Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Mr. Chairman, in keeping with our past practice at least during this session, we had previously agreed to allow for some movement among the different sections so that when the Estimates were over, we would just simply simultaneously pass everything at once.

Where we left off the other day was dealing with the flood questions, and I would like to ask a few more questions before we finish that area. I understand that, contrary to some reports today in the media that the federal government and the province had signed agreements for the flood compensation, that that is in fact not true. I would ask the minister to take some time and explain to us just where everything is at with this.

Hon. Frank Pitura (Minister of Government Services): Mr. Chairman, I failed to do this last week, but I would like to introduce Harold Clayton, our executive director of the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization, who has joined us at the table here, and he was here on Thursday during Estimates.

With respect to the member's question, the Canada-Manitoba agreement is a signed agreement by both the federal and provincial governments, and it is an agreement of understanding that various program components that were agreed to would be negotiated and put into place. So, as a result, many of the program components do not directly impact Manitoba Emergency Management as such, because the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization is responsible for the delivery of the disaster assistance program.

These other programs that were identified under the Canada-Manitoba agreement are programs that are associated with the various departments that are also involved in the 1997 flood and, as such, each one of those areas within that Canada-Manitoba agreement would be negotiated with the various expertise and the people from those individual departments along with the federal government. So, from that standpoint, no, I do not have any knowledge of the signings of any agreements.

We had the announcement of the business restart or the restart program which was a federal government announcement and, as far as I am aware, was done without prior consultation with the provincial government.

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The agricultural compensation program, which I understand is to be released later on today, again I am not aware of the degree of consultation that has taken place with regard to that program, but we are looking forward to having a great deal of consultation with the federal government with regard to the flood mitigation part of the program.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, well, this is now two reported false starts on the part of the federal government, and we only have one more week to go before election day. Does the minister have any hope that the federal government will be coming through between now and next Monday?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairman, I would have to say that after having some serious misgivings about whether or not we would actually end up with a process that had programs put in place that I am perhaps more optimistic now that we will end up with a program that is suitable to both the federal government and to the province with regard to the overall flood program for 1997 and any future flood mitigation programs that will be put into place. You have to have that optimism, I guess, and it also has an area of mutual trust and understanding that needs to happen in areas like this. Therefore, I am reasonably confident that we will have the necessary programs put into place in the near future.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, at our last sitting the minister promised a copy of the City of Winnipeg's current evacuation plan. Does he have that available now?

Mr. Pitura: Yes, I do. I have the City of Winnipeg emergency plan, which was put together in 1992. I will also supply the member with the Province of Manitoba, City of Winnipeg, Canadian Forces joint force headquarters, a contingency operation plan for flood response in the area of the city of Winnipeg dated the 30th of April 1997. I would just like to clarify for the member that this report, the latter report that I am referring to, was a contingency plan that was put into place as a result of the Brunkild dike. What they were doing was trying to model what would be the worst-case scenario if a breach in the dike occurred. So they were putting into plan by the model under the worst-case scenario what kind of evacuation procedure would have to be put into place. As a result of continuing to work with the model and continuing to monitor the water situation, of course, the need for a plan like this to continue was put on hold because, as new models were run, it was found that the present system, floodway system, could manage any kind of breach that would occur along the dike. So I will be happy to pass these on to the member.

Mr. Chairperson: Are you tabling these, Mr. Minister?

Mr. Pitura: I am tabling them, Mr. Chairman. [interjection] Rather than tabling these documents, I will just give them directly to the member for Elmwood.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister to explain a bit about the Z-dike and why it seemed to be such a last-minute operation. I mean, with the amount of water that was coming north, why was it so late in the game before somebody came forward and realized that this was a problem?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairman, again, I think that the question that the member for Elmwood asked would probably best be answered by the Department of Natural Resources, because it falls outside the terms of reference of my department and, certainly, out of the area of my technical expertise.

Mr. Maloway: I missed that.

Mr. Pitura: I will repeat it again for the member's benefit. The question about the technical aspects of why the dike was built when it was built I think can best be answered by the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Highways, especially the Department of Natural Resources. The terms of reference of my department are such that our involvement with the dike was from the standpoint of preparing that emergency contingency plan, and it is certainly out of the realm of my expertise.

Mr. Maloway: Has the minister been able to find out just what the story was with the business of somebody in his department asking the Archives for five or six copies of the 1950's evacuation plans the day St. Norbert was being evacuated?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that there was not anybody from our department, that is, the Department of Government Services or Manitoba Emergency Management that requested a copy of that document from the Archives. I am informed, however, that an employee of the Department of Natural Resources did request a copy, and we do not know the name of the individual.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to move over to the Information Technology Services which would be 1.(e), and I assume that is the section that would deal with the letting of the new computer contract that the government has got itself into. Correct me if I am wrong on that, but if this is the section, then could the minister give us an update of what has been happening with this contract? This contract, as the minister knows, is running several months late, at least when the successful tender was announced. I would like to know what the current status is.

Mr. Pitura: I would just like to advise the member for Elmwood that the desktop management program is under the area of Supply and Services within the department.

To bring the member up to speed on the contract, I am advised that contract negotiations are continuing with SHL and, hopefully, everything will be finalized by the end of June.

Mr. Chairman, I would also like to introduce Mr. Gerry Berezuk who is our assistant deputy minister of Supply and Services within the Department of Government Services.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister then, what prompted the government to take this type of action?

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Mr. Pitura: I think maybe I could kind of lead up to why the decision was made within government at the present time. If I look back through the last decade and a half, I guess, within government, computers started to make their way into government on a small-scale basis. Various departments were identifying needs for use of computers within their departments. As time went on, each department within government kind of went its own direction, and indeed sections within departments went their own direction with regard to computer technology and software programs.

So what has happened over the years, of course, is that we have gone from the massive mainframe type of computer operation to many smaller desktop computers that are able to handle the same kind of information now. What has been showing up within government is the fact that there are a number of areas which now could be identified as having, if they had common hardware and a linkage between that hardware and the software, that government would be able to deliver a more cost-efficient service to the taxpayers of Manitoba. So identifying this need came about.

Then the next issue was: How do we go about taking on or using the approach or changing the approach to the way we use computers in government, and the software. The decision was made that the best common-sense approach would be, rather than trying to get departments individually to work together, that it might be more desirable to have somebody from outside the government take a look at all the hardware and the software and be able to manage it right across the entire foray of government.

I just want to share as well with the member that the desktop management program is--part of its advantages would be to standardize and integrate key desktop management functions across government into a single point of service delivery to improve corporate productivity and delivery of services. It would also provide proactive management of rapidly changing desktop technology and applications in partnership with private sector expertise but also ensure the ongoing development of desktop management services in an effective and efficient pricing and cost structure which will also reduce hidden costs. It would also maximize utilization of information technology by employees currently involved in desktop management activities and define an effective human resource strategy to deal with staff who may be impacted by this change.

So those are some of the things that desktop management--by adopting desktop management, that is how it will impact the government.

Mr. Maloway: What other jurisdictions did the government look at that had comparable models such as this?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that we had a look at the models that were used in the province of Alberta and the province of Nova Scotia. They are not exactly the same as the models we have here in Manitoba, but they did provide a good basis upon which to study and to be able to mould the type of desktop management we would like to see here in Manitoba.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us, then, what were the differences between the current Manitoba model that he has adopted and the Alberta model and the Nova Scotia model?

Mr. Pitura: When we took a look at Alberta, and I believe Alberta was the most recent one? [interjection] Yes, Alberta was the most recent province to adopt a desktop management strategy. The major difference between the strategy which we have here in Manitoba as compared to Alberta is that in Alberta they adopted desktop management on an individual departmental basis, and they allowed the departments within that framework to adjust their own departments as they saw fit with regard to the desktop management. In Manitoba, what we are hoping to achieve is to have a corporate style of infrastructure for the desktop management as well as adopting corporate standards throughout government with regard to desktop management so that there would be more uniformity across departments and with regard to the desktop management program.

Mr. Maloway: So what were the differences between the Nova Scotia program and the Manitoba program?

Mr. Pitura: I am sorry I have to inform the member that we do not have that information readily available, but we are prepared to supply that information to the member the next time we get together.

Mr. Maloway: The minister made reference to corporate style and standards, so what does that mean?

Mr. Pitura: It is felt with regard to the corporate infrastructure with regard to desktop management that centralized management and standardization are fundamental to the continued improvement of operations and the support of initiatives currently underway to re-engineer core corporate systems.

The concept of desktop management, therefore, falls into this picture. With regard to adopting some corporate standards as an essential part of moving to desktop management, some of them are that the standards will give Manitoba the ability to negotiate volume pricing and decrease acquisition processing costs; support and training costs are lowered by supporting fewer systems; Manitoba's ability to share data and applications is improved; end user availability is increased due to faster resolution of common problems; organizations with strong implementations of standards have lower total costs and lower support costs; standardization helps to decrease support costs due to vendor liaison, product introduction, product reviews and installs, moves and upgrades; standards also will ensure that procurement is in line with corporate initiatives. Strong and well-considered standards help ensure that the corporate infrastructure is flexible and robust enough to change with advancements in technology and demand, and also the standards will ensure the year 2000 compliance on new acquisitions.

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So there are a number of areas where because of the corporate infrastructure and the corporate standards that you would have a well-managed, uniform use of computer hardware and software right across government.

Also, these standards will evolve based upon the continued input from the groups as well as end-user input, so we have changing business requirements and advances in technology. All the standards are generic, and they will establish a level of quality and reliability based on specifications and not brand names necessarily.

So their standards are not going to be carved in stone, but they will be evolving with the end user, the customer, so to speak, and the changing business requirements of government

(Mrs. Shirley Render, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister then whether they looked at the federal model in coming up with their own system.

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that we had discussions with some departments of the federal government, but the specifics we do not have, nor did we have discussions with them tantamount to adopting any of the programs that they had in place. We were more interested in what was happening on a provincial basis elsewhere rather than on a national basis.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to then ask the minister why it is that--and I appreciate that this egg was scrambled before he took the reigns of power on January 6. This mess was created by the former minister who is now trying to get promoted to the federal House, so he is not here to explain what it is that he did and the thinking that went on before the current change, but what I am told by people in the industry is that the government could have kept everybody happy and could have solved the problems that the minister has addressed--and there are problems--by adopting the federal model which I am told is an unbiased tendering system.

It is set up in such a way that little companies can compete with big companies on an equal footing, and the local companies, no matter how big or small they are, seem to be agreeable that this federal--at least that is their impression. Their impression is that when they compete for a federal contract, that even though they may be up against the biggest company in the world, they feel that they have an equal chance of winning.

Whether that is right or not, I do not know, but that is just what they feel. They feel that in dealing with this monolithic system that the former minister developed, that it is a winner take all and that, in fact, because of the performance-bonding requirements and other such things, there is no local company in Manitoba that could even produce a quote for this business, and, in fact, no serious quotation was produced from a local company. You had three huge corporations competing, and this was basically a beauty contest between those three.

So that is the impression out there in the industry, and I would like the minister to explain to me where the people who are telling me this are wrong.

Mr. Pitura: The member's previous question, I misinterpreted the question or he misled me on the question with respect to the federal government, because it ended up with a second question asking about the tendering system employed by the federal government, and I was answering the question with regard to the actual technology aspects of the program that we were developing and putting into place within Manitoba. I would like to say that my predecessor I think has to be congratulated that he actually started this initiative within government because Manitoba is not alone on this issue of government having to go into an area of desktop managment.

Many public institutions across this country and probably North America are faced with the same problem, and that is because of the use of computer technology as an evolving technology and, because it was evolving over time, the switch from using a--I can remember up in the 9th floor or the 10th floor of the Norquay building, half the floor was occupied by a mainframe computer with climate controlled conditions. Now desktop units can handle that.

At that time you had to have key operators punching cards and they were running through the machine and all these things had to be done. I am probably a little bit older than the member for Elmwood, but the whole essence of standardization of hardware and allowing software systems to be compatible with each other I think is a very important initiative. For that I give my predecessor much credit for having initiated this program, because I think the timing is right and we will also be able to deal with the year 2000 compatibility as well.

The other question that the member asked was about these, because the way the federal government operates they can tender contracts with smaller companies, and I would just like to inform the member that that is also possible and very real within the context of the desktop management program within Manitoba, because the contractors are going to require the services of many subcontracts in order to be able to provide the government with the type of desktop management program that it requires. Not one of these companies that bid on the contract was able to fulfill those obligations on their own, so they required the inclusion of a number of subcontracts.

So many, many businesses in Manitoba will still find themselves as part of the overall contract to supply desktop managment technology for their provincial government. In fact, I would be sharing with the member that some 20 local firms are looking at options for their involvement in providing these desktop managment services, so it is not just one contractor out of three that is getting the work. It is many firms in Manitoba and Manitoba firms that are getting the work.

Mr. Maloway: Madam Chairperson, I would like to ask the minister then, what control does the government have over making sure, making certain that the local suppliers and contractors will be given an adequate share of this work? What guarantees do we have that SHL will not give all the good business to--I believe it has a subsidiary, Computerland. What guarantee do we have that all their equipment, hardware and so on will not be just simply brought in through their subsidiary that they own and that the local people will get very little business out of this?

Mr. Pitura: With regard to the subcontracts with the desktop management program, part of the requests for proposal by the companies that were bidding on the overall contract was their ability and their willingness to be able to share their--to make sure the subcontracts were a part of the proposal. Their evaluation, the evaluation of the RFP, was done on the basis of their ability to work with local firms in carrying out the desktop management program, and also, as part of their ongoing initiative with the provincial government and carrying out of the contract, the monitoring of their commitment under the RFPs will be monitored very closely.

Mr. Maloway: Well, Mr. Minister, I would like to ask you how big this contract will be on an annual basis for '97, '98 and '99, at least up to the election.

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Mr. Pitura: I am advised that, as one of the components of the contract negotiations, pricing is part of that negotiation process. The way the contract negotiations are done is that there is an individual firm that is putting together the necessary benchmarking throughout the system as a method and basis for being able to control, so to speak, the prices of each component, but I am sure that the member would also agree that, since the contract is under negotiation, pricing is ultimately part of that contract.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell me then what the government spent in 1996 and in 1995 on computer products and computer services then?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that in 1996 fiscal year that approximately $12 million was the cost associated with direct desktop management. I would also point out that within each department there were also a number of costs which were referred to as hidden costs with regards to each department having costs attributed to Desktop Management technology, but overall the direct costs for the hardware itself was approximately $12 million for '96.

Mr. Maloway: The $12 million, would that include the monies that are paid to ISM? Is ISM in there as well or is that in addition to the $12 million?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that the costs for ISM are not included in that.

Mr. Maloway: Then if we add on ISM costs, which I believe are around the $8-million range, then would we be dealing with about $20 million then in computer costs for last year? Would that be accurate?

Mr. Pitura: As far as I am advised the contract for Desktop Management, or at least the Desktop Management part of the hardware costs are something that was part of this initiative. The ISM costs are something that is separate. It really is part of the Department of Finance, so that it has no real relationship with what the objective of Desktop Management is all about.

Mr. Maloway: But what will happen over the next two or three years then as this desktop system gets put in place? Will we be seeing a decline of ISM's revenues then as a result of all this installation of desktop models? I mean presumably when you put desktop computers in to perform all these functions, then presumably ISM's component is not required or certainly should not be as big a component. If I am wrong on that, then tell me how and why?

Mr. Pitura: I think, and I have even mentioned this earlier, the fact that we are changing from largely a mainframe type of computer system to the desktop units that have the equal capability, it is a natural that the shift historically is from the mainframe to desktop. So I think that given the fact that this is occurring, those information technology companies that are providing mainframe services may indeed see the amount of business that they receive for using mainframe starting to drop off. I think that that is probably, as one would say, a fact of life.

Mr. Maloway: Then surely the government has got projections here as to where it will end up in the next two or three years with this initiative. Would it be the intention then to wean itself off the mainframe component, and if so, by what year would it be able to do all of its functions on its own desktop system?

Mr. Pitura: Madam Chairperson, the idea of going with the desktop computers as being the source of mainframe is that really there is a place probably for some mainframe activities and for desktop activities and that as we gradually put more and more programs into the desktop area, there will still probably be a usefulness for mainframe activities down the road.

Mr. Maloway: Madam Chairperson, I would like to ask the minister, then: Does he see the growth of the mainframe component increasing over the next year or two? Does he see it levelling off? Does he see it declining? If so, what would be the rate of increase or decline?

Mr. Pitura: Madam Chairperson, I think the question that the honourable member is asking is more related to the type of question that might be best asked of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) because as Minister of Government Services, our main role is the desktop management area and, as such, the terms of reference that we have are to provide a desktop management uniformity or desktop management initiative for the provincial government and that our role, as such, is delineated by the terms of reference for that initiative.

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Mr. Maloway: Madam Chairperson, I would like to ask the minister, much has been made of the millennium bug and the year 2000 compliance problem, and my information has been that even today computers are being sold and computers are being bought, brand-new ones out of the store that are not 2000 compliant either through the software or the hardware. I find that sort of hard to believe that since we know about the problem, there are a lot of reports about the problem, the government is--well, individuals certainly are taking possession of systems that are not 2000 compliant.

I would like to ask him whether the government in its most recent purchases of systems, whether what they are buying today are 2000 compliant or not.

Mr. Pitura: Madam Chairperson, I am advised that any department that is purchasing desktop hardware right now is advised that when they do their purchasing that all purchases be 2000 compliant. The member brings up an interesting point in his question, the fact that showing and demonstrating the need for a co-ordinated and a corporate approach to desktop management technology because of the fact that with things like the 2000 compliance and if you have a number of departments that have hardware that is compliant and other departments that are getting compliant hardware, the type of mix that you can get within hardware, so that having some consistency and uniformity to the entire system, I think, makes sense for the long-term future of the utilization of hardware within the provincial government.

Mr. Maloway: Madam Chairperson, I would like to ask the minister: When did the government officially start buying hardware and software? Because there are two separate issues here. When did they start buying the software? When did they start buying the hardware and demand that it was 2000 compliant? What date?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that the guidelines for the purchase or the requisitioning of desktop hardware and software that is year 2000 compliant occurred in March of this year as a definitive guideline for departments and their purchasing, and the member might ask and say, well, why did you not do it earlier than this? The main thing is that you also have to remember that probably in 1990 or 1992, maybe even as late as 1994, there might have been some difficulty finding hardware and software that was then manufactured to be 2000 compliant. If it was available, it was probably going to be priced at a premium to the regular computers that were available. You have to keep in mind that the evolution towards being 2000 compliant in terms of timing, being that this is 1997, that basically there are three years in which to have the compliance in place. I think, given the industry's ability to respond to a need, I do not see any problem that the provincial government cannot reach that objective by the year 2000.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister then tell us what committees, if any, he has in place to deal with this problem and when they were first struck?

Mr. Pitura: Madam Chairperson, within the Department of Government Services there is not a committee that is--I stand corrected. We have a departmental committee that is looking at the year 2000, but overall within government there is a Year 2000 Project, a co-ordinating committee that is chaired by my colleague the Honourable Eric Stefanson. The impact assessments are well on their way and actually Manitoba is probably ahead of other provinces in addressing this issue.

Mr. Maloway: Could the member finish the answer to the question? The question was: When was this Year 2000 Committee struck? When was it first set up and when did it first meet?

Mr. Pitura: The fall of '96.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us who is all on that or who are the members of that committee? Does it include representatives from each of the departments?

Mr. Pitura: The committee that was struck to look at co-ordinating the year 2000 compliance is a committee that consists of representatives from departments, primarily the directors of the information technology areas, and I am advised that the chair of the committee is the director of Information Systems for Housing.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us how many people are on the committee, who is chairing it and how many times it has met?

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Mr. Pitura: I think again the honourable member might be best advised to ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) that question as this committee is under the direction of that department. As to when it meets and how many times it has met would be information that could be gotten from that particular minister or from the chair of that committee.

Mr. Maloway: So is the minister telling us then that the Minister of Finance has a Year 2000 Committee that was set up last fall, the fall of '96, and on the committee that he is the only elected person and there are representatives from some departments, not all the departments on the committee, and we do not know how often it meets or whether it has ever met?

Mr. Pitura: I am sorry I have to apologize to the member for misleading him. The Honourable Eric Stefanson does not chair the committee as such, is not actively involved with the committee. The committee is under the Department of Finance and as such that is where his name is associated with that committee.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to then ask the minister how much of the existing hardware and software that the government owns or has possession of is actually year 2000 compliant at this time?

Mr. Pitura: I guess what I want to leave with the member for Elmwood is the fact that with regard to the initiative of desktop management, and that is basically the area in which the Department of Government Services is involved, that it is charged with the responsibility of co-ordinating and implementing desktop management across government.

With respect to the specific questions that the member for Elmwood raises, in many areas he is going with his questions outside what would be the terms of reference for my department to be involved with, and, as such, the responses would be best if they would come from those areas that have that responsibility.

So although desktop management is certainly a part of the overall system within the provincial government and because of the fact that it is across the provincial government and it is tied to many of these areas, the actual responsibility for those areas lies in one or other departments within government, and probably, as such, they are in the best position to answer those questions for the honourable member.

Mr. Maloway: The problem here, Mr. Minister, is that you have a lot of old equipment. You have about, I believe--I do not have the figures with me--8,000 computers that you own or have possession of. I understand that the majority of them, 2,000 or 3,000 of them, are old 286s which would be worth a couple of dollars today, I guess, in a garage sale if you could even find them there, and you have a couple of thousand more 386s, and then you have a couple of thousand more 486s.

As of the time you asked for the tenders last December, I guess it was, there were a grand total of 256 of them, I believe, that were even of Pentium quality or Pentium class. Well, today, even the Pentium100s are selling for $500, so that would give you an indication of how obsolete some of this stuff is. On the other hand, if it is doing the job, I guess, one cannot argue with it.

So what I am trying to find out and discover, and you must know or you must have an idea of how much money this is going to cost, is, I want to know how much money you anticipate spending on upgrading all this computer equipment, most of it obsolete, between now and the year 2000, and it is a separate issue, although it is related, what will the cost be of correcting the millennium bug problems, the year 2000 compliance problem? Because what you have, for example, in at least one of your Crown corporations is a scenario where I believe they are talking about eliminating huge areas of software because it is just costing them too much money to upgrade it to make it year 2000 compliant, so they are throwing the whole works out, and they are just buying fresh, new software.

So this could be an enormous costly problem that you have on your hands here, and I am trying to find out whether you even know how big the problem is. You have a committee that was set up in December. We do not know who is on it for sure. We do not know how many times it has met, if anything. We just do not have a clue as to what, in fact, is happening.

So have we dealt with the question of how big the problem is to begin with? How much code has to be changed? How many programmers have to be hired?

For example, I am told that programmers are very hard to get now. The people who were earning $40,000 a few months ago are demanding and getting $60,000 and $70,000, and I am told that that is going to increase substantially every six months between now and the year 2000.

So what we want to find out is, how much do you know about how big the problem is? If you do not know, just tell us. Just say, look, we do not know. We are just at the initial stage or we are just at one of the stages past the initial stage. I am trying to get convinced, in my own mind, find out just whether you people are on top of the problem, whether you understand how serious it is and, if you do, then tell us how serious it is.

Mr. Pitura: With response to the comments that the honourable member for Elmwood indicated saying and suggesting that perhaps the problem is a lot more complex and larger than one would expect, I would ask the honourable member, one of the reasons we have gone to a desktop management system is from the standpoint that this is a recognized problem across public institutions and governments across North America. It is at the point where, because of technology, remember that technology has to be there in the first place. You could not have done this probably seven or eight years ago, but you can in 1997 move to a common hardware technology across government so that many of the issues that the honourable member brings up, of course, are being addressed as a result of going to the desktop management proposal, going for an RFP and contracting with outsourcing for these services to ensure that the taxpayers of Manitoba are going to receive a higher level of service, a more cost-efficient service, and that the technology that we have in place within government is going to be able to meet not only the needs of government but also the needs of the taxpayer in years to come.

So many of the things that the honourable member has indicated as being issues and not knowing it is for that very basic reason, that everything that is being done within government is being done with that purpose in mind to be able to address those issues.

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Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us how much the correction of the year 2000 problem is going to cost the government?

Mr. Pitura: As I pointed out to the honourable member earlier, the compliance of the 2000 compliance issue is a corporate issue and that is being addressed by the committee that has been working under the Department of Finance to address the issue, the compliance with the year 2000, and as such they are addressing the issue. I am confident that they will be able to ensure that government will be able to serve its clientele without any problems come the year 2000.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Minister, you are in charge of the largest computer initiative, the minister is in charge of the largest computer initiative this province has had to deal with. I am expecting that the minister, because he is in charge of it, should be on top of the matter enough to be able to give us an idea of what solving of the year 2000 compliance problem, the millennium bug problem, is going to cost the taxpayers of this province. If he does not know at this point, when will he know and why does he not know?

Mr. Pitura: Madam Chairperson, with respect to the question of the honourable member for Elmwood, I would hope that he would realize that the type of question he is asking is one that is, in terms of the issue, being addressed in terms of conversion. I would probably say to the honourable member that our costs in Manitoba to have compliance for the year 2000 are probably not going to be very different from those costs incurred by any other province or jurisdiction within this country, because we are all faced with having to switch over to complying with the year 2000. Therefore, in terms of the costs, I do not have an answer that is specific for the member at this time, but I can assure the member that in terms of the ability for this government to be able to switch over to 2000 compliance will indeed be there.

Mr. Maloway: Can the minister then tell us when, at what stage, he will know what this will cost? Will it be in a month or two? Will it be at the end of the year?

Mr. Pitura: I just want to share with the honourable member for Elmwood the fact that with regard to approaching the year 2000, please keep in mind that we are 36 months away or very close to that--well, knock it down by six months. As we get closer, then I would see no problem being able to identify that type of a cost, but what I also want to share with the honourable member is the fact that when the year 2000 co-ordinating committee have addressed the issue, they will undoubtedly be able to supply us with what they see as a projected cost for moving to the year 2000. Manitoba Department of Government Services will supply, or at least be initiating or co-ordinating, the program for the desktop hardware in that regard as well, so that they will be part of the hardware linkage that the Year 2000 Committee is going to be referring to compliance with the year 2000.

Mr. Maloway: Can the minister tell us how many of the government's existing number of computers and software are 2000 compliant?

(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)

Mr. Pitura: The honourable member asked the question about how many computers within government are compliant with the year 2000. Again, I would refer to him that, with respect to the individual departments right now, individually each department could probably supply the member with a number of computer systems that they have that are compliant with the year 2000.

The overall objective of the exercise that we are going through, and part of the desktop management, of course, is to be able to have in place a uniform hardware system across government that can be 2000 compliant. At the same time the committee within the Department of Finance that is looking at the year 2000 program is going to be bringing forth direction as to compliance within the whole program area, and each department will be able to identify and work within that purview of that committee to identify its needs for the year 2000.

Mr. Maloway: By that I take it that the minister is admitting that none of the computers and none of the software is 2000 compliant? If that is that case, why does he not just say so?

Mr. Pitura: I would like to advise the member for Elmwood that very simply because I stated the fact that each department would have an idea of how many computers they had that were 2000 compliant. If the member were to ask the question as to how many computers within the Department of Government Services were 2000 compliant, we could probably provide him with that information. But he chooses to ask the numbers from across government, directing those questions to one government department that is just in the process of getting up and going with the desktop management program which, when down the road, will be able to supply him with that information on a regularly updated basis every Monday of the week, and those numbers would be readily available.

I point out again that that is one of the reasons that we went to a desktop management type of program so that we could address some of the very issues that the member is bringing up, the fact that departments have been evolving through the computer technology for a number of years; if there are 18 departments, they have been going in 18 different directions. This program is meant to bring all the departments within the same corporate framework with the same corporate structure to be able to address the very problems that the member continues to bring up.

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Mr. Maloway: Then could the minister tell us then how much of the Government Services department's computers and software are 2000 compliant?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, as the member for Elmwood probably can realize, I am not a computer technologist, so I have been using the wrong terminology to describe this whole area. It really is systems that are 2000 compliant, and as such there are three systems within Government Services that have been identified as being non-2000 compliant. However, what I have been advised is that within the Service First Initiatives these three areas would be replaced by that initiative. Therefore, at that point in time, they would be fully 2000 compliant.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, could the minister endeavour to get us the information from the other departments, to collect the information from the other departments as to what their status is regarding the 2000 compliance and what their costs will be and forward it to us as opposed to having us ask these questions at every single department, because I can tell the minister that I have done this already? In Consumer and Corporate Affairs, we hauled in each of the--

Mr. Pitura: You only have another 16 to go.

Mr. Maloway: Yes. We hauled in the heads of all of the individual SOAs and we asked them questions individually about what was happening with the computers in their departments and what was happening in that department. As the minister said, I only have another 16 departments, so by the time 2010 I will get to the bottom of this. I do not want to take that long, so I would ask the minister in his co-operative approach that he has taken as new minister in charge of this department, whether he would get us this information.

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, my response to the member for Elmwood would be that, if he wants the information within the next few months, I would say that it would be very difficult, but I think as far as the evolution of this whole process is concerned is that, as we go through this process, systems such as ours that are identified within Government Services are being identified in other departments. So, if the honourable member is not really pushing to get this information immediately, I will endeavour to supply you with the overall government in terms of the inventory analysis of government with regard to the systems, because that will probably be forthcoming as part of this whole initiative. At that time, I will gladly supply the member with that information.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister about the situation with regard to the Crown corporations. How do they fit into this whole compliance problem and this whole computer initiative on the part of SHL?

Mr. Pitura: They are not included.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, well, what are the Crowns doing then as far as their own computer needs are concerned? Is the minister saying that each one is on its own as far as going to the market for tenders and dealing with this problem?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, I am afraid I do not have the answer for the honourable member on that as to whether the Crowns are, indeed, working together or whether they are on their own.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, well, would the minister then endeavour to obtain this information, as he has already promised to do for the rest of the government? What we wanted from the rest of the government is the membership of this committee that was set up last fall and its meetings and how it has been able to quantify the problem at this point on a department-by-department basis. Of course, that only deals with the central government itself. It does not deal with the Crown, so we would want the same information provided for the Crowns. I would assume the Crown Corporations Council, if they have not asked this question already, would certainly be wanting to ask the question as to at what stage is each of the Crowns at with this. I know that as of January 1, I believe, in the United States one department was well ahead, well out in front. It started a couple of years ago with an internal committee. It identified the problem. It quantified the problem. It knows what it is going to cost to solve the problem, and it is working well ahead I believe it was the only--think it was Social Security department.

The other departments were canvassed and some of them did not even know there was a problem. They are the ones that are going to come in with excessively high costs because they are going to be put at the end of the line, whereas this other department that got on with the program and started working on this problem two years ago, at the end of the day, is likely to solve the problem at far less costs because they have got the benefit of being able to look at this thing long term, get programmers at lower prices and so on, and get the problem solved in advance. So what is happening with these Crown corporations, do they all have these internal committees? Who is on them? How many times have they met, and what are their costs going to be to get this year 2000 compliance problem solved?

Mr. Pitura: Somehow I get the feeling, Mr. Chairperson, that the honourable member for Elmwood is looking at me as a legislative library, but I would just like to share with the honourable member that the Crown corporations and the Crown Corporations Council do appear before the Public Utilities and Natural Resources committee and probably that time would be the best time to direct the question to determine whether there is a co-ordinated effort amongst the Crown's corporations or not, because it is not within the realm of this department that we are associated with the Crown corporations with regard to their desktop technology.

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Mr. Maloway: I guess if the minister will not ask the Crown Corporations Council, we will have to do that ourselves. But I would think, you know, that he should take that initiative because once again he is the minister in charge of the whole initiative. I think it would look better if he knew exactly what was going on in the entire government plus the Crowns in terms of how big a problem this is going to be. Nevertheless, we will keep plugging away at it and maybe have to ask the minister a few questions for information that we do not get. It is too bad that that has to happen, but I guess if that is what it takes.

I would like to ask the minister about the tendering process and the tendering process that was followed. In the tender, it indicated that the winning company, in this case SHL, would be responsible for taking over the contracts of some 50 or 52 government employees who were classified as computer, I guess, positions and whose contract with the MGEU ran out April 1, I think, of this year. What is the status of those 50 or 52 employees? Are they all still working for the government or they have been terminated? What is their status?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that there are 54 staff years, full-time equivalents, that have the potential to be impacted with this program. I am advised that all 54 are still in the employ of the provincial government, but I would like to share with the member the fact that with a company such as SHL taking over or managing the contract for desktop management, that certainly part of the contract discussions and negotiations, of course, would be with regards to the staff identifying the positions that would be necessary to employ within this contract, to be able to fulfill the contract. So in a very short sentence, probably the majority, the vast majority of these 54 staff, will probably have a very good future and future employment with the contractor in regards to fulfilling the contract.

Mr. Maloway: So can the minister confirm that these 54 people have been laid off at this point?

Mr. Pitura: No, they are not.

Mr. Maloway: When will they be laid off and rehired by SHL?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that with SHL and the provincial government and the 54 staff that are now presently working with the provincial government, that SHL will probably, is entering into discussions with the employees that are impacted. I would be fairly comfortable saying that the transition from government to private will probably be fairly smooth.

Mr. Maloway: When does the minister anticipate that this smooth transition will come about?

Mr. Pitura: Just to advise the honourable member that with the contract negotiations that are ongoing right now at the present time, of course, part of those negotiations would be the implementation of the program itself, and so therefore it would probably be in a staging process. We expect that probably early fall there would probably be the initial transition that takes place with an implementation plan laid out in terms of steps or stages by which the full transition would occur.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, this is a management contract, and I would like to ask the minister how many years is it for and what are the penalty clauses, because I knew there were some substantial penalty clauses at least in the original proposal. How many--well, let us just deal with those two questions first.

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, the contract is for a three-year term, and the penalty clauses that the member refers to do form part of the contract-negotiating process, and it would be very presumptuous on my part to indicate what the penalties are and what the magnitude is.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, will the minister tell us how much this contract is for?

Mr. Pitura: I just advised the honourable member and I had indicated earlier that the value of the contract was part of the negotiating process.

Mr. Maloway: Well, I know that. What I want to know is what is the value of the contract?

Mr. Pitura: I indicated earlier, the exact value of the contract is part of the negotiating process, and, as such, the response to the member's question is that there is a group that is at the present time assessing provincial government needs and putting benchmarks into place which would form part of the negotiating process and as a check in regard to the cost.

As I indicated earlier, the overall value of the contract is presently being negotiated with SHL.

Mr. Maloway: Well, let us deal with the fees then. Forget the value of the contract. Let us deal with the fees for SHL. What is the quantum of the fees for SHL?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, just to share with the honourable member that the entire value, the package for desktop management, is part of the negotiating process. As such, because negotiations are ongoing at the present time, it would be probably irresponsible of me to indicate any kind of ballpark dollar numbers because, as I indicated earlier, there are benchmarks being put into place, so that forms part of the negotiating process.

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Mr. Maloway: Maybe the minister can tell me, then, how the SHL will be paid if he cannot tell me how much they will be paid. Is it a percentage of the contract, or is it an absolute dollar contract amount? Which is it?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that they would be paid based on the service that they provided within the contract.

Mr. Maloway: So is that an hourly rate or is that a monthly rate, yearly rate or a percentage of something?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that there is an extensive, complex array of services that are being negotiated and would be offered; therefore, the method of payment per each service could indeed be quite different, depending on the kind of service that is being offered.

Mr. Maloway: Maybe we could deal with the confidentiality question then. SHL will be, I assume, operating out of their building here on Broadway. Where will the current computer records be kept? Will SHL have possession of these records on their own computers outside the building? How is that going to be resolved?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that the contract with SHL is a contract for infrastructure of a system, and as such the information on that system is not part of that contract. So they would have no responsibility for storage of any kind of data or information from this program.

Mr. Maloway: So essentially their job will be to look at the overall picture and ask for quotes from local suppliers when they feel like it if they cannot supply it themselves, and then they will install the systems and let the government employees deal with all the data problems. Who deals with the data problems if there are problems with it?

Mr. Pitura: In response to the member's question, and I hope I can get the handle on the answer properly, but the essence of the whole system is that there is a hardware and a software compatibility across government and, as such, when providing service for anybody that has difficulty--I think the member mentioned about data--that the responsibility for data management, firstly, lies within the responsibility of that department and that department only.

Secondly, if there is a problem with handling the data or retrieving the data or whatever within that department, then the essence of the contract is such that there would be persons within that department that would be properly trained to address that issue as part of the whole contract arrangement. Apart from that, the whole essence of the contract is to ensure that we have a infrastructure system of hardware and software that will operate and function across all government departments.

Mr. Maloway: Of your existing suppliers, there are going to be a number then that are going to be phased out, I would imagine. Are you telling me that all of your existing suppliers will be built into this new system that you have developed?

Mr. Pitura: Just to share with the honourable member that there are presently on the market some 92 different brands of hardware that are available. So, as a result of moving with desktop management to a more standardized type of hardware, I guess it would also make sense that because of that standardization process, probably the number of suppliers that could supply the product might be a few rather than many because of the fact of being able to supply the necessary technology.

Mr. Maloway: I believe last year and going back since to about 1990 now, several companies, three or four companies, have had the lion's share of the government computer business. It is my understanding that of the four or five companies, I guess they would all handle different kinds of products. So you cannot standardize it and keep all of these companies on board. That just will not happen. One that I noticed had come up fairly quickly since 1990 anyway was a company called I believe it was RDM. What do they sell and what components did they provide before, and where will they be in this whole new master plan?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, in response to the honourable member with regard to the companies and the kinds of products that they supply or could supply is that at this point in time, I cannot answer the question as to one company or the other company, but Systemhouse has been in conversation and in talks with a number of suppliers that could possibly supply the technology. Now, I am not a computer wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but something tells me that if I were to take a computer that--very much similar to cars when you change the label on the front and you basically have all the same major components within the mechanism. The main thing is that we are not trying to standardize the name so much on the outside of the machine as we are trying to standardize the guts.

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Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, but you are standardizing the name as well, let us not make any mistake about that. Unless there are some guarantees here that the local companies will be given some sort of fair chance at this, I do not think that you are going to see that. In terms of standardizing the equipment and so on, I mean, there has to be some sort of acceptable standards, and, of course, the companies know that. The hardware providers and software proprietors operate according to these standards. It is just that in this particular instance, and the minister can dispute it if he wants, but I have been told that Manitoba is pretty much the only jurisdiction in the country that does not have any standards at this time. You do not have any standards. Federal government on the other hand has a very good tendering system, and it actually has standards specifying exactly what each company has to produce. I have been told that you do not have those kind of standards. Now, why not?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, just for the member for Elmwood's information, earlier today I had indicated to him and answered that there are standards by which hardware and software is purchased within government as of March of this year.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I know that, but before that there were no standards. That was the point. I would like to ask the minister: What control does he have or will the government have to make certain that there is a local component to this venture? We at this point have no guarantees other than just promises that SHL has made. Now, SHL and IBM evidently have made certain intimations to certain other smaller companies saying if we are successful we will be doing business with you, but that is all they have got and when the crunch comes it is quite conceivable that these companies will be left right out of the picture completely because, I guess, if you shop far enough and wide enough you can always get a lower price somewhere, if you look far enough.

So I do not have any faith in this government that its plan is going to produce a system that is equitable to the local supplier. So I want to know what exactly the mechanism is here to make certain there is a local component, and does the government retain some sort of veto power over what SHL recommends and decides to do?

Mr. Pitura: I think earlier on today, I had indicated to the member that part of the RFP proposal that was requested by government earlier on was the individual proponent's ability to work with subcontracts or with subtrades within the RFP proposal. They also indicated their ability to work with local firms and also the ability to monitor the whole contract proposal as it proceeds.

I would also like to point out to the honourable member that the reason that the number of firms that he indicated had won contracts with the provincial government was the fact that they ran a very good business here in Manitoba and were very competitive, and that is the ultimate reason why these companies have these contracts with the provincial government. I would say to the honourable member that these companies continue in a light that they will likely enjoy a fair amount of business under the new contract as well.

So, it is not a case of saying it is going to be mandatory for a company to have X number of Manitoba companies, but rather the feeling that Manitoba companies are essentially here in Manitoba operating an industry or a business, because of the fact that they find that the economic conditions in Manitoba and the types of government programs there are in Manitoba allows them to be able to establish a vibrant business, to establish a business that is highly competitive and, as a result, win a lot of contracts both provincially and nationally and internationally. As a result, I am very optimistic that many of these companies will be participants in this contract, and they will be participating because they are good at what they do and they are very competitive.

Mr. Maloway: But it is conceivable that none of the local companies will be competitive enough to get any of this business, is it not?

Mr. Pitura: The member is being terribly pessimistic in, I think, maybe some of the tradition that they have been, the fact that they just cannot see Manitoba being a winner. Manitoba is a winner. Manitoba is a great place to invest and to run a business. I would also have to say to the member that I would certainly be a lot more optimistic than he is but, at the same time, it is very premature to speculate as to how it is going to end up with these businesses. If you look at the historical pattern of these industries in Manitoba and their ability to compete, and their ability to be efficient, and the economic climate in which they operate within Manitoba, that I would say it would have a chance of being very positive for these businesses.

Mr. Maloway: Well, could the minister tell us whether there is any Manitoba preference clauses in this agreement?

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Mr. Pitura: The answer is no, the reason for that being is that Manitoba is part of an Internal Trade Agreement that was signed--was it two years or a year ago?--about a year ago that prevents, well, as part of the agreement, provinces have agreed that they would not have preferential treatment for businesses within their own province.

Mr. Maloway: Clearly then, this signing of the agreement with SHL gives SHL a three-year period then to essentially do what they wish in terms of the desktop management in the province. Would the minister not agree with that statement?

Mr. Pitura: No, I do not agree with that statement, because in fact within the contract and the contract negotiations there is benchmarking that gives guidance to the contract in terms of the value of the contract, how the service is provided, what degree of service is provided. At the same time, there is going to be close monitoring along the way of these services so that--and we indicated earlier that as far as the penalty clauses within the contract, that they are certainly under negotiation as well. So I think that the honourable member is wrong in this, and the fact that this contract is virtually going to be like any other contract, and that is to be able to supply the services at the end of the day up to a certain level of quality, and that is acceptable by those people or those buying the service.

Mr. Maloway: Perhaps we could skip over to Government Air Services. I have a number of areas that I wanted to ask questions on. Perhaps, if the answers are forthcoming, we might be able to attempt to finish today. If not, we will be here tomorrow.

Under the Government Air Services, I would like to know what the cabinet minister's use of the government aircraft was in the last year.

Mr. Pitura: Just a correction for the member with regard to the Internal Trade Agreement. That was signed in July of 1995, for the record.

Mr. Maloway: I am waiting for the minister to answer the other question.

Mr. Pitura: I have numbers here for the--up till the end of February, no, this is the full year, for the fiscal year 1996-97. The total kilometres flown by ministers was 40,874 kilometres.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us what the cost of that travel would be?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, I am advised that the approximate cost is about $160,000 for those flights.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, can we go back then a couple of years that you would have records for there that are handy? We have got '96-97, so what about 1995-96? How many kilometres and the cost to the government?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, we do not have that information here, but we could supply that information to the honourable member.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, if the minister could, that would be fine--if you could do it for '94-95 and '95-96. I want to get an indication of whether the air travel is increasing or staying the same or decreasing. Can the minister tell us, then, where the trend has been over the last two or three years?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, for the honourable member's information here, in terms of the overall aircraft utilization, over the last number of years the actual trend has been for reduced use. Now I say that, and I say that with qualification, because we do go up and down, but overall, if you take a look from 1993-94 to '96-97, that in '96-97 is the lowest use of the aircraft in terms of flight hours, distance flown. Passenger numbers are down, and the only positive thing would be that the freight cargo in terms of weight has gone up. But overall passenger use of our aircraft is down over the last number of years in terms of a trend.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, the minister has obviously got some figures here that he is reading from. Would he provide me with a copy of that sheet?

Mr. Pitura: If I read you the figures, can you write them down?

Mr. Maloway: Sure.

Mr. Pitura: I will just give them to you. Okay. Total Flight Hours would be the heading.

Mr. Maloway: What year?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, '93-94, in round numbers, thirty-nine forty-seven; '94-95, forty-four ninety-nine--

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, 44,000 and--

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, 4,499.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, 4,499, and for the year before is three thousand--

Mr. Pitura: Nine hundred and forty-seven. Then, for '95-96, it was 4,978; and then for '96-97 it was 3,649.

Mr. Maloway: So the minister does not have the costs to the government for each of those years, does he, on that sheet?

Mr. Pitura: No, I do not have the cost figures on that sheet.

Mr. Maloway: Well, I see the staff feverishly looking for those figures, so if they are going to find them in the next minute or two, perhaps we could wait and get them from them. I would like to ask the minister if he could provide us with a list of the trips that were taken and where they have been to, basically the flight manifests of the different flights as to who went on them and what the purpose was for the flights for those years from '93-94, right up to '96-97.

Mr. Pitura: Is the honourable member referring to every flight manifest on the aircraft, or is the member referring to only that which is by cabinet ministers?

Mr. Maloway: I was simply asking for the cabinet ministers and government MLAs, I would think, and their any other spouses, assistants or whatever.

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Mr. Pitura: To try to answer the honourable member's question about the data going back to '93-94, the staff in my department will attempt to take a look at it to see if it is easily obtainable through the manifest to be able to get that information which you have requested. Should it require a great deal of work, then I guess my advice to the member is that he would seek the channel of Freedom of Information because of the staff involvement and the time and the necessity to pay for that time to put that research together for the member.

Mr. Maloway: Well, when will the minister be able to provide me with that information as to which information is going to be easily obtainable, and which is going to have to be obtained through Freedom of Information?

Mr. Pitura: Just to advise the honourable member that probably prior to the end of the session on Thursday.

Mr. Maloway: Well, I look forward to the minister's being able to dig up this information and, like I said, get the information that is easily obtainable and--[interjection] Sure, and if we need any more, we always know we can come back and ask more questions on this subject when we get into the concurrence motions.

What I wanted to do is to ask some questions about the Fleet Vehicles SOA and particularly as it relates to their selection of new vehicles and the reluctance of the previous minister to deal with any new technology. I see this minister is up to his neck in new technology right now and probably encouraged by it with all his computer initiatives, so I would ask him to consider looking forward to the use of or at least the purchase of some of the vehicles that are making their debut in the United States right now, the electric-powered vehicles that are available.

The minister is, no doubt, familiar now with Ballard Bus of Vancouver. They had a profile last night on CBC, but Ballard has been around for some time. I think I had mentioned this, maybe not in this set of Estimates, but certainly we have been discussing it this session. Ballard, in fact, had a bus here in Winnipeg about six months ago, and they had the television person doing a news clip, and she drank the exhaust out of a glass for the cameras to see.

Basically, it is a fuel cell that they produce, a hydrogen fuel cell, and just recently, I guess, which is what prompted the Venture show last night, Mercedes Benz has bought a quarter of the company for some huge amount of money, and Ford has signed some sort of deal with them to develop the fuel cell.

So these are some of the developments that are occurring in the area of attempting to reduce emissions and so on and getting vehicles off gasoline. What I wanted to know was what the government had done. Now, we went through this quite lengthy period last year with the previous minister, and his attitude at that time was he did not want to hear too much about these kinds of things. He was only interested in getting the lowest cost per unit from big Bob or whoever else he was buying his vehicles from at that time, and he was not really interested in the purchase of some alternative fuel vehicles.

That was kind of sad in a way and I will tell you why. I went to Thompson and Churchill last summer, and Thompson has significance here because Thompson is a cold weather test site for vehicles. Thompson has some sort of a contract with Ford of Canada. In fact, they test the Windstars up in Thompson. As a matter of fact, it has been reasonably successful, and Thompson has expanded the test site from Ford to--a number of other companies have been coaxed up there and, I think, are on the verge of doing something in Thompson.

That, coupled with the fact that Manitoba has an enormous hydro supply and nickel coming out of Thompson to produce batteries and so on, I mean, we are well positioned here to try to get into the market. I mean, the Minister of Industry, Trade and commerce is not here at the moment, but I would encourage him, rather than chasing around, writing more cheques to companies such as ManGlobe and Iris Systems and Teleglobe and so on, that he should be concentrating more on something a little more realistic here and looking at this kind of technology which is where Manitoba has, I think, a role to play. If Manitoba does not get involved in this type of technology, then it will be beat out over the long haul by other provinces, by Saskatchewan, by other provinces. So I would think that at least a recognition on the part of the government that there is a role for the government to play here and some kind of effort being made by the government would in fact enhance this program.

I might tell you too that in the United States, certain states such as, I believe it was, Arizona have a program, at least as it relates to the GM electric vehicle, the EV 1. They were giving reductions on the driver's licences and there were other incentive plans. In California, there were even more incentive plans that were being provided for people to buy these vehicles. Manitoba Hydro would have to be involved, because in the B.C. case, B.C. Hydro is involved in retrofitting people's electrical outlets, because when they plug these cars in they cannot just run on a regular, you know, your old plug-in that you plug your TV in. You need a circuit that is as big as the one you plug your washer and dryer in, that sort of a size.

So there are a tremendous amount of changes in that that will occur because of this, and we are not helping our cause any by staying away and letting somebody else solve the problem, because B.C. in Canada is the government that has jumped ahead on this. They are the ones that have roped in B.C. Hydro. They have got a deal signed with, I think it was, GM. They have an agreement signed with GM to participate in this program, and the other states that I have mentioned have different programs going on.

So here we are in Manitoba with the energy resources, we have the Thompson test site right now, and we have a government that until now has been asleep at the switch--totally asleep, just dozing. So I would like to ask the minister just what he is planning to do about this whole initiative.

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, I would like to take the opportunity now to introduce Dennis Ducharme who is the chief operating officer for the Fleet Vehicles Special Operating Agency.

In response to the member's question about electric vehicles, I am advised and given a bit of information here that in February, General Motors did approach the Fleet Vehicles Agency indicating the availability of some electric Chevy S10 pickups. However, they had a range of about 40 miles of stop-and-go driving, and this would depend on temperature, terrain, type of accessory use and driver use. The battery recharging takes about two and a half hours at room temperature.

GM, I think, indicated that it would be suited for organizations with daily driving where the vehicle would return back to the garage at night. So it would certainly make sense for somebody like Canada Post, let us say, that has all their vehicles returned back or some other delivery agency within the city where every vehicle returns to a central garage at night would be the most practical. GM also advises that the cost of purchasing one of these vehicles is about $46,000 each, which would be, you would have to buy 10 of them to get a minimum order.

An Honourable Member: What do you mean, you have to buy 10?

Mr. Pitura: You have to buy 10 to get that price. So, therefore, given the time or at least given the specs that were on the vehicle with regard to its ability to be able to provide a real good functional service for the provincial government, I do not think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that probably the application for electric trucks of that nature within the provincial government right now is probably not doable.

However, Fleet Vehicles is never, ever going to turn away from an opportunity to investigate an alternative fuel or an alternative method of --well, I should not say an alternative method of transportation, but alternative fuel anyway, so even now we have switched over--is it some vehicles? We have on order the one propane-powered van for the fleet pool so, you know, there will be encouragement for the transfer over to propane as an alternative fuel.

There are many alternative fuels coming onto the market. I am sure, as the member is aware, we are taking a look at high erucic acid rapeseed as a source of fuel for replacing diesel fuel so that diesel motors can actually burn canola oil as a substitute. So there are many, many innovative things coming on the market with regard to alternative fuels.

I would like to share with the member that I think that Fleet Vehicles, given the opportunity and given that we will take a look at all these alternatives with regard to operating Fleet Vehicles as a very efficient, customer-friendly type of service.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, this, of course is not new. I believe at the turn of the century, I found this quite hard to believe, but at the turn of the century there were more electric-powered cars on the road than there were gas-powered cars. The question is whatever happened to them after that, but I guess it did not take off.

In the '70s, I remember Russ Doern, one of my--well, he actually was my predecessor in Elmwood. I guess I have been here a long time--but was here for 20 years, was the minister in charge of Government Services in the '70s. I recall one day him unveiling a van and a couple of converted Renault 12s from some guy, I believe it was in Minneapolis, and they were testing them here around the front of the Legislative Building for the press. That was about 1975, so that is 20-some years ago now, but the fundamental problem with those vehicles, of course, is that they were not electric vehicles built from the ground up.

That is what you are going to find with your GM S10 here that you were approached on, and I am glad to see that GM is approaching you or you are approaching them or at least somebody is doing some approaching, because one year ago I was asking these very same questions about who is doing what to whom here, and most ministers did not know. The Highways minister had not heard of any of this at first, but he promised to look into it, so at least we have got, I think, a little bit of activity going, if it has gone to the point where GM has approached you. But the S10 pickups that you are talking about are essentially just basically S10 trucks with an electric motor put into them. That fundamentally is not, I guess, going to work because that is what those old Renaults were. They were just Renault 12s with electric batteries put into them.

(Mr. Mervin Tweed, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

The engineering people tell me that to make this thing work, you have to develop the vehicle. Every aspect of it has to be developed with electricity in mind. The tires have to be constructed differently, so they do not have a resistance to the road that normal tires do. There is a whole bunch of other engineering considerations. So we are not going to see major movement in this area until vehicles are constructed from the ground up using this kind of technology. So the GM S10 I am not surprised that you are not going to see terrific results right now. You might look at the EV-1 which is also a GM vehicle. In California now, because that was kind of slow-moving, they have evidently lowered the price considerably. Matter of fact, GM does not sell the vehicle. They will lease it only. It is not a saleable product. You cannot buy it. You could lease it only from them. It comes from sort of a guarantee or a warranty that if the battery croaks on you or something falls apart on it, I gather they just haul it in and replace it.

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Anyway recently, because of a slow uptake on this stuff, they have slashed their prices in half, so that in fact is happening. I mean, in other words, if you simply wait for GM to come to you and say here is the price and you just leave it at that, then that is probably not going to go too far. But if you get involved with them a little bit and make them an offer--and the offer in B.C. was that if the minister wanted to try out one of these vehicles, he had to turn in his vehicle for a 30-day period or whatever, and they exchange vehicles. They had an exchange program. So that is what you really want to get going with GM, some sort of an exchange program so you can get some of these things on the road, and you are going to have to get Manitoba Hydro involved as well.

Let us go on a little bit further on this, because the problem once again with these two GM vehicles is that they are still lead acid batteries. The Japanese manufacturers, I think, all of them have announced prototypes or announced production-model vehicles. I think Honda and all

of the manufacturers have announced vehicles that are going to come out using--and you may have the terminology for this type of batteries--but they are not lead acid. They take the range the lead acid batteries will only run maybe 100 miles before charge-ups, but these other kind, polymer batteries--is that the word for them? But anyway, whatever they are, those things will go 200 to 300 miles per change. These are all in these Japanese vehicles that are coming out, well, probably this year, 1997-98. Are you familiar with that class of vehicle then that the range is going to be double, and it is because they have scrapped the lead acid batteries, they are going with these new, improved batteries?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that Fleet Vehicles is I do not think apprised of the detail that the honourable member would in terms of asking the question he is referring to. However, because of the fact that they deal within the North American car market as part of the fleet operations across the country, as well as in terms of the information that comes out, they are apprised of these types of innovations coming forward. But in terms of the detailed knowledge, I am advised that there is not.

Let me just spend a bit of time with the member on this whole area of electric vehicles, because the intent is good. It is an environmentally friendly way to have transportation. But I think as the honourable realizes--and he is not as old as I am. I do not remember those electric cars at the turn of the century being in the same numbers as the gasoline cars--

An Honourable Member: Or greater.

Mr. Pitura: Or greater numbers, but there have always been the inherent inefficiencies of the electrical cars. As the member pointed out, they are put into a power train that is made for a gasoline motor and hence, the efficiency of the battery is taken down, or the weight of the batteries are so heavy, that you need to have passengers in the front seat to keep the car from tipping over backwards.

A number of these issues have come up, the expense, the cost. I can see that given the time and the involvement of the technology, I think that given the vision--and just to share with the member--of Fleet Vehicles is to provide complete vehicle management services to the broader public sector. The mission is that we are committed to provide our clients with a complete range of quality fleet management services to assist in the efficient delivery of public programs.

If you take the last part of that sentence, the efficient delivery of public programs, one always has to take into account, and the Fleet Vehicles does this, are these vehicles going to be able to provide their clients with the efficient delivery of public programs? If the delivery of those public programs are somehow put into jeopardy as a result of having a vehicle that either is going to leave you at the far end of your travel trip looking for a plug in, or cannot carry the merchandise that you would like to be able to transport, or, in terms of the cost for that particular department makes it uncompetitive, certainly then the more traditional sources of vehicles are going to be put into place.

But if the technology is there that the member is talking about with the so-called future going to a type of battery that is lightweight, high-energy absorbing, maybe even solar powered, even solar-powered vehicles are being looked at. As those technologies are developed, and these vehicles become more efficient--and I know that the Chairperson here today is a qualified auto dealer as well, so I am sure that he has been adverse to many of these new technological advances in the auto industry--as all those developments take place, it becomes more and more a reality that an agency such as Fleet Vehicles would probably have a very serious look at using vehicles that are electrically powered. Until such time as they can guarantee the efficient delivery of public programs by their customers, that comes first, so they have to take a look at how those vehicles can fulfill that demand.

Mr. Maloway: Would the minister endeavour to have Fleet Vehicles contact Toyota, Honda and Nissan, the Japanese manufacturers, who were coming out this year--I guess it is; yeah, sure, 1997-1998--with a production model vehicle? This is not just a single prototype. They are production-model vehicles and not just one of them. We are talking about more than one Japanese manufacturer, and the key was, they were not using lead acid batteries. They were using the new type batteries. It took GM six years to get this product on the market. The Japanese manufacturers held back a little bit, realized that it was going to take them another couple of years to get the market, so they would not beat GM out in the race to be first, but at the end of the day they were going to have double the capacity for distance with these things when they did come out.

So, if the minister would endeavour to get on the mailing list of these companies and then perhaps get me on the list as well, or you can send stuff to me, I can keep up on this issue as well. It seems to me that we need--a lot of this is technology, of course, but there is a certain amount of political direction here too that is required, and until the minister starts, you know, cashes in his existing vehicle and starts riding a bicycle or driving an electric vehicle or a hydrogen cell powered vehicle, or whatever, that is the type of direction and leadership that people expect from their governments.

If the political leadership themselves are insular and closed and hankering back to the 1900s and have not looked at a new idea since the turn of the century, if the political leadership take that attitude, then how do you expect the public to move along? I am expecting that this minister is going to be a break from the past and going to be a bit of a change, and he is going to make an effort to promote this idea, recognizing that it may help Manitoba in other areas in terms of the Thompson test site and so on.

So unless the effort is made to talk to them--I mean, B.C. did not get on this program, they did not get on the program by sitting back and waiting until they were approached. They found out about it and they actively went out and sought a partnership with the company, and they grabbed B.C Hydro and they got them all together and they said, you are going to retrofit this many houses to plug these things in; we are going to offer so many in the B.C. mainland for exchanges, so they exchanged so many vehicles. I do not know whether it was 50 or 100 of them or what number it was.

Anyway, this all happened last year, last summer, as a test program. Wherever this program has been tried--and I did have the list of all the different locations in the United States where this was tried--I mean, this program has gotten a tremendous amount of good public relations and publicity for the cause of the vehicle, but also for the people that were promoting it.

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I know that if I was a car company and I wanted the test in Thompson, I would be more encouraged if I thought the government was at least on the ball and willing to look at some other different areas as opposed to maybe being approached by Saskatchewan or being approached by B.C. Manitoba does have the power with Manitoba Hydro, so I would think Manitoba Hydro would be one of the first people that you would be approaching here, that Fleet Vehicles would be in touch with Manitoba Hydro and get in touch with one of these manufacturers and see what you can put together.

The minister may be, before the summer is out, driving a nice, new electric vehicle around the building here. So this is something that is not going to happen if we just sit back and do not make any efforts to push the idea.

Now, I want to ask the minister, what is going on over at Fleet Vehicles with respect to the purchase of new vehicles? I understand that the Fleet Vehicle changes out a number of vehicles every year. I had the figures for last year, so I would be looking for an update, and I wanted to know if the pattern of doing business with a certain car dealer in town has changed so that some other car dealers are getting a chance at some business. I believe last year at about this time we did some checking and we found that, I think it was, Keystone Ford had the lion's share of business with Fleet Vehicles for that previous 12 months, and we were hoping that at least I think some of the other dealers were hoping that they could get involved in some of this as well and that it would be spread out, the business would be spread out a little more. So if you would like to update me on what you have been doing for the last year in this area, I would certainly like to hear about it.

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, we would mention to the honourable member or at least indicate to the honourable member that Fleet is always interested in new ideas, new innovations, and that making contact with many of the Japanese manufacturers is not seen as a problem. That will be done. Probably, I could advise the member, he mentioned that he wanted to get onto the same list, that maybe he could pay for a subscription. Anyway, no, we will, if the information is readily available for the member, get it to him so that he is aware of what is being offered in the Japanese market.

Mr. Maloway: It will not be up to speed next year when this happens.

Mr. Pitura: Well, the member makes the point about being up to speed next year on this area, and I do not think there is any problem with Fleet Vehicles making any kind of changes like that in terms of innovation, but they do have to follow the basic parameters in being able to provide a certain level of customer satisfaction because, as the member might remember, when we first started out in the Estimates process here we talked a bit about Fleet Vehicles that day and the fact that as a special operating agency they are open to competition, so that any department within the provincial government may seek to find a more competitive price outside of Fleet Vehicles. So it is one thing to say, yes, we have an environmentally friendly car, except that we have no customers to use these cars, because they are too expensive and they do not do what they are supposed to do. So we always have to keep that in mind, that we are going to adhere to the principles that were laid out for Fleet Vehicles firstly. Secondly, the innovation part will come when it is presented as a real alternative. It will be, I am sure, jumped upon by Fleet Vehicles without any hesitation, because it will indeed give equal to or better service to each one of Fleet's customers.

The tendering process, the honourable member asked about how Fleet Vehicles tenders. Fleet tenders with the major North American automobile manufacturers and, as such, because it tenders with the manufacturers, it is up to the manufacturer then to decide what dealer they will deliver the cars through. So it is not a dealer being selected as part of the tendering process, it is the manufacturer winning the tender and then selecting the dealer through which a car or the cars will be delivered.

Mr. Maloway: So last year then or in the last 12 months, how many new cars were purchased and what were the brands of them or the companies that provided them?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, I am advised, and shown data here, that 286 new vehicles were purchased last year from Ford, GM, Chrysler and Red River Community College.

Mr. Maloway: What was the breakdown then of those 286 new vehicles between the three big manufacturers?

Mr. Pitura: I cannot give the member the breakdown by vehicle, but I can give him a breakdown in terms of dollar value.

An Honourable Member: How about manufacturer?

Mr. Pitura: By manufacturer. Dollar value by manufacturer. Sorry. Ford $1.28 million; GM $2.62 million; Chrysler $2.19 million.

An Honourable Member: Two point what?

Mr. Pitura: $2.19 million, and Red River Community College is almost an insignificant amount in that total. If you add them all up, it should be very close to $6.14 million.

An Honourable Member: How much?

Mr. Pitura: $6.14 million.

Mr. Maloway: Is that up or down over the previous year?

Mr. Pitura: That is down $2.6 million roughly.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, now of these 286 new cars, you do not know how many were split as between companies, just the dollar amount, right? You do not know how many vehicles were bought from Ford or bought from GM?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that that information can be readily retrieved for the member. It is not here today, but it can be retrieved.

Mr. Maloway: Well, I thank the honourable minister for getting that information. I would like to ask him, though, whether this incentive program is still in place. Starting two or three years and certainly continuing to last year, the car companies, at least two of the three, maybe three of the three, were offering an incentive to each dealer who was selected for their nameplate on the back of the car was given either a $100 or $150. It was the most bizarre little bit of information that I got from the previous minister. I think it was last year or the year before, and I just wondered who concocted this scheme and whether it is still operating.

Just so to tell the minister how it worked essentially is that they took the number of cars, and they spread them out among a certain amount of dealers. Each dealer who got allotted so many cars, say five or 10 cars, they got to put their nameplate on the back of the car. In addition to that, for popping their little nameplace in there, they got $100 found money, or $150 found money for this gluing on their nameplate. So I would like to know just where that program is at right now.

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Mr. Pitura: In response to the honourable member's question, the manufacturers who won the awards for cars in terms of the dealers throughout Manitoba, if a certain vehicle was being used in that part of the province, that dealer would like to have had some recognition for that car being out there. So between the manufacturer and the dealer, they established this little program that when the car came into Fleet Vehicles, because the car was going to be routed out say near Russell or Roblin, that the dealer there could get his nametag put on the back of the car as a way of recognizing the fact that they are out there. Probably in a lot of cases the automobile would end up there for servicing as a result of being a GM or a Ford or what have you.

In regards to the specific detail, for this year I am advised that GM gives the individual dealer recognition for the sale. Ford gives the dealer $100, plus recognition. Chrysler gives recognition for the sale. It is a case of having the respective dealer's decals on the back of the car and it is a deal that is made up between the manufacturer and the dealer and Fleet co-operates with the program.

Mr. Maloway: Well, last year somebody gave $150? Who was it, and why did they stop doing it?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that General Motors last year gave $150 to the dealers and, just as a result of a policy change with GM, they have withdrawn that now with their dealers.

Mr. Maloway: So of these 286 cars, roughly how many of them are in the city of Winnipeg versus the rural areas?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that overall fleet, okay, in terms of the breakdown is about two-thirds rural and one-third Winnipeg. If the member were to take that ratio and apply it to the new vehicles you would probably be relatively close on those numbers.

Mr. Maloway: So that would mean that roughly 100 vehicles would be in Winnipeg, I would think, new vehicles and, of those 100, they would be split. Ford would have about 30 of them maybe. Would that be reasonable?

Mr. Pitura: Actually, if you look at the numbers here, Mr. Chairperson, Ford would have approximately 20 percent; GM about 45 percent; and Chrysler probably about 40 percent, eyeballing it now, not guaranteed accurate.

Mr. Maloway: All right, Mr. Chairman, well, let us just say that Ford had 20 of those sales and Ford is the one company that is left with paying out $100 per vehicle. Now, how do you decide? I know we went through this last year and in the country it makes some sense. You probably could figure out which car belongs to which dealership. But in the city, how do you determine which vehicles--in this case, which ones are going to be given to each dealer? Do you take the total number of Ford dealers and divide by 20 and give out--I do not know, maybe there are four or five Ford dealers, so give them five cars apiece. Is that how you did it?

Mr. Pitura: It is basically up to the manufacturers as to how they want to move these vehicles through the dealers. They can choose to do them all through one or they can spread them out through five or six, whatever is available. That is their choice. Fleet has no role in that whatsoever.

Mr. Maloway: Then what about the warranty work and service work on these vehicles? Who decides how they are spread out? Presumably Fleet has, I think it is 2,000 vehicles or something like that, on the road, then what percentage--well, if you could tell me how many you have on the road and how many of them would be Fords?

Mr. Pitura: With regard to warranty work on the Fleet vehicles--the last part of the member's question, I will get the information for as I am giving this answer--Fleet will call, not necessarily the dealer that has a decal on the back, but if it is a Ford dealer that can take them in at the earliest opportunity and perform the warranty work as quickly as possible for Fleet. Since Fleet has a large number of cars, it is desirable to go that way because of their ability to get good co-operation from these dealers.

I think the member had a question about what percentage of the cars were Fords. I am advised that we would have to get that information for the member, and we probably will be able to get it and supply it.

Mr. Maloway: Well, if the minister could get that information for tomorrow, that would be fine, but let us assume that there are 2,000 Fleet vehicles on the road right now. Would that be reasonably close?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, 2,300 vehicles, according to the Supplementary Estimates.

Mr. Maloway: So I would guess, making the assumption that Ford has around 700 of them, that would be reasonably close?

Mr. Pitura: I guess for the honourable member's benefit, if it is an assumption that you are making, I am advised that you probably are pretty close.

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Mr. Maloway: We will have the correct information for tomorrow, but I just wanted a rough figure to work with right now. So let us say that we have 700 Ford vehicles on the road in Winnipeg. Now, how would we be deciding which Ford dealer gets to do the warranty work? I tell you in advance, last year when I asked the question, you guys were all over the map on this. The minister--well, you would have to read Hansard to see, but for every question I asked there was another answer to be provided.

I would also like to know, can I have a breakdown for this past year, because I had before, of how much warranty work and how many of the new vehicles were assigned, how they were assigned by Ford dealers in Winnipeg? So I would like to know how many Ford vehicles were assigned per dealer in Winnipeg. It is just too complicated to try to extrapolate this across the province. Let us just keep it to Winnipeg, keep it to Ford dealers rather than GM and Chrysler, and just deal with this one component.

Mr. Pitura: Just wondering if the member for Elmwood might clarify his question just a little bit. Are you referring to the total number of Fords in the fleet with warranty work?

Mr. Maloway: Yes, Mr. Minister, I am referring to the total amount of warranty work that would be done last year for the Fords in the city of Winnipeg, and how they were apportioned. So dealership A got X amount; dealership B got X amount.

I mean, last year the minister thought I was asking quite a detailed question about the computer, or was it the question about the minister's travels? If he goes back to Hansard last year, you see I asked the minister to provide all sorts of information; and, to his credit, he was probably the first minister in this government's nine-year history that actually produced all the results, produced everything I asked for and did it in a fairly timely manner. I am sorry, but I am used to dealing with other ministers whom you have to wait--a former Finance minister, you used to have to wait two or three years just to get a single question answered. So I was quite impressed with--see now I am impressed with him--the previous minister in that particular instance. In that particular instance, because I will admit that he got the information pretty much everything he had promised, and there was quite a lot of stuff that he had promised to deliver. He got it for me, and he got it for me very quickly too.

So last year this information was produced. What can we say about this without having to dig into all kinds of files and stuff?

Mr. Pitura: What I could advise the member is that we will certainly take a look at his requests from the standpoint of being able to glean the information out and probably provide him with an answer as to No. 1, how readily available the information can be for him; and, No. 2, if indeed the ability is there to be able to put it together in a reasonable period of time. What the member is asking for is a lot of research and certainly being able to exercise that kind of data is a nice thing to have, but you do not like to do it on a continual basis. With that in mind we can probably get an answer to the member tomorrow as to what the terms of reference would be on getting that information for the member.

Mr. Maloway: I really do not see where it would be that difficult at all. Last year we had information from Fleet Vehicles which indicated how much work each of the dealerships got from Fleet business. There was a breakdown, you would be familiar with it, last year it showed one car dealer in Manitoba, in Winnipeg, had the lion's share of Fleet business and had breakdowns right across the province. We were able to sit down and add up, you know, just what business Fleet did with each dealership, so it was very clear. One had a lion's share and, of course, once the others found out about it, they wanted to know why they did not get as much business as the big one.

Mr. Pitura: I can advise the member for Elmwood that with regard to vehicles and getting service at dealers in Winnipeg, that information is readily available, and I think the difficulty comes with the member asking for specific warranty work, because warranty--[interjection] Oh, you want just the total?

Mr. Maloway: We just wanted to know how much warranty work, on a dollar basis, was done at dealership A and dealership B and dealership C--exactly what I got last year.

Mr. Pitura: There should be no problem supplying that information to the member, because the original question was the warranty work and that was going to make it difficult, because we would have to go back in some cases with vehicles over a three-year period to find out where they had the warranty work. The member's question now makes it a lot easier to put that information together. So if the member is satisfied with that then--

Mr. Maloway: So what is it that you are going to produce now?

Mr. Pitura: We will be able to supply the member the dollar volume of the business with each dealership in Winnipeg.

Mr. Maloway: The other mystery that we could not sort out last year was how did we decide who got the warranty work--that was a real conundrum--and what is the criteria that you use to decide where the warranty work goes? Is it the person who is driving the vehicle? You know, because uncle Fred is in the business or whatever and decides he wants to go over to another place, or is it the dealership that is closest to where the driver lives, or is the dealership that is closest to where he works from, or is it none of the above?

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Mr. Pitura: I am advised that with the warranty work--I think I indicated earlier to the member that the warranty work is taken to the dealer that can provide the level of service to Fleet on a timely basis for fleet vehicles. There is also the tendency to spread some of the work around, but you would also have to take a look at the drivers of the vehicles in terms of what is convenient for them, that that is taken into account.

Especially in rural Manitoba, provincial government employees there who drive fleet vehicles may wish to have their warranty work done at a specific spot, but the member has to remember that because there are six Ford dealers in Winnipeg, not all six Ford dealers might be able to perform the work at a time convenient to Fleet Vehicles. So you have to remember that that is a factor of them being able to do business for Fleet. I am sure that, once they have the opportunity to be able to respond that they would, indeed, get the business. From that standpoint, I think Fleet is very fair in the way it gets its warranty work done on vehicles.

Mr. Maloway: It is still not clear as to what the order of authority is. Does somebody from Fleet Vehicles shop the warranty work around, find out who can do it the quickest, and then ship out the vehicle? Is that the way it works?

Mr. Pitura: The answer is yes.

Mr. Maloway: So the driver of the vehicle, then, just does not arbitrarily decide to take the vehicle in for warranty work to his or her favourite dealership.

Mr. Pitura: I think that, if I am correct in assessing this, when I lease a vehicle from a leasing company, my first recourse is to go back to my leasing company. They in turn take a look after all my needs, whether it be warranty work or repair work. So they would effectively look after the vehicle. I think on most occasions that would be done the same thing with Fleet Vehicles making those arrangements.

Mr. Maloway: Then how does Fleet, because that was by no means clear last year--given that Fleet Vehicles now are the ones that decide ultimately where this warranty work is done, what system do they have to get the work done?

Mr. Pitura: For the member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway), it all boils down to who can do the work in a timely, efficient manner for Fleet Vehicles, is the way they choose to. That is the way they choose to get the warranty work done. That is, I guess, the main basis for them selecting people to do the warranty work.

Mr. Maloway: Would not a rotation basis work better to make certain that each dealership got exactly the same amount, at least maybe not in terms of dollar value of the work, but certainly in terms of number of cases?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that the basic premise behind the Fleet Vehicles and getting the warranty work done is to be able to get the vehicle in and get it fixed and get it back on the road as quickly as possible so that the client can continue to deliver the efficient delivery of public programs.

Mr. Maloway: So what the minister is saying, then, is that you could have some pretty lopsided results then. You could have maybe 10 pieces of warranty work going to one dealer and another dealer getting zero because they could not do the work as quickly or did not have the time or were too far away from where the car was.

Mr. Pitura: I might remind the member here that it would be speculative on our part to be able to say anything that all the business goes one way and zero goes the other way until we wait for the numbers to come forth, and then you would have a better idea of what the balance is like between the various dealerships.

Mr. Maloway: Then why does Fleet not develop some sort of rotation system? I am sure distance would not be a problem. I can understand that, if the car is headquartered in Transcona, taking it out to Charleswood or something might be quite a bit of a distance, but the car dealers, at least my experience has been, seem to be more than willing to please. You take your car in for some work, and they will drive you to your job or wherever you have to go.

Would it not make sense to have some sort of a rotation system whereby they would all be relatively assured that they were getting equal amounts of the work no matter how maybe inconvenient their locations are, because I mean some of them are more convenient than others?

There are dealerships just close to the Legislative Building here, I am sure, that, because of their proximity, might justify most of the warranty work to be done than dealerships way out on the periphery where it would be, in a way, an imposition to take the vehicle out there. But I am just wondering, are the dealers all basically understanding, and are they apprised of the situation so that, if they understood that they were going to get every fifth or every sixth piece of warranty work, would they not accommodate Fleet and pick the vehicle up or do whatever was necessary to accommodate the situation just so that they did get the work?

Mr. Pitura: I think I have to make it clear with the honourable member for Elmwood that Fleet's first responsibility is to the people who drive their cars. As such, it is not Fleet's responsibility to ensure that every dealer in Winnipeg gets the right number of service calls for their vehicles, but rather to make sure that the customer is able to efficiently deliver public programs when they have a car that requires warranty work.

I can go back, and here again I go with my age thing again with the honourable member, but I can remember there was a time when I was a civil servant in the province and I had a government vehicle that when I brought it into central provincial garage my interests were not put in front in terms of getting the car fixed. Like, it would not have mattered whether I was in there for the whole day or half a day or two days to get a minor repair done, that was not the important aspect of it. Today it is quite a bit different where we have the ability to have good customer service and keeping our customers up and going so that they can fulfill the roles that they have been hired to perform.

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So Fleet's basic objective is to have the turnaround time on that car go as fast as possible, and when push comes to shove you pick the dealer that is going to give you the work done as quickly as possible. I think that if you wanted to have that spread out, what you are doing is reverting back to the system that we once had, that if you cannot get the warranty work done today but the dealer can do it tomorrow, are we going to make the driver of that car wait for a day for that vehicle to come back? Whereas another dealer will fix it that morning. So we have to always keep that in mind in terms of being able to keep satisfied customers driving Fleet vehicles. Again, I would mention to the honourable member that if we do not keep satisfied customers in Fleet Vehicles, they are going to shop elsewhere to get their vehicles where they get good service. So service is a very important part of the whole scheme of the Fleet Vehicles Agency.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, has there been any representations by any private interests of the minister or Fleet Vehicles in terms of privatizing some or all of the functions of Fleet Vehicles Agency?

Mr. Pitura: The answer is no.

Mr. Maloway: Perhaps we could pursue more questions about Fleet Vehicles tomorrow when we start again.

I did want to ask a few questions on another area before we finish for the day, and that is this whole question of the cleaning staff in this building and some of the other buildings. What precisely has been going on here and is going on with regard to cleaning staff in these buildings?

Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairperson, one of the areas that government has been moving to, and not only government but the private industry, is a methodology of having a different system of cleaning buildings. The member quizzed me on this on the first day about the study that was being done on public buildings, and for the purposes, that study in turn produces information which we can use to more effectively manage public buildings. But I would share with the member that since 1991 something like 14 public buildings within the province's responsibility have gone and moved over to cycle cleaning. Cycle cleaning is just a new approach to keeping buildings clean, and it has worked very effectively in the 14 other buildings, and it was gleaned that within the Legislature and the Law Courts building that this type of cleaning could also work as well.

Mr. Maloway: The minister, though, indicated that none of these cleaning staff would lose their jobs, but my information is that is not true, that cleaning staff did lose their jobs and were not reassigned.

In other words, Mr. Chairman, we were assured in the beginning that these positions, the people would be taken care of in terms of given re-employment somewhere else, but the truth of the matter evidently is somewhat different in that the people were not given jobs somewhere else, that they were let go and that was the end of it. They ended up on the unemployment insurance lines.

Mr. Pitura: I just want to inform the member that the detail that he is requesting we will be able to supply that for him tomorrow. But I would like to indicate to the member that with regard to cycle cleaning that in terms of the ability to maintain the cleanliness of a building, especially a building that is in the public domain, has certainly been verified and attested to by the number of buildings that are already on cycle cleaning. In fact, I would dare say that probably most people working in this building probably did not notice when the cycle cleaning changed.

I would also like to share with the member the fact that with the impact on the staff with the result of cycle cleaning that our Human Resources division within Government Services has been working very hard and very diligently on behalf of the workers that are impacted. In some cases we will be able to work with them in terms of training, so that they can actually contract for some services in terms of cleaning, i.e., being trained as entrepreneurs.

Secondly, they are on the redeployment list within the provincial government. Again, there would be a possibility for redeployment within government, but every effort is being made by the Human Resources area of our department to reduce the impact on the employees and to actually help them make the adjustment whether it be from government to the private sector or from government into running their own business, so that those kinds of programs are an ongoing effort by Human Resources within our department.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us then how many of these staff are laid off?

Mr. Pitura: I am advised that it probably would be agreeable, I think, from our standpoint to be able to get back on this topic tomorrow to go through it in full detail when we have the resource people here to be able to help us out.

Mr. Maloway: So, at this point then, the minister is unable to tell us how many people were laid off.

Mr. Pitura: Very quickly, what I would like to share with the member for Elmwood is an accurate detail, because there are stages to this whole thing. So I would like to provide the member with facts.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Tweed): The hour now being six o'clock, committee rise.