* (1440)

Mr. Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon, this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 will resume the consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Natural Resources. When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 12.1. Administration and Finance (d) Financial Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits on page 119 of the Estimates book.

When the committee last sat, agreement had been given for questions to be asked globally and with the line items to be passed once all questions had been completed. Is that still the will of the committee? [agreed]

When the committee last sat, the honourable minister was responding to a question by the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers). The honourable minister, to continue.

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Natural Resources): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will share this pamphlet with the member for Dauphin. But he asked a question relative to the conservation agreement and what would be the recognized organizations that could hold a conservation agreement. The ones that are listed currently are Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Manitoba municipal governments, which I believe I mentioned earlier, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Wildlife Habitat Canada, Manitoba Naturalists Society, the Delta Waterfowl foundation, the Province of Manitoba, the Manitoba conservation districts, the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, the Government of Canada and the Manitoba Heritage Corporation. If he or any of his constituents wish to pursue a project, the Habitat Heritage Corporation is already involved. Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy, Delta Waterfowl and the Association of Manitoba Municipalities are all prepared to work with any proposals. I think that is all on that point, unless there were more questions.

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Mr. Chairperson, could the minister indicate how popular this program is, how successful it has been so far, how many actual landowners have signed into conservation agreements? Do we have those kind of figures yet, or is it too soon to provide an answer to that question?

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, so far there has only been one that has actually been signed and brought to completion. One of the issues that we are attempting to deal with is how this should be treated under the Tax Act. The federal taxation gift taxes, an actual dollar value for the assessment is more important than the gift tax. Gift taxes, I should not have included that because that is not an issue. It is the actual value of the habitat on the land. You can get the land assessed for today's purposes by a market-driven assessment, but we have not yet devised a process.

Now, there are other examples in other jurisdictions where they are proceeding, but we also know that there is one major one in Alberta that has run into rough water because of the tax issue. There is a significant amount of money involved in that one. So in moving the one forward, we are, in fact, testing to see if we can get some rulings, No. 1; and, No. 2, there has been a lot of interest and there is quite a pent-up demand, people indicating that they see this as a vehicle that they would like to sign on to. It is a matter of moving forward, and part of that is related to establishing a value. As long as it is not a controversial piece of land, which mine was not, that is not likely going to be a big issue, but where significant high quality land could be involved, the taxman will take an interest. An example would be the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in Alberta which has a multimillion-dollar deal on the table. Obviously, the taxman is quite interested in what could happen there because the person will receive a benefit, but how should that benefit be taxed?

But I know personally of three people who own a fair volume of land who are currently in discussion and quite interested in the program. So if I know about that many, I am sure there are considerable others. The various organizations have stated that if they can show a template to the landowners of how it will be treated and how, in fact, they will be able to continue to use it, under what circumstances, they believe that the results will amount to quite a few acres, a significant number actually.

* (1450)

Mr. Struthers: It seems to me that one of the strengths of the program is going to be the farmers who have got not huge tracts of land that they are going to sign over into conservation agreements but many 30- and 40- and 50-acre parcels of land that I think will add up to a substantial amount of land across the province that maybe the taxman is not as interested in as the large outfit that the minister was talking about. So my hope is that we can sign on a lot of those conservation agreements.

The anecdotal information that I am getting, as well, is that there are some people interested and that when I talk to people with some of the funding agencies, the natural societies and the municipalities and the wildlife people, they, too, have some reports that people have come to them and said I am interested. But I am hoping that those do come to fruition and that the taxman is very co-operative when that happens.

Can the minister indicate what steps need to be taken for these conservation agreements to be considered part of the 12 percent set-aside that the Brundtland Commission has called for and that this government has been working toward?

Mr. Cummings: If they were to be included in that, they would have to meet the same criteria as any other land that we have set-aside including wildlife management areas–no logging, no hydroelectric development and no mining. The member is correct that these could be a good vehicle for adding to the World Wildlife program total, but I would like to go back for just a moment.

When you talk about pieces of land that may be smaller and may not attract the taxman's interest to the same extent, that is, in fact, a very important aspect of this program. Because we now have GPS capability, my fertilizer dealer, for example, comes on to my quarter section and takes a GPS reading and knows that he can come back within a few inches every year of that same site and test for continuity of the nutrient content.

That same technology will allow us to set aside potholes, half a dozen potholes, if you want, on a quarter section. They can be tied back to satellite photography; they can be identified on a map; and they can be registered at the Land Titles, all much more cheaply and simply than the old chain-gang method, and that is what makes this program so attractive. The natural potholes, as an example and there are lots of other examples but as one example, pothole country where a lot of this habitat may well be set aside, the advantage is that this can be very easily and cheaply identified.

Now, there is one kicker that fits into this, and that is these organizations, the Naturalists, the Nature Conservancy, as an example, I guess, or it would be a good example, where they are not necessarily flush with funds, because this is, generally speaking, wasteland, because it is bits and pieces of the land, and because it is only the habitat value that is being acquired, it is the hope that a lot of people would donate this.

There are some large tracts of land where the conservation aspect of it is highly desirable and the landowner might well expect some value for that, and, in many cases, they will receive it. If you are setting aside as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation was getting a large tract of land on a ranch in Alberta, I am not sure if that was a sale or a gift, but nevertheless there was significant value attached to it. Where we could use this in agricultural Manitoba is for the small pieces, the bits and pieces, that unless there is drainage or clearing of some significant amount, it is always going to be there. This will guarantee that it is not drained or cleared. It can be used–and I am looking at staff–and there is no reason why this could not be added to the acreage that we are trying to assemble for the World Wildlife Fund. But remember that in assembling land for that, what we are trying to do is establish an adequate representation of the 12 ecoregions of the province. Really, what we are needing in southern Manitoba is prairie grassland more than parkland aspen, but nevertheless it certainly would qualify if treated appropriately.

Mr. Struthers: The minister touched upon our abilities today with GPS to help us in farming and to make surveying much more accurate than maybe ever before and certainly more efficient and quicker. What few farm skills I have, I learned on top of a 1956 John Deere (R) with a hand clutch and no cab and the whole bit. [interjection] Yes, and earplugs. The latest John Deere that I have been in had a computer on board that mapped the areas where there was a lot of quack grass and areas where there was not, then automatically let out the amount of spray needed where the quack grass occurred instead of spraying the whole field. So I know we have come a long way with our technology. I am looking forward to some more positive implementations of that kind of GPS ability that we have. I am hoping that with this kind of accuracy and with that kind of efficiency, we can improve our chances of including more of these packages in our 12 percent that, I think, is a good goal to be striving towards.

I understand the criteria for representation that the minister talks about. Are there any possibilities and do we have the ability to take parcels of lands that are put forward on a conservation agreement and split them saying that part of that land can be used for 12 percent and part not? If somebody has 40 acres that they are signing off into a conservation agreement, do we have the ability to say that 20 acres of that 40 would qualify towards the goals set through the Brundtland Commission even if the other 20 percent, as the minister says, is wasteland? It is really hard to describe any of your land as wasteland. It depends what objective you have, I suppose, of the parcel of land. Maybe you cannot grow canola or wheat on it, but it could be marshland for ducks or whatever. I am sure the minister understands that.

So I am wondering if smaller parcels of land from a farmer's conservation agreement can be–I do not know what is the word–subdivided or whatever the word is I am looking for. The minister is nodding, so he obviously understands what I am trying to get out here.

Mr. Cummings: There is one issue that has to be up front in this. While I acknowledge that they could be used for the purpose of the World Wildlife Fund, there is a question of absolute perpetuity. World Wildlife Fund property is in perpetuity from the day we designate it until something catastrophic happens, I suppose. So there is an issue around the way that we had to write the act for the conservation easements. That is even the ones that are in perpetuity, there is a clause for renewal or for review that the municipalities asked to have included. So you would have to go beyond what is in the agreement for a conservation easement to perhaps meet that perpetuity issue, although you can put land in perpetuity on a conservation easement. I actually have not put the question to the World Wildlife Fund. You should not have to define perpetuity, so if perpetuity is modified by anything, then it probably is not perpetuity for the purposes of the Wildlife Fund.

* (1500)

The reason that is there, which I am sure the member appreciates but for the purpose of this discussion should be on the record, was that the municipalities had some concerns about what conservation easement and conservation land in general might do to a community. Let us face it, what is happening in the southwest right now, if that were to cause a situation where there were large-scale bankruptcies or people going out of business or changing their method of operation, if the land was bought up for recreational purposes or things of that nature, you could have large tracts of revenue-generating land that all of a sudden went out of production for whatever reason.

That was one of the reasons that the municipalities asked for some kind of a review mechanism. When it is donated or sold in perpetuity, it is nine-hundred-ninety-nine one-thousandths sure that it is going to stay that way. But there is the point that it can be reviewed, if it is for some reason putting some sort of economic hardship on the direct descendants, I believe, or the owner at the time. It is a very small and controlled window of review. It is there mainly for those that are donated for 25 years or 50 years. Generally speaking, perpetuity would not be impacted. But that is probably something that would raise a question in the eyes of World Wildlife.

The other thing that should be on the record in relation to the World Wildlife Fund is the issue of 12 percent. I have used it. Others have used it. My critic has used it, I believe, just today. Monte Hummel has separated himself to some extent from the 12 percent, because he is chairman of the board, if you will, and the lead person on the World Wildlife drive for conservation set-aside, and has come to the recognition that 12 percent is not necessarily the right criteria. The right criteria is that you have an adequate representation of all of your regions.

An early and probable misunderstanding that a lot of people had about the program was that Manitoba could take 12 percent across the northern portion of the province and meet the criteria. That was not the intention, but it was a misunderstanding that some people had. Equally, it was a misunderstanding that some people had that it had to be 12 percent of every ecoregion. In Manitoba's case, we are not going to get 12 percent tall grass prairie. It is under the plow. We will get everything we can, and it may well be that some of the little bits and pieces will show up in this program. We are only now beginning to run a better and more aggressive promotion in the southern portions of the province looking for some of this land that is privately held. If you look at a map of southern Manitoba, most of agricultural Manitoba is privately held. So if we are going to meet any percentage of the tall grass prairie, the majority of it will end up being privately held.

I see the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) just came in. One of the best tall grass prairie reserves is out in his area. I have not had the experience of being there yet. What is the name of the community, Jack? Tolstoi? [interjection]

Tolstoi. There are several quarters set-aside there, several sections I believe. That is the nature where we are going to get some of that land. But 12 percent will not be 12 percent everywhere. Prince Edward Island has come up with 12 percent. Do not ask me where, to tell you the truth.

An Honourable Member: It is because they have only one region.

Mr. Cummings: I am told that may be because there is not a large variety of regions that are represented there. Its ecoregions are somewhat limited. I think that is probably true. Manitoba has 12? [interjection]

And six subregions, for a total of 18 different regions, of which we are attempting to get 12 percent set aside. Twelve percent should not be used as the criteria for achievement, and Monte Hummel clearly separated himself and qualified that at the last minister's meeting that I attended. We will be getting closer to that number, at any rate, but it should be more a case of whether or not we have adequately identified the various ecoregions and then have been able to adequately get them represented in set-asides.

What comes down closer to our back door is the wildlife management areas where there are wildlife management areas across the province, some of which are in community pastures, some of which are not. But they are scattered across agro-Manitoba. A good percentage of those are going to be set aside, and some already are in the World Wildlife program. That creates some interesting dynamics in a community as well, because it puts another level of protection on that land that some people, when it is right beside their farmyard, get quite concerned about, because we do allow hunting and we do allow, in some cases, pasturing. Certainly there is a lot of pressure right now to add more pasture usage in some of these WMAs because of the fact that if you do not manage it, it can be a bit like your forest. Some day you will burn it, and then you have lost more than if you perhaps did allow some usage in it.

We are approaching 9 percent in the province today of our recognized set-aside, between 8 and 9 percent.

Mr. Struthers: I certainly understand the challenges that face the minister when it comes to using these conservation agreements as part of a 12 percent set-aside, my hope is that any of these that have been given or intend to be given in terms of absolute perpetuity with any of the groups including the municipalities, if it is perpetuity, there should not be a problem having it count towards that and I hope that that is how this eventually plays out. The minister says currently that they are approaching the 9 percent figure for set-aside. I am wondering, and I can understand why he would not just want to set aside 12 percent of the province in the North and say you have hit your target. I agree with the minister there, and with Mr. Hummel.

Can the minister then indicate, in terms of representation in our areas, whether we are getting close to an adequate representation across the province, given what he has said about the prairie grassland, and of course I think everybody understands the problem there with development over the last 150 years in this province, the amount of tall prairie grassland that was lost to agricultural purposes? But can the minister give a bit of a breakdown in the other representations whether he is happy with the amount of land set aside in each of those representations, and what his department is doing to increase that percentage in each of those different representations?

Mr. Cummings: I do not think I have the precise information in front of me. We believe we will meet the target in the major areas in the non-agro Manitoba, but in agro Manitoba, I am acknowledging up front that it is going to be next to impossible to get tall grass prairie as an example. But I do not have the precise figures in front of me and I do want to go from my own information as opposed to, and I am not being critical of it, the general comment was made by the World Wildlife Fund on whether we had adequate representation of all of the regions They indicated that we were less than adequate in quite a few of them and that was because we had pending approval on some areas.

We were given credit for the areas, but until we get it permanently into the program it would be premature for them to give us credit for it. I believe that is what their rationale was. I have had my disagreements in the past with how they establish their criteria, but I want to say on the record that over the last couple of years I believe that we have moved forward considerably in a mutual understanding of what had to be done and how we get there. Part of that is that because of our process, we had a reserve system that we were able to use. But in the early going we were criticized for not being consultative enough and yet by consulting, it slowed down the process.

To the credit of my predecessors and the native communities and the regional departmental people involved, that has all come together in the last few years and the consultations are starting to pay off. There is still some land under consultation, but particularly the Poplar River area there is a large set-aside there that has to have some work done on a consultative basis and that would be a good example of where we have not yet reached an agreement.

• (1510)

We were given considerable credit in the mark that we were given because of the process that we are running there. It is a long-winded answer to say that I have not got the precise numbers in front of me, except that I expect the province will meet the criteria of the majority of the major regions but not in agro Manitoba.

Mr. Struthers: I thank the minister for that answer, and long-winded as it may be, that is okay. If the minister can come up with some more specific numbers in the areas, maybe he can send that to me at his convenience. I just want to thank the minister for passing on to me the pamphlet that he did called Leaving a Legacy: Supporting Landowners with Conservation Agreements. Just a brief look through it, it will be very helpful for me when I talk to people about this whole area. I thank him for the answers he has given me on that, and I want to assure him of our continuing support in this program, a program that I do think is worthwhile and that we need to continue with.

I would like to discuss a bit about drainage.

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my critic letting me get this on the record. There is only 3 percent left of tall grass prairie, and that we have protected now. If we are going to get any more, it is going to be on private land and I am not aware of very much that is there.

The other thing that I wanted to put on the record is that Manitoba was slow getting up to the speed where we got the level of mark that we were given the last two years. In fact, we started at pretty nearly zero and have gone to 8.5 in less than nine years, so that partly explains why we have been gaining momentum, along with the fact that we had a significant consultation process that was undertaken as well. Thank you.

Mr. Struthers: It sounds to me like eating a plate of perogies. The first nine go down pretty good, and then the last three are hard to fit in.

But moving on to drainage. I understand that the objective of–[interjection] These are Dauphin perogies. They are a little bit smaller maybe than the others.

The objective in the review that the Department of Natural Resources is doing of drainage in this province, licensing and sorting out of jurisdictional questions seems to me to be a reasonable one, that of reducing the number of water issues in dispute. I think any reasonable government would want to reduce the number of battles that we see going on in rural Manitoba when it comes to drainage. Part of the problem is that we are dealing with water, and water is the lifeline for many rural communities, farms, and human life in this province all together. So what we can learn from that is that people really do take this problem very seriously and quite often get very emotional over water. I think sometimes we do not understand that a decision in one jurisdiction with water ends up causing problems in the neighbouring jurisdiction. One neighbour's problem can be solved, but it causes another problem for the neighbour downstream.

I have been dealing with a lot of water problems through my office as an MLA and through being Natural Resources critic, and I know that the minister has as well. So maybe to start off the discussion on drainage, I will give the minister an opportunity to outline the process that he has undertaken so far in terms of this drainage review and sort of indicate where it is going from here.

Mr. Cummings: Well, to begin with, there were the problems, as my critic has outlined, in terms of on-the-ground activity and the conflicts that arise. But also there is a legislative and legal framework that is probably outdated and may have been inappropriate right from the start. The act, as conceived by our predecessors actually, is the act that we are working with in terms of drainage. But there are about–what?–four acts, five acts that we are looking at that need to be improved, modernized, melded together, made more relevant to what is happening on the landscape. In the long run, that is the objective and process that we have started.

To begin with there are two parts to a public process that we have embarked on: one is drainage; one is allocation. We began with the public drainage review, and basically we wanted to know what the public had on their mind. We were criticized for the process that was entered upon, but in retrospect I still believe it was an appropriate approach. At the public meetings that were held, rather than having a forum so that one person could and, in many cases, probably would seize the platform and use the opportunity to berate and deal with issues between themselves and their neighbours or themselves and the government or themselves and the watershed if they happened to be in a conservation district–that was not intended to be the use that the forum would be made of–the forum was intended to allow people to express their concerns about how we could better deal with the problems and deal with the structural problems, as opposed to the individual concerns that might be brought forward, such as what the member and I see, from time to time, from people across the province.

So, Mr. Chairman, under drainage, we brought together Department of Highways, Department of Rural Development, Agriculture, Environment, Natural Resources, Association of Manitoba Municipalities, and Keystone as the major players in doing a review to bring out suggestions around how we can better handle the issues around drainage.

* (1520)

The water allocation, a slightly different mix with Rural Development, Agriculture, Environment, DNR, AMM, Keystone, and the Association of Irrigators Manitoba. Quite a bit of overlap, but the one new one in the mix would be the Association of Irrigators. There were 11 public meetings held under the drainage review, and I believe that we had about 800 people who took opportunity to be heard. So far there have been six meetings under water allocation, with about 300 people attending.

So that is a pretty reasonable turnout at both forums, and there may well be further meetings if there is seen to be a demand for it, but this information needs to be pulled together and some response made to those individuals and organizations that were present and probably receive further feedback from them if necessary. Then we have to put that into a workable form to proceed with the premise that I started from which is how do we assemble that information in order to improve the system.

But we have some current demands that we are dealing with, and I always argue that if we put the practical approach forward, that there are times when we will be forgiven for avoiding or in fact–"avoidance" is probably the right word, but finding a practical way of dealing with legal impediments that if implemented in their fullness would produce a ridiculous result or an unworkable result, an example being taking it right back to the farmer who has a section of land, four quarters, all adjacent. Technically we can require that he have a drainage permit to move water anywhere between sloughs on that land.

I have said to the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), and I know I will be quoted in certain circles again, so I might as well say it again here now. That is that there are certain aspects of the act that I would be loathe to enforce. The same as in environment issues, I have encouraged our people to find practical solutions on the landscape and work with the people involved. There are certain high profile situations out there where that did not work, but I will still argue that if there had been reason exercised all the way around that we need not have–and I will not attribute blame to any one of the parties, including ourselves, that we obviously missed in trying to find some reasonable solution, except that in the end the watershed has to be the beginning criteria on what is doable on the landscape. We cannot have water moving at the expense of down-stream people all the time nor can we restrict entirely those who want to do some land improvement for production purposes.

I will go back to the farmer who has a section of land. If he wants to move a bit of water around into larger, more permanent holdings on his own property, generally speaking our enforcement people have said as long as he acts in a reasonable fashion and does not dump it onto his neighbour, then we do not go looking for trouble. But, technically, the enforcement of the law would mean that we should be out there, somebody should be out there representing government, checking on that movement of water.

But the real issue is getting it onto municipal drains where it then maybe causes infrastructure damage or ends up on somebody else's property, and it just passes the problem from one neighbour to another, or sometimes that neighbour could be 10 miles downstream depending on the lay of the land.

There is a huge difference, and I realize my colleague who is the Chair today comes from quite a different topography in the province and quite a different history in drainage. With the Red River running through the middle of the land from here to the American border, there is a well-developed and in some cases provincial infrastructure that has been put in over the years that tended to manage agricultural drainage. Other parts of the province, provincial infrastructure is somewhat less, and the topography is different enough that some considerable velocity to the water can be developed if you get too much of it moving. It creates a whole other set of problems for drainage, including erosion.

So the review that has been undertaken, I liken it to The Municipal Act review where it is all-encompassing, and it will have, when completed, some considerable impact in changing the way we do business vis-a-vis drainage and water usage in the province. There is no good politics for my critic, or for me, for that matter, in this, because for every person that we make happy, we will probably make an equal number unhappy unless it is a fair and well-designed program. Then having come from the oldest conservation district in the province, which was in large measure a drainage district to begin with, I know that timing then becomes the issue and know that when you have wet years it is never fast enough, and there will always be problems related to how the water is managed within the watershed. It does have to be tied to allocation. We do have to have better knowledge about ground water allocation.

I am well positioned for that argument. I can, in my own mind without scientific proof, believe that the well that used to supply my farm probably went dry, because water that used to be retained probably 35 feet in elevation above where my well is located ceased to be. All of a sudden the volume my well could produce was considerably diminished. These things will create ongoing problems between landowners, and government in the end cannot be the sole arbitrator of that. There has to be a local input and a local plan much as there is in a number of other areas of decision making, including development plans, because water is very much a part of a development plan. I am not suggesting it should be under planning, but it certainly is relevant when planning decisions are made.

Mr. Struthers: Of course, many of the things that the minister just mentioned are exactly true. There are huge challenges facing the provincial government and municipal governments in the area of drainage. I understand that they do vary from one part of the province to the other, so it does make it difficult for a provincial government to slap one law in place and enforce it with equal aggressiveness over different regions. Just to drive that home, yesterday I had the opportunity of visiting the Museum of Man and Nature. My niece and I were looking at a map that showed the original proposal as to where the CPR line was going to go through Manitoba. It purposely avoided the southwest part of this corner because it was too arid. Now that may sound strange after what we saw this spring, but to me at least it shows that different parts of this province experience very vast differences in drainage, moisture that they receive and control of the water so that we can get on with economic activities such as agriculture.

The concerns that have been expressed to me in terms of drainage is, No. 1, a lack of provincial co-ordination and also a lack of control over the number of licences both in drainage and in allocation and use. Of course, licensing is key whether you talk about drainage or allocation. It is a way in which the provincial government can collect valuable data on not only the quality but quantity of water that we have available to us in the province. So it is an area that is extremely important to people living in rural Manitoba.

Upon reviewing the Estimates book, the information that the minister has supplied for me, it came to my attention that there is an increase in funding to water licensing. I am wondering what the increase in dollars will be used for from that part of the Natural Resources budget. Will it be used to, say, for example, decrease the waiting lists that we have in the area of licensing?

* (1530)

Mr. Cummings: The increase that the member has noted will be partly used for increased staff. Two of them will be in forecasting, two of them in water quality. We do expect to reduce the waiting list on licensing, but there is also another use of some funds that are in that appropriation that will be for the major review of water retention.

Something that I did not touch on in my comment before was that we have the age-old problem where the land that needs the water and has the ability to be irrigated, for example, from more high quality crops does not necessarily have the volume of water that it can use. We need to increase water retention capabilities here in the province, and I will be using consultants to help us devise the most economic way of increasing water retention in the province for various uses.

Part of what I referenced a minute ago as well is related to the expansion in the hog industry where we have a joint effort with Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development to deal with water quality and protection issues.

Mr. Struthers: Of course I want to encourage the minister to explore some ways in which the problems with licensing can be minimized. I think putting the staff back into the area that received some cuts from this provincial government in earlier years did put that part of the department in a very tight position. I think it did affect the way in which we approved licences, both drainage or water use and allocation. I think it did have a negative effect. So, if the minister can be thinking of ways in which we can alleviate that problem, I would certainly support him in that.

I also wonder if the minister has considered what kinds of incentives the provincial government could employ to encourage farmers or municipalities in retaining some water. Part of the problem has been that everybody wants to get rid of the water and get on and get seeding. Has the minister been looking for some ways in which we can encourage landowners to hold water where it is, understanding that that could mean an economic loss for the farmer who does take it upon himself to hold back some water instead of rushing it down to the neighbour?

Mr. Cummings: Well, there are a number of aspects to what the member just asked. One is in terms of retention and the overall policy of how we manage. I do not believe in absolute rigid enforcement in this area; I believe in management. Part of that answer to that will come from these reviews that are occurring.

There is a full gamut out there between the municipalities and the landowners and other interested parties. On the one hand there are those who are going to drain and landscape everything from one corner to the other and damn the torpedoes, and that will continue until they are seen to be damaging municipal infrastructure or perhaps opportunity for people downstream from them. The member for Dauphin and I need not look too far for examples of where that has been an issue over the years. With the Riding Mountain bordering on both of our constituencies, Big Grass Marsh has spawned a lawsuit where people believe that the high land was drained too rapidly, the marsh cannot handle the water, Whitemud cannot handle it, and a $20-million lawsuit, roughly, has been associated with that for 20 years.

You know, the shoreline of Lake Dauphin and where it belongs is still an undecided issue. I personally believe and I would probably get smiles from this in some circles, but frankly there is some land around the edge of Lake Dauphin that should be returned to public preserve and managed other than as private land, although the present private owners should still be able to be the managers. I am not talking huge tracts, I am talking shoreline where flooding is constant and the lake level fluctuating six inches can be a major problem for them. It has tended to alleviate their problem as opposed to lighten them of the land. The problem is we cannot be paying compensation or to be seen to be managing the lake in order to avoid paying compensation. It has to be managed for the best interests of a multiplicity of people around the lake of which the landowner is one.

Some landowners would not be pleased to hear me say that, and I believe the majority of people would concur that that would be a management policy that could be improved, and in fact the Lake Dauphin management board has tended to move in that direction, although there is controversy there again. I will not dwell on that, I suppose, unless the member wants to enter into some discussion around it.

But water retention, we are all interested in. Part of it is that current water retention programs are often done in consultation with conservation districts where there is some local benefit seen to the program. Generally, those projects that have come to my attention in the last two years are small back floods where people actually receive a benefit from holding water on their land in dry years, where the land does not drain very well anyway. What it generally amounts to is improved drainage but controlled, and they are able to get a back flood out of it and get some nutrients and some water if they have the appropriate crops on the land. The drainage management and the issues around it, I am confident that one thing that is going to come out of the drainage review is that we are going to have a better understanding of a level of co-operation between municipalities and the province.

* (1540)

I am on record as challenging the municipalities to work with us because, to use the vernacular, if we do not hang together on this one, we will hang separately. And what will happen is farmers and municipalities between each other will settle their differences in the courts, and no one wants that to happen. There has to be a logical management process out there. If I could avoid the province being seen as the regulator, I would be happy. The province has a major responsibility, but it is not solely the province's responsibility. The municipalities do have a role. That was the misinterpretation that was attached to the court case in southwestern Manitoba where the municipality and the landowner, driven by the landowner, the decision was made suggesting the municipality had jurisdiction and then was subsequently appealed and reversed. I understand there is potential for an appeal again, no reflection on the judgment or the interpretation of the act, only to say that there has to be a planning process eventually, no matter how we get there, or there will be an awful lot of court time that will be used up in dealing with these issues. That would be very counterproductive.

That is only in part related to one of the bigger challenges that we have in this province, and that is environmentally for years it has been unacceptable to build dams. I hope that mood has changed somewhat, that there is a recognition I hope in the public's mind that judicious use of retention and use of water will provide tremendous economic opportunity, that in a cyclical situation, if you do not have water retention, you will have excess followed by drought or you will have excess that runs off quickly and still have a drought. If you look at a map of the province where there is available land for irrigation, there is tremendous economic opportunity attached to that. I certainly believe that we can make it happen.

Mr. Struthers: The minister touched on a court case, a case involving Mr. Hildebrand [phonetic] in the southwest part of the corner. That was a question that I had marked here for later on, but I might as well go to that now.

I am wondering, I am actually worried about the impacts of an appeal, should the case go any way other than the last ruling. I am wondering about the impacts on the drainage review that the minister is undertaking at this time. As long as the next level of court upholds the last decision, it should not really impact a whole lot on the drainage review that we are going through now. It may help in sorting out some of the jurisdictional problems that have occurred with drainage.

I am wondering what the minister's take is on this question, this court case. Does he see it having an impact on the drainage review that is happening right now? Does he see it having an impact on the jurisdictional questions that we have in the province right now.

You know, I have been lobbied by R.M.s in the Parkland area fairly constantly for them to have the ability to block illegal drains. I am sure the minister has heard from R.M.s in our part of the Parklands on that issue. I am quite concerned about the impact of this court case on the things that are happening in drainage in this province now.

Does the minister see that having a negative impact on the review that is taking place now?

Mr. Cummings: I am not going to comment one way or the other on anything other than what is the known outcome of the court case and the appeal that has occurred. I would rather dwell on the fact that we want a co-operative approach. In fact, to demonstrate that we are signing memorandums of understanding with municipalities and have been for a while, whereby some of the authority of the Department of Natural Resources can be delegated, although we know that legally we have not shed ourselves of the responsibility, but it brings them into co-operation with us in making decisions.

I have argued before, we cannot put enough drainage officers, if you will, on the landscape. I have had municipal councillors at public meetings who have challenged me on this issue and said: you do not have enough jails to put people in if you are going to try and control the drainage "unreasonably," I think that was the unsaid word, "unreasonably" being the unsaid word.

Almost all fair-thinking individuals out there know that if they are going to drain they have to do it reasonably, i.e., do not take away opportunity from your downstream neighbour. I am told that specifically there are 30 days available for the appeal that we are both referencing, the second appeal. I have no knowledge of whether or not it intends to go ahead. My view is that we have put every good effort forward to try and make this a compatible and palatable process out on the landscape so that it does not have to be decided in the courts and that the reviews that are going on today will provide direction that will allow us to structure a process that will provide better approval on the landscape for what is happening out there.

We are in part driven by complaints. That is not necessarily a good thing. There are two areas of problem however beyond the individual. The other area of significant problem is the municipalities. The member referenced the fact that municipalities have lobbied for the right to close what they consider illegal drains or illegal drains period.

To some extent, I have argued that they know not what they are asking for in the sense that there are associated problems with seizing that authority as well, and they could end up having them settled in court as well. I think that our current approach of having a memorandum of understanding signed with municipalities has brought some middle ground to that issue, where in fact the municipality, with the agreement of engineers and supported by some facts, can make a decision to do some of this on immediate, very short-term decision time frame and deal with the problem and have enough support from our current act and from our professionals in the field that they are not exposing themselves to litigation or making decisions that see them as being entirely arbitrary in what they are doing.

I have some sympathy for the municipalities, however. Every time there is a flash flood in areas of where there is much elevation, they can have some pretty significant damages, loss of infrastructure. They have a responsibility to their taxpayers not to be letting their infrastructure deteriorate, but it is the same old argument that has occurred probably ever since right of ways and roads were first developed in agricultural Manitoba, and that is that the infrastructure is undersized, the infrastructure is oversized. It depends which side of the drain you are on. People want it off faster or they want it held back depending on the lay of their land, and those decisions always have economic consequences to the landowner.

* (1550)

When you are trying to make a living off the land, whether you flood it or erode it or leave it inundated on a back flood basis, all have significant economic impacts. People have every right to be upset and looking for litigation and other relief from this because, in some cases, I have seen a few of them, where they truly believed that it amounts to whether or not they can stay on the land in the long run. You can only absorb so much bad water, if you will, before your banker starts to ask you when your production is going to start paying the bills.

It is an increasing problem, because the capability of moving dirt on the landscape today, some farmers individually have more land-moving capacity than the municipality that is trying to regulate them, and that is not a joke. That is clearly the case in many instances. Certainly two farmers together can move more dirt than the municipality can on any given day if they concentrate their efforts. Someone has to eventually take the responsibility and the authority, but it has to be done on the basis of a plan.

What I told the municipalities at public meetings, what we are telling them in letters and what our regulators out in the field are saying is: can you give us a plan and let us fit that plan into the watershed of the area? Whether there is officially a watershed conservation district or not, the plan has to fit with the capacity of the watershed to deal with the water; it is either that, or we are just transmitting the problem 10 miles downstream.

You might think that Portage is pretty flat when you drive by there, but you go south of the Portage a little bit, and we have some of the biggest fights over drainage in the province going on, because the capacity of some of the farmers to move water off their land, to move dirt, is exceeded by the capacity of the downstream municipality to deal with it. You have there a case of where the municipality downstream is being faced with problems being created by individuals upstream, because the municipality that the drainage is occurring in has not exercised any restriction nor, I would suggest, that there is a good portion of the drains are not what we would call "legal." They are probably unlicensed drainage. Once you have a drain in that is eight feet deep, the tendency is to try to make it work as opposed to try and make the farmer close it, but that is the type of dilemma that we often find ourselves in. If there is any elevation to the land at all, a tremendous volume of water can move anytime you get four inches of rain, so that is an example of where there are no winners and losers in this. It has to be a co-operative effort.

Mr. Struthers: It seems to me that many of the positive, proactive, common-sense, home-grown, grassroots solutions to many of these problems are being employed by the conservation districts in our province. I must say that I am very impressed with the tours that I have received of the conservation districts, and the people that I have talked to that manage the districts and sit on the boards of these districts.

The minister mentioned back flooding right in his backyard in the Turtle River Conservation District; I believe it is south of McCreary. There is good example of one landowner who, working in co-operation with the Turtle River Conservation District, employed that exact method. All indications to me were that everybody right around the table was pretty pleased with the outcome and the results and the information that they learned and the actual project that they did. I think everybody who has had anything to do with the conservation districts in this province end up being very impressed with the way in which they have been addressing this problem.

Of course, that means that there is a lot of work that can be done in terms of education. It is good to see the co-operation between Natural Resources and the conservation districts for that purpose. Many of the programs that are undertaken are undertaken with the co-operation of the landowner who sometimes has been arm twisted one way or another into co-operating with a certain project. We had talked just briefly a while ago about incentives, and the minister talked briefly about it.

One of the incentives, looking back at the conservation agreements program, came from the taxman. I am wondering if there is anything in the area of taxes that can be done to encourage farmers who need to be convinced sometimes that holding back and retaining water for their own use on their land or simply to avoid problems further down in the watershed can happen. I am wondering if the minister has given any thought to alleviating the kind of economic hardship that a farmer may incur if the farmer decides he is going to retain more water than what he has in past years. Are there any possibilities that the minister can see on the side of tax incentive for landowners in this area?

Mr. Cummings: The concept is good, but the problems are a little more far reaching than just dealing with whether or not there should be a tax benefit. If the land is permanently under water, then I guess the value of it for agricultural land would go down. I know that is not what the member is talking abut. If he is talking about should there be a benefit accrued to a landowner who voluntarily allows water to stay for an extra week on his land, then I would have to ask who is going to accept the responsibility for providing that benefit. The benefit could probably only come in two ways. One is a direct benefit that is paid for holding so many acre feet of water for so many days or, conversely, reduced taxation.

Municipalities have traditionally taken a dim view of losing tax revenue, but, with one-on-one small projects, it seems to me that there are ways of dealing with that. If you have a confined watershed, there may well be those who are prepared to, if they receive a benefit from having less erosion down the road or if they receive benefit from having a stream supported that runs through their pasture on a year-round basis, then maybe there is an economic benefit to the direct benefactors that could be attributed.

I do not have a mechanism in hand. I am reminded that the American experience in this area was much as mine was with the conservation easement. The municipalities began to get quite uneasy about how far a higher level of government went in terms of redistributing tax revenues, if you will, when they were talking about their only source of revenue to support their infrastructure being based on the real value of the property involved.

* (1600)

I am not dismissing the fact that there could be ways of devising a program that would work, but I am saying that I would be interested to see if anything along this line comes forward out of our review. Certainly, when we reviewed the Assessment Act–and I spent many mornings starting at 6:30 and seven o'clock in the morning when we reviewed the aspects of that act, and we had public review and we had clause-by-clause review within our committee. We thought we had looked under every rock, and you still find implications from how you attribute assessment that tend to make people feel they are unfairly treated if someone else is getting a benefit that they are not.

I look more to local conservation districts and/or local management of resources to deal with that issue more than the fact that the province could make it enabling. I think that has to be a decision that would be more–I attribute this to situations like Big Grass Marsh, where in fact some of that marsh should stay under water for longer. Some of the highest assessed, or what could be some of the highest assessed land if it was ever allowed to stay dry and be productive, is adjacent to the marsh. Who is going to pay for the $6-million ditch to get the water out of there fast enough to get it down, or should it ever be drained? I mean, that becomes a very large policy issue, not just the landowner issue, because it is also the same issue around Lake Dauphin. Should someone who wants to cut hay close to the shore of the lake take precedence over the person who is a commercial fisherman or what is now one of the largest sport-angling opportunities in Manitoba if that water is impeded upon? So it is not just a one-issue discussion. It is a total management package that we have to use to deal with this, and providing benefits for retention is something that probably is going to vary with every location.

The Alonsa Conservation District has promoted backfloods. The benefits are obvious to the people who backflood, but traditionally that has been tied to drainage. They have to have the ability to drain, but the backflood is a benefit in and of itself because they retain water longer, rather than just let it go.

Other situations like Wilson Creek, I think it is, where we have an alluvial fan that we are holding back shale on, that land had to go into public ownership pretty well because it is nonproductive. It is just habitat now, rather than have it as agricultural. There is other land in there that I think the member and I are both familiar with. I suspect that the only way retention is going to work there is if it goes back into public ownership or at best some kind of co-operative management where the landowner receives a benefit other than from normal agricultural practice.

So I am going to rely on more input from these areas of public review. When you have an irrigation review going on as part of this and people looking for–let me rephrase that. When the opportunity for irrigation is part of this review, if people wish to piggyback that discussion into this, then water retention there, people will do it for their own self-interest if we just let them do it. It becomes more permissive, perhaps, than it is monetary. Can they be entitled to hold some water rather than let it go, because the law in this country, I guess it would be fair to say, is that you cannot without a licence hold back bodies of water?

Mr. Struthers: What I am looking for are ways in which we can deal with part of the problem. The part of the problem that we were looking at is getting around the problem of land being drained and moved onto your neighbour. I understand that the other side of the problem that the minister just pointed out is that in some cases it is more permissive than economic, although it is good economics to irrigate. That is what the member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey) has been telling me anyway for the last four years that I have been here.

Has the minister looked at other jurisdictions, other provinces? Are there any other provinces or, heck, even states that have taken seriously an incentive program to slow the drainage of water, to encourage landowners to hold, whether it be for a few days or a couple of weeks, to alleviate the problems that we see every spring with one landowner getting angry at another landowner because of an influx of water from one to the next? Are there any other incentive programs that the minister is aware of that we might be able to adapt for our use here in Manitoba?

Mr. Cummings: Incentive is probably not an aspect that I have a lot of additional examples that I could use, but it struck me when I was listening to the member that what he is talking about is exactly what our water engineers are sometimes so severely criticized for out on the landscape. Somebody wants to move four- or five-acre feet of water, you know, a measurable volume that you want to move into a public ditch, ultimately into a provincial waterway or a creek or whatever. They said, okay, you can do that, but there has to be some conditions on it. You put a gate on it and you do not let it go until the main run has left the area. That would accomplish exactly what the farmer wanted and accomplish what the member is talking about.

The trouble is that that is seen as a regulatory decision, but whether it is handled on a regulatory basis or whether it is handled on a co-operative basis, the example I used, the farmer is gaining the benefit by getting the land drained. The benefit to his neighbours and to the watershed is that he is controlling the drainage. The issue very quickly becomes who manages the gate, because when that gate is opened is the key to when they will be able to do whatever it is they intend to do with the land.

* (1610)

Under normal circumstances, that might not be a problem, and this is why there needs to be some kind of responsible authority, be it a conservation district, be it a municipality or the province that has some way of managing this, because there have been several instances that have come to my attention in the last couple of years where we have done this exact control, but those dam gates keep opening. You know, it must be kids on Saturday night having a party and they go and open the gate, would be what people would have us believe, but that is the kind of issue that arises from the guy downstream who is getting wet, and the guy above him is planting land that used to be year-round pothole. It has to be a balance between co-operation and regulation and a common-sense solution, either that or it just will not happen, because the courts will step in.

There are lots of examples where natural law would, I think, rule in favour of stopping people from draining because of the negative impact on their neighbour. I know of examples where it only took one phone call or one letter from a legally trained person to get the attention of a municipality or of an individual in dealing with their drainage, but I do not favour that approach. I favour a larger management approach. To accomplish that we will likely need conservation districts on a basin-by-basin basis across the province. That would be my goal.

Mr. Struthers: The last type of a question that I want to ask in terms of drainage has to do with jurisdiction. I will use an example from right in the Rural Municipality of Dauphin that I came across where it seemed to be not only confusing but unfair for the Rural Municipality of Dauphin.

Along the Wilson River, which I understand, and maybe the minister could correct me if I am not correct on this, the Wilson River is a provincial responsibility, but the parts of the Wilson River were funded back in the '60s or early '70s through the PFRA. What has happened with the river, I suspect, the flow of the river has been increased quite a bit through some straightening of the river that took place a while ago. The course of the river changes over time and impacts on the infrastructure that is there.

In this case it was a road that the municipality had jurisdiction over. It was washing off a good part of the bank along this road and really making a very dangerous situation. I toured through the area a while ago. The R.M. had put some stakes up and some bright orange ribbon so that people could see the edge of the road, which, if you did not see the edge of the road, you would end up in the Wilson River, off quite an embankment down to the bottom, I might add. Parts of the bank were in the process of crumbling away and being washed down the Wilson River.

Now, when I got looking into this, the jurisdiction seemed to be the provincial government, except for a short span of the river on the west side of the road which had been funded in the past by PFRA. The road and east of that particular area was not funded by PFRA. That is where the damage was occurring. The municipality had to act because it was a dangerous situation. There was barely enough room for a couple of half-tons to pass each other there, let alone anybody with anything sticking out the back of their boxes or any kind of farm machinery being moved. The bottom line was that the R.M. got stuck with a bill that it was not counting on, and it was quite a hefty bill to fix up what was a dangerous situation.

It seemed to me that part of the problem was that between the Department of Highways and the Department of Natural Resources and the R.M. of Dauphin, nobody really knew exactly whose responsibility what was. Of course, the R.M., being at the bottom of the heap, ended up getting stuck with this bill.

I suppose it is too late to try to squeeze some money out on behalf of my constituent R.M., but I do not want to be put in a position down the road where there is a fight over jurisdiction and having an R.M. looking for these kind of answers. Can the minister foresee, maybe out of this review or any other process that he has in mind, can he foresee a straightening out of the jurisdictional battles, the jurisdictional jungle out there, it seems, so that R.M.s do not end up in this kind of situation in the future.

Mr. Cummings: I do not think I can answer specifically the question around the Wilson that has been raised. Interestingly enough, if this particular incident came to my attention, I missed it, or I have forgotten about it. I do know that our approach generally is to try and get all of the affected jurisdictions together or the relevant jurisdictions together and work out an appropriate solution as to who is going to do what when. I know the question basically was asking: so should there not be one responsible party? Sometimes we have inherited historically projects. I would not begin to hazard a guess even why PFRA was involved in this. They certainly are usefully involved in a lot of water retention and/or in some cases, I suppose, drainage projects. Drainage would be more the exception, I have to think, though, certainly by today's policies.

It is not entirely unusual to have a drain that would have two or three responsible parties, depending on where it starts and the property that it is on. Generally speaking, however, the province ends up in the middle of these where they are provincial waterways. If the municipality wants to modify a creek, that is a natural runway, and, as I understand it, that would generally be their responsibility. What you are dealing with is a highly modified waterway. The only way you can straighten out what you have just described would be to get all the parties at the table and try and develop a management plan if there is not one already in place. It strikes me that the municipality, if they were losing a road, might have been eligible for DFA if this was a particular event. If it was something that has built up over a period of years and then it becomes a maintenance issue, I really cannot answer it beyond that without getting into more history as to how the various responsibilities have evolved. I can say, however, that it is not unusual to have some disagreements over who is responsible.

We have quite often our own view of who is responsible and municipalities will disagree. Then we do have a problem because the public just wants it fixed. Our approach has been to find a solution and not spend years deciding who did whom to what 10 or 20 years ago.

Mr. Struthers: I am fairly used to dealing with some jurisdictional battles when it comes to water. That is where you have different classes of drains, and a lot of it depends on the size of the river that you are talking about. In this particular case, and I can see what the minister says, that that is fairly common around the province, that there would be a small tributary running into a larger drain or a river, which has already collected, maybe from a farmer's field, from a smaller tributary. Those kinds of jurisdictional battles make a little bit more sense to me. I would think those are the ones that are most common around the province. What I came across in this particular instance, though, was not a case of a small little runoff into a tributary into a larger tributary and then into the river. It was a case of the Wilson River itself became a patchwork.

* (1620)

When I approached the people in the Dauphin office for Manitoba Highways, they showed me a map, and they had taken a highlighter and highlighted in yellow the parts of the Wilson River that were funded at one time through PFRA. It just seemed to me to just absolutely compound, make a lot more confusing, the whole jurisdictional question when it comes to drainage in Manitoba. There were chunks of the Wilson River that were a provincial responsibility, and there chunks of the Wilson River that were federal responsibility. I think the history of it is that PFRA at one time was asked to get some special funding for special projects that took place along the Wilson River. Then they just, I suppose out of the goodness of their hearts, continued to add funding to it over the course of the years. They decided they were not going to do that after a while; they were going to save themselves some money and all of a sudden, instead of the whole river being the responsibility of the Province of Manitoba, the R.M. got caught in the middle and ended up having to pick up the tab for the damage done by a provincial waterway.

I am a little bit surprised, maybe I am unclear, but I am surprised that that would be a natural thing around Manitoba–not so much natural, but a common thing, common happening. Are there other rivers around the province where PFRA is responsible for a certain chunk of that river and the rest of that river is provincial? Is this just something that happened through special circumstances on the Wilson River?

Mr. Cummings: The only thing I can add, and perhaps I should be more aware of the Wilson, I have been there. It is highly modified. In most places in the Wilson, it looks like a drainage ditch or a modified ditch, a big one, for that matter. It is not your average babbling brook. It has totally been modified. I think that explains part of the problem. People got projects undertaken, especially with PFRA.

Just from our review, I just want to put in the record–and this actually supports what the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) was raising. At the Dauphin meetings, what do you see as the key issues? By far, the biggest issue was need more drainage works. Then you go over on please rate the importance in your area of the various issues, and the most important issue was defining jurisdiction. So the affected councillors that the member was talking about were probably at this meeting explaining their problem.

But the second most important issue was local involvement. On the other hand, I could, tongue in cheek, say: so they want defined jurisdiction, but they want local involvement. Does that mean they want responsibility and have somebody else pay for it? That would be a tongue-in-cheek question. I do not mean to insult the councillors, but, interestingly enough, those were the two top items. The third one was licensing, and the fourth one was fish habitat. So it was issues that we are well aware of, but there was not much difference between, frankly, the top four issues. All of those creeks all the way around that fringe of the mountain are so modified now that I know that is the source of the jurisdictional problem. Perhaps there needs to be some straightening out, same as we have done with Highways, but municipalities would cringe to think that they may end up with some of this drainage responsibility. The Turtle River Conservation District might be seen as a logical responsible party.

The problem is that in the end somebody has go to make a hydraulic decision as to what appropriate loading is, how much volume can go through these areas and in some cases, I suppose, what the impact is on–you get up there, that alluvial fan that I talked about earlier, tremendous wildlife value up in there too. You want to drain some of the land with high wildlife and habitat value, and it will soon change the whole aspect of that area. It does require that it be part of a master plan which the conservation district, because of its local involvement, is usually the best vehicle to deal with. I know of other conservation districts where there is a three- or four-way split over who is responsible on crossings along the drain that runs alongside a highway. Then it gets very complicated because Highways has certain responsibilities, and it devolves from there.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, certainly the minister has put his finger on many of the problems with the Wilson River. There are seven rivers that flow into Lake Dauphin, and you can almost say the same about each of the seven. There is one, the Mossy River, that flows out of Lake Dauphin. Earlier on, the minister was talking about who gets to control the gate. That is a question that can really be asked with some meaning.

Mr. Cummings: Only the really brave in the case of Lake Dauphin.

Mr. Struthers: Yes. Well, it is still ultimately the responsibility of the minister, so I hope the minister is a brave man. He has a Lake Dauphin advisory board who can advise him on this. Anytime somebody comes and asks me about the gate on the Mossy River, I will be sending them to the minister maybe. I am sure the minister would not mind that.

One more question when it comes to drainage; then I am going to turn the mike over to my colleague from the Interlake for a few minutes. [interjection] They do not have problems in the Interlake, do they?

I am interested in time lines for the review, when the minister expects to have a report that would be ready and when he can be then considering some changes to The Water Rights Act and that sort of thing. So, if the minister can give me an indication of what he is looking at as far as how long this process will take, are there any deadlines that the public should be aware of, and when he thinks he can be recommending some changes to The Water Rights Act.

Mr. Cummings: I will be providing the results–well, we have got the results of the reviews. We will be getting feedback over the summer, early fall on both of these. The allocation will be later. It will be one that will be a little more into the fall area. Then it would be a matter of a lot of hard slugging to put it together into a framework. The basis for the information will be established this early fall, and then we will start dealing with the issue, putting it into a framework that can be either–I see a second round of feedback on this, frankly, because I do not think there is going to be enough unanimity. We are going to have to put some concepts based on this information in front of the public. Not to avoid getting on with it, but this is so critical that the major players agree in principle on the elements of any changes that we make. Particularly when we are going to amalgamate three or four acts, we have to have the major players comfortable with the direction that is chosen, or it would become a very arbitrary and difficult process.

The first plateau would be early fall. Then we will be able to focus directly on some of these issues, as the one I have just outlined where they were asking for in the Lake Dauphin meeting, for example, the local involvement. Just what does local involvement mean? Do you have conservation, drainage, water basin? I know where I want to be, but I want to make sure that I have the public comfortable as well.

Mr. Clif Evans (Interlake): Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time provided me by my colleague to ask a few questions of the minister. With the minister's indulgence, can I jump around from topic to topic on specifics?

Mr. Cummings: I probably could not stop you, Clif.

Mr. C. Evans: First of all, my colleague from Dauphin was discussing drainage with the minister. As the minister is probably aware, drainage has always been a big factor in the Interlake area with many projects that have been requested and needed in the area, cleanups especially.

Just a general question: has the minister's department done anything or perhaps looked into providing an amount of resource, financial resource, for maintenance and upkeep of existing provincial drains that I have noticed in the last many years, I think, would be one of the problems that in certain areas they have, because the drains are not maintained properly? What is in store for the department, if anything?

Mr. Cummings: We are maintaining the status quo in terms of the allocation in that area.

* (1630)

Mr. C. Evans: From what I gather, there is not very much, if any at all. The minister says status quo. As I say, status quo is not much. Has the department been approached by municipalities and other people within the province, say, even within my area regionally to address that issue of maintenance? Instead of spending thousands and thousands of dollars having to do major work, I would think that a program put in place to do yearly maintenance on different drains and requesting the different municipalities to put their priorities down, send their priorities to the department to deal with such issues would be a good idea. Are the minister and his department even considering that?

Mr. Cummings: I think it is fair to say that–and I am sure the member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans) is well aware of this–it comes down to decisions that were made on spending priorities. Yes, we would be quite happy to have more that we could put into maintenance and upkeep and, in some cases, expansion of the provincial drainage works. This department took a considerable reduction in engineering branch of the department, and our capital expenditures have been steady in the last few years, but they are at a level that makes it very difficult to keep our drainage responsibilities up in top condition. We have an ongoing number of projects. It is another reason why we have always encouraged, where possible, local infrastructure, local works be taken over by local bodies. But most jurisdictions and, I would be almost 100 percent sure, most municipalities are not interested in taking over provincial drainage works. Frankly, I am not pushing that they should.

We have just about 4 million for maintenance and operation and just about the same in capital in that area. We could undoubtedly spend more. We tried to deal with maintenance on a priority basis where there are problems that have arisen. I do not know if the member is thinking about ongoing maintenance of keeping them cleared or whether he is thinking of situations like Dennis Lake where there is an expansion that should be done in the eyes of the local people, and I do not necessarily disagree. I had to be quite frank with them when they were in that I did not see the capital being available to do that in the near future. That goes beyond maintenance to expansion. Of course, unless the member wants me to, I am not going to get into debate about why the water is there in the first place. There are serious issues around that lake. It is very high, and people have a problem in the area.

If I could just interject, before I leave that point, I have been part of meetings. I am told there are going to be more discussions occurring again shortly to discuss possibility. Upper end of Netley is still at issue there. If we can get it fixed, then we can look at Dennis Lake.

Mr. C. Evans: The minister must have read my mind because my next question and point was Dennis Lake–

Mr. Cummings: We are just trying to spend all that money out in your country, Clif.

Mr. C. Evans: Well, he says he is trying to spend it, but I do not hear any cash registers clinging out there, but as far as Dennis Lake, I was going to raise the issue. I had some correspondence and some discussion with the R.M. about it, and if the minister would recall, we did discuss it in last year's Estimates quite thoroughly. Now, I have been informed that there are two possibilities in getting that issue of Dennis Lake undertaken. The costs are fairly similar. I was under the impression that there was going to be something done, though I do know about the Netley Creek issue. I know Netley Creek has been an ongoing upgrading of that drainage system for quite a few years now over a period of time. Certainly one of the ways to alleviate the Dennis Lake problem is to go to Netley Creek. The other one is, I forget exactly which drainage system the other one is, but Netley is one of them.

Mr. Cummings: Washow Bay.

Mr. C. Evans: No, it is not Washow Bay. It is a little too far. That would be very costly. Yes, it is an issue out there, the height of the lake and everything else, so I am hoping that the department will in fact undertake further discussion and also perhaps some further work in that Dennis Lake area.

That area, because of Dennis Lake, is touchy. There are so many drainage systems that are affected by it. I know it has been an ongoing thing. I have been hearing about it for nine years, as well as other drainage systems, but Dennis Lake, I would think that with council's support, which there is in getting that level down and doing something about the water. It is affecting a lot of producers in the area with the water.

I cannot remember the allocations or the funding that is required to do whatever work. Off the top of my head I cannot think of it, but I am hoping, and I know the R.M. was going to be approaching the department by letter, by correspondence about some of the funding. I am wondering if the minister has received that and which way has he responded.

Mr. Cummings: Specific to your question whether or not we will be spending money on Dennis Lake, I am going to take the opportunity to poke the federal system on the record, because it appears that the allocation we have for Netley Creek is not going to be spent because we cannot get the environment licence. It is fish habitat, which they will not delegate to us. So we need the environment licence and they have to give us approval. I do not know how important you view or the local people view Netley Creek as a spawning area for fish, but the federal authorities have been for two years now withholding approval to do the improvements on Netley Creek. There is a cumulative effect that is hurting in the end your people if the solution to Dennis Lake is to put some water into the upper end of Netley Creek. So that is the bad news. I do not know whether there is any good news or not, except that as soon as we mention Dennis Lake, my deputy informs me that we are going to be meeting to discuss the issue further.

* (1640)

Mr. C. Evans: I am pleased to hear that there is further discussion, and hopefully we will address it in the very near future. Mentioning drainage systems, the deputy did relate to Washow Bay. Has the minister and the department come to any decisions or any meetings as of late with anybody from the R.M.? I am not sure, and I could be wrong, whether it was this minister that the R.M. approached, or was it the previous minister, just in the last couple of years, but what is the status with Washow Bay, the next phase?

Mr. Cummings: I mentioned, tongue in cheek, Washow Bay because I have been aware of Washow Bay issues probably for 10 or 12 years, but there has been a meeting since I have been in this office. I am reminded that we agreed to looking at some works there in phase and that we agreed to jointly expend some money there, but I cannot tell you whether or not we actually did it. I know it was not completion of the project. It was some minor works or some, well, not minor, but some work that we were doing in a phased way to enhance the total project. I would have to double-check. I am getting positive nods that it was done, but what was the amount? We will provide that information.

Mr. C. Evans: Thank you, and I would appreciate that information. I want to jump here from drainage to fish. As the minister is probably aware, there have been a few projects attempted in the area for fish hatcheries. The one that comes to mind is the local one at Riverton that was attempted and, unfortunately, for whatever reasons, did not get off the ground. I know they have had to move it. Is the department providing any sort of resource or are they working along with the communities as far as the fish hatchery in that area goes?

Mr. Cummings: I will have to in writing or otherwise provide further information, but my recollection is that we were quite active working with the Riverton local group in the community. It would be our memory that that has kind of tailed off in the last year, that there has not been much activity.

I recall that we had a die-off of a bunch of the spawn, and we are not sure what the–well, I think we may have known what the cause was at the time, but, by memory, I cannot put on the record what the known cause was, whether it was a water issue within the hatchery itself. It is entirely possible. So my understanding is that we do not think it has been that active this spring. There are a number of others that have. I am sorry, I was a little taken aback when you asked about Riverton. That is one I am not up to speed on.

Mr. C. Evans: I thank the minister for that response, and it will be helpful if he could provide me with an update on that one. I know I have talked to some of the locals just lately and–[interjection]

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. We are getting pretty friendly here and that is good, but we do want to follow the process. I recognize the honourable member for Interlake to pose a question to the minister.

Mr. C. Evans: Will the minister then, which is a question, be able to provide this member with detailed information? I have talked to the fishermen in that area, and, yes, I am sure they would want to continue with that process. Also, I cannot remember where it was moved to, the station itself. I believe it is not in the community anymore, as it was, because of the water problems, but if there is a chance, I would certainly hope to see that fishery expanded.

The fishing in my area this year, the last couple of weeks, has been very good, which I am very pleased to hear, just pockets here and there that the fishing has not been that good. But the issue of the start of the season is always an ongoing issue. I know the department has changed its policy on the start of the season and how they are going about getting it started, and the fishermen are always questioning that. Can the minister indicate just how that is working out for the last couple of years, how the new process of beginning the season is working out?

Mr. Cummings: Not having personally checked this out, but the cycle appears to be on the upswing, an improvement. This is an interesting area for me primarily because it was so new to me when I came into Resources, but it struck me as a perfectly logical approach when we moved to delay the opening so that some of the spawning or a bigger percentage of the spawning had occurred before fishing began in earnest by the commercial fleet.

I have had little or no public feedback or written complaint or oral complaint, for that matter, by the fishing community on those changes, and I would submit that there is a reason for that. It is pretty hard to argue, when you on the one hand rely on the viability of the fishery, to argue on the other hand that you want to be out there catching them while they are still spawning.

I would acknowledge that there are a lot of factors that have impacted upon the quality of the fishery. By quality I mean the volume and availability of particularly the pickerel in the lake. It is always an interesting debate listening to the professional fishermen about effort versus the amount of fish that are there. There are always those who will argue if you just put in a little more effort you would get the fish that you are supposed to get and that the fishery is actually declining because fishermen are not fishing as hard as they should be. That argument might work sometimes, but, frankly, we have to make sure that we have the volume of fish, and the improvement of the year class, according to the tests that have been reported, it would appear that the fishery is improving and that those who have been quite earnest about making a living from the fishery here are, in fact, doing reasonably well.

One of the big problems on the lake has been the wide discrepancy between the value of pickerel and the value of whitefish, particularly when you get into the north basin and whether or not it is worth going after the whitefish. But to make a long answer shorter, I am quite comfortable that the policy is working and it seems to me from a biological point of view that it makes sense.

Mr. C. Evans: I thank the minister for that. That has been the feedback I have been getting. There are always some dissidents that still believe if they cannot get out there early enough it is going to hurt. I think the argument has been made, and they themselves have said that you cannot be fishing when it is not ready and until a major percentage of spawn has been delivered, it will just wreck the season and wreck the future of the industry. So I agree with him on that one.

One further and last point, and that is a copy of the letter that I received from the Matheson Island Community Council that was written to the minister in May of this year, and I understand there was a meeting a few weeks ago with the logging association loggers here with respect to the protected area initiative. By the tone of the letter and the people that I have talked to about this, it seems that this area that is in discussion seemed to be proposed without any real consultation with anyone: the communities, the loggers, First Nations people. Can the minister enlighten me on this issue a little more? What kind of response are we going to see from the minister to Matheson Island and to the other people who have raised this issue with him?

* (1650)

Mr. Cummings: I cannot visualize the area. There is an answer coming to questions that the community has posed. I think I understand the genesis of the concern. There has been a request for a set-aside of probably what would be described as quite a large area. We have not made a decision under the Endangered Spaces protected areas policy. There needs to be further discussion as to what is appropriate.

These questions seem to swing two ways depending on the area you go into. Some areas, people are asking and certain interests are asking keep this area small, confined. Other areas, where there is perhaps a recognition by the aboriginal community that their traditional uses can continue, they, perhaps for their own purposes, want to have a larger area set-aside. We do not automatically accept the larger area, even though that would seem to be the objective of the Endangered Spaces Campaign that you get as much land as you can set-aside there.

What we are trying to do is to come up with areas that are appropriately defined under what would be appropriate lands. There is no use setting aside land that does not have some enduring features that need to be protected for the future. So we need to have about three or four different schools of thought come to a mutual agreement on what is an appropriate set-aside. There has to be the community interests, whether that is aboriginal or community in the larger sense.

There are very often two different interests at play there. There are industry interests and there are the defining areas within protected spaces that need to be satisfied.

I did not put this on the record earlier when discussing it with the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers), but the fact is the Manitoba Department of Natural Resources employees have been recognized nationally and probably internationally for the work that they have done in defining the enduring features that need to be preserved within the protected areas.

That is the other qualifying interest that needs to be dealt with at the table. Because we have got them under consultation, we get some credit for moving towards protected areas.

When we deal with a request, one way of responding is that a temporary freeze or a temporary designation is put on an area. It could be considerably larger than what will ultimately be protected area. I believe what has happened in the area that you are referring to, that the requests are known, and it causes the logging industry and others to become very uptight if they think that the requested area automatically becomes the protected area. I am quite willing to put on the record that that is not so. Generally, the area that ultimately ends up being a protected area does not resemble what the original request might have been because the request, in this case, I understand, is coming from certain interests within the area, not from the department.

The department will ultimately define the area and do that in consultation with all of the various interests that I described a moment ago. We avoided going in and arbitrarily saying here is the area. But the departmental officials will know what area they would like to have, and there are lots of ways of skinning the cat in terms of boundaries for protected areas. There are certain historic interests. There is enduring features from the geographic and ecoregion definition, if you will. Frankly, what happens is that there is some resource area that probably will end up being eliminated from logging, if you will.

We generally work very closely with industry and with the community to define an area that is acceptable, in the main, to all parties that are at the table. Most progressive logging communities recognize that there has to be some protection put on parts of the province. What they want to know is if they have sustainable logging opportunities for long-term viability of their businesses, and we do everything we can to make sure that that happens, as well.

Mr. C. Evans: That does not explain why a community such as Matheson Island would be writing to the minister, nor does it explain or conclude that all the players were informed. The question of the council from Matheson Island, they want to know about this project. When I was talking about this issue with the loggers and some of the quota holders, they did not know what was going on. All of a sudden they heard that this Fisher Bay area was going to be part of the protected area initiative.

So I am hoping that the minister will provide–and I would certainly hope that the answer that he provides my community and the quota holders is copied to me for the full information as to just where this project is at and really answer the question of why were the quota holders not and why were the people not really informed that this was going on and that this proposal was in place. [interjection] Well, they are asking: so why?

Mr. Cummings: I have been at a meeting where at least one representative of the quota holders in the area was there, and he was quite uptight, as the member has just described, about: so why have I not been included in the discussions up to this point. Because the discussions are only just starting. Nobody has made a decision. No set-aside is going to occur. That is why I made the comment I did earlier. You may have felt a little out of context at the time, but if you tie it to what we are just discussing, an area that is being considered is probably far larger than and, in the end, may bear no resemblance to what is agreed to as an acceptable set-aside in that area, acceptable in terms of the community, acceptable in terms of the campaign for protected areas.

* (1700)

Frankly, and I want to put it on the record, there are people out there, not necessarily in this community, but there are people out there who have been deliberately using maps that have almost, in some cases, concentric circles drawn on them where the area of interest here and the area of interest here and the area of interest here, and they draw the circles big enough so you have almost the whole landscape covered with areas of interest and the loggers, in particular, look at this and say: So what is left for me? The fact is those maps are to begin discussion. They are intended to get people thinking about what–and obviously they are doing that–could or should occur in the area, and I am quite prepared, as I just put on the record, to say that no decisions have been made. Decisions will only be made after there has been discussion and input and hopefully general agreement on what is an acceptable area.

Now I will acknowledge, however–let us not guild the cookie prematurely here or sugar the cookie, pardon me, prematurely here–there probably will never be entirely unanimous agreement when any kind of harvestable timber is going to be taken out of production. There likely will be some, but it is our job to make sure that the quota holders in the end can have a sustainable harvest area, and that will be a challenge.

Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask first of all a couple of questions regarding the report that was just made public the other day with regard to the Lake Winnipegosis commercial fisheries. I would like to get the minister's views on the recommendations or the planning elements as to how he proposes to implement it and how he plans to involve local people. The reason I ask this question is because local people in Duck Bay, Camperville and Pine Creek are very concerned about the future of their ability to make a living on that lake and have been doing some organizing amongst themselves and have been putting some proposals forward. In fact, they are just in the process of, in the next few days, electing a lake management board to make decisions on their part of the lake. That is their plan. [interjection]

Camperville, Duck Bay and Winnipegosis. So I am wondering what the minister is proposing to do with this report and, if the board is going to be appointed, are the local people going to have input into who is put onto the board? Does the minister appoint the chair and what kind of time frame are we looking at to implement this report? Where does the minister really see it going?

As I look at the rehabilitation plan elements, it says a plan for the walleye fishing recovery should include the following elements, and one of them is the reduction in commercial harvesting. That one I know causes concern, because here we have a group of people who are looking at how they are going to make a living. More families used to live off that lake; now they cannot, and the recommendation of the consultant is to reduce the commercial harvesting. So, if the minister could just tell us what advice he can give as to how he sees this report being implemented, what he sees happening with it and the involvement of local people in rehabilitation of that lake.

Mr. Cummings: Well, the member asked what is my opinion of the report. Well, it is another piece of information that we can–frankly, I am not going to get into the debate about some of the specific recommendations, although we could. My intention is to take this information now and appoint a board for the lake, and interestingly enough, I am not sure whether somebody is playing games or whether we have an overlap of interest. I am assuming it is the best efforts on everybody's part; I am not assuming anything negative, so I retract the term "playing games" because I do not want that to happen.

I was of the understanding that most people in the area, however, knew that I intended to appoint an independent board to work with this and that independent chair, with all of the various interests of the lake there to set up a management advisory board and, frankly, I have been challenging the local fishery for about three years now to come up with a plan that we could work with because I have said on the record before and I will say it again that Lake Winnipegosis is in such a mess, both environmentally–it is not a huge environmental mess, but there are environmental issues around it. There are mesh-size issues; there are quota issues, and everybody has their own idea about how to deal with it and everybody has their own lobby effort to change the fishing quota, to change the mesh size.

We are all over the map on these issues, and what I have said to anyone who will listen to me in relationship to this issue is that Natural Resources would be seen to be the enemy if they come in and impose the solution. This has to be driven by the stakeholders in the area as to what they want to do with their lake. We have the larger responsibility to deal with the issues and to enforce regulation, to do environmental cleanup where appropriate. All of those things we recognize as our responsibility, but we need to have the involvement and the support of the people in the area.

The sport fishery and the commercial fishery do not agree. The farmer/recreational interest in the area, the aboriginal interest in the area, well, they all should have a common goal. They seem not to be able to agree on much of anything.

Therefore, I was moving toward the appointment and will within the next three weeks or a month have an independent chair in place and invite representatives from the various interest groups to sit with him to provide direction on what should happen in this lake, and if we can get good advice and direction from them, we will act as a regulatory and enforcement agency to support them. But I do want to bring a round table type of decision making to the lake.

We have been sitting back perhaps longer than we should have, encouraging them to come in this direction, and I guess I am a little worried that all of a sudden the fishermen's association is saying, well, I guess we are going to do this. I am have been asking for three years, two and a half years, all the time I have been in this department, for a plan, for an agreement on where we would go, and it did not seem to be happening, so we had this study in place and now, based on the information that has been produced here, I think we can move forward, and I am not anticipating any disagreement. In fact, by pure coincidence I was talking to a person from the shore of the lake on the way in today on my phone, not anticipating Estimates but because I had returned their call and I get a little different view from them about the intent behind this meeting. They are setting up an executive, they are setting up their organization, and I anticipate that we will be able to work co-operatively. There is no reason why this association could not function within the framework that I just discussed.

Ms. Wowchuk: I was at the meeting a couple of weeks ago to listen to what fishermen were saying, and I sensed that there is frustration because they are not getting any answers. The minister says there has been no proposal put forward, but I think that there was one proposal, a lake management proposal that has been put forward. I am looking for clarification because I say that there is another meeting tomorrow, and I hope that what will happen is that there are different groups–and this group is Duck Bay, Camperville and Pine Creek–that they will form their association and take on certain responsibilities.

My question is: how does this fit in with the other plan? It is a very big lake, and there are people in Dawson Bay, there are people in Winnipegosis and there are people in other parts of the lake that this has to fit into. The minister talks about appointing the chair. Will the other board members then be elected or selected by the fishermen, and how large a board does the minister envision having here to implement this plan? Will that board then have the ability to look at this report and decide which parts of it they want to implement, or is this the manual that they have to follow as a board to rehabilitate the lake?

* (1710)

Mr. Cummings: I am not in any way wanting to reduce the opportunity for input. I want it to be a process where people feel comfortable providing input and satisfied that they are being heard. I am anticipating a nine-person board with an appointed chair. I look at the recommendations as to how that board could be made up, and I think that is an appropriate recommendation.

I will listen to arguments if there are other ways that we could strike the board. For the sake of this discussion, I have heard recommendations provided to me from both extremes. One is that the commercial fishermen believe that they should be taking on the full management and responsibility, to the other end of the spectrum where the aboriginal community said: look, we will do this for you; we will run the whole lake. Either extreme was not said with anything except the best of interests, I understand that.

Both those interests need to be at the table, and there have to be other interests at the table as well, including the recreational sport fishing interests. That will stir up a few people on both sides, but, frankly, there are those who believe that that is an important potential for the future of that lake, as your colleague from Dauphin, I think, would support me in saying that recreational fishing that has now been restored to Lake Dauphin is one of the best things that has happened in that area for quite a while in relationship to that lake and fishing industry. I think he is agreeing with me. Thank you.

The recreational aspect has to be included in decision making around this lake, along with the various interests and the communities that are involved. If we can fit that into a nine-person board, one of whom I am going to pick, it might take a little work.

Ms. Wowchuk: I want the minister to know too that I want to find a way for this to work. Ever since I have been elected, I have always talked about Lake Winnipegosis and the need for improvement of fish habitat and all of the issues that are addressed in this report, whether it is the cormorant or Fairford Dam or fish hatcheries, all of those are issues that we have raised before. We would want them to be looked at.

I think that we have to find a way, and the minister should know that we have contacted–working with these people. This was not an attempt to override this report. There is a group of people that wants to improve things. They have made application to the minister for funds for a fish hatchery. In fact, there was money that was allocated and then stopped because there was–due to fish enhancement grant. There was money that was then stopped because there was disagreement with the communities, but we have made contact with the Swan River fish enhancement association. We have made contact with the soil conservation district to see whether they have any role in improving fish habitat, and we have made contact with federal departments too.

We as a community are trying to work together to resolve the problem, so I am hoping that what we are doing with the residents of the area will not be in conflict with this board. What I am trying to see is how this can be worked out, but also for the minister to be aware that those people who are meeting on Wednesday to elect a board for the Camper-Duck fishermen's association are also putting in place some pretty strong guidelines or by-laws that they intend to operate by. I want to go back to my constituency and give them some advice as to how this board will work and what power the board is going to have that is being elected. That involves the First Nation and two Metis communities that are also trying to put a management board together. We do not want conflict, but where do we go from here on this?

Mr. Cummings: It is a key point, and it is a matter of perception, I hope, more than it is of disagreement. In the end the authority will rest with me. I am stating for the record that I intend to appoint the chair. I will appoint the rest of the board as well, but I intend to take advice on who those should be. I will take advice from the various communities and from the associations on the lake. I anticipate the commercial fishermen will feel that they would not be given adequate opportunity on an eight-member board, on which they might not have the majority. I anticipate the aboriginal community will feel that they are being short-changed by not having the majority. Nevertheless, if they are at the table in sufficient numbers to also be part of the discussion with recreational and with environmental issues, someone representing an environmental aspect at the table could also be from either the fishermen's or the aboriginal community. That does not preclude. I do intend that all eight of those people should have an active interest in the lake.

I chose the concept of having an independent chair because I believe that the interests are so diverse that whoever chairs that group is going to have to have some credibility in their own right, but they have to be able to get a little bit above the fray to provide some direction to the committee in making recommendations to the ministry on how this should be handled.

I look at the recommendations about rehabilitation. It talks about a reduction in commercial harvest, reduction in cormorant predation, reduction in harvest of prespawn, increase walleye stocking and habitat monitoring enhancement. I do not want the commercial fishermen to say that they see nothing but problems in this. No one has been filling their quota anyway. That, to me, is the most telling argument of all. That is why I have said that, unless the local people buy into this and lead it, the department cannot fix it in and of itself.

The other thing that is mentioned with some prominence is the reduction in eliminating prespawn fishing. That applies to commercial and aboriginal. Now I fell into disfavour with some members of the aboriginal community when I forced a conservation regulation on Turtle River feeding into Lake Dauphin. In the end that turned out to be quite successful. There was co-operation all the way around, and while there were some traditional fishermen who were offended by it, we chose to follow a soft enforcement approach. We discussed it with people. We persuaded them not to use trap nets, and it worked, I think, reasonably well in the long run. Even those who felt that they were being asked to give up their rights, I always indicated to them we are not taking anybody's rights away. Just back off for a little while so that we have enough fish to go around so you can do it again sometime in the future when appropriate.

Nothing is 100 percent, but everyone found a bit of a win in that that they could accept it. In fact, when the chiefs challenged me and said: Well, we do not want to be seen to be giving up our rights; we would like to go and have a ceremonial fish. I said: Fine, tell me when; I will come with you. I do not think they ever did it in the end, but that was my way of demonstrating to them that I had no intention of getting into the argument about whose rights it is. What we want to do is make sure there is enough fish there. I hope that the same kind of thinking can apply around Lake Winnipegosis when we deal, in the early going, with the fact that there has been a lot of prespawn pickerel taken out of there.

* (1720)

I am going to challenge the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) and New Democratic Party, for that matter, on cormorants. We have said for years it is time to look at the cormorants. They are on the protected species list, and we need to be dealing with it. I do not relish the thought of being the only one of a particular political stripe out there leading the charge on this. The constituency is mainly represented by the NDP, and now is the time to stand up and be counted on this issue. If I had more unanimous support, perhaps we could move jurisdictionally on this much more radically.

The fact is I am not interested in a cormorant slaughter, I am interested in some management being exercised. I am not interested in jailing some of my ranchers/fishermen on Lake Winnipegosis or Lake Manitoba who have probably expressed some very strong feelings about the devastation that they believe the cormorants have inflicted from time to time on some of the young schools of fish. I recall my predecessor challenging his critics of the day, and I believe that is still my critic today. So when are we going to take a stand on this? This is not a conservation issue anymore, in many respects, but we do seem to be the target of a lot of attention regarding these birds and whether or not they have an effect. Common sense would tell me they have a significant effect, but what we have, unfortunately, is probably a concentration of them in the areas of these lakes that makes it much more difficult for our constituents, both yours and mine, to accept the fact that they should not be dealt with and have them perhaps at least removed from protection.

I would not, nor do I want anybody to imply that I would endorse a slaughter, but I think the time is rapidly coming when we need to be looking at what are appropriate measures to deal with this population and start dealing with some of the international interests who would very quickly want to have my hide on a pole if I was seen to be violating what they believe is management practice and protection of these birds. But our people's livelihood are, to some extent, being damaged by these colonies.

Ms. Wowchuk: Well, if the minister looks at the record back in about '90 or '91, at that time we were calling for some management. Nobody would want a wholesale slaughter of the cormorant, but we did say at that time that we had to start looking at management, because there are islands that are being destroyed, livelihoods that have been–a lot of fish that has been taken. You talk about tourism on the lake. There are islands that could be very good for tourism, but there is nothing left there.

If you look at the record, we did ask. We did ask for the government to move in some management. Certainly, if you are going to do management, it should be an open plan. Opposition should know what is happening. It should not be a secretive plan or turning a blind eye on some attempts to manage, because we know that fishermen, if they are not going to get some support from government they are going to take matters into their own hands. It should be looked at. But we asked about this issue when the population of the cormorant was at its highest, which was I believe in about 1991. Somewhere at that time we asked the government whether they were going to move on some management.

The question that I wanted to ask the minister was, he talked about Pine Creek and First Nations people. The Pine Creek First Nations industry report called for the creation of a lake management authority that would be responsible but not limited to recommending actions aimed at rehabilitation of walleye stock. I believe that that is part of what the group that is meeting in Camperville and Duck Bay and Pine Creek are talking about. They are talking more about improving the habitat, the stock.

Does the minister see that lake management authority being included in this whole committee? What has he done with the recommendation made by Pine Creek First Nations for the lake management authority?

Mr. Cummings: I would like it to be couched in the responsibility of this committee where all parties are at the table when they make a recommendation. I recognize that this is going to cause some angst at both ends of the spectrum, traditional and commercial usage being the two predominant usages or demands on the fish stock and on the lake. But I would hope that they would agree that perhaps through delegation–I do not want to preclude the fishermen from having their own association, but I would be less than responsible if I said I was going to turn the management of the lake over to them after I have given assurances to the other interests as well, that this was going to be a comanagement of all of the interested parties, not a singular responsibility.

I probably have more commercial fishermen friends than I have recreational fishermen who have contacted me about this but, across the spectrum, all the interests have to be at the table. The regulatory authority will still rest with the department. But because of what I believe is a fair principle that the locals will drive this, we will very likely follow their advice, but it has to be reached on an all-party committee.

Ms. Wowchuk: I will not ask any more questions about this report at this time, but I am sure it is going to be the subject of lots of discussion. I look forward to working with the department in the best interests of the lake and the people who live around us that it will grow so that more people can make a living off the lake. I honestly believe that with proper management that we can restore the fish stocks in that lake so that it can be used for commercial fishing as well as for recreation. I also believe there are lots of opportunities on Lake Winnipegosis to look at other things besides fishing for a tourist attraction. I really believe that that is the other area that we have to look at. It is a beautiful lake and, with proper management, it can be developed.

There are three other areas that I want to ask briefly questions on before I turn it back to my colleague. One of them is the forestry in the South Duck Mountain. Tolko is no longer going to be harvesting in South Duck Mountain. I have written to the minister on a couple of people who have asked for quota allocation. Can the minister indicate whether any decision has been made on how the quota will be divided up in South Duck Mountain that originally went to Tolko and what the process is going to be to ensure that those people who have interests will be able to get some wood?

I know that the small operators have been looking for a wood supply for a long time. I know that Pine Creek First Nation has been trying to get a logging operation going and has made a request for some wood, and other people have. In fact, I have a meeting coming up this weekend with some people in South Mountain who have another suggestion about how that wood can be allocated.

So if the minister can give some suggestion about what his plans are for that wood that will no longer be allocated to–the quota will be taken away from Tolko. I hope the minister will be indicating that there will be some opportunity for small operators who are wanting to work in the bush.

Mr. Cummings: Yes.

Ms. Wowchuk: I look forward to a more detailed answer as the minister makes some decisions on that.

* (1730)

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, sorry for my approach. One of the problems that I have is that it is a two-year notification, and Tolko undoubtedly does not want to see it happen that they will lose the wood. It is not a secret that when they bought out the company, they bought the deal that goes with it, and the deal was that they had to provide a development plan. They have not demonstrated they can do that or that they intend to do that, and therefore we have exercised the notice clause. Can we start allocating wood tomorrow? No. Therefore my answer. Yes, I see opportunity there, and, yes, there is lots of demand from various organizations, including existing ones that operate there, Spruce Products being a good example.

I think there is an onus on the department, which I will be certainly following, that we look to management policies and forestry-harvesting policies here that will further encourage the long-term sustainability of the area. I say that in the context of remember that the agreement today calls for Tolko to provide reforestation and forest-management responsibilities. I am sure that that can be handled, but it does provide an opportunity for all of us to put in place the next step for the long-term protection and management and development of that area. Maybe it should be stated in the reverse, but the fact is if we do not manage it and provide adequate protection to assure the sustainability of the forest in the area, then the development will be short-lived, and we want development there for generations, not for decades.

So I am sure that Tolko will want to read what we are saying at this committee with great care because the value of wood, no matter where, provided it is accessible, is very high, and they will be doing everything in their power to not be forced to comply with the two-year notice. I think it is only fair that everybody understands that. I know that existing operators in the forest understand that, but everybody is queuing up as of six months ago saying we are ready to take over for any wood supply that comes available.

Ms. Wowchuk: Just for clarification, is the minister saying, then, that that is the time frame we are looking at? Tolko, although they did not fulfill their commitments or do a forest-management plan, they do have a two-year time frame to do that. Is that the amount of time that there will be, or if they do not fulfill that commitment, when does the wood supply become available for the government to make different plans on?

Mr. Cummings: We exercised the clause in the agreement that provides two years notice which was only doing business. They have until 2001 to present a plan that could mean that that notice has been met, if I am using the right term. I am not trying to mislead anybody here nor am I trying to cause grief for Tolko. I mean, it is the facts of the agreement. They were to make an appropriate investment, and that entitled them to continue to use the forest, not unlike, frankly, the agreement that was made with Spruce Products. They had a development plan; they met their objectives. The wood was available. It was allocated to them, and everything is moving along smoothly.

There is one other issue here that goes right back to the original Repap and its predecessor, Concept, and that was the opportunity for development in the North. There is a lot of wood around Thompson that would provide a lot more jobs and opportunity in that area if it were aggressively managed and harvested. It is not like there is a shortage of wood but there is, as the member is well aware, a certain amount of angst when the wood is being taken out of the mountain forest area and maybe not being harvested aggressively as we would like in the Thompson area. But it was always with the best–as I understand my history–intention of the North that the original Manfor was developed and the Repap arrangement was entered into, provide the jobs and the opportunity.

So this is about management of the bigger picture and where the woodcutting opportunities are, where the job opportunities are. I have a vested concern, if you will, about the highest and best use of the wood. Chipping versus lumber versus other usage of the stock, and this has also been modified because of Louisiana-Pacific's interest in the hardwoods. It makes certain areas more harvestable than they might otherwise have been.

So I do not want the member or anybody who might read the record in Hansard to jump to conclusions that we have preconceived ideas or that we are doing this with any particular glee. It is just doing business.

Ms. Wowchuk: Of course, that is not my intention either, to try to take wood away from somebody. The question is, if the wood is available, where is it going to go? If Tolko makes another plan, then that is where the wood is going to go, but if they are not, then I have constituents who are asking about the government's plan.

I only have a couple of more minutes. There are a couple of questions that I want to ask. One of them is to do with headwater storage. I understand that the government is revisiting some old proposals, and one of the proposals that was on the table in '89-90 was to deal with a headwater storage on the North Duck River. The hearings were held on that proposal by the Clean Environment Commission, but there was no report made by the Clean Environment Commission on it. I think there was federal funding that was supposed to come, then that project fell apart, but there is a petition circulating again and I understand the department is looking at some of these older proposals.

I know the minister will not have that material at his fingertips, but if he could provide for me the information as to whether there are–it was the headwater storage that was to be constructed on the North Duck River. I wonder whether the department is looking at it again and whether there are any plans to reconsider some of those projects. I have been advised that there are some of those. So if the minister might be able to provide that for me, then that would be helpful as well for people in my area who are concerned with, once again, some flooding on the North Duck River and looking for solutions to that problem that has been long overdue.

Mr. Cummings: There is a general review being done over the next short while of all of the potential storage capacity in the province. I think it is very timely. It has been awhile since all of this information has been gathered. The one that you reference is only one of many. It is amazing and very much a credit to our predecessors in the amount of work that has been done and the information assembled. What I am looking for is an update of what is out there and what the costs are and to bring some of those costs into more current time. I am not aware particularly of the one that you are asking. You mentioned environmental concerns.

* (1740)

Ms. Wowchuk: What I indicated is that the Clean Environment Commission had done environmental hearings on it, but we had never seen or got the report. So I am looking for the report of the recommendations that were made by the Clean Environment Commission from those hearings.

Mr. Cummings: If we have them and can find them, you will get them.

Ms. Wowchuk: Thank you. I look to hear if the minister can provide that because we have just not been able to get it anywhere. I just want to ask, going back to the Lake Winnipegosis commercial fisheries, the minister said he is going to be appointing a board. Are there dollars attached to that board, and will they have the ability to spend money? Is there any money that is being set-aside for the rehabilitation of the lake?

Mr. Cummings: I do not have an allocation for the board. I can see where I might have to pay some stipends or per diems. Certainly, if I appoint a chairman, an independent chairman, you could see where that person would probably have to receive some reimbursement. You are asking about a budget to do more studies or a budget to have meetings; those are two different things. I am quite prepared to say that I am sure we will find a way of supporting board members for meetings and for work that they need to do. I am not so anxious to say that I am prepared to support more studies or to support subsidies to take fishermen off the lake if that was the other part of the question.

Ms. Wowchuk: No, the question was: is there going to be any money to carry on some of these activities? There is no sense in appointing a board if they are not going to be able to do some rehabilitation of the lake, like improve fish stocks or habitat or the river beds or things like that. That is what I am looking for. Is there money going to be available?

Mr. Cummings: The way I like to work with these types of projects is that if reasonable suggestions are brought forward, and specific activities are indicated, then we will find a way of supporting them, particularly in the habitat area and fish stocking enhancement, that sort of thing.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, I would like to ask a few questions concerning the Pineland Forest Nursery. It is an area in which I have been receiving a lot of phone calls over the last number of months from a number of different angles. One group of people that calls and asks me to check out certain concerns that they have are the employees at the Pineland Nursery, and they are quite legitimately very concerned about their prospects for employment in the area. They are quite worried about the layoffs that have occurred there, be they temporary or, in some cases, permanent. A lot of questions to me about the managerial status of the forest nursery and the changes that have taken place over the last little while out there at Hadashville. Maybe this is an opportunity for the minister all in one speech to put together what has gone on out at the Pineland Forest Nursery.

Unfortunately, I probably did not design the question as a yes or no, so the minister could not do that. Maybe I am opening myself up for a long speech about Pineland Forest Nursery, but I think there are a lot of details that we need to have on record and have public, for people to be able to understand what is happening at the nursery. The minister knows that there has been a lot of controversy or a lot of confusion, a lot of changes at the nursery, and it might be an opportunity for the minister to put on the record exactly what is happening out there.

Can the minister outline the managerial status today of the Pineland Forest Nursery?

Mr. Cummings: On a little bit of business before I answer the question, I have staff here from the Sustainable Development Unit. Can they leave, or do you want to ask a question on that before six o'clock?

Mr. Struthers: No, and I know that we are working from the same line through the course of these Estimates. Does this sustainable development package need to be okayed through this process separate from the Estimates that we are on? If so, I would just be willing to pass this. I do not have a whole lot of questions having to do with this.

Mr. Cummings: I think it needs approval ultimately, but if it is not dealt with before the hours are up, it is automatically passed. So it is not a problem unless the member wanted to ask some questions. Otherwise, I know they have family they might like to see for supper.

Mr. Struthers: Yes, they can. I do not have a lot of questions on this that the minister cannot handle, I do not think.

Mr. Cummings: Thank you. I will say this on the mike system so that they can hear me. The Sustainable Development Unit does not need to wait any longer, and this is passed or will be.

Going back to Pineland Forest Nursery, yes, there were certainly a lot of issues and concerns that were raised a year ago when we indicated that we would allow for or encourage an employee buyout, and that eventually devolved into what was more of a management buyout.

I would say, with respect, it was my understanding that the employees, of their own volition, for whatever reason, largely withdrew from any involvement in that. They ultimately became quite concerned about how they saw the issue evolving. I firmly was of the belief that it was an opportunity for what has essentially devolved into a community operation. Most of the staff come from reasonably nearby. It has become kind of an institution in the community for sure.

At any rate, to cut a long comment short, the offer that was on the table was not acceptable to us, as evaluated by our hired evaluators before we entered into the process.

I would also put on the record, however, considerable concern, and rightly so, has been raised over the long-term future for the nursery business. It is evolving across Canada, as the member is probably well aware, if he has had discussions with the employees. If they are involved anywhere near management or discussing with other people who come and go buying services, they would be well aware of the fact that smaller nurseries are being swallowed up across the country by large and quite efficient operations.

The Province of Manitoba made an effort to keep Pineland functional as an SOA because we believe that it provided a window into the industry for us, gave us some cost containment, if you will, gave us certainly a buffer against being captive to a large, single-source supplier. We made the SOA so that it had the capacity to bid after a period of years, three years I believe. It then could bid out of the province, and even bid internationally, bid across the line into the States. They survived a free trade challenge, which I think was good for the company. It proved to the free trade tribunal that this was not a subsidized operation. They were running at cost.

As competitors have raised here in the province, the issue is whether or not the cost of the infrastructure was adequately allowed for. But even when we got down to the negotiations, as I indicated a few minutes ago, they felt that they could not afford the cost of the infrastructure, even at the valuation that we placed on it. Subsequently, the person leading the management buyout resigned. There has been one other resignation from senior management as well. They were appropriately taken care of when they left. This was not a matter of a punitive situation, although they, I am sure, felt that they had lost the confidence of the employees.

* (1750)

Frankly, the leadership of the SOA, I proudly said many times after coming to this office and sitting on Treasury Board, I was truly impressed with the numbers that they were producing. They were competitive. They were selling to the max. They were expanding. They built new greenhouses regularly to meet the market. Things were moving along, but they were consistently coming back to government for underwriting of their operating in order to finance their expansion. To that extent, they were somewhat dependent on government backing them for investment. Government was somewhat at risk from time to time, although those were all successful investments.

There has been a new manager put in place, I guess a secondment. Is that a correct term? A departmental employee, as was the previous manager, has gone over to manage the site.

It would be incorrect to say that there were layoffs. There have always been seasonal layoffs out there. There were a couple of people who were laid off who previously, for temporary layoffs in the wintertime, felt that they were going to get them put into permanent layoffs. There was some angst and personnel issues that were raised around that. But I am under the understanding that pretty well everyone has been hired back and that things are really booming out there right now, that the new management has picked up the sales again.

The quality of product that is coming out of Pineland has always been their strong selling point. I see the member is making notes, and that is fair, but if it relates to the layoffs, we might have a disagreement around what are temporary and normal layoffs during the winter and what are, "seasonal," I guess is the word I am searching for, as opposed to termination of employees. For money management reasons, there were more seasonal layoffs in the winter because sales did not seem to be coming forth. But they are there now, I am told, and they are really going back to full production, which is an excellent sign, given the competitiveness of the industry. There is a very real chance the industry could come in and start undercutting Pineland and make life difficult, but Pineland has carved out a unique niche in the market which means that it has a value as well, which we are glad that we were able to maintain, based on the evaluations that I mentioned earlier, upon which we had based an opportunity for takeoff.

So my reading of it today is that we did the right thing by pulling back from a sale. I would acknowledge that there was a morale issue that had arisen because employees were not sure what was going to happen, and that always happens, unfortunately, under these situations unless something is cut and dried very quickly. This one dragged on longer than we would have liked, so we returned to the SOA situation.

It is very interesting that the Association of Independent Business has been very critical of the SOA. They are not convinced that this is not subsidized in some way by government, certainly an indication of where we backstop loans. They see that as a form of subsidy that keeps them competitive against private business in a way that they might not otherwise be if they were not at SOA. So I submit that there are still some issues around that, although I am very pleased with the way things are going and that the SOA is operating as intended, that is, that they are fully responsible for their costs and the management really is the one that is caught in the crosshairs on this. They have to produce in order to not come back to government coffers, and the SOA has to acknowledge it is costing money.

It means that they are operating more like a private company than they would if they were simply a branch of government, but they are operating in a cut-throat business. So, to be fair, while I am pleased and supportive of what is happening right now, I acknowledge that this is a cut-throat business, and I hope that my critics will acknowledge that as well, because it means that it will require the very sharpest of management, given the technology and the massive interests that are out there. It will take the very sharpest of management to keep them ahead of the competitive aspect that is out there. They were within a quarter of a cent or half a cent of winning a major contract last year with an Alberta customer, and things like this. Those are major competitive issues, and that is how tight it is on millions of seedlings. It is down to a fraction of a penny in many cases whether they win or lose on these tenders.

So an SOA is certainly a lot better place for them to be than an arm of government, but it also means that they have to be fully accountable or they end up going back to where they are subsidized, and that would be an undesirable situation.

Mr. Struthers: The minister talks about it being better than going back to be an arm of government. I suppose the other direction that could be proceeded is to go from being an SOA to being a completely private company. Part of the morale problem that I have picked up in the conversations that I have had with people who are stakeholders in this SOA is a worry that maybe what is happening now is simply a setup to move in that direction.

I do not think that anybody that I have talked to thinks it is going to go back to being an arm of government. The consternation comes more from the other direction, moving towards being a private company and then worrying, as we have seen in other instances, where when a company goes from being a public corporation to a private undergoes, in some cases, a very large-scale drop in employment. So I think that is where some of the morale problems are stemming from. It may be a case of being afraid of the unknown and not knowing just what direction the company is in.

Who makes a decision–it is a cut-throat business out there like the minister says–if another company makes an offer to buy this Pineland Forest Nursery? Who does it come down to? Is that the minister's call?

Mr. Cummings: That would be a general policy decision of government. Obviously, I would be responsible to bring the information forward. It would not be this minister alone. But the member, without perhaps meaning to, has outlined the dilemma that will always be there when you are in a highly competitive industry. As a farmer, I thought I would have understood this, but as I have gotten further into this and understand the competitive dynamics of this industry, it is really cut-throat, and it is because of the technological advances that are available in the greenhouse industry. It is not because of really anything other than that.

The one thing that Pineland has done that has sustained itself, and it is to the credit of the employees–I know that there was a little chuckling in the opposition ranks when I talked about the employees and how highly they were valued–but it is the management and the employees and the high quality of the product that comes out of there that has sustained them in the marketplace. There are buyers out there who will pay perhaps slightly more to get a Pineland product because of the survivability of the seedlings. Beyond that, I cannot say what it is that they are doing. I know that they have good equipment and that their senior growers are well experienced. As so often happens in these types of industries, it is not the square footage of the greenhouse, although that is part of it, it is what is between the ears of the manager and the senior growers in this case that is probably so valuable to this company, and its location. It does have an opportunity to grow for the Manitoba market in a way that others cannot. So I just cannot emphasize too much that the board and the management have quite an onus, responsibility to stay competitive in this market because, as you say, it is not necessarily an option to go back. I think you can say fairly that it is not an option to go back to being an arm of government because the key is that our forestry industry needs the product.

I do not want to waste the member's valuable time, but as an example, under contract, they are growing trees for companies in Minnesota just because they are good.

Mr. Struthers: Well, I do not want to leave on the record the impression that the minister may have inadvertently left that we were chuckling at him giving credit to the employees. If there was something funny going on, we may have been chuckling to that, but from our perspective on this side of the House, the people who work at the Pineland Forest Nursery deserve a lot of credit for the work that they do. The minister is right. In a cut-throat business, as he says it is, you are going to need the input of the employees in order to produce as good a product as you can.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being 6 p.m., committee rise.