ORDERS OF THE DAY
Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mr. Gilleshammer), that Madam 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 La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson) in the Chair for the Department of Education and Training; and the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the Chair for the Department of Health.
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COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent Sections)
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply, meeting in Room 255, will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.
When the committee last sat it had been considering item 2.(f)(1) on page 36 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?
Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, could the minister explain on page 59 of the Supplementary Estimates the deferral of the Linking Libraries Initiative? There is a footnote there to a reduction related to deferral of Linking Libraries.
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Chairman, before I provide the answer, I wonder if I could just table information that was requested yesterday. Is that all right?
I am just tabling some information from yesterday. I have five items for tabling, with three copies of each: one is the OECD report from Norm Mayer on Assessment; the other is the A.P. summaries from 1991; the third is the aboriginal representation on departmental committees; No. 4 is the Grade 3 math standards and pilot exemptions; and No. 5, the recommendations of the Native Advisory Committee. I have three copies of each and pass them to you as requested.
The question the member asked on Linking Libraries, the initiative requires further developmental work and will be considered during the next year's planning for funds required for the '97-98 year.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, that particular initiative I know figured considerably in rural development discussions this year, and it is certainly one of the concerns of people across Manitoba. I know that it has been in the planning stage, I think, for more than one year. I wonder what kind of planning has gone on already, what will be required for this coming year and how much will be spent of this section of the Estimates on that planning.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, basically this is a collaborative effort. We have been working with a number of government departments, with Culture, Rural Development, and we are looking now to see how those various infrastructures will come together.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, excuse me--
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The member for Wolseley is trying very hard.
Ms. Friesen: Yes, I am. I have a frozen mouth on one side and chocolate on the other.
I asked the minister about how much money, out of this section of the department, would be contributed to that continuation of a planning process.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we will not be needing to take any extra money, because the existing staff within the SPP will be doing the actual work.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 2.(f)(1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $4,776,700--pass; 2.(f)(2) $3,154,800--pass.
2.(g) Student Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,881,300. Shall the item pass?
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the amounts both in salaries and in staff years in this section of the department remain relatively constant this year, but I wanted to ask the minister, out of this, what she could tell me in longitudinal terms, over the last three years and including this forthcoming year as a year, of the participation of this section of the department or the department generally in the Youth Secretariat. How much money has gone from this department to Youth Secretariat programs? Have there been staff seconded over the last three years in the planning and implementation of that secretariat?
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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, aside from the staff that we indicated in the earlier section, there is no other staff from this particular component of the department seconded to the secretariat.
Ms. Friesen: So the only staff from the Department of Education are the ones who the minister already talked about in response to the member for Radisson. What about the money? How much money has gone from this department as a whole to the Youth Secretariat, and where would I find it in the Estimates?
Mrs. McIntosh: To the first part of the question, the member is correct. The second part of the question, there are no dollars per se transferred over to the Child and Youth Secretariat. We do have the one seconded staffperson which could be considered a cost, but the interaction of work that is being done is being done with existing staff, so there are no extra dollars that are needed to be applied but rather just their time that is given. At the moment the Department of Education is the recipient of money because of the nature of decisions being made by the Child and Youth Secretariat. That staffperson comes from the implementation branch.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, is that staffperson Roberta Vyce ?
Mrs. McIntosh: The person who is on the official secondment is Dr. Neil Butchard, and Roberta Vyce, as with other staff people, will be doing some support work for them but at this point we just have the one official secondment.
Ms. Friesen: How will the work of the Youth Secretariat be translated to the level of the school or of the school division?
Mrs. McIntosh: The first and most visible, tangible signal is the transfers of the 400-some-odd thousand dollars from the Department of Health to the Department of Education for the payment of nurses, et cetera, for medically fragile children in the schools. The other tangible thing that you can identify clearly is the $250,000 that is going to Family Services to train paraprofessionals to work in the school, again with medically fragile children.
The equally important but less tangible in terms of being able to identify it as a thing are the initiatives that are going on to begin to service the whole child rather than just one component of the child. Just to give you one example, we now have an interdepartmental protocol agreement between those various ministries, and that will show increased interdepartmental service co-ordination. That was put in place last year. Interdepartmental information sessions were scheduled throughout the province to familiarize program managers from the four departments with the service direction outlined in the protocol.
There is a report on the information sessions, and a copy of the information package was circulated to all management staff from the participating departments. That implementation process is ongoing, and it results in planned, co-ordinated services for target populations on a case-by-case basis. We have school division interagency committees in several areas of the province that have been developed to facilitate a multisystem planning service. You will see that multisystem service planning in Parkland, Westman, Norman, South East and Central regions. As well we have several follow-up information sessions planned for the Winnipeg area.
Just one last comment, and that is that the interpretation occurs within each of the departments, and staff are informed of the various initiatives. There is very regular communication between the secretariat, the departmental representative and all of the branch and departmental staff. You will see the way in which students are treated altering somewhat because of this type of collaboration in the planning.
Ms. Friesen: How do the nurses get into the schools? What is the process? How many nurses and paraprofessionals will be available to schools? How will schools request those? Who will pay for the nurses while they are in the schools? What length of time does the minister estimate a nurse will remain in the school? Is it an ongoing process, as public health nurses are for example in some Winnipeg schools, or is it a train-the-trainer model? What is the plan, and when will the plan begin to be seen in the schools?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, nurses would be hired, usually on a case-by-case basis, through the school division, and the school division would be the employer, do the hiring, assign the duties, et cetera, normally to, as I say, an individual on a case-by-case basis. The division then is approved for resources through the URIS, the united referral service, and the money is then flowed back to the school division as reimbursement.
URIS has approved funding to this date. Since we are still in our infancy, at this time there are only about 15 students that are availing themselves of this particular service, but we expect as we get underway that number will probably increase. Right now, as I say, it is still in its very early stages of being put in place.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I do not quite understand how this will fit with the special needs Levels II and III. It sounds to me a very similar program, application on a case-by-case basis and funding back application by the school division, a funding back from the department. I wonder if the minister could explain to me the differences between the two.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, basically, this is over and above Level III, so if a student is assessed as Level III, they will get whatever would be deemed appropriate. This is over and above that particular allocation. The various departments will get together and determine who needs what kind of care and from which department sourcing should come, but this one with money from Health paying for nurses in the schools is over and above all of that.
Ms. Friesen: Just to confirm my understanding, the nurses then are not as they are in the public health system of nurses who are resident in part-time or full-time in particular schools, they are attached to a particular student just as an aide would be under the Levels II and III program.
Mrs. McIntosh: That is correct.
Ms. Friesen: It sounds as though there is also a cap on this money, that there is a finite amount of money applied to this program on an annual basis, unlike what the principles are supposed to be for a Level II and III funding.
What is the cap this year? How is that money allocated within the Department of Health? Does the minister anticipate that that is a five-year program or is there any sort of longer-range planning? Are we going to look for it year-by-year in Estimates or on the basis of four or five years?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, basically the amount of money is decided based upon projections as to the number of students who would require such assistance, so the department has a pretty good handle on how many children might be in the category that would require nursing care. I should indicate first of all, it is part of the base and it would be reviewed on an annual basis to see how many students are expected, and then money would be determined to cover that expectation.
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Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 2.(g)(1) $1,881,300--pass; 2.(g)(2) $746,300--pass.
Resolution 16.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty, a sum not exceeding $21,452,400 for Education and Training, School Programs, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.
Item 3.(a) Division Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $131,700.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, this is the Bureau de l'éducation française, and there have been a number of very serious concerns in this area of funding both at the federal and provincial levels. I wondered if the minister could put on the record some of her responses to these.
(Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)
One of the, I guess, most common and most general issues that I have heard is that people this year, whether they were in universities, college, the École professionnelle at St. Boniface College or whether they were in immersion programs or français programs or in French governance, the whole gamut of institutions which deal with French language education received cuts that they had not anticipated, that they were told were a result of the federal cuts and which were allocated to them on a basis which was very strange and new to them.
For example, the St. Boniface College had not known before, as I understand it, how much of their allocation was, in the province's mind, allocated to the federal government. University of Manitoba, which in addition to the cuts to St. Boniface College also received cuts to their French language programs, had not been aware in the past that the provincial government had ever allocated any of that federal money to the University of Manitoba programs. The immersion teachers were not aware of the specific amounts that the provincial government said had come from the federal government.
The whole system of cuts that came from the federal government--and, yes, there were certainly some and I want to come to what people perceived to be provincial cuts afterwards--but the whole distribution of those federal cuts came as a considerable shock, surprise, to people in the system, and it was not I think that people did not recognize that there had not been federal cuts; they did. But how did the province determine and why did nobody know before that X or Y dollars had always been federal dollars?
Is this part of the new agreement that the government made in '90? Well, this current five-year agreement. I am looking for explanations and that was the only one I could come up with, that there was a new allocation in a new agreement which people had not seen before. I am looking for some comments from the minister on that.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, basically the clearest way I think to explain it is that the Province of Manitoba maintained its contributions at last year's level. We did not change our contributions. Part of the problem we had was that last year the federal government made a massive reduction in midstream, so to speak, and so to complete the year, we backfilled it. We do not normally do that, but it was halfway through and we felt that we would do that to get through the year, hoping this year would be better.
But this year there were massive OLE reductions, and we could not backfill so, as I say, we have maintained our contribution to the college, to St. Boniface College. We were not in a position to be able to backfill this year as we did last year in midstream, had to suddenly find some extra money to put in so that they would have the total amount they were used to receiving from the federal government. Similarly, with the French Immersion, we have not reduced our contribution there at all, but the federal government has reduced its contribution from $250 per student to $205 per student.
Just to give you a sense of the figures: In '94-95, the federal government provided $8,385,967, and this coming year, '96-97, we are expecting $6,300,000. So it is quite a whack, and we just simply did not have any money to backfill it, so we now have come to an agreement with Ottawa. I am not quite sure if anything has been actually signed yet, but they have agreed to provide some money now to help the situation. I think that it was not their intent to put the college into jeopardy. I think they really did not realize the impact of that cut on the college, and when they were made aware, they have agreed to come to our assistance for which we are extremely grateful.
We for our part have managed to find some money to help top it up without having to do the full backfill. We were able to put some money back in to help top it up so that it was viable, but the key was to get that money back from Ottawa to ensure that the college would be taken out of jeopardy, which they have now done.
So, in short, the province has maintained its contribution. The difference was simply the federal cut.
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Ms. Friesen: I am interested by that, and I have heard the minister say that before, but that was not my question. My question was, how were the federal cuts allocated, because they were seen with great surprise. Just about every level of education I spoke to were very surprised that the federal cuts had been allocated in that way. They did not know, they said, that a certain portion of their money came from the federal government in this manner.
If I can give some examples, the minister, for example, gave me the French immersion numbers. Now those are based on a per-pupil one. That is easy to see. We can understand where that cut comes. It is on a per-person basis, and, presumably, that is in writing somewhere, and I think I would like to ask the minister to see the letter from the federal government which conveyed the essence of that cut.
Now the other cuts, however, were not made on a per-capita basis. There were cuts to St. Boniface College which exceeded the cut that they understood had been given by the federal government. There were cuts to the University of Manitoba which they did not know they had ever had from the federal government, so all of a sudden there is a new cut coming which they did not know had even been a federal allocation in the first place.
So is there somewhere in the department, could the minister table something that says, you know, from two years ago or three years ago, here is the money we got from the federal government, say, when it was $8 million?--and let us deal with real numbers. When you got $8 million in '94-95, how was that $8 million distributed through the system? I do not know if the minister would have it with her now, but what I would like to see is some distribution of that, so we could go from that benchmark to looking at how the cuts from the federal government were transferred to the institutions.
Mrs. McIntosh: I should--something I neglected to do at the beginning--introduce the staff I have here with me today: Carolyn Loeppky and Guy Roy and Claudette Toupin from the Bureau de l’éducation française.
OLE gives a block grant, as you know. We had been supporting the college from different components of the OLE agreement, and reductions in the OLE in recent years had been absorbed in part by the minimum guarantee. With the size of the reduction, we could no longer do that without desecrating, say, the French immersion program, in which we already saw a reduction in terms of a specific cut. So we were not in a position then to fiddle around with a minimum guarantee. We had to direct the money to the source and could not use that block grant as effectively without very much impacting on all of the different components of the OLE. We had been able to absorb those reductions in recent years, and the OLE funding has been going steadily down.
Just to give you a sense of that again, I indicate that we had, at one point under the OLE, funding of $10 million a couple of years ago. That steady decrease has made the pinch tighter and tighter, and I am just looking for the exact figure. I had a chart here just a moment ago. For example, in 1991, we were receiving $10,439,699; we are now down at $6,300,000. So, while the drop from 1994-95 was severe, when you compare it back to five years ago, it is almost cut in half over five years. Yet teacher costs continue to rise in the public schools; the French immersion program is a popular program; and the whole rising costs situation in terms of trying to work with depleting revenues has made it harder and harder for us until we have finally reached the point where we cannot do any cross-subsidization. We cannot absorb any more in the minimum guarantee. Our hands are tied.
So I do not know if that answers your question, but it does indicate that the money coming in the block, we have no ability to absorb any more or transfer money back and forth.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, what I am trying to get at is the pattern of allocation of cuts. I asked about using the real number of two years ago of $8 million. How was that $8 million block grant distributed to the various institutions which now have found themselves with less money?
Mrs. McIntosh: I can table for the member, and I think I know what she is asking for here, an indication of how the money is being utilized and putting in a tabling. It is called Activities and Programs Funded Under the Canada-Manitoba Official Languages and Education Program. This is the '94-95, when we got the $8 million. It also shows the '96-97, where we have $6 million and, of course, the year in between.
When the member receives that, she can look and see that the grants to school divisions for bilingual support went from $3,556,400 down to $2,343,200; the grants to the private schools from $139,000 down to $106,000--I am rounding off--the Universities Grants Commission $557,000 down to $306,000; the grant to École technique et professionelle from $487,000 down to $24,000; the student and teacher bursaries $412,000 remaining the same as it was in '94, although there had been a blip up in '95-96, still at $412,000; transfer to monitor program from $69,000 to $58,000; the translation services $107,000 to $72,000; and the bureau itself, from $1,286,000 down to $1,060,000; and the special projects, a slight increase here from $1,770,000 to $1,915,000. The totals at the bottom, the $8-million to $6-million comparison, that shows how the money was allocated. The '95-96 figures are in there as well, and they were in at $7 million.
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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, yes, that is very helpful.
Now I understand that beginning in 1994-95 there was a new five-year agreement. Is that the case for official languages in Education? Is it possible for the minister to table that agreement, and is there an indication of further reductions in the years that are left to run? What are we looking at for the future?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, there is no five-year agreement. We have been operating on an annual interim agreement for several years now.
Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell us how that annual agreement--I mean, is agreement an euphemism? How is that annual discussion arrived at? What is the timetable of it? When are we likely to know what the funding is for next year?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we sit down and negotiate annually for the money for each year. We have an indication from the federal government that we will continue to see a decrease through to the end of '97-98 down to $6 million or thereabouts.
(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)
The CMEC, The Council of Ministers of Education of Canada, is negotiating with Canada on a longer proposal that would give more definition for the long term. As well, here in Manitoba we have had dialogue with officials in Canada, hoping to get some long-term commitment in place for the Collége, and we are hoping to have notification by September of this year so that we have knowledge of what funding might be available to us from the federal government, So CMEC, at the last meeting we had in February, did talk about concern about OLE funding as a council, and the chairman of CMEC, who is from Prince Edward Island, was to have been and I believe has been in dialogue with Canada on this topic as well.
But we have been given comfort for the short term and we are optimistic that ongoing talks with the Ottawa officials will give us comfort again for the next year. What we are looking for is a long-term commitment that will enable us to be able to ensure the continued servicing of French language students in Manitoba to the same degree and quality to which they have become accustomed. The federal government's approach has caused us a great deal of difficulty. Having to work on an annual agreement is not our preferred operating style, and that is why we are pursuing the long-term protocol.
Ms. Friesen: In the table that the minister tabled, the grants to the École technique at St. Boniface seem to be reduced disproportionately compared to others. Does the minister have an explanation for that? They go from $487,300 in '94-95 to $89,400 down to $24,700, whereas for example, the grants to private schools are going from $139,309 to $124,226 to $106,700. Now, obviously some difference there is based on per pupil costs, but even if we look at other areas where it is not per pupil costs the reduction in grants is nowhere near as severe as it is to the École.
Mrs. McIntosh: Those numbers are set by Canada and they reflect the full-time equivalent student. It is not based upon what it costs. It is based on full-time equivalent students, and that amount is the amount then that is provided to us for the college from Ottawa.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, what that means then is that even given the cut--let us take the cut out of that--there has been a substantial reduction in enrollment in the École technique. Does the minister have the numbers on that?
Mrs. McIntosh: What I need to indicate to the member for clarification is that in years past we have been taking from the kindergarten to Grade 12 system to subsidize St. Boniface College.
That is why when I indicated earlier that we can no longer afford to cross-subsidize because the cuts to French immersion were so severe, we could not take money out of the K to 12 system to put over to the college because to do so would have killed the French immersion program, so, as I indicated, those reductions in OLE which we had been absorbing in part by the minimum guarantee or through other means such as the one I have just identified, we are not able to pursue that course of action anymore.
The Collége student population has always been a relatively small one, and because it is small has a high per-student cost, but that amount is what the federal government gives, and we have been taking, as I say, from the kindergarten to Grade 12 system to top it up, and that is what I mean when I say we can no longer afford to do that, because we put the K to 12 system at risk if we do because it also has experienced OLE cuts.
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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I thought we were looking here at comparable numbers. The minister said that the grant to École technique is based upon federal allocation of full-time equivalents; that is, essentially on a per-pupil cost.
If it goes, and if these are comparable numbers, from $487,000 to $89,000 to $24,000, setting aside the fact that, yes, there have been cuts and those are going to be distributed, this is still a disproportionate reduction, and if it is based upon FTEs, then there must have been a huge reduction in both years in the numbers of students at that school.
So that is what I am not understanding here. Does the minister have the numbers for those reductions, or are these not comparable figures from '94 to '96?
Mrs. McIntosh: This may help the member understand this chart a little better. The figure she is looking at where it goes from 487 to 89 to 24, that is the amount of OLE money that the province put into the École technique. As I indicated, we get a block grant and we disburse it. That is the amount of OLE money put into St. Boniface College.
Technically, if you look up at the top where you see the school division and you see it going down by about a million and a quarter dollars over that time, the money that we used to be able to use, that we would normally have put into French immersion. In 1994-95, we were directing a goodly portion of that to the École. By the time we got to '96-97, we could no longer do that because of the over-million-dollar loss to French immersion. Perhaps a better way to help her understand would be that in 1994-95 the amount that should have been designated to École from OLE was $35,000. The rest of that money was money we topped up from the K to 12 system.
So this chart is comparing apples to apples in the sense that those are the total number of OLE dollars the province gave to St. Boniface College, but the amount that was sort of the minimum, or the amount that Ottawa would direct to the École in 1994-95, was actually only $35,000. We topped it up with money from the K to 12 system. We cannot do that anymore because the K to 12 system has had so much money taken out of it. We cannot redirect anymore. We cannot backfill sums of that magnitude anymore, so what you now see reflected is the amount of OLE money actually designated from Ottawa to the college minus the traditional top-up that the province has done in the past.
Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell us then what the comparable number is for '95-96? If it was $35,000 in '94-95 and $27,000 in '96-97, what was it in '95 before the top-up?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairperson, $29,399. So over the years, then, the actual money designated for St. Boniface College from Ottawa was $35,421 in '94-95, $29,399 in '95-96 and $24,696 in '96-97. In '94-95 and '95-96, we topped up that amount to the amounts shown on the chart that she is looking at, taking the money from the K to 12 system, and we would still do that if the K to 12 system had not been so badly depleted of OLE money this year as well.
Ms. Friesen: So the numbers we have in each of these columns, apart from the ones that the minister just gave me, are, in fact, combinations of federal and provincial monies? So, for example, the grants to school divisions $3,556,000 is a combination of federal and provincial monies?
Mrs. McIntosh: No, that is all OLE money. If you add it all together, that is the total OLE money.
Ms. Friesen: And OLE money, Mr. Chairman, means federal money?
Mrs. McIntosh: That is correct. That is right.
Ms. Friesen: What additional monies are put in from the province into school divisions or private schools or monitor programs, et cetera, for the French language services?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, in '94-95, the total grant to school divisions was $7,076,793. That total grant was composed of two parts, Canada's contribution which was $3,556,400 and Manitoba's contribution which was $3,520,393. That was the total grant, and the portions were approximately 50-50. In 1996-97, again, the total grant had gone down as was shown in the other charts for the Collège, but this is not a school division. The total grant had gone down to $5,708,500, and the two parts of that grant, Canada's contribution, had dropped down to $2,343,200. Manitoba's contribution was $3,365,300. So the split was slightly different. The Manitoba contribution was down by a hundred-and-some-odd-thousand dollars, and Canada's contribution was down by $1,200,000 approximately. I am again rounding off--our commitment, very similar to the '94 commitment, but the total grant being much less because of the size of the federal drop.
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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, if the grants to school divisions are based upon a per-pupil principle, how was it possible in the past for the government to move that money around to other institutions?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we get a certain amount per student in certain categories. Then we get additional money that comes along with that, and we can designate it as is deemed appropriate.
With the college students, for example, this year we are getting $223 per student, and because of the small numbers of students it does not amount to a lot. If we had a large number of students, it might have satisfied, but similarly with the younger students, we receive $129 at the elementary level. Now we give and we receive $247 at the secondary level. So on the K to 12 we are giving the students $205 per student to make that fit. We used to be able to give them $250 a student, and we used to be able to take then the money that was over and above that and redirect it to the students at the college level so that there was even more money in that college.
It is like there is a sort of minimum suggested amount for certain categories, but the block grant would be more than the minimum, and then you could take the excess, being a block grant, and direct it according to need. As the money gets tighter and tighter, it becomes harder and harder to get the flexibility that is required in order to make the whole thing work.
We are hoping that our longer-term discussions with Canada will seek to consolidate funding from all sources of revenue. I think we are optimistic that this dilemma will be straightened out, because dialogue with the federal government leads me to understand that while they are reducing their money, and we are--to say feeling frustrated is to understate it, but I am confident that they have no desire to see the dilemma in which we found ourselves this year. I think the fact that they are replacing many hundreds of thousands of dollars of that money to help us is an indication that that was not their intent.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, could the minister tell me how those rates have changed? She said $223 per college student, and these are the minimums I assume that she was talking about, and then $129 per elementary school student and $247 per secondary school student. Then she added thus from the K to 12 system, we are looking at $205 per student, and the numbers did not gel. I think we are probably mixing--or I am mixing--federal and provincial allocations. Could the minister just run though that again and also let me know whether the rates have changed over the past few years?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, these are the rates set by Canada, and I will give the '94--well, I have them here from '93. Okay, the rates set by Canada, the full-time equivalent contribution from Canada: at the elementary level '93-94 used to be $193.01--I do not know how they get one cent, but the secondary level was $369.36.
So you can see the difference there with the elementary and the secondary, and then it went steadily down until you get to the '96-97 year, the year that we are coming into or that we are in, and it is now at the elementary level $129.37 and at the secondary $247.57. That is the minority language.
The immersion at the elementary went from $151 to $101. The immersion at the secondary went from $236 in '93-94 to $158 in '96-97. The second language at the elementary went from $87.50 in '93-94 to $58.64 in '96-97. At the secondary it went from $128 in '93-94 down to $82.97 in '96-97. At the post-secondary level in '93-94 it was $333.82 and in 1996-97 it is $223.75, and those are the federal contributions to minority language. The first numbers I read, I am not sure if I indicated that it was minority language, that $193, and the second set that I read was the immersion. The third set was the second language, fourth was the post-secondary.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask about the discussions that the department has had with the French language school division. There is at issue, I think, a concern of $15 million for the transfer of buildings and supports for that French language school division. I believe when the division made its initial agreement with the government or entered into its first round of discussion, it had anticipated that there would be a certain amount from the federal government--I do not know what that number was. It may have been at $15 million as well--and that there would be $15 million from the province.
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Over the course of the past year it seems to have emerged that the province claims that it had never understood that that was an additional $15 million on top of the existing buildings. The understanding, as I understand it, of the French language school board was that that $15 million was to be in addition to the buildings which they believed had already been paid for by them as taxpayers in whatever division they had been. My understanding is that the government's position is that that $15 million that they had agreed to transfer to the French language school division must now come in existing buildings and equipment and that the government believes that it has discharged its obligation as a result of that.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we do not claim and we do not believe, we know, and it is the DSFM that misinterpreted this issue. It was very clear from the very beginning that Manitoba and Canada would each provide $15 million, Canada to be in cash, Manitoba's to be in kind. Manitoba's contribution would come from the regular funding of programs, and the agreement states that very clearly. It was well understood, and the use of words like the province claims or the province believes are comments that or words that perhaps should be better replaced by the province knows and the province accepted, and it is the DSFM that should be claiming and understanding, because they have misinterpreted it. It has been so clear right from the beginning that I really do not know why they are now claiming to understand it differently.
Ms. Friesen: Just to go back one step when I was dealing with the official languages grants, I wondered if the minister could table the current agreement and last year's agreement with Canada.
Mrs. McIntosh: Is the member referring to the OLE agreement? Yes, we can probably do that. We do not have it here, but we can provide it for her.
Ms. Friesen: The minister says that DSFM has misunderstood this from the beginning and that it was well understood. Could the minister give us some evidence of that? How was it worded? Are there minutes of discussions where it is clear that the DSFM understood that this $15 million was to be on regular funding of programs and would include the cost of the buildings and materials and equipment that they assumed? Are there minutes of a meeting that would express that? Is there a particular section of an agreement to which there are fixed signatures that would make that clear?
Mrs. McIntosh: Just a little clarification. In the beginning the DSFM understood what the agreement said. It has been in later days that they have realized in their mind that they understood it differently now than they did then. This wording is in the agreement itself, and it is 4.1 in the agreement where it talks about Manitoba's contribution, and it says, as against Canada's contribution, which, of course, was the cash, the cash to be flowed over five years, with the amount to be flowed each year to be determined by Manitoba. As against Canada's contribution, Manitoba assumed the start-up costs on the Francophone School Board, including costs related to communications, consultations led by the Francophone Schools Governance implementation committee, and the elections of regional committee members and school board trustees. Further, Canada agrees to contribute, for the duration of the agreement, a sum at least equivalent to Canada's contribution toward the operation of the minority public schools through the Schools Finance Board, over and above Canada's and Manitoba's regular contributions pursuant to an OLE bilateral agreement or any other similar agreement between Canada and Manitoba for French language education.
So you have it spelled out there what our money was going for, and those things we are providing to the tune of $15 million.
Ms. Friesen: Two things I wanted to follow up from there. What I had down from what the minister said was that Manitoba would provide start-up costs, including communications, consultations and elections, and I am not sure I got the rest, because I think actually there might have been a slip there in the minister saying Canada rather than Manitoba, so maybe it should be read again.
What is it in this agreement, in Section 4.1, that clearly establishes that Manitoba intended to include in its $15 million contribution the buildings and materials that were being transferred to the French school division?
Mrs. McIntosh: Just for clarification, the buildings are not included in this. That is something else we are doing over and above everything else. That is not included in the agreement. Manitoba and Canada intended--it was not just Manitoba that intended; it was Manitoba and Canada. I think the key words in 4.1 are “through the schools finance program.” Clearly and absolutely, this is not cash; this is through the schools finance program right in the agreement. Canada and Manitoba agreed that Canada would provide $15 million in cash to be flowed over five years through the province with the province determining the annual amount. As against Canada's contribution, Manitoba would absorb the start-up costs of the Francophone School Board, including costs related to communications, consultations led by the Francophone Schools Governance implementation committee, the elections of regional committee members and school board trustees.
Manitoba agrees to contribute, for the duration of the agreement, a sum at least equivalent to Canada's contribution, which, of course, was the $15 million, toward the operation of the minority public schools, and here are the important words, “through the schools finance program.”
Ms. Friesen: So the phrase “through the schools finance program” refers to what? Why would it have been clear to people reading that, that that did not mean cash?
Mrs. McIntosh: Because the schools finance program never gives cash in terms of , here is $15 million, do what you like with it. The schools finance program always is a way of funding things that go on in the schools directly. It is the in-kind contribution, and the schools finance program has very clear ways of dispensing money. The schools finance program is used with all school divisions with very tight hard rules and restrictions. All officials are well versed in the schools funding program. All those involved in education know exactly what that phrase means. That means that we will say, we will be providing a grant for transportation, for example. We are providing a grant for regular instruction. Through our formula you will be given money for the operations of your school. That is how money is flowed through the schools finance program, and anyone versed with schooling and reading that knows that is not a cash contribution, that is designated money to fund ongoing things. That was well understood at the beginning. It was only after the fact that some people started understanding it differently than it was in the beginning.
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Ms. Friesen: What this means is that Canada and Manitoba have agreed that Manitoba will provide, over a five-year period, $15 million through the schools finance program. Now that schools finance program has criteria for per-pupil grants in different areas, whether it is transport or whatever it is.
Does this mean, then, the $15 million, that it will be a minimum of $15 million, that in fact Manitoba must spend $15 million, even though in certain categories it may not be applicable, or what does it mean? Does it mean up to $15 million? Given that the fact the schools finance program has standardized criteria for the allocation of the money, how do you deal with that, with that kind of a block sum?
Mrs. McIntosh: The Province of Manitoba gives the DSFM about $17 million a year. Over the course of the next five years, if you add up $3 million of that every year for the next five years, you will have the $15-million in-kind contribution from the province.
The reason that the start-up money is being put in by Manitoba and Canada is that there are costs associated with new divisions that are higher than the costs of other divisions or long- established divisions. So that is a little richer than might be seen in other divisions, but there have been start-up costs. So that $17 million a year contains $3 million per year for five years, that will total the $15 million that is Manitoba's in-kind contribution.
Ms. Friesen: What it seems to me is that this agreement on Manitoba's part consisted of two parts. One was a commitment to start-up costs and transition costs of various democratic forms and essentially a continuing commitment to fund those same students who had been in other school divisions before at similar principles and similar rates under a schools finance program.
Mrs. McIntosh: Higher rates.
Ms. Friesen: The minister, Mr. Chairman, says higher rates. Could she explain which rates are higher? How is that being met?
Mrs. McIntosh: The school division is funded in four ways. There is the base funding, and that rate is the same as it would be no matter where the student happened to be educated. Then they have categorical grants, transfers and the Canada-Manitoba special agreement. The costs right now for the students are higher than they will be ultimately, we expect, as things get falling into place. They do get transfers from the sending school divisions where the division--the local levy per pupil from the sending division is transferred over to the DSFM so that whichever division used to have the student would now send the money with the student.
Manitoba’s support for French language programs is equal to that for other schools. The French schools receive additional dollars from the federal government, and that is extra cash, and the provincial share is similar, but the province does the overseeing of things such as the peculiar legislative requirements that pertain to the DSFM that are unique and not similar to the divisions.
If you look, for example, at the staff time Monsieur Roy, sitting beside me, allocates to the DSFM and you wanted to count that in kind, you would find that a goodly portion of his salary is directed toward servicing the DSFM. Those kinds of things are hard to break out and hard to identify. You know, is it one third, one quarter, one half of Monsieur Roy’s salary that we pay him to look after the DSFM and similarly other people in the department, the deputies, et cetera, who spend a great deal of time working with trying to address the start-up problems that occur when new entities are starting or to set down rules and ways of operating. As in this case, we will be having again elections this spring for communities to decide schools and once again tremendous involvement not just from departmental staff but from a lot of other people who are devoted to ensuring that all the democratic procedures for the DSFM run smoothly.
It is very difficult to identify those costs, field support, sending people out to assist with getting things done, trying to find teachers, those things, helping the board, which is a brand new board. Well, it is not brand new anymore, I guess, a brand new board with a brand new administration with no carry-over from a previous board, no continuity as most divisions would have when school board elections come. You normally will find one or two incumbents getting re-elected and a continuing superintendent. These people had to start right from scratch, and that requires a lot of nurturing and assistance because everybody is brand new, struggling to find their way, not just through a brand new group of people, but brand new procedures with no precedent really that they could follow. So I do not know how you calculate out the staff time. I know the staff here have devoted countless hours to try to assist with this brand new initiative.
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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I am still trying to track down what the principles were that Manitoba entered this agreement with and the misunderstandings that have arisen over this. As I said, the last time it seemed to me that there were two portions to Manitoba's commitment; one was transition and start-up costs and the other was a commitment to continue to fund the students in those schools in the same way that students were funded in other parts of Manitoba. The minister replied that the rate per pupil was higher in these schools and then she suggested there were four areas of funding--base funding, categorical grants, transfers from a home division and the OLE agreement. I just want to track down each of those.
The base funding, I assume, is the same--okay?--for students in this division as it is for others. The transfer from the home division, the transfer of taxation, is the same as it is for students in the home division. The OLE agreement has standard rates for students, depending on whether they are a second language or whatever, that would be applicable in other divisions as well as this. So is it the categorical grant that is different? What is it that is different and how much higher is the per pupil rate?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to clarify--The member is correct; I did say when she was talking about rates, I did say higher for the DSFM and I apologize for that because what I was meaning were costs and the rates are the same. Costs are higher; rates are the same. But I also want to just clarify that the OLE money and the Canada-Manitoba agreement money are different. The OLE money is the $205 that we were talking about earlier and the Canada-Manitoba agreement is the $15 million broken down over five years. I do not know if those two clarifications assist and I now forget what the member's question was.
I was just wanting to clarify those two points before I forgot them because I had picked up earlier that you had--from the categorical grant, and the staff has been much better at recalling the question than I have, they will be getting $1,050,800 in '96-97.
Ms. Friesen: How would that categorical grant differ from categorical grants given to others?
Mrs. McIntosh: It is specifically geared to some of the start-up costs such as transportation, which is not really start-up, but there are things that come along with extra costs like, for example, if you are going to purchase a bus--although they have contracted out with their busing--but that kind of item, extra costs associated with French language education.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, is that categorical grant then not part of the $15 million? So what actually is the $15 million? Does that then, the $15 million, include the base funding, the transfer from the home division which is similar to what would be experienced in other school divisions?
Mrs. McIntosh: No, it is not part of the $15 million. The $15 million is broken down this way: $3,883,000 for the establishment and operations of the governance structure; $5,000,617 for the programming; $2 million for the programme d' accueil; and $3,500,000 for the Capital projects.
The programme d'accueil maybe is a good example of the type of unique programming and operational costs that the Francophone School Division has because what that program is, as the member knows, all those who are entitled can apply to have their students sent to the new French school board. That includes some children who, although Francophone by culture and lineage, may have been living in a home where French is not the language spoken in the house. Perhaps one of the parents is non-Francophone and they have adopted for use in the house the English language. So those children come to school without being able to speak French or having problems with French. Yet they are of French lineage and they are entitled persons.
The programme d'accueil is to work with those students to bring their French language skills up to a level to meet the language requirements of a pure Francophone program, and that is unique. Yet it is all part of the entitlement at a $2 million cost, so it has got a price tag. It is part of the operating expenses, and that is the type of thing that when we say, if you take $3 million a year over five years for the $15 million, that is the type of program that is needing to be funded that you would not find necessarily in other school divisions.
Ms. Friesen: I think the programme d'accueil is one where there is considerable discomfort in the Franco-Manitobaine community, that the $2 million that the minister has identified here is not meeting the needs, or is not meeting the anticipated needs, that the school division sees. Could the minister perhaps respond to that? I am sure she has received deputations or at least suggestions from the--no? Anyway, the minister can comment on that.
Mr. Chairman, it is certainly something that I have heard about, that this is something that is, as the minister has said, of special concern to the division. It is something that is in a sense also a start-up cost, as you do get children who had not anticipated this kind of opportunity and who move into a Franco-Manitobaine school division, and in a sense it is almost equivalent in needs to the requirements for an immersion program, although less easy to accomplish because the children are spread throughout the school. They may not necessarily all be in kindergarten, for example, so the cost per student may be somewhat different, somewhat higher, depending upon the school and the nature, the size of the school, the number of students in this particular situation.
I wondered if the minister had heard anything of that from the school division and what her response has been?
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Mrs. McIntosh: As the agreement winds down, we will be looking for ways to ensure that that program still fulfils the purpose for which it is intended because it is a very good program. The member made reference to the fact that particularly in the beginning years families who might not have been aware this opportunity would exist were sending children in who had not had the benefit of a lot of exposure to French, but I think that as the opportunity becomes more and more known, you will find families where one parent is Francophone, the other is Anglophone, that they will be making a more concerted effort to use French in the household in the preschool years to prepare the child for attending the French school board governance schools.
So the need is expected to come down somewhat, and since it is a five-year agreement, and at the end of five years, then, presumably the five-year-olds beginning school would have since their early years, if the parents made an early decision--and most, I think, who are committed to this type of education would probably, you cannot tell for sure, but I think in most instances would probably make a decision or at least indicate they might like to have that become their decision and would start to prepare their children.
In that sense, then, there is a greater encouragement for providing a bilingual atmosphere for the preschool child which, whatever the decision the parents make ultimately, cannot help but benefit the child.
We know that when the five-year agreement ends, the DSFM will have to be ready to fly on its own, so to speak, as other school divisions do without extra money coming in. Our goal, and the goal of Canada in providing the cash, is to ensure that by the time the five years are up they have gained enough strength to be able to fly on their own in that way and be self-sufficient, as are other school divisions.
Their structure is unique, as you know, and their arrangements with other school divisions are unique. There is a relationship with the sending divisions that is something that most divisions, maybe with the exception of Frontier, do not normally experience. There are pluses and minuses with those kinds of relationships. Our desire is that by the end of the five years any of those things that were causing uncertainty or any kinds of problems in the first five years would be ironed out by the time the agreement is concluded.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 3. Bureau de l'Éducation Française (a) Division Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $131,700--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $24,000--pass.
Item 3.(b) Curriculum Development and Implementation (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,058,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $372,400--pass.
Item 3.(c) Educational Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $318,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $203,600.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, we are on 16.3(c)?
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 16.3(c)(2).
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Ms. Friesen: That is what I thought, thank you. I just wanted to ask the minister about the increase here in one line we certainly passed, but the increase in Educational Support Services. It goes from $284,500 to $522,200, so a substantial increase in professional fees.
Could the minister table, at some point, the list or evaluation of what those professional fees are for--contracts, writers?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, just for clarification, did the member want me to respond right now or do you want me to table, or does it matter?
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, no, I would like to see something tabled later on.
Mrs. McIntosh: We can bring that in tomorrow for the member.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 3.(c) (2) Other Expenditures $203,600--pass.
3.(d) (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $571,400--pass; 3.(d) (2) Other Expenditures $320,700--pass; 3.(d) (3) Assistance $412,700--pass.
3.(e) (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $424,000--pass; 3.(e) (2) Other Expenditures $221,900--pass.
Resolution 16.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $4,059,800 for Education and Training for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.
16.4 Training and Advanced Education (a) Management Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $447,300.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, in the whole area of Training and Advanced Education, there is a new deputy minister. There have also been substantial reductions in areas of this department and there is considerable concern in the community as to whether in fact there is a future for this section of the department at all and how long it is going to last at the rate of reductions that are proceeding. It is also an area that is of enormous strategic importance to the province and one in which we also see cuts from the federal government, particularly in the areas of apprenticeship, an area of concern both to the K to 12 system and to the advanced education system.
It is an area where the provision for equality and for equity of access to post-secondary education has been well developed in the past and where we see again considerable reductions in the equity of access to post-secondary education.
We continue to oppose and lament the reductions in the Access program that this government has implemented over the years. It was one area where there was an element of hope for young and poor Manitobans and it is an area where the department has not provided alternatives, it seems to me.
The department has certainly looked at youth training and youth education in other areas but, for post-secondary education leading to certification and to professional qualifications, there have not been the alternatives provided in Manitoba that the Access program offered to people, particularly in northern Manitoba and to those who are poor and who are not eligible for the education monies through First Nations communities.
So those are some of my concerns. Student Financial Assistance I think is another area of great concern. If we look at the summaries that are coming to us from university and college loan officers, we are seeing a considerable decrease in the application of students in post-secondary education, particularly in universities. We are also seeing community colleges which have standard waiting lists of one to two years for some of their programs and no increase in the sequential students, even though I think every government recognizes and I acknowledge the minister recognizes the desires and the desirability of improving that. But we have not seen that change for much of the period of this government. My concern again is for what opportunities there are for young Manitobans to continue their training leading to certification and leading to professional and other qualifications.
Student financial assistance has also changed. Partly this is a result of the federal government. It is also partly the kinds of agreements that this government has signed with banks and which have brought to students, as they now begin to enroll in post-secondary institutions, the prospect of life-long debt. If you talk to any of the Student Loan officers across the province, particularly those who are dealing with students from rural Manitoba or from the North, what you are looking at now--and these are not my words, these are the words of the Student Loan officers--and they are looking at a debt load of $30,000 to $40,000 as they graduate from university.
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Now, that is something that was not there in the past. It is not to say that there has not been debt there in the past, but the amount is increasing, and the prospects for those who begin to enroll now are increasing. It has to be one of the factors in the reduction of enrollments, and as we look at the prospects for enrollment next year, considerable reductions that I think give serious concern.
The absence of an appeal program for student loans I think is being felt in some parts of the community, but given the way the federal and provincial governments have now set up the programs, the possibility for appeals is even now greatly diminished.
Other sections of this department deal with employment development centres, with training for youth and with training for apprenticeship and for certain types of jobs through the Mennonite Central Committee and through other volunteer organizations. Some of this remains untested; some of it we are interested in examining. Some of it seems to me to be much more limited than the previous Gateway programs or other programs that we had five and six years ago or 10 years ago in this department.
I am concerned about the diminishing opportunities for young Manitobans at many levels. That is the kinds of, I think, questions that we shall be wanting to be asking in this area.
Workforce 2000 I notice in this area has been considerably reduced along with so many other areas of the department. Many of the areas of Workforce 2000 that I have been very critical of in the past I noticed are the ones that have disappeared. The industry-wide training programs which seem to me to hold out the most benefit for Manitobans are the ones that have been retained. So it seems to me that that kind of workplace-based training, which is based upon communications with employers in a particular area, are ones that we shall be looking at. I am certainly interested that the department has reduced or eliminated so many of those specialized programs which were so very difficult to monitor.
I will put on the record here, as we go through, that I continue to look for the curriculum, the outcomes of all of these programs that we have funded through Workforce 2000. The very level of accountability which the minister wants to see and many others want to see from schools and from teachers is not there for the Workforce 2000 program. I have put into freedom of information. I am at the moment appealing a freedom of information which has turned me down for the curriculum plan of a particular company or any company--it does not have to be that one--at which they submitted to the government in order to receive support for their workplace-based training programs.
That seems to me so odd, so unusual for a government which I had thought was very proud of its Workforce 2000 programs and yet does not want to let the public know what has been paid for. So I am puzzled by that and I hope to have the opportunity to ask the minister some questions on that and, with that, perhaps we could begin the discussion with some issues here in Training and Advanced Education, dealing with interprovincial and advanced education and skills training agreements.
I wanted to ask the minister what agreements have taken place in the area of apprenticeship with the federal government. I am looking particularly here at the government's response to the federal reductions. What planning is being developed in that area for apprenticeship programs in Manitoba?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member has made a 13-minute speech outlining innumerable charges and allegations about the department which, of course, I absolutely reject, and I would ask the member if she would be courteous enough as we go through the Estimates to pose each of those concerns to me as questions so that I can answer them and have them corrected. The member in her speech was making two or three points per minute and making them not as questions but as statements, and I would indicate that I consider them to be erroneous statements.
For example, the debt load carried by university students, she quoted a maximum number, quoted from a Canada student loan person or from a student loan banker. I tell her that I have talked to students and the average is not the amount she put in, and I tell her that the student fees which have gone up 5 percent this year, the students get a 10 percent rebate. They are actual ahead by 5 percent. They are paying 5 percent less this year than they did last year, thanks to our learning tax credit, a number of features like that.
The member has put statements on the record that have circumstances surrounding them that when the whole picture is painted a completely different scene emerges.
So if the member paints only the bark on a tree and says, this is what a tree looks like, and I show the whole picture and show that the tree also has blossoms and leaves and provides shade, then I have provided a complete picture. She has provided a partial picture that does not give the true picture, and her interpretation of some of the things that are happening in the department are way off track, based upon assumptions that are erroneous. I expect that the member will be fair enough to review Hansard tomorrow and point by point by point raise each of those issues in the form of a question for me so that I can answer them and provide correct information for the record.
I appreciate that that will take the member some time, but I think it would be most unfair to put the number of allegations and false charges on the record that she did without asking the questions that enable me to clarify for those who read this document the correct information.
Innuendoes should always be followed by a question and not left without a supporting question behind them.
So, Mr. Chairman, I expect to see each of those questions come forward and, if they do not, then I would ask for some time as these Estimates go on to address each of the points in the member's opening statement, because it was not a question, it was an opening statement, so that I can answer those false charges and erroneous assumptions.
There was one very brief question put at the end of the monologue, and I am wondering, Mr. Chairman, if in light of the fact that the deputy has arrived, if we could take a quick break and come back then and we can go into actual questions, which I would be pleased to answer, as I have for the last few days, and we may get to questions and answers rather than speeches and counterspeeches.
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Mr. Deputy Chairperson: How much time is the will of the committee? Five? Ten? We will take a five- to 10-minute break. We will be back between 10 minutes and 15 minutes to.
The committee recessed at 4:40 p.m.
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After Recess
The committee resumed at 4:48 p.m.
Mrs. McIntosh: The member had asked a question about apprenticeship. I will just indicate by way of background that new apprenticeship registrations increased by 25 percent from 1993-94 to 1995-96. The total number of apprentices at the end of '95-96 were 2,710, which is up 26 percent from 2,145 in 1993-94 and 2,313 in 1994-95.
The Senior Years Apprenticeship Option, which is called SYAO, is now available to students in senior years schools. That is a new initiative that has been extremely well received by the field. The Aboriginal Apprenticeship Training Initiative, which we call AATI, has been developed in collaboration with the aboriginal community and relevant industry and labour partners to deliver residential construction training in northern and aboriginal communities.
As the member indicated, the federal government has withdrawn its support in this area as well. We have an agreement now on the phase-out of the federal support which will show us going from a level of support, a base level this year, of $7.2 million down to a zip, elimination completely in 1999. This phase-out strategy represents a modest increase. The $3.9 million which we will be getting for '96-97 represents a modest increase in anticipated demand. We have been meeting with the trade advisory committees. The trade advisory committees are currently having new appointments made to them. As well, we have been meeting with the apprenticeship board to determine a strategy for finding new ways to deliver apprenticeships as the federal government pulls out of support. They are very conscious of the decisions that need to be made here, very helpful, very co-operative in putting forward ideas and wanting to be part of developing new solutions.
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As I say, we had new apprenticeship registrations increasing by 25 percent. We have three new trades designated in '95-96. We have had requests for the designation of new trades, as well, from existing trades. We have the Senior Years Apprenticeship program now available to seniors in high school, and students can earn complementary and supplementary credits for employment-based training as indentured apprentices. To date, six school divisions are making the SYAO available to their students, and three others are planning introduction in September 1996.
The Apprenticeship branch has introduced an articulation accreditation policy which allows senior years technology education programs and community college pre-employment programs to apply for accreditation of trades-related courses.
The apprenticeship program has received requests for the recognition of 53 programs. I mentioned the Aboriginal Apprenticeship Training Initiative and indicate, as well, the updating of program content has been developed for a wide variety of trades, including cabinetmaker, carpenter, motor vehicle mechanic and so on, a long list of trades in that category.
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): I thank the minister for that information. I have made extensive notes, and I appreciate that information. I think it shows a positive effort to try and deal with a very difficult situation when the federal government withdraws from something to which they claim in many of their public statements to be so deeply committed to. It is a rather puzzling approach on their part.
If I could just say from a process point of view, it is our hope that we might finish or at least get into Appropriation 16.4(g) by the end of today. My colleague in the Liberal Party has some questions he would like to ask in that section, so it is my intent that he would do that with your assistance somewhere around 20 after five, just so that we have some sense of where we were hoping to go by the end of the day.
Mrs. McIntosh: Whatever is the wish of the people asking the questions, we will attempt to co-operate as much as we can.
Mr. Sale: I thank the minister for that. My point in making that point was that if we can both keep our speeches short, then we can make progress. If we cannot keep our speeches short, then we will not make the progress that we hope to make.
May I ask, under Management Services, under Objectives, the role of the department in the Access programs is shifting, and I wonder if the minister could identify what the department role is in relation to the phrase: administers the Access Programs now and in the intended future as that program shifts in its approach. In that answer, I wonder if she might also indicate how or what interfaces there are with First Nations, who have a very deep commitment to and stake in the Access programs.
Mrs. McIntosh: I indicate to the member that there are no changes to the Access programs student support policy or student bursary assistant levels. In terms of the history, over the nine years, the average graduation rate has been about 44 percent. Over the last three years, 88 percent of graduates are either employed or continuing their education, and 95 percent of employed graduates are working in areas related to their field of study. So the program is successful, and we do not see any changes being made to it. There was no change made this year and no change anticipated for next year.
Mr. Sale: My question, I guess, is in relation to the responsibility that the government has or is implied to have by virtue of getting students started in programs which sometimes then change in terms of funding and support and students. We at least had a situation a year ago, I think it was, where students were potentially left in the lurch, and that was the concern behind my question.
Mrs. McIntosh: I know the member is referring to a change in a program that occurred. I will try to say this very quickly just to indicate that it was, I believe, an anomaly that occurred because the federal government, which had been funding 50-50--correct me if I am wrong; for the northern programs, I beg your pardon; staff has just corrected me, 60-40 for the northern programs--changed its method of support and indicated that from that point forward we would have to pick up the full cost. So with that then it necessitated a change if we wanted to ensure keeping the numbers of people able to access Access, if we want to keep the numbers up. What we did then was we went to a loan/bursary. First the students would have to get a Canada Student Loan and then on top of that the bursary would be provided to whatever their need level was. There was no ceiling or no cap on that. Whatever they needed would be provided as a gift on top of the student loan.
The thinking there was that many of the students in Access had income sufficient that--particularly--I have just indicated in my earlier response the success rate of these students is much higher than the average student success rate. They were upon graduation extremely successful at finding jobs and therefore able to pay back a loan and in so many cases much better than non-Access students. This enabled us then to have the bursary money available and make it available to more people rather than run out and not be able to have as many in. I think that was an anomaly in that--
Mr. Sale: I am sorry. You may not be having trouble hearing the minister, but I am. I wonder if I could ask you to ask members to have their conversations somewhere else.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I am sorry. Those members around the table who are carrying on conversations, please do it at a very low tone or move to the back of the room please. The honourable minister to finish her remarks.
Mrs. McIntosh: I will just sum it up quickly, just to indicate that I believe that was an anomaly. It was our opinion that these students, who were sort of halfway through their program at that point, still were able to access the required amount of money. The only difference for them was that upon graduation they would have had to pay back the Canada Student Loan portion of the money they had been given for their education. It does not happen very often that all of a sudden your federal money is gone and you have to make adjustments, so we do not anticipate that being a pattern of decision making without advance notice to people, et cetera.
Mr. Sale: I would just indicate, in principle I like what is happening in terms of curriculum development in the public school system in terms of the areas of shared development, so that we have a curriculum of mathematics in the lead province and a curriculum of language arts in the lead province.
Can you comment on the interprovincial training agreements that are referenced here as also one of the objectives? Is there a policy of interprovincial recognition of credentials being expanded or interprovincial curriculum development in apprenticing? The context for that is that I am sure the minister knows and her staff knows that many nations have multiples of the numbers of skilled and apprenticeable trades, or what we would call apprenticeable trades, than we do, Germany and France being nations with perhaps the highest numbers.
We are still way behind in identifying core skills in particularly the new jobs, the new economy. Is there a move toward some form of interprovincial recognition of credentials as well as interprovincial development of the training capacity?
Mrs. McIntosh: First of all, I agree with the member that this is the way we need to go. Apprenticeship is a program with red-seals trades which are recognized and can work in any of the provinces, so we have a whole series of identified trades that this can be done with. In general, I think we need to continue working toward that in greater abundance, but it does exist now. It is something that ministers have talked about with each other, and the provinces have indicated a willingness to co-operate with each other, not just in this but in all kinds of credit transfers and articulations back and forth between provinces.
Mr. Sale: Could I ask the minister if she could just expand a little bit on that? What I was concerned about was, were there specific structures, strategies, frameworks in mind where we would be setting ourselves some goals of identifying the new apprenticeable trades, agreeing on which provinces might take leads, agreeing on how that training might be available in many locations across the country, using distance delivery or whatever mechanism, so that we can begin to catch up with the training needs of our economy in terms of the new jobs that are out there?
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Mrs. McIntosh: The brief answer is that Manitoba is participating on a labour mobility co-ordinating group of the form of labour market ministers which is proceeding with the development of a work plan to implement the labour mobility chapter on the agreement on internal trade. A bit of a mouthful, but the labour market ministers in most cases, in most provinces, are also the Education ministers with one or two exceptions.
The purpose of the labour mobility chapter of the agreement on internal trade is to enable any worker qualified for an occupation in one jurisdiction within Canada to be granted access to employment opportunities in that occupation in any other jurisdiction in Canada. Without going into a lot of detail, I will maybe indicate that--let us see, how can I sum it up?--the chapter is designed to remove three main barriers to the interprovincial mobility, the mobility of workers and regulated occupations. The barriers are related to the residency requirements, to the occupational licensing certification and registration and the differences in occupational standards and qualifications. So those are the three areas. There is more detail around that, but that kind of sums up the thrust.
Mr. Sale: I would invite the minister to table for the House, or at least for this committee, some background information that gives us a sense of timetable and direction. As the critic for I, T and T, I read the agreement on internal trade. It is a little bit better than the telephone book in terms of getting to sleep at night but not a lot.
It does address something which the NAFTA and Free Trade Agreement do not address, and that is, in a modern economy, if you are going to make capital completely mobile, you must, if you are going to be fair, make labour mobile too. We have not had that kind of labour mobility in the FTA or NAFTA. At least the agreement on internal trade recognized the problem. I think the minister may be somewhat understating the magnitude of that problem in terms of the interprovincial barriers.
I am not aware, for example, that a number of provinces do in fact accept trades mobility nearly as well as we might like them to. I think it would be helpful for the House to have a sense of how that strategy is going because labour needs that mobility and also needs the training access that has not allowed Canada's skilled job area to even really begin to catch up to where European nations have been for some time in this area.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, we can provide a summary page for you. We will try to make it more user friendly than the great big ones full of jargon.
I do appreciate the enormity of the task. I do indicate for the member's information that the labour market ministers, when they met in February, did express high interest in this particular topic. Ministers of Education are meeting later this week, in fact, and, as I indicated, most of the labour market ministers are also the Education ministers, so, no doubt, we will continue talking about the ways in which we can achieve some of these things. I agree with his premise and his goal and indicate that I am quite optimistic about the interest shown by the Canadian ministers in terms of this topic, and so where the interest is shown, action can usually come if it is a concerted effort.
We will table it tomorrow, if the member has no objection, because we do not have something here right now, some of the information that he has requested.
Mr. Sale: I thank the minister, Mr. Chairperson, through you for that.
I have one other question in this area, and that has to do with The Private Vocational Schools Act and regulation. This has long been under many administrations an area of concern about the accountability and quality of programs that are offered on a sometimes very expensive basis to students, and sometimes students call us with questions of whether there was much value for money there.
Could the minister briefly describe, and if she would like she could also table a brief overview here, if she would like to, of the accountability mechanisms, the evaluation mechanisms and the follow-up mechanisms that are used to, police is probably too strong a word, but to enforce and regulate The Private Vocational Schools Act and attendant regulations.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I can provide--
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please, before you start, Madam Minister. To all members around the table, if we could hold the tone of our conversations down a little bit while the minister is answering the questions and the critics are asking the questions.
Mrs. McIntosh: The problem is you are more interesting than us, you see, so we keep wanting to listen to you, and then it is very distracting.
For the member's benefit--[interjection] Well, pardon me, I speak for myself alone. I do not criticize my critic. He does the criticizing. That is his job.
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I will table for the member tomorrow--again, I do not have it all here today. I will try to make it a user-friendly information on this topic, but I will just indicate as a quick response for him now that the department has a registration process and a set of criteria that are followed. It is fairly rigorous. There are also security that has to be--schools have to post a security for tuition refunds in the event of closure, and we then do a follow-up in monitoring in a variety of ways.
What we will be doing soon is the regular survey of graduates where we contact the graduates to see if they are employed, if their employment meets the expectations they were led to believe they would have when they went to the institution and so on. The information I can provide him will give him the details about the numbers of renewals of certificates, new certificates, any numbers of complaints for alleged contravention of the act--we did have some this year, none led to prosecution but nonetheless they were all investigated--the details on the registration process which does include a valid security, for example a bond, to ensure consumer protection and so on. I think he may find that interesting. If after reading it the member has any questions he wants to follow up on, he is invited to contact the staff for further detail. I think it will be fairly clear.
Mr. Sale: Pass.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 4.(a)(1) $447,300--pass; 4.(a)(2) $235,900--pass; 4.(a)(3) $1,753,600--pass; 4.(b) $6,484,700--pass.
Item 4.(c) Student Financial Assistance (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,424,900.
Mr. Sale: Could I just ask the minister, on the question of appeals on page 86 of the Student Financial Assistance 16.4(c) section, I may just simply be incorrect here. I was understanding that appeals processes changed and that this may well have an effect on the accountability of the federal government for any involvement in this program. Could the minister clarify for me what has happened to the appeals process here?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we cannot hear appeals of the federal government provincially, so it has posed a problem, because the appeals in fact have gone from 1,000 down to 100, some number like that. Because it is a federal decision-making process, the province is not able to hear appeals for another level of government, but we do have some limited leeway where we can hear appeals on exceptional type items, and we do that where we can.
The federal government does have an ability, and they are willing, to review figures for accuracy but not for the decision. They will review it to make sure they have done all their arithmetic correctly, but they do not hear appeals on the amount that is being calculated, so it is a change that does limit the ability of students to have their cases heard.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, I thank the minister for the explanation. I had not understood exactly what the issue was here.
I hope the government will take a very principled position on this, that it is a fundamental denial of natural justice, that anyone should be prohibited or prevented from appealing a decision that can have that material an effect on their future. In the kind of economy that we are in, the access to post-secondary education is so tightly tied to people's life chances that having a system that is not appealable seems to me to go against all reasonable, procedural justice.
I do not expect the minister to give a lengthy answer to that, but I just hope that the government will be, and other provincial governments in Canada will be, really vigorous in protesting what seems to me to be a very arbitrary and unfair process.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I feel we are writing a letter a week to Ottawa on issues that we feel are disadvantaging Manitobans and certainly I agree with his comments that the right to appeal decisions, to have it taken away is unjust, to say the least. I take his comments to heart and I thank him for his support on that issue.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 4.(c) Student Financial Assistance (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,424,900--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $757,000--pass; (3) Assistance $5,893,800--pass.
Item 4.(d) Youth Programs (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,005,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $562,600--pass; (3) CareerStart $2,480,800--pass; (4) Youth Community Partnerships $4,325,000--pass; (5) Less: Recoverable from Rural and Urban Economic Development Initiatives ($3,900,000)--pass.
Item 4.(e) Labour Market Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $387,600.
Mr. Sale: I have only one question in this area, Mr. Chairperson. I am puzzled by the earlier answers in regard to labour force training and development which is such a critical thing. We are talking about emphasis on new apprenticeship programs and interprovincial agreements and all that sort of stuff.
My understanding though is that the major unit in the department which supported this whole area has essentially been disbanded, that we have laid off a number of people in the labour market area. I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I think it was eight or nine people at least in the area of labour force work that used to work with Red River and other community colleges on labour market training programs. Could the minister clarify?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we did some reorganization in the post-secondary branch. The majority of the staff reductions occurred in the Workforce 2000, where we no longer are providing monies for small business grants. I should not say small business, but individual business grants, small in comparison to the amount of money we are giving to the sectoral, and we are concentrating now on the sectoral.
In the area you are talking about we really only reduced by two people, because we had four staff reduced, but two of them are long-standing vacant positions. So we are really only talking about two people, and none of the work has changed. It is being done by two people fewer than before, but the same areas of work are being covered, and part of the reduction was that as we moved from the size of staff we had before to a smaller workforce there, as I say, laying off the bulk of the people in Workforce 2000 with private businesses we, at the same time, reorganized and have done different alignments of people so that we can better utilize talents and expertise, and you will see people being shifted about to take on new duties or to work with others where the talents complement each other quite well.
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I should indicate that in a world where funding were unlimited, I would love to still have not just those four staff positions but all four of them filled. But in looking to try to address the fact of our reduced revenues for post-secondary education, we tried very hard to ensure that as universities were faced with a 2 percent reduction that we too would work harder to do the same and hopefully a better job with less money so that the universities would not be bearing the full impact of that federal reduction, that we too would tighten our belts. I am confident, knowing the personnel that we have in this area, that the work will be done extremely well, and none of the projects or programs underway are being reduced in any way, shape or form.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 4.(e) Labour Market Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $387,600--pass; 4.(e)(2) Other Expenditures $115,900--pass.
4.(f) Literacy and Continuing Education (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $309,000--pass; 4.(f)(2) Other Expenditures $105,600--pass; 4.(f)(3) Grants $874,500--pass.
4.(g) Employment Development Programs (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,411,400.
Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): Last year during Estimates when we got to this there were some questions in regard to the six centres, the employment training centres, and there was an indication that there is one in Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Gimli, The Pas and Beausejour. Then the minister, in answer to a question about the home care trainee, replied that the minister said that it was done in three different locations: training on the job; at Red River Community College, the certificate, 20 weeks; Central Health Services and We Care. Then she was asked if the training was done in more than one location for a person, and she indicated that it was only in one place.
I am wondering if the minister was correct then. Is there training at one of the academic locations like Red River Community College and then We Care or Central Health Services is a practicum, or do they actually go to We Care or Central Health Services for the entire 20-week course in this training for home care?
Mrs. McIntosh: I am not sure if I understand you correctly, but I should indicate that students do not go to We Care, for example. We Care was provided a grant through I think it was Workforce 2000 about a year ago for, I think it was--and again, staff is looking this up for me--but about $7,000 at that time, was one of the businesses that received a grant to train people in relevant occupations that had transferable skills. So the only ongoing site where students could go and register was at Red River Community College. Red River Community College did not arrange work practicum placements with We Care.
Is that what you were looking to find out?
Mr. Kowalski: I will quote the minister from last year's Estimates: “The home care is done in three places: training on the job; at Red River Community College . . . Central Health Services and We Care.”
Then the NDP critic asked “The last one on home care, when the minister says it is done in three different locations, does that mean that each trainee would receive a portion of that--training on the job, training from Red River or training from Central Health or We Care--or is it they . . . receive one of those.” The minister replied: Just “One of those.”
Mrs. McIntosh: I think I see what you mean.
Did they go to all three? No. They would either have been a student at Red River or someone working for Central Health or We Care where they were receiving on-the-job training, but they would not be in all three. They would be in one or the other. The three were not connected to each other.
The only similarity was that each of them was delivering training in home care to people who were home care workers or wanted to upgrade their home care skills.
Mr. Kowalski: If I am someone who wanted to be trained in home care, do I go to We Care to get hired or do I go to Red River to get training, do I go to We Care to get training and then if I am successful, I get hired? I am still not clear on the process--
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable minister.
Mr. Kowalski: If I could just finish my question.
I am not too sure. Does We Care receive a grant for so many places for training, or does the student receive money that they could use at any one of those three places for training in home care?
Mrs. McIntosh: Just so the member understands, We Care is not in the business of training students. We Care has employees that, like thousands of other businesses, will from time to time upgrade their employees' skills, and they applied for and received a grant through Workforce 2000, a one-time grant, about a year and a half ago of around $7,000 to take their existing employees and upgrade or train them in some specific skills. Red River Community College has an ongoing program of education and, similarly, the other company, which I believe was Central Health, I do not have the details of that, but my understanding is that it was similar to We Care. So you would not go to We Care to receive training. You would not go to Central Health to receive training. You would go to Red River Community College to receive training or Assiniboine Community College or one of the other places where they train people in home care or health care aides.
If you were an employee of a home care company before the Workforce 2000 program was completed, you might have been a recipient of some training given by your employer, who received money to train you from a Workforce 2000 grant, but that does not exist anymore as a granting agency for independent businesses.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The time being 5:30, committee rise.