Canadian Wheat Board
Marketing System--Legal Challenge
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, my question is to the First Minister.
Last week, on Thursday, the government announced that it was intervening on the registration case before the courts. This is not the first time Manitoba has intervened on issues of interest to all Manitobans. It has intervened on the Canada Assistance Program in the past; it has intervened on environmental decisions that affect the jurisdiction of the environment. We have been asking the Premier for the last couple of weeks why he will not take a stand and intervene against the Alberta cases that would effectively eliminate the Wheat Board.
I would like to ask the Premier today a very simple question. Why has the Premier refused to defend Manitoba's interest and to intervene in the court case initiated by Alberta that will effectively eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board?
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Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, our government has from time to time intervened on cases and from time to time has not. We make the decision on an individual basis. We evaluate the issues involved and we make a judgment as to whether or not it is appropriate and productive for us to make an intervention.
I would take issue, very strongly, with the suggestion that the loss of the case would eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board. That is absolute nonsense. It is so different than the recent case involving Mr. Andy McMechan in which the Canadian Wheat Board lost the case and the government went to the table, passed a regulation that overcame the essence of the decision and it was restored back to the circumstances and the powers that the Wheat Board had said that it enjoyed. No difference here.
If the federal government were in some way to lose this case, they would make a political judgment and their political judgment would be to preserve the Canadian Wheat Board and there would be no court that would disallow them from maintaining the powers that they chose to have with the Canadian Wheat Board. What is important for the long term is that we have a Canadian Wheat Board that serves the best interests of all the producers and indeed the farm economy of Manitoba and western Canada, and that means that the Wheat Board has to be flexible enough to ensure that we attract investment, job creation and agribusiness here.
We were in a situation prior to the Canadian Wheat Board, in which I believe it was 60 percent of the wheat that was processed in Canada was processed in western Canada. We are now down to less than 3 percent since the circumstances that have prevailed. I mention but one instance, last week, in which for almost a year we were in a situation in which a processor who wanted to have a flour mill or a pasta plant here in Manitoba would have had to pay more for their wheat than they would in Alberta. That situation prevailed from the time we contacted the Wheat Board in September of '95 until September 11 of '96. It took them one year to change that circumstance which was obviously detrimental to our having wheat milled here or pasta manufactured here, and because they have not been able to make those adjustments, there are many things that are preventing us from having investment and jobs for Manitobans here. We will continue to speak out to ensure that we have flexibility in the Wheat Board here in Manitoba.
Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, the Premier has indicated that he is not worried about the Alberta court case and he does not feel it will eliminate the single-desk concept and the value of the Canadian Wheat Board. We believe the two court challenges will in fact eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board as we know it, and we are backed up by other opinion that says the same thing.
I would like to ask the Premier why he does not believe it is in the public interest to stand up and put Manitoba's case clearly before the board as an intervener in the Canadian Wheat Board. Is it because he is afraid to take on Ralph Klein, or he silently supports the ideology of Alberta? Who is he the Premier of? Is he the Premier of Alberta or is he the Premier of Manitoba? If he is the Premier of Manitoba, why will he not intervene on behalf of producers and jobs here in this economy and this province of Manitoba?
Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, I just want to correct--I knew I had the information at my disposal--it was 20 percent of the wheat that was grown in the West that was processed in western Canada. Now it is down to less than 3 percent since the time that the Wheat Board has been in operation. This is not a matter of wanting to create politics either for or against or with or against particular Premiers. I get along well with my colleague Premiers, and on many issues I work co-operatively with them. On other issues, obviously, we agree to disagree.
The issue here is a desire to have more economic activity, more investment, more jobs and more returns to the farmers of Manitoba. That is our whole purpose in being, to try and maximize the economic impact of all of the agricultural production that goes on here.
Members opposite suggested that by instituting dual marketing for our hogs in Manitoba that there would be chaos, that there would be destruction of family farms, that there would be a destruction of Manitoba Pork. It could not be further from the truth. What we have is new hog processing taking place here, more investment than ever before in our history in hog production in the province, and economic activity for the benefit of our hog farmers and the benefit of our producers and processors and for the benefit of all Manitobans.
That is what we have. So to suggest that by not intervening that there is going to be some dire dramatic chaos occur is absolute nonsense.
Mr. Doer: With the Premier's answer today, we have finally discovered the actual position of the provincial government and the Premier of this province. The Premier is now saying to the people of this province, he does not care if the Alberta government is successful in the two court cases challenging the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. He does not care if those cases are successful. That is why he will not take a position.
Is that now not the position of the provincial government? This is totally against the interests of the majority of producers in this province, and it is totally against the economic well-being of our province and our communities.
Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition is wrong, wrong, wrong. He chooses not to listen when I give him answers that tell him unequivocally that we support the recommendations of the blue ribbon panel, the Western Grain Marketing Panel that was commissioned by Minister Goodale, with representation from all the various interest groups in western farming and agriculture in our country. They came up with a comprehensive set of recommendations to institute more flexibility, to introduce more opportunity for the--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Leader of the official opposition, on a point of order.
Point of Order
Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, this is the fifth occasion where I have asked the Premier questions about why we will not intervene in the Alberta court case, and the Premier has answered back on the Canadian Wheat Board panel, the Goodale commission.
It is important that the Premier not provoke debate. He has the choice of not answering the question. That was not the question I posed to him. We want him to get off the fence on the Alberta court case. I did not ask him a question about the recommendations and the Goodale panel.
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Madam Speaker: The honourable First Minister, on the same point of order.
Mr. Filmon: With all due respect, on the same point of order, the member opposite said my position was that I was for the destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board. I have told him unequivocally my position is to support the recommendations of the Western Grain Marketing Panel. He ought not to misrepresent it, and he ought not to get up on a phoney point of order that does not exist.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Leader of the official opposition did not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts.
Canadian Wheat Board
Marketing System
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) in his submission to the panel said that harmonization of the U.S. and the Canadian grain system has advantages.
When we compare the systems, we see that Canada under single-desk selling captures 22 percent of the world market though we only produce 6 percent of the product. The U.S. market system gives advantages to the large corporations, to grain trade and the food monopolies. I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture, what kind of harmonization is he proposing? Is he proposing single-desk selling or is he proposing an open-market system?
Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Madam Speaker, allow me to take this opportunity in responding to the member for Swan River, to also respond to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), who continues to refer to my Premier's (Mr. Filmon) position on the matter of the Wheat Board as being that of Premier Klein's. His position is simply not that of Mrs. Nettie Wiebe, who I am sure is a very capable and competent person, who refuses to understand that things are changing in agriculture as elsewhere and who represents the National Farmers Union who speaks for about 2 percent of the Canadian farm families across this country.
Harmonization: Of course, there is value to harmonization, particularly in this post-Crow era where our producers and eastern Saskatchewan producers are facing particularly onerous freight bills of up to 250 to 300 percent. Harmonization north-south for our grains for export grade on the continental market is of tremendous value to any producer to the extent of $25 or $30 a tonne that the Canadian taxpayer now no longer supports. Those are some of the reasons why my submission to the panel talks about harmonization.
Ms. Wowchuk: Madam Speaker, given that the minister's own staff has told him that accepting these recommendations could be more problematic for our international reputation as an exporter of high-quality grain, the recommendations that this government says they support--
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Ms. Wowchuk: Who is this Minister of Agriculture speaking up for? Is he speaking up for the big grain companies or is he speaking up for the grain producers of Manitoba?
Mr. Enns: Unequivocally for the grain producers of Manitoba whom I attempt to speak for, equally important for the well-being, the economic opportunities and growth for the province of Manitoba, which is a more inclusive issue to take note of.
Madam Speaker, the comments that you would expect from senior staff officials, with respect to providing advice to myself as minister, take in all appropriate cautionary notes. One of them is the recommendation of the grain panel with respect to the sale of unlicensed varieties. Last week, I had the Grains Commission in my office to further explain the position to me. The panel itself makes that recommendation only if proper identification issues can be resolved. So my staff appropriately notes that in their briefing notes to myself as minister. I would expect nothing less from my staff.
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Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Swan River, with a final supplementary question.
Ms. Wowchuk: Given that we now know that this government supports the dual marketing of grain, I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture, what kind of long-term advantages does he see for Manitoba producers under a harmonized system of Canada and the U.S.? What are the great advantages that he sees for our producers under that system?
Mr. Enns: It is so easy when one is careless with language to--I do not say deliberately but to do all of us, in particularly the debate on the grains issue, a disservice.
The position that has been enunciated by myself and by our First Minister (Mr. Filmon) with respect to accepting the panel's recommendations does not talk about a dual system for wheat--not at all. It does not even talk about that Wheat Board's own request that perhaps up to 20 to 25 percent sales are to take place under the spot market but still under the control of the Canadian Wheat Board. There is no dual marketing with respect to wheat, which is the major crop that the Canadian Wheat Board handles. You have heard my First Minister talk about supporting the panel's recommendation, you hear me talk about it, so we are not talking about accepting the dual-marketing system.
We are accepting another panel recommendation with respect to barley, of which the Canadian Wheat Board only handles 22, 23 percent of our barley crop. Besides that, we have had a track record. We had dual marketing of barley for a period of time under the previous Minister of Agriculture, and it did not upset the world. The sky did not fall, and our producers probably received some benefit.
So we stick with our recommendations. The panel report is a first step towards making the Canadian Wheat Board more responsive and flexible to today's market needs.
Health Sciences Centre
Dr. Odim--Buy-Out Package
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, in July 1986, when the Premier (Mr. Filmon) was in opposition in this House, he stated that when publicly funded institutions use publicly funded dollars and a publicly funded board enters into an agreement with an employee, then that agreement should be made public. The Minister of Health, then in opposition, stated the same thing in June and July of 1986.
I am asking the minister today, in follow-up to my question last week, whether or not he will reveal to the House whether an agreement was entered into between Health Sciences Centre and Dr. Jonah Odim, the former surgeon at the Health Sciences Centre.
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Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): I understand the Health Sciences Centre and the University of Manitoba have agreed with the physician referred to by the honourable member and that there is an agreement in place. If the honourable member wants to have a look at such an agreement, he could direct his inquiry to the university or the Health Sciences Centre.
Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for that information.
I wonder if the minister will advise this House whether (a) he will table the agreement and, (b) whether or not he will indicate whether any members of the Department of Health were aware of this agreement prior to the execution of this agreement between the university, the Health Sciences Centre and Dr. Odim.
Mr. McCrae: They would not have been, but they have since--of course, since the honourable member has raised the matter--become aware of it.
Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, my final supplementary: Is the minister not concerned that the arrangement with Dr. Odim to go to Atlanta and the ongoing inquest, that that information was not communicated to the official bodies in Atlanta, and does that not cause concern for the minister concerning perhaps other physicians who may want to practise in Manitoba and our not being made aware of other kinds of circumstances like that affecting physicians outside of Manitoba who subsequently come to Manitoba? Is the minister prepared to review that and come back to this House with his concerns and perhaps recommendations?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, the honourable member does have a legal background and understands the processes involved. It would be my concern if there was some suggestion that due process was not part of all of this, and that is not the suggestion the honourable member is making. If he is suggesting something other than the appropriate processes that are in place to deal with situations like this, let him say so and we will consider it.
Social Assistance
Housing--Brandon, Manitoba
Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Family Services.
On Wednesday, October 2, two apartment blocks, 1202 and 1280 Rosser Avenue in Brandon, housing over 25 people will be shut down because public health officials have condemned them as being unfit for human habitation. Most of the tenants are on welfare, including several mentally ill persons. The local Canadian Mental Health Association is desperately trying to find safe, decent alternative housing for these people but is having great difficulty because the social allowance program only provides for $285 per month for both rent and utilities. The minister's department has refused to provide additional assistance even on an emergency basis to help the displaced persons.
Will the minister, out of compassion for these mentally ill persons and others depending on social assistance, personally look into this problem to ensure that they obtain safe and decent housing and do not simply transfer to other substandard and deplorable accommodations?
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Madam Speaker, I thank my honourable friend for that question. I indeed will look into the situation personally, but I also understand from my colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) that he has directed his department to deal expeditiously with those with mental illness.
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Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Brandon East, with a supplementary question.
Mr. Leonard Evans: I thank the minister for the answer.
Supplementary: Would the minister conduct a survey or check her departmental files to find out just how many of her social assistance recipients are living in slum conditions in the city of Brandon and how many of these suffer from mental illness?
Mrs. Mitchelson: I take the question from my honourable friend very seriously, and I will work very closely with my colleague the Minister of Health, with my colleague the Minister of Housing (Mr. Reimer) to ensure that appropriate accommodation is there for those with mental illness in the city of Brandon.
Mental Health Care System
Housing--Brandon, Manitoba
Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): I would like to ask the supplementary question of the Minister of Health.
I appreciate what the Minister of Family Services just said about the minister's interest, but would the minister, who has often boasted about his mental health reform program and deinstitutionalization, ask his staff to determine how many mentally ill persons are living in slum housing in the city of Brandon, and would he take action to ensure that all mentally ill patients are provided with decent and safe accommodation?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, the fact that the Health department is involved with declaring 1280 and 1202 Rosser Avenue unfit for occupancy, to me that says that the system is working the way it is supposed to, that when standards fall below the level that is acceptable, the Department of Health takes action, and as my colleague has said, the Health department is taking a specific interest in the mental health clients who are resident at those addresses to ensure that they are properly housed in future. This is why we have regulations. The question is how far or how low do standards go before they breach those requirements, and I suggest that housing standards and other standards have been in existence for a very long time, including the time when the honourable member for Brandon East was responsible for significant matters here in the province of Manitoba, and virtually the same rules apply today.
Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation
Call Centres
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for MPIC (Mr. Cummings).
It would appear that MPIC is somewhat on the move and we are concerned greatly in terms of the direction that this government is suggesting that it take. Now I understand that call centres are in fact, at least I believe, being looked into in terms of delivering a service as opposed to the Autopac brokers. I am asking if the minister can come clean with Manitobans and tell us, what is MPIC doing with respect to call centres and the whole distribution of insurance through brokers?
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the administration of The Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): Madam Speaker, I think the member received the corporate information last week. The fact is the corporation is, not in any clandestine way but in a very public way and through communications to its brokers and to its customers, saying that it has an obligation to review how it delivers its services and make sure that they are done in the most appropriate manner, but I think it does no one a service to raise allegations or fears that somehow there is a hidden agenda to deal in an inappropriate way or to change the way services are being delivered without first taking a look at what is an appropriate and functional delivery system. We have a very good delivery system today, one that involves a good partnership between the public and the private sectors of this province and there is no reason to change that except to provide greater efficiency.
Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Inkster, with a supplementary question.
Mr. Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, I wonder if the Minister resonsible for MPIC can make it very clear to Manitobans, is MPIC today looking into the possibility of including call centres in the delivery of automobile insurance? Yes or no?
Mr. Cummings: The answer would be no.
Mr. Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, I am wondering then if the Minister responsible for MPIC could tell us why then there is a study that is being conducted, in a memo that I tabled the other day, which was signed off by the president and general manager of MPIC, indicating that there is a study that is ongoing, and he is saying that study has nothing to do with the call centres.
Mr. Cummings: Madam Speaker, I think the member is probably doing the best he can, given the limited information that is probably available to him at this point, but the fact is that the corporation has a call centre for taking in calls on windshields and service to brokers and all sorts of information that needs to be distributed to the existing broker service, among other things.
If he is taking an advocacy position that there should be no changes made in the present brokerage system, that is fine. The corporation is communicating regularly with the brokers and has indicated to them that they are looking at methods of improvement. I think the member would have to acknowledge that there is a body of the public that is asking, how can the corporation continue to improve services to them, and they would be remiss in not doing their best.
Cabinet Ministers
Spousal Travel Expenses
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, can the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs tell us what members and staff of the Manitoba government and what members of their families were on a trip to London, England, to unveil a statue of a rather famous bear, and how much government paid for the travel and other expenses of spouses, of the minister and of civil servants for this particular event?
Hon. Jim Ernst (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Madam Speaker, I attended last summer, on behalf of the government, to do the official unveiling in the London Zoo of the statue of Winnie the Pooh. I have no idea immediately what the costs of the travel were.
Mr. Sale: Madam Speaker, the minister did not answer the question. I asked, what spouses, at what cost, of what ministers and what civil servants? Will the minister please answer the question?
Mr. Ernst: Madam Speaker, my spouse travelled with me at no cost to the taxpayer. I believe the Clerk of the Executive Council also travelled there. I do not remember whether his wife attended or not.
Mr. Sale: Madam Speaker, will the minister please undertake to table with the House immediately the costs for the travel and associated expenses of his spouse, the costs for the travel and associated expenses of Mr. Leitch's spouse, and will he tell the House and table for the House the dates on which the monies associated were repaid to the government of Manitoba?
Mr. Ernst: Madam Speaker, if in the case of my spouse, there was no cost to the government, nothing was necessary to be repaid. I cannot answer for the Clerk of the Executive Council, but I will inquire.
Manitoba Telephone System
Privatization--Public Hearings
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Madam Speaker, all Manitobans know today that the government broke its promise on not selling MTS, but another promise they have broken too was to have public discussion and debate. In fact, within two weeks of sending a series of letters out throughout the province indicating there would be public discussion before any decision, they made the decision in cabinet to sell it off, but it turns out there have been a few meetings held across the province, invitation-only meetings.
I know of one with some municipal officials in the Selkirk-Interlake area. There was one with MTS officials in Carberry. I would like to ask the Premier, how many invitation-only meetings have been held to discuss the sale of MTS in Manitoba?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, I just want to make sure that the member does not put on the record anything that is not factual. I am sure that would be a concern to him.
At no time did the government promise not to sell Manitoba Telephone System. When we were asked the question, when I was asked the question, I said, we had no plans to sell it, Madam Speaker, and we did not. I told the member many months later the sequence of events when we received the report from the Crown Corporations Council.
The member knows that there will be an opportunity when the bill comes before committee for public representation, and that will be an opportunity for Manitobans to express their views, as they always can, on legislation that is passed that is presented in this Legislature.
Mr. Ashton: I appreciate the Premier's attempt to defend the fact that he said he had not plans to sell MTS. That is exactly what I said. I would like to ask why--and I will repeat the question perhaps for the Premier--there have been no public meetings on the MTS issue and, in fact, only a series of a handful of invitation-only meetings?
Can the First Minister at least indicate who has been given the chance to discuss the future of MTS since the vast majority of the public has not?
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Mr. Filmon: There have been information meetings, I am aware, held throughout the province with municipal governments and representatives. I do not have any information as to how many and where they have been held, but I will take that as notice on behalf of the Minister responsible for the Telephone System (Mr. Findlay).
Mr. Ashton: Final supplementary. Since the Premier is saying that the only public input will come through the committee stage of discussion of the bill on MTS, I would like to ask the Premier if he will do the right thing and allow public hearings to take place on MTS throughout the province, and given the fact that he has been doing this with his backbenchers on a variety of issues who have been holding hearings throughout the province, most recently the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe), will he do that with MTS, a corporation we have owned publicly since 1908? Will he give rural Manitobans and northern Manitobans a chance to have a direct say in the future of MTS?
Mr. Filmon: There have been all sorts of public discussion and debate on this. I know that the member opposite has been sending letters to every municipality. In fact, that is one of the reasons why these meetings have been held with municipalities, to dispel all the misinformation that the member for Thompson has been spreading. Absolute nonsense, sheer baloney that he has put in.
Point of Order
Mr. Ashton: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, I would like to ask you to call on the Premier to withdraw that comment. The only thing I asked the municipalities to do was pass a resolution if they felt that MTS should not be sold off. In fact, more than 50 did so. So I would like to ask you to have the Premier withdraw that inaccurate and unparliamentary remark.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Thompson does not have a point of order.
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Madam Speaker: The honourable First Minister, to complete his response.
Mr. Filmon: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The fact of the matter is that there has been a great deal of public discussion and debate. I have been receiving various letters and communications both for and against the privatization. I understand that an ad has been placed in the Brandon newspaper with my phone number on it for people to call if they are concerned about MTS privatization.
I have received a few calls both for and against, and under those circumstances we continue to listen to the public, and the public will have further opportunities when the bill comes before the committee of the Legislature, Madam Speaker.
Forestry Industry
Cutting Rights
Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Premier.
This morning, the Premier addressed the World Commission on Forests and Sustainability and forgot to mention the word “forests.” He also forgot to mention that this Order-in-Council gives anybody in the Forestry Branch the authorization to increase annual allowable cuts by 20 percent with no public consultation.
Can the Premier tell us how 20 percent increases in timber sale agreements can be monitored for sustainability when they are signed off without any consultation from the public or even from within the Department of Natural Resources?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, yes, indeed, I did have an opportunity at their invitation to address the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. They are holding their hearings in Manitoba because of our reputation as a leader in the field of sustainable development. [interjection]
Well, I know that it hurts the members opposite to hear the truth, but that is fact.
The commissioners were very interested to hear about all the things that Manitoba has done with respect to sustainable development, with respect to recycling measures, with respect to many of the measures that we have taken to protect our resources and to ensure that they can be harvested sustainably--in all those cases, I would say. This government is the first that has ever held, for instance, public hearings from the Clean Environment Commission with respect to a forest management plan.
The members opposite, when they were in government, gave carte blanche, with just a stamp of approval from cabinet, the right to harvest more timber than is currently being harvested by Manfor--Manfor which, under the members opposite, had the worst environmental record of any organization in Manitoba--and we spent millions of dollars cleaning up the mess that they left for us. That is exactly the kind of attitude they had.
Now, of course, in their hypocritical way, they stand up and they try and portray themselves as defenders and protectors of the environment, never held a hearing of the Clean Environment Commission, never had any environmental approvals given to Manfor or to the largest hydroelectric project in the history of this province, the Limestone project, and now they are born-again environmentalists.
Well, that is absolute nonsense and nobody believes them, Madam Speaker.
Mr. Struthers: This is the same Premier who received an F on his last environmental report card--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Dauphin, with a supplementary question.
Mr. Struthers: Did the Premier this morning in his address include the fact that this province has given away land and cutting rights to companies at a stumpage fee of $1.55, which is the lowest in the country? Sustainability, I do not think so. Did you mention that this morning?
Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, I talked this morning, as I rightly should, about our commitment to sustainable development, a commitment that was never seen or understood by members opposite when they were in government when they destroyed our environment and ignored any opportunity for the public to be represented, because they never held environmental hearings into Manfor or into Limestone or into any project.
So, yes, the members of the commission were very interested in the progress that we have made since those bad old times under the New Democrats, were very interested in hearing the record that we have for going through public hearings and having a process that is recognized right across Canada and throughout the world. They were interested in knowing that we are committed and, indeed, that all of our decisions are made with respect to the long-term sustainability of our forests and all of the various resources that we have under our care and jurisdiction.
Mr. Struthers: I guess he did not mention that fact.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Dauphin, with a final supplementary question.
Mr. Struthers: Madam Speaker, then did the Premier tell the commission that it was his government who fired a wildlife biologist when he questioned the sustainability of this government's practices?
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Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, one of the things that fortunately prevails in a quasi-judicial process, an objective process like the Clean Environment Commission, is that you have an opportunity to listen to people with all different perspectives, and you have an opportunity to have scientists, to have engineers, to have forestry experts, to have technical experts come before the commission and put their information on the table, so that you do not have to take information based on nonsense and hearsay like members opposite want to put forward, political dribble that they try and substitute for real knowledge, real facts and solid information, and that is the basis on which decisions are made in our system of Clean Environment Commission objective review.
Cabinet Ministers
Spousal Travel Expenses
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, given that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs took a deputy minister and the clerk of the privy council, Jim Eldridge and Don Leitch, with him over there to pull the statue's little cover off--I mean a little bear this high--how many deputy ministers and staff does it take to unveil a bear?
Hon. Jim Ernst (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Madam Speaker, the Clerk of the Executive Council had ongoing discussions and negotiations with the London Zoo. On that behalf he attended, along with myself, to conduct the appropriate unveiling in the ceremony surrounding that.
Madam Speaker: Time for Oral Questions has expired.