Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Will the Committee of Supply come to order, please. This section of the Committee of Supply has been dealing with the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. Would the minister's staff please enter the Chamber at this time.
We are on Resolution 16.3. Bureau de l'éducation francaise (a) Division Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits.
Mr. Edward Helwer, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair
Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister about the Canada-Manitoba agreement on Francophone Schools Governance, as well as the Canada-Manitoba agreement that extends to post-secondary education. I wonder if the minister could tell us where those agreements stand at the moment?
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Chairman, we are in the process of attempting to negotiate an agreement with the federal government with regard to St. Boniface College, and with the DSFM, that Canada-Manitoba Agreement is in the winding down stage. We have had tremendous impact experienced from the cuts in the OLE payments. That has really affected all French language education in Manitoba right from French Immersion, which is down now to, I think, $205. We were paying $125. Yes, $250 was the total amount there, so those kinds of impacts have been felt right through all our French language education. We are still paying our 50 percent. What was one time 50 percent for French Immersion is now a great higher percentage than that, because the feds, I think, are down to $75 or something like that there. I am not sure of the amounts.
At any rate, the short answer: we are negotiating on the college, we are winding down the agreement on the DSFM, and we do not have any side agreements going.
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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, on the issue of the college, I attended the meeting, and I am sure the minister has read the material from the college on their proposals to double their enrolment, to increase the number of programs. I understand the province has its money, if not on the table, certainly promised when the federal money comes through, and that I certainly support. I am wondering what the problem is with the federal money. Why is it not there?
Mrs. McIntosh: If I knew that, I would be able to get it better. The ministers of Education of Canada met with Paul Martin and Pierre Pettigrew about a month and a half ago. We had drawn the attention on several occasions to Sheila Copps. Pierre Pettigrew indicated that he did not realize the impact of the OLE cuts. Paul Martin, to his credit, indicated that he did, but he had not realized that it would be that difficult for us. So he had known the size but not the full impact, and he indicated that he would go back and take a second look at it.
We had not heard back from him at that point, but all ministers across the nation, in turn, took the opportunity to share with the two federal ministers how it was affecting their provinces, how those cuts were affecting their provinces, and Monsieur Martin indicated that while he had known the size of the cut, that impact was something that he had not fully understood. He would take it back and rethink it and respond back to us, but that has not yet occurred.
I do not know why. As far as I can understand, it was a budget-cutting exercise. There was no rationale that any of the ministers could offer.
Ms. Friesen: I am having difficulty understanding again. I am sure the minister is, too. As a budget-cutting exercise, it would seem to have preceded the plans or at least the fully developed and presented plans of the college. So I am not sure what is happening there in terms of timing. The college presumably developed these plans, good plans, with the prospect that federal money would be there, and now it appears that there are, let us say, delays. How does the timing or how has the timing of that worked?
Mrs. McIntosh: It is worrisome to us. Some five years ago, approximately, the federal government cut the OLE funding mid-year, which was extremely awkward for the government, and then this year they have announced, as the member indicates, a budget reduction in OLE as we are negotiating with them on the OLE money that we hope will be there for St. Boniface College.
We have kept our portion up in terms of provincial funding for the college. We continue to negotiate with them, but they have indicated there are a fewer dollars in OLE available, so we are still in there saying it would be good if you could match us anyhow, because our feeling is and my personal feeling is that the federal government starts a lot of really good initiatives with the pledge of 50 percent funding, that they would spend half and we would spend half and that that would last into infinity. It is not a head start; it is not a seed money situation; it is money for perpetuity.
Then once the program or whatever the thing is is well established and people are accustomed to it and have expectations for it, the federal government pulls out, leaves the province sitting there with not enough money to really do the job properly without taking the money from some place else that would then be really badly depleted. Particularly, I feel, in French language or minority language, English language in Quebec, that the federal government has a responsibility to contribute. In the case of St. Boniface College, it is the only French language educational institution offering university courses west of--[interjection]
That is right, but it is one of a limited number, let us put it that way. If we are to be promoting, as the federal government says, promote and enhance and preserve and protect and all of those fine words the minority official language, it seems odd to pull out the money for that initiative when this, to me, is definitely something that goes beyond a provincial obligation. To me, this one is. The DSFM, I can see that head start money is good, and it becomes a provincial obligation, but at the post-secondary level I really think that is a Canadian interest and should be shared with a fairly healthy federal input.
I cannot really answer the member's question. I am as perplexed and upset about it as she is, and I am not the only minister, unfortunately, in Canada to feel that way about the funding for French language education.
Ms. Friesen: I am assuming the minister does not have a date when she can expect a response from the federal government?
Mrs. McIntosh: It is our hope that we will have an agreement by the end of June. We would like to have one sooner, but we are not certain that we will even have it then. The people here are negotiating very intensely with the view to try to have something decided by the end of June so that an announcement can be made in a relatively timely fashion for the next year. Although it is cutting it close, it is still possible, but that is our hope. I do not know if it will come true, but we are sure working hard on it.
Ms. Friesen: I would like to ask about the French immersion programs and the changes in enrollment in that over the last couple of years, if the minister has those numbers. I do not think we got to this line last time in Estimates.
Mrs. McIntosh: I am sorry. I am having a little trouble hearing. I wonder if the member would be kind enough just to repeat that. I have noticed in the last couple of days, for some reason, I am not always catching it. Sometimes the mike comes through really well, and then sometimes it just does not quite carry, but I missed what it is she is looking for.
Ms. Friesen: I think they have turned up the volume. It is true, I think, that the minister, on a couple of occasions, did not hear things that I said. What I am looking for now is French immersion fluctuations in enrollment, whatever numbers you have here that would perhaps give us a sense of the last couple of years.
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Mrs. McIntosh: In 1996-97 in French immersion, there were 18,780 students, and in 1997-98 in French immersion, there were 18,196 students for a difference of 584 students across the province.
Ms. Friesen: Does the minister have a general sense from her staff here of how those numbers have changed over the period of the last five years? I am thinking, particularly, since the reduction in grants. I know that is not the only impact, but if there is a general sense of increase, decline, at what rate? Is it a steady rate of increase or decline? Are there percentages that the staff or minister has available?
Mrs. McIntosh: The staff has provided me with a graph which shows French immersion enrollment in 1974 being around 600. I am approximating it because I cannot quite--I think it says 652 in 1974. This year, in 1997, we are at 18,196, but in the meantime the graph has gone up to a peak in 1991 when it reached a peak of 19,751 students, and it has been just gradually declining a little bit each year until it has come down this year to that 18,196 from that 1991 peak.
Ms. Friesen: Does the minister have any sense of--or has there been any research done in the department on the impact of the creation of the DSFM on immersion enrollment? Is there a relationship between the two?
Mrs. McIntosh: It is a good question. We have not noticed a corresponding decrease in French immersion as DSFM has come into being. We have got about 4,600 students in the DSFM. That is more than the slippage out of French Immersion, and it has not all occurred simultaneously. We do know that there are what we call entitled persons who are entitled to the French governance system, who are in French Immersion, and that the DSFM would understandably enjoy seeing them become part of the DSFM system.
But how many have actually made that move is something that we do not know. We know how many are down in French Immersion, we know how many are in DSFM, but would they have gone to French Immersion, those who were in DSFM, if DSFM were not there? It is hard to know. So we do not have a direct correlation.
Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask about the long-standing concerns that the DSFM has had about the classe d'accueil. Could the minister tell me what has happened on that in the past year and what she is looking at for the current year? Is there extra spending, for example, in these lines that we should be aware of on that?
Mrs. McIntosh: This year, '97-98, a new categorical grant was approved for the programme d'accueil at a rate of $660 per eligible pupil. The total cost to that was $363,700 to be exact. In the 1998-99 year a special grant of $240 per pupil will be provided through other support over and above that amount. This is additional funding and it represents the portion of the programme d'accueil that is not met through the transfer of special levy funds from other school divisions and that was a part of the concern that the DSFM had.
The total $900 per pupil, that $660 plus the $240, results in funding of about $450,000, and that is based on an eligible enrollment of 500 pupils. It requires incremental funding of about $85,000 for that '98-99 year.
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Ms. Friesen: I am looking at the long-term issue here and whether the minister believes that the classe d'accueil is a situation that is the need to have extra assistance in smaller classes for students who may not have had as much exposure to the French language at home as perhaps the schools would have liked. I think that is basically the issue. The minister is saying, yes, there is a two-year program in place, more money next year compared to this year. Is this a twilight program? Does the minister expect that now the DSFM is in place, now that parents know that they have a place to send their children where there will be French milieu from the beginning, that the exposure to French can be implemented in the home? Or is the minister anticipating that because of the larger environment, the overwhelming impact of English in Manitoba, that this will be a continuing problem and will need continuing funding?
Mrs. McIntosh: We anticipate that this will be an ongoing requirement to some degree or another, although certainly the factor that the member mentioned could have some bearing on parents making a concerted effort in the home to speak French when the children are little, but even in days past, there were always Francais programs they could go into.
Part of the problem, as identified to us by the DSFM people, is that in mixed marriages--I do not know what else to call them, you know, where you have a Francophone marrying an English-speaking person--if the mother or the parent who stays at home and does the nurturing, or if the daycare facility that does the nurturing, is primarily Anglophone and the wage earner is the Francophone, the child gets exposed more to the English than to the French. That probably will not change that much because the wage earner and the caregiver in families may not necessarily have the caregiver being the Francophone, and children will learn what they hear, so to speak.
So we anticipate, according to what has been experienced so far, that there will always be some need for this. So we are committed to continuing the program and funding the program. It might be that some years there will be no take-up on it, i.e., there might be some years where there is no intake for it, but the following year there might be. So I expect that there is always going to be, in any given year, a number of families who feel they require this in order to offset the assimilation that occurred in the first five years of life.
Ms. Friesen: So this is not conceived of as a transitional program, basically, and the minister has said that it comes out of categorical grants, so the place we should look for this is in the FRAME Report, not in the Estimates here. Is that what I understand?
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Friesen: When the DSFM was set up initially, I believe that there was a $15-million commitment from the provincial government. I know that there was some debate in the first year, at least, of how that commitment was to have been met. Could the minister tell us how it has been met?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I just found out a source of some of the money here and I am steaming as I look at it. I did not realize until just now in talking to staff here that the federal money for some of this had come--well, for all of it, I guess--from the OLE reductions over the time. Now, if I was upset before, I am twice as upset, but what are you going to do?
In May of 1993, Monique Landry, who was the Secretary of State, made a unilateral announcement of $112 million, which was going to go to all provinces in Canada who were implementing French school board governance. Manitoba's portion of that was $15 million, but this was a unilateral announcement. There was no consultation, no checking to see what was going to work for the provinces.
The expectation was there. Manitoba's share was going to be $15 million. The expectation would be that Manitoba would match either in kind or in dollars. We did a lot of in-kind matching, and we did in fact meet the obligation. All of that money, that $112 million, came from OLE reductions, which I think just sort of adds salt to the wound and stings a little smarter and a little deeper and a little longer than simply--because the money could so easily have just been provided. We would have known what to do with it in terms of meeting the needs here in Manitoba very well. At any rate, that is how it went.
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Our $15 million we provided schools in kind. Through the regular grant system, we also ensured that furniture of schools, et cetera, were there, provided for the DSFM. So they of course have the funding coming from the sending divisions to them. We set up a formula that we thought would flow money to them on a per capita basis based upon what the sending division had for their own circumstances. We felt it was the fairest way of trying to arrange a rather complicated governance structure due to the fact that it is one board for the entire province with students coming from such wide distances from each other, little pockets of communities here and there, plus portions of the city. I think it is working all right.
There never is enough money it seems in any area of education to fully satisfy all the desires, but I believe we have done a very credible job about meeting the needs, which are a little different from the wants. I think we have met some of the wants too.
Ms. Friesen: My question was about the provincial portion, which the minister said was provided in kind and in equipment. Obviously, I am sure the minister is aware of the concerns in the DSFM at the time about this. I think it was certainly anticipated that some if not all of the $15 million would be provided in cash, the argument being of course that the schools and the equipment had already been paid for by taxpayers and that this was a transfer of goods which had already been paid by taxes by including those who would now be part of the DSFM.
So I wonder if the minister has two things I am looking for. One is an accounting of the goods and equipment which was provided, which schools, what kind of money or dollar sign was allocated to those schools and equipment to make up the $15 million. I quite understand the minister may not have that with her, but I am looking for that sort of accounting.
Secondly, what would have led Franco-Manitobans and the DSFM in particular to believe that it would have been in cash rather than in kind? Is there a section of the legal agreement which the minister can point me to that would indicate that the government had always intended that this be paid in kind and that that had been made clear to Franco-Manitobans?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I do not know where the DSFM felt that the agreement referred to cash. It was never anything that the government put forward as an expectation. It may have been their own expectation, but it certainly was never an understanding that it would be cash or that it would be new dollars. Never in writing in any of the agreements or in any of the dialogue was there an indication there would be new money going into this or that it would be cash instead of kind.
In fact, even in the agreement itself, there is a clause that the Government of Canada, and I am paraphrasing it, but it says that the Government of Canada recognizes that the support provided by the Manitoba government, which is our regular grant system support, appropriately matches the supplementary funding provided by Canada. So that clarification is in the agreement, but still I think the desires of the DSFM would have been for new money and that it be cash. Certainly I can say from our perspective, our desire would have been that from the federal government there would have been new money too, and not recycled OLE reduction money.
But anyhow, they have said that the regular grant system fit with the expectation and understanding, again, going back to the original statement I made in the earlier question in that this was a unilateral announcement from Ottawa at the time that had not had provincial consultation involved in it.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, there appears to be a relatively stable enrollment in immersion. I mean, 500, a drop of 500 is actually significant, but I do not have a longer set of numbers so I cannot tell how significant, and I assume a relatively stable enrollment in the DSFM.
I wondered if the minister has done a study, concluded a study, dealing with the teacher requirements for immersion and Francais schools.
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Mrs. McIntosh: I am going to back up for just a moment because as I am contemplating the answer, I remember when the first French immersion school came in in St. James-Assiniboia around 1980, '79-80, somewhere around there, we did have a hard time finding teachers at that point. It was still relatively new in the province--I am talking 18 years ago now, which seems hard to believe--but I think that has really changed.
We have had a lot of teachers graduate from St. Boniface College, for example, where the bulk will be studying, and staff have indicated two phenomena that we have noted in terms of teacher populations, and that is that the English language system and the Francais system from which the DSFM teachers have mostly come have a fair number of teachers within five to 10 years of retirement, whereas in the French immersion stream, the teachers are still relatively new. If I talk about 1980 being kind of a start year for one division, that is still less than 20 years of a teaching career, but many have started up since that time.
So we have a fair number of teachers who are young or still in their early careers who will probably be sticking around for awhile, so hence we are not seeing the same turnover that we are starting to see even now in the English programs and the Francais, where the early retirements are starting to take place in this big body of teachers who are now sort of mid-fifties in age.
So we may have a higher need in a few years for the DSFM and the Francais, for new teachers, but we will be able to meet those with the numbers of new graduates because they are graduating in good numbers, and, in fact, not all graduates from the French education faculty have yet got jobs. They used to always get jobs right away, but those jobs are now being filled and held by people who are not leaving them, so it is starting now. Supply and demand are starting to match.
Ms. Friesen: I would think Mr. Chairman, that this is a relatively small population and that it would not be a difficult task to actually look at the numbers of graduates that there have been from CUSB and to look at the age structure of each of the three different populations that the minister has mentioned.
I get the sense in what the minister is giving me that it is essentially anecdotal material. Now, I might be misjudging that, but I would like some confirmation, and I am curious as to why that study does not exist. If it does exist in the minister's office, is it possible for the minister to table it at a later date?
I mean, 1980 may have been the first time in St. James, but there were other divisions which began quite a bit earlier. Winnipeg 1, for example, began in '74 with Sacre-Coeur and other schools followed from that. So, I think, the generation may go back a little further than the minister is suggesting, and, given such a small population of teachers, it seems to me that this would be a most interesting and very useful set of predictions as to what we will need in teacher training for each of the three French streams--the basic French, the immersion and Francais. So I am asking has that been done? Could it be done? Why has it not been done?
Mrs. McIntosh: No, we do not have formal studies done in the sense that the member is asking, so we do not have studies to table. But she is right, the field is not that large, and it has been possible for staff to anecdotally have a pretty good sense of where things are. Some five or six years ago, they did a study and they found that the supply of teachers was matching, if not exceeding, the demand. So there was no problem in terms of supply that they thought would warrant taking the time and the energy to do further studies when perhaps the time and energies could be better spent doing some of the worthwhile things they have been doing, like working on curriculum and dealing with things like the phase d'accueil, those kinds of things that utilize their talents in a very definite way.
It is not that they are not interested and they do not have a feel for it. They are very interested and they have a very good feel for it, but we do not have formal ongoing research study into the supply and demand. It is mostly an anecdotal thing and I think it has been pretty good, because we are seeming to turn out about what we are requiring on an annual basis and always looking ahead. The college does this, as well, trying to anticipate for admission purposes how many are going to be required in the field, always understanding there would be some who would like to have that training, who might then wish to go into journalism or something else with that training to become an education reporter or those types of areas that they may not be teaching in the classroom.
So we can give you the anecdotal stuff. We can give you our sense of it but I do not have a study to table on that.
Ms. Friesen: So is it the intention then of the minister in transferring teacher education in immersion and basic French from the University of Manitoba to College Saint Boniface to increase the number of graduates, or is it the intention to maintain a stable number? The minister is saying that, oh, five years ago they did a study. Supply seemed to match demand. There did not seem to be a problem. What direction are we going with numbers and production and supply with this transfer?
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Mrs. McIntosh: The moving of the instruction of those who are going to become French teachers to St. Boniface was not done in terms of concerns about supply and demand but rather to build on the concept of centres of excellence. It was felt by the decision makers that centring those who are experts in the teaching of French, particularly as it applies to those who are going to be teaching children who are learning in French, that a centre of excellence could best be created by bringing those specialists together into one setting. The logical place of course to do that would be Saint Boniface College, bearing in mind that the Saint Boniface College grads are affiliated with the University of Manitoba. So there is a connection there that continues to exist. That was the rationale. I do not expect, from all that I have been told and all that has been indicated, that it would affect the numbers in terms of either building them up or decreasing them but rather would provide that more intense milieu for instructional purposes.
Ms. Friesen: Well, I think the minister probably is aware that there is a concern that there will be slippage, that there will be a loss of students, not necessarily in the immersion for those who are going to teach in immersion programs or Francais programs, but those who might have been enabled to have basic French as a second or possibly even a first teachable. We will not know obviously until those enrollments over the next few years take place and the graduations take place. But I just wanted to say for the record that that is one of the concerns about the movement, that it is the basic French people who may be at risk. It may not happen, we do not know, but something that I think the minister, if she is not aware of, might want to be aware of.
I wanted to ask the minister about two elements on the actual numbers on the page. There is an increase of six staff in this area of the department. I wonder if the minister could tell me what those six staff will be deployed for? They are listed, I think, primarily as administrative support.
Mrs. McIntosh: Basically, it is a saw-off between support staff and professional staff. The BEF is responsible for curriculum development and assessment functions as well as all their other duties. We have been very involved in the new curriculum development--mathematics, the French language arts and with the Western Protocol. Manitoba took the lead, in fact, on the French mathematics and en francais, the French language arts, and a lot of work that was done there. That is the response to that.
I just wanted to harken back to the comments on the St. Boniface University, and it may have been that initially there was a concern over the basic French. I recall a little bit about it at the time. There has not been recently because when the issue was raised originally, immediately I think there were arrangements made where the professors from St. B. could scoot over to the university campus for the basic French so those students would not be dislodged, but all the professors would have the benefit of working as a unit.
So that was a concern I heard expressed originally. I have not heard it in this last year, and I thought it had been very quickly and satisfactorily addressed. It is something I will keep my eyes peeled for in case it still is lurking there some place, but I do believe that that has been settled. So that is for both of those the answer.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, how many of the six positions are dealing with assessment?
Mrs. McIntosh: In the bureau we have of the new staff doing assessment functions: one consultant, two analysts, and four who are support staff.
Ms. Friesen: Could the minister explain why there is such an enormous jump in professional fees this coming year? It goes from $2,500 to $330,000, and does the minister have a list of the projects that will covered under that, or any of the people or persons or individual grants that may already have been let in that program?
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, I wonder if they will be going to say which sum appropriation are you referring to.
Ms. Friesen: Item 16.3.(d) Professional Fees, 1997-98, $2,500; '98-99, $330,100; and I am on page 79 of the Supplementary Estimates.
Mrs. McIntosh: We have had high costs associated with translation over and above our regular translation services. You will see that reflected in that large increase that the member has just identified. We have had a tremendous amount of translation in this budget.
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Ms. Friesen: Could the minister explain the kind of translation that is being done this coming year that has not been done in the past? Is this translation for examinations? Are the exams being translated, or are they being written in French, first of all?
Secondly, I assume that some of this is curriculum. Again, is curriculum being translated rather than written? I ask this for a purpose, because I do not know if the minister is aware of the considerable concern--let us put it that way; it is actually a little more stronger than that--that have arisen in Quebec over the translation of examinations.
Mr. Chairperson in the Chair
Mrs. McIntosh: I am quite conversant with what the member is saying in terms of curriculum development, et cetera, and we are very conscious of that and have several different techniques we are using depending on the subject, and if it is Western Protocol or Pan-Canadian, Manitoba worked on the Pan-Canadian science frameworks. Manitoba was the lead, very challenging, very interesting work that was done there.
A lot of the work we do we develop ourselves. Sometimes a translation will be used, a French translation of an English work will be used as a starting point for developing. Sometimes we work in parallel, science and phys ed. We use parallelism developing curriculum, but we use translation. We have a tremendous number of--we have increased correspondence with the field, particularly now with the DSFM up and running and the number of things that have happened in this last year in terms of trying to establish schools, et cetera. All those letters, all those documents, everything has to be translated. So we have correspondence going back and forth on a number of these sensitive issues that are sometimes very lengthy pieces of correspondence. Policy documents, curriculum documents coming up from the department, everything must go to the field simultaneously in French and in English. That involves translation both ways. We are also translating from the French into the English. So just for the record, while we have an increase in the volume of paperwork, documents, policies, correspondence, et cetera, and some translation in curriculum development, a lot of our curriculum development is not done as a straight translation but rather as a parallel development.
In terms of assessment, the member had asked something about assessment. Those as well have to be--if there are documents going out to the schools talking about our expectations on assessment, et cetera, everything has to be translated for the record and for copies to people, et cetera.
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Ms. Friesen: But, Mr. Chairman, the DSFM was in place last year. Curriculum was being developed last year. Exams were being written last year and, yes, there are more exams, I understand that. I can accept that there is perhaps some more curriculum, and I know translation is very expensive, but from $2,000 to $300,000 is an enormous jump. What I asked the minister for was a list of projects that will be specifically covered by this $330,000 increase, not a $330,000 increase, but the $330,000 proposed for '98-99 for professional fees.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, this may help clarify the situation in terms of--I have indicated what we spend the money on. This may help the member understand how the money comes to us and explain why these figures are so different.
Translation Services here in government allows us in the Department of Education a certain number of pages that they will translate, and we are the single, biggest user. The Bureau de l'éducation francais is the single biggest in the department and the Department of Education. That branch in our department is constantly having to--I mean, we deal in education, it is a written down kind of a world.
We have been well over that number every year, the number of pages that Translation Services permits us, well over the number every year, and once we are over that number we have to pay. Based on our experience in the last three years, the number you see in the budget this year is the number that we expect to spend. The number that we had last year, we overspent, but that was vastly underestimated and we ended up having to pay more than we budgeted. So now we have taken the last three years and plugged in that number as our estimate.
Ms. Friesen: So I understand that $330,000 is a transfer to another area of government, and I wonder why it is not listed under Grants and Transfer Payments. As I understood, and staff is looking puzzled, but I understood in an earlier question I asked, when I asked about the increase in a particular transfer payment, it seemed to be going to another area of government. I think it was the middle years project.
Mrs. McIntosh: Translation Services will hire people from outside of government--I will back up and say, the Department of Education has to pay for that supplement, we have to pay for it, and the Translation Services will hire someone from outside of government to do the contract work, but Education pays for it. It does not get transferred to another part of the department. It goes to Translation Services who in turn will utilize somebody to do translation, but the money that they have got comes from the Department of Education. So it does not get used for another portion of the Department of Education.
Ms. Friesen: I am sorry, I still do not understand that. We are not talking about a transfer to the Translation section of the Department of Culture, Heritage and Recreation then. We are not talking about transferring it to another department--that is what I meant by "department"--Culture, Heritage and Recreation Translation Bureau who then hires private contract translators.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, I think that helps clarify it for me. I had thought the member was looking to see it transferred to another branch of the Education department. In fact, it is sent over to Translation Services in that department--Culture, Heritage and Citizenship.
Ms. Friesen: So how does one acquire an accounting of that $330,000? How do I find out where it has gone, where the contracts are, what it was used for? Where is the accountability on that line? Does it rest with this department--with this, sorry, with--yes, with this department, as opposed to Culture, Heritage and Citizenship?
Mrs. McIntosh: I would imagine the Public Accounts system--we do not have that, obviously, in our department. We can get it for her. Staff has indicated they can, but they do not have it here now, but they could provide it, bring it in when we next sit or as soon as possible.
Ms. Friesen: I would appreciate that because Public Accounts, although it will list individual contracts, will not enable me to see where that $330,000 has gone because it would not be possible to distinguish translation contracts here as opposed to translation contracts in Industry, Trade and Tourism, for example. So I look forward to the minister bringing an indication of what is covered under that $330,000, where the payments go, if it goes to another branch of the Province of Manitoba, and from that, where the individual contracts are given, and how one can track that in the General Accounts. Is that possible?
Mrs. McIntosh: What we can provide for the member would be a record of expenditure. As I say, not today, but we could get that for her. If she is looking for a forecast, that would be a different matter. We could give our best estimate of expenditure forecast, we could do that, and we could provide a record of expenditure from the past. So we could do those two things if that is helpful.
Ms. Friesen: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, that would be helpful.
Mr. Chairperson: Shall the item pass? Pass.
16.3.(a)(2) Other Expenditures $23,700--pass.
16.3.(b) Curriculum Development and Implementation (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,273,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $788,000--pass.
16.3.(c) Educational Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,050,900--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $543,800--pass.
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16.3.(d) Official Languages Programs and Administrative Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $801,700--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $823,800--pass; (3) Assistance $376,700--pass.
16.3.(e) Library and Materials Production (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $440,200--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $263,300--pass.
Resolution 16.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $6,521,500 for Education and Training for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
We will now move on to Resolution 16.4 Support to Schools (a) Schools Finance (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $789,800.
Maybe we will just take one moment for the staff to change over. The honourable minister, to recognize the staff present.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, with me from the Finance portion of the department, I have Jim Glen, Gerald Farthing, Steve Power.
Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Mr. Chairperson, I wanted to ask some questions with respect to this segment of the Department of Education Estimates. It is my understanding under the Activity Identification it references major capital projects as part of the activities. There was an announcement that occurred, I believe, through the Department of Education in the last fiscal year and, I believe, again this fiscal year wherein the department and through the minister have announced that the Transcona Collegiate Institute has received, through the department anyway, approval in principle with respect to upgrades for that particular collegiate. Last year, of course, that project did not go forward. I was disappointed that we did not see any activity take place with respect to upgrading of that collegiate.
It is my understanding that the minister made an announcement through her department earlier this year prior to the start of this session, and it is my understanding that there is some confusion right now on whether or not that particular upgrading is going to take place for the Transcona Collegiate in this fiscal year.
I want to ask the minister, has her department made any official communications? Has there been anything in writing that she can provide for us that would give some level of assurance that that project, that upgrading of Transcona Collegiate will proceed this fiscal year?
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, this actually comes under 16.7.(a) when we have the Public Schools Finance Board people in. All I have here--this comes under a different section of the book. This is the Finance Branch. The Public Schools Finance Board deals with the capitals, but I do have my announcement here on that. It was announced under the Aging Buildings Program, renovations. That was announced to be done in this year. So unless there is some thing that I am not aware of that would alter that, that would still be my expectation. But what we will do when the Public Schools Finance Board is in and we are on that line, I will make sure that we check with them. I am not aware of anything having come up that would alter that. In the announcement it does indicate that is for this 1998-99 capital construction program. That is a three-year program, but each of the buildings selected are announced in the year that it is to come. That may be part of the confusion. I am not sure.
We had announced $30 million for the next three years, a breakdown of about $10 million a year. Not exactly, but sort of a third, a third, a third. The schools that were identified this year under the renovation, addition projects and the Aging Buildings Programs were the ones that were intended to be worked upon in the first year of the program. Transcona Collegiate is in that. So next year you would see a different set of schools announced, and the third year a different set again. That may be why some people are wondering.
I will check with the PSFB people. They will be here on line 78. If the member is here that day, he may wish to re-ask the question. Otherwise we will make sure that we get it and provide the answer to him.
Mr. Reid: Well, I appreciate the minister saying that her staff who would deal with that particular issue are not here at this present time and will be here a bit later. Perhaps then the minister can take that question with respect to notice, and when staff is available she can perhaps have the details available and then provide the answers for us.
There was perhaps some confusion on my part last year, too, because it was my understanding that the department had undertaken that particular review or study of the facilities, that when Transcona Collegiate's name did appear last fiscal year, there was some perception, at least on my part, that that particular project was going to move forward with respect to renovation and rehabilitation of that particular facility. If I am wrong on that, then perhaps the minister can correct me, but it is my understanding from what she is saying now that she expects that project will go forward this year, and that the residents, the parent council and the students, as well as the staff, will see that project happening this year. When the minister's staff is available, perhaps she can indicate whether or not there is going to be communication given to the school division, which then can be passed on to the appropriate people in the community, and whether or not there will be some communication resulting from that so that everyone will be aware of what is going to take place, and whether or not that announcement will take place prior to the end of this school year, which will end at the end of June. I can leave that with the minister if she can reference that with her staff. When they get to that line, I would appreciate that.
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I also wanted to ask questions with respect to another issue that was drawn to my attention. I do not know if I have missed this line in the minister's Estimates or not, but there is some concern with respect to overcrowding conditions at Springfield junior high. It is my understanding--and the minister can correct me or perhaps if she needs to take this as notice and check with her staff--that the student enrollment, the full-time enrollment, for the Springfield junior high is at least 50 students over the provincial maximum student enrollment for that particular facility.
One would then conclude that there would be, with this overcrowding situation if that information is accurate, a need in the Transcona-Springfield School Division for a new middle years school within the Springfield area. I am asking the minister, and if she needs to take this as notice I will understand: can she give me an indication on whether or not there are plans to construct a new middle years school in the Springfield area? It is my understanding that there is an existing request from the Transcona-Springfield School Division with the department that has been on the books for somewhere between three and five years and that nothing has progressed in that regard.
There is some concern now, looking at the total enrollment for that particular area, where we are in the range of 1,700 students for the collegiate, the elementary school and the junior high, that they were going to continue to stress that the schools and the community is growing in the Springfield area. I would like to have some indication on when the community there would expect to see a new middle years school.
I believe the school trustees have made that representation to the minister or through the staff from the Transcona-Springfield School Division to the department, and if the minister can get back to us with information on that we would appreciate knowing.
Mrs. McIntosh: The staff that is with me here today has indicated that they will contact the Public Schools Finance Board tomorrow to see what the status is to report back to the member. Just so the member understands the process, the Public Schools Finance Board is an arm's length body from government and so the requests would not come to the minister. They do not come to me. They go straight to the PSFB and they always have more requests than they satisfy in any given year. So they will put them in order of priority and they will maybe carry projects that are pending. They will say, you know, this year we will approve these ones, or, tell us to go ahead and begin their planning but they will not be built until next year, whatever.
Sometimes they will take a school that was lower down on the list and bump them up to the top of the list for things like the thing the member just mentioned where suddenly there is a--if it begins to overcrowd quickly or faster than anticipated or whatever, things do get moved up or down depending upon the circumstances.
So if the Transcona-Springfield board has written to the PSFB, they will have a status update on this school somewhere where they can let us know what is going on and maybe even be able to provide an indication of when they think there might be some construction occurring to assist with the overcrowding.
I am imagining that the Transcona-Springfield board is keeping the PSFB up to date if they are overcrowded now with another 50 kids or something. I am pretty certain that they would have provided that information to the PSFB. So staff here will check with the PSFB tomorrow morning. We can get you the information probably on both of those questions then that you have asked, hopefully, by tomorrow.
Mr. Reid: Well, I would appreciate that undertaking, and I believe the next time we sit in Estimates will be Thursday morning, so that will give some time for the minister's staff to research this information, and I will save the remainder of my questions for that particular time dealing with both the Transcona Collegiate and the overcrowding at the Springfield Junior High.
It has been indicated to me that they have the portable classrooms that they are now using in the Springfield area which can create some problems, as the minister, I am sure, is no doubt aware. That is one of the reasons why I raise the issue and that this issue has been lingering for some time.
I will have questions further when we move into that other part dealing with the prioritization of projects, how the minister or the Public Schools Finance Board will prioritize projects. I will need to know how that process takes place considering that Transcona-Springfield has been waiting several years now.
Mrs. McIntosh: Would you like us, then, just to make sure we are co-ordinated here, to bring the PSFB people on Thursday morning?
Mr. Reid: Yes.
Mrs. McIntosh: Then we will know that that is the time. So maybe, then, we will make a note, if you would not mind, Jim, and we will bring the PSFB staff in, whoever it is, I guess Mr. Goluch and Ms. McFarlane in on Thursday morning, and then you will have an opportunity to have them there.
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister about a particular school division, the Duck Mountain School Division. I had a chance to bring to the minister's attention the difficulties that division was facing earlier this year, a low population, a low tax base. It is one of those divisions that is having a really difficult time.
This year, the department saw fit to put additional funding in to keep them going for this year, but it is only funding for one year. I would like to ask the minister whether she has given any further consideration to divisions such as the Duck Mountain School Division who are facing real challenges in their ability to stay open and continue operating and whether there is any consideration being given to special funding to divisions with small schools so that they can continue to operate.
The real concern is that when these schools close, children have to travel longer distances, and, of course, the minister is well aware that when children have to travel longer distances, it does affect their ability to learn. When schools get smaller, the number of courses that are offered just does not offer a wide enough range of programs for children.
So that is the issue. What are the plans? What does the minister see ahead for these areas that have a low population and a low assessment base?
Mrs. McIntosh: I will maybe try to provide more detail. I just indicate very quickly that we do give special funding to small schools. We have a small schools grant that has been in place for some time, and we do give funding under the equalization for low assessment. The special grant for the Duck Mountain this year comes to about $120,000 for that purpose.
I recognize the dilemma that they face in terms of their particular geographical setup, but staff is working with Duck Mountain, and they are working on reorganization plans, et cetera, to assist them with some of the things they are trying to accomplish. I know we are out of time, and I will--
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Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The hour now being five o'clock, time for private members' hour. Committee rise. Call in the Speaker.