LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY OF
Tuesday,
July 27, 1993
The House met at 10 a.m.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY (continued)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, as this
is still Monday and it is past ten o'clock Monday night, I would ask that one
of our rules, namely 65.(11), be waived, which would then allow the
introduction of certain motions after ten o'clock at night.
Mr. Speaker: Is there unanimous consent of the House to
waive Rule 65.(11)? (agreed)
Mr. Manness: Mr. Speaker, will you call Report Stage,
Bills 24, 35, 47, 49, 52 as amended‑‑well, you would have the
listing of which have been amended‑‑and Bill 41.
REPORT
STAGE
Bill 24‑The
Taxicab Amendment and Consequential
Amendments Act
Hon. Albert Driedger
(Minister of Highways and Transportation): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the
Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey), (by leave) that Bill 24, The Taxicab
Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les taxis
et apportant des modifications correlatives a d'autres lois), as amended and
reported from the Standing Committee on Law Amendments, be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 35‑The
Fisheries Amendment Act
Hon. Harry Enns
(Minister of Natural Resources): I have
a proposed amendment to Bill 35, The Fisheries Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la
Loi sur la peche).
I move
THAT Bill 35 be amended by striking out
the proposed subsection 33(4) as set out in section 4 of the Bill.
(French
version)
Il
est propose que le projet de loi 35 soit amende par suppression de paragraphe
33(4), enonce a l'article 4 du projet de loi.
Mr. Speaker: It has been moved by the honourable Minister
of Natural Resources, seconded by the Minister of Highways and Transportation
(Mr. Driedger), (by leave) that Bill 35 be amended by striking out the proposed
subsection 33(4) as set out in section 4 of the Bill. Agreed? (agreed)
Mr. Enns: Mr. Speaker, I had discussed the amendments
with one of the critics of the official opposition, the honourable member for
Flin Flon (Mr. Storie), and while we had agreed on the main amendment, this
particular amendment that I am moving removes that one portion with respect to
applying the moratorium on further northern potential transfer or sales of
quota.
I am advised that that administratively
will cause difficulties within the branch in a sense that some of what we refer
to as the northern quotas is in the northern portion of
I want to assure the honourable member for
Flin Flon, and I would ask him to certainly avail himself to have the
opportunity of visiting directly with Mr. Joe O'Connor who is the director of
Fisheries, that I was only apprised of this myself this last day that there is
no intent on the part of the government and certainly on the part of this
minister not to abide in principle with the points raised by the member for
Flin Flon which I agreed with, and the Fisheries department agreed with.
That is, in essence, Mr. Speaker, for the
edification of other members, to provide a greater degree of protection for the
northern fishermen that in the event, and it is only in the event‑‑because
individual quotas are not established yet, as the member knows, in the northern
fisheries‑‑but in the event they are established that there be kind
of a further legislative check and balance put in place that would ensure that
in the first instance and if anything the holding of fishing licences and
quotas in these northern lakes should be biased and prejudiced in favour of
northerners who reside in the area.
That was the intent of the recommended
amendment to The Fisheries Act at committee stage, which I concurred with, and
it is the intent of the Fisheries branch to carry out that very same policy, I
want to assure the honourable member for Flin Flon.
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from
the Minister of Natural Resources. I was
aware that this bill would affect fisheries on the east side of
I would simply ask, Mr. Speaker, I am
prepared to‑‑I cannot say that I am delighted by the
amendment. I am disappointed, but I will
take the minister's assurance that the interests of fishermen on the east side
of
I would also ask the minister to review
the possibility that by regulation he may be able to segregate out part of the
areas of
Mr. Enns: Am I closing the debate on the‑‑
Mr. Speaker: No, you are not closing debate. The honourable minister has spoken on the
amendment, so has the honourable member for Flin Flon.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt
the motion? That is agreed and so
ordered.
Mr. Enns: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to move, seconded
by the honourable Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey), (by leave) that
Bill 35, The Fisheries Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur la peche), as
amended and reported from the Standing Committee on Law Amendments, be
concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
* (1010)
Bill 47‑The
Residential Tenancies Amendment Act (2)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, on
behalf of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. McIntosh), I
move, seconded by the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Downey), (by leave)
that Bill 47, The Residential Tenancies Amendment Act (2) (Loi no 2 modifiant
la Loi sur la location a usage d'habitation), as amended and reported from the
Standing Committee on Law Amendments, be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 49‑The
Summary Convictions Amendment and
Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move
on behalf of the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), seconded by the Minister of
Government Services (Mr. Ducharme), (by leave) that Bill 49, The Summary
Convictions Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi modifiant la Loi
sur les poursuites sommaires et apportant des modifications correlatives a une
autre loi), reported from the Standing Committee on Law Amendments, be
concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 52‑The
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Driedger), (by
leave) that Bill 52, The Manitoba Foundation Act (Loi sur la Fondation du
Manitoba), as amended and reported from the Standing Committee on Law
Amendments, be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
House
Business
Hon. Clayton Manness (Government
House Leader): Mr. Speaker, we will deal with Bill 41 Report
Stage this afternoon.
As I understand it, we have one bill to
deal with in committee, that is private member's Bill 212. That has been called for Law Amendments
committee at 2:30 this afternoon. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I am now going to
call the committee to go into Supply and go back to the concurrence
motion. If we are to finish before 1:25
with concurrence or at least the consideration of concurrence at this time,
then we would move to third readings‑‑by leave.
I therefore move, seconded by the Minister
of Energy and Mines, (Mr. Downey) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and
the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be
granted to Her Majesty.
Mr. Speaker: Just prior to putting that question to the
House, I will recognize the honourable member for Point Douglas with his
committee changes.
Committee
Changes
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): I move, seconded by the member for Transcona
(Mr. Reid), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Law Amendments be
amended as follows: the member for
Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) for the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans); the
member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) for the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett)
for Tuesday, July 27, 2:30 p.m.
Motion agreed to.
* * *
Mr. Speaker: It has been moved by the honourable
government House leader (Mr. Manness), seconded by the honourable Minister of
Energy and Mines (Mr. Downey), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the
House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted
to Her Majesty.
Motion
agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a committee to consider of the
Supply to be granted to Her Majesty with the honourable member for
SUPPLY‑CAPITAL
SUPPLY
COMMITTEE
OF SUPPLY
Madam Chairperson
(Louise Dacquay): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to
order, to continue to consider concurrence of the Supply motion.
Ms. Avis Gray
(Crescentwood): I have a few questions for the Minister of
Education. It is related to curriculum
and special education programs, as well as programs for gifted children.
I am wondering if the minister could
update the House in the area of programs for gifted children. What is occurring right now within the
Department of Education in regard to any type of programs for gifted
children? Is there a particular curriculum?
Is there any assistance that is given to particular school divisions for that?
I am asking the question because I have
had a number of individuals, parents, within the city of Winnipeg phone, who
have gifted children and are concerned that in fact there is not much emphasis
put on the needs of gifted children, that dollars and resources, albeit
limited, are going into special needs children, but when it comes to gifted
children, the dollars or the resources are not there.
So I am wondering if the minister could
perhaps comment on that area of education.
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): The area
of gifted education, there has been a committee which has been working on
gifted education, and we have had information from that committee.
Part of the difficulty in the area of
gifted education has been for schools and for educators and for those involved
to determine the best model for the delivery of education for gifted young
people. There has, in the past, been a
pullout model or a special class for gifted and talented education, but as we have
had the opportunity to look at education for gifted and talented young people,
there has been an increasing recognition that we are speaking of gifted young
people who may be gifted overall or who may be gifted in a particular area and
require enrichment in that one area, or we may be speaking also about talented
young people. In terms of the area of
talent, we might be looking at athletic talent or computer talent. So over the past year and a bit, there has
been a much wider view of who are the young people that we may be looking at.
As I said in the past, the model has been
a pullout model to enrich a curriculum.
One of the areas brought forward for consideration now has been a
cascading model or a different type of model, rather than the pullout, which we
have been asked to look at. It does have
implications for teaching.
So I will say to the member that a
decision has not been reached at the moment on exactly how we will implement
that; however, I can tell her that there has been some significant work done,
both by the department and also by the committee in the area of gifted
education. I certainly will look at for
her, and provide her with, some further information on exactly where we are in
that area.
Also, in the area of gifted and talented
young people, again, we are looking overall to make sure that our curriculum
for all young people is of the highest quality so that all young people are
challenged; however, we do recognize that some young people may in fact wish
to, in the high school years, challenge some academic programs as well from the
university level.
* (1020)
So it is an area that we are looking at
with the community, and we certainly have recognized that it is an important
area for
Ms. Gray: A couple of questions in relation to that
answer. Is the minister able to give us
any type of time frame on when there might be some decisions made on the
committee and the work that they have done?
She kindly agreed to give me further information in this area.
Is there some information specifically
related to the work the committee has done that she would be able to give me
that we could pass on to members of the public who then perhaps could have some
input in terms of responding to the committee or back to the minister, et
cetera?
Mrs. Vodrey: I am not able to provide the member today
with the exact time frame that we would be looking at in terms of
implementation, however I will look at providing the information that I can. I have not released the report, which again
was a committee which was doing some work and a task assigned to them by the
Department of Education and Training, and we are considering the
recommendations.
I will provide the member with what I am
able to at this time, and I would ask too that with the people of Manitoba that
she is meeting with, if she could let them know that we have recognized that
that whole area of gifted and talented education is an important one, and we
certainly are looking at it.
There was one other part that I wanted to
respond to as well, to the first question.
Another area that we have been asked to consider on behalf of gifted and
talented young people is a designation in reporting so that where young people
have done an enriched program there is in fact some kind of designation on a
report card or a transcript of marks. I
think that is one area which can be accomplished.
I have asked the department to look into
how we can provide that designation. I
cannot entirely commit that we will be able to have that designation available
for the next school year though I have asked for that to be implemented as soon
as possible, as soon as we come to a satisfactory way, because I do think that
young people who do work in an enriched program should have the benefit on
applying to further post‑secondary education, whatever their choice, of
that recognition of that additional work that they have done.
Ms. Gray: Moving to another area, and again I received
some phone calls with some concerns expressed‑‑this is in rural
Manitoba‑‑about the‑‑and I do not even think I have the
right term‑‑it is what I remember as being called OEC classes in
high school, occupational education, OEC.
There were some concerns expressed about
where there was not a good enough job done by teachers. Perhaps, not necessarily, it was not a
criticism of the teachers but a comment.
It was perhaps related to lack of knowledge or information and resources
about students who would be placed under the OEC program for a variety of
reasons, and then once they had completed that program‑‑in fact,
first of all, are they considered to have had a Grade 12 education?‑‑and
that in fact they were very limited in terms of what their options were once
they had completed that.
I am wondering if the minister could tell
us: Is there criteria within the
department? Is there resources available
for teachers? What determination is made
in terms of how is it decided that a student will or will not go into an
occupational entrance type of course?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chairperson, I believe that the course
the member is referring to we now refer to as the modified program. The
modified program takes the existing curriculum but allows that curriculum to be
modified for young people who are seen to have difficulty in achieving in the
0001 area. Young people who are in that
program do receive the designation of modified, so when their transcript of
marks is prepared it would be known that they in fact did have a modified
course at certain levels.
In terms of the actual follow‑up, I
am not sure if the member is saying that the difficulty has been for those
young people as they wish to progress on to post‑secondary or if it is in
fact employment areas. One of the areas
that we have been particularly wanting to pay attention to is the area of co‑operative
education, work experience, so the skills that young people have are recognized
within the employment community, and the employment community has had some
experience with all kinds of young people.
I would like to say that the whole area of
work experience and co‑operative education we are very interested in for
all students in
I have spoken before about education as a
two‑way communication process. We
in education have to make sure that our story is well told in the community,
but we also have to make sure that the door is open for the community to come
into education to be as informed as they can possibly be.
In the area of access to post‑secondary
training, I would hesitate to say, without checking with the department,
exactly what is available in terms of moving ahead immediately for young people
who come from the modified program. I
will be happy to look into the educational opportunities at the post‑secondary
level. I think the member is speaking
about training programs, college and university programs, if I am correct, so I
will look into that and see she gets the information.
Ms. Gray: I thank the minister for that.
During the Estimates process, one of the
issues that I discussed with the minister was the report that had been
completed by The Manitoba Teachers' Society, the Manitoba Association of School
Trustees and, I believe, one more organization.
It was related to medical needs of children in schools. I know the minister had indicated during the
Estimates process that there was a committee of deputy ministers, I believe,
and that her cabinet colleagues would be looking at this issue.
That was a number of weeks ago. As we have progressed into the middle of
summer and throughout the session, I am wondering if the minister could shed
any more light on that issue today basically referring to where it is on the
agenda of cabinet. Does she have any better indication as to when there might
be a decision made on what should be done in regard to that, given, in fact, we
now have about five, six weeks at the most left before we begin another school
year?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chairperson, as I said in the Estimates
process, this was an issue that was taken very seriously by several ministers
and it does specifically concern, in the area of medically fragile children,
the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), the Minister of Family Services (Mr.
Gilleshammer) and the Minister of Education.
In addition, the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae) and his department
have also been involved in the work that we have done.
There has been a committee which the
ministers requested to be struck. It has
been a committee of deputy ministers and then a working group from our
department. In terms of the time frame,
the other ministers involved and myself will be looking to make an announcement
by the beginning of the school year.
Ms. Gray: Madam Chairperson, I thank, again, the
minister for that information.
One other question I wanted to ask the
minister and it was in relation to her planning and audit section and looking
at the whole issue of funding of education.
Obviously within the
I am wondering if the minister and her
department have had an opportunity or have looked at all at the whole issue of
funding of education with perhaps looking at the pros and cons of looking at an
alternative model to funding education.
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chair, we have, in fact, looked at a
number of models for the funding of education.
We have looked at property tax which currently provides a basis of
funding and we have looked at other models.
We have looked at other models as they are around the world. Certainly we have looked across
At the moment, the information that I have
received is that there has not been a method which has really been considered
overall to be as, I suppose, efficient as the property tax. In areas where there has been a change from
property tax to another type of taxation to provide funding, there have been, I
have been informed by the department who has looked into this, some
difficulties surrounding it. We have not
yet found a method of funding that we believe at the moment could replace the
property taxation.
I have spoken with municipalities and
taxpayers who have spoken about the value of property and the taxation that
comes with it, and the value of the property may not speak to the actual
individual's ability to pay that property tax.
I am certainly aware of the issues raised
and certainly do spend time speaking to Manitobans about that and certainly are
looking at alternatives. If the member
has other alternatives which she thinks would be helpful to us to look at, then
by all means we will look at them. I can
say in the reviews that we have done so far, we have not been able to find a
method that appears to be as satisfactory, though we certainly will continue
looking and continue the discussion.
* (1030)
Mr. Neil Gaudry (St.
Boniface): Madam Chairperson, first I would like to say
thank you to the minister for her co‑operation whenever I did ask
questions of her staff and herself.
My question today is in regard to the 50‑50
francais partielle program at the Norwood School Division. Can the minister advise what has happened
with the program at this stage?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chair, as the member knows, there was a
meeting which was held between people, particularly parents, who had an
interest in the 50‑50 program with the department, and they also have
held meetings with their particular school board. My understanding is that they
have reached an agreement, but I would just like to check with the department
on the details of that agreement rather than attempt to put forth something
that may need to be corrected.
My understanding is an agreement has been
reached, and I am certainly happy to inform the member.
Mr. Gaudry: Madam Chairperson, on April 20 Mr. West and
Mr. Gendron had sent a letter indicating that they had forgotten to ask you in
regard to the department which was reviewing the status of the 50‑50. Francais partielle has recognized the
program.
Can the minister advise if there has been
any changes in regard to that program? I
felt personally that it was a good program.
My three children went through the program. Two of them went through to high school. My daughter decided after the 50 from Grade 9
she went to the complete Francais program on her own choice. I respected that at that time, but I have
always felt the 50‑50 program was a great program.
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chairperson, as I said, I know that
some discussions have been held, and there has been discussion as well with the
home and school division. I will be
happy to look into the details of those discussions and also what the results
of those discussions have been and inform the member.
Mr. Gaudry: So if I understand very well, Madam
Chairperson, at this time there have been no changes in the 50‑50
program.
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chairperson, I did say to the member
that I would like to check into the details of that particular question before
providing him with an answer at this time.
But I will look into it, and I will certainly give him the information
as quickly as possible.
Ms. Gray: Madam Chairperson, I have a question for the
Minister of Justice. I know during this
session he has certainly referred to the fact that he and his department have
spent time lobbying the federal government in regard to looking at potential
changes to The Young Offenders Act. We
are pleased to see that lobbying is going on.
I guess my question would be to the minister. Given that you cannot pick up a newspaper or
listen to the television these days without hearing something about violence,
particularly within the city of Winnipeg, and oftentimes it relates to youth
violence, I would ask the minister, is there anything that he sees his
department being able to do in regard to taking some type of a proactive
approach to what could be done in regard to violence, particularly youth
violence?
When I ask this question I recognize that
it is certainly not an easy solution, whatever the solutions are, and it is not
probably short term either, but I am wondering if the minister could tell this
House, is there something that is or can be done in regard to this ever‑growing
problem of youth violence?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister
of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Chairperson, I thank the honourable member
for her question. It reflects the
frustration of many people in our society when the honourable member raises
questions about escalating youth violence.
Of course, it is no surprise there is no easy quick simple solution to
the problem, but I believe that in
We are placing far more emphasis on
assessments of offenders who come into our system and trying to tailor our
corrections programs to address head‑on the issues that come up in these
cases. We are indeed doing a much better
job than used to be done in this province and elsewhere when it comes to the
assessments of people who come into our system.
But I fear that is not the only
problem. We need to address this problem
at the other end of the spectrum, that being the crime prevention end of
it. Part of that will require input from
a broad range of community groups and agencies.
It is going to require, I think, more help from the volunteer sector
that perhaps has not even been involved to this point.
We are pleased that we have youth justice
committees in this province. We are
pleased that we have volunteer probation officers and advisory groups and so
on.
I think that flowing from a conference I
attended earlier this year respecting crime prevention in our country, we are going
to be watching very carefully to see what leadership does flow from
One of the main recommendations of a House
of Commons committee report on crime prevention was a national approach, and I
think that is going to be getting started.
But I think that we can almost mirror the same kind of efforts in the
various provinces as well. We have to be
able to convince the public that we cannot have a police officer on every
corner. Everybody knows that, but on the
other hand, we need a better recognition of that.
I think we have to find ways, through
departments other than the Department of Justice, to deal with the underlying
causes of the problems that are developing with some of our young people.
I have complained publicly about parenting
and what is going on when we know that very young children are out there
stealing cars and committing other crimes.
I have to agree with Inspector Lou Spado of the Winnipeg Police who
wonders what the parents are doing or what role they are playing.
So I think authorities have to bring to
the attention of parents the shortcomings of their children. I think in too many cases the parents do not
even know, or the parents or those who are charged with the responsibility of
raising young people do not even know the kinds of difficulties and mischief
young people can get into.
The Young Offenders Act is often cited as
the reason for all of our problems.
Well, I think the honourable member will agree with me that is only one
part of the puzzle and that we indeed should address The Young Offenders
Act. Officials are doing that this
summer and ministers across the country have agreed to meet again in the fall
to review what officials have been doing this summer with respect to The Young
Offenders Act.
But I certainly try to remind people every
time I get a chance that of course we should do something with The Young
Offenders Act, but do not expect that magically to reduce the crime rate
because it will not.
I can just say to the honourable member
that the work that we are doing in Justice and Corrections will help prevent
recidivism, will help keep young people from recommitting offences. And to the extent we do that well, then we
will have achieved what we are trying to do.
To the extent we fail, then we have more work to do.
* (1040)
Ms. Gray: Madam Chairperson, I agree with the minister
on two points: (a) that obviously any
changes in the Young Offenders Act are not going to suddenly make crime,
particularly youth crime and violence, disappear; and secondly, that crime
prevention needs to be what we are focusing on.
The minister mentioned that he was at a
conference about crime prevention, and I am wondering if the minister, just for
the record, could identify three or four of the main factors that were probably
indicated in regard to the societal factors that have a direct or indirect
relationship on the amount of crime that does occur in our society.
Mr. McCrae: Madam Chairperson, that goes to the heart of
the conference I attended. It was a
conference called as a result of the release of the report of the Standing
Committee on Justice & Solicitor General, headed by Dr. Bob Horner, an M.P.
from
The report was a unanimous report in the sense
that some of these justice issues really do cut right across all the party
lines. There was no partisanship
involved at the meeting I attended. It
was a meeting in
I remember, for example, having a good
discussion there with Graham Reddoch of the John Howard Society here in
But I think the seeds were planted at that
particular conference for a national sort of effort, but also those who
attended, the media was also involved and had delegates at that meeting, and I
think the media got an earful from some of the other delegates about the role
it can play in creating a crime‑free society or a more crime‑free
society.
I think, through the contacts like that,
our relationship with organizations like John Howard, who are interested in
being involved in the kinds of activities that we are going to have to get
into, it is going to require more of the kind of thing we already see, but I
mean more of it, more block parents, more neighbourhood watch, more people
caring a little bit more about what goes on in their neighbourhoods in order
for us to get a better handle on crime in our communities.
Ms. Gray: Madam Chairperson, I agree, as well, with the
minister, that it is not just a Department of Justice issue. When the minister
talks about other factors in regard to youth violence and where are the
parents, et cetera, I concur.
That is where I cringe, because when I
look at what is occurring in some of the other departments, such as Family
Services, where whether the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer)
likes to believe it or not, basically, children who are 16 and over are not
even being dealt with by Child and Family Services, basically, any type of
voluntary counselling programs that used to be organized and operated through
government have since been cut from about '88 on. I do not think with teachers that are feeling
stress today in schools, et cetera, I do not think we necessarily see a lot of
extra programs within the school system that look at the whole issue of
children and parenting, et cetera, so I certainly have concerns in regard to
what is happening, particularly in the city of Winnipeg.
The minister referred to an all‑party
committee. One of the questions I would
ask him, one of the things that I have been thinking about is that‑‑and
I hate to use the words "establish another committee"‑‑but
I am wondering if it is not time for the minister and some of his colleagues to
establish, whether you call it a task force or whatever, perhaps task force,
specifically related to the city of Winnipeg.
I am not saying that we do not have crime and increasing crimes in rural
areas, but this is certainly a problem, particularly youth violence is
certainly ever increasing in the city of
Get a group of individuals together to
form a task force, representatives from City Council, from the Legislature,
from the police force, perhaps from the media, from Parks and Recreation, other
community groups, some of the ethnic communities. Get a group of people together who could sit
down, decide on how they would want to go about collecting information but try
to get a handle on exactly what some of the underlying problems are in regard
to the increase in the amount of youth violence in our city and then develop
some recommendations or strategies as to what can we as a city and also a
province do to try to curve this ever increasing problem.
Again, I in some ways hate to use the
words "task force" because oftentimes we can use committees and task
forces regardless of governments or political stripes. It is sort of a reason to not do anything,
but I could see if we had the people together representing some of these
various groups that would actually sit down and look at them, perhaps we could
come up with some creative ideas that do not necessarily cost dollars in terms
of brand new programs, where we could even utilize the existing community
groups and volunteer organizations to maybe do some work in this area.
I think some community clubs, and I am
sure the minister is aware of them as well, who have started to look at their
own safety audits and are starting to work on, in a community basis, looking at
some ways to actually change what goes on within their own communities in
regard to crime. I am wondering if this
is not something that government, in fact all members of the Legislature, could
be looked at in terms of this problem. I
would appreciate the minister's comments on that.
Mr. McCrae: I think what the honourable member says
amounts to a very helpful suggestion. I
think I will indeed take what she has said under advisement about perhaps a
city of
I think social agencies ought somehow to
be represented on there, perhaps the probation division of my department,
perhaps somebody from Family Services, the City of
I want to go back just one moment because
we talked a few minutes ago about the causes of this, and I do not think I gave
the honourable member a full answer with respect to the profile of a young
offender, for example, or any other kind of offender, but certainly a young
offender.
* (1050)
I think if you look at many, many of our
young offenders here in Manitoba, you will find that they, one way or another,
have been victimized at one time or another in their lives through abuse from
grownups or from other young people.
There may be drug or substance or alcohol abuse involved in their makeup
and maybe they do not come from the highest levels of the social structure so
that they end up with maybe less of a self‑esteem than we would like to
see. There tends in some cases to be a
ghettoization. The crime is found in
some areas more than in other areas. All
of this leads to a lack of hope, which really leaves a person in a desperate
situation and it is a very unhappy situation.
I remember the conference. There were some young people who put on a
play for us which sort of helped break the ice for everybody there. I will have to see if I can remember the‑‑yes,
the play was entitled Fear is a
Many people who are out there are
offenders. We do not feel very sorry for
them because they are offenders and we have to deal fairly strictly with them,
but some of them are quite a lot like you or I, Madam Chairperson, and all of
these things in their lives have conspired to make them fearful for their
future. This causes them to strike out
and engage in inappropriate behaviour.
You need to understand all that, I think,
to understand your profile of who it is you are trying to deal with and what
kinds of programs you should be putting together and who should be brought into
the resolution of these problems.
When we are criticizing the amount of
money we do not spend in certain areas of social agencies or Family Services,
we should remember what one of my colleagues sometimes says. That is, if spending money would help us
solve our problems, we should have them all solved by now because this
government certainly has engaged in massive spending in areas that we have
prioritized since we came into government in this province.
So we can defend the spending that we
do. We can also say, oh, it will never
be enough as long as we still have programs.
I will be the first to say that, but honourable members, I think, have
to remember there have been very significant changes in our society since the
end of the war. Families are viewed
differently than they used to be viewed.
We now look to government to solve a lot of problems that families used
to solve without the assistance of government.
The need is growing faster than the ability of the taxpayer to meet that
need, so we have to find other ways as well.
If we do not have the dollars, maybe we
could afford to spend some time thinking about how we can get together on
suggestions such as the one the honourable member made, which I intend to look
at very seriously.
Ms. Gray: I am very pleased that the minister is
prepared to look at that. I just want to
comment, I do not want the minister to misinterpret my comments because in fact
I do not think I referred to money at all when I talked about Child and Family
Services and some of the other programs.
If the minister looks through the
Estimates process over the last number of years, I think he will see that a
number of suggestions and questions that the Liberals have asked in the
Estimates process related to programs and services, sometimes related to
reorganization and changes and how we do business, not necessarily always adding
more dollars.
Thank you.
Mr. Gaudry: Madam Chairperson, my questions are to the
Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae). It is
an issue that has been a long time, and it might not be an issue anymore, but
the minister had given me some information at the time. It was the closing of one of the courtrooms
in St. Boniface, and he had given some statistics and estimated savings over a
period of five years.
Can the minister indicate at this time
what is the situation with the operation of just the one courtroom in St.
Boniface?
Mr. McCrae: I did not come prepared this morning with
facts and figures on the operation of our court services in St. Boniface, but I
do believe that I made available to the honourable member some information. I remember at the time there was quite a fuss
created when one courtroom was shut down at the St. Boniface facility there,
but my understanding then, and there has been no indication different since, is
that we are carrying out our responsibilities to Manitobans in St. Boniface,
French‑speaking Manitobans, and I do not know of any particular
difficulty beyond the usual ones that happen right across the province.
From day to day to day in the justice
system something happens that you do not expect, and so you have to look at
each and every thing that comes along to see if there is not something
structural that we need to do. I think
in St. Boniface we are carrying out our mandate there and serving the public,
but if the honourable member knows of any reason for that to be questioned, by
all means bring me details, bring me circumstances, and I will indeed look into
them and attempt to ensure that the service continues appropriately and without
interruption.
Mr. Gaudry: No, I did not have any specifics on
anything. It is just that I have never
asked any questions really in the House with regard to the courtroom and felt
at the time that answers had been given out.
The minister had given me these details, so I felt comfortable with
this.
Another question maybe is, when this
decision was made was the Francophone community consulted on this issue?
Mr. McCrae: I am just trying to remember, but I do not
think there was any particular, formal consultation process with that change at
the St. Boniface courthouse. It was a matter
of the ongoing operations of the Department of Justice delivering a service
that we are mandated and must deliver, and we must do these things because that
is our responsibility. I do not recall
that there would have been any requirement for consultation, because we do not
believe there has been any reduction in service.
Mr. Gaudry: Madam Chairperson, I thank the minister for
his answer, but I would appreciate some statistics in regard to backlog if
there is any, in regard to this at this time.
Do I just contact the minister's office for the statistics?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Chairperson, the honourable member has
asked me today, on the record, about statistics with respect to traffic at that
office, and I will enquire and make some information available to the
honourable member. I can write him a
letter and let him know.
Mr. Gaudry: Thank you, Madam Chairperson, now I will just
pass it on to the honourable member for
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
My question pertains to a constituent, a
case that the minister will be a bit familiar with since we have talked about
it, and that is the case of Gerry Olfman (phonetic) who has a long‑standing
request of complaint before the Human Rights Commission. It goes back to a case involving the Winnipeg
Police force back in 1985.
I want to thank the minister for
responding to my letter. However, with all due respect, the point of my letter
has not been addressed. I acknowledge in
my own correspondence that in fact this complaint was taken to the commission,
that the commission feels it had dealt with it, that a solution was proposed
and the complainant rejected the solution, and therefore, the case has been
dropped. I acknowledge all of that in my
letter.
Considering that the complainant remains
concerned about the handling of the case, he does not feel that the solution
proposed was acceptable, and given the fact‑‑
Madam Chairperson: Order, please.
* (1100)
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: ‑‑that approximately 12
organizations and churches have joined his request for adjudication, my question
to the minister is, would he consider looking into this case once more with a
view to proposing the route of adjudication as a way to, once and for all,
resolve this long‑standing case involving the Winnipeg Police force and
the Human Rights Commission?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Chairperson, I do not know if everybody
knows, but in the ordinary day‑to‑day course of business of members
of the Legislature and members of the government many of these kinds of matters
come forward, and there is a good and co‑operative working relationship
on these kinds of matters, and I appreciate that. We do not always get the answers honourable
members want to hear or their constituents or those people who come forward
with complaints.
The way the Human Rights Commission works
is that, in addition to its adjudication, its education and advocacy work, the
Human Rights Commission also works to try to mediate disputes between members
of the public who have complaints to make about various other agencies, in this
case, the Winnipeg Police Department and the individual mentioned by the
honourable member.
The Human Rights Commission did carry out
its function and mediated the dispute and proposed a resolution which was
unacceptable to the person complaining.
In the light of that, however, the Human Rights Commission hardly could
see its way clear, then, to move to adjudication when its best efforts, the
commission's best suggestion, was this settlement proposition which was found
by the complainant to be unacceptable.
(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Chairperson,
in the Chair)
The complainant does have another remedy,
and that would be to use the civil courts to seek remedies that might be
available. I cannot today suggest to the
honourable member that I will go and try to get the Human Rights Commission to
get into adjudication, but I will ask if that option might be looked at once
again‑‑but I do not want to advocate for that‑‑but I
would ask them if they have looked at all the factors that they look at when
deciding whether there ought to be adjudication.
It is a strange case because I guess if
there is a settlement being suggested, the commission obviously is finding that
there must have been some fault or else they would not be suggesting a
settlement. Therefore the question is,
does the punishment fit the crime, to use the wrong words to describe what I am
trying to say.
I will ask the commission how much
consideration it did give to the issue of adjudication, and if they might want
to look at that again, and I will do that.
An Honourable Member: Committee rise.
(Madam Chairperson in the Chair)
Madam Chairperson: As previously agreed, committee rise, call in
the Speaker.
IN SESSION
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Madam Deputy
Speaker, it is my intention now to call a number of bills for third
reading. Would you begin by calling Bill
55, followed by 54, 52, 51, 50‑‑as you can tell, I am going
backwards‑‑39 and 35 at this point.
THIRD
Bill 55‑The
Legislative Assembly Amendment and
Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I move, seconded by
the honourable Minister of Energy and Mines, (by leave) that Bill 55, The
Legislative Assembly Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi modifiant
la Loi sur l'Assemblee legislative et apportant des modifications correlatives
a une autre loi), be now read a third time and passed, by leave.
Motion presented.
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): Madam Deputy Speaker, I appreciate the fact that
I am permitted to express my opinion, having been bound by the majority
rule. In our system of government, we
recognize two important principles which apparently are in conflict in this
situation. First is the principle of
paramountcy of legislative authority.
That has been decided a long time ago in the Hodges case that the
legislative authority of the provinces are not merely delegated powers from the
imperial legislature or parliament, but it is a full plenary power inherent as
any other legislative authority.
The second principle at sway here is that
no one under the guise of any other rule should be permitted to determine his
own self‑interest, so we also accepted as basic in our system the
principle of conflict of interest. In
this particular situation, the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, in its
collective wisdom, has chosen to give primacy to the conflict‑of‑interest
principle over the basic principle of the paramountcy of legislative authority.
It is, of course, within the power of a
paramount Legislature to make the choice, sensing the atmosphere out there in
the public of the rampant skepticism of the citizens on politicians and other
elected officials.
I am not questioning the collective wisdom
of that Legislature. This is the first
time, though, that we are trying this experiment for a limited period of two
years in upholding the conflict‑of‑interest principle over and
above a very basic constitutional principle of the undiluted and unlimited
legislative power of the Legislative Assembly of this province.
So what are we doing here? As the supreme Legislature, in order to
distance ourselves to that decision and not be accused of violating the
conflict‑of‑interest principle, we decided to create an independent
commission of five persons who are not elected, who are not a segment of this
Legislature, to make the critical decisions vitally affecting the members of
this Legislature, not only for the present, but also for the future, and within
a limited period of two years said that we are granting this body with full and
plenary authority. We will not be
reviewing what they will decide in the future.
Whatever they decide, we will try for a period of two years. In that way, we cannot be accused of setting
our own salary. That is what, in effect,
we are saying.
Madam Deputy Speaker, having been reared
in a democratic society and oriented to that tradition, I have always believed
in the rule of the majority, because, like any other body, as Jean Jacques
Rousseau had stated: Where the weight of
the body goes, everybody should go.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
* (1110)
Therefore, the rule of the majority shall
be followed. Yet that same rule had
recognized the right of the minority to be heard. This is the right that had been accorded me,
and that right I appreciate. My concern
therefore is the same concern that I raised in my caucus who, again by that
rule of majority, had bound me. My
concern, I am going to state explicitly and explain clearly.
First, I am concerned that it is unwise‑‑I
am not saying it is outside the power of the Legislature to do what it has done‑‑I
am saying it is unwise, and for that matter, also potentially dangerous and
risky for any Legislature whatsoever to surrender its essential last say in anything. Because to do so, it will amount to a
divestiture of its legitimate authority.
It will amount to an abdication. It will amount to an abandonment of its
authority, a surrender of parliamentary authority which has been cautioned in
the case re Gray when the national Parliament of Canada passed the war measures
legislation. But that was a different
setting.
The setting there was that it was war time
and Parliament has to be in continuous control and command of society. In that particular situation, the War
Measures Act in 1918, in effect, had transferred to federal cabinet the
following power, and I quote: To make,
from time to time, such orders and regulations as the Governor‑in‑Council
may, by reason of existence of real or apprehended war, invasion or
insurrection, deem necessary or advisable for the security, defense, peace,
order and welfare of Canada‑‑which delegation was held valid.
But, in the opinion of four of the
justices, they mentioned the words "abdication," "abandonment,"
"surrender of parliamentary power," and if this amounted to such an
abdication, that would have been invalid.
But the truth of the matter is that it was held valid. So I am not questioning the legitimate
authority of this Legislature to do what it has done.
The second point of my concern is that it
now created a system of delegation of legislative authority by reference to a
mere anticipation of certain regulations that will be created by this
independent commission of which the Legislature itself had no idea whatsoever
what those regulations will contain.
They are still not in existence.
They are in esse, in the future, some hope, some expectation, and then
the Legislature in its collective wisdom said:
We will not even look at what they will decide; we agree that whatever
they will decide will be binding. That is what the Legislature has done.
The point is that if I do not question the
legislative authority to delegate authority, that is entirely within the
prerogative of the Legislature. I do not
question that they relegate it to any instrumentality, whether part of the
government or not. What I am questioning
is the self‑deprivation by the Legislature of its inherent authority to
take a second look when this regulation has been drawn and written and, at the
same time, still observe its own commitment to make those regulations binding
if they so decide after they have seen what those regulations are.
But to prematurely deprive themselves of
their inherent authority to even take a look at those regulations to me is
unwise. That is the caution that I am
saying.
The third point that I raise is that it
will then facilitate this body of five persons accountable to no one to make,
not a recommendation, but a decision how public money should be spent, and it
will be done in a system of delegated legislation outside the whole of this
Legislature and without any specific authorization by the Legislature until
later when these regulations and rules have already been done and already
binding on everyone.
Again, to me that is unwise, because
whatever this commission of five persons will decide or will write in their
regulation will then be beyond the reach of the Legislature by their unilateral
consent. When that happens, then
decision making is a body of persons or groups of persons subject to no one's
review outside the system of legislation that is instituted within the
framework of the British North America Act and within the framework of the
constitutional act of 1982, because it is done indirectly through the system of
delegated legislation by a body which is neither a Legislature, nor a cabinet,
nor Lieutenant‑Governor‑in‑Council, nor a board that is
recognized as instrumentality of law making.
These are my concerns. Is it dangerous to do this? It is, because what we are doing is we are
resuscitating a dead doctrine known as Henry VIII clause. Erskine May in his treatise on the law,
Privileges, Proceeding and Usages of Parliament, said, and I quote: The justification and advantages of delegated
legislation in normal times arise from its speed, flexibility and
adaptability. It is not now practice to
include in statutes the power to make delegated legislation which it is
expressly provided shall have the force as if it had been part of the original
act.
That is precisely what we are doing, what
Erskine May in his authority has been saying, it should not be done, it ought
not to be done, because the regulation, that these five persons who are not
legislators, who are accountable to no one, the regulations that they will
write will in effect be the statute that will govern the composition of this
Legislative Assembly.
Nevertheless, he says, modern statutes do
confer power on the executive to make delegated legislation which amends the
statutes themselves. This is done by
what is known as the Henry VIII clause which is used, broadly speaking, to
confer power, to alter financial limits, to bring lists up to date, to make
exceptions to the operation of a statute and to make alteration of details
within a narrowly defined field.
* (1120)
I have expressed my concern. Now, let me explain why I shall be voting for
this bill, despite what I say. Then you
can say, what is he talking about? He is
acting contrary to what he is saying.
That is your point. I want to
make that clear. As I have already
stated, regardless of the wisdom or the foolishness of legislation, a minority
should always be bound by the rule of the majority in a peaceful and orderly
way, but the minority will always have a right to speak its mind, so that when
the majority will realize that they did make a mistake, then there will be a
reason for changing its decision.
I am not saying that the majority has made
a mistake. I am hoping that they did not
make a mistake, because if they did what they are instituting here is like the
triad in
I am voting, because as I said, I am bound
by my caucus, the majority in caucus. I
am voting here. I am bound by the
majority in the Legislature, despite the fact that I have raised and I have
been raising this caution. Let me
summarize. The Legislature had no moral
right or authority to abdicate its responsibility by avoiding decision making
in order that it can evade accountability.
The Legislature cannot create a parallel system of legislation by
indirection, or by delegated legislation that will compete with the normal
legislative process enshrined in the British North America Act and in the
Constitution Act of 1982. This
Legislature also ought not to facilitate the expenditure of public money in any
way that is beyond the scrutiny of the Legislature itself, who is accountable
to the people that it represents.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Downey), that debate be
adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 54‑The
Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (2)
Mr. Speaker: Is there leave for third reading of Bill 54,
The Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (2); Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur
l'evaluation municipale? Leave? (agreed)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 54, The
Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (2), be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 52‑The
Mr. Speaker: Is there leave for third reading of Bill 52,
The Manitoba Foundation Act? (agreed)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), that Bill 52, The
Motion agreed to.
Bill 51‑The
Municipal Amendment Act (2)
Mr. Speaker: Is there leave for third reading of Bill 51,
The Municipal Amendment Act (2)? (agreed)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 51, The
Municipal Amendment Act (2) (Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur les municipalites),
be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 50‑The
Statute Law Amendment Act, 1993
Mr. Speaker: Is there leave for third reading of Bill 50,
The Statute Law Amendment Act, 1993? (agreed)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns), that Bill 50, The
Statute Law Amendment Act, 1993 (Loi de 1993 modifiant diverses dispositions
legislatives), be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 35‑The
Fisheries Amendment Act
Mr. Speaker: Is there leave for third reading of Bill 35,
The Fisheries Amendment Act? (agreed)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns), that Bill 35, The
Fisheries Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur la peche), be now read a
third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker: It has been moved by the honourable
Government House Leader, seconded by the honourable Minister of Natural
Resources (Mr. Enns), that Bill 35, The Fisheries Amendment Act; Loi modifiant
la Loi sur la peche, be now read a third time and passed. Agreed?
Some Honourable Members: No.
Mr. Speaker: No?
The question before the House is third reading of Bill 35, The Fisheries
Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur la peche.
All those in favour of the motion, please
say yea.
Some Honourable Members: Yea.
Mr. Speaker: All those opposed, please say nay.
Some Honourable Members: Nay.
Mr. Speaker: In my opinion, the Yeas have it.
Some Honourable Members: On division.
Mr. Speaker: On division.
* * *
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, would
you call Bill 39, followed by Bill 34, third reading.
Bill 39‑The
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Driedger), that
Bill 39, The Provincial Court Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Cour
provinciale), be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 34‑The
Public Schools Amendment (Francophone
Schools Governance) Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Downey), that Bill 34, The
Public Schools Amendment (Francophone Schools Governance) Act (Loi modifiant la
Loi sur les ecoles publiques (gestion des ecoles francaises)) be now read a third
time and passed.
Motion presented.
Mr. Speaker: Agreed?
No?
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
Motion agreed to.
* * *
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, would
you call the following bills for third reading:
33, 27, 25, 20, 19, 18, 17, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3 and 2.
Bill 33‑The
Provincial Railways and Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Driedger), that
Bill 33, The Provincial Railways and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi
concernant les chemins de fer provinciaux et apportant des modifications
correlatives a d'autres lois) be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
* (1130)
Bill 27‑The
Environment Amendment Act (2)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay), that Bill 27, The
Environment Amendment Act (2) (Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur l'environnement)
be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 25‑The
Public Schools Amendment Act (4)
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), that Bill 25, The Public
Schools Amendment Act (4) (Loi no 4 modifiant la Loi sur les ecoles publiques)
be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 20‑The
Social Allowances Regulation Validation Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Downey), that Bill 20, The
Social Allowances Regulation Validation Act (Loi validant un reglement d'application
de la Loi sur l'aide sociale) be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 19‑The
Court of Queen's Bench Amendment and
Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 19, The
Court of Queen's Bench Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi
modifiant la Loi sur la Cour du Banc de la Reine et apportant des modifications
correlatives a d'autres lois), be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 18‑The
Corporations Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), that Bill 18, The
Corporations Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les corporations), be now
read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 17‑The
Crown Lands Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns), that Bill 17, The
Crown Lands Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les terres domaniales), be
now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 15‑The
Boxing and Wrestling Commission Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), that Bill 15, The Boxing and
Wrestling Commission Act (Loi sur la Commission de la boxe et de la lutte), be
now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 14‑The
Personal Property Security and
Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Downey), that Bill 14, The
Personal Property Security and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi concernant les
suretes relatives aux biens personnels et apportant des modifications
correlatives a d'autres lois), be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 13‑The
Manitoba Employee Ownership Fund
Corporation Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 13, The
Manitoba Employee Ownership Fund Corporation Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la
Loi constituant en corporation le Fonds de participation des travailleurs du
Motion agreed to.
Bill 12‑The
International Trusts Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), that Bill 12, The
International Trusts Act (Loi sur les fiducies internationales), be now read a
third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 11‑The
Regional Waste Management Authorities,
The
Municipal Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 11, The
Regional Waste Management Authorities, The Municipal Amendment and
Consequential Amendments Act (Loi concernant les offices regionaux de gestion
des dechets, modifiant la Loi sur les municipalites et apportant des
modifications correlatives a d'autres lois), be now read a third time and
passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 8‑The
Insurance Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), that Bill 8, The Insurance
Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les assurances), be now read a third
time and passed.
Motion presented.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
Motion agreed to.
Bill 7‑The
Builders' Liens Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), that Bill 7, The Builders'
Liens Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur le privilege du constructeur), be
now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 6‑The
Real Property Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), that Bill 6, The Real
Property Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les biens reels), be now read
a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 5‑The
Northern Affairs Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey), that Bill 5, The
Northern Affairs Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les affaires du Nord),
be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 3‑The
Oil and Gas and Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Downey), that Bill 3, The Oil
and Gas and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi concernant le petrole et le gaz
naturel et apportant des modifications correlatives a d'autres lois), be now
read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 2‑The
Endangered Species Amendment Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move,
seconded by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns), that Bill 2, The
Endangered Species Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les especes en voie
de disparition), be now read a third time and passed.
Motion agreed to.
* (1140)
House
Business
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, by
prior agreement, before I call the motion to go back into Committee of Supply,
we will rise at approximately 1:25 p.m.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the
Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and
the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be
granted to Her Majesty.
Motion agreed to, and the House
resolved itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her
Majesty with the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the
Chair.
SUPPLY‑CAPITAL
SUPPLY
COMMITTEE
OF SUPPLY
Mr. Deputy Chairperson
(Marcel Laurendeau): The committee will come to order to continue
to debate the concurrence motion.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
Earlier during the session I had asked the
Minister of Finance during Question Period some of the concerns that I have as
an MLA representing a north‑end riding that happens to be in Winnipeg
School Division No. 1. What I was asking
the minister was with respect to taxation.
The government talks about its fair approach dealing with taxation for
all Manitobans.
I wanted to comment with respect to how
fair this taxation really is in terms of the property tax. One could ask why would I ask the question of
property tax in the Legislature to the Minister of Finance. It is because the provincial government is
the only one that can rectify this particular problem, and I am going to go
over the problem.
If by chance you happen to live in
Winnipeg School Division No. 1 and you live in a home valued at $100,000, you
will pay approximately $400 more on property tax only because you happen to live
in Winnipeg 1 compared to, let us say, the school division of St. James. So the same house valued at $100,000 in St.
James compared to one in Winnipeg School Division No. 1, you pay $400 of
additional property tax.
Now, you can bring that down to‑‑and
I did that during Question Period. If
you live in Brooklands versus
Now there are many different arguments as
to why we do not need to have the number of school divisions in the city of
I am interested in knowing what the
Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) is prepared to do to all those individuals
who happen to live in School Division No. 1, because we are paying a
disproportionate amount of our tax dollars going towards school divisions than
any other school division scattered throughout the province. And that is significant.
If you take a look at it and you say, for
example, the demographics of Winnipeg School Division No. 1 is that we have
some of the poorest people in the province living in School Division No. 1, yet
we are paying the highest in terms of school taxes. I am interested in knowing what the Minister
of Finance is prepared to do to try to ensure that at that level we will get
fair taxation, because there is nothing that the school divisions can do. Only the provincial government can rectify
that problem. What is the Minister of
Finance prepared to do to alleviate that problem?
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Minister of Finance): Mr. Deputy
Chairperson, I wonder whether or not the member for
What is the higher order here? If he is saying that all seniors, using his
example, regardless of where they live, whether it is on one side of the street
or the other, should be treated equally in a school tax sense, then what he is
advocating is the provincial government take over all the school divisions.
What he is saying is there will be one
school division in the
If he does not like the system we have
now, and that is what he is advocating, I would say to him then that he should
make that part of the Liberal public policy.
To not do that, then, is to say that the taxing authority that we have
given school divisions, which may be realigned as a result of boundary reform,
should be removed.
The very essence of arriving at certain
levels of taxation was on the basis of basically two principles. Firstly, that a local autonomous school
division should have the right to decide what level of services they want to
provide; secondly, what level of pay they want to provide to the people who
provide those services; and thirdly, to tax accordingly.
Now there is another offsetting principle
which says that more wealth sometimes accrues to certain areas. What the public education funding formulas
have done for the most part through equalization is try to take, certainly from
the provincial levy, funds from more highly assessed regions in the province or
school divisions into the lower.
So he is then going to have to, by the
essence of his question, address those two principles and indicate where he
wants to come down to try and ameliorate the problem which he brings before the
House, again, that being that there seems to be two levels of taxation for
individuals who live on either side of the street.
I would tell him that is not an easy
course of discussion and/or public policy presentation that has to be
made. He has to be prepared to
understand education financing and, indeed, the setting up of school boards and
the histories associated with them before he poses his question to me, because
the posing of the question says, why do you not fix things? Why do you not just move things around? Well, how in the dickens do I move things
around without killing the autonomy of the boards, the taxing autonomy? Or is he saying, well, infuse in the
education finance formula pure socialism, now not by district, but by the value
of the House, let that be the higher order.
What he has to then agree is that there has to be higher orders. There has to be the highest order here as to
what decision is made so that you can make the next one below it. Therefore, he has to tell me what his higher
orders are, because if his higher orders are the provincial government now
embrace all of us, bring him back home, dismantle school boards, then he has to
say so.
Right now, the higher the order of
sequence is like this, the provincial government‑‑not this
government but governments long before us have delegated through The Public
Schools Act and other education acts certain authority to local school
divisions who have the right to tax right up to the edge of their boundaries.
What we have done as governments, not only ourselves but ones preceding us, to
try and reduce that impact taking into account the wealth and disparity through
equalization, is try to moderate that influence. If he is saying, well, now moderate it more,
well, then what he is really saying is that if you ever put your value into
your household, God forbid, because you are going to be nailed. If you ever, ever attempt to take the fruits
of your labour and put it into your household, you will pay the price. So I say
to him, what are his higher orders?
* (1150)
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I would like to enter
into that discussion, because it is an issue that I have been following over
the last number of years. There are a
number of options that the government can do, and the Minister of Finance (Mr.
Manness) alluded to three of them. I
want to talk about those three options, the whole issue of school divisions,
the number of school divisions. I am on
record inside the Chamber as commenting that the city of
An Honourable Member: You still have a border.
Mr. Lamoureux: Right, you will still have a border. My suggestion to this Chamber is that we do
not need more than two.
So, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, yes, I, and I
believe this Chamber, should be open to that particular option. What I am suggesting to the Minister of
Finance and this government‑‑and this is where we can comment in
terms of the
You can go through different things such
as lunch programs, the whole idea of you cannot learn on an empty stomach.
(interjection) What the minister is referring to is all the more reason why one
should look at the school divisions and should have been looking at the school
divisions because, quite frankly, you do get that. You can go from one school division to
another school division and find that they use completely different computers. Sometimes they will not necessarily have the
same sort of courses that are being made available.
There are a lot of inequities, and I am
just referring to the finances, the taxation issue, because I believe that this
government can do certain things.
Through equalization, it can ensure that the individuals that happen to
live in Winnipeg School Division No. 1 are not being excessively taxed on their
property tax, which I believe we are‑‑and I guess maybe I might
have a conflict in the sense that I live in the riding I represent so I am
unfortunately‑‑
An Honourable Member: . . . your local school autonomy.
Mr. Lamoureux: Well, we can talk about local school
autonomy. I would suggest the former
Minister of Education read Bill 16 before he starts talking about local school
autonomy, because you are doing more to that than what I am suggesting in terms
of equalization. I think that is a
viable option that this government could look at today that if, in fact, it is
quite content to rule out the first option by saying, well, the school
divisions, we are now as a government five years into a mandate, where after
being in a government for five years, we are now prepared to look at the school
divisions. Fine, that is Option 1.
Option 2 is the equalization. If this government believes, Mr. Deputy
Chairperson, that individuals are being taxed unfairly, that there is something
that they can do, we do not see this government acting on that. I find that unfortunate, because again I
would suggest to you‑‑and you can take Census of Canada
information, and you look at where the average income is. You will find it is not in the inner city or
the
This is something that the school
divisions‑‑and we can talk about the local autonomy, and, yes,
Winnipeg School Division No. 1 should be able to reduce their property tax, but
they have more demands. The government
has to recognize that fact. I would
suggest that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) and his government look at
the funding formula of equalization.
That is the second option.
Now the Minister of Finance talked about
this third or this other order. Mr.
Deputy Chairperson, I, as I am sure most individuals in this Chamber, do
believe in the need to have school divisions in the
What we have seen over the last number of
years is more of a reliance on the property tax because of the government's
lack of commitment to funding education through general revenues. As a result, we see the increased reliance on
the property tax. Mr. Deputy
Chairperson, whom is that going to hurt?
Is it going to hurt the school divisions as it is currently structured
that can least afford it or have the tax base that is not necessarily based on
income in terms of which divisions need how much revenue? Worse yet, you are relying that much more on
a very regressive form of taxation.
If government was wanting to send
direction and wants to talk about fairer taxation, one would believe the
direction, that order that the Minister of Finance is talking about, at least
in part, should be from shifting from property tax to general revenue.
During the last number of months in the
discussions that I have had with many different Manitobans, and not just within
the Liberal Party, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, many individuals feel that education
is not that much different than health care, that we, as a society, value
education and believe that there is a significant role for the provincial
government to play and to ensure that we have an educational system that is
funded from general revenues.
I personally believe moving in that
direction would be the right way to go, and this government is not doing
that. So, if I were to end with the
question, I would go by saying, I am going over those three options.
The first option being the one of school
division reform. Unfortunately, the government is very late in bringing up the
whole discussion of school division reform.
That is one option, and I can understand the minister saying no to that
particular option.
The second option is equalization, and
that is really the option that I would like the Minister of Finance (Mr.
Manness) to comment on, is the whole question of the equalization. Does he not believe that through
equalization, that individuals who live in the north end would be far better
off if the government were to address that particular issue?
The third one is the general shift of
financing our education from K to 12 to general revenues, as opposed to the
more gradual shift that has been occurring to property tax because of the lack
of commitment from the government.
Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I have never heard
such poppycock! I mean that is pure
unadulterated garbage the member is speaking.
He talks about shifts, the property tax
from general revenue because of lack of commitment. I mean, where does he stand? Does he want a
billion dollar deficit? Where do you think
this money comes from? See, what I
despise about his commentary right now, he tells us the high priority is of
health and education, we all agree with him, but he has not got the courage to
stand up and tell us in what areas he is prepared to reduce spending.
I am not talking now about a million, a
half‑million dollars, I am talking tens, twenties, hundreds, 200
million. See, he does not have the
courage to stand. But if he had the
courage to say, ah, but increase taxes, then I would pat him on the back, and I
would say, well, at least you are principled enough to tell us that you are
going to support increased income taxes.
I would say by the increase of roughly 40 percent, taking the personal
tax rate from 52 percent of federal tax up to around 70, 75.
Because remember now, you are talking
about the middle class, because the people earning $60,000 and over, there are
not any. They are roughly 3 or 4 percent.
So other than that, who is going to be paying all these $200
million? So maybe it is not personal
income tax he is talking about, maybe he is talking about consumption
taxes. Maybe he wants to see the retail
sales tax increase from 7 to about 11 percent.
If he does, fine. A principled
man would say, yes, I support that, and I will go out to the public and say so.
* (1200)
Indeed, if that revenue can come in,
taking into account the negative impact it is going to have on the economy, but
nevertheless there will be additional revenue.
If he is saying, then this should go to education, then certainly, the
provincial government could relieve some of the property tax burden. No doubt.
It could probably do more in the area of
equalization, and that is where this whole discussion ended, or it started on
equalization. But I remind him right
now, there is roughly $100 million flowing out from the so‑called
wealthier‑assessed divisions to the lower. I am glad I looked at the member for Emerson
(Mr. Penner), because the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) obviously forgets,
we did more for the homeowner in Winnipeg School Division No. 1, with an issue
unrelated to education, when we brought forward assessment reform. We did more for the homeowner in School
Division No. 1 than anything else that was ever done before.
Mr. Lamoureux: Clayton, we still pay the highest taxes than
any other person, yes, we do.
Mr. Manness: Well, part of the reason you pay the highest
taxes is because you have the most programs anywhere. Yes, you do. You have the most programs. You would say that, well, some of them are
for special needs. We put supplementary
funding into the formulas to the Winnipeg School Division No. 1 more so than
any other division to try and help ameliorate the‑‑
Mr. Lamoureux: We have more special needs children than any
other school division.
Mr. Manness: Well, that is why we put the money
there. Why do you think we put the money
there? So there is no use arguing, we
agree.
When the member says he wants greater
equalization, what he is really saying is he wants suburban
I can tell him that if you have pure
equality of programming through all the school divisions in
An Honourable Member: Not even close.
Mr. Manness: Not even close‑‑band programs,
swimming programs, interzone sports programs.
I could take him into the academics. There are many school divisions
that do not have advanced calculus in Grade 12.
An Honourable Member: Why is that?
Mr. Manness: Well, why is that, the member asks? Why is it? Because the local school divisions
and the ratepayers have decided that they cannot tax themselves to support it.
Mr. Lamoureux: To support how many individuals? In one school?
Mr. Manness: The member says, in one school. I do not know. In some cases one school, in some cases in
two schools within the same division. I
do not know what he is talking about.
Mr. Lamoureux: Every school does not offer those very same
courses that you are talking about. You
have to have a certain size.
Mr. Manness: Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, now the member
is not caring about universal equality of education.
Mr. Lamoureux: It does not even apply to the city of
Mr. Manness: Of course, it does not, and because it does
not apply is because there are two different tax rates on either side of the
street. The member had better think
through his question. He is saying
greater equalization. Today in Canada we
have provinces, so‑called wealthy and so‑called less wealthy, and I
say to him that the federal government does not impose upon the Province of
Manitoba a provincial tax rate at a level other than what the Manitoba
government is prepared to accept. Right
now, 52 percent, one of the lowest in
I hear what he is saying. He is saying put more money into the pot,
take the effect off the property taxpayer if you can, but now it is up to him
to tell me where I am going to get that money.
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, it is interesting,
you know, you listen to what the minister‑‑and at first he has used
the word, and I am not too sure if it is even parliamentary, the word
"poppycock." I notice the
minister is the only one who uses that word in the Chamber because he used it on
me last year, too.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, accepting the
challenge of the minister, he talks, he tries to give the impression, here is
what the member for
Well, the Minister of Finance (Mr.
Manness) is very good at twisting the facts around and trying to come up with
what he believes would be maybe not necessarily a popular thing for an
opposition party or, in fact, any member of this Chamber to say.
No member is suggesting that you increase
personal income tax by 40 percent. At no
point did I make that suggestion. I
talked about a general direction of this government. The general direction of this government is
to move more towards regressive taxes as opposed to progressive taxes. A good example of that is in fact the
property tax with respect to the school divisions. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that
is what I was referring to.
If the Minister of Finance was wanting to
move into the other direction, there are other things that the Minister of
Finance can do. You know, the Minister
of Finance thought nothing of taking $75 off of the $325 rebate. Well, if in fact the government was wanting
to have more of a shift over to the school division taxes, you could take the
balance‑‑what is it?‑‑$250 now in terms of the
rebate. There are areas. That is not going to increase or decrease,
but it does send a very strong message that government is quite prepared to
move more towards the general revenues, not more towards the regressive tax of
a property tax to finance our educational facilities.
If in fact the Minister of Finance even
made the suggestion that the member for
Now, that is not to say that I am saying
that the school divisions should be 100 percent financed through general
revenues, but what I am saying is that there should be direction from the
government in the other way, indicating that, yes, the school division tax on
your property tax is a regressive tax, and if in fact you start cutting back on
the general revenue towards education, you are going to have more of an onus on
the property tax which is a more regressive tax.
I am saying that you should change that
direction; that you should have more of an onus on the general revenue taxes
than you do‑‑
An Honourable Member: Like what?
Mr. Lamoureux: On your education funding, through
equalization as a perfect example.
An Honourable Member: Where do I get the rest then?
Mr. Lamoureux: Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, right now the
Minister of Finance says, where are you going to get the money from. Well, unfortunately, the Minister of Finance
is in government, and you know we see the direction, and I am talking about the
general direction. The general direction
is that this government is quite content on saying that the revenues to finance
education should rely more and more on property tax. That is what this current
government is saying.
I am saying that it should not be saying
that.
* (1210)
An Honourable Member: That is why we froze it. We put a bill through that froze the increase
on the property taxes.
Mr. Lamoureux: Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that could
enter into the discussion about the autonomy in which 15 minutes ago someone
was criticizing myself for not talking about the autonomy, but I wanted to get
right back to the original question. The
original question is what is this Minister of Finance doing to ensure that, in
fact, the senior that lives in Weston versus the senior that lives in
Brooklands, what is he doing to ensure that discretion is in fact being narrowed,
that, what I believe, is most unfair, the argument in terms of, well, one
school division wants to provide such‑and‑such courses.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the
You know, Winnipeg School Division No. 1
also has suburbs. I represent some
suburbs. So it is not a question of
saying that the suburbs of the city of
But quite simply, what is the government
prepared to do to ensure that those individuals that happen to live in School
Division No. 1 are not being overly taxed in comparison to other individuals in
the city of
Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, naivete is an
endearing quality for a while. I wish I
had the numbers under my control, but it seems to me that we take, as a
provincial government, I think it is around $150 million. We take from the wealthy and we give to the
less wealthy in equalization, and if we had not done it, and if we were not
doing it, I am not so sure that this $40 disparity between one person living on
one side of the street‑‑
An Honourable Member: One hundred dollars difference.
Mr. Manness: A $100 disparity. I do not know, again‑‑this is
what, the St. James division and the‑‑
An Honourable Member:
Mr. Manness: ‑‑and Winnipeg No. 1
division. I do not know what dynamics
are at play, what quality of education, indeed what expenditures are at play
that are mostly responsible for that difference, but I can attest to the fact
that if we did not have this $150 million to equalization, that either the
disparity, the $100 he is talking about, could either be $500 greater or it
could be minus $300 the other way different.
I mean, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars by way of
formula, a very complex and complicated formula which, I dare say, Mr. Deputy
Chairperson, maybe 25 people in the whole province of Manitoba understand. What the member is saying to me, he says,
well, make it more complex, make it harder to understand.
An Honourable Member: Well, if it makes it more fair‑‑
Mr. Manness: Well, you see, but‑‑more fair, or
fairer I think is what he meant.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the reality is he
has a decision to make. In opposition,
if he is going to be in opposition, other than charge the government and to
ride the government for not being able to give him that fairness, exactly the
same tax payable in two jurisdictions by imposing our will, I would say to him
that he has to come up with a better alternative. We will work, I know, through the boundary
review. I am certain that there will be
a reduction in school boundaries. That
will help, possibly, but that is not the question. That is not what we are talking here.
As the member is calling for greater
equalization, what he is saying is attack the rich more so. What he is saying is for those people who
have put the fruits of their labours into their homes that they definitely
should be attacked for it. What he is
saying is attacked. Well, he is not
saying attacking earning ability, he is saying attack wealth.
Thirdly, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I say to
him, he has to tell me where it is I am going to get the extra money to take
the greater pressure off of the property taxpayer. I can tell him there is nothing more I would rather
do. There is nothing more I would rather
do than try to safeguard the property taxpayer.
But you notice the member for
An Honourable Member: And rightfully so.
Mr. Manness: ‑‑and the member says rightfully
so, because he is not finding enough money to put it‑‑oh, well, it
all comes down to money. The issue comes
down to money. Yes, oh, yes, and nobody
is‑‑(interjection)
Well, let me say something about Connie
Curran. As the head of Treasury Board, I
have gone through that contract, Mr. Deputy Chairperson. As I have said to this House before, and I
will say it again, the desire to engage Connie Curran was not overly
strong. Everybody understood the
potential political fallout from employing Connie Curran. You do not have to be a genius to understand
that. How many votes in the crowd do we
get out of employing an American consultant?
You could have all the handicaps known to society and you would still
know that there is no percentage behind it.
An Honourable Member: Because you did not know what you were doing.
Mr. Manness: Oh, well, did not know what we were
doing. You see, no, no, this is very
relevant, very relevant.
But the reality is, Mr. Deputy
Chairperson, when everybody is an expert like they are in the education
community, everybody knows how to fix the problem. And you know what you find out very
quickly? That all of their solutions
seem to conveniently leave themselves untouched. I am not speaking of the health area
particularly well, but I understand education better. Everybody has a solution, and they are all
workable. But you know what? Every one
of their solutions safeguards themselves.
Every one of them.
So when you start to look around for the
honest broker, who is going to lead us down the path? All of a sudden, you have people who more or
less agree on the honest broker. I will
tell you, you have to seriously look at that person, and that is exactly why we
have Connie Curran, no regrets and no apologies, none whatsoever.
(Mr. Edward Helwer, Acting Chairperson,
in the Chair)
* (1220)
Mr. Acting Chairperson, in the education
question, the member is going to have to decide what the higher order is. If it is pure socialism he wants in support
of education, get up and say so. If it
is higher taxes he wants in support of general revenue taxes, get up and say
so. If it is no impact on the
expenditure side in school divisions, get up and say so, because those are the
three major criteria that everyone in a position of power has to deal
with. The member says that we are
offloading on the property taxpayers. We
brought in Bill 16 to prevent and safeguard the property taxpayers so they
would not be held accountable for our less‑than‑wished‑for
level of funding this year to the local school divisions.
Mr. Acting Chairperson, this is all
thought out. There is great consistency
behind all of our decisions as a government, and I am proud of them.
Mr. Lamoureux: What I want, and I believe that even the
government wants at times, is fair taxation.
I do not believe it is fair taxation.
I do not believe it is because of excessive spending on the part of
Winnipeg School Division No. 1 school trustees that has resulted in an
individual that has a $100,000 home paying $400 more a year on school tax‑‑(interjection)
for those ministers that did not hear my opening remarks, a house valued at
$100,000 in Winnipeg School Division No. 1 compared to one in St. James, you
are paying approximately, from what I understand, $400 more a year in property
tax.
If a senior‑‑and this is one
to St. James‑‑(interjection) I am talking about Winnipeg School
Division No. 1‑‑(interjection) I am not aware of any schools that
have been closed in Winnipeg School Division No. 1. The schools are busting at the seams. In Sisler High, you have 11 schools feeding
into it. It is growing. If anything, there is more of an additional
demand, but the government does not recognize that. Anyway, I do not believe that the services
that are being offered to the individual children that are attending the
schools in Winnipeg School Division No. 1 are that much in excess to justify
having the difference of‑‑as I say, in a $100,000 home, $400; in a
$30,000, $100. I do not believe that is
in fact the case.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) said
he wished that he had the numbers. I too
wish he had the numbers. I too wish that
the Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey) was able to say, this is the reason why
the discrepancy is there, to justify it.
If in fact the minister, the government‑‑because I do not
have the resources that the government has‑‑can justify by saying,
this is the reason why the discrepancy is so much. (interjection) The Minister
of Finance says that he will give me the reason, and I hope he will give me the
reason as to why. We have a number of
months between now and the next session, and I hope that in fact I will find
out from the government why the difference is there.
I know when I asked the Minister of
Finance questions in the last session dealing with a particular issue, he had
made a commitment to getting it back to me, and I never did get the
information.
Mr. Manness: Is that right? On this issue?
Mr. Lamoureux: Not on this issue, on another issue.
An Honourable Member: You are mixing apples with oranges.
Mr. Lamoureux: Well, no, mixing apples with oranges. I am just hoping that the Minister of Finance
will get back to me.
Mr. Manness: No, I did not. I said, right now, I would tell you one of
the reasons.
Mr. Lamoureux: He has backtracked a bit now. He says, right now, he will give me one
reason.
Well, I would be content with the one
reason right now, but I am wondering if the minister would take it under advisement
and get back to me any time within the next six months as to why it is people
in Winnipeg School Division No. 1 have to pay the tax level that we are
currently paying under the school division compared to other school divisions. What services is it that the residents in
Winnipeg School Division No. 1 are getting that those that are living in St.
James are not getting? Can the minister
take that question as notice and get back to me in some sort of a detailed breakdown
of it? That is reasonable.
Mr. Manness: I will endeavour to do a better job than I
did a year ago and try and shed some greater light on the question. Certainly,
I know for certain two of the factors will be‑‑I cannot quantify
the weight of either of them‑‑but the two factors are: one, the level of programming in Winnipeg
School Division No. 1 is the highest compared to any school division, so
therefore, there is costlier provision of programming; and secondly, I also
know in the St. James School Division, because colleagues have told me, that
they have reduced some of their costs significantly by closing some 11 or 14
schools over the course of the last 15 years.
Now I am not entering into their realm of
responsibility in passing judgment whether that is right or wrong, but obviously,
there have been cost savings effected as a result of those decisions. Those are two of the real reasons why there
is such a discrepancy, and all of that is basically as a result of local
autonomy, decisions made within those local school division offices. So I would say to him, if he really wants the
question answered, he should go to those school divisions and ask them, but I
will endeavour to shed more light on that, on his question.
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Acting Chairperson, I was wanting to go
to the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), but I just want to comment very
briefly. With respect to the first
answer, I think that the equalization should have addressed that issue.
Mr. Manness: It has in a big way.
Mr. Lamoureux: The minister says, it has in a big way. We will hopefully find out how it has in a
big way.
The second one, he makes reference to St.
James in terms of closing schools. Well,
I can speak on behalf of the constituency that I represent of
I want to move on to the Department of
Health, Mr. Acting Chairperson, and that is with respect to another issue that
has come up time after time.
I have a working group established in my
riding that deals with health care issues, and one of the discussions that we
have had on a couple of occasions is the whole question of access to our health
care.
* (1230)
As it stands today, and the best way is to
give an example, and I have been giving this example‑‑and hopefully
it is a fairly accurate example‑‑over the last number of months,
and the example would be, if someone is riding a bicycle and they fall off the
bicycle and they scratch up their knee, they would go into a walk‑in
clinic, possibly. The knee would be
looked at, all prepped up and so forth, and then once that has all been done, a
medical doctor would come in and take a look at it and say, yes, you know, put
a band‑aid on it or whatever it might be.
You can go from that to the institutions
and the hospitals where our registered nurses and LPNs, I would argue, are
being underutilized and in fact could be more utilized by recognizing the
professionals that they are by giving them the authority to do more. It is not because I do not necessarily
appreciate the hard work that our medical doctors put into it. I think the medical doctors perform a
wonderful job within our medical services, but the question that comes up is,
why is it, whether it is the walk‑in clinic, whether it is a prescription
for drugs, our hospitals, our personal care homes, the only access to any of
these facilities is in fact the medical doctor?
Is the government looking at access to
some of our medical facilities through other professions, in particular I would
say the registered nurses or Bachelor of Nursing, the prescription of drugs and
so forth? I am wanting to know from the
minister if in fact the government currently is looking at expanding the roles
of those other health care professionals in terms of access to our health care?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Acting Chairperson, the answer to the
question is yes, but not in the dimension my honourable friend presumes to
propose in his question. The one issue
in terms of drugs, for instance, pharmaceuticals, my honourable friend is
wanting to know if we are, as I understand it, going to broaden the prescribing
ability of drugs to nurses, for instance.
No, that is not in the cards. I want to tell my honourable friend why it
is not in the cards.
There would be a pretty reasonable
argument, I think, made even by the professional nursing associations that
their current training program would not adequately prepare them for that role,
and I think that is an argument that could be sustained. It is not that one has any particular
adversity towards nurses undertaking more services in the system, but even nurses
themselves in making that request to government put limits on what they believe
they can reasonably do as professionally trained, as educated.
Prescribing drugs is not one of them. Admissions to hospitals, I sense my
honourable friend is wanting to know if we are contemplating having people
other than physicians have admitting privileges to hospitals, with the
exception, and this is the only exception that is being contemplated, of how
midwives, when we bring that opportunity for practice into the Manitoba health
care system, how it is they might access a hospital if that is the choice of
the woman giving birth. In terms of
offering admitting privileges to hospitals to other professionals, no.
Again, I will tell my honourable friend
very clearly why. It is difficult enough
under the current context to assure that you have appropriate admissions from
2,000 physicians in Manitoba, let alone having competing professional
disciplines wanting to admit patients for varying reasons into our Manitoba
hospital system. There again can be the
argument as to which professional group would have the professional training to
make the judgment as to whether individual A should be admitted to a hospital
or seen on an outpatient or indeed seen by a nurse.
Now to answer by honourable friend's question
a little further, we have initiatives underway which are bringing more nurse‑managed
care into the
But my honourable friend, I submit with
all due respect, ought to seriously consider his suggestions about widening the
expansion of prescription drugs or widening the admitting privileges to our
acute care hospitals beyond physicians.
I will tell my honourable friend why.
You take a look at the Health Action document, and you will find that if
you go to the latter pages of that document, that over the multiyear tracking
of the cost of drivers in our health care system, you will find, even with
adjustments to the Pharmacare program which raised the deductible so that
consumers paid more of their own prescriptions, that line is the fastest
growing line in the province.
That is why my honourable friend's
colleague the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema) was so adamant that we pursue
as quickly as possible plastic card technology on the Pharmacare program,
because yes, it had the potential advantage of the reimbursement aspect, but it
also offered the ability to prevent adverse drug reactions, inappropriate
prescribing and a whole number of initiatives.
That is why three and a half years ago, for instance, with the
Pharmacare program, as suggested by the pharmacists of
The Ritalin and Talwin issue, the
R&Ts, the street drugs, we have essentially curtailed the‑‑they
are still there, but their availability is significantly lower today because of
that action.
You know, what it did is it put greater
constraints on the physician and his freedom to prescribe, and I make no bones
about it. That was recognized by myself
when I accepted that recommendation from the pharmacists. I also recognized that the pharmacists, in
making that recommendation, were in essence doing themselves out of business,
and they did, because that program alone saves on average $750,000 per year.
Even with those changes, that is still the
fastest growing line. So I want my
honourable friend to reconsider what he is saying here, because when you get
into prescribing of drugs, admitting to hospitals, uh‑uh. That is a very narrowed area that I think we
do not expand.
However, there are other areas, as I have
given the example. There is managed care, Health Action Centre, where there is
an appropriate greater role for nurses, for instance, and other care
professionals. I want to tell my
honourable friend that is exactly the kind of shift that has been going on in
the Home Care program for 10 years or better.
Let me put the argument simply to my honourable friend.
An individual needs a bath, and that is
the home care assessment of need that should be provided in the home. There was a time when that was an almost
exclusive function of nursing.
You have to ask yourself at the cost per
hour of a nurse versus a home care attendant, do you really need to focus the
professional training and cost which is associated with a nurse providing that
service, sole service, when there are no medications, no change of dressing, no
nurse trained medical need being met in the home? Could you make that service available,
without compromising the outcome and the quality of the service to the
individual, by having a home care attendant do it? The answer is yes. That is what the Pawley government started to
do; that is what we continue to do.
Now, same service, lesser‑trained
professional delivering it, no compromise of the quality. Those kinds of shifts, yes. Yes, very much so, because I want to tell my
honourable friend, one of the most poignant cautions, and I have used this time
and time again when I have talked publicly and in this House, of what
governments and advocates of health care must always be cognizant of comes from
the British Columbia Royal Commission on Health Care, Closer to Home, is the
title. It said in there that what health
care planners and governments must be always vigilant is that they do not
overprofessionalize care.
Do you know what that means? It means exactly the example that I gave to
my honourable friend. If the home care
provision of service of bathing can be done with other than a nurse by a home
care attendant, as we call them in
We should not be escalating our system up
to the highest paid professional delivering that service. That is where the whole shift in reform is
happening. That is why we are not
providing long‑term stay geriatric capacities in our teaching hospitals,
but rather providing them in our community hospitals, Deer Lodge, municipals at
a lower cost per patient day without compromising the quality.
Those sort of shifts are happening right
now all across
* (1240)
To expand that net of who can prescribe,
who can admit to hospitals, I would suggest to you, would be very difficult to
manage in today's financial environment.
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Acting Chairperson, the Minister of
Finance (Mr. Manness), I thought, put it right when he said there are a lot of
people who are self‑proclaimed experts, if you like, in terms of issues,
and I personally do not believe that any individual inside this Chamber can
have that expert experience to be able to address all the different issues that
are out there.
That is the primary reason why I have
these working groups on my health care committee that I have. I have experts that are in fact there, both
teaching in the professions, different professionals. I do not have a medical doctor, and I would
still love to get a medical doctor onto the committee itself. But I do rely on the information, very much so,
in terms of what it is they are saying and feel that it is worthwhile in
pursuing some of the answers.
The access to health care was a very
important and debated issue. Now,
unfortunately, I cannot do justice in terms of bringing up the sorts of examples
and dialogue and debate that they would be able to do, being the experts in the
field, but in essence what this particular group is talking about, if we are
moving towards this health care reform and we are talking about
deinstitutionalizing and delivering more into the communities and the costs
that are going to be saved, I would argue, as I know the minister and even both
opposition critics have argued, the quality of care can improve under real,
true health care reform. I have tried to get some form of discussion going in
terms of how can you add to it, and the result that I have received is you have
to look at the different professions that are there.
I respect what the minister is saying in
terms of, well, $60 million in terms of pharmaceuticals. Well, the problem that was pointed out was
that many of these prescriptions that are filled are not one‑time
prescriptions. You will get individuals
that will come in virtually on a monthly basis‑‑it is the same
prescription‑‑yet each time a prescription is filled, for example,
they have to go through a medical doctor in order to get it filled.
In some cases, with respect to the
hospitals, admission to the hospital‑‑and I alluded to admission of
hospitals. Maybe I should not have been
as general. I believe that there are
areas within the hospital that in fact the professionals are being
underutilized, because the minister himself said that in some cases you do not
have to have, like he used, bathing in the personal care home or a home care
program, where we do not necessarily have to have a registered nurse or even an
LPN doing these tasks, that a nurse's aide would suffice, and the quality is
not going to go down. I think that has
got to be the overriding concern, the quality of health care.
(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)
Again, in essence what comes up in the
discussions that we have had with access to health care is the underutilization
of the professionals on jobs that they could be doing. I guess the question that I would have for
the minister is, what is the government and, particularly, what is the Minister
of Health‑‑and I know he has working groups‑‑doing to
address those issues? How can we
maximize the talents that our other health care professions have?
You know, one could look at, for example,
those repeat prescriptions, if someone is going to be receiving a prescription
every month or every second month or whatever it might be, from now till, you
know, three, four, five years. The
example that was given, I believe, at our last meeting was the issue with birth
control and the birth control pills.
So I am wondering if in fact the minister
can indicate to the House, through the House to myself and to my working group,
what is the government prepared to do to recognize those talents and to
maximize that aspect of health care reform?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, two things. Since roughly, I guess, 1990, '91 maybe would
be more appropriate, deputy ministers across Canada believed there was value in
the implementation within, for instance, institutional system in health care
the concept of CQI, Continuous Quality Improvement, or TQM, Total Quality
Management, because that very much brings to focus utilization of an
individual's skills to complete tasks.
The second initiative which will be
emerging over the next number of months, of course, is the work that Connie
Curran and APM is doing in our two teaching hospitals. The whole concept behind work restructuring
does end up in greater utilization of talents in the workforce through process
of cross training. For instance, instead
of narrow‑focus, single‑job‑description employee concepts,
multidisciplinary approaches to care giving, team approach to care giving‑‑that
is very much part of their restructuring process
The example given, I think it is
* (1250)
Now, how is it that Toyota manages to
virtually take over the automotive market of the world with a handful of job
descriptions in their work organization, and we have to make things so complex that
we have got layer upon layer, grouping upon grouping of job descriptions within
our workplace to accomplish a very direct, straightforward task of providing
quality patient care?
Of course, again there is the process of
rethinking the very fundamentals of how we manage work and tasks within our institutions. We have not done this rethinking in 25 years.
Sure, we have had the quality improvement initiatives, and we have had a number
of initiatives throughout the last two decades no doubt that have
measured. It is the old stop‑watch
trick. Well, if employee A in hospital B can accomplish the task in 78 seconds,
then if you are taking 100 seconds to do that task you need to get yourself
down to 78.
That is sort of the assembly‑line
process of measuring contribution in the workplace. That is not where we are thinking today. It is such a fundamental change in thinking
that it is challenging managers of the system to understand what they have to
do to undertake the process of change.
But I want to tell you that at the end of
the day there are two things happening.
There is better‑quality patient care, because of the restructuring
of how we deliver that care process to the individual in an institution, and
there will be less consumption of budget to do it. Almost sounds as if it is almost too good to
be true that you improve care, reduce budget, but that is exactly the process
that we are engaged in now with those results at the end of the day.
Mr. Neil Gaudry (St.
Boniface): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, my question is to the
Health minister. First, it is in regards
to the cardiac unit of St. Boniface. I
understand there is some reform going on there.
We had a call from a few of the employees who were concerned. I did not raise this before. I figured there would be a chance here. I do not want to fearmonger anybody, but the
fact is that there is some reform going on.
Apparently there was a meeting called with
the staff, but these gentleman, a few called‑‑they did not attend
so they were not aware what was happening.
Could the minister tell me what is happening in the cardiac unit at St.
Boniface?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the cardiac program
is one of the major provincial programs that we are taking a look at. There is
it; there is the cardiac program; there is neurology; there is orthopedics;
there is urology; there is opthalmology. Now, that is not a complete list, but
that is certainly some of the major surgical programs that are under review
with a two‑fold purpose.
To bring those programs‑‑and I
will deal specifically with cardiac program‑‑under the leadership
of one program director, one program head versus two, because it is now at both
teaching hospitals, so that we have a provincial program under single provincial
leadership. So that we maintain, for
instance, a common waiting list with common criteria for access so that we can
have assurance that those in the greatest need access the system first, that
there is not any differential approach, and more importantly, that by
maintaining two programs in two separate institutions, that we are not
duplicating, hence wasting, resource and program.
I think my honourable friend can see that
if we can achieve one program leadership, one program direction, it can well
end up that service delivery carries on in both institutions but under one
leadership, that there is an opportunity for greater integrity to the program,
greater opportunity for savings through avoidance of duplication of process,
and achieving that can do nothing but benefit, to an even greater degree,
Manitobans who need to seek cardiac care, open‑heart surgery.
Mr. Gaudry: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, first I would like to
maybe compliment the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), because I have written
him letters where he has helped me. For
example, I had this older gentleman in St. Boniface that wanted to die at home,
which he did not too long ago. The
minister really did help me in looking after him so that he would get home care
in the last days that he was in this fine world that we live in.
Now I will attack the minister, and I do
not want any b.s. I use the word b.s.
for brown sugar.
On May 13, I asked a question of the
minister. I know it is a touchy
issue. I will quote what he said: "Mr. Speaker, with all the apologies I
can muster to my honourable friend, I will provide the information to him, as I
indicated . . . ."
This information I had requested way back
in October 1991. To date I have not received a reply to the letter. I do not know if he is afraid to give me an
answer or what. I am sure he has it on
his desk, but he maybe forgot. It is in
regard to closing the offices on Provencher and moving them temporarily to
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I take my honourable friend's
criticism legitimately because that is one initiative that I have not been able
to untangle between two bureaucracies yet, but we have a problem in‑‑
Mr. Gaudry: I see a smile over there.
Mr. Orchard: I know.
Believe me, I would have liked to have had this one resolved with a
course of action that I could lay out with my honourable friend. Let me give my honourable friend this assurance,
that the situation, the move is temporary.
It is taking longer to resolve.
There are a couple of issues that we have to come around, specifically,
how much‑‑
Mr. Gaudry: Financing.
Mr. Orchard: Well, the finance is always part of the
equation, but that is not the major issue.
The major issue is the amount of office space that we need presumably to
provide office space for people who are working ostensibly 90 percent of their
time, or whatever the figure might be, in the community.
The argument and the discussion, as I
understand it, is trying to determine what is an appropriate amount of physical
office space to provide for individuals that do the vast majority of their work
outside of an office, in other words, on an outpatient basis. It is truly outpatient services that are
being provided, as my honourable friend well knows. It is assessment and continuing care,
reassessments and any array of initiatives that are part of the Continuing Care
Program. We have not resolved‑‑and
my honourable friend did not raise it in Estimates, but it was raised in
Estimates. We attempted in the limited
time we had available between Estimates sittings to get a better handle on
it. I have it unresolved as of yet, but
it will be resolved. I give my
honourable friend that assurance despite delays.
* (1300)
Mr. Gaudry: I thank the minister for his response.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, my other question
is in regard to the Sister Clermont Outreach Program. As of May 31 this year, it was closed because
of a lack of funding. Since then, there
has been a volunteer group that has prepared a proposal, and it has been forwarded
to the minister. I do not know if he has
had a chance to review it.
This program, I feel there is a merit with
the proposed health reform, the community‑based care, and the Grey Nuns
are prepared to provide a major portion of the needed equipment to the
continuing program at no cost to the government. Rent or space cost is presently not necessary
as adequate space is currently available.
The commencement of service delivery has been set for August 3, 1993.
Can the minister tell us if he has had a
chance to review this proposal of $74,500 from the Outreach Program?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, as of today, I have
not received recommendations from the department as to whether they would
recommend this proposal to be funded. We
have had some difficulty with the ongoing funding of Sister Clermont, and there
was one other program that we had some difficulty with two years ago in terms
of continuation of funding.
So I cannot give my honourable friend an
answer, but if it is starting to deliver services, my honourable friend
indicates August 3, that is about one week away‑‑(interjection)
Yes, and I can simply indicate to my honourable friend that the process, should
it be recommended, has to go before Treasury Board for approval, and I have not
received any advice internally. I will take
that issue as notice, but certainly we would not be able to give an indication
by August 3.
Mr. Gaudry: I thank the minister. It is just that I have just received that
this week here. I requested a copy of
the proposal, and I felt that it should be given consideration. It has been a good program in St. Boniface
because of the volunteers involved. I
was on the board at one time of the Sister Clermont clinic before I was
elected. I felt that the numbers of volunteers
that were involved, that it was a good program.
I hope that the government will consider refunding this Outreach Program.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Chairperson.
Mr. Manness: Committee rise, Mr. Deputy Chairperson.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
IN SESSION
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Madam Deputy Speaker,
would you call Bill 28, followed by Bill 30.
An Honourable Member: Bill 34.
Mr. Manness: Oh, 34.
Madam Deputy Speaker, would you call Bill
34. I believe it is standing in the name
of the honourable member for
THIRD
Bill 34‑The
Public Schools Amendment Francophone
Schools Governance) Act
Madam Deputy Speaker
(Louise Dacquay): Third reading, Bill 34 (The Public Schools
Amendment (Francophone Schools Governance) Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les
ecoles publiques (gestion des ecoles francaises), standing in the name of the
honourable member for
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader
of the Second Opposition): I want to comment
very briefly on Bill 34 as it winds its way closer and closer to becoming a law
and as we see the structures put in place to accommodate this new school
division in our province.
I had the opportunity to review the Supreme
Court decision, and I have compared that to the legislation. Our party, on the recommendation of the MLA,
the depute de St. Boniface, are pleased to support passage of this bill into
law.
I did want to very briefly, Madam Deputy
Speaker, indicate that I have one area of concern about this piece of
legislation which I have spoken to representatives from the community about, and
am convinced that this will be set up in a way such as to minimize any adverse
effect of the concern that I have.
The concern that I have, Madam Deputy
Speaker, is that I view public schools as being available or should be
available for entrance from any child in this province. I believe that, obviously, in this school
division it would be entirely appropriate to indicate to parents, to a child,
that that child could not come to that school if the child could not keep up linguistically,
if the child did not have enough skill in the French language to participate
fully in the training in the school.
What gives me some concern is that another criterion would be set which
is that the child come from a certain type of parentage, that is, parentage of
French descent or from a certain cultural background.
I looked at the three‑part test for
a child going to that school, and I must admit I did have some concern, because
my sense is that if my child were able to speak French fluently enough to
participate in that school‑‑it is a public school, and if I were
able to get my child there, I would think that I would want to have that opportunity. Whether my name was Edwards or of some French
derivation or Ukrainian or any other ethnic background, I would not want that,
or whatever particular ancestry I had, to be a bar to my child or any other
child.
So, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is a
concern that I had. I do not like tests
set up in our society based on ancestry or cultural background for access to
what are essentially public and publicly funded institutions. It is different if it is a private organization. We want to respect the right of people from certain
cultural backgrounds and certain sectors of society to be members of private
organizations, but entirely publicly funded ones, that poses some problem. I think we all see that in this House.
However, having indicated that concern, I
also want to say that this is an experiment.
We are moving forward with something which is new. We, to a certain extent, had this put upon us
by the Supreme Court of Canada decision.
I am convinced that the people who are attempting to set this up are
doing so in good faith and not with a view to exclusion of people based on necessarily
what cultural background they come from, but I am convinced that they will, and
I certain hope that they will, take an open approach to this for all children
and bring back the primary criterion, or at least set as primary criterion, a child's
ability to actually function in the school, which is an appropriate criterion.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to also say
that I know lots of people who have very non‑Francophone backgrounds and
last names and everything else who speak French fluently. I also know a number of people with
Francophone names who do not speak French at all.
Mr. Lamoureux: I am one of them.
Mr. Edwards: My colleague the member for
I believe that all members of this Chamber
perhaps share that concern, but I do want to allow this bill to go
through. I want to give it to the
community to responsibly deal with the setting up of this school board.
I also want to say that it was my hope and
indeed my advice that the government of the day preapprove, if you will, a proposal,
a piece of legislation. It could have
easily been done, sent by reference, this matter, back directly to the Supreme
Court of Canada.
There are precedents for that. You do not have to go through all kinds of
different courts. If a provincial
government has been given a certain task by the Supreme Court, they are
entitled and will be given leave to go back with a plan, which they have hopes
will satisfy the Supreme Court requirements, and get the Supreme Court to tell
them so that you do not have another court challenge which is going to start at
the lower courts and wind its way up.
I think that was the way to have done this,
to have gotten preapproval, if you will, from the Supreme Court of Canada.
However, they have chosen not to do that,
have chosen to come forward with this design, this structure. I want to give it a chance to work, and I
want the Francophone community in
* (1310)
With those comments, Madam Deputy Speaker,
I will speak on behalf of all members of our party as the depute de St.
Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) has in indicating that we look forward to passage of this
bill and the establishment of this school board.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is third
reading of Bill 34, The Public Schools Amendment (Francophone Schools
Governance) Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les ecoles publiques (gestion des
ecoles francaises)). Is it the pleasure
of the House to adopt the motion? (agreed)
* * *
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Madam Deputy Speaker,
I would like to have the unanimous consent of the House to revert to presenting
of reports by special and standing committees.
We would like to have a few other bills reported to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is there leave of the House to revert to presenting
reports by standing and special committees?
Leave, yes? (agreed)
PRESENTING
REPORTS BY STANDING AND SPECIAL
COMMITTEES
Mr. Jack Penner
(Standing Committee on Law Amendments): Madam
Deputy Speaker, I beg to present the Fifteenth Report of the Committee of Law
Amendments.
Mr. Clerk (William
Remnant): Your Standing Committee on Law Amendments
presents the following as its Fifteenth Report.
Your committee met on Monday, July 26,
1993, at 7 p.m. in Room 254 of the
At the July 26, 1993, meeting, your
committee elected Mr. Rose as Chairperson.
Your committee heard representation on
bills as follows:
Bill 28‑‑The Manitoba
Intercultural Council Repeal Act; Loi abrogeant la Loi sur le Conseil interculturel
du Manitoba
Wade
Williams ‑ National Black Coalition of
Written
Submissions:
Bill Blaikie ‑ Member of Parliament,
Winnipeg‑TransconaMichael Lazar ‑ Chairman, League for Human
Rights, MidwestRegion, B'nai Brith
Your committee has considered:
Bill 28‑‑The Manitoba
Intercultural Council Repeal Act; Loi abrogeant la Loi sur le Conseil
interculturel du Manitoba
and has agreed to report
the same with the following amendments:
MOTION:
THAT
section 1 be amended by striking out the definition "minister".
MOTION:
THAT
sections 3 and 4 be struck out and the following substituted:
Assets
and liabilities transferred 3 On
dissolution of the council
(a) all assets, including money and other
assets, in the nameof or in trust for the council; and
(b) all obligations and liabilities of the
council;
are
transferred to and vest in Manitoba Intercultural Council Inc.
MOTION:
THAT
Legislative Counsel be authorized to change all section numbers and internal
references necessary to carry out the amendments adopted by this committee.
Your committee has also considered:
Bill 50‑‑The Statute Law
Amendment Act, 1993; Loi de 1993 modifiant diverses dispositions legislatives
Bill 53‑‑The
Justice for Victims of Crime Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les droits
des victimes d'actes criminels
and has agreed to report
the same without amendment.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
Mr. Penner: I move, seconded by the honourable member for
Gimli (Mr. Helwer), that the report of the committee be received.
Motion agreed to.
* * *
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Yes, Madam Deputy
Speaker, would you call report stages, please, Bill 28, Bill 50 and Bill 53.
REPORT
STAGE
Bill 28‑The
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Madam Deputy Speaker,
I move, seconded by the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), on behalf of the
Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Mitchelson), (by leave)
that Bill 28, The Manitoba Intercultural Council Repeal Act (Loi abrogeant la
Loi sur le Conseil interculturel du Manitoba), as amended and reported from the
Standing Committee on Law Amendments, be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 50‑The
Statute Law Amendment Act, 1993
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I move, seconded by
the honourable Minister of Finance, (by leave) that Bill 50, The Statute Law
Amendment Act, 1993, (Loi de 1993 modifiant diverses dispositions legislatives),
reported from the Standing Committee on Law Amendments, be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 53‑The
Justice for Victims of Crime Amendment Act
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I move, seconded by
the honourable Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness), (by leave) that Bill 53, The
Justice for Victims of Crime Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les droits
des victimes d'actes criminels), reported from the Standing Committee on Law
Amendments, be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
* * *
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Madam Deputy Speaker,
I will be calling third reading of Bill 28, with the leave of the House.
THIRD
Bill 28‑The
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is there leave of the House for third reading
of Bill 28? Leave? Leave has been granted.
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Madam Deputy Speaker,
I move, seconded by the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae) that Bill 28, The
Manitoba Intercultural Council Repeal Act (Loi abrogeant la Loi sur le Conseil
Interculturel du Manitoba), be now read a third time and passed.
Motion presented.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
I wanted to comment in terms of the
concept of what the
Madam Deputy Speaker, the idea of the
bridging of different cultures, I believe, MIC had the greatest potential for
growth, getting all the different communities together. I am not aware of any other organization that
had as much potential as this particular organization. The taking away of the legislative authority
and mandate of the Manitoba Intercultural Council, I believe will in fact do a
lot of harm to this particular organization.
I hope that it will still be able to mature and do the multicultural
fabric some good and, knowing some of the personalities involved, they will
definitely give it their best shot.
I am very disappointed in the government
in the way in which they have chosen to treat the Manitoba Intercultural
Council. Right from its origins, when this government first took office, it was
very critical of the Manitoba Intercultural Council. For whatever reasons, I have always been of
the opinion that this government was wanting to dismantle the Manitoba
Intercultural Council. I am not sure as
to why it is. I, even up to last night,
Madam Deputy Speaker, am not convinced this minister has not done her job in
terms of telling interested parties as to why it is necessary that the minister
opt for the recommendation that Mr. Blair brought forward. One of the two recommendations, the minister
could have, in keeping with Mr. Blair's report, opted for the second one which
would have been just the amendments to The Manitoba Intercultural Council Act.
The way I do see it is if the government
was wanting to‑‑and the message that we hear from the government
day after day has been one of cost savings.
The argument for MIC that the minister herself has talked about is one
of allowing the MIC to be that much more independent, and that is the purpose
of doing this. So you really have those
two factors that have to be taken into consideration.
* (1320)
Madam Deputy Speaker, both of those
factors could have been taken care of, whether it was the cost or the other
one. In terms of the cost, they could
have sat down with the Manitoba Intercultural Council and come up with some
form of agreement. If they could not achieve an agreement, they could have
still just taken the grants away from MIC.
In terms of the other issue of trying to
make MIC completely independent of government so it can enter into new
opportunities, well, that too could have been accomplished by making the amendments
to The Manitoba Intercultural Council Act, and that would have been no cost to
government.
So I have to question the motives of this
government for dismantling the Manitoba Intercultural Council, and I do not believe
that this government is being straightforward with, in particular, those
individuals, hundreds of individuals, that have been involved in the different
ethnic groups over the last number of years.
The government likes to talk a lot about multiculturalism and how
committed they are to multiculturalism, but actions speak louder than
words. There is absolutely no benefit
whatsoever to the government to dismantle the Manitoba Intercultural
Council. Our preference, Madam Deputy
Speaker, I hope that in fact what will happen is this minister will incorporate
MIC in the next session into the multicultural act.
Ms. Becky Barrett (
The minister stated last night that the
government had difficult choices to make.
Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, we feel that this government made the wrong
decision, made the wrong difficult decision, and that they will live to rue the
day that they introduced Bill 28, The Manitoba Intercultural Council Repeal
Act, and that they did not listen to virtually every single community group
that presented either directly to the minister or to government and opposition
MLAs or last night in written and oral presentations at the public hearings.
They will regret that they did not pay
attention to those multicultural groups, because the decision to repeal The
Manitoba Intercultural Council Act is one that will come back to cause them a
great deal of concern and a decision that they will regret having made.
There is no legitimate reason, has been no
legitimate reason put forward by this government at any one of the stages of
the legislation to justify the repeal of The Manitoba Intercultural Council Act
and, Madam Deputy Speaker, with those words we come to the end of a sad chapter
in the history of Manitoba, which states that it is a multicultural
society. The enactment of Bill 28 will
put the lie to that statement, at least on behalf of this particular provincial
government.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?
The question before the House is third
reading of Bill 28, The Manitoba Intercultural Council Repeal Act (Loi
abrogeant la Loi sur le Conseil interculturel du
Some Honourable Members: No.
Madam Deputy Speaker: No?
All those in favour, please say yea.
Some Honourable Members: Yea.
Madam Deputy Speaker: All those opposed, please say nay.
Some Honourable Members: Nay.
Madam Deputy Speaker: In my opinion, the Yeas have it.
Some Honourable Members: On division.
Madam Deputy Speaker: On division.
As previously agreed, the hour being 1:25
p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m.