VOL

TIME – 10 a.m.

LOCATION – Winnipeg, Manitoba

CHAIRPERSON – Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows)

VICE-CHAIRPERSON – Ms. Theresa Oswald (Seine River)

ATTENDANCE - 11 – QUORUM - 6

Members of the Committee present:

Ms. Brick, Messrs. Dewar, Dyck, Ms. Irvin-Ross, Messrs. Loewen, Maloway, Martindale, Ms. Oswald, Messrs. Reimer, Schellenberg, Mrs. Stefanson

APPEARING:

Hon. Jon Gerrard, MLA for River Heights

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux, MLA for Inkster

Ms. Valeri Perry, Law Officer of the House

WITNESSES:

Bill 301–The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act

Mr. David Cohen, Executive Director, Jewish Foundation of Manitoba

Mr. Bryan Klein, Aikins, MacAulay & Thorvaldson

Bill 300 – The Winnipeg Foundation Act

Mr. Rick Frost, Chief Executive Officer, The Winnipeg Foundation

MATTERS UNDER CONSIDERATION:

Bill 300–The Winnipeg Foundation Act

Bill 301–The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act

***

Clerk Assistant (Mr. Rick Yarish): Good morning. Will the Standing Committee on Private Bills please come to order.

Your first order of business is the election of a Chairperson. Are there any nominations?

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): I nominate Mr. Martindale.

Clerk Assistant: Mr. Martindale has been nominated. Are there any other nominations?

Seeing none, Mr. Martindale, would you please take the Chair.

Mr. Chairperson: Our next order of business is to fill a vacancy in the position of committee Vice-Chairperson. Are there any nominations for this position?

Mr. Dewar: Mr. Chair, I nominate Ms. Oswald.

Mr. Chairperson: Ms. Oswald has been nominated. Are there any other nominations?

Hearing no other nominations, Ms. Oswald is elected Vice-Chairperson of this committee.

This meeting has been called to consider the following bills: Bill 300, The Winnipeg Foundation Act; Bill 301, The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act.

Before we proceed further, how long does the committee wish to sit this morning?

Mr. John Loewen (Fort Whyte): I think the committee should sit until the business is taken care of.

Mr. Chairperson: It has been suggested the committee sit until the bills have been passed by the committee. Is that agreed? [Agreed]

We do have presenters registered to speak this morning as follows: Mr. David Cohen, Jewish Foundation of Manitoba; and Mr. Bryan Klein, Aikins, MacAulay & Thorvaldson.

If there is anyone else in the audience who would like to make a presentation this morning, please register with staff at the entrance of the room.

I would like to inform presenters that in accordance with our rules, a time limit of 10 minutes has been allocated for presentations with another 5 minutes allowed for questions from committee members. Also, in accordance with our rules, if a presenter is not in attendance when their name is called, they will be dropped to the bottom of the list. If the presenter is not in attendance when their name is called a second time, they will be removed from the presenters' list.

Just prior to proceeding with public presentations, I would just like to advise members of the public regarding the process for speaking in committee. The proceedings of our committee are recorded in order to provide a verbatim transcript. Each time someone wishes to speak, whether it be an MLA or presenter, I have to say the person's name first. This is the signal for the Hansard recorder to turn the mikes on and off. This is why I need to recognize you by name, prior to speaking. Thank you for your patience.

We will now proceed with public presentations.

Bill 301–The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act

Mr. Chairperson: Mr. David Cohen, Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, please take the podium for Bill 301, The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act.

Mr. David Cohen (Executive Director, Jewish Foundation of Manitoba): My name is David Cohen. I am the Executive Director of the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.

Mr. Chairperson: Excuse me, sir, do you have written copies of your presentation?

Mr. Cohen: No, I do not. I have copies of our 2002 annual report for your information, if you would like that.

Mr. Chairperson: We will ask the page to distribute those, please.

Mr. Cohen: Thank you for the opportunity to speak here this afternoon. We are pleased that this bill is coming forward at this time. Let me briefly give you an overview of the Jewish Foundation.

In 2004, we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary, and we are very excited about that fact. In 1964, 119 individuals came forward to the community with an idea of creating an endowment fund, and I am happy to say that we have been very thrilled with what has taken place over the last 40 years.

The Jewish Foundation is an endowment fund which takes in gifts of capital, all kinds of gifts, whether they are gifts of cash, stock, et cetera, to create a permanent source of capital, whereby we take these funds in and only distribute the income that is generated on an annual basis. I am proud to say that in 1964, where we started with, as I say a zero amount, in the first 10 years, we grew by a total of $85,000. I am proud to say at the end of 2003, we are sitting at $46.5 million, so, we have come a long way.

In 2003, we distributed back into our community in excess of $2 million to all kinds of charitable organizations, registered charities in this community. We are very proud of that fact. We are also very proud of the fact that the nature of our grants, and they are identified on pages 18, 19 and 20 in the report that you have in front of you, identifies the nature of our grants. We have participated both within the Jewish community and in the general community, and we do receive applications for grants and scholarships from both the Jewish and general community. Those are identified on those pages. In 2003, you have a 2002 annual report; our 2003 annual report is being published as we speak. It will be available next week, but I am pleased to say that our capital grew by $1,800,000 in 2003.

On page 16 of the report, you will notice our committee structure. We have a very active volunteer base. We have in excess of about 120 volunteers currently involved, be they on our board of directors, board of governors, our audit committee, our investment committee. We have a number of different promotional committees dealing with professional advisers, dealing with a Bar/Bat Mitzvah initiation which is talking to the fact about encouraging young people to give back to the community. That is a rite of passage in the Jewish community, and we are very pleased to say over the last four years, we have generated in excess of 200 Bar/Bat Mitzvah funds. We are really trying to teach our young people the value of giving back into our community.

I am proud that we have been able to participate in the community as much as we have. We feel as a community we are very pleased we have had the opportunity to participate as we have, and I am happy to say that on this occasion, we are here to revise our bill. Bryan Klein, who will speak in a moment, can speak more specifically to the bill, but we are pleased we have had the opportunity to present to you. We have been very appreciative of the private member who has brought this bill to the table here today and we thank her for that, for her diligence and her speed in bringing this forward. We do appreciate that. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Are there questions from committee members?

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Let me start by thanking you for your presentation. The Jewish Foundation is well known for its work it has done over 40 years. I want to congratulate you and all the others who have worked so hard on its behalf.

Maybe you could talk briefly about three notable or memorable sort of achievements or programs that you have had, just to highlight for people some of the significant individual events or grants or approaches or campaigns that you have had.

* (10:10)

Mr. Cohen: Let me briefly identify three initiatives we have that I think are very valuable both to the Jewish community as well as the general community. In 1993, we initiated what we call the Women's Endowment Fund which was focussed specifically to generate dollars that would go only for women's issues in the province of Manitoba. I am proud to say this is the 10th anniversary of that celebration. That fund, alone, has in excess of $400,000, which will now throw off approximately $20,000 a year back into the community.

When we formed this particular subcommittee of the foundation, we were very thrilled in the make-up of how we approached what it is we should be doing. The committee overwhelmingly said that we need to support women's issues in Manitoba, not Jewish women's issues in Manitoba. The reason for that is because we are part of the community. We feel it is critically important that we participate, and the nature of the issues that are relevant to all of us take place each and every day.

The nature of the support we have given: We have given to Klinic; we have given to The Pas, one of The Pas treatment centres. We have given to the North End women's shelter; we have given to a number of community organizations which are critically important to the fabric of our society. That has been very successful from the point of view of raising awareness of women's issues on one side, and raising awareness of philanthropy for women on the other side.

I think the nature of our society has changed dramatically. The active participation of women in our community is critical and the active participation of women in professions is critical. So we have tried to bring all those pieces together.

A second initiative we took a number of years ago was what we would like to call our Endowment Book of Life. That initiative is to capture the stories of our community, and the nature of that is very simple. We say to people, "How will you be remembered? How will the next generation, how will your grandchildren know about what made you who you are?" A large part of our community has an immigrant experience, and many people came at the turn of the century, in the 1920s, 1930s, and without fail, most of them said, "Well, I do not know if my grandchildren really know much about my life experience." So what we have done is we have encouraged the capturing of these stories.

They said: "Well, why is the foundation doing this? There are other organizations should be doing that kind of thing."

We have said: "Well, while we are asking you to do this, we want to help you make sure that the next generation of our community will have the resources to do what it needs to do. So all we are asking you to do is do your story and include the Jewish Foundation in your will. We are not asking for a copy of the will. We are not asking for a dollar amount. We are just asking you to make sure that you are helping us perpetuate the future and leave a legacy for the community." That has been a very, very important piece.

A third initiative we have taken on is what we call a Professional Advisory Committee, and that is to educate, to speak to the professionals in our community, be they lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, people in the life insurance industry, to talk about the different aspects of charitable giving, how it is important, how we can encourage them to speak to their clients and encourage them to think about charitable giving to give back to the community, and at the same time, educate them about the Jewish Foundation and what it is that we do.

So those are the kinds of initiatives we have taken over the last number of years to try to encourage the community to come together as far as it relates to specific grants. As I say, I have identified in the annual report, we have done a myriad of grants this past year, and I am pleased to say that over the last, I guess, 40 years, but mostly in the last 10 or 15 years, we have given out in excess of $20-million worth of grants back into the community. So we are very proud of that initiative.

Mr. John Loewen (Fort Whyte): Thank you, Mr. Cohen. We certainly appreciate your being here this morning and sharing information with us. We speak for all of the Legislature, the Conservative caucus, that we are pleased to have this bill before us and look forward to moving it along very, very quickly, hopefully in the next couple of days.

I presume you have worked closely with the government regarding this bill. For the record, I just ask if there are any other issues that you feel need to be addressed that are not addressed in terms of this bill.

Mr. Cohen: No, not that I am aware of. But I am sure Mr. Klein would be able to speak to that more fully.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for your presentation.

The next presenter is Mr. Bryan Klein, representing Aikins, MacAulay & Thorvaldson.

Mr. Bryan Klein (Aikins, MacAulay & Thorvaldson): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Honourable members, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bryan Klein. I am a partner at Aikins, MacAulay & Thorvaldson. We act for the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.

I wish to first of all express our appreciation to legislative counsel who extensively helped us. We did the first draft, and then they did subsequent redrafts of a bill which modernizes the corporate governance structure of the incorporation known as the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba. It modernizes its governance; it allows it to manage funds on behalf of other charitable organizations; and gives it the simple power that is found in all corporate charters in Manitoba, the powers of a natural person.

The petition sets forth the specific features of the act. It gives it modern investment powers; it empowers it to retain appropriate professional expertise to assist it with its investments and generally modernizes its corporate governance. I wish to first of all say, that we are quite satisfied with the contents of the bill. I do not think that any further revisions or amendments are needed. It certainly brings it into the 21st century. So thank you very much, and, unless anyone has any questions for me, that is my submission.

Mrs. Heather Stefanson (Tuxedo): I just wanted to echo the comments of my colleague from Fort Whyte and thank you for your effort and, indeed, your presentations today. I thought that was very good. This is very important to us too, to see that this goes through. I just also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you so much for what you have done for so many different organizations in the community, all that you have funded them for. So thank you.

Mr. Gerrard: I just want to say a few words again complimenting the foundation and your work in bringing the bill forward and the wording so that it will modernize things for the foundation in terms of corporate governance and investment ability. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Klein.

Bill 300–The Winnipeg Foundation Act

Mr. Chairperson: We now have a presenter on Bill 300, The Winnipeg Foundation Act, Mr. Richard Frost.

Mr. Richard Frost (Chief Executive Officer, The Winnipeg Foundation): Good morning, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rick Frost. I am the CEO of the Winnipeg Foundation, and I am very pleased to be here this morning to make a few comments, introductory remarks, about the bill that has been presented to you.

I am going to make introductory comments if I can, and then if there are specific questions, our solicitor Peter Glowacki from Thompson Dorfman is here as well to answer any questions of a more technical nature.

Most of you may be aware that the Winnipeg Foundation was created in 1921 which was the first community foundation established in Canada. In fact, it was the birth of a movement which is now probably the fastest-growing area of philanthropic activity in our country. The first community foundation in the world was established in 1914, so we are among the oldest community foundations in the world, and we are the second largest in Canada.

In 1922, we made our first grants of $6,000 from the initial gift of $100,000 and over the last 82 years, we have been making grants into the community. The second gift that came to the foundation was in 1924. It was only $15. It is often referred to as the "widow's mite." It is a very small gift, but nonetheless, it has really had a big impact on the culture of our organization because gifts have come to the foundation over the year from people from all walks of life. As a result, we have a great number of endowment funds, now numbering over 1500, which may grant to all kinds of charities.

* (10:20)

This year we expect our grants will be in the $14-million to $15-million range. The mechanics of how the system works is very much the same as was explained with the Jewish Foundation. We run an investment portfolio. The gifts that are given to us are invested in a balanced fund. Essentially, half goes to fixed income, the other half goes into equities and 5 percent of the market value each year is granted back to the community. Our last annual report, a copy of which I have brought for you, shows total assets of $307 million. That is sort of the range of growth that we have enjoyed over 80 years, from a beginning of $100,000 to now, in excess of $300 million, which makes us the second largest community foundation in Canada.

Our average grants are $15,000 to $20,000, so we are a very grass-roots organization. Last year, 550 different charitable organizations received grants from the Winnipeg Foundation, so we have a very wide reach. A typical grant we make would range from buying computers to sending kids to camp. In the last meeting of the board we funded an interesting theatre program called In Riel's Footsteps in St. Boniface. We funded a marketing strategy for another charitable organization; a new roof; a new van; a new commercial dishwasher in a day care centre. We have a very wide range of what I would call a pretty grass-roots, grant-making activity.

We also run 160 different scholarship programs, and of course we get involved with a lot of very high-profile grants that might be more familiar to you. Last November, our board approved a $6-million commitment to the new human rights museum. Over the last five years, we have put about $1.3 million into the Fort Whyte Centre. We have an interesting program that pays $300 each year to every inner-city teacher as a discretionary payment so they can have extra money for supplies. We are funding right now a $1-million new building for U of M and U of W on Selkirk Avenue, which is going to teach teachers and social workers through the ACCESS programming. We just put $175,000 into the new St. James Y and $150,000 into more public amenity green space at The Forks continuing the enhancements that are happening there.

The vision of our organization is a Winnipeg where community life flourishes, and that gives us a very wide mandate to do virtually anything that is charitable in the city. Our board very much attempts to spread the resources we have as widely as we can, basically to help the volunteer sector of the city do a good job. We know the volunteer sector is fundamental to the quality of life and what we try to do is empower them to do a better job.

That is my presentation. If you have any questions, we are very happy with the material you have in front of you in terms of the bill, but I am certainly happy to answer any general questions and our solicitor can answer any questions of a more technical nature. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Frost.

Mr. John Loewen (Fort Whyte): Well, thank you, Mr. Frost. I appreciate you being with us this morning to share that information with us and give us your presentation. Again, I just want to let you know we are very pleased to have this bill before us and want to congratulate you and everybody involved in the organization for the outstanding work you do in Winnipeg and in Manitoba and we look forward to speedy passage of the bill. Hopefully we will have it done by the end of the week.

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Let me just take this occasion to say thank you for the work you are doing for people in Winnipeg and in Manitoba from the big projects like the major grant to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to a lot of smaller efforts in neighbourhoods, and of course, major efforts in relationship to education in one way or another. We are pleased to support this bill going through and to help you continue to do that fine work you are doing. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Frost.

* * *

Mr. Chairperson: Does the committee have a preference as to which bill we do first? Also, I should ask if there are any other presenters in the audience that wish to present, they should identify themselves.

Bill 300 or 301?

An Honourable Member: 300.

Bill 300–The Winnipeg Foundation Act

Mr. Chairperson: I heard 300, The Winnipeg Foundation Act. We will now proceed to clause-by-clause consideration. During the consideration of a bill, the table of contents, the preamble, the enacting clause and the title are postponed until all other clauses have been considered in their proper order. Also, if there is agreement from the committee, I will call clauses in blocks that conform to pages, with the understanding that we will stop at any particular clause or clauses where members may have comments, questions or amendments to propose. Is that agreed? [Agreed]

On Bill 300, The Winnipeg Foundation Act, we will first hear a report on the bill from Val Perry, Law Officer of the House.

Ms. Valeri Perry (Law Officer of the House): As required by Rule 158 of the Rules of the House, I now report that I have examined Bill 300, The Winnipeg Foundation Act, and have not noted any exceptional powers sought or any other provision of the bill requiring special consideration.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you for that report. Does the member sponsoring the bill have an opening statement?

Ms. Marilyn Brick (St. Norbert): I do. Thank you very much. I would like to say that the main purpose of the revisions to the act is to modernize the act so it clearly reflects what is actually being done by the foundation. Some of the changes that this bill incorporates are changes to the investment power so that there will now be the ability for professional money managers to manage the money the foundation has.

Another change will be that the Winnipeg Foundation will have a change to their corporate governance, thereby allowing the number of members on the board to be increased. The previous act had eight members plus the mayor. The revised act has eleven members plus the mayor. This allows the organization to have more representation from the community.

I would like to commend the Winnipeg Foundation for the excellent work they do in the community. It has been my pleasure to work with the Winnipeg Foundation to introduce this new act into the Legislature. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you. Does any other member wish to make a statement?

Mrs. Heather Stefanson (Tuxedo): I, too, would just like to echo the comments of the member from Fort Whyte and say that we are very much in favour of the speedy passage of this bill. Certainly, I will not go on and on, because we want to pass it as quickly as possible. But I would just like to take this opportunity to thank the Winnipeg Foundation for all that they do for our community in making it a better place. They have certainly done some outstanding work and invested in some outstanding projects in our community. I just want to thank them very much for everything they do.

This bill essentially modernizes things to make it easier for them to do what they do best, and that is to support various organizations within our community. So again I would like to thank them and look forward to the speedy passage of this bill.

Mr. Chairperson: Clause 1–pass; clauses 2 to 4–pass; clauses 5 and 6–pass; clauses 7 to 10–pass; clause 11–pass; clauses 12 to 14–pass; clauses 15 and 16–pass; clauses 17 to 19–pass; clauses 20 to 22–pass; clauses 23 to 26–pass; table of contents–pass.

Shall the preamble pass?

* (10:30)

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): I just want to give comment, because I can appreciate what both the government representative and the opposition representative made reference to, how supportive of this bill both sides are. I think it is fair to say that both 300 and 301 would have the unanimous support of the Chamber.

As such, we would suggest that the committee even make the suggestion that we have these two bills come before us for third reading today, where I am sure it would receive very quick passage. I just put that on the record so that if the government would like to see it pass this afternoon, I know that they would get full co-operation in terms of making sure that they do get passed. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you for those remarks. Ultimately, this is a decision of the House leaders.

Table of contents–pass; preamble–pass; enacting clause–pass; title–pass. Bill be reported.

Bill 301–The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act

Mr. Chairperson: We will now proceed with Bill 301, The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act. We will first hear a report on the bill from Val Perry, Law Officer of the House.

Ms. Valeri Perry (Law Officer of the House): As required by Rule 158 of the Rules of the House, I now report that I have examined Bill 301, The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act, and have not noted any exceptional powers sought or any other provision of the bill requiring special consideration.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you for that report. Does the member sponsoring the bill have an opening statement?

Ms. Kerri Irvin-Ross (Fort Garry): It was a huge honour to participate in this process, this being the first private member bill that I was allowed to introduce. It was very remarkable for a very remarkable organization that is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and I extend my congratulations to them.

It is fitting that today we are working on Bill 301 that will modernize their act. The foundation will have investment powers, empowers it to retain appropriate professional expertise as well as an ability to manage its funds as it sees fit. This will assist it in their daily operations as well as the charitable organizations that it supports, that, as a range in the diversity, it includes arts, culture, heritage, education, recreation, human and social services that are in both the Jewish and general community.

I would like to take this time now to thank the staff, the board of directors, the volunteers, the donors. From the Province of Manitoba, thank you very much.

Mr. Chairperson: Does any other member wish to make a statement?

Mrs. Heather Stefanson (Tuxedo): Mr. Chair, again just a few words for the record on this bill. We are happy to see it there and congratulate the Member for Fort Garry for bringing this forward in that it is her first bill too, so congratulations on that. Certainly, we do want to see the speedy passage here of this bill, and are very supportive of everything that the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba has done for so many different organizations in the community. I again want to thank the speakers for coming out today and, again, thank the foundation for everything that they do for Manitoba.

Mr. Chairperson: Clause 1–pass; clauses 2 to 5–pass; clauses 6 to 9–pass; clauses 10 and 11–pass; clauses 12 to 14–pass; clauses 15 to 17–pass; clauses 18 to 20–pass; clauses 21 to 25–pass; table of contents–pass; preamble–pass; enacting clause–pass; title–pass. Bill be reported.

I understand there is a motion for the refund of fees with regard to this bill.

Ms. Irvin-Ross: I move that this committee recommend that the fees paid with respect to Bill 301, The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act, be refunded less the cost of printing.

Mr. Chairperson: It has been moved by Ms. Irvin-Ross that this committee recommends that the fees paid with respect to Bill 301, The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba Act–thank you.

The motion is in order. Shall the motion pass? The motion is accordingly passed.

The hour being 10:35 a.m., what is the will of the committee?

An Honourable Member: Committee rise.

Mr. Chairperson: Committee rise.

COMMITTEE ROSE AT: 10:35 a.m.