Manitoba Hansard — 7 July 1980 (Sitting 97, 31st Legislature, 4th Session)

31-4-97

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

I I I LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Monday, 7 July, 1980 Time - 2:00 p.m. OPENING PRAYER by Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER, Hon. Harry E. Graham {Birtle Russell): Presenting Petitions . . . Reading and Receiving Petitions . . . Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees . . . Ministerial Statements and Tabling of Reports ... Notices of Motion . . . Introduction of Bills. INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS MR. SPEAKER: At this time I should like to introduce to honourable members, Mr. Eugene Hiscock, a Member of the Newfoundland Assembly, a Member for Eagle River.

On behalf of all the honourable members, we welcome you here this afternoon. ORAL QUESTIONS MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition. MR. HOWARD PAWLEY {Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the First Minister, in view of the fact that last year when the Central Bank interest rate was being increased, the chartered banks hurriedly followed along the increase in the Central Bank rate.

Now we witness a situation by which the Central Bank rate is decreased to some 10. some percent but at the same time the chartered banks appear to be having a great deal of difficulty in following the Central Bank rate downward. My question to the First Minister is, whether or not any representations have been made on behalf of the government of the province of Manitoba to Ottawa, pertaining to this situation by which the interest rates on the part of the chartered banks appear to not be following at the same rate as they increased, during the period of Central Bank rate increases. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. HON. STERLING R. LYON {Charleswood): Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that we're all aware of what has been happening with respect to the bank rate over the last several weeks and months, and it seems a short time ago in this Chamber, that honourable members on all sides of the House were concerned about the high bank rates in the country and what was going to be done about them.

Since that time we have seen on the floating basis, the Central Bank rate decreasing, and as the Leader of the Opposition correctly points out, the gap between the Central Bank rate and the prime lending rate to commercial customers of the banks, the gap is larger than one would wish it to see. I'm sure that the Leader of the Opposition would be the first to agree with me, however, and I think it's fortunate in this respect, governments neither federal nor provincial, set lending rates.

I would think that the function of the apparatus of establishing of lending rates is something that all governments should be aware of and should be monitoring from time to time, but I am not aware of any power, other than the power of persuasion, that either federal or provincial governments would have with respect to the commercial banks and credit unions of this country, unless of course they were to return to the form of statutory ceiling that was placed on bank lending rates, away back in those long lost days, before we had had too many free-spending governments, when it was easy for the Parliament of Canada or at least it was within the realm of possibility for the Parliament of Canada to legislate that a rate should not exceed a certain percentage point because historically it had never done so.

So I can say to my honourable friend that, of course, along with all other jurisdictions and along with the private sector, we're watching the developments of the chartered banks and the credit unions with respect to lending rates and we would hope that the gap between the established bank rate and the commercial rate would decrease. MR. PAWLEY: Mr.

Speaker, in relationship to the First Minister's response and by way of a further supplementary, the increase in the interest rates have not come about as a result of so-called free spend ing on the part of government, but we've noticed in the second quarter of this year that the Royal Bank of Canada's profits have increased by some 40 percent and there have been similar increases by way of profits by the Bank of Montreal and by other chartered banks.

My question to the First Minister is whether or not the First Minister does not favour some form of ceiling or control being imposed insofar as interest rates being charged by the chartered banks, some form of control which is comparable, indeed, the form of control that existed a number of years back. MR. LYON: Mr.

Speaker, probably the Leader of the Opposition and I would never agree precisely, although I would think that the burden of evidence would rather support the position that I have just enunciated, namely that one of the large contributors to the inflation rate, which in turn is a contributor to the bank interest rate that we have been experiencing at the present time, is the profligate spending by all levels of government and the former Minister of Finance, the Member for Seven Oaks, chuckles to himself and that I suppose is really a measure of the understanding of his job that he attained while he was in that position.

But, all other commentators that I have read, with the exception of one or two who are still holding to the unholdable, agree that one of the great contributors to the situation that many parts of the western world, not just Canada , find themselves in today is that governments have been spending money at a rate beyond that which the people of the country can produce, and we're in that situation right now. Mr. Speaker, whether my honourable friends opposite like it or not, they helped to contribute to that situation and we, every time we run a deficit, are 5365

Monday, 7 July, 1980 helping to contribute to that situation in this country. So I merely to say to my honourable friend, that desirable as it might be and simplistic as the idea is, that government should move and establish some statutory lending rate, it just doesn't work in a free market economy and we do, even though my honourable friends opposite may not like it, we still do function, thank God, for this country, in a feee market economy. MR. PAWLEY: Mr.

Speaker, further by way of a question to the First Minister, the First Minister seems to be intent on blaming the bank interest rates upon government spending and inflation. I point out to the First Minister, despite inflation, despite the fact that there has been government spending, the central bank interest rate has decreased steadily over the last number of months till the cenntral bank interest rate is now 10 .5 percent, while the private chartered banks are 15 and 16 and 17, and in some cases, 18 percent because of exhorbitant profits that are being realized by the chartered banking system.

So again to the First Minister, what proposals is he prepared to make to Ottawa, besides lambasting supposed heavy government spending, in order to ensure that the chartered banks do reduce their interest rates in order to give Canadians a better break from the present grip that the chartered banks appear to be imposing upon the people, not only of Manitoba but throughout Canada? MR. LYON: Mr.

Speaker, I heard a comment not so long ago by a well-known left winger in the United States by the name of Max Lerner, who, in his mature years, has come to realize the folly of his early ways, and he has made the comment that people such as the Leader of the Opposition and the party that he represents and people such, I suppose, as myself and the party that I represent, do have a different view of the world. People such as the party that I have the honour to represent and lead in this House, Mr. Speaker, tend to see the world as it is. We tend to see the realities of life as they are. People, says Mr.

Lerner, such as my honourable friend opposite - and I mean this in no discourteous way because it's a philosophical statement that he was making - tend to see the world as they would want the world to be, and they make policies based upon the world as they would want it to be,

whereas the poor pragmatic Conservatives or Tories or whatever, of this world, have to deal with life as it is. I merely say to my honourable friend that in the course of dealing with life as it is, you have to face up to the fact that there are many many factors that go into the creation of bank rates such as we have at the present time. I don't like those rates any more than my honourable friend, and so he can't say that he is monopolizing all the protection that he would like to see for the public of Canada.

But there are certain immutable facts in life, and one of the immutable facts in life that we haven't even touched on in the course of this brief discussion is of course the fact that the Central Bank of the United States of America has decided that it is going to hold the supply, the M1 rate of money supply in the United States.

Similarly, the Bank of Canada embarked upon the same program in Canada some two to three years ago for the very good reason that they realize -( Interjection)- Yes, I'm sorry my honourable friend doesn't understand it but it's not the only topic in this House that has sailed beyond his comprehension. The M 1 rate has to be held down, Mr.

Speaker, because practically all authorities now have come to realize that the undue expansion of the money supply, which is really being printed to pay off these deficits that my honourable friend doesn't worry so much about, that expansion had to be curtailed, and that is taking place in the United States; it's taking place in Canada and one of the effects of it has been the bank rate. Now I'm not here to defend the profits that are made by banks, by credit unions or by any other individual or associations who lend money. They're the ones who must answer to their own clientele. I do know, however, Mr.

Speaker, that if the banks are making the profits as alleged by my honourable friend, the Leader of the Opposition, then of course there is a means whereby those profits can be further taxed, and that is exactly, I presume, what the federal government is doing, it's taking a bigger slice by way of taxation. MR. PAWLEY: Mr. Speaker, my colleague suggests I adjourn the debate, but I would sooner pose another question to the First Minister. (lnterjection)- The First Minister suggests that there is a difference between his party's philosophy and ours, and that his party is prepared to accept the world as it is. Mr.

Speaker, we are not prepared to just accept the world as is. We feel there's room for improvement and betterment, and one of the areas of betterment could be by way of the banking system as it presently exists.

My question to the Minister, does this mean that with his laissez-faire philosophy in accepting the world as is and that some way or another it's unrealistic to expect or to anticipate the world could be changed for the better, does the First Minister then imply by that, that he will be making no submission - which was my original question - no submission, no proposals to the federal government in order to ensure that the Canadian consumer, the Manitoba consumer to whom he has a responsibility, realizes some protection from the exorbitant interest rates unfairly, Mr.

Speaker, being charged by the chartered banks now, July, 198 0? MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the Day. The Honourable First Minister. MR. LYON: Mr. Speaker, I can merely say to my honourable friend that dealing with the world realistically as it is, submissions made by the government of Manitoba, whether headed by myself, the Leader of the Opposition or any other politician that I can think of, would have no effect whatsoever upon the commercial bank rates in this country. My honourable friend, in the particular kind of cloud cuckoo-land world that he lives in, might think otherwise, but that is not the case. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Elmwood. The Honourable Member for Lac du Bonnet. 5366

Monday, 7 July, 1980 MR. SAMUEL USKIW: Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up with the First Minister in his answer to the Leader of the Opposition. He indicated that it's obvious that government spending being somewhat out of control over a period of time, has resulted in inflation and therefore high interest rates. I wonder if he would supply to members of this House, some documentation to support that, because it's my impression and understanding that in fact, governments have taken less out of GNP since about 1964 in Canada.

So that we have had a declining rate of participation on the part of government in terms of the GNP in Canada, not an increasing scale as a percentage of GNP and, therefore, I ask the First Minister whether he would be willing to supply us with his information, which we are not able to obtain obviously , Mr. Speaker. Since all of the economists and people that are authorities in this field have argued the reverse, perhaps the First Minister would give us some supporting evidence to substantiate that position. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. MR. LYON: Mr.

Speaker, my honourable friend has greater access to socialist reading rooms than I do but I can refer him to one of his own patron saints, namely the former Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain, who in the 1976 or 1977 budget, when the proportion of the GNP being taken by the two levels of government in Britain and by the Crown Corps in Britain had reached something like 62 percent, he came out in his budget and stated that the prime aim of the Labour government of Great Britain was to reduce the proportion of the GNP being taken up by government, so as to have a positive effect upon decreasing the inflation rate in Great Britain and in fact, he wanted to move the proportion of government spending of the GNP from 62 down into the mid-50's, and that's only one source.

Mr. Speak er, history is replete with a thousand sources. If my honourable friends would only read and understand the world as it is, and the realities of the world that we deal with, then they would realize that some of the particular balloons that seem to sustain them through their lives and their particular creed just don't hold anything except hot air. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. May I suggest to all members that they read Citation 359 of Beauchesne, probably sub. 11, "The question which seeks an opinion about government policy is probably out of order , in that it asks for an opinion and not information.

A question asking for a general statement of government policy may be out of order, in that it requires a long answer. Other questions inevitably deal with government policy and the general restrictions regarding such questions, have never been applied." So I would ask all members to temper their questions considerably, and try and seek information. The Honourable Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. USKIW: Well, Mr. Speaker, I happen to concur wholeheartedly with your suggestion, Mr. Speaker.

I did ask the First Minister whether he would table with members of the Assembly a document which would support his theory or analysis on what is causing high inflation rates, some authoritative body that would have presented him with that information. Because my information was just the contrary. It's my understanding and the First Minister can correct me, Mr. Speaker, if he wishes, that in Canada the government's share of GNP had been steadily declining since about the mid- 1960s and if the First Minister has evidence otherwise, I would ask him to table that evidence so that we might peruse it, Mr. Speaker. MR.

LYON: Mr. Speaker, I will attempt, as usual, to obey your admonition and merely suggest to my honourable friend that he avail himself of the latest statistics that are available on that topic. I must confess to him, however, that I haven't looked at them recently, but as recently as a year ago, the statement that he made was not the case, namely that the proportion of GNP being taken by the three levels of government in Canada was still on the increase.

Now there has been, because of the Economic Conference in 1978-79 where all provinces in Canada, including Saskatchewan, agreed, number one, that the private sector was the main engine that fueled our economy. No. 2, that government spending had to be restricted in order to make sure that more jobs could be created by the private sector; and No. 3, that the rate of growth in government spending should not exceed the rate of growth in the total economy. There has been some slowing down, as my honourable friend suggests.

I'll be happy to take a look at the more recent evidences of this, but I would suggest that Stats Can can probably provide them for him. MR. USKIW: I have one final question, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the First Minister, whether or not, in his opinion, where this is excessive profiteering, whether that in itself is not a major contributor to inflationary pressure on our economy. MR. LYON: Mr. Speaker, let it be clearly understood that - and I hope my honourable friend would accept this - that I have never been heard to say that excessive government spending is the only cause of inflation.

It's one of the principal causes, and it's the one over which we, in this House and the Parliament of Canada, have some control, and if we were doing a better job collectively as legislators and politicians in Canada, the people of Canada would not be facing the kinds of inflationary rates that they are. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Elmwood. MR. RUSSELL DOERN: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the First Minister a question or two based on his remarks and obsession with deficits and inflation.

I wanted to ask him whether he now regrets his government's decision to introduce a program to counter the drought in Manitoba, because of the fact that it has led to a deficit budget. MR. SPEAKER: the Honourable First Minister. 5367

Monday, 7 July, 1980 MR. LYON: No, Mr. Speaker. In fact, we may have to advance further moneys out of the pockets of the taxpayers of Manitoba if the weather conditions do not improve dramatcially, in order to augment that very program, and I would hope that we would enjoy the support of all members on all sides of the House for that drought abatement program. MR. DOERN: Mr.

Speaker, I assume that there is support on this side for a drought abatement program, but the First Minister has his eyes firmly fixed on inflation, and I ask him, whether he is not now making a public admission that his government is contributing to inflation and will contribute to inflation, by running a series of deficit budgets. MR. LYON: Mr. Speaker, I have said before , all goernments that run deficit budgets contribute in some way to the inflationary spectre that afflicts this country, all governments, including this one, yes. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Elmwood with a final supplementary. MR.

DOERN: Mr. Speaker, I also ask the First Minister, since he first and foremost criticizes governments, including his own and himself, for contributing to inflation, whether he doesn't also recognize that the public sector corporations and individuals also significantly contribute to inflation in the economy? Or does he think it's only government. MR. SPEAKER: Order. Order. Order please. Questions are supposed to seek information , not create arguments. I would have to rule that question out of order. The Honourable Member for Elmwood. MR. DOERN: Mr.

Speaker, maybe I could rephrase it, and ask the First Minister whether he is in fact, saying that only governments contribute to inflation. Is that his understanding of . . . MR. SPEAKER: Order. Order please. Again I must say the question is out of order. You cannot put words in somebody else's mouth. The Honourable Member for Churchill. MR. JAY COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to question the First Minister, and seek some information in regard to the situation what I believe to be a serious situation at the Port of Churchill.

I had asked a question earlier this morning of the Deputy First Minister and he had undertaken to provide some information. I would ask the First Minister now if he can indicate to us what action the government of Manitoba is taking in regard to the announcement by the Canadian Wheat Board that grain shipments from Churchill might be greatly reduced or in fact, may even be cancelled entirely, due to the drought situation.

I'd ask the Minister if he can inform us as to the actions that his government is taking to convince the Canadian Wheat Board of the importance of the Port of Churchill and further , to convince him of the negative and disastrous impact such action as they have outlined in Friday would have on that particular port. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable First Minister. MR. LYON: Mr.

Speaker, I'd be happy to take that question as notice on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, and merely to say to my honourable friend, that we all share concern about the announcement of the Wheat Board, but as my honourable friend should be one of the earliest to realize, that when you have a drought affecting the granary of Canada, which is Saskatchewan and Manitoba principally, that has a number of domino effects, one of which is that grain does not grow and if grain doesn't grow, and if grain is not in stock on farms, then there obviously is going to be a shortage of supply to go to all delivery poin ts, and governments can do many things, Mr.

Speaker, but governments cannot create moisture and governments cannot make grain grow. MR. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's comments, but if my understanding of the situation is correct, the problem is in that grain on the CP R line is not accessible to CNR to ship to Churchill because Churchill does not have an interchange agreement. The Port of Churchill is not part of an interchange agreement between CN and CPR.

I would ask the First Minister if his government has made representations to the federal government and to the Canadian Wheat Board, following up upon the recommendations of the Hall Commission a number of years ago, that an interchange agreement be implemented for the Port of Churchill, and that in fact would have a significant impact on the shipping that could be done out of port this year. I'd ask the First Minister as to his government's position on that interchange agreement and also as to what action they have taken to implement such an agreement. MR. LYON: Mr.

Speaker, since Manitoba took the initiative in convening the first national meeting on grain transportation in Canada in this province in January of 197 9, there have been a number of initiatives taken by the various participants, the government, the grain trade, the farm organizations and so on, with respect not only to interchange agreements but with respect to all other aspects that affect the delivery of grain, and may I say the revalidation in the minds of the three western provinces of the importance of the Port of Churchill to our whole delivery system.

I will be happy to take as notice the question on that particular that my honourable friend has asked; I can merely assure him that since that conference, there has been a great deal of progress made with respect to a number of items that affect the Port of Churchill, Prince Rupert and other areas, to enhance the whole grain delivery system in Canada. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Churchill with a final supplementary. MR. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the First Minister again, I have been informed that during the question period in the federal House today, the Minister of Transp ort , the Honourable Jean-Luc Pepin, announced that the Horner Committee is currently discussing the concept of an interchange agreement for the Port of Churchill. I would ask the Minister if his government is prepared, due to the 5368

Monday, 7 July, 1980 urgency and the seriousness of the situation that confronts that port now and confronts indeed, as the Minister says, all the people of the three western provinces, I'd ask the Minister if he is prepared to made a special representation to that committee so as to facilitate and to speed-up any decision they may make in regard to the interchange agreement, so that there can be grain provided for the port of Churchill for this shipping season. MR. LYON: Mr. Spea ker , in the interests of accuracy, I've already said that I would take my honourable friend's question as notice.

Of course there was no need, it is axiomatic that the government of Manitoba would take any action that is required with respect to interchange agreements or anything else for the enhancement of the Port of Churchill. The reason I say for the purpose of accuracy, is that I'm relatively confident that those discussions have already taken place, if not in the light of the present emergency, which I agree with the Member for Churchill is an emergency, than in preliminary discussions that have already been held with the grain co-ordinator and with other people involved in that problem. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Brandon East. MR. LEONARD S. EVANS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to address a question to the Minister responsible for Communications in Manitoba, and ask the Minister, in view of the fact that the residents of Winnipeg in eastern Manitoba have had a third Canadian television choice available to them since 19 75, when CKND TV began broadcasting , is the government of Manitoba prepared to give moral support to the citizens of Brandon and western Manitoba, who are currently pressing for an extension of the CKND Television signal to service that large

section of the province. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. George. The Honourable Member for Brandon East. MR. EVANS: Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure which Minister is responsible for Communications. I thought it was the Minister for Consumer and Corporate Affairs, but if not, I would address it to whoever is the responsible Minister. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. HON. WARNER H. JORGENSON (Morris): Mr.

Speaker, the Communications Branch does come under rnY department, but matters dealing with that particular subject have been handled by the Minister of Government Services. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Government Services. MR. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, the whole question of extension of cable and other services, entertainment services, within the television field, is one of intense negotiating currently under way.

The particular question that the honourable member poses is, as I understand it, merely the extension of another TV outlet in the community of Brandon and, that has not as such come across my desk, but it could certainly receive the support of this government. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Brandon East with a final supplementary. MR.

EVANS: I'd like to ask the Minister if he would undertake to write either to the federal Communications Minister or to the Chairman of the CRTC in Ottawa, asking them or pressing them for such an extension of CKND Television in the interests of creating greater equality of opportunity for our citizens throughout Manitoba. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Government Services. MR. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, I would be advised best to take that question as notice. I'm not aware of whether or not CKND has made specific application to CRTC for a licensure.

If that is the case, then I would be pleased to support it in the manner and the way in which the member suggests. But I would have to take that question as notice and determine whether or not an actual application for a licensure has been made by the carrier involved. MR. EVANS: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister investigates this, he'll find that there has been attempts by CKND TV to get into that area for some time.

I'd like to ask him if he would also look into the matter of getting CKND, if not as a signal through the air, the possibility of getting CKND on the cable system which is now being expanded throughout western Manitoba, which apparently is now prohibited. CKND is apparently now prohibited from carrying on that cable system,

whereas we can have various American imports come on to the cable there, so I think, Mr. Speaker, my question is, in view of the importance of having maximum Canadian content which the availability of CKND through the cable system could provide, does he not agree that it would be in the interests of Canadian programming MR. SPEAKER: Order please , order please. Questions of agreement are not permissible in this Chamber. If the member is seeking information, I wish he would pose his question. MR. EVANS: Would the Minister, Mr.

Speaker, look into the matter of putting CKND on the cable system, in addition to the matter of allowing that television station to be broadcast over the air? MR. ENNS: Mr. Speaker, what I can advise the honourable member and the House is that the question of jurisdiction on matters such as this may well be changing, in that some of that jurisdiction, as a result of constitutional talks, could be coming to the provinces.

I will be introducing legislation in this House during this session that will anticipate some of those changes and make it possible for the province, through a provincial regulator, to deal with the kind of applications that the honourable member refers to. 5369

Monday, 7 July, 1980 MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Fort Rouge. MRS. JUNE WESTBURY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is addressed to the Minister responsible for the Economic Development Fund. Has the Minister received a letter from the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood suspending their participation on the board of directors? MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs. HON. DOUG GOURLAY (Swan River): Yes, Mr. Speaker, this question was posed to me last week one day, I believe, and was answered at that time. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for The Pas. MR. RONALD McBRYDE: Mr.

Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Government Services responsible for MTS and , apparently, communications. In light of his answers and his desire for greater equality amongst citizens, I wonder if the Minister could give us some indication of what he can do or is willing to do, in terms of assisting some of the remote communities to get their second TV channel. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Government Services. MR. ENNS: Mr.

Speaker, perhaps the most important thing that government can do in this area is the kind of support in the supply and in billing the distribution network through MTS is one way that provincial policies can broaden viewing opportunities of northern residents. The honourable member is well aware that's precisely the kind of activity, however, which, with the current situation, leads us into jurisdictional difficulties with CRTC.

It's my hope that these jurisdictional problems will be resolved within a reasonable period of time and that MTS will be in a position to encourage the building of the network required, in some instances, for the provision -0f extra channel capacity, extra viewing opportunities for northern residents. MR. McBRYDE: Mr. Speaker, I was referring to remote communities which are probably not possible to service by cable systems.

I wonder though, if the Minister could bring us up to date in terms of the application of Norlite Cable Television, for which Manitoba Telephone System has installed a cable system and is now operating it illegally, and although the people of the north appreciate this, the citizens of Manitoba have stuck their neck out a long way with public money. I wonder if the Minister could bring us up to date in terms of that application and whether it looks like MTS will soon start recovering their funds, or their investment? MR. ENNS: Mr.

Speaker, without accepting the suggestion that the people of Manitoba have stuck their neck out to any particular extent, I can indicate to the honourable member that the hearings were scheduled initially, by CRTC, for May, then delayed to June 25 to be held in Hull, then cancelled again; now there's suggestion from Ottawa that the hearings will be held perhaps in Thompson. There has been a specific request for that but a specific date, as yet, has not been set. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. George. MR. BILLIE URUSKI: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to direct this question to the First Minister in view of the fact that he's been answering questions dealing with the transportation of grain. I'd like to ask the First Minister what his government's policy is with respect to the interchange of rail lines between the CN and the CP and if his policy is that the rail beds should become a public utility; I ask him whether his government has corresponded with the federal government to direct the Canadian National railways to move grain on the CP lines and vice versa, so that the orders can be filled and the Port of Churchill operate? MR. LYON: Mr.

Speaker, that's hardly a question that admits of answer in question period, because, for the reasons that I've previously given in responding to the Member for Churchill, there have been many many initiatives taken by the government of Manitoba, the government of Saskatchewan, Alberta and other parties with respect to this precise problem.

I can tell my honourable friend, by way of example of what I've just said, that it was at the national conference on grain handling and transportation here in this building, in January of 1979, that the CN and the CP, after an overnight parley, the presidents of the two railways agreed that there would thereafter be the possibility of car interchanges on their lines to permit a greater usage of the Port of Prince Rupert.

Therefore, I merely say in the interests of accuracy that I would have to find out all of the ongoing discussions that have been taking place in that regard, with respect not only to Churchill but Rupert, and other things that have been happening in that field. MR. URUSKI: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In view of the First Minister's answer that there has been general agreement, as he recalls, between the two railways to interchange and it appears that the role of the grain transportation co-ordinator has not worked out , I wonder what the provincial government's position is with respect to the inability of the grain transport commissioner to get the railways moving and get the grain moving into the ports; whether he has corresponded or telexed Ottawa to find out whether or not the grain transportation co-ordinator should be removed from his position and the Wheat Board resume its sole authority with respect to the scheduling of grain cars.

MR. LYON: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my honourable friend was even in the same House, if not the same province, when I answered a few seconds ago , his first question. What I said bore no relationship to his

interpretation to what he alleges I just said. What I said was that there have been initiatives taken, starting with the conference, where interchange on the one port was agreed too by the railways, or thought to be a feasible exercise. My 5370

Monday, 7 July, 1980 honourable friend has somehow or other got the transportation or Dr. Homer's office into the discussion; the creation of that office and the appointment of Dr. Horner is one of the best things that has been done for grain transportation in this country in a long time. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for St. George with a final supplementary. MR. URUSKI: Mr.

Speaker, my last question to the First Minister, I asked the First Minister, in view of the fact that the co-ordinator's inability to get the railways moving and the grain moving to the Port Churchill for the first time in Canadian history, can he indicate what his government's position will be in the event that a week from now that there is now grain moving to that port, with respect to the role of the co-ordinator? MR. LYON: Mr. Speaker, I believe I answered that question earlier in today's proceedings.

I reiterate, however , for the benefit of my honourable friend opposite, governments, grain co-ordinators and so on don't create moisture, don't cause grain to grow and can't force farmers to sell it off their farms. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The time for question period having expired, we'll proceed with Orders of the Day. ORDERS OF THE DAY SECOND READING - PUBLIC BILLS MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Government House Leader. MR. MERCIER: Mr.

Speaker, would you please call second reading of Bill Nos. 10 0 and 101, then adjourned debate on Bills 82 and 94; and then the balance of the adjourned debates on second reading. BILL NO. 10 0 -

AN ACT RESPECTING THE ASSESSMENT OF PROPERTY FOR TAXAT ION IN MUNICIPALITIES IN 1981and 1982 HON. DOUG GOURLAY presented Bill No. 100,

An Act respecting the Assessment of Property for Taxation in Municipalities in 1981 and 19 82 for second reading. MOTION presented. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs. MR. GOURLAY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Assessment Review Committee has in its interim report noted that assessment values are at such a low level compared to any current level of value as to be almost meaningless.

The studies and hearings to date have convinced the committee that, because inflation and rapidly escalating prices have affected different classes of property in varying degrees, no sudden introduction of updated assessments at 1975 levels should take place in the 1981 or 1982 taxation years. Existing levels of value and present inequities are preferable to any significant shift in the relationship of property values from class to class without legislative review and reform following the completion of the committee studies, hearings and recommendations.

Without legislative restriction, the provincial municipal assessor and the city of Winnipeg assessor would be obligated to introduce updated assessments in accordance with existing legislation. The effect of such changes would be significant in terms of shifts between classes of properties and in the distribution of school and municipal costs.

The Assessment Review Committee has recommended that legislation be introduced at the 1980 session of the Manitoba Legislature to maintain the existing levels of assessment until December 31, 1982, in order to provide an opportunity for the committee to carry out its mandate and report the results of its research and deliberations. Retention of those levels of value used by the provincial-municipal assessor and the assessor for the city of Winnipeg in preparing assessment rolls for the year 1980 is provided in the subject legislation.

Changes are permitted only to maintain relationships between adjacent municipal taxation jurisdictions or to reflect altered values resulting from changes in circumstances , such as new local improvements, zoning or subdivision approvals or registrations, significant improvement or alteration, new construction not recorded for the previous year, or demolition damage or destruction. Any such changes will be recorded at those levels of value which have been applied for the assessment roll of the year 1980. Mr. Speaker, I recommend this bill to the House. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR.

USKIW: I wonder if the member would permit a question, Mr. Speaker. My question is whether the Minister is in a position to indicate to us just how he intends to deal with those municipalities or jurisdictions that have just completed a reassessment and therefore their new tax bills will reflect the most latest values as per the latest assessment; and whether that isn't a problem vis-a-vis that group having been reassessed and, immediately after, another group due for assessment being held back for another two years, a discrimination in tax policy, in essence. MR. SPEAKER: Order, order please.

I believe that subject is not one that is seeking clarification of anything the member said. The Honourable Member for Lac du Bonnet. MR. USKIW: Mr. Speaker, I simply wanted to know, since the Minister didn't allude to it in his comments, how he is going to deal with the question of those that have been most recently reassessed? MR. GOURLAY: Mr. Speaker, this does create some concerns, of course. There are a number of 5371

Monday, 7 July, 1980 municipalities that have been reassessed and there's still quite a few that will have to be undertaken. The situation, I feel, most of the municipalities that are up for reassessment are requesting that this proceed. The only other alternative would be to freeze the assessment completely and this would probably be less desirable. MR. SPEAkER: lnkster. The Honourable Member for MR. GREEN: Mr. Speaker, I just would like the Minister - if this bill gets to committee, which at the moment I assumne it will - to be more explicit as to what happens here.

To me it is not a great problem as except between individual property owners. If the property, for instance, in Winnipeg were not reassessed and stayed exactly the same, the only inequity that would result was where a property either deteriorated or, more probably, a property was built and didn't pay its fair share of taxes. Otherwise, the failure to assess is not going to do anything because if you double the assessment within Winnipeg and everything else stayed the same, the people would pay the same amount of tax vis-a-vis Winnipeg. That is my impression and the same is true in any other municipality.

But it's complicated, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the assessment for school levy purposes, which is provincial-wide, in the balanced assessment and other such things, and I would think that the Minister should tell us who is going to gain and who is going to lose. Because what the Member for Lac du Bonnet raised is a practical question.

If a municipality has not been assessed since 1977 - (Interjection)- even 1977, that's three years ago, and one has been assessed in 1979 or 198 0, then insofar as that group's responsibility to provincial levies, etc. - and I think that there is and if they're not then I stand corrected - the one that was most recently assessed will, for the period of this sort of hiatus, have a ride which is less onerous. For instance, if Winnipeg was assessed in 1979 and the municipality was not assessed after 1976 ... MR. SPEAKER: Order. Order please. On a point of clarification, is the member speaking or is . . . ? MR.

GREEN: motion. am speaking, Mr. Speaker, to the MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. MR. GREEN: I think that the Minister should tell us in addition to what his intention is here, tell us how it will affect taxes within the municipality and as between municipalities, which is I think more important. Within the municipalities is very important, but as between municipalities and any contribution not that they make, that they are paid in terms of provincial grants, etc., for education, what will be the effect of it?

The Minister should be prepared to bring that in fairly explicit details with the names of municipalites involved as to who are going to be the gainers and who are going to be losers, if there are gainers and losers, as a result of this freeze. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. The Honourable Minister will be closing debate. The Honourable Member for Kildonan. MR. PETER FOX: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Winnipeg Centre, that debate be adjourned. MOTION presented and carried. BILL NO. 101 -

AN ACT TO AME ND THE PLANNING ACT MR. GOURLAY presented Bill No. 101 ,

An Act to amend The Planning Act, for second reading. MOTION presented. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs. MR. GOURLAY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 1980 amendments to The Planning Act are primarily concerned with clarification of existing procedures or extension of local authority. A new subsection is being added to provide that, where an additional zone municipality joins a planning district, certain restrictions will apply between the city of Winnipeg boundary and the Perimeter Highway.

Any amendment to the Greater Winnipeg Development Plan, any existing zoning by-law, conditional use or subdivision, and any amendment to a new development, the zoning by-law, application for subdivision or conditional use order in the area described will be subject to the city of Winnipeg's approval. The administration of this procedure will be established by regulation.

Another amendment to differentiate more clearly between the purposes to be accomplished by a development plan and those to be accomplished by a basic planning statement, a rewording of the present provision respecting approval by the Minister for the format of a basic planning statement is indicated. An additional subsection outlines the minimum contents of a basic planning statement. Another amendment would be to permit the Minister to establish interim development control over a planning district, a municipality or any part thereof.

It further provides that during the period between the adoption of a development plan or a basic planning statement and the adoption of the zoning by-law, a development permit will be required from the board or the council. At present such controls are only possible while a development plan or a basic planning statement is being prepared. This will prevent uncontrolled activity between the adoption of a development plan and a zoning by-law. Another area would be to permit an extension of the 90-day time limit for a decision to follow a hearing by council.

This period may be extended by the Minister at the request of the council. Amendments are also being provided for the decision of council to be final, and this requirement is necessary to avoid uncertainty or reconsideration which might operate to the detriment of an applicant. Another amendment permits a transfer of land to be registered pursuant to a device in a will executed prior to the effective date of The Planning Act, January 1, 1976. It further permits registration of a 5372

Monday, 7 July, 1980 caveat or easement in Land Titles which relates only to structural encroachment. A further amendment to permit the Municipal Board to interpret the content of provincial land-use policies, development plans, basic planning statements or zoning by-laws. I also wish to include permission of the Minister of Northern Affairs to approve subdivisions and to delegate powers to community councils or local committees so that they may make variation orders, conditional use orders and they will also have the power to enter into development agreements. Mr. Speaker, I recommend this bill to the House. MR.

SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Kildonan. MR. FOX: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for St. George, that debate be adjourned. MOTION presented and carried. ADJOURNED DEBATES - SECOND READING BILL NO. 82 -

AN ACT TO AMEND THE CLEAN ENVIRONMENT ACT MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Churchill. MR. COWAN: Mr. Speak er, the Honourable Member for Logan adjourned the debate for myself. I would like to begin by advising the House that I have been chosen by my caucus and my leader to be the designated critic in this regard, and thereby may be going a slight bit over the 40-minute time limit, if necessary, although I don't foresee that occurring. When addressing ourselves to Bill No. 82, Mr. Speaker,

An Act to amend The Clean Environment Act, I think it is important that we first understand fully and completely the nature and the extent of the problem that confronts us as citizens of a modern industrial society, as citizens of a province whereby we have a great deal of industrial activity, as well as a great deal of agricultural activity, both of which bring with them a certain degree of environmental pollution, although that need not be. Unfortunately, that is the case, as it has been historically in the past. So we must examine this problem in that perspective.

We must examine the significance of it as well as the extent of it. Most importantly, and this is something that, as legislators and as citizens of such a society, we far too often fail to do, and that is we must look at the problem in the seriousness which it demands, because it is probably one of the most serious problems, one of the most all-pervasive problems, one of the most critical problems that face us today as individuals.

There is no one who is immune from this particular problem, whether it be the child in the home, the worker in the workplace, the farmer on the farm, the trapper in the bush up north; no-one is immune, because the contamination, the pollution, the environmental problems that we all have to confront are all pervasive and extend throughout our society. We must also look at what this Act pretends to do and intends to do from three perspectives, the past, the present and the future. We must complement our analysis with perspectives from all three different periods in order to understand the bill before us.

Finally, we must also examine the situation that this bill seeks to address in the province that this bill attempts to redress. It is a difficult task, because it's hard to pinpoint the specifics, the details, the data that we need. We're talking about , in many instances, a problem that is put into scientific terms, a problem that is approached from a scientific perspective, whether it be by the environmentalists, whether it be by the legislator, whether it be by the toxicologist, whether it be by the scientist who is concerned with the general well-being of our society.

I'm certain that the Minister will second my thoughts in this regard, when I say that the knowledge that we have today is fairly limited, because if we look at it from the three perspectives which I mentioned briefly before, we know that in the past there has been a lack of concern about environmental problems. We have been far too often, too easy on polluters. We have been far too often, too quick to allow pollution to continue. I want to talk about that a bit later in my speech.

And our present commitment, and I address these remarks directly to the Minister, I believe our present commitment , the commitment of that Minister and the commitment of his government, is also inadequate. That is not to say there is no commitment; that is not to say that they don't care about the problem; that is not to say that they do not want to do something about the problem, but I believe that their actions, their concerns, their cares, as well as their knowledge, is inadequate. And this present bill is included in that statement.

I believe that this present bill is, in fact, inadequate in what it attempts to do. I'd like to read a quote into the record, if I may, and the quote is from the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, in a document entitled "Exotoxicity Responsib ility and Opportunities". and it's of recent vintage, it's dated August 1979. Before reading the quote into the record, I'd just like to present you with a picture of whom and what the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council is. It was first established in 19 72, by the federal government, to advise the federal Minister of the Environment on a number of items.

These included the state of the environment. In other words, what is the status of the environment as it exists today; what sort of environment do we have; the threats to that environment; what can negatively impact upon the environment that we have to day, and the priorities that the federal government , jointly with the provinces - and that's part of their mandate, that they work jointly with the provinces - the priorities that the federal government should put in place to deal with the threat.

So again, we're talking about the past, present and future, which is what we will talk about consistently as we go through this bill, as we go through environmental issues: The past, the present, the future, because you cannot separate either one of those, or any one of those from each other. It's a package that you have to deal with. Also it was to determine the effectiveness of the departments, the innovations of the federal Department of the Environment, the actions of the 5373

Monday, 7 July, 1980 federal Department of the Environment in trying to deal with some of the threats that face the environment, in trying to protect the environment as it is today and, in many instances, trying to bring it back to the state in which it existed previously. That, by the way, would not be a bad suggestion for our own provincial Department of the Environment, and that is to have an advisory council or body to assess their effectiveness, because I believe it would add some creditability to what I believe is becoming a less and less credible department.

The Council, finally, is comprised of 16 members, distinguished persons of the scientific community and the educational community, representing a number of the provinces and the federal government. The quote, now that I've finally gotten to it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is "The essence of an eco-system is one of constant transformation. One species becomes food for the next in the food chain. The molecules of all our cells are constantly turned over. Even our bones are constantly being renewed.

Nothing is static in the way in which foreign chemicals invade the biotransformations of the eco system, in fact, becoming part of them. They move through the eco-system in strange and unpredictable ways." I'm skipping a bit of the body of the text here.

It goes on in a later paragraph to say, "The problem for society is that once a chemical enters the environment it is impossible to control or contain." And how we have come to learn that lesson, the hard way, I might add , the tragic way in many instances, but it is a lesson that we have learned, although it is a lesson that we have not been able to develop strategies around. But I'll get back to the quote at hand "It is changed, accumulated," and again we're talking about chemicals that enter environment , "and transported indiscriminately by water and air.

It may interact synergistically, with other contaminants and natural components of the eco-system, it may become integrated into the molecular process of each living organism. Laboratory approaches are unable to predict the fate and the effects of a chemical once unleashed into the environment." And that is sadly the case; that laboratory analysis cannot predict the fate of a chemical once it is released into the environment. Further to that, even more frightening, is past experience can not always predict.

I need only point to a very recent example in the province of Manitoba, and that was the spill of vinyl chloride at MacGregor, where we had every scientific authority telling us right from the start that this vinyl chloride was going to dissipate - and I'm using their words, not my own - nicely into the atmosphere, and that it was going to be gone in a matter of hours, and it was going to be gone from the atmosphere in a matter of days.

And the fact is that it lingered; the fact is that it made its way into the soil; the fact is that it stayed as a contaminant far longer than any knowledgeable person had anticipated. We don't have the knowledge. We have the knowledge to put vinyl chloride into production. We have the knowledge to protect workplaces as well as we do, and I'm not saying that we do that fully either, but I am saying that we do that much better than we do for our environment. But we don't have the knowledge of what happens to that once it escapes in the environment.

We don't have the knowledge of how to deal with it, and this bill does nothing to give us that knowledge. Let there be no mistake about this: This bill has very limited functions. But to go back to the quote, it is important to underscore that once a contaminant enters the eco-system it is impossible to contain and it reacts in numerous ways. Some of them synergistic, most of them negative. That is what happens every day. Every day of our lives, every minute of our lives, the Member for The Pas says, and he's accurate in that; he's accurate in that.

All the time, I don't stand here right now without some sort of pollutant being discharged into our environment, somewhere. The Minister of Cultural Affairs, who is well known for her sympathy with health problems and occupational health problems that face workers, as well as environmental problems, has told me to sit down. I'm going to paraphrase her and she can stand and correct me if she so wishes. There'll be less, she says, there'll be less referring to pollution, I can only assume.

Well, that is exactly the kind of attitude that has kept us in the Dark Ages in regard to environmental law and environmental responsibility for far too long. And it is a type of attitude that will continue to keep us in the Dark Ages, and she does not have that attitude alone. She's not alone in her disregard for the environmental problems that confront us; she is not alone in her lack of knowledge; she is not alone in those smart aleck responses.

The fact is that many many share that particular short-sightedness and that particular destructive attitude that is going to ensure that we are never able to fully protect our workers and our environment. So, to get back to the point at hand, and that is that the environmental accidents that this particular bill attempts to deal with happen every day, every minute, consistently and constantly. There's an old saying among the union movement and that is "An injury to one is an injury to all".

That saying can be transposed to fit the situation of the environment also, that if you injure the environment in Winnipeg, you have injured the environment in northern Manitoba; if you injure the environment in Germany, you have injured the environment in Sweden. Let me clarify that point a bit more, if I may. Sweden is now confronted with a situation where thousands, literally thousands of its lakes are dying. Let's look at a dying lake for a moment. What does that mean?

That means that the fish are dying in that lake; that means that the plankton are dying in that lake; that means that all the food that is used as part of a comprehensive and overall food change that survive in that lake, is dying, or dead. A dead lake, exactly, and that's what we have in Sweden and we have it because of a particular phenomena called acid rain. Now I know we've all heard about acid rain. We all know the consequences of acid rain.

I'm not certain that we know the extent of acid rain in our own province but I do know that we have been, as a society and as members of a culture, been subjected to a tremendous amount of information and concern in regard to acid rain in the past number of months. That's not to say acid rain hasn't been around for a long long time, that's to say, our concern is of the last number of months. 5374

Monday, 7 July, 1980 The reason we are becoming concerned is because steps that were put in motion years ago, literally decades ago, are beginning to come to bear. They're beginning to come to the forefront, that pollution that was created 10, 20 years ago has been reacting and has been complemented by - perhaps that's the wrong word, but it's the one that came first to mind - by more pollution of the same sort, and finally we've gotten to the point where we're starting to kill off entire lakes. And it does not stop there.

It does not stop there because when you destroy one part of the eco system, an injury to one is an injury to all, you destroy other parts of the eco system. So the animals that feed upon the animal life in that particular pond or lake that is now dead, find that they have been impacted upon, even though the acid raid falling upon them may have no effect whatsoever, they do find that they are negatively impacted upon because environmental contamination and pollution works its way through the system invariably. The bio-transformations that we talked about 'on ecotoxacidity'.

The bio-transformation from a fish into food for an animal. The bio transformation of the smaller fish into food for the larger fish. It all has an effect. We're the highest ones in the food chain. We're the highest level of the food chain as human beings. So as the effect works its way up, it will work its way up to us. Now I said I wanted to relate that example to you to show how pollution does not remain confined to a specific area. The acid rain that is falling and killing those lakes in Sweden does not come from Sweden.

It comes from the industrial valley of Europe, Germany being uppermost in that area; that's where it comes from. As a matter of fact there is a study done recently by the federal government of Canada and the government of the United States called "Long-Range Transportation of Air Pollutants", which shows that pollutants that originate in Sudbury may have an effect throughout western Canada; that pollutants that originate in Manitoba do have an effect in areas of Saskatchewan; and that is the major problem that we are able to deal with.

We are only able to determine the major problems because we lack the scientific knowledge and ability to determine all the subtle interactions, all the subtle bio-transformations that are impacted negatively by pollution and contamination of the environment. So you cannot have localized pollution and contamination. Let's make that point very clear. And you will see why I want that point to be so clear, as I continue further on the analysis of this particular bill, because this bill does not take into account this segment that you can't have, localized pollution or contamination of the environment.

I want to talk about our limits of our knowledge a bit more if I can. I mentioned previously that the human being is the highest level, the last link in the food chain. Let's see how that affects someone here in Manitoba. In my constituency, as well as other northern constituencies, there is becoming more and more prevalent a danger of eating fish that have been contaminated by mercury. Let's follow that through a bit more, because it's a very difficult and complex problem, and it is exactly the type of problem that this bill should be addressing itself - but this bill does not address itself - to.

We know that the organic mercury is getting into the water system somehow, and it was always a common belief - and some share it today - that organic mercury can't be picked up by the organisms. But somehow - we don't know how, we don't even know how it's getting in there in the first place, let's make that point clear - but somehow once it's in there, it is turning itself into a different substance, a different form of mercury which can be picked up by the fish.

So the fish pick up this mercury, especially the predator fish who feed on other fish who feed off the bottom; the fish off the bottom pick it up, but they don't get the high levels, the predator fish that feed off those fish as we move our way up the food chain, they get the high levels. Then of course, man or woman comes along and eats those fish, and we are the last stomping ground; that mercury gets in our system and stays in our system, and we don't even know how it got there much less how to get it out, much less what effect it's having on us.

You would think that we would be so concerned about that, that we would have a bill before this House that would direct its attention to that subject, and yet we don't. We have

an Act to amend The Clean Enrironment Act, but it in no way addresses itself to that problem; it in no way confronts the many problems that face us. Again, the limitations of knowledge. So, these accidents which are happening every day - intentionally? Some are intentional. We had an example during the estimates of the Environment, where we talked about a company that was pouring sulphuric acid down a drain into the city sewage system, that contained not only sulphuric acid but also lead, because it was coming out of lead batteries. Is that an accident?

Well, perhaps it's an accident in this sen.se, in that I believe that the person who was responsible for doing that, may not have known the full consequences of their act. Maybe they have done it all the life of that company. It was just standard operating procedures, when you're done with the sulphuric acid, when you're emptying the battery, you pour it down this drain, the drain goes into the city sewer system, and lead with it. Okay, that's all it was. So, some accidents while intentional, are done out of ignorance, and this bill does nothing to address that situation. Other accidents are unintentional.

The spill at McGregor was an unintentional accident. There are numerous examples. Three Mile Island was an unintentional accident. Hydrogen Sulphide contamination on the train going from INCO and Thompson to The Pas was an unintentional accident. But when you get to INCO and you dip the emission from that stack, exceeding the limits, that's an accident according to the definition, that's an intentional accident, and that's the worst kind of intentional accident. It doesn't happen just at !NCO. I don't want to single them out.

It happens all over the place, all the time, and that, as the company says, well, we've been pretty good, we haven't exceeded the limits now for maybe even a year, maybe even a month, maybe even a day, so we're going to let an extra little bit go and it's not going to be that major a problem. But it is an accident according to this Act, and yet they don't perceive it to be. It is intentional but not perceived to be. So we come back to the problem of ignorance, a problem which 5375

Monday, 7 July, 1980 we have to come back to time and time again when we talk about environmental matters, because the extent of our scientific knowledge is, in fact, limited. Those accidents affect all of us, and once they do they are impossible to undo. Once they occur, it is impossible to bring the environment back to the state to which it existed before that accident occurred, and you can't tell me otherwise. Not only me you can't tell, but you can't tell the scientists and the experts that have reviewed this subject.

The greatest failing of Bill 82 of the Act that we have before us, is that it looks through the wrong end of the telescope. It kicks in after the fact, after the accident has occurred, after the damage is done, after the environment has been insulted and injured, after the wheels are in motion. When there is nothing that can undo that accident entirely, that's when the Minister's great new bill, a great step forward, comes into effect, and only after the accident occures. He will have to agree with that. Now, that is to say we cannot amend it so that it will step in beforehand.

That is not to say that we cannot provide input and suggestions to the Minister to enable this bill to deal with that, but the fact is it addresses itself primarily to an accident. A definition of an accident, and I'll have to read from my bill here, Mr.

Speaker, is that an environmental accident means "The release of a contaminant into the environme nt, otherwise then in accordance with regulations or an order of the commission which having regard to the environment in which a release takes place, and to the nature of the contaminant released creates or may create a hazard to human life or health, to other living organisms or to the physical environment." Let's analyse that a bit more carefully. An environmental hazard means a release of something that may or does create a hazard to human life or health, to other living organisms or to the physical environment.

That is the main import of this bill. That it addresses itself to what to do after that accident occurs and not before. There is also another fallacy in that definition, and it's one which I am not certain that we, as a society - and for this reason I don't fault the Minister, because I'm not certain that anyone could do better - have to deal with though, and that is that it is not an accident if it is done in accordance with the regulations. There is something wrong with that, because the regulations don't mean that it does not impact negatively on the environment.

The regulations can't stop that environmental pollution from having a harmful effect. The regulations or legislation cannot in any way amelioriate the effect of that pollutant on human health or living organisms or the environment. Now the regulations can minimize it in some way, but they can't stop it. So we have a fallacy there which society as a whole has to learn to deal with, and I don't fault the Minister for falling prey to it because I'm not certain that even if we did understand it more fully that we would be able to do anything about it.

There are numerous other fallacies inherent to this appro ach, to the approach of cleaning up an environmental accident or to the approach of allowing pollution to exist within certain confines. One of the fallacies of this - or the failings in the fallacies of this particular bill - is that it creates the expectation that accidents can be dealt with in that way, otherwise why have the bill? But the empirical evidence proves conclusively the reverse, and I've read you the quotes.

I can read you a 100 more from a 100 difference sources if you so wish, because it is a commonly accepted fact that once a contaminant enters the environment, the damage is already starting to occur. The proper approach, if I might be so pompous as to suggest it to the Minister, is that we prevent the accidents, that we not put a bill forward and spend the time of this House on a bill that is not going to have any great impact on the problem, but that we put forth a bill that causes these accidents to be prevented.

That we not have to wait to clean up, but that we start right now in trying to avoid a situation where that clean-up is necessitated. The fact that we don't have that sort of legislation before us, and the fact that we do have this sort of legislation before us, can be attributed to two basic common conceptual legacies. Remember in the beginning, I said we'd have to talk about this issue in regard to the past. Well, that's important, because the past perception of the problem in fact does have some effect on our present perception.

Our two legacies that we have been left, two fallacies by previous experts in this field that bring us to this type of legislation rather than the type of legislation that works before the fact instead of after the fact - the one is that trace amounts are insignificant - and anyone who listened to the debates in this House on lead, or anyone who listened to the debates in this House on vinyl chloride, or anyone who is listening now to the debates of this House on 2,4,5,- T will recognize that argument called the "Insignificance of Trace Amounts".

There is another fallacy, and that fallacy is that there is a threshold level below which no harm to the environment or to the living organization or to the human health or the human being exists. Again, those of you who have sat through the debates on lead, who have sat through the debates on vinyl chloride, who have sat through the debates on 2,4,5,-T, asbestos - we can include asbestos in that a whole number of other subjects - (Interjection)- the Member for Rossmere says to tell them about smoking. Certainly, I mean this fallacy isn't a fallacy that is only attributable to politicians and environmentalists.

People believe, in many respects, many of the conceptual legacies that they have no reason not to believe, so we can't really fault them. But the fact is that there is no threshold level for some substances. I want to talk in a bit more detail about that. First, the insignificance of trace quantities, this argument in light of the latest best available evidence does not work. As a matter of fact, it has never worked, but sometimes we believe it to have worked, and the more enlightened persons in this field have stopped believing that trace amounts or trace quantities are insignificant.

They may be small - no one is denying that - but they are important, nonetheless. Let's talk about a figure that has been commonly bandied about in the Legislature from time to time when dealing with subjects in regard to occupational exposures or environmental exposures, to hazards, toxins, contaminants, carcinogens, and that is, one part per million. One part per million. How small is one part per million? Well, one part per million, to 5376

Monday, 7 July, 1980 use some analogies which may put it in the proper perspective, is one inch in 16 miles. Now a person walking a journey of 16 miles does not think much of that inch. As a matter of fact, there's probably 30 or 36 of those inches in one step. In significant , by compariso n, very insig nificant. It's one large mouthful in a lifetime. One large mouthful of food in a lifetime of eating. One part per million. It is one minute in two years. Again, when put in to comparative perspective it seems insignificant; it does not seem like much.

It's insignificant in relative terms and it's small by compar ison, but those in sig nificant amounts, those trace amounts can be extremely importa nt, both in a positive sense, in a negative sense, to the lives that we want to live, to our own health. Let me give you one example. While they may be small by comparison, they are extremely important unto themselves. B-12, vitamin B-12: The human body cannot live without the daily compleme nt, or spread out over a period of time, a daily requirement of vitamin B-12. If we do not have it in our system, we will die. How much vitamin B-12 do we need?

Well, when compared to the total body liquid, we need one part per billion of vitamin B-12. How insignificant, how small, how minor. Yet, without it, we can't live, and that is the significance of trace amounts. And yet this bill, this amendment, does nothing to take into account the significance and trace amounts. As a matter of fact, it does exactly the opposite. It continues the legacy that trace amounts are insignificant, which brings us to the concept of threshold, which assumes that for every toxic or hazardous chemical, there is a level below which there is no apparent effect on the body.

This has been a argument that has been ongoing now, basically in public terms, since the 1930s when the petro chemical explosion occurred. But it is more a bureaucratic argument than a scientific argument, and it has been consistently proven wrong. Again, we'll go back to an example that is familiar to most Manitoba ns, and that is the recent derailment at MacGregor.

The Minister along with several other Ministers in this House stood up and said, "You know, one part per million is an extremely low level in comparison to the threshold levels that were in place before." They started with the history of the TLVs, occupational TLVs, for vinyl chloride. They .all started with the figure of 500 parts per million; they said it was reduced to another figure and then down to 50 parts per million and then five parts per million and, finally, down to one part per million.

It went throughout several steps, and one can only assume that the reason behind that sort of an argument, that sort of a presentation, was to point out that in fact that if it had a TLV of 500 at one time, a TL V of five is that much safer and therefore we should not worry about exposures of five parts per million. The case is exactly the opposite. Indeed, it did have a TL V of 500 at one time, but the reason that was lowered was because, as they gathered more and more evidence, they found that TL V of 500 was resulting in cancer.

So they lowered it, and they found that as they lowered it by steps, by increment, each time it resulted in cancer. They may even find that one part per million, which is the figure in the States now, that it will result in cancer. Let me read a quote into the record from an

article in Canadian Business, April 1979, entitled, Does Progress Cause Cancer? And it's a quote by Paul Falkowski. I've met Mr. Falkowski; he works for the steel workers. He's a very able gentlemen in the field of occupational health and in the field of exposure to occupational toxins and hazards, as well as carcinogens. And this is what Mr. Falkowski has to say about the present method of determining TLV s. First he says it's not acceptable. And the quote is, Paul Falkowski of the United Steel Workers of America says, "It's a numbers game.

At one time, they said 12 working months was acceptable for exposure to radiation. Then there were some bodies. They said, eight working months was acceptable. Then there were some more bodies. Then then said, six, and then four, and that's where it's at today. It's the same thing with asbestos. I think the working environment should be such that it causes no ill effects. Why should we adopt figures produced by 12 wise men who are basically represe nting the management point of view.

Standards should be developed by a tripartite body of unions, government and industry." Notwithstanding the philosophy of the last part of the quote, what Mr. Falkowski is saying is that we have worked our way through a series of threshold limit values, each time finding more bodies.

And what this bill says, by implicatio n, is that we can continue to do that, that we can continue to allow pollution to occur because we have levels and limits, and I think they add in this bill, terms and conditions by which we can guage the effect of that contaminant on our environment and on our health, and thereby be safe ourselves and make a safer world for others to follow. An d the empirical evidence is exactly the opposite. The empirical evidence has proven that sort of approach wrong, time and time and time again. How long do we have to keep doing so?

How long do we have to keep allowing our environment to be subjected to such abuse befor e we finally smarten up and throw bills like this out the door and bring in amendments and Acts that deal with the problems before they happen? I suggest, unless we get a change in government, it's going to be a long, long time. So, threshold limit values, MA Cs, TL Vs, whatever you want to call them, have not been proven theoretically, but they have been proven incorrect by dying workers and by an abuse of environment. And ag ain, this is especially the case with carcinogens.

The Minister himself came forward with the statement during the debate on MacGregor, that we have a five-part per million TL V here in the province, and there's a one-part per million TLV in other provinces and in the United States, and we have all these different TLVs, but of course, he said - and I'm paraphrasing it, but I think I have the intent of his statement correct - of course the best exposure to a carcinogen is no exposure. I think he said the only safe exposure to a carcinogen is no exposure at all, and that is indeed the case.

When we talk about the contaminants that are released in these environmental accidents and released by regulations, according to The Clean Environment Act an d its amendments, we are talking in many instances about carcinogens. There is an assumption when dealing with carcinogens that there is a dose response relationship. In other words, a certain dose 5377

Monday, 7 July, 1980 will cause a certain response in a human being or in the environment. It doesn't work. We've always assumed that and that is why we have legislation that says that we can have a release of contaminants into the environment in accordance with regulations or an order of the Commission. I have to inform the Attorney-General that I have excellent peripheral vision and that I enjoy his involvement in the debate but I wish it would be on the other side because I enjoy watching his reactions to what I say.

He gives me a fair amount of feedback and keeps me going perhaps longer than I should and, in this case, that may be a problem. But nonetheless, I have enjoyed whatever went on behind me, some of which I caught and some of which I didn't. Let's talk about those response relationships.

The fact is that there is no safe level of exposure, that one asbestos fibre - and we have those response relationships with asbestos that is on the books; we have TLV's that are on the books - but the fact is one asbestos fibre can cause cancer, and it may cause cancer, so indeed, as the Minister said, there is no safe level of exposure, yet there are regulated levels of exposure. There are regulated levels of release; again, another fallacy.

One of the other problems that is facing all of us is that the statistics in regard to environmental contamination and pollution are frightening, frightening as well as enlightening. The World Health Organization, which is a fairly august body made of scientific experts which the Minister is so fond upon quoting and relying upon, has stated that anywhere from 75 to 85 percent of all cancers are environmentally created. What they mean by that is they are created by actions, events, and substances outside of the own body; they're not internal cancers, �hey are external cancers.

Now that of course includes smok ing , and that, the Member for Rossmere talked about just briefly while I was beginning my speech, and so we have to take that into account. But smoking is only one factor. This is a recent publication that Health and Welfare Canada put out through Statistics Canada on a mortality atlas of Canada, and Volume I is on cancer.

If you peruse this to any significa nt extent, you will find that the cancers - I will just very briefly, the red is very high levels of cancer and the orange is the next high - that the cancers are situated and localized around industrial centres where we have a great deal of environmental pollution. That is the case in almost every instance.

It even goes further than that, and that is that you can pinpoint certain types of cancers to certain areas and, when you carry the extrapolation further, what you find is that there are certain products that are being produced in those areas that are known to cause cancer among the workforce, because that's where we see it first, and that these cancer sites are directly attributable to those workplaces in those production processes that are ongoing, mostly in the urban areas and mostly in the industrial areas, although sometimes we can find them in agricultural areas when dealing with pesticides and herbicides.

We do find generally that many cancers are site specific, that they are attributable to a specific process, a specific industry, a specific contamination, a specific pollution, and also to a specific compound or contaminant. Certain industries have certain cancers. Nickel industry; they're doing a study now in Sudbury to try to document what they believe to be a relationship between nickel dust and nasal cancer. There have been many more that have been done.

But these cancers exhibit themselves among the workers in those industries first, because they are exposed to highest levels of it, then among the workers families, because they get exposed to the contaminant and as the worker brings it home on his or her clothes, on his or her equipment. There are many instances of mesothemioma, which is a cancer specific to asbestos exposure, that in fact are among children, who were exposed to their fathers or mothers who came home from the plant with asbestos on their clothing.

Sometimes they brought them home some of the stuff that they made at the plant, and allowed them to play with that. That is a sad fact but it indeed did happen, because workers are proud of what they do at work, and they bring it home to show their family and you've got some asbestos and the kid draws on it or plays on it, and before they knew - and I'm not talking about the scientific community here, I'm talking about the individual worker - before the individual worker knew of the problems and the cancer attributable to asbestos, they would do so, and maybe some are still doing so today out of ignorance.

That's an environmental attitude of a different nature. But this is to a bystanders disease, bystanders cancer, in Quebec.

Samuel Epstein found this out, that when the workers came home from the asbestos factory, and there's a tremendous amount of asbestos in the air as a pollutant in the Quebec area in the asbestos towns, but as they came home, the wife or the husband would stand at the door and shake their clothes off, sort of hit them about a bit to make the dust fly and of course, they'd breath that right in, and 20 years down the road we saw significant instances of mesothemioma among the bystanders, among the spouses of workers, just from that action of shaking them off.

So no one is immune, including the general population, because what goes into the workplace, comes out of the workplace. That is a fact that we cannot deny. The workplace is a conduit for environmental pollution and contamination into our environment, and that results in many instances of cancer. That's what we're talking about specifically in this particular Act. Although there are other diseases and other ramifications of pollution that we could talk about, I'd like to talk about cancer because I believe it to be one of the more significant examples of the results of pollution and contamination.

We all know someone with cancer. That's a tragic fact of living in today's society. One out of four persons will contact cancer and one out of five will die of cancer and I'll bring that right into the bill, Mr. Speaker, because I know you've allowed me some latitude and I do appreciate it, and we'll try to be more specific to the bill now that I've gone through the general background of it. Let's say that there are 60 people in here now, which would mean 15 of the people who are in these Chambers will die of cancer statistically and one out of five, which would mean 12 of us ...

Excuse me, one out of four will contact cancer and one out of five will die of it. And about one-fifth of one-third of those are workplace related, but the rest of that 75 5378

Monday, 7 July, 1980 percent are environmentally created. If you take away smoking, you'll find that many of them are created by the type of accidents that this bill is going to allow and that this bill in fact is going to do nothing to stop. While these specific percentages are recent vintage, and carcinogen appears to be increasing, the general observations are nothing new. Two hundred years ago, in 1775, a British surgeon, Dr.

Percival Pott contributed a specific cancer to the occupational exposure to chimney dust by chimney sweeps, who as children would be lowered into the chimneys and they would come in contact with this dust and as men they contacted cancer. The fact is that the general environment also had increased levels of cancer because of the type of pollutants that were contained in that chimney dust. So the problem is not new but it appears to be increasing. I mentioned Dr. Samuel Epstein before; I'll go back to Dr. Samuel Epstein and the

article that I had read, if I can find it before me, called, "Does Progress Cause Cancer? " Dr. Samuel Epstein says, and we are talking about environmental cancers as well as workplace cancers here, "The issues are not scientific, they are politca l, he said in a recent conversation. We have more than enough information which, if implemente d, would achieve a massive decrease in the rate of incidence of cancer; not now, because whatever we do is not going to effect us for 30 or 40 years, but we need more information like we need a hole in the head.

You've got power ful, massive , economic interests that manipulate decision-making bodies and produce massive confusion on one hand and, on the other ha nd, you have the scientists who are totally uninterested in protection because they are wrapped up in diagnosis and treatment. There are broader issues of the political impact of these things, of how the game is played, how the experiments and data are manipulated, how decisions are made." And that's what we have. We have cancer epidemic. We have it here in Manitoba.

We have it all over and it's as a result of much of the pollution in the environment, to which this bill should address itself but does not. Epstein concurs with the World Health Organization that most cancers are environmental and therefore, by that very fact, preventable, and Epstein of course believes that prevention is lacking.

He believes it's lacking not because of medical reasons, not because of scientific reasons, but because of political considerations, and that is exactly why we have this type of piece of legislation before us, because the political considerations are more important to the Minister than the scientific considerations or the medical considerations. This bill is worse than a sham. This bill is worse than hypocritical. This bill is typical. It is typical of the type of attitudes that have been allowed to flourish for far too long. The government knows the challenge. The government knows what they must face.

They partially understand the problems, I'm certain, and they are even informed of some of the solutions but, instead of putting that all together in a package which gives us some good progressive environmental legislat ion, we are given an amendment to a bill which is ineffectual, which is inappropriate, and which in many instances is incompetent. I've spoken longer than I had anticipated, Mr. Speaker. I could probably speak a great deal longer, if I believed it to be necessary, on the general subject because we are so well versed in this, as a society, that it is almost impossible not to continue speaking.

When we see headlines like, "P rovince Uses Risky Chemical", and I want to make a point of that if I can. The other day we talked about the chemical Fenitrothion. I'm not even suggesting I pronounce it correctly, but it is a pesticide that was being sprayed in Manitoba and it is also a pesticide that has been linked in New Brunswick and the down east provinces to Rhye's syndrome and to some other very serious medical complications, directly linked, and therefore a number of provinces have banned the use of it and stopped using it.

When I brought this to the attention of the Minister - and I don't have a list before me - he said we are using it because it's approved by the federal government and because the federal government has sent it through all these tests. I would just like to read to the Minister and put on the record, at this point, a June 23rd, 1980, news release from the Health and Welfare Department of Canada, and it says, "Health and Welfare Minister, Monique Begin, today commented on recent news reports questioning the safety of some pesticides registered for use in Canada.

The pesticides involved were tested for safety by Industrial Biotest Laboratories, IBT, a US firm that conducts safety evaluations for pesticide manufacturers in many countries. When irregularities in a firm's data were discovered in 19 77, the Canadian and American governments began joint investigations to re examine the studies of all pesticides whose registration was supported by IBT data." And guess what one of those pesticides was? Fenitrothion, or however it's pronounced.

The Mini ster assured us that because this had been tested that it was safe to use in the province and now we find out the laboratory that was testing it, in many instances, has been providing fraudulent as well as incomplete results. It is those type of assurances, that sort of blind faith that allo ws us to have this sort of a bill before us. So the province uses risky chemicals. They are talking about 2,4,5-T. We have the same arguments used for that: That it's been tested.

Well, they tested Thalidomide, and they've tested numerous other chemicals that have turned out to be dangerous to use and hazardous to health. And I'm not opposed to all chemicals. The Minister said that one day. He said, do you know what the Member for Churchill would like? He would like all chemicals banned. I wouldn't put forth a piece of legislation, amendment to The Clean Environment Act that bans all chemicals, Mr. Speaker. Some chemicals are good. As a matter of fact, chemicals are divided into two different categories.

They are the nutrients or poisons, and the nutrients, we must encourage their use, and the poisons, we must discourage their use. This Act does not do anything to discourage that particular use. What this Act says, is that when there is an environmental accident, the environmental officer will be able to perform certain functions. The environmental officer will be able to go in, will be 5379

Monday, 7 July, 1980 able to review the situation, will be able to make such changes as are necessary to try to reduce the impact of the accident; and also has a number of other powers to make installations, to drill holes to determine the extent of the accident, as well as to try to do something to avoid that accident having any more of a negative impact on the environment.

But the environmental officer is not enabled to do anything before the accident occurs, only after the accident occurs, and that's the type of amendment that we will be suggesting to the Minister when this reaches the committee phase , to specifically empower the environmental officer to take those sorts of actions to avoid an accident, rather than just to deal with a particular accident. I'll go through a couple of other points in the bill very briefly, Mr. Speaker. I thank you for your patience and your time in this regard.

I think it is an important subject and therefore have addressed myself to it in some detail. But the bill itself does a number of things. One is, it takes power away from the Clean Environment Commission, strips it of some power that it already has and, Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to that, because I believe the Clean Environment Commission is a vehicle that we must support and we must encourage the use of. But what happens now in dealing with an abatement project.

A municipality may wish to, by resolution, call for an abatement project, and that resolution - and I have to just find my notes here for a minute - what happens now is, the council authorizes an abatement project by resolution. Within 30 days it applies to the Clean Environment Commission for an order declaring that the abatement project is in the public interest - so far, so good - and that it may be proceeded with. Now the order by the Clean Environment Commission may be that it may not be proceeded with, also.

Upon receipt of that request the Commission sets a hearing, after which it decides whether or not to grant the ab atement project. Each party to the hear ing, receives a copy of the order. The municipality may proceed to acquire the land within the abatement project by purchase or expropriation, and this order is binding on anyone who acquires the industry from thereafter. In other words, if the industry were to be sold and a new owner were to come along, that it would be binding on that new owner. Under the amendments, this procedure is changed.

What happens now is the municipality approves the proposal for an abatement project. They then do not submit that to the Clean Environment Commission but they submit it to the Minister, directly to the Minister. The Minister must then, if I read the amendment correctly, refer to to the Clean Environment Commission, but not for an order; there's a hearing, but there's no order; refers it to the Clean Environment Commission for advice and recommendations. So the hearing is held in the same way.

The Commission deals with the proposal in the same manner as previously, only instead of issuing an order which is binding and has some authority, it issues advice to the Minister, and the Minister may approve the recommendations in full or in part, or he may vary them as he sees fit. He may do whatever he wants to them as long as he deems they have to be in the public interest. Then the Minister may also refuse to approve the ab atement project. If the Minister does approve the abatement project the municipality may, by by-law, authorize a project.

If the Ministerial decision included approval for acquisition, the municipality can acquire by purchase or expropriation or otherwise. So what we have here is a situation where the Clean Environment Commission is no longer empowered to make that decision and thereby there's no appeal. There was an appeal in the old legislation. If the Clean Environment Commission made a decision, they could appeal either to the Minister or the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, but there was an appeal mechanism - I'm not certain exactly who received that appeal - but there was an appeal mechanism. Now there is no appeal mechanism.

The previous Minister of Environment informs me that it was to the Minister. Perhaps he can also enlighten me on this point. Was that appeal procedure used in instances known to the Minister? It certainly was. So it's not the type of procedure that's on the books for looks only; it's the type of procedure that's on the books because it's necessary and because it's used. -(lnterjection) The Minister goes back to the Clean Environment Commission. Well, certainly.

The difference here is in some instances, a subtle difference, but it is a difference nonetheless, and that difference is, that it puts all the power in the Minister's hands and takes it out of the Clean Environment Commission's hands, and there's no appeal mechanism. So it centralizes power in the Minister's hands. I don't think we should be doing that in regard to environmental matters. The Minister has said time and time again that we must get the public involved in the environment. They must know what's happening.

They must have faith, otherwise our projects and our proposals and our actions are not going to work. And he's given us specific examples. One example was of trash collection on a certain day that was never explained to the people of Mani toba, and thereby never worked.

And what he is doing is, he's taking power out of the hands of the Commission, and when you take power out of the hands of a body like that, you reduce the effectiveness of such a body, and when you reduce the effectiveness of such a body, you also take away from that body the public confidence that they can and should have in that particular body. And so we are opposed to that specific

section totally, I believe, because of the changes that the Minister has brought forth in this particular amendment. As to the

section dealing with environmental accidents, there are some good points and there are some bad points. The bad points are mostly the failings of the government. The powers that are given to the environmental officer - and we want to talk about them in more detail later during the committee and during third reading, perhaps - but the powers that are given to them, in many instances are appropriate powers and necessary powers, and we commend the Minister for providing those powers to environmental officers at this time.

But they are not enough, and they will not in any way provide the environmental officer, nor his department, with the type of power that is necessary to deal with what will be an increasing number of environmental accidents, 5380

Monday, 7 July, 1980 because as we increase the use of contaminants, we also increase their release into the environment. We are not going to vote against this particular bill on second reading, because we want to see it proceed to committee, but we are not going to vote against it for that reason only. We want to see it proceed to committee for a number of specific reasons.

One is, we believe that the public should have the opportunity, whether they exercise it or not, to make representations on all matters of the environment; we believe that they should have this opportunity to deal with this particular bill in a public committee, so that we can hear their voice, because their voice is the voice that we should listen to to the most degree.

We also want to be able to provide input and suggestion and amendments to the Minister to try to strengthen this particular Act, to take away some of the more negative points of it and to provide positive input as to how to make this Act a better Act. We do so, knowing that we are building on a very thin base, but that the base and the mechanism is there upon which we can build. So we will be voting in favour of this particular bill going to the committee after, I am certain, a number of other persons in the Chamber have had an opportunity to speak to it.

I know I haven't said everything there is to say, even though I've said a lot, and I know that there will be cause for more speeches on this particular subject. Having said that, I believe that I can finish up my contribution to this debate very briefly and allow others to speak if they so wish. I want to do so by reverting back to the general for about five minutes.

It's a story I've told before, and it's a story I tell at every occasion, because I believe it is a story that symbolizes and points out the tragic circumstances that modern industrial societies find themselves involved in, and that is about the proliferation of petro chemicals, the proliferation of contaminants, toxins and carcinogens into our environment. I hesitate to use specific figures because - (Interjection)- well, the Minister of Highways says I will, but I won't.

I hesitate to use specific figures, because I have found that every time I have used those figures, somebody has come along behind me and revised them upwards, and so I find myself in a bit of a research lag between the time that I get the figures and have gone through the research to be able to document them, then there are new figures out and they are invariably revised upwards. So I will use sets of figures to outline the general problems, and just one aspect of the problem, and that is the problem that has faced us as a result of the petro chemical explosion since the early 19 30s.

There are literally millions of chemicals in use today; there are literally millions of different compounds in use today. There are hundreds of new ones, and the figures range anywhere from 500 to 1, 000 new ones, introduced each year without any significant degree of pretesting, without any great deal of consideration as to the long-term effects on the environment. Tens of thousands - the last figure I heard was 36,000 of these are known toxins, in other words, they are harmful to human health, and thousands are suspected carcinogens.

And they are entering the workplace and they are entering the environment in unprecedented and unparalleled numbers, and we eating, drinking and breathing them, Mr. Speaker. There is no doubt in my mind or any other educated person's mind that we are eating, drinking and . breathing far too many of them. And they are reacting in our environment and in our body, both singly and synergistically, and they are having a profound impact. And this innovative new legislation that was promised throughout the debates this year as a solution, does not prevent one single spill.

And it can't, because it's a political decision, not a technical decision, and I believe the government lacks will to do that. And if we don't prevent the spills, this is what I suggest may well happen. It's a story about a lily pond. Those of us who have seen a lily pond develop know that the lily pads grow geometrically. The first day there is one, the second day there is two, the third day there's four, then there's eight, then there's 16, then there's 32, then there's 64, then there's 132, and so on and so on. Each day it doubles. -(Interjection)- 128? Thank you very much. It's 128 and 356, that's right. 256?

Whatever it is - here's a calculator. If I knew how to use a calculator I would know how to give you the figures. The point is that it doubles each day. - (Interjection)- The Minister who is responsible for spreading 2,4,5-T along the roadways in northern Manitoba tells me I'm loose with facts. I may make the odd error in arithmetic, I may do that Mr. Speaker, but I believe that Minister is playing fast and loose with the future, when he allows 2,4,5-T - and we'll hear more about that later - to be used in the manner in which it's being used in this province today. But that's an aside.

I don't mean to be sidetracked by the Minister of Highways. I wanted to finish the story, and then by doing so, finish my contribution to this debate. -(Interjection )- Eh? Right. It was about lily ponds. I'm glad he jogged my memory, he's exactly right. I think he's heard the story before. I don't think it sunk in; I don't think the impact or the importance of the story has sunk in, but I think he's heard it before, Mr. Speaker. We are now confronted with a lily pond that is becoming choked by the lily pads which are meant to sustain it.

And if we were to entirely cover that lily pond with lily pads, we would have a dead lake. The type of lake we talked about before, only instead of acid rain being the problem, the lily pads would eventually choke off the entire lake. The fish would die; the animals that needed those fish to survive would die; it would have an impact upon the whole eco-system.

Remember, an insult to one is an injury to all in regards to environmental contamination. - (Interjections)- They are providing me with input into my speech and unfortunately I can't hear it all the time. -(Interject ion)- Who is spraying the lily pads with 2,4,5-T? Are they doing that? Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, what is happening, and I read this into the record not too long ago, is our water system in Manitoba is being contaminated by 2,4,5-T and I just found out the Minister is spraying the lily pads. The fact is, I shouldn't make light of it; our water system has been contaminated by 2,4,5 -T.

They found it in numerous instances and it just shouldn't be there, but again someone else will address themselves to those remarks more fully, I hope, in the future. 5381

Monday, 7 July, 1980 Back to the lily pond, which is developing more slowly than usually, Mr. Speaker, what we have in the end is a dead lily pond; it died because it has been choked off. If you were an innnocent bystander or passerby along the path that runs along that lily pad, and on the day before that lily pad was entirely choked off, what would you see? Let say it took 20 days to entirely choke that lily pad off and destroy that pond. On the 19th day you would walk by that pond and you would see a very scenic sight.

You would see little lily pads bobbing here and bobbing there, and you would see water, and it would be very aesthetically pleasing; there would be half water and half lily pads, and the pond would be alive and vibrant and beautiful to see, nice to smell, and that is what you would see. If you sat down and waited until the next day, you would see a dead pond, just like that, a destroyed pond just that quick.

The rate at which we are putting chemicals into our environment and the rate at which we are injecting toxins and contaminants and carcinogens into our eco-system, I am concerned that we may now be reached the day where we so totally contaminate our environment that is unable to sustain life. It may be in your and my lifetime.

We may be on the 19th day, and so if by speaking here today I can encourage the Minister to do more than just to call upon polluters to report their spills and do more than to provide a few cursory, but important nonetheless, powers to an environmental officer, then I have indeed perhaps among the many voices - because there is a multitude of voices that are concerned with this issue - I have then indeed perhaps been able to move us farther away from that 20th day, because it may not be too late.

We may still be able to undo much of the damage that we have already done, and we may still be able to stop, from occuring in the future, much of the damage that is occurring as I stand here and talk today and will be occurring as I stand here and talk years from now if better legislation than this is not brought forward by the Minister of the Environment.

We look forward to the conversations on second reading; I look forward also to hearing from members opposite, from this side, as well as the public, in regard to how we can move away from Day 20, as to how we can bring the world back a little bit closer to sanity and a little bit closer to an environment that sustains the life for which it was intended to sustain. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for lnkster. MR. SIDNEY GREEN: Mr. Speaker, I won't delay the debate on this bill. I do want to direct the House's attention to one portion thereof, namely, that which deals with an abatement project. Now, Mr.

Speaker, the legislation with regard to an abatement project has its history, I believe, only in the province of Manitoba. I do not know of any Legislature that had such legislation in force prior to it being enacted in the proivince, and I am not certain, but the Minister can probably tell us whether it has been followed in other provinces. The reason for the abatement legislation, Mr.

Speaker, was because of the fact that in certain municipalities, due to either the fact that there was no zoning, or due to the fact that planning legislation or planning bylaws resulted in anamalous situations where borders of two different districts met with one another, that you had throughout the province a series of situations where you had residential areas side by side with nuisance industries, and I use that word without criticism. I, Mr.

Speaker, know that there was one residential area that was co-existent with a pig farm, and the residents were not happy and the pig farm was a nuisance industry, although the farm did everything as well as it could be done, and there were no real environmental practices which were complained of, and both facilities were zoned for the purposes for which they were being used.

Because they were both lawful and yet acknowledged to interfere with one another, the province enacted legislation which said that, where there is a problem of that kind, the municipality could apply for an abatement project - and now I am going from memory. I know that the municipality had a major role in it, and at the time, Mr.

Speaker, there was no question in our minds that the people in the municipality wanted to alleviate this problem, and if they applied for an abatement project and got the Clean Environment Commission to acknowledge that there was a nuisance industry side by side with an incompatible use or that there were two incompatible uses, that the province would pay 15 percent of the cost or relocating and that was considered to be the incentive for the municipality to undo this problem. It didn't dawn on us, Mr.

Speaker, that the municipality might be quite willing to live with the problem, that the people who complained were the people in the immediate vicinity and to ask all of the other residents to be party to this program by paying half the costs of changing it. By the way, it wasn't mandatory; if the costs were exorbitant the province wouldn't get into it, and therefore the municipality would not have to get into it. But at that time it did not dawn on us. The former Minister has said that there was a defect in the Act. I don't regard it as a defect.

It is something that did not enter our minds in what was then revolutionary legislation to do away with this problem. We did it, and from my impression, Mr. Speaker, it worked, that there certain muncipalities who applied for abatement programs as a result of problems that were being experienced by their residents and the province participated to the extent of 50 percent and either the nuisance was moved or the other people were moved, but the incompatible situation was changed. Then a situation arose, Mr.

Speaker, which came to my attention, which I brought to the attention of the House last year, where everybody agreed that there was a nuisance; everybody agreed that there should be an abatement, but the municipality did not do anything about it and indeed did not want to do anything about it. I brought legislation to the House last year in an effort to help the Minister, which would have made such a program possible without necessarily the concurrence of the muncipality. Mr.

Speaker, let's realize that the municipality in many cases is the one that is to blame, because they have set up the situation whereby these two conflicting uses are side by side. But in the particular case that came to my attention there was definitely a 5382

Monday, 7 July, 1980 nuisance; nobody argued that there wasn't. There was a gentleman who wanted an abatement; there was argument about how much, which I say that he could not win that argument, because unless there was an agreement it wouldn't go ahead, but the municipality refused to do anything. Now, I note, Mr. Speaker, that the legislation is back here; that the abatement procedures are somewhat amended, but that there is nothing to make it more amenable to use if the municipality doesn't happen to want to correct the situation.

I urge the Minister to look at this situation and, when we get to second reading, I urge him to have something in there as to the relief that is available when the municipality refuses to participate, because the municipality refuses to participate because they don't want to pay their share of the abatement. The other residents may not be concerned with the trouble that is being experienced by certain residents, and I think that under those circumstances, Mr.

Speaker, that there should be more teeth in the legislation; that it should be available to help a citizen on proper terms; and that where there is a proof that these terms do exist, that there should be a requirement on the part of the municipality to participate in an abatement program. I ask the Minister to review that

section and see whether what I am saying does not have some merit. MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for The Pas. MR. McBRYDE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to move, seconded by the Member for Kildonan, that debate be adjourned. MOTION presented and carried. BILL NO. 94 -

AN ACT TO AMEND THE HEAL TH SCIENCES CENTRE ACT MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 94,

An Act to Amend the Health Sciences Centre Act, standing in the name of the Honourable Member for Logan. The Honourable Member for Seven Oaks. MR. SAUL MILLER: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Logan adjourned the debate on my behalf. Mr. Speaker, I have looked at the bill, and as the Minister indicated when he introduced it, it was a streamlining of the Act that was passed, I think, in 1972, and to a great extent that is so. Many sections of the previous Act had to be there because it was

an Act initially establishing a new corporation, a new entity, Health Sciences Centre, and it required in that original bill the various mechanisms to meld together the various components that existed separately at that time - the Manitoba Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation, the General Hospital, the Child ren's Hospital - and so those sections have run their course, they are no longer needed, and I can certainly appreciate that. However, he did do something which I think requires some comment.

The board, as we envisaged it at that time, consisted of 25, 27 actually, two to be appointed by the City of Winnipeg or two to be named from the City of Winnipeg Council. All would be named by the Lieutenant-Governor-In-Council but with names submitted by various groupings within the Health Sciences Centre community; that is, the Committee on Child Health Care , the Standing Committee of the cancer people, by the San Board, etc., and that has been somewhat scaled down.

I believe in this case there are still representatives from the Cancer Treatment, one instead of two; one from the Children's Hospital, but the big change is - there is two aspects of it. We had, as I say, a board of 27, 11 of which would be named directly through the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. In other words, we were seeking a broad base, a broad representation. The Health Sciences Center is unique in Manitoba. It is the only facility of its kind. It doesn't just cater to the city of Winnipeg needs; it caters as well to the needs of all Manitobans, because it is the largest referral centre in Manitoba.

What we have now is a decrease in the size of the board to 19. I suppose the Minister can say, well, the smaller the board the easier it is to get consensus, and that may be. I believe that the goal is always to improve administrative efficiency.

In this case, I believe, it is essential that the board try to represent as large a cross-section of Manitobans as possible, and that was done through the device of having 11 appointed directly by the Lieutenant-Governor- In Council, that is by the Cabinet . . . by the City of Winnipeg or from the City of Winnipeg Council, so you had out of 27, you had 13; there were 13 out of 27, which in a sense came from the community as a whole. Mr.

Chairman, my concern is that what we are witnessing is an attempt to restrict general input into the facility to, under the guise of greater efficiency, a smaller board, a sort of a board of directors almost as a private company; and this is borne out by the fact that eight of the members, eight of the nineteen, are going to be appointed in a very self-perpetuating way. They'll be appointed and named by the existing membe rs-of the board.

The nominating committee of the board itself will then come up with new names to recommend to sit as board members, and I can see this as becoming a very inbred, self-perpetuating kind of thing. It's inevitable that it will happen and so the institution, I fear, will become captive of a certain element within the city. Not that these people don't mean well, not that they're not best intentioned, but the broad base which we hoped would develop and which did in fact come about is now being cut back.

You have it by the fact that eight people are going to be named by the board, through their own nominating committee and, as I say, that becomes a self-perpetuating body, and only five will be named by the Cabinet which means that you are losing that particular input that I think the Health Sciences Centre requires, because it is, as I say, a unique facility. It's the only teaching hospital in Manitoba; although St. Boniface carries out some functions, it is the major university teaching hospital in Manitoba.

It's the largest referral centre in Manitoba and it should have an input not just from a small group of people who are dedicated to it, as well they might be, but they should have an input from the population as a whole. That could be achieved by the Cabinet making appointments as they have in the past and not just five, but as we had, eleven. As well, 5383

Monday, 7 July, 1980 we had asked the City of Winnipeg Council to submit names. One can ask why the City of Winnipeg Council, why not some other municipality and you could make that argument valid because, as I say, it is a referral centre; nonetheless, it is within the City of Winnipeg and, by having Winnipeg councillors on the board again, it infuses a different perspective. It brings a fresh look and a new look very often to the proceedings of a board of directors.

It is very easy for a board which has been working with the best of intentions on this kind of health facility to become very inward looking and, as I said, certainly they will become self-perpetuating. Another factor which I see, another point that's been done here, the question of the Chief Executive Officer. In the old Act the Chairman of the Board was considered the Chief Exeuctive Offic

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	31-4-97
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	31st 4th hansardpdf 97.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	f9e1f3e2057c9860a28fab13b68066498c11113d

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