Mrs. Myrna Driedger (Charleswood): Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House and speak about an important and innovative initiative of this government. The Power Up initiative is a two-year $300,000 computer training program for Manitoba women. It was announced recently by Premier Gary Filmon and Rosemary Vodrey, Minister responsible for the Status of Women.

This program will give free computer training to women in various communities throughout the province. This is a tremendous initiative. We are all aware of the importance of computer literacy in today's world and one's ability to move ahead in the workforce is now largely contingent on one's familiarity with computers and related technology. The Power Up program involves 15 hours of training in a computer lab. There is also a work book and tutorial disc so women can learn at their own pace.

The Women's Directorate in partnership with Manitoba Education and Training developed the Power Up program. Employment Projects for Women Inc., a community-based employment centre for immigrant women and women re-entering the workforce, is developing the curriculum for the course. This government wants to give all Manitobans a chance to succeed, and we are committed to helping Manitoba women seize the incredible opportunities present due to our economic growth. This training will help give them a competitive edge.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, it is important to reflect on the horrific tragedy of at least 15 children murdered yesterday in Littleton, Colorado, and express our empathy, our sadness, our anger at this criminal and moral outrage.

Any time there is such a violent, senseless end to the life of a child, we are shocked and are drawn to share the pain with the survivors. When a family sees a child off to school in the morning, the family looks forward to and expects a day of learning and personal growth for that child, expects a better future, not the eradication of a future.

Tragedies like this also make us re-evaluate our parenting, our systems, our social development, and seek improvements. This offers us the only good that can come from such horror. Such re-evaluation must include questioning how we can better protect our children while at school, that we must recognize that violence is not bred in the school; it is brought in from outside. So we must re-evaluate the virtually unchecked growth of a violent popular culture which is fuelled by the search for profit. The growth and glorification of violent movies and television so-called heroes and violent video games that enlist children in violence against human characters, for example, are powerful forces. The sanctity of human life is relegated to body counts in movies, in scores in video games. This culture helps legitimize violent responses by youth to conflict and challenges.

We must also re-evaluate our responses to domestic violence. We must re-evaluate how we prevent and suppress gang activity and how we deal with youth despair, and we must re-evaluate how schools can become a stronger part of the solution to teaching and practising of nonviolent conflict resolution.

In conclusion, while we mourn the loss this tragedy brings, we also hope that from this school in Colorado some most profound and unintended lessons will be taught and that we will in some way progress.

Mr. David Faurschou (Portage la Prairie): Saturday last, I had the pleasure of attending the gala opening of the William Glesby Centre in Portage la Prairie. The William Glesby Centre is a first-class, multiuse theatre which will accommodate a variety of performing arts as well as small- and medium-sized conventions. The economic and cultural impacts of this centre have already been felt in the community of Portage la Prairie.

I am very proud to tell all members present today that the Department of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship, under the direction of the Honourable Rosemary Vodrey, participated in the construction of this $2.1-million facility providing $400,000 in assistance, which is greatly appreciated. In the first months of operation, the William Glesby Centre has hosted a number of sold-out events. This facility has indeed enhanced Portage la Prairie's position as a regional centre in rural Manitoba and has heightened our sense of pride.

The centre has been named in honour of William Glesby who was a highly respected local businessman who dedicated a lifetime of support to a number of local initiatives in Portage la Prairie. Mr. Glesby passed away in 1996, but his spirit of generosity to the city of Portage la Prairie lives on in this new facility in his name.

I would like to express a special thank you to the Glesby family, especially his wife Fimi for her continuing support of the citizens of Portage la Prairie. I also would like to thank the Portage Community Centre board who had the vision and dream of this facility, and as well the volunteers and contributors for their efforts in promoting the potential of our community through the construction of the William Glesby Centre. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

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Mr. Oscar Lathlin (The Pas): Madam Speaker, late yesterday afternoon we received word that one of our elders had passed on to the spirit world, and so it is with great sadness and a deep sense of loss that I rise today to pay respects to the late Isaac Beaulieu. Mr. Beaulieu was from the Sandy Bay First Nation. As a young person just starting out in my work life, I used to watch our earlier leaders in awe, and Mr. Beaulieu was one of them, as they would meet and develop strategies to implement their visions for our future. Some of you might be aware of the document called Wahbung. Wahbung was developed then, and today scholars often refer to that document as they do their work.

Mr. Beaulieu was one of those few people in our earlier days of development who went into the education area. He, himself, one of few aboriginal people in those days, went on to get post-secondary education. More recently he was the director of education at the Sandy Bay education authority, and yesterday he was performing his duties as senior adviser to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs when he died.

On behalf of everyone here, Madam Speaker, I would like to send our sincere condolences to the family of the late Mr. Beaulieu. Our prayers, I want them to know, are with them, and I pray that the Great Spirit will give them strength and guidance that they may get over this bump in life as they go through. Thank you.

Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Madam Speaker, a few moments ago in Question Period I had a chance to raise the issue with respect to the 23,000 Manitobans who are living with epilepsy and the problems that they are encountering in their life.

During the Christmas period, just a few months ago, I had a chance to meet a young woman by the name of Rhonda–and I will not use the last name–who is an individual who is living with epilepsy and is one of those 40 percent of the intractable cases that we have in the province of Manitoba. This individual had gone through a series of drug treatments in the sense of trying to control the epilepsy that she is living with daily because she does suffer from very serious seizures.

This individual was unable to bring her epilepsy under control and had the good fortune to encounter Dr. Pillay, who has since left the province of Manitoba. Dr. Pillay, seeing that this young lady was in a position of being a candidate for the vagus nerve implant, performed that procedure and that young lady, Madam Speaker, to this day is living what I would consider to be a relatively normal life considering the circumstances that are involved with her illness.

That is a process that Dr. Pillay pioneered in the province of Manitoba that has brought a more normal life to many Manitobans, those that he implanted that device into. The unfortunate part is that this young lady had another encounter with the medical system in one of her seizures where there was no one around that could bring that seizure under control, and she was taken to hospital. The hospital medical staff tried to use drugs to control that seizure that the young lady was encountering when all it would have taken would be to take the magnet that she had in her pocket, pass it over the vagus nerve implant, and the seizures would cease.

Madam Speaker, we have a serious problem in this province where we have people that have undergone the vagus nerve implant, and we do not have someone there to provide the ongoing research and medical supports that are necessary for people living with epilepsy. That is why I think it is so serious that I have asked this minister and his government to make sure that those patients are well cared for and not put at further risk due to their condition. Thank you.