Oral Questions

Madam Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, I would like to draw the attention of all honourable members to the public gallery where we have this afternoon forty-five Grade 9 students from Hastings School under the direction of Mr. Barry Wittenvrongel and Mrs. Roxanne McComber. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Newman).

We also have twenty-seven Grades 7 and 8 students from Darwin School under the direction of Mr. Harold Bell. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Newman).

On behalf of all honourable members, I welcome you this afternoon.

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): My question is to the First Minister. Today we learned that 11 patients are in the hallways of St. Boniface Hospital. Regrettably, Madam Speaker, some of those patients have been in the hallway for a number of days. This is a tragedy for those families in terms of dealing with their families and the privacy and dignity of those patients that are in those hallways. These people are waiting for rooms, rooms that this Premier (Mr. Filmon) has closed in previous budgets, rooms that they have paid for and he has closed.

I would like to ask the Premier: what impact on those 11 people has his broken promise made in terms of breaking his promise to put $600 million in capital before the election and breaking his promise and freezing that capital after the election? How many of those patients are in the hallways directly as a result of his broken election promise?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, we on this side of the House, along with other members, certainly feel for any patient in the system who has to wait for a bed in a particular facility. It is by far not the desirable situation I think of anyone administering a hospital or the Minister of Health or anyone on this particular side of the House.

What has been happening in health care systems right across the country--as the member well knows, as we have seen changes in technology we have seen shifts of services to long-term care, to home care, and Manitoba has probably one of the best, if not the best home care system in the country--has been a reduction in acute care beds. With the reduction of dollars we have received from Ottawa, we admit very clearly that our system has been running at its maximum. When you have a flu crisis as we had this year or you have a flood as we did last year, it puts additional strain on the system at the particular time, and that is what we have been experiencing. We hope that we can get through that as quickly as possible.

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Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, there is not one patient in those hallways today at St. Boniface that is suffering from the flu. It is this government and this Premier that closed the acute care beds. It is this Premier that has fired the nursing staff and health care staff, and it is this Premier that broke his word.

I would like to ask the Premier a further question. What impact on the backlog of patients in hallways has there been from the government's decision last year to close the Odd Fellows home, a home that had 43 patients in it, regrettably, some of whom have moved back into personal care homes? What impact has your decision on your facilities made on our line-ups at our crisis situation in our hallways?

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that the additional numbers of flu cases that have hit us this year have put strain on the entire system, and there is no doubt, indeed, that we have many patients in acute care beds who are waiting for placement in long-term care facilities. That is why this administration in this budget has committed a sizeable amount of dollars towards long-term care beds which should start to ease part of that.

With respect to the Odd Fellows, if I remember that issue correctly, we were dealing with a facility that was very old. It was time-dated. Surely, the member for Concordia is not asking us to refrain from replacing outdated facilities within our system. That will continue. In fact, some of the personal care home beds approved in this budget on top of the 500 new ones are for replacements.

If we look across the system, from time to time beds will need to be replaced. If I remember, as well, from my briefings on the Odd Fellows situation, that organization was not interested in actually being the managers of a replacement facility.

Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, this is just one example of the chaos and crisis in health care with this government and this Premier (Mr. Filmon). They fire the staff, close the beds before they have any other plan and any other resources, and then they break their election promises on capital.

We know from family members of the people who were in the Odd Fellows home before it was closed down completely that those people, many of whom have gone from that home to personal care homes, have blocked the beds from people who may be released from hospitals. Now we get it. You are supposed to build the transition beds before you close the other beds. We get it, and this Premier does not get it.

I would like to ask this Premier--and he was warned by Dr. Evelyn Shapiro: why is he not taking any advice from any health care experts? Why is he just running roughshod over the health care system here in Manitoba, and why has he created the crisis that has resulted in 11 patients sitting in the hallway at St. Boniface Hospital here this morning? Why has he taken these decisions to do this, and why will he not accept responsibility for his cutback after cutback after cutback in health care?

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition continues to describe the changes that are going on in the system in a manner that would suggest that the system should not undergo any change. His own member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) in this House and other members of the New Democratic Party have spoken for years about the need to change services. Manitoba has been a leader in developing, for example, the Home Care program. We have tripled, under the Filmon administration, the amount of dollars that go into home care. In fact, we are being hailed nationally even on the CBC news in the reports of the--Halifax used Manitoba as the example of having a good home care system. We continue to build those services. This is getting the numbers exactly right in terms of acute care beds. We run the system very tightly. No one has denied it on this side of the House, and one of the reasons we have had to do that is because of the reduction of the financial support from the Government of Canada.

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Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Je suis allé a l'Hôpital Saint-Boniface cet après-midi.

[Translation]

I went to St. Boniface Hospital this afternoon.

[English]

Is the Minister of Health aware that St. Boniface Hospital, of the 11 patients, all admitted patients, were lying in the hallway? I talked to a gentleman with double pneumonia who has waited since Sunday for a bed and may have to wait till the weekend, and I talked to an elderly gentleman who had had a heart attack and is lying in the hallway clutching his urinal in his hand as he spoke with me, and he is waiting for a bed. The residents who are in the hallway have to go into a separate room to have bowel movements, but that room is blocked by another patient, so they have nowhere to go, Madam Speaker, as we speak today. Is the Premier (Mr. Filmon) or the Minister of Health not surprised why we are demanding real dollars this budget, real new money into the health care system to deal with this crisis? There are options you could take today to deal with the bed crisis by putting some funding in to deal with it at least in the interim and help these people who are lying in the hallways.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, we on this side of the House, certainly myself as Minister of Health and the Premier share that concern about those patients who are waiting for rooms in our hospitals. We have not liked the situation either. That is why when we were advised last, I believe it was December by the Winnipeg Hospital Authority that they could see they would have an additional requirement for acute care beds, we asked them to identify--and I know members talk about people having paid for beds, but in the parlance of health care, a bed is more than just a bed in a room. It has to be staffed.

They identified, in working with the nine hospitals in our facility across our city of Winnipeg, 83 additional beds that they could bring into operation; that meant staff and operate. They had difficulty doing that because--[interjection] Well, the member says we fire--well, that would imply that people were unemployed and available to work. It was not the case because they have found other employment in a growing home care field and in other parts of health care. So we put into operation the dollars to maximize the acute care beds that the system could identify we could bring into operation. If we require to provide more, we will certainly look at that, but I tell you today, even if we were to identify dollars to be there, it would not necessarily solve the problem that the member is identifying.

Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, is the Minister of Health saying that they are not in a position to do something about this crisis when they blamed it on the flu, and we know there is no flu outbreak that is causing this problem today, when they closed 43 beds at Odd Fellows last year, and we told them: keep those beds open until you have alternatives in place, but put those people from those beds into nursing homes? When they have not been able to open on a short-term basis beds, are they asking the Manitobans, the 11 lying in the hallway--and the nurse who said to me nine years ago they could not take blood in the hallway; today they are doing all the services in the hallway. Are they telling me that they are incapable of dealing with this crisis? Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that they are only putting in $2 million new budget.

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, throughout the last year, as we have seen different areas that required additional funding, the Treasury Board of this government has provided those dollars. The result has been that year over year on base versus base, apples to apples, we have added $100 million additional dollars to our system.

An Honourable Member: Wrong.

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Mr. Praznik: The members say "wrong." They would prefer to compare apples to oranges. I think that is unfair, and if they want to judge our total spending they should judge it at the end of the year when we know exactly what we have spent, if they want to do a fair comparison.

Madam Speaker, let me tell the honourable member--he references the Odd Fellows. We replaced beds at Deer Lodge, for example, that have been built and opened, and we have not closed the beds that were to be replaced. We have kept them open during this particular time to help ease the system. They are not the best beds. They are not the best rooms. They are not desirable at all in our modern system of care. They are very old beds. I think there are three persons to a room, but we have kept them open during this period to help ease some of that pressure. Those beds have been replaced already, and those beds are in operation.

Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, does not the Minister of Health recognize the fact when he was appointed as the new Health minister a year ago, he opened swing beds a year ago, and since then there have been diversions? Since then there has been a crisis in all of the emergency wards, and despite what the government has pitifully tried to do, through their incompetence and their relying only on the regional authority, they have not been able to deal with this crisis. What are we to tell the families, some of whom we spoke to today at St. Boniface Hospital, about their members who are in the hallway and will remain there for a week and perhaps week after week while the minister talks about planning at his regional health authority? That is not acceptable.

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, we have moved well beyond the planning stage. As we are able, changes are being made in the way we deliver programs. We began in rural Manitoba with regionalization last year, and it has been very, very successful. We see the same kinds of changes happening in the Winnipeg system. Needless to say, when a system undergoes a great period of change there are going to be stresses upon it.

The member opposite talks about nine years. What I hear from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), from the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak) is that we should turn back the clock in some way and have a very old and antiquated system.

The other very key point is all of our provincial health care systems are under added stress because of the reduction of federal dollars. I have not yet heard from the provincial New Democratic Party any criticism of that fact. It totally makes it difficult for us, if what we need is a united front, to tell the federal government that they have to put additional dollars into our health care system.

Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Yesterday we received a copy of the special warrant which formally modified the 1997-98 budget providing for an additional $98.6 million to be spent on health for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998. The Order-in-Council dated February 18 states clearly that the amount provided by the special warrant shall be added to and is deemed to be part of the appropriation specified in the warrant for the fiscal year for which the warrant is issued. In other words, $98.6 million has been legally added to the '97-98 budget of the Department of Health so that the real increase in '98-99 is only $1.35 million.

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Leonard Evans: Will the Minister of Finance search his conscience and stop misleading Manitobans and admit openly and honestly that he is providing not an additional $100 million in his budget but in reality a paltry $1.35 million?

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Burrows, on a point of order.

Mr. Doug Martindale (Deputy Opposition House Leader): Madam Speaker, I believe the member for Brandon East's (Mr. Leonard Evans) microphone was not on. I wonder if you could give him the opportunity to just repeat his question. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: Well, I am not sure if I just heard him audibly from his seat, but I thought I heard it through my sound system.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. On the point of order raised by the honourable member for Burrows, may I ask the honourable member to whom the question was addressed whether he heard the question--for clarification? Did the honourable minister hear the question posed?

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An Honourable Member: Yes, sure.

An Honourable Member: Is it in public record?

An Honourable Member: Will Hansard hear it?

Madam Speaker: I will look into it, and I will assume responsibility for ensuring that the question is appropriately recorded in Hansard.

Order, please. At the conclusion of Question Period I will consult with the sound technician to ensure that the member's question does appear on the official record. I assume that there was no point of order, but I assume that satisfies the concerns raised by the honourable member for Burrows.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): On a point of order. Just to clarify, I understand the way the new system works is that when someone asks a question the mikes around them are turned off and the speakers may be turned off so there is not feedback, so that may be why there are people on this side of the House--

An Honourable Member: You are not behind it.

Mr. Kowalski: Yes. So it might have something to do with the system.

Madam Speaker: I thank the honourable member for The Maples. He does not have a point of order, but I thank him for his clarification. I would request that all members be a little patient. It is a brand-new system, and probably we will have the odd technical glitch until the system has been refined.

I know as of yesterday I had difficulty hearing the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson), and his mike was on and my sound was full volume. I did address that situation with the sound technician.

We have indicated all along the 1998 budget has $100 million more than the 1997 budget, and that is not counting the additional $10 million that has also been provided for additional equipment requirements in our health care system, totalling $110 million more in 1998 for our budget than 1997.

As I told the member opposite yesterday, in 1997-98 if there has been a need in home care, we met that need; if there is a need in our hospital system, we meet that need. If there is a need in our personal care home system, we meet it, and we provide the resources when required at that particular point in time.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Brandon East, with a supplementary question.

Mr. Leonard Evans: I will table for members of the House copies of the Order-in-Council. Will the minister read the clear and unequivocal statement in the Order-in-Council which states that the special warrant is deemed to be part of the appropriation specified for the fiscal year for which the warrant is issued? In other words, the 1997-98 budget has been modified, so you cannot in all honesty tell the people of Manitoba that you have added a hundred million dollars. Will this minister come clean and admit now that he has only got another $1.35 million in new money for 1998-99? Let that be clear.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I would remind the honourable member for Brandon East to pick and choose his words carefully. The language has started to deteriorate in the Chamber of late, and all members are honourable members.

Mr. Stefanson: Madam Speaker, I certainly know what the Order-in-Council says because I was one of the signatories to it. This member for Brandon East has been in this Chamber long enough and has been around long enough--in fact, he was even in government for a period of time--that he should be able to understand budgets very clearly. I encourage him to look in the budget document on page 17 and see what the 1998 budget is providing for health care here in Manitoba and look at what was provided in the 1997 budget here in Manitoba, and he will see very clearly an increase of $100 million of additional resources for our health care system, for our hospitals, for our personal care homes, for our home care system and for all of the needs that Manitobans have in terms of our health care system. As I told this member before, we spend almost 35 percent of our budget on health care, the second most of any province in all of Canada. On a per capita basis, we are spending the third most of any province in all of Canada. That is a substantial commitment to the health care needs of Manitobans.

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Mr. Leonard Evans: I would like to know very straightforwardly from this minister: why did he hold up the release of this special warrant dated February 18, 1998, until yesterday? That is over two and a half weeks and after his Budget Address of last week. Why can this minister not be open, honest and straightforward with the people of Manitoba?

Mr. Stefanson: First of all, Madam Speaker, I do not release the Orders-in-Council and, secondly, I am not so certain I accept even what the honourable member said there. I will confirm when it was released because they have certainly been incorrect in the past in terms of providing that kind of information, but I encourage the member for Brandon East to do exactly what he just indicated and to look at this budget document and look at page 17 of the budget document and to read the assessments done by organizations like the media, by organizations like the financial reviews that have been done of our budget to date, and he will see very clearly the strong commitment for health care here in Manitoba. We have increased spending in this budget by $200 million, and of that $200-million increase, 50 percent or $100 million more has been allocated for the health care needs of Manitobans. That is a very significant commitment for health care in our province.

Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, Manitobans know when the Finance minister's credibility is being tested; he starts to shout and rant and rave just like others on that side.

Could the Minister of Finance explain why the special warrant says, and I quote, authorizing the further expenditure of $178,478,800 for the purpose of paying expenses incurred or to be incurred in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998, not in '99? He has provided $1.3 million for the next year; he has provided all of this money to be spent by the end of this fiscal year. That is what his warrant says.

Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister of Finance): Madam Speaker, some things never change with the member for Crescentwood in terms of the nature of his questions and remaining at the bottom of the gutter. If he needs to talk about credibility--

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I believe very similar terminology--I do not have the ruling in front of me--has been ruled unparliamentary previously. I would ask that the honourable Minister of Finance please pick and choose his words carefully so as not to provoke debate.

Mr. Stefanson: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This is an interesting question being asked by members opposite, and one gets the appearance they do not want us to be adding more money to our health care system. They seem concerned about the fact that we have added in excess of $90 million to our health care system in 1997-98 to meet the needs in our home care system, in our personal care homes, in our hospital system, and the fact that we have now built into our base budgeting a hundred million dollars more for all of those important services so that that money is there from this day forward on an ongoing basis each and every year to support our hospitals, our personal care homes and our home care system. We believe that is in the best interests of Manitobans. That will serve us well in terms of our health care needs, and that is why we have built that additional $100 million right into our base budgeting, right into our core budgeting, moving forward.

Mr. Sale: Madam Speaker, I would ask the Minister of Finance to confirm or refute the fact that last year his government spent $1.87 billion in its health care system and its increase is nowhere near a hundred million, not even close. It is under half of that. Even if he went back two years, it is under half of a hundred million dollars. Will he finally confirm that he put $1.3 million new money into this budget for this year? He put in approximately 43 last year, because two years ago he spent 1.870. It already was two years back, and you are saying a hundred million dollars more. Not even close. Not even in the ballpark.

Mr. Stefanson: Madam Speaker, as usual the member for Crescentwood's numbers are all wrong, and I encourage him to participate in the Estimates process when we get to the Department of Health and other departments because his numbers once again are wrong. I give him the same advice I gave the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans): Talk to his Leader who just a few minutes ago stood before us and talked about cuts, cuts, cuts, and now we have these members standing before us talking about the fact that we have added over $90 million to the system, and they seem concerned about that. They seem to think that is not the right thing to do. Well, we know it is the right thing to do. We put those resources in place for our health care system, and we are proud of that.

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Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for The Gaming Control Act (Mr. Radcliffe). The Gaming Commission established by this government has largely been silent about the serious issue of problem gamblers and, like the government, does not deny that a problem exists, rather, shrewdly acknowledges the problem, allowing it to be perceived as a defender of the public good, but offers few, if any, solutions. One proposed solution to help problem gamblers is changing VLTs that indicate exactly how much real money an individual has wagered rather than how many credits and slowing the machines down. Can the minister indicate if the commission is considering any such changes?

Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister charged with the administration of The Manitoba Lotteries Corporation Act): Madam Speaker, I know the nature of play on machines, VLT machines, has been in the media somewhat of late, and there have been some comparisons with the province of Alberta. I do not have all of the details here before me today, and I will certainly undertake to provide them for the member for The Maples. I know Manitoba compares very well to other provinces in terms of how quickly you can play the machines, I guess is the simplest way to put it, that ours are at a slower pace than these other machines in other jurisdictions even in terms of accessing them to be putting more money in while you are playing. Again, ours is at a much slower pace so that on a comparative basis our machines are what I would describe as better in terms of precluding the kinds of things that the member for The Maples has talked about. I will certainly undertake to provide him the detailed comparisons and look forward to any other comments your might have.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): A further question for the same minister: is the commission considering any attempts to regulate Internet gaming as is being done in some U.S. states?

Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister charged with the administration of The Manitoba Lotteries Corporation Act): Madam Speaker, that is a challenge for all jurisdictions, because certainly my understanding is that it is illegal, something we are working with other jurisdictions, other provinces and with the federal government to address.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): My last question for the minister is: can the minister responsible for the Gaming Control Commission indicate to this House if this commission is actively examining any regulatory changes designed to help problem gamblers?

Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister charged with the administration of The Manitoba Lotteries Corporation Act): Madam Speaker, I think a couple of things to point out, again, as the member for The Maples knows, just recently, in consultation with the Addictions Foundation, with the Manitoba Hotel Association, the Restaurant and Food Services, the Gaming Control Commission, Lotteries Corporation that they have put in place a problem-gambling customer assistance program which I am told is being very well received by people in the industry. They are recognizing the need to have that kind of a program. I think that will be a very beneficial program and again, if the member for the Maples gets an opportunity to look at our budget, he will see that this budget that we have just tabled provides an additional $600,000 for the Addictions Foundation, bringing the total commitment now to up over $1.5 million to provide the additional resources to the Addictions Foundation for the counsellors in the area primarily of providing additional education and counselling services as required.

So again, I know I have had questions like this in the past, and we have said if the Addictions Foundation comes forward with a request and a detailed plan to address a need, that we would provide the resources, and in this budget we are now providing an additional $600,000 to them primarily to provide education, because I think we all can agree in this Chamber--we might have some areas we disagree on gaming; I think we can all agree about the importance of education for all of our citizens but particularly our young people.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Madam Speaker, the current Minister of Finance who presides over a balanced budget for the fourth year in a row and--

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Ms. Barrett: I have not finished my question yet. And also he presides over a slush fund of somewhere around half a billion dollars. He attended with me on June 2, 1994, almost four full years ago, the ground-breaking ceremonies for a 100-bed personal care home facility in Winnipeg which was to be called Betel Place. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance how he justifies almost four years of inaction on this project that would have alleviated fully one-third of the immediate shortage of personal care home beds in Manitoba, thereby reducing the abysmal situation of seniors and critically ill patients staying in the hallways of hospitals for a week or more. How does he justify that?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): What the member has flagged is the freeze that we as an administration had to put on our capital program because the cost of financing that particular program, as we looked at our reductions and transfer payments and other things, at that particular time we would not have been able to bear it, so we had to put a freeze on that particular program. You know, again, members opposite seem to ignore the fact that we have had substantial reductions in support from Ottawa, and that has put a great pressure on our whole budgetary system. There is no doubt about that. I am pleased to tell her that the Betel project is one of those projects that has been approved. The Betel organization has had a change in their priority, and we are currently negotiating for another sponsor.

Ms. Barrett: Madam Speaker, as I table a letter from the previous Minister of Health dated February 21, 1995, over three years ago, after the federal cuts in transfer payments were announced, acknowledging, and I quote: the importance of this vital project, end quote, and pledging that construction would begin, quote: early this year in 1995, I would like to ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) to explain these four years of inaction on this particular personal care home and others that they had announced prior to the last provincial election with the Minister of Finance's own words in this House this afternoon, and I quote, if there is a need in the personal care home system, we will meet that need.

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, there is no one on this side of the House who, if we had our druthers, would not have wanted to be in the ground on those projects. We certainly would have wanted to proceed with them.

One of the difficulties all provincial governments, including provinces governed by New Democratic Party administrations, have faced has been significant reductions in support from the national government that continue to want to appear to promote a national medicare and health care system, but in reality continue to withdraw resources from it. Because of some very sound management, because of the efforts across this province where we have seen our economy pull ahead, it is now generating significantly more wealth for us as Manitobans, and we are now able to come back with our capital program and get into the ground in these much-needed projects.

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Ms. Barrett: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier how he can possibly think Manitobans will believe his current promises on personal care home bed construction when his previous Health minister promised it would be in early 1995, his current Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) said it was a marvellous thing that was going to go ahead immediately, and when the Betel group was prepared as late as last year to go ahead with the construction of this personal care home. How can Manitobans possibly believe this government on their current promises?

Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, because Manitobans know that this government has constructed a thousand additional personal care beds since it has been in office this decade, and in addition to that has made commitments for more in this budget that will be carried out.

Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Justice. The government recently touted and bragged about a new risk assessment for inmates which the government claimed would, and I quote from the annual report, enhance the institution's ability to identify inmate risk factors and to respond with appropriate security.

My question to the minister: given that this government in the last week alone is the one that has closed the doors of a hospital and opened the doors of prisons, I ask is this new so-called state-of-the-art risk assessment procedure now in place.

Hon. Vic Toews (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Speaker, in our corrections facilities there is always a need to ensure public safety on the one hand, and to ensure that there is an appropriate reintegration of prisoners into society at the appropriate time. Milner Ridge is a medium- or low-security institution. A risk assessment is done in respect of each prisoner. I would indicate that the system is not perfect, and yet many other provinces look to our specific risk assessment system as one of the best in Canada and, indeed, are considering and have adopted aspects, if not all of it. So while I admit that no system in governing prisoners is perfect, we do have a very good system and good administrators who administer that assessment.

Mr. Mackintosh: I ask the minister: how can Manitobans have any confidence left in this kind of rhetoric? I feel sorry for the governments across Canada looking at this province. How can we have confidence when Milner Ridge escapee Kevin Shale, who was convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend and confining her and her five-year-old daughter, we are told, over the course of two hours, be classified by this government as a low risk, and get this, guilty of offences against property? Is this zero tolerance?

Mr. Toews: Madam Speaker, one of the benefits that we are seeing as a result of the implementation of a number of recommendations over the last year is that there are various levels of ensuring that the public is safe in various particular cases, even if one aspect is found wanting or a mistake is made. We now have a rapid deployment of resources to ensure public safety because of that communication of information. I think in respect of particularly the Lavoie recommendations we have seen an integration of communication that assists law enforcement officers in ensuring that people are in fact kept safe and that prisoners are returned as quickly as possible if an error is made.

Mr. Mackintosh: Can the minister then explain why Remand Centre escapee Wayne Taylor, who I understand is still at large and who was facing three robbery charges and who I understand had a history of an escape, is given minimum-security status and let out into the middle of the city of Winnipeg to take out the garbage? During the last campaign when the Premier closed the prison doors, on which side of those bars were the prisoners?

Mr. Toews: Madam Speaker, this is the same member, the member for St. Johns, who has asked us to implement aspects of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry that in fact has asked us to turn the Brandon Correctional Institution and The Pas Correctional Institution into open-door prisons. This is what this member wants us to do, and I say that is the wrong thing to do. What the people of Manitoba need are secure facilities, and I am committed to giving them those secure facilities by the appropriate facilities being in place.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. Time for Oral Questions has expired.