Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Would 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 Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Would the minister's staff please enter the Chamber at this time.
We are on 5.1. Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits.
Before we start, could I ask all honourable members who are having their private conversations to do so out in the hall. It would be much more appropriate. Thank you.
Hon. Mike Radcliffe (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Mr. Chair, at this time, I would like to introduce my staff who have so kindly joined me this afternoon. First is my able deputy minister, Ms. Alex Morton, assisted by Fred Bryans of financial administrative services; Doug Brown, deputy director of the Securities Commission; and Ron Pozernick, director of Cooperative and Credit Unions and I believe the caisse populaires.
Mr. Chair, I would like to now resume my remarks with regard to the update to my honourable colleague with regard to the Elmwood Cemetery, where I believe we were just before the noon recess. I believe I have already covered the issues of the major problems that we have perceived to date, some of the minor, more housekeeping pragmatic problems. I have covered the issue of where we understand the problem to be of ownership of the Elmwood Cemetery at this point in time. I do not think I have any definitive answers at this point. All I can do is advise my honourable colleague as to where the discussions have reached with the respective parties.
The next issue I would like to discuss and cover for my honourable colleague's benefit is the ownership and benefit, the cestui que trust to the perpetual care fund. The perpetual care fund, as I indicated, has approximately a $1.1-million balance, held by the trustee, National Trust, representing a portion of the sale price of each individual burial plot since the 1950s. I indicated that it generates approximately $65,000 a year, give or take, and this comes in periodically.
One of the salient points will be, of course, when the ownership-operation responsibility of the graveyard is transferred to some new authority, whomever that may be, it is also essential that the ownership-operation control and access to these funds transfer as well, so therefore that would be ownership or control of the capital, the corpus of this fund, and also the benefit to the income. At this point in time, we have had verbal assurance from Mr. Stewart who, I indicated earlier, met with various Winnipeggers out in Souris a couple of weeks ago.
Mr. Stewart has indicated verbally to us, and his written consent is being sought as we speak, that he will agree to the transfer of these funds, both the benefit of the income and the access to the capital for the control of the capital to be kept intact, of course, to continue to be invested as a perpetual care fund, is my understanding at this point in time, by some other authority. We have discussed the issue, and the City of Winnipeg, I believe, at this point through its officials has indicated that it will explore the opportunity of taking over the management of those funds at a nominal cost.
The National Trust, of course, exacts a commercial rate of return on the income at this point in time, and we are looking for ways to diminish the outflow or expenses against this perpetual care fund, and this might well be one way to do it. One suggestion has been that these funds be managed by the City of Winnipeg for a much smaller, diminished charge. There will be some sort of administrative charge, but the City of Winnipeg very wisely point out that they have been very successful in the last decade, I believe, in the rate of growth and return they have been able to effect on their managed funds. They made some very sage and wise investments within the parameters of trustee investments. So that is a very significant issue.
We have had advice that it may be necessary to seek a court ruling, a court application, to effect transfer of these funds to a different trustee and to a different cestui que trust. If that is the case, I can assure my honourable colleague that, on behalf of the provincial government, I will seek the appropriate authority and give the commensurate instructions to effect such a transfer once it is clear what the business plan will be, who will take ultimate responsibility and what the purpose and direction of that function will be.
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Ideally--and this is now entering into a little bit of blue sky--there will be a private not-for-profit corporation entitled or styled the Friends of the Elmwood Incorporated or Ltd. headed at this point in time by the prominent citizens that I have mentioned who will solicit members of the public for contributions. I can tell my honourable colleague that I have had any number of personal contacts and individuals from the public at large who have written me, who have said that they are very interested and concerned about the outcome of the Elmwood Cemetery. I have written back asking their permission, if we are able to create and set up a charitable function, charitable corporation, if I could pass their names along to the charitable corporation with the view of soliciting these people for support, for contribution for the upkeep and maintenance on a perpetual care basis and on a remedial basis for the Elmwood Cemetery.
So, therefore, I would invite my honourable colleague, Mr. Chair, once we got to that stage--we are not in the position yet where we can solicit funds, and I do not want to be premature nor raise false expectations that we cannot meet, but once we get to the stage where, if, in fact, these issues are to be determined, that I could contact my honourable colleague, and if he would be so kind as to either contact these individuals themselves and elicit their permission to be contacted or contact them himself to see if they would be prepared to contribute to this fund.
So, ideally, as I have said, we are looking for a contribution of approximately $2 million to be added to the $1 million that is already in hand in order to have an appropriate collection of cash available to be invested--
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Could I ask the members who are carrying on a conversation to do so quietly. The microphones are picking you up very clearly for the record. Darren, the microphones are picking you up. You have a very clear voice. That is better.
Mr. Radcliffe: So, ideally, as I am saying, we will have this charitable foundation headed by these volunteer citizens who have stepped forward. We will have a best practices business plan which will be the operational arm. There will be funds in place, and the Elmwood Cemetery will carry on as a memorial park. The individuals who have presold plots will still have access to their real estate, to their real property, in order that they can place members of their family, that a very practical research will be addressed as to whether it is wise to continue having any further burials or sales other than the presolds, and that I can assure my honourable colleague we will exercise great caution with respect to directing any public funds to the private owner of the assets.
This is probably an update, as far as we can tell to date, on the Elmwood Cemetery. We have had a series of morning meetings with the individuals involved, and we look forward to continuing this process as we gain more and more information and have access to more and more directed thought on this issue.
So I want to assure my honourable colleague that this is not a matter that is being ignored by either the municipal government nor the provincial government, that the volunteers are stepping forward from the community who are attempting to show their best efforts. Of course, I can also tell my honourable colleague that in other provinces this issue of abandoned private graveyards is not an issue, because there is a default in the legislation to the municipal authority in question. That legislation does not, at this point, exist in Manitoba. I make no other comment other than that at this point in time on the record.
I can assure my honourable colleague that both my deputy and I will be addressing the terms of The Cemeteries Act in the course of the next year because of all the things that we have learned from a very practical hands-on experience of our adventures with the Elmwood Cemetery to date. We do not know where it will take it at this point in time, but I can assure you that there will be attention so that we can anticipate and remediate the problems that have come forward and which we anticipate would come forward in the future with other issues.
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the minister for his comments. I would like to ask him: what is his time frame for seeing this proposition through? The business plan, is it going to be done within the next few weeks, months, years? When will this Mr. Stewart relinquish control of the trust fund and relinquish control of the cemetery? Will that be weeks, months or years from now?
Mr. Radcliffe: Mr. Chairman--and I am only speaking of my knowledge right now which is secondhand--I have not spoken to Mr. Stewart directly, and I have chosen deliberately not to speak to him because he has counsel, and I did not want to be in a position where remarks could be attributed to me or policy be attributed to me which had not been reviewed and discussed and shared with my colleague. So the information I produce at this point in time is from the council that we have marshalled of municipal officials, private volunteers and members of the department. The time span for producing a business plan will be in the next weeks to month.
We believe realistically what will happen is that the--and this is speculative, and I put a caution on the record that my remarks are speculative at this point in time, but that over the course of the next year the city and the province will do the bare essentials to maintain the graveyard once title has transferred. We basically held our nose to spend some money right now on the grasscutting and the spraying even though it is now still private property, but we are doing this with the consent of the private owner and on the expectation and under his verbal assurance at this point that he is prepared to turn the ownership of the yard over to some appropriate authority. The application for incorporation is being drawn as we speak, which is the beginning of the process to create an entity to be the recipient of the yard. The time span on when that would be effected, I would say would be within the next month to six weeks I would anticipate. If it is going to happen expeditiously, it will happen within that period of time.
What I might add, as well, for the honourable member's benefit, that the City of Winnipeg has also put the wheels in motion once again to drive the legal process to complete the final order of foreclosure on the tax sale. That is grinding ahead as well. The City of Winnipeg still have, of course, the option of not filing the final papers, but they are moving forward through the last service and waiting period, which I believe is a 90-day waiting period after service of document for final order foreclosure.
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So we are looking at quite possibly maintaining the yard on the public purse for a period of a year to 18 months as a very much pragmatic band-aid approach in order to give the volunteers time to get in place, to get the asset transferred to them and then for them to start soliciting funds and obtain charitable status, because charitable status again, from a time span point of view, takes about six months once the process has started.
So our bottom line goal, I guess a long winded way of saying, of when the whole project would be up and running would be about 18 months.
Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister: how many cemeteries are operated in this province and, in fact, in this country, in the fashion that he envisions under this committee structure?
Mr. Radcliffe: I believe this would be unique at this point in time. There are other graveyards in Manitoba that are attached to individual denominational parishes. There are private graveyards on private property, there are public graveyards on private property, there are commercial graveyards on private property, and then there are municipal graveyards as well. So there is a full panoply of the spectrum, but I believe this would be unique and perhaps we are designing something that could be a prototype.
Mr. Maloway: So its tax status then, the charitable tax status would be approved by the federal government? Is that expected to be done without trouble?
Mr. Radcliffe: I would confirm that my honourable colleague is correct, that there would be a charitable tax status sought. Having worked on the periphery of a number of files where we have sought charitable status in the past in my law practice, I can assure my honourable colleague that there are always intricacies and permutations and combinations which appear when one is seeking tax status. So I would hesitate to say that that would be without difficulty.
Mr. Maloway: I listened to the minister's figures that he gave of $2 million, and I have some questions about that because you have indicated that you need about $200,000 to run this cemetery in a year, and given that the trust funds must be invested in conservative-type investments, you would be looking at say $50,000 per million dollars. So you would need about $4 million in that trust fund.
So how putting $2 million into it is going to solve the problem, I am really not sure. It seems to me that you will have to bring it up to $4 million, which is an increase of $3 million, and I was not exactly clear on how you plan to have the money allocated and spent. Earlier in your comments you had indicated that $2 million would appear, but it sounded to me that you were talking about spending most of that money to get certain critical operations done, which would mean that your trust fund would not be much bigger than it is right now.
So I guess what I am asking is: can we not agree that ideally we should have $4 million in the trust fund, and that is after additional monies have been used to spruce up and clean up the cemetery to an appropriate level? In other words, this $4 million is required for perpetual care, the interest of which should run the cemetery and that cannot be used for--I mean, that has just got to keep the cemetery operating year after year, but it cannot be siphoned off to correct problems that have developed over the last 20 years, 30 years.
Mr. Radcliffe: I think we are both wrong, and we are both correct. I believe that right now the current $1.1 million produces about $65,000 a year, so if we have another $2 million, that is roughly $130,000 at the current rate of return and the current investment policies. So there is practically $200,000, and I believe--yes, if you have $2 million more plus the million you have got, you have $3 million, so that generates, at the current rate of return, approximately, give or take--I do not want to be held specifically to the figures. These are very much blue-skying the issue at this point in time because we are a long way away from either soliciting or setting these goals, but that I believe would produce approximately $200,000 a year.
I have not had an opportunity, nor has my deputy, to assess the business plan and the list of expenses on a critical basis, so I think that I give the figure $200,000 a year very much advisedly because if we are not running an office, if we are not hiring an employee on a full-time basis, if we hand the archival records over to the City of Winnipeg or another archival authority who would conserve those records but not maintain them as an independent business, then there is a significant saving in the form of insurance, tax, light, heat, water, et cetera. Water, I mean, we have discerned right now that the present owner has a significant water bill that is not paid, and he was running it through his water meter out of the office while he is sitting right on the riverbank. So all it took--and this is not rocket science--all it took was to go and buy a couple of pumps, put a couple of hoses in the river and pump river water onto his grass. So this is the problem with management absentee landlordism.
So I guess I would say to my honourable colleague that in addition to those funds--and I think he is correct that I was off--I think we need $2 million more for the perpetual care fund added to what we have already got, then we need another accumulation of capital which would be expended for upgrades. I believe you may be correct that the total corpus may be $4 million. I believe I heard that figure being bandied about the table in the course of our discussions over the last couple of weeks, granting that these are still very much creative boxcar figures, but I think that my honourable colleague may be correct.
Mr. Maloway: I would like to know what other cemeteries in this province are developing similar problems. I understand that there may be another six privately owned cemeteries and that there may be some problems with some of them and that at a certain point in time, if we do not take corrective action now and require more money to be put into the perpetual care fund, that 20, 30 years down the road we will be leaving a problem to the people who follow us in this Legislature. They will be questioning as to why we did not do something now to make certain that there was adequate funds in the perpetual care fund.
Mr. Radcliffe: I concur with my honourable colleague's sentiments on this. However, what I would add is that apportioning the percentage of sale price of individual plots to a perpetual care fund is only part of the problem and only, therefore, part of the answer. If one is dealing with a mature or overly mature graveyard, basically therefore a graveyard then is a real estate corporation, and its significant asset is the sale of ground, and this is putting it on a very pragmatic and crude basis. Once the majority of the plots are sold, then the income coming from that graveyard drops off. So that also has been a significant part of the problem which has compounded the difficulties of Elmwood and the fact that the percentage was not linked to the consumer price index.
As to the number of graveyards, we, too, have heard a similar figure to what my honourable colleague mentions of six or seven. Quite honestly, I have not gone looking for problems at this point. I have been coping with the Elmwood Cemetery, and we just know that this is a potential problem, and, so, therefore, any remedy that we come up with as a province or any remedy that the municipality, that the City of Winnipeg comes up with may well cut a precedent, and there may be other graveyards that will be watching what we are doing. So, therefore, we are being extremely cautious and trying to be prudent with the public purse.
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Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister again, is he aware of some severe problems developing at one or more of the other six or so private cemeteries in this province?
Mr. Radcliffe: I am not aware, Mr. Chairman, specifically of other problems. I have only heard the generalities such as has been expressed by my honourable colleague right now on the record, that there are objectively a number of other institutions that may well become jeopardized or are vulnerable at the present time.
I do not know the nature of the problem. I do not know the extent of the problem, and I do not know for a fact how many others--and I would hesitate to say that there are others, because I do not have any other knowledge other than the broad generality.
Mr. Maloway: Would the minister then endeavour to check with the regulatory body and determine which other private cemeteries are having similar problems and get back to the committee with that answer, because I understand that there is at least one or more developing severe problems similar to this case.
Mr. Radcliffe: Mr. Chairman, yes, I would definitely accede to my honourable colleague's request. I will ask the chair of the Public Utilities Board, who is the authority, who is vested with the supervisory control of the perpetual care fund, to inquire as to the nature and extent of his knowledge as to the jeopardy or vulnerability of other graveyards, and if he has any and if I get any specifics, I would be glad to share those facts with my honourable colleague.
Mr. Maloway: It really presents an interesting question as to whether or not private graveyards should have ever been allowed to exist, because by definition the cemetery will eventually be filled up. I mean, a couple of hundred years down the line, where are you going to be?
So I am not sure how graveyards are set up in other jurisdictions, in Europe and other places like that, but it seems to me that private graveyards are probably not the way to go because of that fact. Because of the long-term revenue stream, it is just not there once it is used up. So if you think about it, you would have to establish an enormous perpetual-care fund to take care of the problem, and that is really what we have here. We have a situation in this province and this country where if a car warranty company goes out of business and a thousand people are left with warranties where they cannot get their cars fixed, or a computer company goes out of business and a half a dozen people are left without their warranties, we have major stories and it becomes a national issue.
Here we have a situation where 50,000 are essentially left with a trust having been broken, and that is what it is. There is a trust here. People put down money expecting that in perpetuity the cemetery would be taken care of, and now they find 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the line that that trust has been broken in a very cavalier attitude. My electors in Elmwood who have returned the surveys cannot understand how this could happen, how you could have a nonresident owner essentially thumbing his nose at the city, owing $400,000 in taxes, back taxes, and how he would be able to walk away from this problem.
So while I do applaud the interest that Charlie Birt has shown in this, and Bill Norrie, and I have talked to Charlie, it is really too early to tell whether or not a private foundation is, in fact, workable and is, in fact, the answer here. I think if you talk to Charlie he would probably agree with that sentiment, too, because you are expecting an awful lot from people here. You have records that are not on computer, manual records. You would have to hire somebody to go through manual records to determine who is buried where and find out where the relatives are currently living, and then you would have to approach the people and the people are all over the country.
As a matter of fact, I have a letter from Dublin, Ireland. I have a lot of letters from outside the constituency. In fact, it is surprising that very few people who actually live in the immediate streets around the graveyard actually have people buried there, because it has become a transient area and there are a lot of rental properties. If people do buy there, they live there for two or three years and move on, so there are very few long-term residents living there.
What I found interesting is that the returns that I got were fairly equal all through the constituency. I got as many returns from Hazel Dell and up around Oakland and Oakview streets as I did in the immediate area around the graveyard. So in talking to these people, I know that they are not happy about the idea, that the trust has been broken, and that they somehow should be asked again to make further donations.
So with 50,000 people buried there, I am sure you can find enough monied people who may solve the problem, but that is going to be a lot of work, and the question is why should they be in this position in the first place. I mean, regardless of how many millions they have in the bank, that really is not the point. The point was they bought a contract and the contract is not being honoured.
So when they look at this, they interpret a lot of government inaction here, and I know the minister has spent countless hours on this question, but that is not readily apparent to the people out there who are concerned about this issue. For example, the seizure of the trust fund, we have given a number of them on our survey a number of options, and one of the options that has been exceedingly popular is that the government should take steps to seize the trust fund.
The question is: I know it is a call the minister has to make, but at what point does the minister stop believing Mr. Stewart and simply step in and seize the fund? Clearly there has got to be a point at which he does that. I do not know whether that is weeks or months or years away, but surely we cannot let this go on another four or five years. So if things are not worked out in the next few months by his deadline or whatever kind of deadline he has got, then clearly the province will have to apply to the courts to seize the fund and take control.
The sense I got from people is they are wondering why has this not been done. Like why are you sitting here talking about this, and why are you surveying me about this issue? It is a sensible thing to do, and why have you not done it already? It should have been done long ago.
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The constituents, by and large, favour the idea of combining the cemetery with the city's three other cemeteries. That was quite a popular option. They like that one and thought that option was very good. Certainly, the option of reviewing the operations of the trust fund and the management of the cemetery, I have gotten numerous calls from people, and this is kind of standard fare with any question where money is involved. There are certain people, when there is money involved, people will feel that maybe things have not been handled properly, and where is the trust fund, and who has got it and stuff like that, and has it been properly managed?
My understanding is that Mr. Stewart has to account for this money every five years through a judge passing the accounts, but I do not know how critical a view is taken on that question. You know, the minister has been around long enough to know documents get signed in a rush and stuff gets passed routinely, and it is all sort of things that we miss if we are not really looking for them and especially if there has been no cause to think that there would be money missing in the first place. So clearly there are a number of people, and I think in some cases no matter what you do or no matter what we do or no matter what we say that some people will never believe anyway, will think that money has been hidden or taken away. So clearly the management of the cemetery and I think some sort of review of that, I do not know how realistic a forensic accounting process is. I imagine it is expensive, but if there is any evidence that is what may be required, then certainly we would want to take a look at that.
The private foundation question was put in. We have tabulated the results and put them on the computer, and then we sent out letters to the people who responded, only the people that responded with the percentage of responses. I do not have the numbers here, but we did offer them the option of a private foundation being set up. I think, by and large, people are accepting of that. Some people like it, some people actually do not like it, but most of the people feel though that why do we have to go to all this effort, and why do we have to contribute again when we thought we had paid the bill the first time? So there is a certain amount of concern about that.
The other thing too is that--and Charlie and I talked about this--who is going to take it over when he is not around anymore? You know, you set up these funds, and we have seen this happen before that you set up an organization and then the people die who are in control of it, whose idea it was, and then who is there to take it over because there is a limit. We are going to have very few people buried in the cemetery, and so 50 years from now people will not be around. People will be buried somewhere else, and the living people will be interested in those people, not the ones that do not have any more living relatives. So that is a concern.
Another issue that the minister, and I have not heard back from him. Perhaps he did send me a letter, perhaps he did not, but the minister will recall last year that we spent our very short period in Estimates last year during the flood, and I think we all had a very good time, because I know some of the other members were out carrying sandbags and that, while we were here doing our duties.
An Honourable Member: I believe our honourable Chairman was very, very vigorously employed carrying sandbags.
Mr. Maloway: That is right, and when we were not here, I was in the process of moving about 4,000 sandbags into my backyard, so we got a lot of exercise but outside of the hours spent here.
We uncovered at that period, the minister will remember--it was in the middle of the federal election--a case of a candidate for election in an Ontario riding for the Liberal Party, re-election, who was bragging about the fact that he had obtained federal infrastructure funding for cemeteries, and that letter was brought back from Thunder Bay or that campaign leaflet, pardon me, was brought back, and I presented it at the committee. The minister is aware of it, and I had brought forward the proposition at that time, that given that the incumbent government was having some problems, political problems at the time, was looking at an election, that they might be quite willing to look at some representations for monies to be put out of the infrastructure program toward Elmwood Cemetery.
At some point, we did discover that 16 other cemeteries across Canada had received federal infrastructure funding since 1994, so just in three years 16 cemeteries had gotten money. What we were suggesting to the minister at that time was that for the purposes of--well, for whatever purposes you could justify getting the money, that you should approach them, and maybe they could probably not top up your perpetual care fund, but maybe they should take care of some of the riverbank problems or other problems that you are having there. I do not believe I heard back on that one, so we certainly would want--and that one, by the way, was an extremely popular option. It was almost universally acceptable in the survey.
The final proposition that we put across to the people we sent the questionnaires to, and all 7,500 houses got this questionnaire and got this letter, the final proposition they were given was that The Cemeteries Act should be reviewed, and that contributions to the perpetual care fund should be increased, and they thought that that made sense as well. Now, I would like to hear the minister's responses to each of those items if he could.
Mr. Radcliffe: Well, Mr. Chairman, on a technical basis of the use of the words employed by my honourable colleague opposite, I am willing to grant that he is probably quite correct, that there has been a breach of contract of perpetual care and a breach of trust. However, one must be very cautious when using the term "breach of trust" because that automatically suggests to members of the public that some of the capital that has been set aside and dedicated to perpetual care has been encroached upon, and I want to be most assertive in my statement today that I have nothing but the highest of confidence in the National Trust company, that, in fact, they have been a very prudent trustee, and they have kept intact the capital of the fund and that they have been very cautious and not wasteful or imprudent in their investments.
I do not quarrel with my honourable colleague's comments with regard to perhaps the assiduity of the scrutiny on the passing of accounts in years gone by, and I concur that the whole suggestion of a forensic accounting was discussed around the table, and I think the costs of that bear heavily upon the resources that are available today. But, nonetheless, I do concur that that was a term that was bandied about the table, because the individuals who were there also felt somewhat chagrined, I guess, that so much capital for so long had produced so limited results.
So I think we are coming from the same page of the same book on that one. With regard to what is done in other provinces, other countries, my understanding is that in some places in Europe, and specifically England, after a period of about 40 years, 50 years, depending on the soil conditions and depending upon the moisture levels, all remains, all mortal remains, had disappeared, and that in many European places these graveyards are plowed up and reused. That is somewhat of a revolutionary concept I guess for a new nation like Canada where we--[interjection] Yes, that is right, and the honourable colleague mentions Denmark. These are countries of high-density population and areas where all the available living space is dedicated to the purposes of the living.
When one were to travel to Headingley, Manitoba, and stand on Highway No. 1 and look directly west and see the broad extent of the Whitehorse Plains in the Red River Valley, it sort of boggles the mind that we would be complaining in this country to date that we are suffering from lack of space. So I offer that only as information at this point in time. [interjection] Absolutely. I want to advise my honourable colleague that on the issue of cremation, I had the opportunity to bring greetings from the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and my colleagues, all my colleagues in the Legislature, on the opening of a new columbarium on Portage Avenue west.
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I was, in fact, introduced to the industry of death at that point, and this was at Christmas time, and I was astounded at the mathematics involved. There was a columbarium opened in the graveyard just beyond the Perimeter on the south side of Highway No. 1 or Portage Avenue. A columbarium is an above-ground structure, and again it is real estate driven, where location, location, location is the driving force. This is an area where there is a lounge or a sitting room within the building which is outfitted with chesterfields and couches. There are drawers all in the walls, like a crypt. At eye level, one can pay up to $24,000 for a full-body casket deposit. So it is a depository for remains, for mortal remains. If you want an eye level niche for ashes for human remains, that can cost you up to $6,000.
I am told that there are members of our communities here in Winnipeg and in Manitoba who derive great solace and comfort from going out and sitting near to the mortal remains and reflecting on the departed member of their family and meditating, I guess, on the past events of their lives in the comfort of a heated room, tastefully appointed and in comfort, and that there are institutions that cater to this need. For a very, very small geographic consumption of real property, one can meet a significant need in the community.
The monetary returns are incredibly significant. I was told that for a $70,000 investment, the return, if appropriately driven and managed, could be up to $700,000 in actual return. I looked about the property, and I cannot remember--I cannot give you the name of the graveyard right now but that was the location. This was the second such structure that was constructed on that property. I had the occasion to talk to the manager of that institution or that structure because I was intrigued, given the responsibilities that I am undergoing with the Elmwood Cemetery, what all the other alternatives--like my honourable colleague has mentioned opposite, you know, what is done in other communities, what is done in other countries, what is done in other provinces. So this is also another alternative.
An Honourable Member: Is that Glen Lawn?
Mr. Radcliffe: Yes. The honourable member for Brandon East (Mr. L. Evans) mentioned Glen Lawn, and I believe he is--[interjection] Yes. I believe he is quite correct, and he drives past that all the way on his way home back and forth to Brandon East.
So I certainly want to assure my honourable colleague that both the deputy minister and I are being very observant, and, in fact, this has opened a whole new facet of existence to our practice or our jobs now I guess--we do not practise anymore--but to our jobs because of our exposure to Elmwood Cemetery.
Now, my honourable colleague said something about other provinces, I guess, and so I do not expect him to respond at this point, but I would like to extend a discussion I guess. First of all, the background is that I know in the province of Ontario, or I believe in the province of Ontario, if there is a private for-profit graveyard which goes broke or is abandoned, then the status of the law I believe is that those properties estreat and pass to the municipalities.
So I shared that fact with my colleague or our colleague Mr. Angus, who is the point person from the City of Winnipeg, and I said that failing all conciliatory mediative solutions from the community or from our discussions, that this might be the possible alternative which was something within the purview of the members of this Chamber here. So I made it very clear that that is, in fact, a back-up position, that we do not have access to that remedy at this point in time because we do not have the legislation. We would have to bring forth legislation to enforce that.
So given my honourable colleague's inquiry, I guess would be the best thing, as to the appropriateness of private graveyards, and especially mature private graveyards, and abandoned mature private graveyards, perhaps he and his colleagues would make a common cause with me were I to bring forth legislation to this nature that these graveyards would pass to the local municipality. In fact, I note for the record that this was the preponderance of opinion that he elicited from his constituents in his neighbourhood. If he could share with me the number of the survey and the number of people who were in favour of that solution, I certainly would bring that to the attention of the municipal people with whom I am negotiating at this point in time. I do not want these remarks, of course, to be interpreted in any way as being threatening or overbearing or anything like that. This is just looking at all the alternatives that would be open to us as responsible legislators and concerned leaders in our different constituencies.
I think I have answered--oh, I guess one of the other issues that has led to the present state of affairs, which my honourable colleague was not remonstrating with me, but sort of speculating upon or reflecting upon, is the fact that with regard to the changing conditions of our finances and that labour costs have gone up significantly. In 1950, gravediggers, yard people, supervisors did not have the benefit of collective agreements, did not have a wage rate at the level which they enjoy today. So there has been inflation in our community resulting in an increase in costs, an increase in wages, and in some cases, I think the investment, the rate of return on capital, has been reasonably static on an overall year-to-year basis.
I can remember as a younger person being told that if you take the rate of inflation out of our current investment return, if one got 3 percent rate of return, real rate of return on one's capital, one was doing extremely well. I believe back in the Roman times 3 percent was looked upon as an appropriate rate of return on invested capital, and I know that British consuls in the 19th Century, which were a type of bond, paid 3 percent.
So the fact--[interjection] That is right, we have had inflation in our industry, our currency has been devalued, in effect, the dollar today, even internally, is not worth today what it was in 1955. The buying power of that fund is not what it was. The original initiators of this legislation did not tag it to the consumer price index, and it has not kept pace with inflation. So that has been one of the significant drivers of this problem, as well, the fact that the real estate has been exhausted and the fact that we have suffered inflation and that the rate of return on investment, on specifically trustee investments, by its very nature, must be conservative. Obviously, as my honourable colleague knows, the higher the rate of return usually directly parallels the rate of risk in an investment, so as public trustees or the National Trust, of course, has conformed to trustee investments, and so these are some of the drivers on the issue.
I think I have touched on many of the issues. Oh, I know, he was talking about when am I going to seize. Well, I have done some research already, legal research, on the capital fund, the perpetual-care fund, and my, I guess, policy as a first position is that I want to research to see if a mediated, agreed, voluntary conclusion and solution can be reached.
I have indicated to my honourable colleague that we are looking at transfers being effected within the next short while, meaning weeks to month, that there will be solicitation of funds. If we run into a road block and then, for example, the preliminary contacts with the National Trust have elicited the response that they would be agreeable on a voluntary basis if the city agreed to receive the funds and dedicate the funds to perpetual care, which I think is crucial. They cannot go to operations of the city or general operation of a graveyard business, but if they are prepared to accept the funds on the same basis as is found in the legislation, and if Mr. Stewart voluntarily agrees to surrender any claim and right he may have to those funds, then the National Trust was prepared to agree to transfer the funds.
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But that is on contact with the local people here, and as my honourable colleague knows, there is often a vast difference in policy and in collegiate thinking between the branch office and the head office and the legal department, and when National Trust lawyers get at the issue and say, well, what is in the best interests of the National Trust, to protect the National Trust company, they may advise the National Trust company: aha, my good chap, do not you dare let those monies go without a court order, so that the responsibility is passed to an arm of government of the judiciary.
So that may well be a legitimate step we have to pass, and if so, I am quite prepared to commence the proceedings and seek the authority of government to do that, to move the funds from the National Trust company to the City of Winnipeg, given the parameters that we have consensus all way round, and to do that sooner than later.
What is of concern to me, as well, and I must add to my remarks on this issue, Mr. Stewart said--and the problem is so wide, and there are so many facets to it that I think I have told it all and then I think of something else--at the end of January, publicly, in our community, that he was closing the gates and he was going out of business, and this was the end of the world. He did upset a lot of sincere, honest citizens in the community who had near and dear in the yard.
I remember reading about an elderly gentleman who, part of his daily peregrinations was that he would go into the yard and sit and reflect by his wife's grave, and that he was anticipating that he would be barred access to the yard or that if the snow fell and the paths were not shovelled that he could not get in there, and this would be a real shame. I remember reading that and reflecting on that myself.
So at that point in time we were left with the basis that Mr. Stewart was absolutely unequivocally going out of business. Well, I can advise my honourable colleagues that about a month ago the Public Utilities Board contacted Mr. Stewart and advised--I think it was by the end of February--him that they had taken notice of his public declaration that was aired in the local media, and that they were confirming their understanding that he was no longer wishing to carry on business. Mr. Stewart's response to that communication was an application for another year's licence to carry on the active business of a graveyard.
So that is what gave rise--they said, well, they had no legitimate reason to deny him the right to carry on business, but they were prepared to do it on condition. Those were the conditions that I mentioned, that he proceed forthwith to passing of accounts, that he disclose on a monthly basis the division between operation and care, and do that on a quarterly basis, as well, or on the three-month basis as well.
So I think the attitude of the Public Utilities Board was, well, there is no legitimate legislative authority which can bring them to deny him appropriately carrying on the business. Their eyebrows were raised, and they were saying we need some assurance that this now will be a viable enterprise, and that is why those conditions were put, and that was to be before the release of any funds as well. I do not believe that $8,000 has yet been released that I spoke of from the trust fund. [interjection] That is correct. Yes.
Because I, too, had certain qualms when the individual was saying, yes, I am out of business, I never want to darken your doorstep again, I am out of your community, and then a 180 reversal two months later. You know, was he sincere, were we being played with, was this the negotiating tool. Those are all the speculative notions that went through my mind. So I want to be very, very careful. I do not want to subject the Public Utilities Board, nor my government to a lawsuit for certiorari or some other prerogative writ commanding us to do our duty and running up a legal bill and making us look foolish in the eyes of the public. I do not want to unduly harass the individual, but I want to make sure that the consumer public is protected. So this is the balance I have been trying to strike in this issue. So there are some more reflections that I might have on the topic.
Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister then regarding this $8,800 that Mr. Stewart has been given. I was under the impression that he had control of the trust fund. Am I to believe that he has to apply to the trust fund and the trust fund then sends him a cheque for $8,800 of which he pays these bills? Now, cannot the trust fund simply pay the bills directly? Why does it have to be routed through him? Why, I guess because he still owns the graveyard, yes.
Mr. Radcliffe: The nature of the relationship, as I understand it, is Mr. Stewart is a private entrepreneur, a private landowner. He conducts his business as best he sees fit, and it is not up to me to comment or interfere with his private enterprise however well run or ill run it may well be, and that is his business alone. There are funds that have been set aside in the hands of National Trust, as the trustee, the capital, that is where the corpus of the money sits. Mr. Stewart, through his corporation or operating company, whomever, applies to National Trust for a release of the income periodically.
The National Trust have the imposition upon them as trustee that they are to hold the capital intact and to invest it prudently and wisely and to release the income, the revenue, periodically, and on request to satisfy issues of perpetual maintenance. This whole activity is regulated and overseen by the Public Utilities Board, so the Public Utilities Board as a regulator will give instructions to the trustee. The Public Utilities Board is governed by the legislation in this case. Their authority runs only so far as the legislation goes. They can be admonitory, they can be advisory, they can be cautious, but the legislation to date does not enable the Public Utilities Board to prohibit the trustee from releasing the funds on a legitimate request.
So my honourable colleague said: I hope, Radcliffe, that you are going to be reviewing the legislation. I had asserted earlier that, in fact, the deputy and I will be reviewing the entire ambit of this whole relationship, given the experiences we have had, and will be looking at the advisability of either being restrictive or changing the relationships or putting some other options in place. We do not know yet what the appropriate answers would be. Certainly, I think you have identified an issue, and we are aware of it, and we think it needs addressing.
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Mr. Maloway: So this $8,800, then, is given to him for a specific purpose, and then when the purpose has been fulfilled he will go back to the trustee and request more money for continued purpose or some other purpose, and it will be looked at on a case-by-case basis. So it is essentially a receivership proposition then. The trustee is more or less acting as a receiver in this case.
Mr. Radcliffe: Well, I think that is a bit of a misnomer, Mr. Chairman, because a receiver acts in the case of a bankruptcy, insolvency, and is sent in by people who are either clients or preferred shareholders or shareholders or creditors to actually receive the assets of a business, manage them for a purpose for a given length of time to generate income to pay off debt and then turn the asset back to the owner or to liquidate. That is traditionally the language that I understand receiver to be.
What this very properly is is a trustee relationship where funds are held by an independent third party under specific mandate or charge, and the revenue, the income produced from the invested funds, is to be used for a directed purpose. You can have a trustee relationship in estate planning in a private family planning situation. You can have trustees of foundations--oh, that just triggers another comment that my honourable colleague had made. He asked me what was to happen when the Bill Norries and the Charlie Birts of the world passed on and shuffled off this mortal coil.
My response to that would be that the Winnipeg Foundation was the creature of the Alloway family, who were two merchant bankers in Winnipeg in the '20s. They were two brothers and they had the firm of Champion and Alloway, which was a private merchant bank here in Winnipeg and actually had a very attractive Greek revival building on Main Street right where the Trizec building is now. In any event, they allocated a million dollars each to the Winnipeg Foundation back about 1925-26, which was the seed money for what has today become the Winnipeg Foundation which is one of the largest foundations in the country of Canada today.
The Sill Foundation came from Thomas Sill and has been turned over to trustees, the large corpus of his estate. He was a very prosperous chartered accountant in town and had no real direct heirs, lineal heirs, descendants, and so, therefore, he turned over a large part of his estate to charitable purposes. Members of his firm, Bob Filuk in question, who is also a Friend of the Elmwood Cemetery, is one of the trustees of the Sill Foundation.
So, appropriately, if this whole concept of a charitable foundation were to take hold--and I agree with my honourable colleague that this is still very much in its infancy and in a speculative nature, and it may very well not fly. But if it were to fly, if it were to succeed, then the succession planning could well be that the perpetual care fund, or the responsibility for the ownership of the property, could be turned over to a foundation of perpetual succession.
So there are many possibilities of being creative with this issue if, in fact, the public support is there, if, in fact, we are able to get everybody to co-operate, and if, in fact, it proceeds in the way in which we envisage. If not, then perhaps we bring legislation, perhaps we resort to court orders, but that is an adversarial resolution and I always believe that you catch far more flies with honey than you do with grit. So it is far smarter to proceed firstly on a conciliatory process. Then if that fails, and if there is no other alternative that we can conceive, well then maybe we have to get heavy-handed.
Mr. Maloway: Can the minister tell us then what was the quantum of salary and dividends that this owner has been taking out of this cemetery in the last number of years? And frequency, by the way.
Mr. Radcliffe: I do not have those figures today. If we do go over another day, I can certainly furnish my honourable colleague with some of those figures because I think we have--what have we got? I can give him the last filing of accounts from the Queen's Bench, which I have in hand, and I have some other financial records in hand in the file. I do not have them with me here today, but I certainly have no problem giving them to him.
The current occupant of the office, Mrs. Gerri Mason, receives a very nominal salary. She performs a clerking function and is paid on an appropriate level, but it is very modest. I believe that up till about 10 years ago this whole enterprise was generating some sort of dividend income. My recollection is that the profitability of this whole enterprise dropped off very significantly about a decade ago. But in any event, whatever financial records I have got touching on our research, and these are documents that are--I am not breaching any confidence--these are documents that are in the public domain which we have obtained, I certainly have no problem sharing with my honourable colleague.
Mr. Maloway: So is the minister saying, then, that to the best of his knowledge there has been no management fees or salaries or dividends paid in the last few years?
Mr. Radcliffe: No, I am not saying that because I do believe there has been a management fee charged in the last number of years and, as I say, I would not speculate because it would be rank speculation at this point sitting in this chair today, but I will get those figures. I have some of those figures, in any event, and I am quite happy to share them.
Mr. Maloway: Can the minister then confirm that a management fee is being paid currently, this current year, to the owner?
Mr. Radcliffe: I do not believe there is a management fee being charged right now for the current year. I have not seen anything in the accounting to that effect, but very appropriately this is an issue which Mr. Stewart will have to present to the court and will suffer the scrutiny of a Queen's Bench judge, or a master of the Queen's Bench, who this matter will be referred to, I would imagine.
I think that would be my sum and substance. Yes, I think that would be the extent of my remarks, yes.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, the minister forgot to address some of the areas that I brought up earlier and one of them was his position and his activity or lack of activity as far as the federal infrastructure funding program was concerned. I had mentioned that up to June of last year, I believe 16 other cemeteries across Canada had received federal infrastructure programming.
Has the minister checked into that program, and why has he not, if he has not?
Mr. Radcliffe: Mr. Chair, I have not checked into the infrastructure application up until this point in time, because I have been very loath, on behalf of government, to take any proprietary interest in this project, because I have felt that the business of government has been that of a regulatory issue, not a funder, not an owner or proprietor. I have been quite clear with Mr. Stewart when he asked to sit down and discuss his problems with me, that if he really pressed me I would, but I really was not happy about doing this because I do not want to be put in a position on behalf of government of financing a defunct graveyard. That is not a function that government does; and likewise, the municipal authorities feel much the same way that they want to get out of the graveyard business, so they have told me--although they have a number of functioning graveyards--rather than expanding their activity in this area.
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I feel that the role of government has been to mediate, to arrange, to facilitate, which is what I have done to date. I have hosted a number of meetings in my office. I have contacted individuals whom I knew had connection with the graveyard. I have tried to put them together as a community of interest, but my role has been one of a facilitator, not one of a financier nor of hands-on operator. Nature abhors a vacuum, as I am sure my honourable colleague knows, and if I on behalf of the provincial government were to charge to the rescue and come up with all the answers and funds and all the quick, snappy solutions for this problem, rather than turning to the community and saying, let us get some community support here, let us find out what the nature and extent of the resources are out there in the community, what is the support level for this, but if I were just to throw public money or public skill at this problem at the first instance, then I think I would be subject to criticism of being imprudent with the public purse.
If this property were to estreat to the provincial Crown, then we are looking at a whole new realm of parameter of activity, but we are a long way from that. I do not even know yet who is going to own this property, and right now it is still in the hands of a private entrepreneur. So it is inappropriate for me as a minister of the Crown to approach him and start giving him business ideas. If he does not have the wit to do it himself and come in out of the cold, well, then that is his misfortune, but it is not my role to be a financial adviser to him.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, the minister indicated that he is reviewing The Cemeteries Act and what I would like to know is, clearly one of the areas he would be looking at is increasing the contributions to the perpetual care fund, that being one of them. I believe the second area he is looking at is the possibility of having the cemeteries default to the municipal level when they get into trouble.
What other areas would the minister be looking at making changes in as far as The Cemeteries Act changes would be concerned?
Mr. Radcliffe: I would also be looking at relating the level of investment, the perpetual care fund, tagging that or relating that to the consumer price index, so that determining what is an appropriate percentage of the purchase price of every plot to maintain a reasonable amount of care for that particular graveyard or plot of land, so we have to establish in today's parlance what is an appropriate level of contribution. Then maybe the 30 percent or 35 percent that is donated now is appropriate if it were related to the CPI, consumer price index, but I certainly want to look at that and see if that is appropriate.
I want to look at the whole issue of the role of the Public Utilities Board and to see whether, in fact, they need more authority on whether to give instructions to the trustees. Are commercial trustees the appropriate party to hold these trust funds? I do not know. Should there be other options granted? Are there other public institutions or members of the community that do not charge as much that we should give people the opportunity to place these funds? Is this a role that the trust companies want to continue fulfilling?
Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair
These are all issues because I know that in today's level of expenses and investment charges, et cetera, that trust companies are loath to become involved with investing small amounts of money, that they look on them as only nuisance accounts. So research and consultation has got to be done with that whole area, whether, in fact, the Public Trustee should be vested with this authority or whether the Public Utilities Board, whether there is some other area of government, the Department of Finance, that has the skill and ability to invest funds. These are all issues that would be subject to discussion, research. I would probably assign the issue to my research department. I have a very capable and honourable researcher, Mr. Ian Anderson, who has done noble work in the production of the life-lease legislation which has now come to a conclusion. He will be a fresh resource for me next year to be addressing new issues, and this may well be one of the issues that we will put on his plate.
Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister whether he has reason to believe that all of the revenues over the years was actually turned over to the perpetual care fund? I mean, does he have any way of knowing whether that was the case or not the case? I mean, how would one be able to know that if there was a deliberate diversion taking place?
Mr. Radcliffe: I would remind the honourable colleague that, first of all, in answer to that question, you have got to look at the structure. National Trust is the recipient and custodian of the capital. If he is asking was all the revenue from the capital turned over to the operator, yes, it was. The way one discerns that is looking at the passing of accounts through the years. Those are all documents that are on deposit in the Queen's Bench office, so that is where you go to look for that information.
I do not believe there was a residue of revenue that was reinvested back into capital. That is also an issue that begs scrutiny as well. Should some of the revenue be reinvested back in, should that be the source of increasing the perpetual care account? But to date, with this particular perpetual care account, I am of the belief at this time that Mr. Stewart, through his corporations, has taken all of the revenue that has been generated from this capital account and used it for the perpetual care.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, the minister made reference to the Loewen group's interest in this. I would like to know: why would the Loewen group be interested in this cemetery? What would be their role, and where would they see any avenue for profit here?
Mr. Radcliffe: I think my honourable colleague has suggested the answer to that question in his question when he said that there must be profit in the enterprise. As you know, the Loewen group is a very vigorous and aggressive mortuary company, and I am sure that the only reason they would become involved with this enterprise in the operation of the graveyard is if they could see that it would augment their commercial enterprise. Beyond that, any further answer would have to be addressed, or any further scrutiny of that issue would have to be addressed to the Loewen group to discern what their motivation would be for becoming involved with this enterprise, because I do not have that information.
Mr. Maloway: So the minister is saying he really does not know why they would be involved in this.
Mr. Radcliffe: I do not know why they would be involved in this enterprise over and above being able to operate a commercial enterprise at a profit, which I presume would be the driving force. They have the skill; they have the motivation for being involved in this sort of enterprise; they have done it successfully; they have a proven track record of being extremely successful. I can only speculate, but I do not think they would become involved deliberately in a losing proposition. They would only do this if they thought they could be successful at it financially.
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Mr. Maloway: Would the minister then endeavour to find out what Loewen's role is in this at this point, or is there no role?
Mr. Radcliffe: Loewen has no role at this point in time in either the operation or in the direction of the Elmwood Cemetery. The Loewen group, I believe, may be consulted, and this is highly speculative, but may be consulted by Mr. Stone, or Mr. Stone may look to his own resources. Mr. Stone is a City of Winnipeg employee who is, I believe, the manager, or a person who is directly responsible for Brookside Cemetery and there is one other Winnipeg cemetery.
I just heard by virtue of third-hand news or information that the Loewen group--somebody mentioned to me that the Loewen group had expressed some interest, not in taking it over but being an operator. I have had no direct communication with the Loewen group. None of the committee that I know of have had any direct communication with the Loewen group, and to date they have had no input nor connection to this issue.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, within the last year, there was an individual in Winnipeg who surfaced offering to set up a fund and solicit donations for this. Mr. Halprin [phonetic], I believe. I would like to know just what has happened with his offer, and did he do anything?
Mr. Radcliffe: Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Maloway: The minister earlier indicated that Mr. Stewart now is in a position of owning a building and some equipment, on which the taxes are all paid, the building portion, and he sees that there is potentially $100,000 worth of value here to someone. [interjection] Well, that is why he is asking for $100,000, whether it is realistic or not, but, you know, this whole proposition is absurd, so why should this surprise us, that this man would want $100,000 for this little house?
So what we have here is we have a guy in Ontario who owes the city $400,000 in taxes, who is getting another $8,800 as we speak to do certain things to the cemetery, and he expects to walk away from this at some point, leaving the taxpayers out $400,000 in city taxes after he has been taking management fees all these years, right, and not running the cemetery because that is not what he is doing; running it into the ground maybe, but he has not been doing anything productive with it. He intends to squeeze as much as $100,000 for this building and equipment out of Manitoba and then ride off into the sunset.
I mean, it seems to me that this is the ultimate in irresponsible corporate behaviour, and it just points to the fact that private cemeteries just should not be allowed to exist in this country. I am sorry, but that is the conclusion that I have to draw after looking at this mess.
I think you are being excessively patient in dealing with this situation. I think you should have seized that trust account years ago. Mind you, this government has gone through so many Consumer Affairs ministers--I think practically the whole caucus gets a turn at Consumer Affairs--and I am a little worried that you are the first minister, I think, who has spent really any real time on this file. I am worried that you are going to be shuffled off to your reward, and some new minister will be put in there who may not show the same dedication to solving it, and we may, as early as next year, be on that side of the House with you sitting over here asking me why it has taken so long to do something about this. That is my worst nightmare, not having to sit over there, Mr. Chairman, but having this thing go on interminably.
So I would like some ministerial comments on that whole scenario, that this man could walk away and owe the city $400,000 and somehow think that he should get $100,000 for this little house and be able to walk away with it.
Mr. Radcliffe: Well, there are a number of issues that I would like to be responsive to that my honourable colleague opposite has raised.
First of all, he has abjured or urged me to seize the accounts. I guess I have to respond to that by saying until Mr. Stewart in January of 1998 said that he was going out of business, all I had to rely upon was, in fact, secondhand information from the marketplace that he was having financial difficulties. Mr. Stewart himself advised me that he was having financial difficulties. He wrote me several times. He solicited my assistance as a member of the government, and I assured him that I was not in the position where I was going to be donating public money to a failing private entrprise, and I was as pithy and short and as blunt on that as one could be within the realm of good taste and decency.
So I guess what I would say to my honourable colleague is if I were to have approached the Queen's Bench on behalf of a government any time prior to this individual saying he was going out of business, a Queen's Bench judge, from my experience of 20 years before the bar, would have turned to me and said, well, minister, on what basis do you have any cause for complaint? The man is entitled to run an enterprise as he sees fit, however properly or imprudently as you may think, but it is presumptuous of you to come and publicly speak to a court and impute that he is in jeopardy. The funds themselves were not vulnerable to misappropriation. The capital was not vulnerable to misappropriation, and then today they are still not vulnerable to misappropriation.
My comment is that National Trust is taking a commercial rate of return for handling those funds and investing them. I believe that the City of Winnipeg may be able to do as well, if not better, on the investment level for a far more modest charge. So therefore that brings me to a conclusion that the fund and the consumer and the members of the families of the Elmwood Cemetery, the occupants of the Elmwood Cemetery, would be better off by a transfer of funds now, but that opportunity, that resource was not open to me until, oh, I believe, a week ago. It may still not yet be available to me. It is still at the negotiating stage, but up until this January, with the greatest respect I believe that a Queen's Bench judge would have been well founded in dismissing this case summarily and out of hand.
We were also left with the position that because the individual had applied for a future licence for the next year, which was I believe a clever step on his point, he then might well, if this scenario had not developed the way it has, have positioned himself very adroitly, so that a Queen's Bench judge's hands would have been tied, that the funds still could not have been transferred away from National Trust and away from the present charge. So that is why I have not acted to date having some grasp of trusteeship, The Cemeteries Act and the various relationships between the parties.
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One comment I would have is that the municipal assessment on the graveyard has been significantly reduced in the last number of years. The object of the assessment now is directed to the areas of the graveyard that are not dedicated and occupied as graves. [interjection] Yes, and so that would mean the roadways, that would mean the unsold real estate. I believe that this was an option that was open to Mr. Stewart on his tax regime for some time, and he may or may not have availed himself of that. I have had a very cursory assurance from the City of Winnipeg that the $400,000 tax base or tax sum is legitimate and not subject to challenge. It is not my business to challenge that. Were I operating as an entrepreneur, I believe that every entrepreneur has the duty to minimize his tax, and therefore to ensure that the only tax that he was paying would be the tax on the unsold lots and the roadways within that graveyard.
Whether he was taxed on the basis of that property or on the basis of the whole 30 hectares, I do not know. So there may be some academic speculation involved with that $400,000, so I just caution my honourable colleague that certainly it is $400,000, in the nature of $400,000 that is outstanding and on the books of the city. How we got to that point may well be something that would deserve further scrutiny if someone were to go down that path, and I do not believe anybody will at this point in time.
As to whether I am going to donate or turn over $100,00 of public money to this individual for the purchase of that house on Hespeler and that equipment, I can assure this honourable colleague that my advice to Treasury, to Finance, to my department officials and my keeper of my privy person, my department, that I would recommend most heartily against it.
What may happen is that Mr. Stone, the city official, the civic official, is I think going to inform himself as to a realistic assessment of the value of that house on Hespeler and report back to us as to what he thinks it is worth on a market value, and I think that through the city--the poor old City of Winnipeg Assessment Branch has received a significant degree of opprobrium over the last couple of years, but I do believe they have those skills. So we are going to access that resource and receive that information. Also, I believe the graveyard operators are going to go and assess the worth, the real worth, of the equipment, but my position right now is that I believe it is probably worth less and that, in fact, it would be a liability.
So my estimation of the opinion of the Friends of the Elmwood Cemetery is that they are not interested in acquiring that property and that that will be a nonstarter. But that is not my decision. All I can assure my honourable colleague is that the money that I have access to will not go that route. I believe that the Friends of the Elmwood Cemetery will not go that route, and we will not be asking the public, or they will not be asking the public, for the public's money to go that route either, because it does not make sense.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I thank the minister for his reassurance on that point because I think that to add sort of insult to injury, if he were to walk away with any amount of money on that property, it would certainly have a lot of people riled up in my area and for good reason. So if there is any way to leave him with a building on Hespeler and very little prospect of selling, then I think that would be just.
I wanted to, at this point, Mr. Chairman, move onto a different area, and perhaps we could find out just what the current status is regarding the tampering of odometers in this province. This has been an issue now ongoing for a number of years. A previous minister made a statement that this was not a problem, and the RCMP at the time indicated that it was a major problem. We know that it continues to be a fairly major problem in spite of some good efforts on the part of the province, I believe, to put a stop to this problem. But I would like an update on where this issue is at this point.
Mr. Chairperson in the Chair
Mr. Radcliffe: Mr. Chair, I would like to advise my honourable colleague that we have a new director at the Consumers' Bureau, an individual by the name of Marjorie Simpson, who is a very upbeat, assertive, aggressive person who will be taking great strides to make some innovations at the Consumers' Bureau and be addressing issues of measurement of resource, and addressing results, and doing cost-benefit analysis, addressing and questioning the direction and the values of the Consumers' Bureau, and addressing what sort of returns we should be getting, and ensuring that we are getting the returns, and accomplishing the goals and mission that we ought to be concerning ourselves with on this department, this aspect of my department.
Having said that, we have contacted Ms. Simpson and she advises that nobody at the Consumers' Bureau in this past year has received a complaint, either verbal, written or otherwise, electronic, with regard to odometer tampering.
So I would invite my honourable colleague that if he has any information as to any fraudulent activity or felonious activity with regard to this business practice, to supply my office with that information, and I will be most vigorous in prosecuting it through the good offices of Ms. Simpson.
Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): Mr. Chair, I rise in committee today because I understand there was a concern raised this afternoon about the entrance of a certain member of the Legislature who represents the constituency of Emerson, and that person, as well, serves on the board of directors of the Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation. That Public Insurance Corporation board met this morning, and I was in attendance at that board meeting when I received a phone call that there might be a vote in this House. So I was called to this House for a vote, and I just walked into the small room in 269 when the bells quit ringing and the sign was being put up that the doors would be closed.
I asked the attendant to open the door for me, and she did reluctantly. I understand it has caused some significant difficulty among some of the members in this Legislature. Certainly, I did not want to cause any deal or anxiety or grief to the staff, and so with that I rise today to apologize to the staff of the Legislative Council and to the Clerk's office for causing a situation whereby they felt the need to accede to my wishes to open the doors.
I know that having spent better than two years chairing a committee that developed new rules for this Chamber and that part of the decision was to establish rules to set a procedure in place that would close the doors and when the doors should be closed for a vote, that I respect more than anybody does in this Chamber those rules. I certainly want to apologize to staff for having caused any inconvenience to them or any inconvenience that I might have caused.
So I hope that this does not cause the person who opened the door any problems in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairperson: I thank the honourable member for that statement.
Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister if he could give us an update on the house-flipping situation that occurred about three years ago now that is being currently investigated by the RCMP, and seizures have been made. I believe charges will be laid at some point, but I would like to know just what the minister knows about the current status.
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Mr. Radcliffe: I can advise that the Manitoba Securities Commission was the operative department of government that discovered this business of house flipping, I believe over a year ago, and the Manitoba Securities Commission reported the matter to the RCMP. Our best knowledge to date, as we sit here in this Chamber today, is that this matter is still under investigation by the RCMP. There was one particular realtor involved with this practice, and as my honourable colleague knows, the Manitoba Securities Commission also administers the realtors act, the act governing the behaviour of realtors. The individual involved apparently abandoned his registration at the operative point in time, and then a number of years later--I think a year later--applied again for registration to act as a realtor. At that point in time his accreditation was declined.
Mr. Maloway: Can the minister give us a more recent update as to what is happening with the RCMP and their investigation on this matter? Clearly, the office has some communication with the RCMP.
Mr. Radcliffe: I am advised by my staff that the practice of the RCM Police is that when a matter is referred to them by an arm of the provincial government that they receive the information and then go about conducting their independent inquiries. Their only response as a matter of course back to the department upon intermittent inquiries by the department is thank you very much for your inquiry. The matter is under investigation, and we will advise you upon the conclusion of our investigations.
The last contact that my office had, my department had, with the RCM Police on this issue, was approximately three months ago.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, what were the results of your communication with the RCMP at that time?
Mr. Radcliffe: As I had previously outlined, the RCM Police advised the appropriate people within the department in the Securities Commission that the matter was under investigation and when they were satisfied one way or the other as to the outcome of their inquiry, they would advise the Securities Commission.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I did want to, at this time, ask the minister questions regarding the year 2000 problem, millennium bug, as to what he and his department are doing or I guess not doing about the problem, and if he could give me a bit of an overview as to what is happening.
Mr. Gerry McAlpine (Chairperson of the section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254): Mr. Chairman, in the section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 to consider the Estimates of the Department of Justice, a point of order was raised by the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh) regarding the relevancy of the response made by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews). The Chair ruled that the member did not have a point of order. The ruling of the Chair was challenged and was subsequently upheld and a formal vote was requested by two members.
Mr. Chairperson: A formal vote having been requested, call in the members.
All sections in Chamber for formal vote.
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Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. In the section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 considering the Estimates of the Department of Justice, a point of order was ruled on by the Chair. This ruling was sustained on a voice vote, and subsequently two members requested that a formal vote on this matter be taken.
The question before the committee is: Shall the ruling of the Chair be sustained?
A COUNT-OUT VOTE was taken, the result being as follows: Yeas 24, Nays 19.
Mr. Chairperson: The ruling of the Chair has been sustained.
The hour now being after five o'clock, time for private members' hour. Committee rise. Call in the Speaker.