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Madam Speaker: The hour being 5 p.m., it is time for Private Members' Business.
Res. 12--Financial Figures Used in Pre-Budget Consultations
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): I move, seconded by the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers), that
"WHEREAS the process of consulting with citizens of Manitoba concerning the upcoming budget is a valuable process which was begun under the New Democratic government; and
"WHEREAS concerns have been raised about the current pre-budget consultation process regarding whether it is truly an open public process; and
"WHEREAS the citizens of Manitoba rights hold many and diverse views about questions of revenue and expenditure of their Government; and
"WHEREAS such an exercise of consultation can only be useful if it is based on factual information concerning the state of the finances of the province at the time of the consultation; and
"WHEREAS it is clear that in the 1998/99 consultations the Minister of Finance has mislead Manitobans in regard to the level of revenues expected in 1997/98 and the level of the accumulated deficit and the level of employment creation here in Manitoba.
"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba direct the Provincial Government to use current and correct financial information in all pre-budget consultations, to be made widely and publicly available at the time of the consultations; and
"BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this Assembly direct the Minister of Finance to ensure that current misleading practices are stopped immediately, prior to any future consultations."
Madam Speaker: Order, please. Resolution 12, as put forward by the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale), regrettably, is not in order. Beauchesne Citation 566.(3) obligates a Speaker "to call the attention of the mover and of the House to the irregularity of a motion; whereupon the motion is usually withdrawn or so modified as to be no longer objectionable."
The procedure difficulty with the resolution occurs in the two BE IT RESOLVED portions, and in particular the phrase "that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba direct the Provincial Government" and the phrase "that this Assembly direct the Minister of Finance."
Citation 553(1) of Beauchesne states: "by its resolutions the House declares its own opinions and purposes."
It is not in order for a resolution of the Assembly to direct the actions of any institutions or group other than itself. A review of past resolutions debated by this House showed that it is not Manitoba practice to include in private members' resolutions phraseology which would amount to the Assembly directing the government to take some action. The review did reveal that wherever the words "direct" or "directing" have been used with reference to the government or individual government departments or ministers, they have been qualified by words such as "urge the minister to consider."
The honourable member does have some options. He can move the resolution again, after having made the necessary corrections and having given a new notice, or the member may wish to seek unanimous consent of the House to submit and have debated a corrected resolution in the near future, perhaps even today. At this time, however, I am ruling Resolution 12 as it presently reads out of order, and, therefore, unless there is another action, it will be removed from the Order Paper.
Mr. Sale: Madam Speaker, I would request consent to change the words "direct" to "to consider," the words that you suggested, in both of the BE IT FURTHER RESOLVEDs; that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba request the provincial government "to consider using current and direct," and the same words in the second one, "to request that current misleading practices be stopped immediately prior to any future consultations."
I believe that would meet your concern.
Madam Speaker: Would the honourable member for Crescentwood please provide those changes in writing to the table officer.
Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): On a point of order, Madam Speaker, if the honourable member wishes to adjust this resolution to take account of the concern expressed by yourself, Your Honour, a few moments ago, I believe there would be agreement to allow the resolution to go in that amended or corrected fashion.
Madam Speaker: It is my understanding, then, there is unanimous consent to permit the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) to make the requested changes to his resolution so it will be in order. Agreed? [agreed]
Madam Speaker: I will now read the corrected--I will try. It is my understanding, and I stand to be corrected, because we do not have a written copy, that the motion has been moved by the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale), seconded by the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers), Resolution No. 12, and I will just reread--I think I can--the THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED portion.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba request the provincial government to consider using current and correct financial information in all pre-budget consultations to be made widely and publicly available at the time of the consultations; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this Assembly request the Minister of Finance to ensure that current misleading practices are stopped immediately prior to any future consultations.
Mr. Sale: Madam Speaker, first let me thank you for giving direction. I wish it were possible under our rules that this direction could be given prior to a motion coming up so that we would not have the procedural problem of trying to amend it in place, but I thank you for giving the correction and the instruction to us, I think, to be more clear about the words we use so that they are always respecting the practices of the House.
Let me also thank the honourable government House leader (Mr. McCrae) for giving consent to the debating of this resolution. I appreciate that very much, and I extend through you my thanks to him for that.
In the first place, the process of consulting Manitobans about budgets and about the state of the provincial finances goes back into the mid-1980s when then Finance minister Schroeder began the process of touring the province quite extensively. I had the privilege at that time of being a civil servant working for the government and I enjoyed that and learned a great deal from people who are still in that department, serving this government well and faithfully. I have always appreciated the opportunity that I had to learn a great deal from both elected and appointed officials in the Department of Finance.
The process was intended to convey real and accurate information to Manitobans about the choices that they faced. I make no apologies for the fact that the intention of the Honourable Victor Schroeder and his successor, the Honourable Eugene Kostyra, as ministers of Finance, were ministers at a very difficult time in our provincial, financial history. Inflation was running at that point in the high single-digit numbers and, in fact, in the early years of the 1980s it was actually in double-digit figures, so it was a very difficult time. Of course, honourable members opposite will remember those times because the federal Liberal government and the federal Conservative governments were trying at the same time to deal with extremely difficult financial circumstances.
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So one of the jobs of those consultation processes was to accurately convey to Manitobans the state of their provincial finances and to urge them to be realistic in their demands on the provincial Treasury. Now, you cannot urge people to be realistic in their demands in regard to something that they do not understand. So the first part of our job and the first part of the current Finance minister's job in consultations is to explain how the process works, and that is very valuable because the more the public understands how provincial budget making works, the more they will be responsible in their choices of government and in their decisions to ask government for various kinds of support.
So, intrinsically, going out and talking to individual Manitobans and to groups is a very useful process. I am very glad that under Premier Pawley that process began and I am very glad that under the current government it has continued.
However, the usefulness of the process is enormously dependent on the accuracy of the information that is shared. You know it is a common computer statement: garbage in, garbage out. So if you share information that is not correct, then you risk getting back from people opinion that is not going to be useful because it is based on incorrect information.
Let me deal first then with the first part of this resolution in terms of the accuracy of financial information. Since 1994-95, Madam Speaker, the government has consistently underestimated its revenues. It has done that by a relatively simple expedient, and it is one that the Finance minister has not denied, so I assume that he has validated it. It is quite simply this: about two-thirds of our revenue as a province are dependent on federal revenues. Our equalization revenue, our personal and corporate income tax revenues are directly affected by federal government decisions about the economy. So every year in the late part of a given year, the federal government provides estimates to all provinces of what the federal government expects will happen to revenues in the coming year. What they tell each province is: we expect your revenues in the form of income tax to grow by thus and such a percentage over the present year. That is the key. The federal government tells provinces what percentage increase to expect on the basis of their current revenue.
What the Finance minister has done is to use not the current revenue as the basis for that revenue increase but the previous year's estimate. It is a very simple expedient, but it has the effect of grossly understating provincial income tax expectations. This happens because in a rising economy, which we have been in federally in our country since 1992-93, provincially since '94-95 our revenues have been growing, the budgeted revenue and the actual revenue are substantially different.
So the Finance minister does not tell the whole story when he tells the House and the province, I expect revenues to grow by 3.2 percent, for example, in the income tax area and that is what the federal government has told me. He is telling the House the truth. He expects on the basis of federal estimates revenues to grow, but the federal estimate is based on the actual year to date, not on last year's budget. So the Finance minister takes the real federal projection, but he applies it to the wrong base. He applies it to the previous year's budget, not to the real revenues currently being experienced. So it is, unfortunately, a shell game in terms of revenues. The minister knows that, because he knows and we know that the federal revenue estimates are not based on last year's budget but on the real year-to-date revenues.
Now why would you do that, Madam Speaker? Well, there is one very good reason, and that is that the provincial government does not want to acknowledge the revenue that it has because it is embarrassed by having a Fiscal Stabilization Fund of $577 million while patients known to all of us on both sides of the House sit in hallways grasping their urinals, performing bodily functions in public, dying in corridors, bodies being placed behind curtains hoping that distraught parents in to see their child being treated will not realize there is a child who has died behind the curtain. This is a gruesome and ghastly situation. This government was not willing to let Manitobans know just how much revenue was flowing into its coffers, because it knew that if Manitobans realized that the real revenues were at least $200 million higher than the Finance minister was telling us, Manitobans would demand that people not live in corridors, not die in corridors, not have to perform bodily functions in public, not have children unable to get diagnostic tests just because it happens to be a long weekend. That is why the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) has not told the truth in regard to revenues in his budget for the last three years.
Now, lest members opposite think that we are simply making a political statement here, I urge them, as individual members and particularly those who inhabit the upper benches, to go and read the third quarterly statements for the last three years in a row. For the last three years in a row, Madam Speaker, by the end of the third quarter it was clear that our revenues were going to be between $150 million and $200 million higher than they had been in the Estimates.
This year, by the end of the third quarter, the actual number was $190 million more than budget. That does not count the special flood revenue, does not count any of those one-time things. That is just the natural growth in revenues; $190 million more than was budgeted. So by the end of the fourth quarter it would stand to reason that it is going to be in the $225 million to $250 million more-than-budgeted situation.
That is why for the last couple of years we have had big, special warrants approved in the health area. Not because they planned to spend more money, not because they had any plan at all, in fact, that has become very clear when you look at Misericordia Hospital, when you look at what is happening in all kinds of places in our acute care health system, but because they were embarrassed with the amount of money flowing into the Treasury. They knew it would look terrible on the bottom line to have vastly more money than they budgeted. So they ratcheted up their spending and attempted to hide some of the revenue. Not with a plan in mind. We know there is no plan, but simply to hide the revenue.
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So, Madam Speaker, another area in which the government has grossly mislead Manitobans is in how the Fiscal Stabilization Fund actually works in the first place. In years like 1990-91, '89-90, '93-94, at least they were transparent about what they were moving in and out of the Fiscal Stabilization Fund, and you can see it. You can see them moving money in one year, moving out the next year, and there is some sense at least that you can track it. But for the last two years, for 1997-98 and 1998-99, there is a footnote approximately the size of the PC Party logo on their last signs. You needed to be Mr. Magoo with thick glasses to be able to make out the fine print on their election signs.
The Filmon Team and Manitoba Strong, but Progressive Conservatives was so small that one would think it was the phone book. We just find this tiny little three. You go and find footnote No. 3, and it says, note, own-source revenue includes $60 million from the Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Well, in previous years it was right there in bold print, transfers from the Fiscal Stabilization Fund. They actually showed them. The last two years, hidden in own-source revenues.
You know most folk would not say that money from your bank account, your savings account was revenue. That would not be thought of as revenue, that would be thought of as savings that you were taking out of your savings account in order to give yourself whatever it was you were doing, whether it was a capital repair or a special expenditure, but, no, this is shown as revenue.
The scale of the surpluses over the last few years--two years ago the year-end surplus was three times the forecast. Last year it was four times the forecast. This year it is going to be about eight and a half to nine times the forecast. That level of underestimation is not just cautious arithmetic. It is deliberate misstating of the revenues based on a clever use of federal estimates but applied to the wrong base figure.
In terms of what is happening inside the revenue growth of this province, we can only, for a sense of what is going to happen this year, turn to the federal monthly projections. The federal government is much more transparent in terms of what it tells Canadians. It publishes a little document called the Fiscal Monitor every month. The Fiscal Monitor comes out, and it does not make any adjustments. It does not fudge numbers. It is just this is what we got; this is what we spent; no special adjustments.
So, Madam Speaker, by the end of last month, that is by the end of 10 months of the year, January's results, federal revenues were up 10.2 percent year over year, and yet this Finance minister (Mr. Stefanson) expects Manitobans to believe that our revenues will fundamentally not grow at all. That is what his budget says. His budget in 1998-99 is trying to tell Manitobans that we will have only $1 million more than we had the previous year. This is over a $5.5-billion budget; he is trying to tell us we will only have $1 million more whereas the federal revenues are up 10.2 percent year to date.
The Finance minister tells us, on the other hand, that Manitoba's economy is doing at least as well as the federal government and maybe better.
An Honourable Member: And they are expanding the casinos, too.
Mr. Sale: That is, of course, another interesting issue around revenue. Casino revenue year to date is up 18 percent. It was budgeted to be flat.
So we have all kinds of misleading data, and I wish I had time to go into the employment data because that is the area in which perhaps there is even more misleading information, and that is the suggestion that there were some 15,000 jobs created last year. In fact, as the data show, there were only 1,800 new jobs between January of one year and January of the next. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): I am pleased to rise to first of all put notice forward to the member opposite that regardless of the change to the resolution, I, or the government, will not be supporting the resolution as it has been presented even with the amendment.
I also want to just put on the record, Madam Speaker, that I take exception to the tone and the language that is in a resolution like this. The practice of the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale), the word "misleading" and accusations of that kind certainly do not do anything for the stature or for the people who are in this Assembly because it cannot be substantiated. He continually plays loosely with that kind of terminology, and I take strong exception to it, because for three elections now this government has been re-elected by the people of Manitoba, re-elected on an agenda and a plan and a program that has probably put us in the strongest position of any province in Canada. So I think it is extremely important that be put on the record, but I want to talk more specifically to some of the points made.
The 1998 budget consultation exercise provided us with an excellent opportunity to discuss our financial and economic situation with Manitobans and solicit input. We are committed to ensuring that the decisions we make over the next few years continue to reflect the priorities of Manitobans. That is absolutely essential, that the government reflect the wishes and the desires of the people of Manitoba, and, as I said, for three elections in a row we were endorsed by the people of Manitoba. So I take strong exception to the fact that the members opposite criticize the process and the input which we have had from Manitobans because it is not the government they are criticizing, it is the people of Manitoba they are criticizing in this resolution. I think it is despicable that they would put themselves in a position to directly affront the people of Manitoba.
The member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) accuses the government of misleading Manitobans during the last round of budget consultations in regard to the 1997-98 revenues, the level of accumulated deficit and the level of employment creation here in Manitoba. Let me address, first of all, the issue of employment numbers. When this government prepared the brochures and other public information material that accompanies the consultation process, the government used the most current Statistics Canada employment information available from the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics.
When these brochures were prepared, there were nine months of employment data available; that is to September of 1997. The data showed that, on a year-to-year basis to September of 1997, there were 15,000 more Manitobans employed than had been the case for the same nine months in the period in 1996. That is how the initial job growth figure of 15,000 was calculated, based on the best information available. When October 1997 data became available, that information was immediately incorporated into material used by my colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson). In his public presentations during the consultation process, it showed slightly lower year-to-date job gains of 14,100, but that was the most current information and that is what we used.
Now, we initially printed enough brochures to mail one to every household in the province of Manitoba, well over 400,000. That is probably what upsets them, Madam Speaker, more than anything. We did not incur the added expense of reprinting the remaining, or remailing over 400,000 brochures to incorporate the minor changes. And I hope the member opposite is not suggesting that we should have done so. However, maybe he would have liked to have seen us do that because taxing the public is no problem for the members opposite, as demonstrated in the years that they had the misfortune, or the people of Manitoba had the misfortune, of having them running the affairs of the public.
In any event, when all the job numbers for 1997 were in, I am pleased to report that Manitoba's employment performance exceeded the national average. Now, I know that the member opposite does not believe that, and of course one would hope that he would at least give fair consideration to it. He is thoroughly convinced, as are members opposite, his colleagues, that Manitoba has not had any job growth at all in the last year or so. Things are just awful, and it must be so because, of course, the Duke of Doom says so, and, of course, if the Duke of Doom says so, it has to be fact.
Madam Speaker: Order please, I will remind the honourable minister that all members are honourable members in this Chamber.
Mr. Downey: Yes, Madam Speaker, I apologize. Let me rephrase it. The Honourable Duke of Doom.
I apologize, Madam Speaker, for using the Duke of Doom. I am saying the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) who has been referred to by certain sources as the Duke of Doom.
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I recall, and I am sure most other members of this House recall as well, that the member opposite, by his own admission--and this is important--by his own admission is not too good with numbers. We do have to give credit where credit is due. The honourable member has told the truth about himself, and one should quote it. I am quoting here from the official record of the House on May 13, 1997, when the member for Crescentwood said, and I quote, I claim absolutely no knowledge in the area of statistics. I have a great deal of difficulty interpreting statistics without someone on hand to help, et cetera, et cetera, end of quote. One should always use a quote when it is appropriate from the honourable member opposite, and I felt that was quite appropriate. I have a good deal of sympathy with the member's predicament. I am sometimes a little unsure about statistics myself, and I am certainly not shy about relying on some advice from experts when it comes to statistics.
I have been advised by the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics that the final Statistics Canada information on Manitoba's employment performance can be summarized as follows: Total employment in the province averaged 538,300 persons last year, an all-time high, and a net total of almost 13,000 new jobs were created. Thirteen thousand new jobs. Our overall job growth rate in 1997 was 2.4 percent, the third best performance among the provinces and well above Canada's annual average gain of 1.9 percent. Our job performance last year was the best since 1986. We should all cheer about that. That strong job growth pushed Manitoba's unemployment rate to an average of just 6.6 percent for the year, our best performance in 16 years. Manitoba's jobless rate reached its lowest level since the 1981 annual rate of 5.9 percent and was lower than any year during the 1980s' expansion.
Of course, that was when the members opposite had the responsibility of governing the province. I will not comment on how they handled that responsibility at this point, but one can certainly probably get from the tone of my comments that we would not be overly happy with it.
I might also add that, as of April 9, Statistics Canada reports that Manitoba's unemployment rate has dropped to 5.2 percent, the lowest in Canada and lower than at any time when the party opposite last formed a government. Well, some would refer to them--you know, I will not comment again on the type of government.
Statistics Canada reports that all our growth in 1997 was in full-time jobs. There were 429,800 Manitobans working full time in 1997, a gain of 14,700 over the 1996 annual average of 415,100 persons. Our full-time job growth rate was 3.5 percent for the year, the strongest among the provinces and nearly twice the national gain of 1.8 percent. Manitoba's annual growth in full-time jobs has outpaced the national average in two of the last three years. In fact, the proportion of Manitobans with full-time jobs in 1997 was at its highest level since 1989.
The private sector drove Manitoba's employment growth in 1997, again, the private sector. Total private-sector employment for the year averaged 438,500 persons, a gain of some 16,800 or up 4 percent from the 1996 levels. This was the second highest growth rate among the provinces and well ahead of Canada at 2.6 percent gain. Private-sector employment in Manitoba accounted for 81.5 percent of all jobs in Manitoba, the highest level ever. Again, a compliment to the private sector for the creation of those jobs.
We are pleased that Manitoba's strong economic performance has contributed to better than expected revenue growth. Our survey of economic forecasters shows that Manitoba enjoyed the third best economic growth among provinces last year. This excellent growth will continue to generate the higher revenue necessary to offset the large federal transfer cuts we are all too familiar with.
Of course, it is not always the case that prudent forecasts are adopted. Recently, the NDP government in British Columbia suffered the misfortune of significantly overforecasting revenues. The budgeted $87-million B.C. surplus last year came in, in fact, as a $395-million deficit. Is that the way we want to go in the province of Manitoba? No way.
The NDP government of Saskatchewan now reports that their revenues will fall short of their budget projections necessitating a draw on Saskatchewan's liquor and gaming fund. We do not believe that overestimating revenues based on unrealistic economic forecasts will contribute anything to the longer term security of vital social programs.
For the current year, we are projecting our third consecutive budgetary surplus, a modest $28 million or $1 million more than we estimated at the time of the budget. As my colleague the honourable Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) indicated in the third quarter financial report, revenues will be higher than expected. This allows us to add additional resources to important program areas such as health care.
The member opposite's resolution seeks to jeopardize the integrity of our social programs by holding them hostage to rosy forecasts. That is the type of thinking that pushed Canada's social programs to the brink in the first place. The member's resolution advocates spending money that we may never receive. Of course, the NDP of the past, that was their habit of always spending the future generations' income. You would think that the member would have learned by now, but apparently he and his colleagues have not.
We have worked very hard to canvass the opinions of Manitobans in respect of our fiscal priorities in this province. We are pleased to report that 1,000 Manitobans participated in the budget consultation sessions last autumn, and hundreds more have provided their opinions to the government by letter, fax and telephone. The tremendous response shows that Manitobans realize that sound, fiscal management is important and that decisions affecting public resources ultimately affect us all. We believe that sound fiscal management has contributed significantly to our excellent economic performance. The honourable member's resolution shows that he does not understand good fiscal management. It shows that the honourable member cannot stomach the reality that Manitobans are urging us to ensure the fiscal progress we have made so far is not reversed.
It is extremely important that we do not relive or revisit the kinds of policies and the kinds of directions that the New Democratic Party took this province for many, many years. Waste and mismanagement have cost the young people, particularly of this country and this province, a lot of hard work. We have recovered. A lot of hard work and dedication have been put into reversing the direction this province was going.
I am extremely proud of my colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson), the Premier (Mr. Filmon), all the members of our caucus, who have worked extremely hard to make sure this province is one that we are all extremely proud of. So I along with my colleagues are unable to accept or support the resolution as presented by the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale). Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Madam Speaker, I would like to add a few words to this debate on this very interesting and telling resolution put up by the member for Crescentwood. I want to reiterate what the honourable member for Crescentwood has stated, and that is the whole process of consultation started under the previous NDP government, under the Honourable Vic Schroeder, at the time, and the Honourable Eugene Kostyra, at that time in the 1980s, and it was a good move. It was a move meant to consult the people of Manitoba and allow the average citizen to have an input prior to the government making final budget decisions.
I say that this is a very good process. It can be a very meaningful process providing you do it right, providing you invite a cross-section of people and not just a few friends or a few like-minded individuals that are going to agree with you and have a view that is the same as you. [interjection] Well, if the honourable member for Industry would just listen a moment, I will explain what happened in the city of Brandon about consultation when the Minister of Finance was there, was supposedly consulting with the people.
So, on the one hand, you know, you can skew the process if you invite like-minded people who are supporting your views and, secondly, if you provide selected data to the individuals, you give them pieces of paper, tables that suit your purpose, that make the argument you want to make so they come up with the conclusion, lo and behold, the conclusion is, well, No. 1 priority, we should reduce the debt. That makes the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) feel very happy, but that was the conclusion, he said, from this meeting.
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You know, there was a meeting in Brandon, among others around the province, and the interesting thing is the evening that the Minister of Finance held his consultation meeting was the same night, the same day that the Brandon School Board had a meeting. The Brandon School Board did not know that the Minister of Finance was conducting this meeting that night, but they had a public meeting and they had a large turnout of people, I think more than the Minister of Finance. I do not have all that information, but they had a large meeting. It was reported on the front page of the Brandon Sun.
It is very interesting because, when the Minister of Finance had his meeting, he concluded, yes, the people want debt reduction and then they want tax cuts. The school board meeting, and this was attended, it was well advertised. All the children had notices;, they took them home. The citizens of Brandon who are part of the school division were invited, and they came in droves. The conclusion of that meeting was, no, do not cut the debt, that is not the No. 1 priority. The No. 1 priority is to put more money back into the education system so that we protect the quality of public education in this province and in the city of Brandon. That was the No. 1 priority, and it is stated in black and white, from that particular group of citizens who came because they were concerned about the deterioration of the quality of education in the Brandon School Division, and they related that to the cuts that have occurred and the squeezing of the finances of the school board.
So I say, Madam Speaker, that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson), yes, consultation is great, but you have to do it in a fair way, you have to do it in a way that you get a true cross-section. So, while the minister can then go about his work and come into this House and brag about fiscal surpluses, in the meantime, the people out there know that what has been happening is we have had piling up of social deficits. The one hand, yes, you have a fiscal surplus or a fiscal balance, but on the other hand, everyone out there knows that the health care system is deteriorated, the school system has deteriorated, social services have deteriorated. No question that the social deficit in this problem has arisen.
You know, there is a theme that the minister puts out in these budget consultations, and that is that a balanced budget or a surplus budget is what creates jobs. He said that--I do not know how many times--if we want to have jobs, we have to go about and have balanced budgets or surplus budgets. Yet the figures in his own budget document undercut that argument; in fact, it is the reverse that is true. It is not fiscal budget surpluses that create jobs, it is jobs that create the surpluses.
I would refer you to the year 1992-93 when the budget document of 1998, in this table under Manitoba Financial Statistics, 10-year summary, in 1992-93 own-source revenue declined by 8.4 percent. That was a huge decrease in revenue. The reason for the decrease in revenue, which incidentally resulted in the highest deficit in the province's history--according to the document, $566 million, but we all know that they took $200 million out of the fudge fund to reduce the budget, the bottom-line budget deficit, which should have read $766 million, the largest in the history of the province of Manitoba under this particular government.
Well, Madam Speaker, that is the result of the recession that we were having at that time. Revenues fell off because people were not working, they were not buying as much, they were not able to contribute as much through income taxes, so that is the logic of the economics here. It is not what is being perpetrated by the ministers saying let us have surpluses, let us have budgets, and we are going to have growth. That is not the case. The reason, incidentally, we had as much growth as we do have in this province is because North America generally is on an upswing. The United States economy has been expanding, and we have been able to export more to the United States. The Canadian economy has been expanding and we have been able to participate in that.
But I might add, however, that the figures that we have do not paint such a rosy picture that the Minister of Industry would like us to think in his previous speech, because when we look at the figures he is talking about--unemployment and employment figures--we see that Manitoba is not doing as well as Canada as a whole. Let us take the latest figures we have got, the first three months of 1998. We note that the growth of jobs in Manitoba is 0.9 percent, less than 1 percent, whereas the national average growth rate is 3.0 percent. We are less than a third of the growth rate of jobs in this country in the first quarter of this year, so if we are doing so great, how come we are down at the low end of the totem pole?
Our sister province to the west of us, Saskatchewan, in this same period had an increase of 3.6 percent, four times the rate of increase of jobs in this province. So I do not think the Minister of Industry should be so self-satisfied with what is happening to the economy here. Incidentally, talking about low unemployment rates, if you get a reduction in your labour force, if you get a squeeze in the labour force, you are going to get a lower rate of unemployment, and the Minister of Industry has to recognize that we have had a shrinking labour force. Take again the latest figures that we have got. The labour force in March 1998 was 573,700 people, seasonally adjusted. Last year it was 575,000, so we have shrunk year over year in terms of labour force. Seasonally adjusted figures, we can take the actual and see the same thing. So that is one reason why we have as low an unemployment rate as is shown here.
As I said earlier today in members' statements, another factor has been that we have to take into account the large percentage of aboriginal unemployment. I know that has been here for a while, but we have a very high percentage of our total population who are aboriginal, and, unfortunately, there is a heavy amount of unemployment among those people.
The fact that we have had increased outward migration--over 6,000 people in the year 1997 outside of Manitoba. It is just a horrendous amount of people leaving. Even over 1,000 to our sister province of Saskatchewan and the rest going to Alberta and B.C. tells you something of the job opportunities here. The fact is that greener pastures are to the west of us, and if the jobs were so great here, why are people leaving?
Again, looking at the employment figures we can see that most of the kinds of jobs we are getting, yes, are in the private sector, but a lot of them, I would suggest, Madam Speaker, are the personal service, community service category, as Stats Canada would refer to them, the jobs that pay minimum wage and do not really offer any career future to the individuals involved. I would put a lot of telemarketing, not all, but a lot of telemarketing in that category as well.
So if we do not have the job opportunities, then obviously people are going to leave. In addition to that, Madam Speaker, another explanation you can see of why people have left or are leaving is the fact that our real wages have not kept pace with the national average. In fact, the real wages today, the average industrial wage today in real dollars--that is, after you squeeze the inflation--is actually lower than in 1988 when this government took office, if you can believe that. It is actually lower, whereas the national figure, the national average industrial wage is higher. There has been a gain in wages on the part of workers in Canada because their wage increases have superseded inflation. In this province, it has been the other way around, so as a result, we have had a case of diminishing real incomes for our workers.
So you get that phenomenon, those figures which sort of explain, are sort of a bottom-line approach to what has been happening to jobs and job creation in this province, a lot of additional jobs as the Minister of Industry (Mr. Downey) likes to tell us, but they are of the low-wage, service-sector type, the type that does not provide the career opportunities. Then it speaks for itself, and the fact that incidentally we have not allowed the minimum wage to go up for a long, long time. I think we have about the lowest minimum wage in the country now. When you combine these factors, you can see why we have a diminishing real wage in this province.
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So, Madam Speaker, the point I am making is that consultations are great, but the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) should do us all a favour and go out and provide an analysis that is sound, provide statistics of the entire situation, not selected statistics to make a case, and also he should ensure that he has people from a cross-section of the community at these meetings and not people who are simply going to tell him what he wishes to hear. As I said, an excellent example in Brandon, the same night, the same hour, in fact, that the minister's meeting was being held, the school board held a meeting and you got a totally opposite conclusion.
So, Madam Speaker, I do not know whether I have--three minutes, okay. No one likes to see an economy that is losing people. No one likes to see an economy where real wages are declining, so there is a challenge to this government here, to the extent that government can do anything about it. I am going to be the first one to recognize that there are limitations to what governments can do. We have had some growth. The growth, I would suggest, has been, as I mentioned earlier, a result of the expansion of the North American economy, and we are participating in that to some extent. [interjection] Well, I am always in favour of trade, but I want fair trade. I want fair trade. You know, when an elephant trades with a mouse, or if a big partner trades with a small partner, it is always the big partner who has the upper hand and usually gets the better of the deal.
Some of the recent examples of trade disputes have shown that, or the number of trade disputes that we are getting. Incidentally, this was recognized in Germany in the middle of the 19th Century. When England wanted to have free trade around the world, Germany said, no, no way, we are not going to participate. We want protection because we have got infant industries and England, or Britain, has advanced industries for that time. They invoked a protectionist system, and that stayed in place for decades in order to allow their infant industries to grow.
An Honourable Member: Then they became the aggressors.
An Honourable Member: They had a new vision of free trade.
Mr. Leonard Evans: Well, read your history books. The Minister of Justice--I would invite him to read his history books, his economic history of Europe, and he would see what I am talking about. So, Madam Speaker, with those few words, I would support the resolution put forward by my honourable colleague from Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) and trust that all members of this House would do the same. Thank you.
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer (Minister of Labour): I am pleased to be able to join this discussion today on Resolution 12. I do not think I have got the corrected version, but I think I gather from the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) and the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale), the direction that they are headed with this.
The resolution certainly causes me a degree of dismay as I read it, but it is not unexpected. It is not uncharacteristic of the member from Crescentwood as it is full of darkness and doom and gloom. As I listen to the member for Brandon East, it sort of reminds me of the debate on the balanced budget legislation that is very similar to the tone that they take today.
I recall that the member for Brandon East said there was nothing magical about balancing the budget every year, and that he asked the question: do you really expect to get the debt down to zero, because he did not. Since then, of course, we have accepted that, and we have had four balanced budgets and some modest surpluses. In fact, it would appear that the federal government and all provincial governments are striving for that balanced budget. I know I heard his federal leader bragging recently about the Saskatchewan government achieving a balanced budget and a surplus, so there must be something good about it.
I know that the government of British Columbia, although they have indicated their budget is balanced and took some great pride in that, it appears that maybe there was a little slight of hand there and it was not balanced. In fact, I understand that they do not even include their capital expenditures in their budget. They simply slide that into the debt column.
So we have a philosophical difference with the member from Brandon East. He talks about the fact that there was not an open public access to these meetings. I attended the one in Ste. Rose, and I can tell you that the meeting was open to everyone, and it had an education bent to it that night. There were many, many educators there, talking about their own circumstances, which is completely contrary to what the member for Brandon East has indicated. So it was an open process; people were invited; people did come, and people did speak their mind. We are very grateful to Manitobans for bringing forth, either by telephone or letter or attending these public meetings and giving the input that the Minister of Finance needed to bring forward another balanced budget for Manitobans.
The member for Brandon East was critical of the Brandon meeting because there happened to be another meeting in the city at the time. I can tell you that that was a meeting for all of Westman. I had many constituents who went to Brandon to have their input into the budget process, and they came away very satisfied with the information they got. They came away feeling that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson), the staff, and the people there listened to what advice they were given. I can tell you, even though he believes there were people in Brandon denied access to the meeting because they had a conflict and they were unable to come, there were many Manitobans that came to that meeting, and they came away very satisfied in that they had an opportunity to look at the numbers and have their input into the budget.
So, as a member of this government, we are quite pleased with the response that we did hear from hundreds and hundreds of Manitobans, and they played a valuable part in designing the budget that was brought forward in this House and that we are debating in the Estimates process at this time. I would have the member for Brandon East--I know he understands, but I would encourage him to maybe explain to the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) that these are budget Estimates and that a lot of the expenditures we have are driven by volume, and there are times when we do have to have a special warrant to take care of the pressures that are brought through volume.
I recall when I was Minister of Family Services that we budgeted a certain amount for social assistance, but the volume was growing year after year, both on the social assistance side and on the child welfare side, and we always met those expenditures. We did need a special warrant. So the member for Crescentwood brings to the House this idea or this concept that these are exact numbers, that we should be able to predict not only our expenditures but our income. But these are only just a good attempt by all departments to bring forward their Estimates and to appropriate the right amount.
You know, there was a feeling expressed by the member for Crescentwood that Manitobans were not being given the correct information. The only place that I have ever heard that is here in this House. Many Manitobans who participated, I think, were quite thankful for the opportunity to have their input, to look at these numbers and to understand how appropriations are arrived at.
Manitobans spoke very clearly about what their priorities were. They wanted a balanced budget, they wanted us not to run a deficit, they wanted us to have a surplus, they wanted us to have a rainy day fund and they wanted to address the debt. Members opposite have spoken for years now about the need to make expenditures and not to have a balanced budget. Yet I believe I heard the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) speak recently that he would too have paid $75 million down on the debt. This is quite a conversion for the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) who has never before, in the time I have been in the House, indicated that he was in favour of a balanced budget or any debt repayment.
I think what seems to be disturbing the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) so severely is that Manitoba is experiencing one of the most remarkable periods of economic success in our history. Further, the member for Crescentwood has clearly seen that Manitobans do not share his thinking in terms of fiscal management, and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) has already read into the record the self-admission by the member for Crescentwood that he has absolutely no knowledge in the area of statistics. It would behoove him to get a better understanding of this and to try and learn from this experience. In fact, maybe he should have participated in some of those budget consultations and he would have had a better understanding of it.
In terms of fiscal management, under our government's careful financial stewardship we have achieved fiscal stability and put an end to 25 years of deficits. We have done this despite the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in transfer cuts from the federal government, and this year we are able to celebrate our fourth consecutive year with a balanced budget.
In 1996, our economy grew at almost twice the national rate and was the second highest among the provinces in economic growth. The consensus--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable Minister of Labour (Mr. Gilleshammer) will have seven minutes remaining.
The hour being 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday).