively, the fish or wildlife endangered species protection act of the American Congress, and we can learn from their experience since their legislation has been in place since 19 69. I do not think that we should copy what they have done holus-bolus. I think we could learn from their experience and adapt and adopt what is appropria te for our context in Manitoba. Certainly, other jurisdictions are doing things that are much more progressive than this gov ernment in Mani toba.

This government professes to be concerned about the environment, and so we see the Premier (Mr. Rlmon) in a canoe in an election ad prof essing to wanting to protect the environment, but in government we see that especially through their budgetary decisions they are hacking and slashing, especially the Department of Natural Resources, so that they do not have the staff and they do not have the resour ces and they do not have the physical resources to do what they need to do to pro tect the envir onmen t and to pr otect endangered species. We believe that they should.

We believe there are many things that they can be doing and many things that they should be doing. They could do some of that by putting some teeth in the enfor cement, by requiring certain things, and they could do it through The Endangered Species Act and through their environmen tal legislation. Thank you , Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker: As previously agreed, this matter will remain standing in the name of the honour able member for Flin Flon (Mr. Stor ie). • (1 540) Bill 3-The Oil and Gas and Consequential Amendments Act Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honou rable Min ister of Energy and Mines (Mr.

Downey) , Bi11 3, The Oil and Gas and Consequential Amendments Act; Loi concernant le petrole et le gaz nature I et apportant des modifications correlatives a d'autres lois, standing in the name ofthe honourable member for Elmwood (Mr. Malo way) . An Honourabl e Member: Stand. Mr. Speaker: Is there leave that this matter remain standing? [agreed] Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and put a few thoughts on the record on Bill3, The Oil and Gas and Consequential Amendments Act.

Accord ing to the press release that was issued by the minister in late December of last year when he announced this act, this bill is going to result in a consolidation of petr oleu m expl orati on, development, storage and transportation legislation under a single statute. Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House have always been supportive of the concept of consolidati on, of making legislation clearer, easier to understand and putting a number of acts into one consol idated statute so that it is more readily accessi ble to the public. Of course, given that we will not know all the ramifications of

749 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA March 3, 1993 this piece of legi slation until we hear the gov ernment's discussion on second reading on this matter and also the public hearings-given those caveats, we do, as I have stated, agree with clarification of legislation wherever possi ble. Also, Mr. Speaker, accor ding to the govern ment, another one of the bases of this legislation is to mo dernize or to bring up to date some of the outdated elements of some of those five pieces of legislation. Again, we are in favour of updating and making legislation more relevant to the times in which we live.

So in that regard we have no concerns with the concep t of consolidation and updating and modernizing. However, Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not put some concerns on the record as to this piece of legislation as we read it now. Again, I would certainly hope that the gove rnment members wil l clarify for us in the House, during second reading, the elements of this legislation and will do their best to respond before we get to public hearings on our concerns that we have raised in the House. The member for Rin Flon (Mr. Storie) and the member for Point Douglas (Mr.

Hickes) in particular have put some concerns on record. I would like to reiterate some of those concerns and perhaps expand on one or two of them from my perspective. One of the major concerns that I have with this piece of legislation is the com position of the proposed board. Boards and com missions of provincial gove rnments in our parliamentary system play an incredibly important role.

There are literally hundreds of boards in our system in our province that advise, work with and reflect, in many cases, the issues of the com munity, that advise the gov ernment of the day on issues of concern in their area and, in many cases, reflect the thinking of the gov ernment of the day. We have examples of boards in this province that are made up solely of professiC>nal people whose role is to, in a very technical manner, advise the gove rnment on issues that relate to their jurisdiction.

We also have boards that are made up of a mix of individuals who have a certain expertise, as well as representatives of the general public who advise the gove rnment, who deal with various elements of the running of the go vernment. I think, Mr. Speaker, generally speaking, this is an excellent way of functioning as a gov ernment. It is important for a government which can potent ially run the

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Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	35-4-18
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	35th 4th hansardpdf 18.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
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