Mr. Gerry McAlpine (Sturgeon Creek): Some people may say that the education system does not always do enough to promote the development of musical talent and ability. I would like to share with the House today a bit about one teacher in St. James who has proven this wrong.

Mr. Jim Mackay spent 21 years as the band teacher at Silver Heights Collegiate. He has decided to retire, but he will leave a considerable musical legacy behind which I concluded after attending an event last night. Many students have entered Silver Heights without necessarily having cultivated their musical ability. They sat in front of Mr. Mackay where he uncovered their skills. Later they graduated from Silver Heights, taking with them awards for their newly developed talent. He has inspired many students to further a career in the music and arts industry. For example, one previous student plays keyboard for Lenny Kravitz. Another student is currently in Paris working for a national ballet company. Another student, Jim Mair, is in charge of the music program at the University of Idaho.

I recently had the pleasure of attending his last school concert at Pantages Playhouse. I was very impressed to witness these young students who sounded so professional. The enjoyment they were receiving from playing under Mr. Mackay's direction was readily apparent.

Mr. Mackay is truly deserving of the awards he has received during his teaching career, including one for excellence in teaching. Many parents, students and fellow teachers of Mr. Mackay's have benefited from their friendship and professionalism. His students quickly became like family.

It is teachers like Jim Mackay that will continue to develop our students into successful young adults as he passes on the reins to another great teacher, Mr. Blaine Workman. I hope that the many lives Mr. Mackay has touched have truly benefited from the qualities that he carries. Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you to Mr. Mackay.

Mr. Murray Smith

Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): Madam Speaker, on April 27, 1999, Murray Smith, retired teacher and dedicated community activist, was named the 1999 Joseph Zuken Citizen Activist.

In presenting the award, Professor Carl Ridd compared Murray Smith to Don Quixote whose challenges to established order became his mark of heroism and morality.

Murray Smith's professional career and academic record are distinguished, but today I want to celebrate the highlights of his volunteer work. He served on the University of Manitoba's board of governors for eight years and on the Health Sciences Centre board for 12 years, including three years as chair. He was president of the Manitoba Teachers' Society and has been a long-time advocate for teachers' rights and pension benefits.

Murray Smith was a strong advocate for the Status of Women long before it was politically correct for men to champion feminist thinking.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

An Honourable Member: They see your double standards. They know–

Ms. McGifford: Could you just shut your mouth for one minute, Linda.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Leader of the official opposition, on a point of order.

I think all of us, including myself, should stop our heckling, and the member for Assiniboia should be monitored by the Speaker.

Madam Speaker: The honourable Minister of Environment, on the same point of order.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Environment): Madam Speaker, since I was moved to this particular seat, I have the–I do not know if it is advantage or disadvantage of having the sound come here from that side. All day long every day that we are in session the members on that side are muttering and heckling and chirping from their seats, and, yes, I respond. Almost everything they hear from me is a response to what either the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) has said or somebody over here has said, and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) is one of the worst, sitting there muttering under his teeth, muttering all the way through. Sometimes I am sitting here reading, and he will say be quiet, and I am reading.

Madam Speaker, I do acknowledge that I did indicate that they were honouring someone who is named after an award who was a communist, and that is fine. That is not an insult.

Madam Speaker, I will refrain from heckling, but I do want to point out again this is another example of the double standard of those people who insist that we achieve a standard they find impossible to keep themselves.

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Osborne, on the same point of order.

Madam Speaker: The honourable government House leader, on the same point of order.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, I appreciate the difficulty with which Madam Speaker is attempting to deal with the situation in the House. But I just say, in fairness to the member for Assiniboia, her comments, which I did not hear, I understand were not directed at any of the individuals being honoured by the member for Osborne.

Perhaps the lesson for all members is in the banter that goes back and forth across this House. Many times what is intended is not what may appear by those listening. I think that is a warning I would ask Madam Speaker to make to the members in this House.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I would like to ask all members of the House if they would like a five-minute recess to settle the issue once and for all. Is that the will of the House?

Some Honourable Members: No.

Madam Speaker: No? Order, please, then. Please. I have been standing for almost all of Question Period on and off trying to maintain order.

Firstly, let me thank the honourable member for Osborne (Ms. McGifford) for the withdrawal of her intemperate language. Secondly, on the point of order raised by the honourable Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), I was attempting to get all members to indeed come to order. I do not know if members in this House recognize, first, how rude you are perceived to be by the public when there is so much disruption, and secondly, when the Speaker stands and asks for order, how very few members pay any attention to the Speaker standing.

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I would ask for the co-operation of all honourable members in this Chamber. I particularly am very sensitive to the fact that there is a lot of disruption–I have raised it on several occasions–during members' statements. We have only five members' statements a day, and members are allowed two minutes. That is very important time for all members to make comments, particularly regarding events and individuals in their constituencies who deserve recognition.

Madam Speaker: Now the honourable member for Osborne, I believe, has one and a half minutes left to complete her member's statement, hopefully without interruption.

Ms. McGifford: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do not know whether Murray Smith will be pleased or not that his name has caused so much fuss and fervour in the House. I was speaking about his volunteer record and wanted to point out that more recently he has been a board member of the Manitoba Society of Seniors organization and also president of the Retired Teachers' society. Murray Smith earned the Joseph Zuken Citizenship Activist Award for the range of his volunteer activity but particularly for his recent work in advocating against the federal government's proposed seniors' benefit.

Believing that this proposed benefit would indeed be no benefit at all, he took up the issue with great tenacity, organizing and speaking to groups all over Manitoba. Murray Smith and his colleagues won the battle, and rightly so. Today, I ask all members of the House to join me in congratulating Murray Smith on this particular victory, on his receiving the Joseph Zuken Citizenship Activist Award and on his long life of dedication to social justice.

Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship): On Wednesday, June 9, I had the pleasure of presenting the Sport Manitoba Order of Sport Excellence to the Vincent Massey girls cross country running team for winning the Varsity Girls Cross Country Provincial Championship.

I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to Michelle Carson, Julie Dunford, Tobi Straker, Jill Johnson, Shanna Semler, Sarah Malahias, Janice Rotts, Heather Kirby, Val Carson, Kim Pollock, Jenna Lessak, Christel Johanson, Ellie Lessak, Marie Baffoe and Crystal Wiegner.

I would also like to congratulate Michelle Carson who placed second overall in the three-kilometre race in a field of 140 girls. So congratulations to each one of these very talented and hardworking athletes and particularly how very well they worked as a team. Congratulations, Vincent Massey.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): I rise to speak about a number of organizations in The Maples. As spring arrives, a number of community groups have their windups, their elections, and often these are hardworking volunteers. Quite often in The Maples, as probably in most communities, it is the same people you see serving as volunteers at the parent committees, in the schools, at the community centre, the justice committees, and they do not get anywhere near their recognition.

Recently, I was away from the city to attend a wedding of a niece, and while I was away the annual general meeting of The Maples Recreation Association occurred. From all accounts that I have heard, it was a well-attended meeting. This recreation association in the past couple of years has really expanded its reach. They have gone beyond mere sports programs. There is a lot of work done in hockey and soccer and the baseball programs that they have there, but they also have a seniors' program in the recreation association. They have had a drop-in program there. They now have The Maples literacy working group having literacy programs in there. In the recent election, they have changed the setup of their board to not only represent the different sports involved, but they have five members-at-large who are going to continue in this direction of making The Maples Recreation Centre a true community place, and I congratulate the board and the volunteers and hope they carry on the good work that they are doing.

Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): I want to rise today to recognize the announcement that NATO has ended the bombing in Kosovo and Yugoslavia. I am sure that all members in the House will join me in my hope that this is the beginning of peace in this region and that there will be further agreements in the removal of Serbian troops. There has been criticism and concern expressed in the local media today that not a lot has been said here in this House over the last 79 days of the military action of NATO in Yugoslavia. I know myself I have often felt that the debates we have been having in this House over this period have paled in comparison to Canadian forces involved in this NATO action. I want to assure members, as well as on our side, that I am sure there has been a lot of concern.

I know that I and others have been in contact with our federal colleagues who do, at the federal level, have the majority of the responsibilities legislatively in parliament over these matters. But we have all watched with horror at the failed bombing attempts, at the errors made, and now the humanitarian disaster that still is occurring with hundreds of thousands of people who are forced to be refugees. We know that these people have been forced to live in appalling circumstances, that they have been separated from their families, that they have had inadequate food, shelter. They have survived flooding as well as the bombings and the loss of their homes and possessions. We know that there are 5,000 that are coming to Canada and 350 are coming to Manitoba, and I know from the Minister of Housing (Mr. Reimer) that some of these families are indeed going to be housed in Manitoba Housing properties.

I also want to recognize, though, the lack of forethought in planning for the obvious humanitarian refugee needs that were going to be occurring when the bombing was first initiated. I also want to recognize that the horror is going to continue as we now have to replace the infrastructure and deal particularly with the fact that depleted uranium shells were used in the bombing of Kosovo and that the radiation from these shells, as it did in Iraq, will continue to have environmental and human health consequences for many, many years to come.