LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA

Wednesday, May 25, 2022


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Andrew Micklefield): O Eternal and Almighty God, from Whom all power and wisdom come, we are assembled here before Thee to frame such laws as may tend to the welfare and prosperity of our province. Grant, O merciful God, we pray Thee, that we may desire only that which is in accordance with Thy will, we may seek it with wisdom and know it with certainty and accomplish it perfectly for the glory and honour of Thy name and for the welfare of all our people. Amen.

      We acknowl­edge we are gathering–we are gathered on Treaty 1 territory and that Manitoba is located on the treaty territories and ancestral lands of  the Anishinaabeg, Anishininknewuk [phonetic], Dakota Oyate, Denesuli‑suline [phonetic], Nehethowuk nations. We acknowl­edge Manitoba is lo­cated on the Homeland of the Red River Métis. We acknowl­edge northern Manitoba includes lands that were and are the ancestral lands of the Inuit. We respect the spirit and intent of treaties and treaty making and remain committed to working in part­ner­ship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in the spirit of truth, recon­ciliation and col­lab­o­ration.

      Please be seated. Good afternoon. Let me just get organized.

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Intro­duction of bills?    

Committee Reports

Standing Committee on Social and Economic Dev­elop­ment


 Fifth Report

Mr. Len Isleifson (Chairperson): I wish to present the fifth report of the Standing Com­mit­tee on Social and Economic Dev­elop­ment.

Clerk (Ms. Patricia Chaychuk): Your Standing Com­mit­tee on Social and Economic Dev­elop­ment pre­sents the–

Some Honourable Members: Dispense.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Dispense.

Your Standing Committee on Social and Economic Development presents the following as its Fifth Report.

Meetings

Your Committee met on May 24, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. in Room 255 of the Legislative Building.

Matters under Consideration

·         Bill (No. 16)The Financial Administration Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la gestion des finances publiques

·         Bill (No. 29)The Mennonite College Federation Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Fédération des collèges mennonites

·         Bill (No. 33) The Municipal Assessment Amendment and Municipal Board Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'évaluation municipale et la Loi sur la Commission municipale

·         Bill (No. 34) The City of Winnipeg Charter Amendment and Planning Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Charte de la ville de Winnipeg et la Loi sur l'aménagement du territoire

·         Bill (No. 37)  The International Child Support and Family Maintenance (Hague Convention) Act / Loi sur le recouvrement international des aliments destinés aux enfants et à d'autres membres de la famille (Convention de La Haye)

·         Bill (No. 228)  The Eating Disorders Awareness Week Act / Loi sur la Semaine de sensibilisation aux troubles de l'alimentation

Committee Membership

As per the Sessional Order passed by the House on October 7, 2020, and subsequently amended, Rule 82(2) was waived for the May 24, 2022 meeting, reducing the membership to six Members (4 Government and 2 Official Opposition).

·         Hon. Ms. Clarke

·         Hon. Mr. Friesen

·         Mr. Isleifson

·         Ms. Morley-Lecomte (Vice-Chairperson)

·         Ms. Naylor

·         Mr. Wasyliw

Your Committee elected Mr. Isleifson as the Chairperson.

Non-Committee Members Speaking on Record

·         Ms. Lamoureux

·         Hon. Mr. Reyes

·         Hon. Mr. Goertzen

Public Presentations

Your Committee heard the following presentation on Bill (No. 29)The Mennonite College Federation Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Fédération des collèges mennonites:

Cheryl Pauls, Canadian Mennonite University

Your Committee heard the following presentation on Bill (No. 33) The Municipal Assessment Amendment and Municipal Board Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'évaluation municipale et la Loi sur la Commission municipale:

Kam Blight, Association of Manitoba Municipalities

Your Committee heard the following two presen­tations on Bill (No. 34) The City of Winnipeg Charter Amendment and Planning Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Charte de la ville de Winnipeg et la Loi sur l'aménagement du territoire:

Marc Pittet, City of Winnipeg Planning, Property and Development Department

James Platt, Private citizen

Your Committee heard the following three presen­tations on Bill (No. 228) – The Eating Disorders Awareness Week Act / Loi sur la Semaine de sensibilisation aux troubles de l'alimentation:

Elaine Stevenson, Alyssa Stevenson Eating Disorder Memorial Trust

Lea Neufeld La Rue, Women's Health Clinic

Kristen Bauman, Private citizen

Bills Considered and Reported

·         Bill (No. 16)The Financial Administration Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la gestion des finances publiques

Your Committee agreed to report this Bill without amendment.

·         Bill (No. 29)The Mennonite College Federation Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Fédération des collèges mennonites

Your Committee agreed to report this Bill without amendment.

·         Bill (No. 33) The Municipal Assessment Amendment and Municipal Board Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'évaluation municipale et la Loi sur la Commission municipale

Your Committee agreed to report this Bill with the following amendment:

THAT Clause 10(2) of the Bill be amended in the proposed clause 64.1(1)(b) by striking out "third day" and substituting "fifth day".

·         Bill (No. 34) The City of Winnipeg Charter Amendment and Planning Amendment Act / Loi modifiant la Charte de la ville de Winnipeg et la Loi sur l'aménagement du territoire

Your Committee agreed to report this Bill without amendment.

·         Bill (No. 37)  The International Child Support and Family Maintenance (Hague Convention) Act / Loi sur le recouvrement international des aliments destinés aux enfants et à d'autres membres de la famille (Convention de La Haye)

Your Committee agreed to report this Bill without amendment.

·         Bill (No. 228)  The Eating Disorders Awareness Week Act / Loi sur la Semaine de sensibilisation aux troubles de l'alimentation

Your Committee agreed to report this Bill without amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Tabling of reports–[interjection] Oh, my apologies.

      The hon­our­able member for Brandon East (Mr. Isleifson).

Mr. Isleifson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker

      I move, seconded by the hon­our­able member from Seine River, that the report of the com­mit­tee be received.

Motion agreed to.

Tabling of Reports

Hon. Cameron Friesen (Minister of Finance): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I rise to table a revision to the Estimates of expenditure for Manitoba Budget 2022 and accompanying notice.

Ministerial Statements

Mr. Deputy Speaker: And I should indicate that the  required 90 minutes notice prior to routine proceedings was provided in accordance with rule 26(2).

      Would the honourable Minister of Health please proceed with the statement.

Paramedic Services Week

Hon. Audrey Gordon (Minister of Health): I would like to acknowledge our heroes in paramedicine for the incredible work they do for all Manitobans. From May 22nd to 28th Manitoba celebrates Paramedic Services Week.

      The theme of Paramedic Services Week is Faces of Paramedicine, which highlights the specialized roles within the paramedic profession.

      In many cases, paramedics are the first contact that patients have in their health-care journey. You pro­vide life-saving assistance in medical emergencies and have an indisputably important role in health care.

      You are the professionals who keep patients calm on the other end of a dispatch call. You are the drivers rushing ambulances through our streets and the pilots careening through our prairie skies. You are the first knock at the door and the first sign of hope for individuals and their families. You have stepped into positions on vaccination teams, in emergency rooms and on research teams in the wake of the COVID‑19 pandemic.

      That is why, in Budget 2022, we have included a historic investment of $812 million, which demon­strates our government's dedication to support Emergency Medical Services. Within Budget 2022, we purchased 65 new ambulances, which will refresh one third of the Province's fleet.

      Our government is also investing $4 million to hire 35 full-time primary-care paramedics and $3.5 million to increase dispatch call bandwidth. Recently, $3.8 million went towards developing new EMS stations in Portage la Prairie and Crystal City.

      Our government will continue to invest and sup­port these heroes who put their health and safety on the line to care for Manitobans. You work selflessly, but it is paramount to recognize how you also require care and compassion.

      We recognize the immense stress that you face due to emotional calls and challenging work days. We would like to applaud Shared Health's colleague-to-colleague mental wellness team and their efforts to listen to first responders and help them explore healthy coping mechanisms.

* (13:40)

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, we have seen recently the tragic circumstances that our paramedics and first responders are asked to respond to. The tragedies in Texas and Buffalo are both horrific for the loss of life but also for the toll it takes on emergency responders.

      I would ask, Mr. Deputy Speaker, after members have responded, for a moment of silence to remember those who have died in mass shootings in recent days, and the paramedics and first responders in Manitoba and around the world who are called to save lives and comfort families.

      Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

MLA Uzoma Asagwara (Union Station): Mr. Deputy Speaker, this Paramedic Services Week, we commend those in paramedicine who dedicate their lives to saving the lives of others. Our para­medics work day in and day out, often at great per­sonal risk, to provide expert care when we need it. Everyone in Manitoba is fortunate to know that when they're in emergency, help is on the way.

      Unfortunately, after years of PC cuts, this help is taking much too long to arrive. Paramedic arrival times are up to 35 per cent longer in rural Manitoba than they were just a few years ago. In Winnipeg in  January, there were a cumulative 28 hours in which zero ambulances were available to respond to emergencies.

      Now, of course, these delays are not the fault of our paramedics; they're the fault of a government that consistently chooses cuts over care.

      So today, as we thank paramedics for their ser­vice, we also pause to acknowledge the burden they're under and the challenges that they face. Recent media reports shifts as long as 23 hours for paramedics. They need relief and they need our support. In an emer­gency, every moment matters, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Nobody knows that more than those in health care providing emergency medical services.

      It's about time that the PC government appre­ciated not only the critical work that paramedics do, but acknowledge the understaffing crisis that con­tinues to make their work exponentially harder. They've been working for over four years with an expired contract, and it's long overdue that they got a contract too.

      That's why during Paramedic Services Week, the Manitoba NDP reiterates our commitment to invest in paramedics and support their work-life balance, while they care for us and Manitobans across the province.

      Thank you.

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I ask leave to respond to the minister's statement.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Does the hon­our­able member for River Heights have leave to respond to the minis­ter's statement? [Agreed]

Mr. Gerrard: Mr. Deputy Speaker, first and fore­most, a big thank you to all paramedics in Manitoba on this week, Paramedic Services Week, and indeed, on every week.

Paramedics do incredible work, often under very challenging circumstances. This is true for all para­medics, but is particularly true for paramedics work­ing in rural areas, where the longer distances mean more actively involvement in care during transport, and sporadic emergency room closures add to the problems.

      The development of community paramedicine has been positive, but it still has some way to go. For example, there is still no access to community paramedicine in Camperville, in spite of the need.

      There is a province-wide shortage of paramedics which has not been addressed, despite the present government having had seven years to act.

      Medicine, and in particular paramedicine, is not a static discipline. Treatments and supports, including social supports, are changing all the time, and ongoing continuing education and training is essential to pro­viding optimal help to individuals in difficulty. Training for work in rural areas has additional challenges.

      There are opportunities to improve, such as en­abling quicker handover of patients when para­medics arrive in emergency rooms and addressing com­munication gaps for existing communication systems in some rural areas. Better training in handling those who are elderly, especially those who have some level of dementia, is also im­por­tant, as many who are being transported and require special care are elderly.

      To sum it up: thank you, thank you, thank you, all paramedics in Manitoba. The work you do every day is essential. We thank you for your ability to be emer­gency respon­ders in very tragic and difficult circum­stances and we ap­pre­ciate your efforts.

      Merci. Miigwech. Thank you.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: As per the Minister of Health's (Ms. Gordon) request, is there leave for a moment of silence? [Agreed]

A moment of silence was observed.

      The hon­our­able Minister of Trans­por­tation and Infra­structure–and I would, again, reiterate the re­quired 90 minutes notice prior to routine proceedings was provided in accordance with rule 26(2).

      Would the hon­our­able minister please proceed with the statement.

Flooding Update

Hon. Doyle Piwniuk (Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure): Mr. Deputy Speaker, our hydro­logic forecasting team has indicated there is no significant precipitation in the forecast for southern and central Manitoba over the next three days.

      With the exception of the Winnipeg River and the  Souris River, all locations north and south of Winnipeg along the Red River are declining slowly but are expected to remain high until early June, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Water levels in the–most drains, creeks and tributaries are also declining.

      The Winnipeg River is expecting very high flows and water levels are–significant water volumes upstream of Lake of the Woods and Lac Seuli [phonetic], which is impacting many locations within the Whiteshell Provincial Park. The Winnipeg River is expected to crest in early June, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

      Mandatory evacuation notices have been issued to parts of the Whiteshell area, and some roads have been deemed unsafe. Manitobans have been advised not to travel into the Whiteshell Provincial Park area.

      Our provincial staff will continue to identify critical infrastructure within the Whiteshell Provincial Park and develop a mitigation plan to ensure con­tinuous operations and provide all necessary flood pre­vention support.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, 33 local authorities, four northern affairs communities, seven First Nation com­munities and one provincial park has declared states of local emergency.

      Our provincial staff will continue to update the–update Manitoba 511 app with the latest road re­opening information across the province as well as closures within the Whiteshell Provincial Park.

      To all provincial staff, municipal officials and volunteers: we thank you. Our government and Manitobans across the province deem your dedication in fighting this historical flood–we commend you all.

      Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Matt Wiebe (Concordia): Mr. Speaker, all Manitobans continue to be concerned about the rising water levels in the Whiteshell and news that there's not much additional that can be done to reduce the flow on the Winnipeg River. Inflow levels are at their highest levels since we began recording them in 1907 and there's a lot more water still to come from Ontario. A mandatory evacuation notice is now in effect in the northern portion of the Whiteshell Prov­incial Park.

      Manitobans and all–and organizations in the re­gion, including lodges and outfitters, need help now, and we commend all those on the ground who are help­­ing to sandbag and mitigate further damage. But as the crest is still weeks away, they'll also need help rebuilding when the flood waters recede later this summer. Many are already asking for infor­ma­tion on plans for financial support programs for those im­pacted in the Whiteshell and surrounding areas, in­cluding lodges and outfitters, as well as those who have primary and secondary properties. Whiteshell resi­dents and busi­ness owners are des­per­ate to know that compensation is on the way as soon as possible.

      Many Whiteshell residents are also expressing frustration about the lack of warning that they were given about the severity of the situation heading their way. Local resident Amy Vereb told the press yester­day that, quote: What I'm hearing from local people is just the frustration. They're not getting enough help. We're doing the best we can here with our family and friends and the support from the guys across the road. They should have told us, listen, in two weeks there's a lot more water coming. End quote.

* (13:50)

      As always, our thanks goes out to the countless prov­incial staff, fire­fighters, Hydro employees and, of course, the volunteers on the ground who are working around the clock to protect lives and property.

      We look forward to further infor­ma­tion from the gov­­ern­ment on medium- and long‑term plans for sup­port, rebuilding and mitigation across the province.

      Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Dougald Lamont (St. Boniface): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to speak to the minister's statement.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Does the member have leave to speak to the minister's statement? [Agreed]

Mr. Lamont: A great thanks to everybody who's been working so hard, everybody in the de­part­ment as well as people on the ground who've been struggling to keep flood waters at bay.

      There have been a number of–this is, of course, a very large flood that affects com­mu­nities, that often our focus in Winnipeg is Winnipeg, and we're seeing flooding in places which is much worse than usual.

      We've–I just wanted to touch on a few. There's been St. Pierre Jolys, St. Laurent, Powerview-Pine Falls and, of course, the city of Winnipeg. The thing that all three of these have in common, in addition to a total of 15 munici­palities, is they're all part of the Association des municipalités bilingues du Manitoba who are French-speaking, and I just wanted to flag for the minister that there's been a lot of stuff that has not been translated on the website which probably should be.

      This is an issue that also came up in COVID where there were emergency situations. People were being asked to vaccinate or ask for help, and there was no French translation. There are many people who live outside of St. Boniface, who live in rural areas, who speak French. But just as an indication, when you click over from the flood infor­ma­tion from English to French, the last press release that was put up there was the 16th of April 2019. So we're well behind both on–and that was in English as well.

      So if the minister could just com­mu­nicate and ensure that we're making sure that forms–DFA forms–and that infor­ma­tion is being communicated in the lan­guage that these com­mu­nities speak, it'll actually go a long way to helping them out, both in terms of their flood assist­ance but also, certainly, when people are looking to recover.

      Thank you very much.

Members' Statements

Return of In-Person High School Graduations

Hon. Sarah Guillemard (Minister of Mental Health and Community Wellness): Mr. Deputy Speaker, we have a very special month ahead in June.

      After two years that included remote learning, hybrid classes, class cohorts, cancelled sports and cancelled school trips, young Manitobans this year will celebrate together, in person, the milestone of high school graduations.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, my daughter was part of the class of the first cancelled grads in 2020. She and her friends had to deal with the sense of loss and dis­appointment, as did hundreds of other graduates over the last two years.

      We as MLAs have missed attending the in-'persing,' exciting assemblies that signal the achieve­ments of bright young leaders in our com­mu­nities.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, I know that I very much look forward to being present at high school gradu­ations this June in my own con­stit­uency of Fort Richmond. Schools had to get creative for their gradu­a­tion ceremonies during the last two years, but this year it will be great to see all these young and eager, smiling faces complete an im­por­tant chapter of their life.

      I am very happy to join Southeast Collegiate and Fort Richmond Collegiate graduation ceremonies this year, and I know that it will include strong feelings of  gratefulness. Like all my colleagues here in the  House, we welcome the return to in-person celebrations.

      I want to con­gratu­late all students graduating in Manitoba this year, including some of our pages with­in the Chamber. Well done.

      Thank you.

Krystal Mousseau

Mr. Wab Kinew (Leader of the Official Opposition): One year ago today, Krystal Mousseau died. She was 31 years old.

      Krystal was born in Winnipeg and grew up on the Ebb and Flow First Nation alongside her siblings. She always had an outgoing and bubbly personality and loved spending time with her family. Some of these favourite moments came around a late-night bonfire, or perhaps on a Lake Manitoba beach during a hot summer day, or even just yard-saling with her mom, Elaine.

      Krystal had a sweet tooth and loved to unwind with some gummies or NERDS and watch a favourite movie after a long day. Some of her favourite films that she watched most often were The Devil Wears Prada and She's All That.

      Last spring, Krystal contracted COVID-19 and thereafter required hospitalization. The systems that should've helped her instead failed her, and Krystal ended up passing away as a result.

      Like all of us, Krystal had dreams for the future. Some of these were pretty humble: she wanted to take a trip to British Columbia. She also hoped to one day watch her two daughters graduate from school.

      Krystal joined her partner, Michael, who passed away a few years earlier. Her daughters are now growing up with their extended family, who are all very close. Krystal's kids today are now 13 and 14 years old.

      To her two girls: your mom did everything for you and she loved you so very much. To her family–Elaine, Karen, Kristy, Renee, Theresa, Agnes, Clifford and Kevin: you honour Krystal with the work you do on her behalf. And to Krystal: your family tells me you were the piece of the puzzle that kept them all together.

      And to the people of Manitoba: let us never forget who Krystal Mousseau was.

Inter­national Peace Gardens

Hon. Doyle Piwniuk (Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure): I rise today to pay tribute to the International Peace Garden, the only garden in the world that straddles an international boundary.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, 90 years ago, in 1932, 50,000 people from Manitoba and North Dakota travel­led to–by foot, by horse and buggy and by Model T to pledge and celebrate the everlasting peace between Canada and in the United States. What better place to do it than in a garden, in touch with the natural world and calm of the beauty around us. In 1932, this was the–only a dream. Today, it's a reality.

      The International Peace Garden is a mix of beauti­ful floral gardens nestled in 2,300 acres in the heart of Turtle Mountain. A stream runs through a formal garden where people love to photograph themselves with a foot on each of the–each country. There are lakes and trails and wildflowers and waterfalls and one world's finest collection of succulents and cactus in the conservatory which is under construction for an expansion.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, this summer, we will open a children's playground that pays tribute to Indigenous partners. We are working with our further plans with our Indigenous board members to celebrate the fact that in millennia, the Turtle Mountain was a place for First Nations that would gather for peace talks.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, we have some special guests in the gallery here today, and they're my fellow board members and friends. And in the gallery we have the president, Dorothy Dobbie, and we have board mem­bers Judy Saxby and Charlie Thomsen, who's also our capital campaign co-chair.

      We invite all Manitobans to come to the garden to celebrate with us on July 30th, the long weekend, IPG's 90th anniversary.

      Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let's a give them a round of applause.

Catalytic Converter Theft

Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): It's time for this government to stand up for Manitoba consumers.

      More measures are needed to prevent catalytic converter thefts. In the past two reporting years, in 2020 and 2021, MPI reports a 450 per cent increase in these claims. And 2022 promises to be worse, and many claims actually go unreported.

      Just a few weeks ago, a seniors block in my riding had their parking lot targeted. Residents in northeast Winnipeg are reporting catalytic converter thefts even while they shop at Kildonan Place.

      As long as precious metals like rhodium, palla­dium and platinum are worth thousands of dollars an ounce, these thefts will continue. Organized groups of criminals have a shopping list of vehicle types. It's not uncommon for one to fetch up to $800. Manitoba drivers aren't fully protected against these thefts be­cause Manitoba Public Insurance charges a betterment fee.

      There are ways we can combat catalytic con­verter  theft. I've introduced Bill 232, The Catalytic Converter Identification Act, which would require motor vehicle dealers in the province to mark the vehicle identification number, the VIN number, on the catalytic converters of every vehicle sold by a dealer­ship, including new and used cars. The purpose of the marking or etching would be to identify the catalytic converter to a specific vehicle, something that's cur­rently not possible.

      The provincial government should order MPI to offer substantial discounts to Manitoba drivers who have their catalytic converters engraved with the VIN numbers to incentivize people to get it done. Legislation like Bill 232 would be a meaningful step in catalytic converter theft prevention and one more tool in the fight against thefts occurring across the province.

* (14:00)

      We also need to improve the current bill–gov­ern­ment Bill 9–legislation before the House by requiring proper documentation and record keeping to be in­creased to five years from the two years proposed–

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired.

An Honourable Member: Ask for leave.

Some Honourable Members: Leave.

Some Honourable Members: No.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Leave has been denied.

St. James Assiniboia 55+ Centre

Hon. Scott Fielding (Minister of Natural Resources and Northern Development): Mr. Deputy Speaker, today I rise to recognize the 30th anniversary of the St. James Assiniboine 55-plus centre.

      West Winnipeg is the home to one of the highest seniors population in Manitoba. In the fall of 1998, the St. James Assiniboine seniors centre was in the formative stages and a public meeting was held at the Deer Lodge Centre. At this meeting, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a steering committee was established to research and develop a plan for the centre that will meet the needs of the growing 55-plus popu­la­tions in St. James.

      By the fall of 1991, a board of directors had been established and a founding meeting had taken place. Next, they needed to secure a home space. The fol­low­­ing summer, in a temporary space, a mailing address would be attained at the St. James Civic Centre.

      On June 19th, 1992, the St. James Assiniboine seniors centre was officially incorporated. By the fall of 1993, the centre had settled at its current location at the Deer Lodge Centre and maintains its reputation as an independently operated, charitable non-profit organ­ization that offers a variety of different programs and services that benefit seniors around the com­mu­nity, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

      Over the past 30 years, the centre has evolved into a place where their members have come to see in them­selves and the location as a second home. Now known as the St. James Assiniboine 55-plus centre, they look forward to moving back to the St. James Civic Centre once the renovations are completed.

      In honour of their 30th anniversary, Mr. Deputy Speaker, they've invited you and others to–and all Manitobans to celebrate with them on June 16th with a three-course dinner, live entertainment at the Holiday Inn. You can visit them online for more in­forma­tion at stjamescentre.com as well as celebrating 30 years of outstanding support for seniors in our local com­mu­nity.

      I also want to recognize board president, Janet Jackmann, and welcome Sarah Buchan to her new role as executive director of the 55+ Centre. The efforts of the many volunteers that have made this happen, Mr. Deputy Speaker–again, I want to con­gratu­late them on 30 years.

Introduction of Guests

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before proceeding to oral questions, I'd like to draw the attention of all hon­our­able members to the Speaker's gallery, where we have with us today Mr. Vilhjálmur Wiium, the consul general of Iceland in Winnipeg, who arrived this month to com­mence his diplomatic posting in Manitoba.

      On behalf of all hon­our­able members, we welcome you here today.

* * *

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I also wish to inform the House this afternoon that one of our pages, Ethan, is serving his last day in the Chamber today–

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

      And I wanted to share some comments with the House. I think, Ethan, you wrote this. Am I right? [interjection] Okay, good, because I was a little con­fused on the grammar, here. So this–these are Ethan's words, just to make that plain.

      It has been my honour to serve as a page during this session. From my first day to today I always have a feeling of excitement, anticipation and pride when I walk up the Grand Staircase of this building. It makes me feel like a boss.

      Having an opportunity like this at my age has been one of the highlights of my life, and it will have a lasting, positive impact for my future.

      I would like to thank my grade 10 geography teacher Mr. Martin Riley at Miles Mac Collegiate for referring and inspiring me to apply to this program.

      I have been very fortunate to have worked with my two bosses, Cam and Dave, and to build a friend­ship with them as well as forming relationships with many of our MLAs.

      Before this opportunity, I have always said that I want to become a doctor. Walking out, I could see myself sitting in one of the blue chairs as an MLA. This will hopefully not be the last time you see Ethan De Brincat in this Chamber. Perhaps, he says, my political journey has just begun.

      Ethan, we wish you the west–the best, and thank you for your service.

Introduction of Guests

Mr. Deputy Speaker: And we 'alf'–we also welcome Ethan's mom in the gallery, as well. Give us a wave.

      And we also have in the gallery, from Poplar Grove School, eight grade 7 to 9 students under the direction of Darwin Froese. This group is located in the con­stit­uency of the hon­our­able member for Dauphin (Mr. Michaleski).

      We welcome you here today.

Oral Questions

School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas
Con­dol­ences to Family

Mr. Wab Kinew (Leader of the Official Opposition): Yesterday, Manitobans, Canadians and Americans alike had our hearts shattered by the ab­solute tragedy that unfolded in Uvalde, Texas. The idea that 19 children and two teachers could be killed in an act of senseless violence and murder, I think, defies what we want to believe about human nature but confirms the fact that we have to respond, both by showing outpourings of public support and solidarity with our American relatives, but also in assisting them in putting an end to this senseless gun violence.

      Nine years ago, I had a chance to visit Uvalde, Texas, when I was doing some reporting on the agri­cul­tural industry. I don't know what that gives me the  licence to say today, other than those are hard‑working, blue-collar folks who I don't think are very different from us here in Manitoba. So, my heart goes out to them.

      I do have a question on uni­ver­sities and colleges, but I wanted to put those record–those words on the permanent record.

Hon. Heather Stefanson (Premier): I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for his comments.

      What happened to these children in Texas, these 19 children, is absolutely horrific. And, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as a mother myself, I can only imagine what those mothers are going through right now, what the parents are going through, what those family members are going through as a result of this senseless act of violence.

       So, our hearts and our thoughts and our prayers go out to each one of those family members and to all of those children which–it must have been just horrific to ex­per­ience that them­selves. It's going to be very traumatic for those individuals, as well, for those other children. And we pray that they get the help that they need to help them through this, because they would have lost a friend and a loved one, as well.

      So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, again, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those family members and friends and teachers and all of those who were negative­ly impacted as a result of this senseless act of violence.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition, on a supplementary question.

Post-Secondary Education
Tuition Increase

Mr. Wab Kinew (Leader of the Official Opposition): Tuition is going up in Manitoba. I'll table the docu­ments which illustrate that college tui­tion is set to rise $250 this year. Students at uni­ver­sities will be paying some $200 more this year.

      Now, of course, the Premier and her Cabinet didn't tell the people of Manitoba during their budget an­nounce­ment that tuition was going to get a lot more expensive this year. But here it is, in black and white: tuition is going up at a time of record inflation.

      Why is the Premier increasing tuition by hundreds of dollars for thousands of students across Manitoba?

Hon. Heather Stefanson (Premier): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for that question.

      I think the im­por­tant thing here is that we are making invest­ments in our post-secondary edu­ca­tion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to ensure that those students get the edu­ca­tion that they need in order to enter the work­force. So we will continue to make those invest­ments here in Manitoba.

* (14:10)

      We will continue to also offer Student Aid for those individuals who need to have access to those–edu­ca­tion, and they need to have access to the money to ensure that they can afford that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We'll continue to make those invest­ments in our students.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition, on a final supplementary.

Mr. Kinew: Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Premier's decision here means it is going to cost more for Manitobans to go to school to become a nurse, to do a pre-med program, to become an electrician: $250 more per year for those headed to colleges like Red River, and about $200 more for those who are en­rolling in a uni­ver­sity program.

      At a time of record inflation where the cost of living just keeps going up and up and up, the PC gov­ern­ment is making you pay more. Life is getting more expensive and that ticket to edu­ca­tion that would help empower you and increase your earning potential to re­spond is now slipping further and further out of reach.

      Why is the PC gov­ern­ment increasing tuition on hard-working families and students across Manitoba?

Mrs. Stefanson: Well, again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the Op­posi­tion continues to put false infor­ma­tion on the record.

      The fact is that we are spending $33 million more–investing $33 million more in Student Aid pro­grams for Manitoba students, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That's more, not less like the Leader of the Op­posi­tion just put factually incorrect infor­ma­tion on the record in this Chamber.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition, on a new question.

Orange Shirt Day
Statutory Holiday Inquiry

Mr. Wab Kinew (Leader of the Official Opposition): College tuition's going up $250. Univer­sity tuition's going up $200. I tabled the docu­ments from the min­is­try that proves it.

      What is the Premier referring to? It's factual. It's get­ting more expensive to go to uni­ver­sity in Manitoba. I have to point out what was just said on the record simply does not line up with the facts.

      Looking ahead to the next school year, we know that one of the im­por­tant dates that educators will circle on their calendars is September 30th.

      I'd like to ask the Premier directly whether she plans to make Orange Shirt Day a prov­incial stat holiday in Manitoba this year?

Hon. Heather Stefanson (Premier): Well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will refer to the begin­ning part of the Leader of the Op­posi­tion's question, where he continued to go along the lines of putting false infor­ma­tion on the record.

      The facts of the matter are that we are investing more than $33 million more in student bursaries and  aid for those students who really need that help in order to allow them the privilege of going to our post-secondary edu­ca­tion in­sti­tutions, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

      We are also investing more than $20 million more this year in post-secondary edu­ca­tion. That's, again, more, not less, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition, on a supplementary question.

Mr. Kinew: So, we recently marked the one-year anniversary of when the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation disclosed some 215 unmarked graves at the site of a former resi­den­tial school. This House was united in mourning, and this province was brought together over that ensuing year to stand together to advance recon­ciliation.

      That meant that, last September 30th, we saw an outpouring around Orange Shirt Day far beyond any that we had seen in previous years. Stood with the premier of the day on some of those occasions–in fact, inviting him to stand beside me in the grand entry of the powwow at St. Johns Park.

      Folks across Manitoba deserve the op­por­tun­ity to mark this occasion with their families. That could be accom­plished by making this a prov­incial stat holiday.

      Does the Premier intend to do so in time for this September 30th?

Mrs. Stefanson: Certainly, Orange Shirt Day is a very im­por­tant day that is already recog­nized in the province of Manitoba.

      We are in the process of consulting with First Nations, with Métis, with Inuit, with employers and employees to ensure that we get this right, Mr. Deputy Speaker. And I think it's very im­por­tant that those con­sul­ta­tions take place. That is what we're in the process of doing.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition, on a final supplementary.

Mr. Kinew: Indigenous organi­zations and leadership are united behind making this a prov­incial stat holi­day. The right thing to do is to make September 30th a prov­incial stat this year.

      The reason why it's im­por­tant for it to be a prov­incial stat, and not just a federal stat holiday, is be­cause so many workplaces are prov­incially regulated. If we want the average worker out there who works in a manufacturing centre or works on a shop floor some­where to be able to mark September 30th with their kids and to learn together about the true history of Canada, it needs to be a prov­incial statutory holiday.

      In order for legis­lation to be passed in time for September 30th of this year to be designated such, we need to pass legis­lation before the House rises June 1st. On this side of the House, we are prepared to do the right thing.

      Will the Premier stand with us?

Mrs. Stefanson: The fact of the matter is we do re­cog­­nize how im­por­tant Orange Shirt Day is in the province of Manitoba. That's why it is recog­nized by the–in prov­incial gov­ern­ment. As well, teachers and students also get–recog­nize those days, as well, and get that off, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

      So, again, we are moving forward with recog­nizing this as a very im­por­tant day in Manitoba. But it's very im­por­tant to also ensure that we do adequate con­sul­ta­tion with First Nations com­mu­nities, with Métis, with Inuk com­mu­nities, with busi­nesses, with employees and employers, Mr. Deputy Speaker–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Stefanson: –to ensure that we get this right. We will do the con­sul­ta­tion process that is required.

      Thank you.

Poplar River Barge Explosion
Request for Prov­incial Assistance

Mr. Ian Bushie (Keewatinook): The residents of the Poplar River First Nation are concerned after their barge suffered an explosion and is now out of com­mis­sion.

      The barge is the only way that heavier goods, such as bulk foods, gas, lumber and much-needed neces­sities, can be transported in and out of the com­mu­nity during these warmer months. Chief Vera Mitchell has called it a crisis, and we agree. They want the pro­vin­cial gov­ern­ment to step up and help solve this issue.

      Can the minister tell us what they are doing to rectify this situation?

Hon. Doyle Piwniuk (Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I want to thank the member for the question.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, we actually–our de­part­ment is in talks with the First Nation com­mu­nity to make sure that, when it comes to any ferry services, that we actually do it right. We make sure that we consult with the First Nation com­mu­nity and work together to make sure that we have solutions and be able to make sure that we do the right thing by looking at 'replacin' with the ferry going forward here.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for Keewatinook, on a supplementary question.

Mr. Bushie: The barge is the main way Poplar River First Nation's com­mercial fishers transport their catches out of the com­mu­nity to sell in the market. At least 10 per cent of the com­mu­nity of 1,200 residents fish commercially.

      Without the barge, these com­mu­nity members are worried about how they will make a living. As of today, there is still no timeline for when this situation will be rectified.

      Can the minister tell us when the com­mu­nity can expect a solution, and when will they have the support and trans­por­tation up–back in place?

Mr. Piwniuk: Mr. Deputy Speaker, again, I want to thank–member for the question.

      And when it comes to First Nation com­mu­nities, we are–our de­part­ment is making sure that, when it comes to ice roads, to–when it comes to highways going up to the First Nation com­mu­nities, that we're always in–working with the First Nation com­mu­nities to make sure that the trans­por­tation–we know the importance of getting supplies and goods and services in through the com­mu­nities and the importance of–when it comes to fisheries, to make sure that they–their–the income is generated in that com­mu­nity, and that's a priority for our de­part­ment, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for Keewatinook, with a final supplementary.

Mr. Bushie: Mr. Deputy Speaker, the barge situation in Poplar River First Nation highlights how precarious the trans­por­tation system really is for this com­mu­nity. The com­mu­nity wants to see long-term solutions, such as relocating the airstrip so it can accommodate larger planes, an all-weather road and a freighting barge system.

      These measures could make the com­mu­nity more resilient to events such as the barge explosion. The minister could work col­lab­o­ratively with the com­mu­nity to implement long-term solutions.

      Can the minister commit to doing that today?

Mr. Piwniuk: I want to tell the member that when it comes to–when it–with our De­part­ment of Manitoba Trans­por­tation and Infra­structure, we're here, always, to make sure that–the trans­por­tation within com­mu­nities, First Nation com­mu­nities, are very vital.

* (14:20)

      We make sure that the–when it comes to invest­ments, we will invest into the com­mu­nities to make sure whatever form of trans­por­tation is necessary for that com­mu­nity to thrive. And we'll continue look­ing  at that and making sure that we work with the First Nation com­mu­nity to come up with solutions, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Public Servants Partici­pating in By-Election
Conflict of Interest Declaration

MLA Tom Lindsey (Flin Flon): The PC gov­ern­ment is attempting to cast a chill over the civil service and their right to engage in the political process. In March, during the Fort Whyte by-election, a directive was issued that public servants partici­pating in political activities must make a conflict of interest declaration. And I'll table a copy of that directive.

      This is not what is required by law or the gov­ern­ment's conflict of interest policy.

      Why is this gov­ern­ment interfering with the rights of workers to partici­pate in the demo­cratic process?

Hon. Reg Helwer (Minister of Labour, Consumer Protection and Government Services): Certainly, it is very im­por­tant to partici­pate in the election process in Canada. It is everybody's right.

      We want to make sure that members of the civil service are aware of what they're able to do and make sure that there is no conflict there. This is opposed to when I was in op­posi­tion and the then-minister of the Crown of the NDP asked his de­part­ment to check out the time sheets of individuals that were involved in my campaign, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

MLA Lindsey: Civil servants have a right to freedom of association, and if they want to attend a nomination meeting or deliver flyers for a political candidate, they should not be–that should not be any of the gov­ern­ment's busi­ness. Any directive about declarations is going to have a chilling effect on demo­cratic partici­pation.

      Will this gov­ern­ment, will this minister, ensure that public workers are allowed to exercise their rights to partici­pate, as has been the case for quite some time?

Mr. Helwer: It is ensuring those rights that the Public Service Com­mis­sion has endeavoured to do, to make sure that people know what they can do and how they can involve them­selves, where potential conflicts may exist, as opposed to that NDP minister that had a direct conflict and a direct attack on an individual employed by the Province that was involved in my campaign, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Order. Order.

      The hon­our­able member for Flin Flon, on a final sup­ple­mentary.

MLA Lindsey: Unfor­tunate that the minister's an­swers don't actually answer the question.

      Workers within the gov­ern­ment of Manitoba have the right to volunteer on political campaigns, and this House should be encouraging them. They shouldn't be trying to get even with somebody.

      When public servants are not at work, it's their busi­­ness what they do, not that gov­ern­ment's and not that minister's. Any directive about declarations will have a chilling effect and limit people's desire and willing­ness to partici­pate in the demo­cratic process.

      So the minister has an op­por­tun­ity to do the right thing today. I doubt if he will, but will he rescind these directives about the need for–

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member's time has expired.

Mr. Helwer: Well, the op­por­tun­ity's there, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and we want to make sure that all Manitobans partici­pate in the election process. It's clear how they can do so, cautions on what might be potential conflicts people need to be aware of, as mem­bers opposite need to be 'emare' of–aware of. Obviously, the minister of the NDP gov­ern­ment, the minister of the Crown, didn't care about those conflicts and directly intervened in that election, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to intimidate a member of the prov­incial 'civis'–civil service.

      We've cleared that up, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That doesn't happen under our watch. That happened under their watch.

Congenital Syphilis Cases
Need for Public Health Initiative

Mrs. Bernadette Smith (Point Douglas): The addictions crisis has taken a toll in Manitoba.

      Over the last few years, we have shown in this House how rates of blood-borne illnesses are ex­ploding. Defenseless babies are getting congenital syphilis. With proper prenatal care, this could be avoided, and yet the problem is getting much worse.

      Through freedom of infor­ma­tion, which I'll table, we found that there were 47 babies born with con­genital syphilis last year.

      What, if anything, is the minister doing to address this crisis?

Hon. Sarah Guillemard (Minister of Mental Health and Community Wellness): I ap­pre­ciate the question coming from the member opposite.

      Indeed, we have been addressing the growing num­ber of addictions issues that have risen in Manitoba. We have invested over $58.1 million in pre­­­ven­tative aspects for mental health, addictions, in­cluding programs to help prenatal programs identify those who are at risk. And we continue to monitor the situation and address the needs within that com­mu­nity.

      Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon­our­able member for Point Douglas, on a sup­ple­mentary question.

Mrs. Smith: There should be zero cases of congenital syphilis. That's according to internal docu­ments with the Winnipeg Regional Health Author­ity. But there was not zero cases. In fact, there was 47 here in the province of Manitoba. That's as many cases as there was in all of Canada in 2020.

      This issue is showing no signs of slowing down. Congenital syphilis is entirely preventable with proper prenatal care.

      What steps is the minister taking to address this public health crisis?

Mrs. Guillemard: Again, I'll indicate that we are investing in programs to help with the prenatal aspects.

      And the member is right; it is con­cern­ing to see any babies that are born with congenital preventable illnesses, and our gov­ern­ment is deter­mined to ad­dress the issue, to speak with the front-line workers and to implement programs that can help reduce those numbers back to historical lows.

      Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon­our­able member for Point Douglas, on a final sup­ple­mentary.

Mrs. Smith: Half the congenital syphilis cases in all of Canada are happening here in Manitoba. Last year, there were 47 cases of congenital syphilis cases in Manitoba. That's as many cases as there were in the entire country in 2020.

      This is preventable, Deputy Speaker, and with proper prenatal care, which this gov­ern­ment has a respon­si­bility to provide, these cases could be de­creased. One concrete step that needs to be taken is they need to hire more public health nurses.

      The minister needs to tell this House how many public health nurses have been hired this year to address this crisis: Will she do so today?

Hon. Audrey Gordon (Minister of Health): Mr. Deputy Speaker, always a pleasure to rise in the House to talk about our gov­ern­ment's commit­ment and invest­ments in nurses.

      Again, $19.5 million to increase nursing seats across our province, heading to an expansion of 400 seats, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We will continue to look across the health system at the needs, whether it's in public health, whether it's in acute care or com­mu­nity, in terms of the needs of–for nurses, and we will support through record invest­ments, as we've done in the past. We will do it in the future.

      Thank you.

Nurse Paycheque Error
Request to Rectify

MLA Uzoma Asagwara (Union Station): Deputy Speaker, our front-line health workers deserve to be treated with respect. Unfor­tunately, it's been reported to us that hundreds of nurses were sent incorrect pay­cheques and that they're now being forced to pay that money back.

      Can the minister confirm this, and can she explain what her gov­ern­ment is doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again?

* (14:30)

Hon. Audrey Gordon (Minister of Health): I thank the member for Union Station for bringing this matter forward.

      I would welcome the op­por­tun­ity to receive that infor­ma­tion in my de­part­ment, and we will have the var­ious regions or health facilities look into the mat­ter. I'd be pleased to take that forward.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for Union Station, on a supplementary question.

MLA Asagwara: Deputy Speaker, front-line health workers deserve our respect and they deserve our support.

      It was nurse ap­pre­cia­tion week earlier this month. Not only did the PC gov­ern­ment not show any ap­pre­cia­tion for nurses by way of action, they can't manage simple things like ensuring proper paycheques are given to the nurses who are doing the work on behalf of all Manitoba families. This is going to hurt morale amongst nurses, who are already going through in­cred­ible challenges as they've endured terrible crisis in our hospitals.

      How did this happen, and what is the minister doing to make sure this doesn't happen again?

Ms. Gordon: Again, the member for Union Station con­tinues to put inaccurate infor­ma­tion on the record.

      Our gov­ern­ment is committed to nurses, cares about nurses, values and appreciates all their efforts, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is why we were pleased to support the work of Shared Health, as well as the negotiators that negotiated a five-year contract with nurses, and we continue to sit at the table and listen to their concerns and respond.

      I look forward to the, in the next month or so, many convocation ceremonies for nursing, wel­coming new nurses to our system and showing them–

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The minister's time has expired.

      The honourable member for Union Station, on a final supplementary.

Health-Care Support Workers
Bargaining Contract and Pandemic Pay

MLA Uzoma Asagwara (Union Station): Deputy Speaker, this gov­ern­ment froze nurses wages and mis­treated them for years. Improper paycheques is just the latest in a long line of mistakes this gov­ern­ment has made. The PCs have broken trust with health workers. Health-support workers have now had their wages frozen for years.

      Deputy Speaker, it's time for a fair deal for all health workers, and that includes all health support staff. They deserve new contracts and top-ups that re­cog­nize their service on the front lines of this pandemic.

      When will this gov­ern­ment recog­nize the service of our front-line health pro­fes­sionals with a new con­tract and top-up for their service during this pan­demic? Will the minister commit to doing so today?

Hon. Audrey Gordon (Minister of Health): That is why we supported the work of Shared Health and the negotiators to ensure that a fair contract was nego­tiated and finalized for nurses.

      And now, the member for Union Station is asking us to inter­fere in negotiations that are taking place for health-care workers and other levels of health pro­fes­sionals within the system.

      We trust the negotiators, we trust the individuals that are bargaining in good faith on behalf of their members and we look forward to the–to a fair and equitable contract being negotiated for all of those health pro­fes­sionals.

      Thank you.

Addictions and Mental Health
Harm Reduction Strategy

Mr. Dougald Lamont (St. Boniface): Every single one of us knows someone whose life has been derailed or lost due to an addiction. Every one of us knows some­one whose addiction and intoxication kept them from thinking straight. And, as a principle, everyone in this Chamber should be able to agree that anyone struggling with addiction is better off if they are being protected from getting sick or dying.

      That is harm reduction, and those words do not appear at all in the 2022 PC budget.

      We know people are dying and getting sick from IV needles, and it is a human tragedy for them and a massive cost for our health-care system.

      Given the suffering and money we could save, why isn't this gov­ern­ment putting pre­ven­tion and harm reduction at the heart of its addictions and mental health strategy?

Hon. Sarah Guillemard (Minister of Mental Health and Community Wellness): I can ap­pre­ciate the concern in the member's question that he's raised today.

      We are indeed investing in harm reduction invest­ments here in Manitoba. And just to list a few: $2.8 million for a sobering centre in Thompson; we have de-scheduled naloxone; we invested $428,000 in  Klinic Com­mu­nity Health mobile withdrawal unit, and that's a pioneering form of com­mu­nity medi­cine, expanding our detox capabilities and allowing patients to detox while staying in the com­mu­nity.

      We have a 'reshent'–recent part­ner­ship with United Way of $4.9 million. We have imple­mented the Métis CART pilot program that pairs case workers and a family mentor and addictions and mental–

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The minister's time has expired.

Drug Use Illnesses
Public Health Reporting

Mr. Dougald Lamont (St. Boniface): We're con­cerned that people are getting sick in Manitoba, and this government isn't properly keeping track.

      IV drug use can cause a heart infection that costs millions of dollars to treat, in just one case. We know there are instances where syphilis and other infectious diseases like HIV are being spread through dirty needles. But when we tried to check the Public Health website, there's no reporting–and there hasn't been for five years, since 2017.

      I first raised this issue in December 2018, and nothing has been done. This gov­ern­ment has a legal respon­si­bility to release reports, but there is nothing but broken links.

      Where are the reports of outbreaks? Is the gov­ern­ment covering them up on purpose, or is this just more negligence?

Hon. Sarah Guillemard (Minister of Mental Health and Community Wellness): I know that the member opposite really wants to point out negativity, but there's a lot to celebrate.

      We are on the path to progress. The–and in an area that really has been neglected for decades previously.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, for instance, this year we have increased–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Guillemard: –our budget in mental health for–$17.1 million to support our new five-year road map.

      We also have increased a–$500,000 to add six crisis-stabilization-unit beds at the Crisis Response Centre; an ad­di­tional $830,000 to support expansion of the Winnipeg RAAM clinics, and telepsychiatry expansion as well, in our mental health field.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, I'd be happy to sit down with the member opposite about some of these–

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The minister's time has expired.

Safe Con­sump­tion Site
Request for Facility

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Mr. Deputy Speaker, the failure of the gov­ern­ment to engage in harm reduction and esta­blish safe con­sump­tion sites to decrease the use of unsafe needles for drug injection is leading to harm and to extra costs and other demands on our health-care system.

      For example, a person who gets endocarditis from using an unsafe needle may end up in hospital for months. Esta­blish­ing a safe con­sump­tion site saves dollars.

      Liberals are so concerned about the gov­ern­ment operating a low-quality, high-cost health-care system that we've asked the Auditor General to audit the extra costs from the gov­ern­ment's failure to provide a safe con­sump­tion site or sites in Manitoba, as I table.

      Will the gov­ern­ment support our request to the Auditor General?

Hon. Sarah Guillemard (Minister of Mental Health and Community Wellness): It really is unfor­tunate that, for decades, the mental health field and harm reduction strategies were ignored. Our gov­ern­ment is committed to actually addressing the issues at hand.

      I'd be happy, again, to sit down with the member opposite and have a further discussion. We are in­vesting in harm reduction strategies here in Manitoba. We are enhancing core services that have been neglected and underfunded for decades.

      And, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we are going to give hope to Manitobans–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Guillemard: –where it was lacking in the pre­vious NDP gov­ern­ment.

      Thank you. [interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Healing Lodge in Thompson
Program for Indigenous Youth

Mr. Bob Lagassé (Dawson Trail): Mr. Deputy Speaker, our gov­ern­ment has expressed our commit­ment to advancing the Truth and Recon­ciliation Commis­sion's Calls to Action, in part through our criminal justice modernization strategy.

      Part of this included addressing the overrepre­sen­tation of Indigenous people in our justice system.

      Can the Minister of Justice please share with the  House how our gov­ern­ment has committed to decreasing the number of youth in­car­cer­ated in Manitoba and addressing the overrepresentation of youth?

Hon. Kelvin Goertzen (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): I want to thank the member for Dawson Trail, who has a strong heart for families and for all those who need healing.

      Our gov­ern­ment, because of his advocacy and others', was very pleased to partner with MKO and in­vest $2 million in a healing lodge–a youth healing lodge–in Thompson, the first of its kind in Manitoba.

      This will help to not only keep youth closer to home, but provide them the support that they need when it comes to addictions, mental health and reduce recidivism, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

* (14:40)

      I want to thank the mayor of Thompson, Colleen Smook. I want to thank Grand Chief Settee for his part­ner­ship. We are there to work with the people of Thompson to better Thompson, the North and build a stronger Manitoba.

Federal Child-Care Subsidies
Equitable Distribution

Mr. Adrien Sala (St. James): Child-care centres in Manitoba are saying that bureaucratic red tape is preventing them from distributing daycare subsidies to families in need. Rather than directly cut costs, as is happening in other provinces, this gov­ern­ment is forcing parents and child-care centres to deter­mine who is eligible for subsidized care, yet child-care centres and families haven't been given the clear infor­ma­tion they need to make those deter­min­ations.

      The result has been mass confusion, with many eligible low-income parents not knowing about the benefits that they're missing out on.

      Why has the province taken such a failed approach to child care?

Hon. Wayne Ewasko (Minister of Education and Early Childhood Learning): I ap­pre­ciate the question coming from the member opposite on child-care affordability, working with the child-care sector, making sure that we've got a sus­tain­able child-care program right here in Manitoba for more and more and many, many, many years to come and gen­era­tions to come, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

      That's why we provided $75 million to improve the affordability of child care through an advance of subsidy payments to facilities. It's too bad that the member opposite is against that; wanted to put it on the record that he is against subsidized daycare spaces right here in Manitoba, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for St. Janes [phonetic] on–James, on a supplemental question.

Mr. Sala: Rather than taking respon­si­bility for a fail­ing approach to child care, the province has effect­ively off-loaded it onto child-care centres and parents, and this has resulted in many eligible parents missing out on subsidies, and it's allowed higher income families to collect the subsidy, even though they don't need it.

      This makes no sense, and it raises questions about a lack of respon­si­bility that this gov­ern­ment seems to have with federal funding. There's been clearly a lack of com­muni­cation on the Province's end.

      What is this gov­ern­ment going to do today to ensure these federal child-care supports are dis­tributed equitably?

Mr. Ewasko: Again, I ap­pre­ciate the op­por­tun­ity to put some facts on the record, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

      It was great to be joined by the Prime Minister, the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson), Minister Gould from the federal gov­ern­ment, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to announce the fact that we are taking subsidized child‑care spaces here in Manitoba from 6,000 to 18,000 subsidized spaces, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

      And it's unfor­tunate that the member across, the member for St. James, had voted against the budget. It's unfor­tunate, but he's putting it on the record today that he's against subsidies going to those families that need it, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for St. James, on a final supplementary.

Mr. Sala: If the minister spoke with even a single child-care centre, he would know that what I'm bring­ing forward here today is im­por­tant and that his gov­ern­ment should be paying attention to it.

      A CCPA report report shows that Manitoba will miss its federal fee targets by hundreds of dollars this year. The Province's confusing subsidy approach is clearly part of the the reason why. Many eligible parents are missing out on hundreds, if not thousands, in child-care supports, while at the same time many who shouldn't be receiving it are receiving it.

      Rather than directly cutting costs, they've put re­spon­si­bility on child-care centres and parents, and that's completely counterintuitive.

      Why has the Province off-loaded respon­si­bility to child-care centres and parents?

Mr. Ewasko: It's interesting that the member stands up today and is asking myself and our gov­ern­ment to inter­fere with the boards of child-care centres. [interjection] I know that the member from St. Johns is wanting inter­ference with the boards of child-care centres.

      But it's unfor­tunate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the fact is that Manitoba has–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ewasko: –all along had low, low subsidized child-care spaces already. We're going to make it even lower. We're taking it to $10 a day. [interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ewasko: Matter of fact, even the federal minister, Minister Gould–who is a Liberal–is even commending the great work that Manitoba's doing.

      I'm not going to take any lessons from the members opposite–

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The minister's time has expired.

Support for Children with Epilepsy
Inquiry into Purchase of ROSA Machine

Ms. Lisa Naylor (Wolseley): In 2017, CEO Michael Schlater donated $2 million to a program for children with epilepsy, and part of this money was to purchase a robotic 'stereotatic' assist­ant machine, commonly known as ROSA.

      ROSA machines can help those living with epi­lepsy by provi­ding safer and less invasive surgeries. It changes the lives for children with epilepsy. Yet, in the five years that have passed since this donation was made, no machine has been purchased.

      Can the minister tell us why a ROSA machine has not been purchased and when this will be corrected?

Hon. Audrey Gordon (Minister of Health): I thank the member opposite for the question.

      Our gov­ern­ment announced a $4-million invest­ment in support of a four-adult-bed epilepsy monitor­ing unit, which underscores our commit­ment to improving neurology services in our province. [interjection] Mr. Deputy Speaker, I know they're going to shout me down again.

      This invest­ment allows the epilepsy monitoring unit–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Ms. Gordon: –still shouting me down, Mr. Deputy Speaker–to expand to–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Ms. Gordon: –four beds from two, and the purchase of new state-of-the-art monitoring equip­ment. And I understand from Shared Health that this equip­ment is being–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Ms. Gordon: –requested.

      As the members opposite know, we've come through a two-year pandemic. There have been supply chain disruptions and issues and we are working–[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Ms. Gordon: –into a long-term plan to develop and expand our epilepsy program here–

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The minister's time has expired. [interjection]

      Order, please.

      The time for oral questions is over.

Petitions

Drug Overdose Reporting

Mrs. Bernadette Smith (Point Douglas): I wish to present the following petition to the Legis­lative Assembly.

      The back­ground to this petition is as follows:

      (1) Across the province, many Manitobans continue to struggle with addictions, and the pandemic has led to even more death and worsened the ongoing public health crisis of opioid overdoses.

      (2) Three hundred and seventy-two Manitobans died from an overdose in 2020, and that's over one a day and 87 per cent higher than in 2019.

      (3) Manitoba is expected to exceed over 400 overdose deaths in 2021, but the data is not publicly available since the last public reporting of opioid deaths was published in 2019.

      (4) The data for drug overdose deaths from 2020 to 2021 was compiled through media inquiries, and this needs to change.

      (5) Access to timely data on the harms of drugs helps to inform both gov­ern­ment and stake­holders on where to take action and target resources needed in various com­mu­nities.

      (6) Manitoba is the only province not provi­ding regular, timely data on the federal gov­ern­ment opioid infor­ma­tion portal.

      (7) Manitobans deserve a gov­ern­ment that takes the growing drug crisis seriously and will report the data publicly in a timely manner to target actions and allow for account­ability.

      We petition the Legis­lative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:

      To urge the prov­incial gov­ern­ment to enact Bill 217, The Fatalities Inquiries Amend­ment Act (Overdose Death Reporting), to require the Province to publish the number of drug overdose deaths, as well as the type of drug, on a gov­ern­ment website in a timely fashion.

      And this has been signed by many Manitobans.

* (14:50)

Afghan Refugees in Manitoba

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): I wish to present the following petition to the Legis­lative Assembly.

      The back­ground to this petition is as follows:

      Since the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in August of 2021, Afghan citizens and their families have been subjected to persecution and human rights atrocities because of their faith, gender and former associations with organi­zations thought to be friendly with the previous gov­ern­ment and its allies. This abuse has taken the form of public assaults, kid­nappings and killings.

      Many Afghans have left or are attempting to leave Afghanistan to find safe refuge in neighbouring coun­tries. This undertaking is difficult due to the Taliban's activities and their presence in countries like Pakistan.

      Many Afghans who are looking to leave Afghanistan and come to Canada are educated and ex­per­ienced and, as such, would prove to be valuable assets to Manitoba con­sid­ering its current labour shortages and challenges to its economy.

      Educated Afghans have usually studied for four to six years in a specific field of study and spent a sig­ni­fi­cant amount of time and money for that edu­ca­tion. However, these people still face barriers to obtaining em­ploy­ment in their field of expertise, as Canada has very strict rules regarding the use of that edu­ca­tion and ex­per­ience.

      Many Afghans are refugees in other countries and are currently jobless, which is an added barrier for them under the current criteria of the Prov­incial Nominee Program.

      Some Afghan new­comers who face literacy issues because they came from a non-developed coun­try would benefit from an in-depth infor­ma­tional course to assist them with acclamation into Canadian lifestyle.

      The Interim Federal Health Program provides limit­ed temporary coverage of health-care benefits to refugees who aren't eligible for prov­incial or territorial health insurance. However, the refugee must apply for discretionary coverage and provide a list of com­pelling personal circum­stances in order to qualify for ur­gent medical circum­stances, such as urgent root canals, unanticipated life-threatening and emergency medical con­di­tions.

      We petition the Legis­lative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:

      (1) To urge the prov­incial gov­ern­ment to work with the federal gov­ern­ment to prioritize the evacua­tion of the imme­diate and extended family of Afghans who now call Canada home and to facilitate their coming to Manitoba, including helping Afghan re­fugees in other countries such as Pakistan.

      (2) To urge the prov­incial gov­ern­ment to expand the Manitoba Prov­incial Nominee Program and re-evaluate the accreditation of edu­ca­tion and jobs to ensure all immigrants and refugees can utilize their skills more easily and readily in Manitoba for work.

      (3) To urge the prov­incial gov­ern­ment to have fewer rigid criteria for Afghans under the Prov­incial Nominee Program and have a connection to Manitoba–family members or friend–should be a key criteria.

      To urge the prov­incial gov­ern­ment to enhance ade­quate acclamation services for new­comers through com­mu­nity-based support programs and increase their health-care coverage to meet their urgent health-care necessities.

      Signed by Karin [phonetic] Strong, Karin Gordon, Daniel Awshen [phonetic] and many other Manitobans.

Speed Reduction on PR 392

MLA Tom Lindsey (Flin Flon): I wish to present the following petition to the Legis­lative Assembly of Manitoba.

      The back­ground for this petition is as follows:

      (1) On October 26th, 2020, a 51-year-old driver was killed when a cement truck overturned on provincial road PR 392 just outside the town of Snow Lake, Manitoba.

      (2) The HudBay company will be trucking gold ore in 40-ton B-trains from its Lalor deposit into the town of Snow Lake for processing starting next year.

      (3) This large truck traffic will be competing with local vehicle traffic between the turnoff to the Lalor mine on PR 395 and the town of Snow Lake on PR 392.

      (4) Similar vehicular traffic already competes with these 40-ton trucks between the turnoff to Lalor at PR 395 and the turnoff to the Stall Lake mill at PR 393.

      (5) Residents of Snow Lake have suggested that the speed limit on PR 392 between Snow Lake and the intersection with prov­incial road PR 393 be lowered from 90 kilometres an hour to 70 kilometres per hour.

      (6) Residents also propose that on PR 392, from Berry Bay-Taylor Bay entrance to the Wekusko Falls park north entrance, speeds be reduced to 70  kilometres an hour; Wekusko Falls park north entrance to the helitac base entrance, speeds be reduced to 50 kilometres an hour; and from the helitac base entrance to the entrance of the fish dump, speeds be reduced to 70 kilometres per hour.

      (7) Reducing speed limits on dangerous stretches of highways is a simple and effective measure to protect the safety of all drivers.

      We petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:

      To urge the Minister of Infra­structure to adopt the proposed speed reductions on Prov­incial Road 392 set out above.

      And this petition has been signed by many Manitobans.

      Thank you.

Catalytic Converter Engraving Credit

Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): I wish to present the following petition to the Legis­lative Assembly.

      The back­ground to this petition is as follows:

      (1)–[interjection] I'm getting that half of 30 seconds back. [interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

      The member for Elmwood is struggling to be heard, I think, and perhaps we could–thank you.

Mr. Maloway: (1) The spike in catalytic converter thefts occurring across North America has hit Winnipeg. The price of precious metals in catalytic converters like rhodium, palladium and platinum are worth thousands of dollars an ounce. Scrap metal recyclers have catalytic converters priced to the vehicle, with some catalytic converters worth $800.

      (2) Organized groups of criminals are climbing under vehicles and cutting catalytic converters, selling them to scrap metal recyclers for cash without any record of these transactions.

      (3) Catalytic converter thefts cost consumers about $2,000 for each replacement. Manitoba Public Insurance charges a betterment fee for new re­place­ments, so insurance doesn't cover the full cost.

      (4) Catalytic converters do not have any part number or vehicle identification number, VIN, and the inability to tie a catalytic converter to a specific vehicle is a major en­force­ment issue.

      (5) Engraving of a vehicle's VIN on its catalytic converter would be a major deterrent to theft by tying the vehicle to the part and making enforcement possible.

      We petition the Legis­lative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:

      To urge the prov­incial gov­ern­ment to bring in consumer pro­tec­tion legis­lation directing Manitoba Public Insurance to initiate credits to Manitobans for engraving vehicle identification numbers on their catalytic converters.

      And this petition is signed by many, many, many Manitobans.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Are there any more petitions?

      Grievances?

ORDERS OF THE DAY

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Hon. Kelvin Goertzen (Government House Leader): Mr. Deputy Speaker, could you please resolve the House into Com­mit­tee of Supply.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It has been announced by the hon­our­able Gov­ern­ment House Leader that the House will now resolve into Com­mit­tee of Supply.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, please take the Chair.

Committee of Supply

(Concurrent Sections)

Room 254

Health

* (15:00)

Mr. Chairperson (Dennis Smook): Will the Commit­tee of Supply please come to order.

      This sec­tion of the Com­mit­tee of Supply will now resume con­sid­era­tion of the Estimates for the Department of Health. Questioning for this de­part­ment will proceed in a global manner.

      Before I open the floor to questions, I am just won­dering if there would be leave to allow the op­posi­tion to sit on the left side–instead of me reading this long script–in order so that it would be easier for us to look at the cameras.

      Is it agreed? [Agreed]

      Floor is open for questions.

MLA Uzoma Asagwara (Union Station): I'd just like to welcome folks back. I know we just had a long weekend, and hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable long weekend.

      I'd like to start by asking the minister some ques­tions in regards to the Estimates docu­ment that we all had access to and I certainly went through after receiving it.

      So the supplement to Estimates docu­ment iden­tifies a series of risks that's a risk is identified in that docu­ment, and a series of treatment plans are pro­posed in relation to those identified risks.

      Can the minister give us a clearer idea of what these treatment plans are and when they might be complete, and whether they'll be released to the public when they are complete?

* (15:10)

Mr. Chairperson: Before I recog­nize the minister, I'm just wondering if the minister could get her staff to get her a set of headsets. It would make it easier for the recorders here to hear what the minister has to say.

Hon. Audrey Gordon (Minister of Health): I don't know if we have headsets for this parti­cular machine; I don't see that, but we can look into that for future Esti­mate sittings.

      Mr. Chairperson, I thank the member for Union Station (MLA Asagwara) for the questions. We–I have found the section the member is referring to.

      I would like to take the member's question under ad­vise­ment and provide a response to each of those categories as laid out on the pages at a later time, please.

MLA Asagwara: I thank the minister for being willing to take that under ad­vise­ment. I look forward to receiving those docu­ments.

      I'd like to ask the minister if she can provide me the budget and the actual amounts of dollars spent for com­mu­nity health over the last few years.

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for Union Station for that question. I would like to seek further clari­fi­ca­tion from the member.

      Can the member be specific about which years they are seeking this–the budget and actual infor­ma­tion for? Please be specific about the years.

      Thank you.

MLA Asagwara: If the minister could provide the budget and the actual amounts spent for years 2021–sorry–2020/2021, 2018/2019–I think I missed a year, there–and so–and then 2019-2020. So, for those three years, please.

* (15:20)

Ms. Gordon: I'm pleased to respond to the hon­our­able member for Union Station's question.

      In 2018-2019, the budget was 348,422 and the actual was 332, eight, nine, two.

      In 2019-2020, the budget was 347,472 and the actual was 357,422.

      In Budget 2021, I do want to flag for the member that this was the year that com­mu­nity health and mental health were separated. The new min­is­try of Mental Health, Wellness and Recovery was created on January 5th of 2021, so there's a change there.

      In 2021, the budget for com­mu­nity health was 180,611 and the actual for 2020-2021 is $237,799.

      So if the member is wondering why the decrease in the budget amount for one hundred–for 2020-2021 to $180,611, it's because we–[interjection] Oh, it's because we separated that de­part­ment–the de­part­ments.

      Thank you.

MLA Asagwara: Can the minister provide–thank you for–thank you to the minister for that response.

      Can the minister provide clarity, then, that $180,000 actual, can the minister–does the minister have access to the infor­ma­tion that would tell us how much ad­di­tional dollars as a result of the change in de­part­ments were redirected? So is there any way for the minister to provide what the number would have been, had it not been for that addition of the de­part­ment, or the funds that were redirected into the ad­di­tional de­part­ment as a result?

Ms. Gordon: While we are obtaining the infor­ma­tion the hon­our­able member has asked for, I just want to flag for the member that in the sup­ple­ment it does show that the dollar amounts that I quoted have three  zeroes. So when I was saying thousands, it's million dollars. I apologize for that oversight. So I just wanted to make you aware of that.

      Thank you.

MLA Asagwara: I thank the minister for provi­ding that clari­fi­ca­tion. I did presume that that was the case, otherwise I would've been shouting and alarmed at the amounts provided.

      But I am wondering, while we wait for the minis­ter to get the answer to the previous question I asked–looking at these numbers that have been budgeted for com­mu­nity health and also under­standing–and the minis­ter is very well aware–that rates of congenital syphilis here in Manitoba in Winnipeg have sky­rocketed and steadily increased over the last several years.

      So, you know, begin­ning in about, I believe, 2018, we've seen the numbers increase from under 10 to a number, for last year, 47, which is–I mean, any number above zero is high. There shouldn't be a single baby born in Manitoba with congenital syphilis. It is preventable. But certainly, Manitoba having 47 cases, which matches the numbers for congenital syphilis for the rest of the country, is deeply con­cern­ing. It is astronomically high.

      And it begs the question, as these numbers in­crease over the years–have increased over the last few years, we've also–we also know that the rates of HIV have also increased. They are also astronomically high. I've heard from many com­mu­nity health pro­viders that they're quite frankly terrified for what this means for folks in our com­mu­nities who are not only being diagnosed with HIV, babies being born with con­­genital syphilis, but also they're finding, due to lack of resources, it in­cred­ibly difficult to make sure that people are receiving the care that they need to improve their health outcome.

      So when I look at these numbers allocated to com­mu­nity health, and we also reflect on the increased rates of preventable diseases, does the minister look at this infor­ma­tion and wonder whether or not these funds are adequate? For me, as somebody looking at this and seeing what's going on, certainly, it flags, for me, that no, the invest­ments are inadequate, that they're not addressing the acute concerns we see in com­mu­nity health.

      So I'm wondering if the minister can provide her thoughts on that. Does she think that the funding her gov­ern­ment has provided to com­mu­nity health has been adequate and is going to address the alarming rise in congenital syphilis that we see and the alarming rise in rates of HIV that we see and other challenges like overdoses in our com­mu­nities?

* (15:30)

Ms. Gordon: I'm pleased to respond to the hon­our­able member for Union Station's (MLA Asagwara) question.

      Our gov­ern­ment, of course, is always monitoring the cases of congenital syphilis. I know that back in February of 2019, under the previous prov­incial public health officer, we were informed about an out­break and we imple­mented and took under ad­vise­ment the recom­men­dations that came forward from the chief prov­incial public health officer at that time regarding the need for more testing. The De­part­ment of Health increased the amount of testing that was done, that is being done. There's also treatments available to the baby when it is born with syphilis: antibiotics for up to 10 days and other treatments may be provided.

      So we've worked with our current Chief Provincial Public Health Officer in terms of ad­dressing the require­ments they have sought re­garding communicable disease control and continue to have those discussions, Mr. Chairperson, with regard to HIV/AIDS. Of course, our gov­ern­ment takes this disease very, very seriously and we're always actively working with Public Health to improve the pre­ven­tion and treatment of HIV and AIDS.

      And I just want to state for the record that that is  why we added coverage for pre-exposure 'prophylaxic,' also known as PrEP, to the prov­incial Pharma­care formulary; allocating $2.3 million over three years to support the dev­elop­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of an Indigenous-led S-T-B-B-U testing; and contact-tracing strategy as well; and extending cover­age for HIV post-exposure treatment; and, of course, enhancing coverage for HIV treatment for those ex­per­iencing financial or admin­is­tra­tive barriers.

      Mr. Chairperson, we will continue to have dis­cussions, as I said before, with Public Health re­gard­ing communicable diseases and how to control those.

      In terms of overdoses, my hon­our­able colleague, Sarah Guillemard, in the Min­is­try of Mental Health and Com­mu­nity Wellness, now oversees that parti­cular file. But, of course, the two de­part­ments work very closely together in terms of ensuring that the needs of those who are struggling with overdose of addictions is being properly funded and managed, and because individuals certainly will gain access to sup­ports and health treatments at various facilities across the province.

      So we do work very closely together. Our govern­ment continues to monitor the rates of overdoses and deaths from–those deaths from overdoses.

      And that is why we've esta­blished a five-year road map and we're funding that road map so that we can add supports to core services, supports that were often, under the previous admin­is­tra­tion, overlooked. That is why our gov­ern­ment has added Rapid Access to Addictions Medicine clinics. That's why we have–are making naloxone available to over 120 different locations, Mr. Chairperson. And that's why we're even going further in terms of helping our youth through our new Huddle youth hubs, where they can gain access to primary care, to referrals for addictions, mental health support.

      So we are focused quite broadly on ensuring all Manitobans, regardless of age, have access to the sup­ports that they need, and we will continue to do so as we move forward as a gov­ern­ment.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Chairperson: I'd like to remind the hon­our­able minister that when referring to a member, they should be referred to by their title or min­is­try or con­stit­uency, but not by their name. So, I'd just like to remind the member. She had mentioned Sarah Guillemard. So if the member–if the minister could just keep that in mind.

      The–or, the member for Union Station (MLA Asagwara).

MLA Asagwara: Thank the minister for that response.

      Interestingly enough, the minister talked about steps that may be taken that folks can access after they've been infected with a disease. And so, I mean, it's pretty im­por­tant that there be a plan in place to address the rising rates of congenital syphilis, as one example. This is something that is devastating fam­ilies, and it is inexcusable that, under this gov­ern­ment, the rates of congenital syphilis have–not only exist, but they are in­cred­ibly high, they're markedly high, highest in the country right here in Manitoba.

      And so my question is, what is the minister doing to bring down those rates of congenital syphilis? What is the minister doing by way of action to prevent babies from contracting congenital syphilis? What steps is this minister taking? What invest­ments are being made? What strategy is in place to bring down the rates of congenital syphilis in Manitoba?

Ms. Gordon: I want to note, for the record, that this is an area that is very, very im­por­tant to our gov­ern­ment as well as our public health officials. Our chief and our deputy chief have stated numer­ous times their commit­ment to ensuring that supports are in place, and they continue to monitor the numbers and to have con­ver­sa­tions with my de­part­ment regarding the need to scale up supports in areas that may be identified.

      I do want to go back and answer the member's question about the budget in 2021 for com­mu­nity health. The member had asked if I was aware–if I could provide the number for what the budget would have been if–before the departments were divided and the new min­is­try of Mental Health, Wellness and Recovery was created.

      That budget for 2021 is $367,697,000 in Health. Again, the amount that remained in the Min­is­try of Health or De­part­ment of Health–$180,611,000. The amount that went to mental health was $187,086,000.

* (15:40)

      So I will pivot back to the question posed by the hon­our­able member regarding syphilis and just share that we are, as a gov­ern­ment, and Public Health, aware of an increase in STBBI cases across Canada, and the gov­ern­ment is working with Dr. Roussin, as I mentioned before in Public Health, to address the issue.

      One of the things that we have done is we've in­creased syphilis testing in pregnant women in the pro­vince, and pregnant women are now screened multiple times during their pregnancy. We've expanded harm reduction networks and peer advisory councils across Manitoba. Spe­cific­ally, since 2019, we've provided over $850,000 in increased annual funding to the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network. We've increased the dis­tri­bu­tion of harm reduction supplies in every health region for things like sterile equip­ment, in­cluding $650,000 in the WRHA–Winnipeg Regional Health Author­ity–alone. We added new Public Health nurse positions to support STBBI case and contact manage­ment and STBBI testing and treatment among priority popu­la­tions and outreach locations.

      We have funded new social workers and re­pro­ductive nurses at Mount Carmel Clinic to provide on-site and outreach services, and I want to talk a little bit about Mount Carmel Clinic, that we did this in part­ner­ship with WRHA and Street Connections. In 2019, we launched the Star Lodge Keewatinook Ashak Mino Awaganak [phonetic] to enhance overall com­mu­nity health related to sexually transmitted blood-borne infections, spe­cific­ally syphilis and congenital syphilis. And we–they are focusing on those who are pregnant or in child-bearing years, including their parents and individuals who use substances, and it's grounded in culturally relevant teachings and cultural­ly safe approaches.

      Star Lodge supports low-barrier access to STBBI reproductive health care. And so Mount Carmel Clinic was provided with funding to hire 1.0 FTE social worker, outreach worker, and 1.0 EFT reproductive health nurse for the project, and the WRHA was provided with funding to hire a 1.0 EFT public health nurse to work in col­lab­o­ration with Mount Carmel Clinic.

      Services are delivered on-site at Mount Carmel Clinic and by outreach twice a week in the afternoon–approximate. Several clients have been engaged in testing and several prenatal clients as well.

      And, as I mentioned before, we scaled up our harm reduction networks and peer advisory councils and, in addition to the $850,000, WRHA also received $100,000 to implement a Harm Reduction Network full-time co‑ordinator in the WRHA.

      Other supports in Southern Health-Santé Sud, Prairie Mountain Health, northern regional health author­ity, and Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Author­ity as well.

MLA Asagwara: I thank the minister for that response and provi­ding those details.

      I'm wondering if the minister can clarify the dollars that she's outlined for 2018-2019; 2019-2020; and 2020 and 2021. Can the minister clarify if any of those dollars, any of that funding–I guess, more spe­cific­ally, for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, were spe­cific­ally to address COVID-related expenditures? And, if so, how much of–what's the amount, rather, that was spe­cific­ally allocated to address COVID-related expenses?

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for Union Station (MLA Asagwara) for the question.

      In our annual report, the–we are being trans­par­ent in terms of showing that the 2020-2021 author­ity in­cluded sup­ple­mentary author­ity of $600 million from internal service adjustments to support COVID‑19 support programs in the de­part­ment and that those funds went to acute-care services. That is shown in our annual report quite clearly.

      The member is asking whether the community health dollars that was shared for 2020-2021, if any of those dollars went to COVID, and my answer is that there was separate funding allocated for COVID spending, and that is under the acute-care services line: $600 million.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

MLA Asagwara: Thank the minister for that response.

      A couple of weeks ago, now, at this point, I raised concerns that we have about long waits for cardiac surgery. I'm sure the minister, like many of us, has received cor­res­pon­dence from Manitobans who are still waiting, who've been waiting years for cardiac surgery or who–more recently, we shared the story of a gentleman who was just a couple of hours away from receiving surgery and was told, you know, moments before he was meant to go in that it was cancelled.

* (15:50)

      So I'm wondering, given the importance of ad­dressing this backlog that we know is affecting so many Manitobans, and also given that we know, spe­cific­ally in regards to cardiac times, the wait in March was 70 days–70-days-long wait in March compared to just 12 days a month before. So that's a pretty big increase. It affects a lot of families.

      What is the minister doing to address these waits?

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for Union Station for the question because it gives me an op­por­tun­ity, once again, to thank all our health-care pro­fes­sionals that have been working diligently to ensure Manitobans receive the surgeries and diag­nos­tic tests that they have been waiting for. And I'm pleased to state that all the health-care workers that were redeployed to assist in critical care and ICU during our fourth wave and our Omicron variant wave has now returned to their program and clinic areas.

      And so, as of May 24th, there were 1,188 non-emergent surgeries completed the week of May 16th to 22nd at Winnipeg sites. This is a–150 more sur­geries than the number completed during a similar week in 2019. So that would be May 13 to 19th, 2019, when 993 surgeries were completed.

      That means Winnipeg's surgery program operated at 119.6 per cent of pre-pandemic levels last week, Mr. Chairperson, and the number of surgeries com­pleted last week is 45 more than the week before it. This marks a 3.9 per cent increase week over week.

      Also, all emergent and urgent surgeries, including cardiac and cancer procedures, continued to be prior­itized. Non-urgent surgeries are reviewed by phys­icians to prioritize patients who medically should not wait any longer for procedures to be performed.

      The number of emergent surgeries performed last week also remained steady, as it has through­out the pandemic. There were 185 emergent or life-saving sur­geries performed last week in Winnipeg, up one from the previous week.

      There were 262 surgical slates in Winnipeg last week. This is up one from the previous week. So they're at 95.3 per cent of pre-pandemic baselines.

      And I just want to remind the hon­our­able member that the number of surgeries performed during a slate will vary widely depending on the acuity of the patient and the complexity of the procedure. So, for example, an endoscopy will not take as long to perform as neuro­surgery. And the time allotted for surgical slates in 2022 may vary from those performed pre-pandemic due to demand resulting in fewer surgeries being performed.

      And, of course, COVID has also resulted in some slowdowns in terms of infection and pre­ven­tion con­trol and what needs to be done to ensure a room is prepped and ready for the next patient.

      But with respect to the member's question about cardiac surgeries, 21 cardiac surgeries were per­formed May 16 to 22nd, which is unchanged from the previous week, but all 21 surgeries were non-urgent, elective in nature. And there were 17 cardiac surgeries performed during a similar period in 2019: 13 non-urgent, elective, and four emergent.

      And in terms of rural surgeries–because we don't just want to focus on what is happening in the city of Winnipeg–the surgical slates are at or near baseline funded capacity at most of our sites outside of Winnipeg, and surgical slates were restarted in Ste. Anne on May 10th. And we continue to support other sites such as Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach. Effective May 30th, they are also supporting Ste. Anne in terms of ensuring that any overflows or any needs from the Ste. Anne Hospital are being transferred to Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach. And so they are continuing to ensure equity in health-care services.

      So we continue to work with our cardiologists and the Diag­nos­tic and Surgical Recovery Task Force to ensure Manitobans receive those cardiac surgeries and are not having to wait for long–

Mr. Chairperson: The minister's time has expired.

MLA Asagwara: I'm sure the minister is aware and understands that referencing surgical numbers–number of surgeries that have been performed and identifying that they–the numbers–most recent num­bers she provided that she has available are the same as they were during that time period in 2019–I'm sure the minister understands that that is actually reflecting an inadequacy in terms of the amount of surgeries that are being performed right now, given the fact that we have an un­pre­cedented surgical and diag­nos­tic backlog.

      And so, you know, I would hope that the minister would recog­nize that and ap­pre­ciate that, certainly, we have to be performing above and beyond what we have historically in order to address this backlog in a way that doesn't continue to see thousands upon thou­sands of Manitobans have poor health out­comes because they've gotten so sick and gone without the care they need that their diagnoses become that much more complex.

      I had an interesting con­ver­sa­tion with a few sur­geons last week who made it abundantly clear that the surgeries they were performing are in­creasingly more complex and taking longer and, quite frankly, taking a lot more out of them as doctors, as surgeons, because the cases are in­creasingly complicated because folks are presenting much more sick than they would have had they gotten their procedures and their surgeries much earlier on and not been delayed by this backlog that is astronomically high right now in Manitoba and has unfor­tunately not been addressed in a meaningful, adequate way by this gov­ern­ment.

      And so that's just a flag for this minister that, you know, comparing those numbers really doesn't do a service to Manitobans who are still waiting for their sur­geries and it doesn't reflect the ways in which we really need to be addressing this backlog for folks to not continue to wait in pain.

      What I'd like to clarify here is whether or not the minister has taken steps to address the wait for cardiac surgery. She failed to answer that in her question. It was 70 days in March. What steps has she taken to bring that wait time down?

      And, following that, I'd like to ask the minister some questions about Grace Hospital, but if she could provide clarity on that point, I would ap­pre­ciate it.

* (16:00)

Ms. Gordon: I want to be sure I have time to clarify and put accurate infor­ma­tion on the record with regard to the member's statement that individuals are having to wait 70 days.

      But before I do that, I do want to state that, since January, we've had one–13,323 non-emergent sur­geries completed, 3,604 emergent surgeries com­pleted, for a total of 16,927 surgeries that–this is in addition to the 11,000 surgeries procured by the task force through request for supply arrangements. So this is in addition to returning, as I mentioned before, to pre-pandemic levels, and we do–we have sent out the RFP for our sixth request for supply arrangements so that we can increase those volumes.

      And so with regard to cardiac surgery, so the–we need to clarify that wait times are reported for all cardiac surgeries combined, and for coronary arterial bypass grafts, commonly referred to as bypass sur­gery. So it's broken down by level of urgency: emergent and urgent, semi-urgent and elective. So the infor­ma­tion provided that the member's referring to is, for all cardiacs combined, the median wait time was 70 days.

      But if we break it down by the various levels of surgeries–so, for example, emergent and urgent, the average is four days and, in terms of priority level 1, it's required to be done within 14 days. So these are critically ill, medically unstable patients who cannot be discharged from hospital prior to receiving care.

      And level 2 is semi-urgent; the average time is 20 days, and for semi-urgent, priority level 2, the wait time should be within 15 to 42 days. And these are patients with sig­ni­fi­cant heart health problems. They may be doing poorly with medi­cation and/or may have pain with minor exercise. These patients are not critically ill but waiting too long could result in a deterioration of their health status.

      And then there's level 3, which is elective. The average time is 63 days, but elective priority 3 is re­quired to be done within 43 to 180 days. And these are patients who are stable but have some form of heart health problem. Their procedure may be scheduled after a wait time without undue deterioration in their health status.

      So the 70 days the member is referring to is the average for all cardiac surgeries combined: again, level 1 average is four days, level 2–level 1 is emer­gent and urgent, the wait is four days; level 2, semi-urgent, is 20 days; level 3, elective, is 63; and for all coronary arterial bypass grafts, the number of days is–levels is 45 days.

      So I just wanted to clarify that, because we cer­tainly don't want to frighten Manitobans into be­lieving that if they are emergent and urgent, they will be waiting 70 days. So these are critically ill, medical­ly unstable patients who cannot be discharged from hospital prior to receiving care.

      And everyone that requires a surgery is im­por­tant. I certainly don't want to give the impression that if you're an elective cardiac patient, that you're not im­por­tant. Our emergent and urgent priority level 1 is im­por­tant, our semi-urgent priority level 2 is im­por­tant and our elective priority 3 patients are also im­por­tant, Mr. Chairperson. But I think it was factually incorrect for the member to just state the number, 70, and to leave that number in the minds of Manitobans who may be waiting for surgery and feeling that, again, if they're emergent or urgent they would be waiting 70 days. That is factually not correct.

MLA Asagwara: I thank the minister for that re­sponse. Our of respect for the many Manitobans who are currently waiting for cardiac surgery, I'm not going to get into the weeds of what the minister just put on the record. I think it does a disservice to those folks.

      We shared the story of Mr. Moyse who is waiting–has been waiting years for his surgery. He has a heart functioning capacity of 30 per cent, was mere hours away from getting his surgery and he was told it was cancelled. I–the wait times being, on average in March, 70 days; hearing stories like that of Mr. Moyse certainly should be a catalyst for this gov­ern­ment, treating this as a crisis in our health-care system, to see this as urgent.

      And so the facts that we have put on the record in regards to cardiac surgery waits are im­por­tant facts that reflect the realities of Manitobans, and I won't con­tribute to this narrative from the minister of trying to diminish the realities that Manitobans are facing. It does them a disservice.

      I'd like to ask the question–ask a question around the Grace Hospital. I just indicated previously to the minister I would be doing so.

      What we're hearing in terms of what's going on at Grace Hospital is quite scary. We've been hearing for well over a year now–myself; my colleague, the MLA for St. James; our leader, the member for Fort Rouge (Mr. Kinew)–we've all heard from many, many staff at the Grace Hospital, from con­stit­uents who have accessed care at Grace Hospital, that things there are in utter chaos; that nurses, health-care aides, doctors are working in con­di­tions that are, for them, horrific and that Manitobans are ex­per­iencing what Manitobans should not expect in their emergency rooms and in their hospitals–which is disarray, folks reporting languishing in hallways, going without water, without anyone checking up on them for hours, sitting there for days on end.

      This has been a crisis for far too long. The minis­ter and her gov­ern­ment refuse to call it a crisis, refuse to take meaningful steps to address the crisis, and now we're beyond that point at Grace. We know that at Grace Hospital–and we know this because we ob­tain­ed staff schedules, that there were times when only two or four nurses are staffing the emergency room at night. We've high­lighted the staffing crisis in the emer­gency rooms for years. We've high­lighted that there are 2,400 vacant nursing positions in the pro­vince right now: 33 per cent of positions are vacant in emergency rooms; 32 vacancy–32 per cent vacancy rate in the medicine unit.

      Manitobans should be able to go to an emergency room and get the care they need when they need it. They should be able to expect that and they can't, and, quite frankly, they don't.

      What is the minister doing to ensure that staff resources at Grace Hospital for nurses, not just–not this plea for anybody, you know, to show up and put in some hours there, but what is this minister doing to ensure to shore up nursing capacity at the Grace Hospital to address this horrific crisis that they're facing right now?

* (16:10)

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for Union Station (MLA Asagwara) for the question. It gives me an op­por­tun­ity to just place on the record some infor­ma­tion about how we got to where we are today.

      And, Mr. Chairperson, I remember back in 2013 when then-Selinger gov­ern­ment campaigned on the highest number of active nurses. And what they didn't tell Manitobans was that at that time–2013–there were 1,777 nurse vacancies, and so they were warned that there was a crisis.

      And so 13 years ago, again, a warning: the alarm bell was rung with regard to the deficit of registered nurses, and that was in a report authored by the Canadian Nurses Association of a projected deficit of 60,000 registered nurses nationwide by 2022. So the NDP were told of this and Manitoba's share of the deficit was esti­mated at 2,160 nurses, and that was before the pandemic, Mr. Chairperson.

      And what did the former NDP gov­ern­ment do when they were told it was time to begin to steer the ship away from the staffing crisis in the early 2000s? Nothing, Mr. Chairperson. Under the NDP's tenure, there was a clear lack of expanding the nursing RN and LPN program capacity.

      What our gov­ern­ment has done is we've acted. We've added 400 new nursing edu­ca­tion seats to five post-secondary in­sti­tutions, and this change doubles what they–the NDP–had in 2000. And we're also graduating 15 per cent more nurses on average than the NDP ever did and, again, the $7.2 billion, the largest health-care invest­ment in our province's his­tory, as well, Mr. Chairperson.

      With regard to Grace Hospital, the wait times that–are con­cern­ing and, again, I want to state that the health system leadership has acknowl­edged the chal­lenges they've ex­per­ienced not just at this health facility but at others. And the solutions are coming for­ward from the hospital floor, which includes a $1.2‑million expansion supported by our gov­ern­ment of the physician and triage model of care. This pilot program places a physician in the triage area to man­age and provide care for those waiting to be seen, with  a parti­cular focus on higher acuity patients, Mr. Chairperson.

      And we're also improving lab turnaround time for patients requiring admission, which will sig­ni­fi­cantly help with COVID testing and, as well, the level loading of transport arrivals across all sites to try to alleviate some of the pressures on Grace and our other acute-care facilities. And we expect that these initia­tives will have success in reducing the wait times in the weeks ahead which have–are some of the pressures that Grace Hospital is ex­per­iencing.

      And then our gov­ern­ment's overall commit­ment of–to our nurses: 93 nurses in the last year completed the 12-week critical-care orientation program, 23 of which graduated in January; 29 more nurses will graduate from this program this month; 19 have enrolled for the next program class that started yester­day; and we are going to be graduating more nurses from our faculty of nursing later next month. We con­tinue to–our commit­ment of the $19.5 million, again, to add 259 nurse training seats this year.

      And those nurses don't just go to work in one facility. We encourage them to apply to work across many facilities. We hope to see many of those nurses at the Grace, as well, and we'll continue to support the work of the health system leaders–

Mr. Chairperson: The minister's time has expired.

MLA Asagwara: So, because this is such an in­cred­ibly urgent issue, what is happening at Grace Hospital has gone beyond a crisis, and those nurses and health-care aides and support staff and physicians des­per­ately need to know that their Minister of Health and their gov­ern­ment is listening to them. They need to believe and they need to know that they haven't been abandoned by this gov­ern­ment and by this minister.

      And so I'm going to ask the minister, again, know­ing that nurses are actively leaving their careers in Manitoba because they have PTSD; knowing that nurses are actively leaving their jobs which they love, which they have poured time, energy, money and love into working because they fear losing their licences; knowing that nurses are leaving because other juris­dic­tions, other provinces are offering them what this gov­ern­ment has refused to–to recog­nize their skill set and their service; knowing that nurses have made very clear that their concerns and their challenges predate the pandemic, that nurses at the Grace were sounding their alarms and raising concerns back in 2019–that goes for nurses at HSC and as well nurses at St. Boniface–but spe­cific­ally at the Grace; I would ask the minister to, in her response to my question, think about those nurses and those health-care pro­fes­sionals and what they need to hear from this minister.

      What steps is the minister taking right now so that the staff working at the Grace Hospital emergency room do not go into work every day feeling like their drowning? What is this minister doing right now to ensure that they have the capacity there to provide the care that Manitobans deserve and should come to expect when they're accessing that emergency room? What steps has this minister taken or is taking imme­diately?

* (16:20)

Ms. Gordon: You know, I want to begin my response by saying this is in no way a reflection on the com­mitted and dedi­cated health-care pro­fes­sionals at Grace Hospital. They have–are doing in­cred­ibly great work, and our gov­ern­ment is committed to supporting them and hearing from them through our health sys­tem leaders. And, as I mentioned before, some of the sug­­ges­tions that have come forward have been imple­mented.

      But, you know, I noted in today's Winnipeg Free Press that the author of an article stated that hospital overcrowding is not a new phenomenon. It predates the COVID‑19 pandemic and Manitoba's healing our health system consolidation plan, the first phase of which was imple­mented in October of 2017. And it even predates that time period. I have articles dating back to June–September 19th, 2014. The CBC article headline was, Winnipeg's Grace Hospital has worst ER wait times in Canada: study, and that was under the previous admin­is­tra­tion. And then, June 11th, 2015, another article: Winnipeg hospital wait time the worst in Canada.

      So this has been a struggle, is not based on a gov­ern­ment; it is challenges that they faced and we face as a gov­ern­ment. And we're certainly committed–far more committed–to finding solutions, I believe, than the previous gov­ern­ment.

      And if I can read into the record an exchange that occurred on June 9th, 2015, between the Health critic and the then-minister of Health, Sharon Blady–and I quote, Mr. Chairperson–and the question's being posed by the critic: "Mr. Speaker, there is an ER crisis and there are also regions in Manitoba–there are regions in Manitoba that are ex­per­iencing a critical doctor shortage. Because of that, two dozen rural ERs are closed. When asked in Estimates yesterday how she was going to address this issue, this Minister of Health said that she's still waiting for a, and I quote, 'magic health-care wand.' I would like to ask her: Since last evening, did she find that wand?" End quote.

      And that is how the NDP addressed the concerns and the issues of emergency room crisis, was for a Health minister to state that they were waiting for a magic health-care wand.

      But, Mr. Chairperson, our gov­ern­ment is cer­tainly not as dismissive of what was–is happening in our hospitals, in our emergency de­part­ments, as the pre­vious NDP gov­ern­ment, and that's why we've made the commit­ments that we have: the $19.5 million for 259 nurse training seats expanding to 400.

      You know, I was up in the North last week talking to health leaders, service delivery organi­zations, stake­­­holders, touring the nursing simulation lab, hear­ing that the number of nurses that will be graduating this spring from the Uni­ver­sity of Manitoba faculty of nursing, very heartened to hear that there are nurses across our province that will be moving into the sys­tem, and hearing, as well, from the regulators that the number of nurses that are registering in our province has not decreased. And so nursing continues to be a rewarding and fulfilling profession.

      We continue to support our nurses, regardless of the facility that they work at. We will support our nurses at the Grace Hospital. We will ask our system leaders to be on the front lines talking with staff about: what are the needs, how can we work together to find long-term solutions? That is being done. I've been assured by Shared Health leadership that those meet­ings are taking place. When sug­ges­tions come back to our gov­ern­ment, we are funding those solutions, and we will continue to support Grace–

Mr. Chairperson: The hon­our­able minister's time has expired.

MLA Asagwara: Well, I think it's fair to say that the staff, the health-care support staff, the allied health-care pro­fes­sionals, nurses, health-care aides, phys­icians at Grace Hospital would not be inspired by that response from the minister. It certainly doesn't instill con­fi­dence that she's taking this crisis–what it is, beyond a crisis at this point–as seriously as needed in order to make sure that those folks have increased capa­city to provide the care to Manitobans that they know Manitobans deserve, which is disappointing, quite frankly.

      Like the concerns of those health-care workers at Grace Hospital, those concerns we previously raised, we've also raised our concerns with the minister about the neurology program. I know this is some­thing the minister is well aware of. I've had several colleagues in our caucus raise concerns that have been brought to them by their con­stit­uents. Folks, neurologists them­selves have spoken publicly about this issue.

      Can the minister tell us what the number of vacancies and the vacancy rate currently is in the neurology program?

Mr. Len Isleifson, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair

* (16:30)

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for the question about neurology. I do want to state for the record that our gov­ern­ment remains committed to improving health care for all Manitobans, and that includes strengthening neurology services and care for patients with multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, as well as improving our stroke services.

      Recruitment and retention of neurology phys­icians and staff remain a priority. Six new neurologists have been recruited to the neurology de­part­ment over the past year. This includes one MS neurologist, two epilepsy neurologists, two stroke neurologists and one cognitive neurologist. Support staff has also been recruited. Hospitalists have also been recruited to support in-patient work in neurology and stroke care, providing im­por­tant patient care while freeing up some specialist care for more specialized services.

      I want to also just share about epilepsy. Our gov­ern­ment announced $4 million in support for a four-adult-bed epilepsy monitoring unit, which under­scores our commit­ment to improving neurology ser­vices in our province. This invest­ment allows the adult epilepsy monitoring unit to expand to four beds from two and the purchase of new state-of-the-art monitor­ing equip­ment as well as provide tech­no­lo­gy related upgrades.

      We are also committed to a long-term plan to develop an adult surgical program. The expanded adult unit follows the creation of a pediatric epilepsy surgery program in 2018 by our gov­ern­ment.

      And with regard to stroke, looking forward to an­nouncing very soon the construction of Manitoba's first dedi­cated acute stroke unit. And funding to ap­propriately support this new unit will also be in place when I announce the opening, and I look forward to sharing more about this invest­ment with all members of the Legislature very soon.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

MLA Asagwara: Can the–oh, I think I should pro­vide some context, here. It's context the minister's already aware of, but Dr. Dan Roberts, who I know the minister knows–is well aware of who Dr. Dan Roberts is–has called the situation regarding neuro­logy here in Manitoba–and it's a direct quote: des­per­ate and a slow-moving train wreck and that we face the closure of the MS clinic within as little as 90 days.

       That is–those are very serious statements from a leading voice in this area, somebody who's highly regarded and respected.

      And so, with that in mind, with just how serious this is in mind and the reality that, according to Dr. Dan Roberts and others, that we're facing the closure of an in­cred­ibly im­por­tant clinic here in Manitoba in as little as 90 days, can the minister tell us what she's doing to address this in­cred­ibly urgent situation?

Ms. Gordon: I do want to assure the member for Union Station (MLA Asagwara) that the comments that I read into the record are aligned with Shared Health's comments in regard to the request to provide a response to Dr. Dan Roberts's media availability last week.

      And to just reiterate or just share, for the record, what that response was is our gov­ern­ment remains, again, committed to improving health care for all Manitobans and that includes strengthening neuro­logy services and care for patients with epilepsy, as well as improving our stroke services.

Mr. Chairperson in the Chair

      Again, our gov­ern­ment is supporting Shared Health in their efforts to strengthen neurology services and enhance local access to care for patients, in­cluding those living with epilepsy and MS. Our gov­ern­ment imple­mented new initiatives to enhance neuro­logy services in our province, including the adult epilepsy monitoring unit announced last year and the new dedi­cated acute stroke unit being con­structed at HSC Winnipeg, and again, for which fund­ing will be in place to ap­pro­priately support when it comes online.

      Shared Health has recruited an MS neurologist, two 'epiltologists,' two stroke neurologists and a cog­nitive neurologist, including support staff, over the past 18 months. Additionally, physicians have been recruited to support in-patient work in neurology and stroke care, provi­ding im­por­tant patient care while freeing up some specialist care for more services. An interprov­incial agree­ment has been signed with the BC In­sti­tute of Tech­no­lo­gy that provides two EEG seats for Manitoba students and an increase in the clinical stipend for MS positions has been approved.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Okay, yes. My question to the minister is this: What is the situation with regard to electronic medical records across the province? I know there was a wide variety of systems that, when Southern Health was formed, there were two different systems being used.

      What is the situation and what is the minister's plan?

* (16:40)

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for River Heights for the question with regard to elec­tronic medical records across the province with the change in the movement of Digital Health from eHealth under the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority to Shared Health. We–this has allowed us to plan prov­incially. So we use the term, planning prov­incially, delivering locally.

      Of course, individual physicians will–may decide to use other records. One of the examples I use quite often is that, right now, the Diag­nos­tic and Surgical Recovery Task Force, in terms of gathering infor­ma­tion on various surgeries, is having to go individually to surgeons' offices because some are using different systems. And so they do have ability to make choices about which systems they want to use.

      But, certainly, as a gov­ern­ment, as a Province, we're using the expertise of Shared Health now that we've transferred Digital Health to Shared Health to try to encourage those physicians to work with us in terms of planning prov­incially.

      So some examples of how that has been done is with the Emergency De­part­ment Infor­ma­tion System, and as well the surgical infor­ma­tion system that is being worked on or developed under the Diag­nos­tic and Surgical Recovery Task Force, is being done on a prov­incial scale. So, as well, during the COVID‑19 pandemic, there were op­por­tun­ities to allow for access to emergency medical records prov­incially so that we could plan, we could roll out our vaccine campaign not just regionally but across the province and really monitor the number of vaccines that were going into arms during that time.

      So the plan is–to address, spe­cific­ally, the mem­ber's question–is to continue to support the work of Shared Health and Digital Health, that now comes under Shared Health, to plan prov­incially, ensure that we have con­sistent medical records that can be accessed at various levels of the health system.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Gerrard: Yes, I notice in the Shared Health strategic plan, there is a plan for a home-care hub. Is that up and running, operational? How many people are staffed there and what is the plan for what the home-care hub will do?

Ms. Gordon: Can I ask for clari­fi­ca­tion or for the member to repeat the question, please? I didn't hear–his voice kind of trailed off at the end, so I didn't hear all of that.

      Thank you.

Mr. Gerrard: On page 15 of the Shared Health plan–or strategic plan, there's a reference there to a home-care hub. And I'm asking, what is the–is the hub up and running or not? How many staff are in it or will be in it? And what is the plan for what the home-care hub for the province will do?

* (16:50)

Ms. Gordon: I do want to go back to a previous ques­tion that the hon­our­able member for River Heights had asked, and we had run out of time during Committee of Supply, and I do want to respond to it. It was a question about who provides primary pre­ven­tion for diabetes and who provides secondary care for diabetes.

      And I want the member to know that primary pre­ven­tion is done under the Min­is­try of Mental Health and Com­mu­nity Wellness. Secondary pre­ven­tion in diabetes care involves reducing further complications related to diabetes, which means that once someone is diagnosed with diabetes they are at a higher risk of developing renal, ophthalmological, neurological and cardiovascular complications.

      So secondary pre­ven­tion in diabetes care may include, and which might fall under the Min­is­try of Health: early diagnosis; edu­ca­tion on diabetes manage­­­ment and care, including monitoring glucose levels and ongoing support for lifestyle modifications including diet, exercise and weight loss; smoking ces­sation therapy and medi­cations; managing choles­terol, blood pressure and blood sugars; using lifestyle modifications and medi­cations; use of preventive medi­ca­tions to assist in preventing vascular complica­tions; as well as vac­cina­tion, including COVID‑19, in­fluenza and pneumococcal vaccine; as well as regular eye exams; regular foot care; including assessment for neuropathy.

      With regard to home care, we were pleased to include in Budget 2022's budget speech that $7.2 million more is being provided to support two home- and com­mu­nity-care modernization pilot pro­jects, the Priority Home and client-directed funding pilot and sup­port­ive housing pilot, Mr. Chairperson. This is to provide more safe spaces for seniors and to improve home- and com­mu­nity-based care.

      So we continue to work very, very closely with our Home Care program and support the work of the program. Shared Health is launching a number of initiatives to continue to support Home Care because we know that being able to allow Manitobans to return home when they're in an acute-care setting, if they've had surgery or a stay in hospital, is very im­por­tant in terms of their recovery and as well in terms of patient flow.

      So, yes, Home Care is working very closely with Shared Health, and they do have in their strategic plan several initiatives that they will be under­taking with the Home Care program.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Gerrard: There are a number of im­por­tant pre­ven­tion initiatives, including what we talked about earlier: congenital syphilis and tuberculosis, which are infectious diseases and in–environ­mental issues, lead toxicity leading to behavioural and learning problems in kids and radon problems leading to lung cancer.

      Can the minister tell us, what is the respective role of the De­part­ment of Health in these–because, to some extent, it's shared between the De­part­ment of Health and the de­part­ment of mental health and wellness–and what her de­part­ment is doing?

Ms. Gordon: So, Public Health is the subject matter expert, and we seek advice from Public Health. We certainly don't duplicate, we col­lab­o­rate. And so, with regard to the member's question, the two de­part­ments work very, very closely together, but then we work, as well, with Public Health and many other de­part­ments on this very, very im­por­tant work.

      So again, agri­cul­ture–

Mr. Chairperson: The hour being 5 p.m., com­mit­tee rise.

Room 255

Education and Early Childhood Learning

* (15:00)

Mr. Chairperson (Brad Michaleski): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order.

      This section of the Com­mit­tee of Supply will now resume con­sid­era­tion of the Estimates for the Department of Edu­ca­tion and Early Child­hood Learning. Questioning for this de­part­ment will pro­ceed in a global manner.

      The floor is now open for questions.

Mr. Nello Altomare (Transcona): I'd like to wel­come the minister back to Estimates, this very im­por­tant process that we use to get to know a little bit more about what's going on in the de­part­ment.

      I just want to begin today by saying that as educators and human beings, yesterday was a very difficult day. I know that the minister also has ex­per­ience working in schools, also has ex­per­ience working with kids that endure trauma, families that endure trauma. Yesterday was very difficult.

      I found myself taken back 11 years before, when I was working in a school, having to do–and having to process very much this–a repeat event that leaves us bereft and also speechless, knowing that schools are safe places. They're supposed to be harbours of safety, harbours of support, places where parents hand over the care of their child to very caring, dedi­cated in­dividuals. And to see a school again targeted in that way is difficult.

      I know we have the former minister of Edu­ca­tion across from us here today, too. I know he knows that those events are–leave a mark. And Mr. Chair, at this point, I'll end that comment and offer the minister a chance to respond. Thank you.

Hon. Wayne Ewasko (Minister of Education and Early Childhood Learning): Mr. Chair, can you hear me okay?

Mr. Chairperson: Yes, we can.

Mr. Ewasko: I'd like to–yes, I'd like to thank my friend, the MLA for Transcona, for bringing this topic up. And it's–it is–it's a tough situation. Definitely some­­thing that–it doesn't matter if it happens, you know, next door or in the neighbouring school divi­sion or in the neighbouring province or in the neigh­bouring country, or anywhere through­out the world; this senseless act of violence is absolutely horrendous.

      I know the member, much like myself, worked in the school system for quite some time, and we've dealt with different situations, whether it's with student ser­vices or just–it could be as simple as some threats, I guess. It definitely gives a perspective for us to, No. 1, be thankful to a certain degree that when you do get home, you, you know, put that extra few seconds, minutes into the loved ones that you have at home. And, you know, in my case, thank God that they're okay and they're safe and all of that, for sure.

      And each and every day, I think–I don't think it mat­ters how old they are, either. I think, as a parent or as a family member, as a com­mu­nity member, I think you wish that everybody can leave their home in the morning and return home in–safe in the evening.

      And I know that, working with many adminis­trators and school officials through­out the province and through­out my time when I was still in school, I mean, this definitely shakes a com­mu­nity up, shakes a household up for sure. And I know that many edu­cators and administrators take various forms of train­ing to deal with these types of situations and I know that they spring into action when things like this do happen.

      But, at the same time, I do know that there's time for some reflection and decompression after events like this as well, so I ap­pre­ciate the member for bring­ing it up, and definitely, you know, as we, as all sides of the House today in the Chamber stood for a moment of silence in just thinking about the situation.

      And, thankfully, some­thing like that hasn't or doesn't occur here. We know that, on a yearly basis, there are various threats at the school level or within com­­mu­nities, munici­palities and, you know, I have to maintain vigilant, as I know that the member opposite would agree with me, I'm sure. We have to maintain vigilant that those training–all that training that we do take as educators and those that are in a supervisory or admin­is­tra­tion-type role–you know, you hope that you never ever have to use it, but you hope, and I know that all that good training does come to the fore­front in individual's minds when it is needed.

* (15:10)

      And so, whether that's law en­force­ment or school admin­is­tra­tion, I know that the safety of students and staff are absolute paramount and when events like this happen–again, doesn't matter where–I think it all gives us an op­por­tun­ity to think about the various policies and processes that we have in place, basically, through­out all sectors, not only within the province but everywhere else.

      So I, again, look forward to further questions coming from the member opposite and carrying on the discussion.

      Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Altomare: I want thank the minister for his comments.

      It does cause pause and it does force us to reflect on ensuring that we put the safety of students first and ensuring that families, com­mu­nities know that schools remain that beacon of safety for their kids. And I want to thank his–the minister for his comments there.

      I will get into some of the organizational struc­tures of the de­part­ment. In reviewing them, from previous year to this year, it–there are some changes to the structure, as was reported in April of 2021. There was a planning and transformation ADM within the de­part­ment, and I notice that that's been removed this year. And that's an interesting dev­elop­ment. Of note, too, is that there is now a Corporate Services ADM that's been added to the leadership team and the Corporate Services ADM remains vacant.

      My question to the minister, Mr. Chair, is: can he provide what that job description would be for a Corporate Services ADM within the Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment, and when does he see this position being filled?

Mr. Ewasko: So, basically, the–and you know what? This is a good question coming from the member opposite.

      Basically, the title in the de­part­ment that was in 2021, it's been renamed Corporate Services. So it's the same group, just renamed to Corporate Services.

Mr. Altomare: The second part of my question was: does he know when that position will be filled?

Mr. Ewasko: So, you know, much like, you know, the member from Transcona knows some of this.

      I mean, when there is a vacancy and, you know, you basically put forward, you know, a plan. And you put the plan forward and ask for–you know, there's a recruitment strategy and a process that is under way. And that is under way.

      And so, when that–when an individual gets hired for that position, we'll make sure that the member is alerted shortly thereafter.

Mr. Altomare: Also of note, Mr. Chair, was the change of the leadership at the ADM level. One per­son remains from the previous year's organizational structure.

      This is quite a shift in the leadership team, and especially within a de­part­ment of Edu­ca­tion. My ques­tion to the minister, Mr. Chair, is: what brought about this change at the ADM level, and what does he look forward to as far as leadership from this group?

Mr. Ewasko: So, as the member may know as well, as–in certain circum­stances, definitely since the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson)–and I know I've shared this with the member before–I am more than–I was more than honoured and continue to be honoured to hold this position as Minister of Edu­ca­tion and Early Child­hood Learning.

      And so, in January, when the de­part­ment basic­ally grew because we brought the wonderful team of Early Child­hood Learning over into the de­part­ment, of course, that brings in an ad­di­tional position, and so that's why you see an added ADM in there.

      There is a few new faces within the team and that basically–what I can tell–what I can share to the mem­ber without divulging a whole lot of personal infor­ma­tion is that an–one individual is on temporary leave and two have actually taken op­por­tun­ities elsewhere in gov­ern­ments.

      And so, I know that he's looking at the same chart because he mentioned the vacancy of the assist­ant deputy minister for Cor­por­ate Services, which we have the recruitment process well under way and are encouraged that we will be filling that position. But Financial and Admin­is­tra­tive Services, we have our executive financial officer, Claire Breul. We have Mona Pandey, who's our assist­ant deputy minister for System Performance & Account­ability. We have Helen Robinson-Settee, who's the director of Indigenous Inclusion Directorate. We have Janet Tomy, who is assist­ant deputy minister for Student Achieve­ment & Inclusion, and we have Jerin Vilow [phonetic], who is our acting deputy minister for Early Learning and Child Care.

* (15:20)

      So with that, Mr. Chair, I look forward to the member for Transcona's next question.

Mr. Altomare: The second–oh, thank you, Mr. Chair–the second part to my question kind of touch­ed upon the kind of a thematic approach as to what the de­part­ment will be known for.

      Prior to 2016, Mr. Chair, the de­part­ment really had a focus on edu­ca­tion for sus­tain­able dev­elop­ment and provided sub­stan­tial resources to schools, to edu­cators, to everyone that worked in the system re­garding ESD–edu­ca­tion for sus­tain­able dev­elop­ment.

      I guess what I'm driving at with my question to the minister regarding, at the ADM level, is: What does he see as the theme emerging from this group that he's going to bring to educators or that this group is going to bring to educators in the province?

      Thinking back to what used–what the de­part­ment was really focused on with edu­ca­tion for sus­tain­able dev­elop­ment, what's the next focus going to be? What are the next major resources going to be targeted towards?

Mr. Ewasko: It's–it was a good question from the mem­ber from Transcona, especially, of course, being an educator himself and an administrator for quite a few years before he got into this wonderful, wonderful occupation and hon­our­able occupation as an MLA.

      And I think, you know, in some cases, when he talks about sus­tain­able dev­elop­ment within edu­ca­tion, I think we also have to make sure that some of the in­for­ma­tion that the member's putting out there is accurate. And I just want to assure the member that sus­tain­ability of our edu­ca­tion and early child­hood learning de­part­ment is actually part of that fabric that the teachers on a day-to-day basis deliver to their students within, you know, with con­sul­ta­tions with their admin­is­tra­tion, with the de­part­ment, with our edu­­cation partners all across this great province of ours.

      You know, we–I know the member, you know, likes to share the odd thing that happened before 2016, and I'm not sure if his leader really wants him to be bringing up anything along those lines. But I digress, Mr. Chair.

      I think, you know, part of our focus, of course, you know, we know that the last royal com­mis­sion on edu­ca­tion was not done since 1959. You know, we decided to say, hey, you know, it's time for the edu­ca­tion–the K to 12 system to have a look at and a bit of a com­mis­sion and hear from Manitobans on what they want to see, you know, moving forward. You know, well over 25,000 individuals have shared their opinions on anything in regards to edu­ca­tion moving forward; 75 recom­men­dations came out of that K‑to‑12 com­mis­sion.

      And a couple of the main focuses that we heard from Manitobans was to strengthen literacy, numer­acy and, of course, Indigenous edu­ca­tion and–which then, you know, sort of takes me to the couple com­ments about our great initiatives that we've brought forward in response to the K to 12 seventy-five–or,   K‑to‑12 com­mis­sion's 75 recom­men­dations, Mr. Chair.

      You know, so April 20th we launched the action plan, which I'm assuming by now the member oppo­site has had a chance to take a good look at it and basically talk about the four main pillars in our action plan. You know, making sure that within those pillars–you know, and I'll just take a few seconds, Mr. Chair, to mention them.

      I mean–so, high-quality learning is one of the pil­lars within the action plan. Of course, we need that, we need student en­gage­ment and well-being, I mean, we speak about that quite often, you know. And then, of course, when it comes to teaching, we want to see excellence in teaching and leadership, so op­por­tun­ities–you know, making sure that for the teachers we've got those op­por­tun­ities for–to continue on build­ing on those successes for excellence and leader­ship. And then, of course, responsive systems.

      Mr. Chair, this is such a great question that I might have to ask for leave to keep going, but in addi­tion to the action plan, I mean, the very next day, on April 21st, we had a discussion. We launched our framework for learning, which, again, came–we had received great accolades about the action plan and the framework for learning. And then a week later, Mr. Chair, we launched Mamàhtawisiwin, which is actually the thread that gets woven in to all of those four pillars that I mentioned from the action plan.

      So when we talk about listening to Manitobans, partnering with Manitobans, collaborating, making sure that our focus is on literacy, numeracy and Indigenous inclusion and edu­ca­tion, Mr. Chair.

      So I look forward to the member's next question and opportunity to share more with everyone.

Mr. Altomare: There is an action plan there, and that part has been noted.

      What teachers are waiting for, respectfully, minister, is: how is this going to translate down to their everyday work in their classroom; and spe­cific­ally, what op­por­tun­ities will there be for teachers to enhance their pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment?

      And can he describe the resources that the depart­ment will allocate to ensure that this action plan really does impact that child in the classroom?

* (15:30)

Mr. Ewasko: So–wow.

      So, in regards to pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment, sup­porting teachers, making sure that we're moving for­ward and the biggest thing, Mr. Chair, is exactly what is the centre focus of absolutely every­thing: student success.

      Student success is the centre of our action plan, every­thing that the De­part­ment of Edu­ca­tion and Early Child­hood Learning is focused on, Mr. Chair. It's making sure that those students are ready, so that when they graduate grade 12, they are ready to go on to some form of post-secondary, whether that's a pri­vate vocational in­sti­tution, a college, a uni­ver­sity, ap­prentice­ship or–do you know what, I know this is going to sound crazy–or maybe just go and get a job.

      We want to make sure that those students are supported. And how do we make sure those students are supported? We have to make sure that, as I men­tioned earlier in the action plan, basically, the excel­lence in teaching and leadership is very paramount because we have to make sure that the teachers that are teaching our students are trained, and they've got those pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment op­por­tun­ities.

      Some of the core global competencies–I know that the member from Transcona has probably heard of this because he was probably tied in a little bit with some of his leadership pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment as well–but of course, you know, a pan-Canadian global competencies was adopted by CMEC, the council–Canadian Council for Ministers of Edu­ca­tion. So, the six critical global competencies is citizenship, com­muni­cation, col­lab­o­ration, critical thinking, connec­tion to self and creativity, Mr. Chair.

      Within this, I know that, you know, we've got multiple, different avenues to access different funds, whether that's through school divisions or, you know, we've got the transformation fund. You know, the mem­ber mentioned earlier, you know, about the sus­tain­able dev­elop­ment division of the de­part­ment from before that is now renamed, but we still have the Educa­tion for Sus­tain­able Dev­elop­ment grant, which definitely can go on to help with that teacher pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ments. We've got, you know, for cur­ri­culum redevelopment, I mean, we're making sure that curriculum's up to date.

      I know under the previous gov­ern­ment, you know, back when I was still teaching and then when I came into politics in 2011, I know that the previous gov­ern­ment never ever really took a good look at keep­ing curriculum up to date, and they really didn't have a schedule. So what we're doing is we're making sure that curriculum is reviewed on a timely basis and making sure that we're, you know, again, building on those successes. You know, but at the same time, what is maybe changed in the world that needs to be tweaked within the curriculum?

      I think teacher–what teachers are looking for, what I've heard from my teacher friends from across this great province of ours is they're also looking so that curriculum is a little more–not necessarily flexible–but more along the lines of consistency. Making sure that whether they're teaching grade 1, let's just say math, and they're–and then all of a sudden, in a year or two, they go on and they want to teach grade 6 math, that the curriculum is con­sistent. It looks the same; it feels the same; it's comfortable, so that it's–they're not necessarily going in totally unprepared.

      I have a few more examples which I'll share in my next answer, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Mr. Altomare: I knew about the ESD grant still being available, and that's a good thing because I do know that schools really rely on that sus­tain­able dev­elop­ment grant because it maintains–it keeps the theme rolling, right? Because I know the de­part­ment still has  their website up on Edu­ca­tion for Sus­tain­able Develop­ment, and many teachers see that as a re­source that helps them, you know, to teach and to learn about how to alleviate poverty, talks about human rights, health and environ­mental pro­tec­tion, all im­por­tant themes.

      Especially coming out of the pandemic, we cer­tainly noticed a lot of cracks that appeared in our system that needed to be–that need to be addressed. And one of the things that is interesting is that I know the minister talked about an up-to-date curriculum and the need for a schedule.

      Is the de­part­ment provi­ding a–or, can the de­part­ment provide a sort of road map for what pieces of the curriculum they're going to update and–so that teachers can know what's coming down the pipe and Manitobans can know what's coming down? I was kind of curious that he brought up that, Mr. Chair, and like to explore that a little further.

* (15:40)

Mr. Ewasko: So, I will get to a portion of the mem­ber's question in a few seconds.

      But I just also wanted to mention about some of the other great things that the de­part­ment and we are doing as a gov­ern­ment to further strengthen teachers' pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment and making sure that teach­ers are supported, working with their curri­culums, making sure that they're resourced up, and then, if there's also pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment op­por­tun­ities, you know, again, working with school divisions, work­­ing with our, you know, our Manitoba Teachers' Society, definitely asking them, you know, what are certain things that they're looking for, for pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment.

      And I mentioned the launch of Mamàhtawisiwin, which is Indigenous edu­ca­tion policy framework–I think that was around April 26th or 27th, in there–matter of fact, I think it was April 27th. So, I wanted to touch on a little bit more that we're doing in that stream, because, as I said before, Mamàhtawisiwin is the thread that winds in and through­out those four pillars. It's basically the foundation that we're going to be working towards those pillars. And, you know, the–I ap­pre­ciate the member saying, you know, the great resources that are available for teachers that are online, because that's sustainable development, too. I mean, that's woven within the curriculum, and we need to make sure that we're teaching those global com­petencies as well.

      So we just hired an Indigenous inclusion con­sultant who is going to be provi­ding support to school divisions on the imple­men­ta­tion of Mamàhtawisiwin.

      Manitoba Rural Learning Consortium will be provi­ding training for teachers begin­ning in rural school divisions and will expand to urban and north­ern school divisions, as well, Mr. Chair.

      I know also that, when we start talking about that pro­fes­sional dev­elop­ment, taking a look at the recom­men­dations from the K‑to‑12 com­mis­sion, I mean, there were 75 recom­men­dations, and I know, as I men­tioned earlier, that the member, no doubt, has had an op­por­tun­ity to go over the action plan with a fine-tooth comb and making sure that he's brought up to  speed on anything that's in that action plan and, of  course, the framework for learning and then Mamàhtawisiwin as well.

      But, you know, to go to some ad­di­tional answers to his later question and his question in regards to curriculum, I mean–this actually gives me an oppor­tunity to say some­thing else, but I'm going to reserve my comments on a couple things.

      But I'll just say that some of the recom­men­dations that came out from the com­mis­sion, and we know that, again, listening to thousands and thousands and thou­sands of Manitobans, you know, we take a look at–the recom­men­dations is that curriculum gets reviewed. And one of the recom­men­dations from the com­mis­sion is definitely for the phys. ed. and the health curriculum to be reviewed, as well as the science curriculum.

      We know that teachers don't like to be surprised. And I think that, you know, myself teaching prior to 2011, I think there were too many surprises coming out of the NDP De­part­ment of Edu­ca­tion, and it left many of us scratching our heads on a day-to-day basis. But, you know what, it's a calling, Mr. Chair, and we continued moving on and teaching students to the best of our abilities.

      So, absolutely, when we–when the de­part­ment starts to pull together the curriculum dev­elop­ment pro­cess and the cyclical refinement, we're going to make sure that teachers and all edu­ca­tion partners across this great province of ours are aware of what the cycle is going to be, so that there is no surprises, so that they know what's coming, because that's what we're about; we're about col­lab­o­ration and having those good con­ver­sa­tions, and seeing, you know, what's going to be working with those front-line workers, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Altomare: So then I take it from the minister that there will be some sort of schedule coming forward so that teachers can see what's coming down the pipe. I think that's what I got out of that response; I'm not quite sure. So I look forward to seeing that. I'm sure many educators in the province would look forward to seeing that, as well.

      I know the minister talks about Mamàhtawisimin [phonetic] and how that is going to impact teaching in the province and a child's ex­per­ience at school.

      So, what I'd like to ask the minister at this point regarding Mamàhtawisimin [phonetic] is: what are we going to see different? If we take a snapshot of a classroom now, how is the classroom going to look–say, we'll take a middle-years classroom–look a year from now, after Mamàhtawisimin [phonetic] has been rolling for about a year and resources have been allocated.

      What would the minister see as being different in those classrooms?

* (15:50)

Mr. Ewasko: It's interesting that the member from Transcona would ask me a question like this.

      Now, part of it–oh, wait. Before I get to his an­swer of this question, I know that the–his–in his pre­amble, he was asking me in regards to the curriculum dev­elop­ment process. And I'm not quite sure what he was listening to, but I absolutely did say, yes, there is going to be a cyclical refinement of curriculum, and, yes, there is going to be a, sort of a timeline so that teachers and staff and admin­is­tra­tion will know when those timelines are and when that is all happening, Mr. Chair.

      So, absolutely, unlike the previous gov­ern­ment that kept surprising teachers every six months, it seemed, with different little tweaks and whatever that really didn't make sense, we're going to make sure that the curriculum is con­sistent; it looks and feels the same through­out the K‑to‑12 system.

      We're going to make sure that, again, going to and building upon and listening to the thousands and thousands and thousands of Manitobans that chimed in for the K‑to‑12 com­mis­sion, and one of the recom­men­dations is to do, you know, to take a look at the various curriculums and to start with phys. ed. and health and, of course, science to make sure that that schedule is out to our–to the people that need to know what the schedule is–and those are our teachers and administrators–and making sure that, you know, they're following the various framework in the curri­culum docu­ments that they have to be teaching to their students and making sure that, you know–and this is where I'll get into the minister–the member's question, making sure that Mamàhtawisiwin is embedded with­in that learning as well.

      We know that there's, you know, the member asks, you know, well, what is a middle-years class­room going to look like?

      Well, you know, I can tell you that I taught middle years for a few years, and my classroom looked a little different than the–than my colleague across the hall. It looked a little different from my colleague in a different school within the school division. I have no doubt that my classroom looked a little different from a colleague who's teaching, say, in Thompson in north­­ern Manitoba.

      This is what's the great thing with us listening and collaborating with Manitobans, Mr. Chair. The fact is is that we've developed the action plan, which is a living, breathing docu­ment–which, again, there's al­ways going to be that reassessment going on and making sure that, you know, various partners are having the op­por­tun­ity to chime in and to take a look at. Then, of course, Mamàhtawisiwin is a framework as well that is built upon the fact of the–you know, the Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing and is basically the action towards truth and recon­ciliation. Because we've said this–I've said this multiple times, and, you know, this isn't a Wayne Ewasko quotable; this is, you know, some­thing that–[interjection]–many people have said: you can't have recon­ciliation without truth.

      And so with that, Mr. Chair, and I know that I'm probably going to get called on the fact that I've said my own name, and I apologize for that if that's not allowed in com­mit­tee, Mr. Chair. But some of the policies that we are going to be looking at–and I know that school divisions have already embraced, and it's not even a have to yet, because we're working on making sure that we've got those tools in place, we've got the supports in place from the de­part­ment working with teachers.

      Some of the policies that–the four policy topics that we're talking about from Mamàhtawisiwin is auth­entic involvement, putting students at the centre, under­­­standing of world views, values, identities, tradi­tions and contemporary lifestyles and inclusive and culturally safe learning environments. Im­por­tant stuff, Mr. Chair.

      Now, for me as the Minister of Edu­ca­tion to go to any–and I'm going to use his example as a middle school classroom–to go across the province and tell them thou shalt–it look–shall look like blah, blah, blah, that's not on. That's not cool. That's not what he would want me to do. And he'd be in the Free Press tomorrow, or the local media, telling that I should keep my nose out of school divisions' plans.

      But, Mr. Chair, I'm just making sure that the autonomy is there for school divisions, for teachers and for admin­is­tra­tion to strengthen–

Mr. Chairperson: The minister's time is up.

      And I would remind the minister that–and I know you did recog­nize and explain and apologize, but I would remind him–or remind the minister that even if you're referring to yourself, you must refer to yourself as the minister or the member for Lac du Bonnet (Mr. Ewasko).

Mr. Altomare: It's interesting that the minister would describe it like that as far as thou shalt, what every classroom should look like.

      The intent of my earlier question, Mr. Chair, was just to get an indication of, you know, what are some of the things that you would notice in a classroom as you're going through? Of course, there are going to be differences, right? But after putting a–you know, I would probably imagine as a sig­ni­fi­cant amount of re­sources into this initiative, that you would notice some of that in a classroom.

       And that is what I was driving at. I'm never talk­ing about being very prescriptive as far as it comes to classrooms. No. But there are going to be certain signposts that you're going to notice as far as dif­ferences because we do know that classrooms evolve, absolutely.

      So that's–I want to put that on the record, too, Mr. Chair, because I think these are im­por­tant initia­tives, absolutely. And there needs to be, you know, some–you have to notice what the invest­ments have resulted in, and that was my–the root of my question.

      I'd like to move on to the Auditor General's report and what he was talking about as far as the de­part­ment being ready for the COVID‑19 pandemic. The Auditor General, Mr. Chair, did note a lack of pre­par­ation due to not having an emergency manage­ment pro­gram or proactive co‑ordination with K‑to‑12 leaders in the province. There are a list of eight recom­men­dations, including regular assessments of risks, hazards, vul­ner­abilities of the school system and the creation of plans to improve Internet connectivity so online learning is ac­ces­si­ble everywhere in the pro­vince and to avoid a repeat situation of what occurred during the pandemic.

* (16:00)

      The Auditor General, Mr. Chair, also indicated there was neither an emergency manage­ment program nor a co‑ordinated emergency plan for schools, said that the docu­ments that were there were outdated and did not consider the con­se­quences of remote learning–which, you know, it's a good thing to have some of these pieces put forward by the Auditor General so that we know that we can move forward and make the necessary adjustments.

      The Auditor General also found that there was no province-wide data collection happening to identify long-term risks and impacts of the pandemic, and little work had been done when it came to recovery plan­ning through­out the review period, which occurred between January of 2020 and February of 2021.

      So, Mr. Chair, my question to the minister is: Since the report has been released, what plans has the de­part­ment under­taken to ensure preparedness for the next public health event that may occur in the not-too-distant future?

Mr. Ewasko: I'm going to need a GPS system to figure out which way the member keeps going with his questions because he sort of goes a little bit on one set of questions and then wants some more infor­ma­tion but then 'droms'–jumps another topic.

      So, I'm going to go back a little bit with the Mamàhtawisiwin, and I'm not sure what he meant about the thou shalts. I'm not me–I'm not sure if he's saying that I should be telling them thou shalt do certain things or not. I don't–I'm hoping not, but nonetheless, I know that the member, my friend from Transcona, has no doubt done his homework and looked at the various different docu­ments that our de­part­ment has put out in col­lab­o­ration, again, with Manitobans and in, you know, taking into account the recom­men­dations put forward by the K‑to‑12 com­mis­sion, which, I must say, has not happened since 1959, so I'm glad to be part of a gov­ern­ment that actually did some­thing like that and, again, is building on the successes that are within our edu­ca­tion system.

      And, again, the member knows that there's var­ious things within the edu­ca­tion system, even in his own career as an educator and administrator at the early-years level, that there were things that were great, and there were things that were pretty good but needed some tweaking, and there are things not so good.

      So, you know, on the Mamàhtawisiwin, you know, so when he talks about, you know, what types of things are people going to be able to see within the classrooms. Well, I'll encourage the member, and I'm going to give him a little bit of a hint here to pick up the docu­ment and take a quick look because it specific­ally, Mr. Chair, outlines various things that, with the framework, and, again, weaving in Mamàhtawisiwin into those four pillars that I spoke about earlier in regards to the action plan, there is pretty much a great road map here in regards to the various roles and respon­si­bilities of everybody involved.

      There's a role for students in regards to the policies: authentic involvement; putting students at the centre; under­standing of world views, values, identities, traditions, et cetera; and inclusive and cul­turally safe learning environ­ment. So there's a role for students, and what is that going to look like under all those policies? It's laid out quite nicely. Teachers, of  course, teachers are paramount in the delivery of not only the action plan but the framework and Mamàhtawisiwin, so there's a role for teachers, and it tells–again, going under those four policies.

      School-based support teams, school leaders, school division, district leaders, Manitoba Edu­ca­tion and Early Child­hood–there's a role for us in the de­part­ment too, Mr. Chair. And it's all going to be happening and continuing to happen as it already has, it's just that it is going to be a little more focused, and there's a bit of a road map and making sure that those resources are there.

      Also, I would be remiss to mention, of course, our–another great support that we're doing for schools is in regards to our elders and knowledge keepers an­nounce­ment that we made for schools initiative. And, again, much like what I said earlier in regards to not every school is going to be using these tools, these resources the same, but just knowing that they're there is very im­por­tant.

      And it's–hey, it's unfor­tunate, Mr. Chair, that the previous gov­ern­ment never really thought of doing some of this stuff, but we're doing it and that's okay, because it's more about from today moving forward and, again, we launched these messages.

      So, the Elders and Knowledge Keepers in Schools Initiatives are going to support students, educators and families to learn First Nations, Métis and Inuit his­tories, languages, cultures, tradition, values, et cetera, and, of course, the traditional knowledge systems all across our K‑to‑12 learning environments.

      And, again, I encourage the member to pick up the docu­ment, Mamàhtawisiwin, and take a read. You know, it's not a difficult read; it's very nicely laid out; there's multiple colours to keep attentive.

      And with that, Mr. Chair, I'll answer his question on the OAG in my next answer.

Mr. Chairperson: I would like to remind the minister and also members of this com­mit­tee, just regarding the ap­pro­priateness of addressing members.

      Should not refer to people as my friend only, but rather refer to members by the min­is­try or the con­stit­uency or, if you're going to use my friend, then it should be my friend, the member from a parti­cular con­stit­uency.

      So, just for clari­fi­ca­tion.

Mr. Ewasko: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that guid­ance, and my apologies for–you know, I don't think that was an offensive comment, but it's a–you know, again, it's a–more of a rookie mistake.

      So, moving forward, if I do mention my friend, I will definitely mention my friend's con­stit­uency as well, from Transcona, so just so that–I've got many friends, I know, that's in the com­mit­tee room and that's probably listening to this riveting, riveting de­bate this afternoon. And so, if I'm talking about any specific friend, I'll make sure that I mention where they're from.

      Thanks, Mr. Chair, for your guidance.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the minister for that explanation, and I would call on the hon­our­able member for Transcona (Mr. Altomare).

Mr. Altomare: I do look forward to the minister's response regarding the AG report and as far as plans.

      These are im­por­tant issues that were brought up, and I'm anticipating the minister's response to that portion of my questioning earlier.

* (16:10)

Mr. Ewasko: Thank you, Mr. Chair, my friend from Dauphin, for allowing me to put a few words on the record in regards to the member for Transcona, and just so that, you know, he doesn't feel left out, my friend, the member from Transcona, on the OAG's report.

      So, unfor­tunately, the member from Transcona felt that it wasn't im­por­tant to give the whole story, but this is nothing new. And, again, I'm strongly encouraged by the relationship that I have with the member from Transcona that it's not necessarily in­ten­tional, but I do know that in the past, some of the members from the NDP, the op­posi­tion, sometimes tends to not put the whole story on the record and then, you know, leaves some room for inter­pre­ta­tion.

      So, I am going to put a few–the whole story, sort of, on the record. So, the OAG report, which was released in April–early April, I mean–we take a look at the time period, first of all. First of all, the time period of the OAG's report. First of all, you know what, before the member from Transcona takes some­thing that I'm saying out of context, I do want to thank the office of the Auditor General for their work and their acknowledgment of the efforts made by the de­part­ment and the broader edu­ca­tion system, keeping in mind that this was a worldwide pandemic.

      And the time frame, when the Auditor General did their in­vesti­gation–really, the audit–was done from January 1st, 2020, to February 28th, 2021, and many of the things that were pointed out in that audit, many things already had improved. And keep in mind that roles and respon­si­bilities, decisions and actions, you know, of other de­part­ments, of course, including the Office of the Chief Prov­incial Public Health Officer, individual schools or school divisions–I mean, everybody played a role, Mr. Chair.

      And, again, there was no playbook, necessarily. You know, I know that the Office of the Auditor General, you know, basically made a comment, you know, finding that the de­part­ment said, was not pre­pared for the pandemic. But–and this is what the member for Transcona fails to put on the record–but, and I quote, led an effective system response and did not initiate recovery efforts during the first year of the pandemic–led an effective system response.

      So, after things actually got rolling and listening to advice of the chief public health officer, the Department of Edu­ca­tion–and back–you know, back at the time, I'll just sort of give a bit of a shout-out, also, to my new de­part­ment family members from early child­hood learning–you know, again, we're adapt­ing and changing and 'hadding'–had to be flex­ible and nimble in regards to how we were reacting to the pandemic.

      And I applaud–because, of course, at that time when the audit was done, I was not, you know, the Edu­ca­tion Minister–but I applaud the hard work of the Edu­ca­tion minister at the time, as well as the de­part­ment staff and officials and all our edu­ca­tion partners all across the province.

      So, to the member through you, Mr. Chair, to the member from Transcona, you know, we–again, I thank the work of the–our–Office of the Auditor General. We have three working tables to address all eight of the recom­men­dations. You know, if he wants, I could go through a bit of a list as far as who's on those working tables.

      But basically, Mr. Chair, I believe that the de­part­ment worked very, very well in regards to the pan­demic. Is there things that we would do differently if we could back up to the start of January 1st when the audit began? Absolutely. But we've made very huge efforts moving forward.

Mr. Altomare: What I was looking for, Mr. Chair, is the guidance that the de­part­ment has taken from the AG report.

      I did hear the minister say that there are three working tables to address the recom­men­dations that have been esta­blished. I'm hoping that, as these tables are esta­blished, that, you know, some guidance is taken from the AG report. There's a lot of good things in there that, certainly, the de­part­ment can take some guidance from. And I see it as an important step, be­cause pre­par­ation is im­por­tant when it comes to critical de­part­ments like the De­part­ment of Ed and ensuring that they're ready to go when these events do befall the system.

       I do know, too, that what came out of that, Mr. Chair, was a real focus on how im­por­tant air quality is in schools, and air ventilation systems are in schools. It's become known, and there's a sig­ni­fi­cant body of research now that 'sairs' air ventilation and air quality is some­thing that can be not only improved but also focused on, because it keeps buildings and the people within the buildings safe; prevents the spread of airborne viruses like COVID, or like the common cold or like the flu. And these are im­por­tant pieces that need to be addressed.

      My question to the minister at this point is: Does the de­part­ment meet with directors of maintenance or secretary treasurers to get an idea of an audit of the quality of air system and air ventilation in our public schools?

* (16:20)

Mr. Ewasko: Again, I'd like to thank the member for the question.

      And it gives me an op­por­tun­ity to talk again about, you know, the various different things that, you know, the audit had shown. And again, I wanted to stress that, you know, we ap­pre­ciate the work of the office of the Auditor General. And, you know, taking a look at the response, and also for their office ac­knowl­edging the fact that it was an effective response overall and that once, like we said, during that year of being–of the first year of the pandemic and being audited, also acknowl­edging and knowing that we had already put many things in place since that audit had been completed. And then again, of the recom­men­dations put forward by the Auditor General, making sure that we're working.

      You know, all of the recom­men­dations are in pro­gress, and over the past year, we, the Manitoba gov­ern­ment, has made appreciatable–appreciable invest­ments into the edu­ca­tion system to ensure that school divisions can provide in-person learning and this in­cludes invest­ments that we've made; personal pro­tec­tive equip­ment. The member mentions ventilation pro­jects, which is great; I'm sort of glad that somehow, telepathically, I messaged him and asked him to bring up ventilation because I think–I mean, we still have a lot of work to do, Mr. Chair, but I think the mess that we inherited in 2016 and I think the col­lab­o­rative ap­proach that our team within the PC gov­ern­ment took to high­light some of the weaknesses within the infra­structure, I guess, within our school divisions and our schools had absolutely been lacking.

      Because we know that the former gov­ern­ment never met a ribbon that they didn't like to cut, Mr. Chair. And some of the deferred maintenance and various things along those lines. I mean, we know that we've got 20-plus years of catch-up to do on deferred maintenance, and this doesn't only go in the edu­ca­tion system, but absolutely all across this great province of ours.

      But, you know, in regards to, you know, capital, and I know that the member's asked the question about whether the de­part­ment speaks to secretary-treasurers or maintenance supervisors or whatever, I think is a great question because it gives me that op­por­tun­ity to say, yes, absolutely, there is multiple con­ver­sa­tions happening between the de­part­ment and those officials within school divisions, Mr. Chair. I mean, we talk about, you know, the safe school funding alone that we provided to school divisions through­out the pan­demic. I mean, for the '21-22 school year, you know, we had $63 million–were allocated through the Safe Schools Fund. That basically breaks down to, you know, $45 million, you know, helping with mental health and well-being, safety, addressing learning im­pacts and vaccine promotion.

      You know, we had $6.8 million in ventilation im­prove­ments. You know, divisions were asked to, you know, take an assessment of, you know, what is your ventilation system? How are they working? What's going on? Because we know that the previous gov­ern­ment–the previous NDP gov­ern­ment really didn't feel that deferred maintenance was im­por­tant, and so we felt it was im­por­tant, and, of course, you know, com­ing into COVID, air quality, hey, pretty im­por­tant, Mr. Chair.

      So, we made sure that we're asking school divisions to go and take a bit of an inventory on their ventilation needs, and we provided–we made sure that there was a couple avenues for them to–school divisions to approach the de­part­ment–and also de­part­ment under the MLA for Brandon West–to make sure that their capital im­prove­ments are met. I know that the member from Transcona fails to commend our gov­ern­ment for increased funding to edu­ca­tion, but it's a fact.

Mr. Altomare: It's interesting that the minister, Mr. Chair, brings up the maintenance dollars that are needed to ensure schools are safe learning environ­ments. Those are im­por­tant–that's im­por­tant infor­ma­tion to know and certainly some­thing that school divi­sions are–have had to deal with for a number of years, especially since 2016.

      The maintenance deficits in many school divi­sions through­out this province are noted. It's some­thing that they regularly bring up with the de­part­ment and are looking forward to a plan to address many of those maintenance deficits that do exist. It's im­por­tant. I'm glad that the minister brought that up because it's going to take sig­ni­fi­cant planning and invest­ment to ensure that right now, what's noted by the experts is the need for improved ventilation in schools.

      I will also say, Mr. Chair, that $16 million to im­prove ventilation is a start, one would suppose, and I would like to see more dedi­cated to this because this is an im­por­tant piece because it's not just about COVID or any pandemic. This is just about creating great learning and working environments for kids, and I would anticipate that the minister and his de­part­ment allocate the necessary resources to tackle this deficit because it's an im­por­tant one that needs to be looked at and one that does require a lot of attention.

      What also requires a lot of attention, Mr. Chair, is the state of equity in edu­ca­tion in this province. Many in Manitoba have called the intro­duction of edu­ca­tion equity offices in Winnipeg and in other cities and parts of our province as absolutely essential in order to ad­dress systemic racism and improve repre­sen­tation and out­comes for all kids and be accountable to the public.

      It's im­por­tant that kids see role models that they can look up to, especially in their classrooms; seeing them­selves reflected in their teachers and other adults that work in the building is im­por­tant. It produces hope in kids. It produces some­thing that is really im­por­tant, and I do know that Equity Matters–there's the group that exists that has spent a lot of time and re­sources in meeting with politicians in Manitoba.

      And so, Mr. Chair, my question to the minister is: Has he been in contact with Equity Matters in Manitoba, and what plans have come out of those meet­­ings, and if he can describe those plans?

* (16:30)

Mr. Ewasko: Again, good thing that I am able to take a look in the crystal ball and see where the member from Transcona–my friend, the member from Transcona–is going with his questions because we went from OAG report to ventilation and then to Equity Matters. And it's just–it's a fun afternoon, Mr. Chair. And–but, that being said, I would like to go back for a couple seconds before I answer his question on Equity Matters.

      So just to be clear, I just want to make sure that the member knows, and I ap­pre­ciate the member say­ing and applauding us for the great work that we have been doing on ventilation. I know that we had a, you know, a huge mess to clean up, but we're doing it and I ap­pre­ciate the member for acknowl­edging that we are moving forward. We have a lot of work to–yet to do, Mr. Chair, and I know that if the member has specific questions in regards to, you know, the per­centages of schools that have air conditioning or don't have air conditioning or improved ventilation sys­tems, I know that the member would probably be interested in joining the Minister of Labour, Consumer Pro­tec­tion and Gov­ern­ment Services (Mr. Helwer) on that question.

      But I would like to share with the member, because I've said it multiple times in question period, but I'm not sure if the member's really taking it to heart, that, you know, our $327-million invest­ments in edu­ca­tion over the last two years–which is an over-17.2 per cent increase–that doesn't include, Mr. Chair, the capital funding that we've dedi­cated to schools.

      And–but the member doesn't want to talk about that because it's a good news story. It's a great news story. It's–you know–all, you know, for the last few years, we were dedicating $160 million to capital im­prove­ments and renovations and all that. We've actually upped that by $100 million, so we've actually–we've dedi­cated $260 million over the last few years to capital im­prove­ments and, basically, to address some of the deferred maintenance that the pre­vious NDP gov­ern­ment just didn't really pay attention to, Mr. Chair.

      And within that, Mr. Chair, good news story, we've got, you know–we've made a commit­ment of building 20 new schools by 2026-27. And you know what, we needed to up that as well, so we're actually going to be building 22 new schools, which is great for, again, planning ahead for the future.

      Which–I know that the previous gov­ern­ment, all they wanted to do was build some portables, and they kept building portables. Don't get me wrong, we still need some portables, which is great, but at the same time, it's building these new schools, Mr. Chair, and having that foresight to making sure that we're getting ready for the future. Because we're going to have so many new Manitobans come into Manitoba, and they're going to be bringing their kids, and we're just going to have to teach them and have room for them, and it's just fantastic infor­ma­tion.

      To Equity Matters: absolutely, equity matters, Mr. Chair. And I think that, when students are sitting in the classrooms and they're taking a look at their teachers who are instructing them in front of the class­room or within the classroom, within the building, they want to see them­selves there as well. So that's why we're working hard with our various partners all across this great province of ours–our edu­ca­tion partners.

      But again, you know–I know I'm going to say some­­thing here that I know that the member knows, but for those listening at home and, you know, tuned into this conversation about Estimates of Edu­ca­tion and Early Child­hood Learning, the member knows that school divisions and school boards actually hire the teachers. And I know they're working hard to make sure that they're hiring equitable and many, you know, different people with different cultural back­grounds to educate our students all across this great province of ours, Mr. Chair.

      We've had meetings with Equity Matters. I'm not going to go into specific dates–Tom Simms, Crystal Labera [phonetic], Suni Matthews, to name a few–and we are working on various different things moving forward. They're absolutely thrilled with the recom­men­dations from the K‑to‑12 com­mis­sion, and they're thrilled with the action plan, Mr. Chair.

      So I look forward to the member's next question.

Mr. Altomare: I did hear the minister say some­thing about an action plan regarding equity? Can he expand on what he was referring to?

      It was just in the last few seconds there.

Mr. Ewasko: So, I'm not quite sure why my friend, the member from Transcona, has that scowly look on his face, but I was absolutely–I thought–pretty clear that within the action plan–you know, it's definitely within the action plan to make sure that equity is brought forward within our school system.

      Again, it's a living, breathing docu­ment. I strong­ly encourage the member to take a read. If he doesn't have a copy, if he wants–you know, and this is not one of those things where we need, you know, the Clerk's office to write down and get him a copy. If he really needs a copy, I can get him a copy. I can give him a copy tomorrow or later today. I can high­light some of the pages as far as where some his questions–you know, really, the answers are there.

      But I mean, Equity Matters is a key stake­holder of ours, partner on having con­ver­sa­tions about making sure that, you know, as we move forward, educating our students, that it–I mean, they're thrilled.

      And maybe the member himself has met with equity members–Equity Matters, sorry, Mr. Chair. And I'm sure that they would say that they're happy with the action plan. It's one of our guiding principles within the action plan. I'm not going to do a Where's Waldo? thing–this with him, but I strongly encourage him to read the action plan.

      It's in there, so he didn't need to have that look on his face in regards to what I meant by equity and the fact that it's in the action plan, because I think even if we look back in Hansard, I was pretty clear.

* (16:40) 

Mr. Adrien Sala (St. James): I'd like to continue the con­ver­sa­tion that we were able to have last week in regards to child care. I want to thank my colleague for giving an op­por­tun­ity to ask some questions, and I'd like to thank the minister for being here today to answer some of them.

      I'd like to just go back to the question of subsidy, which is what we ended on last week. Today, of course, we did raise that in question period, and I just–I'm not sure that we received much clarity from the minister last week when we discussed this gov­ern­ment's approach to the subsidy. So I'm just hoping he can provide some clarity over the rollout and what's been happening with that.

      One specific question I'd like to ask and I'm seek­ing clarity on is: We're hearing from child-care centres that anyone who applies for the subsidy, regardless of whether or not they fall outside of the–above the $83,000 income threshold, everybody's getting it. So I'm hearing stories of families that are, you know, $250,000-a-year income families that are applying and have been getting months of free child care, which raises serious questions about equity and how these dollars are being distributed.

      Again, this is what we're hearing from centres. Can the minister provide clarity as to why that's hap­pening and a little bit more clarity about what his gov­ern­ment is doing to respond to the confusion out there about the subsidy rollout?

Mr. Ewasko: I ap­pre­ciate my friend from St. James asking me a few questions.

      He started the questioning about–he thanked me for being here for these questions and answers on Estimates. And I'm not quite sure where else I would be. But that being said, I thank him for being here as well to be able to ask some questions, and it's going to give me an op­por­tun­ity to be able to put some infor­ma­tion on the record that hopefully will bring clarity.

      So, I'm not going to–you know, I'm not going to go down the vein of pointing out to the member from St. James, you know, whether he's putting false nar­ratives on the record or whatever else. I'm not going to go there right now. I'm just going to basically–he's looking for some clarity. Some people that he's talking to are asking for some clarity. He's saying specific centres are asking for some clarity around the subsidy rollout.

      As I've answered him in question period, you know, I mean, one of the key points to this rollout–and, again, trying to make sure that, No. 1, that we're increasing seats, but we're also making sure that the child-care seats are affordable. And so by–rolling out the $75 million to improve the affordability of child care through the advanced subsidy payments to facilities was very im­por­tant.

      I'm not sure, you know, as far as clarity to the sector–I mean, so we had two great an­nounce­ments in February. I know the member no doubt read the news releases and was there for listening to what I had to say, but also the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) and Minister Gould and even the Prime Minister was one of the–was on one of them, as I said today in question period as well.

      I mean, we're talking about a major, major, major subsidy indexing increase here, and the goal of the subsidy rollout is to make sure that as quickly as we possibly could, make sure that those dollars are rolled out to those families that need ahead of time, during the application process.

* (16:50)

      As far as confusion goes, I mean, I'm not quite sure what the member's a hundred per cent speaking about, and I'm hoping, then, that the member from St. James can then pass along to me any child-care centres, or directors or board members that he's aware of, so that we can help with some clarity.

      Because the an­nounce­ments happened in February. Since February, we've put out com­muni­cations, we've put out circulars. Matter of fact, the member from St. James mentioned the last time that we got together for Estimates, he mentioned about the circulars, which–he knows that there's infor­ma­tion flowing. We had a couple virtual workshops, town­houses, workshops where people could ask questions. One was on March 30th. We just had another one on May 20th–over 400 parti­ci­pants, Mr. Chair.

      I mean, so I think as far as clarity and any type of that–I mean, and don't get me wrong, there's always going to be times when individuals have further ques­tions. And so, again, we wanted to make sure that the $75 million, you know, in the time period of being able to–to be able to do the application process, Mr. Chair. I mean, some of the eligibility, that's taken into account into the process. And this is from the depart­ment.

      So, the child-care centres, what they need to do is they need to continue to do what they've always been doing, and that's provi­ding the de­part­ment with their enrolment and who's sitting in the chairs. But the de­part­ment–I mean, some of the things that are for eligibility is: household income, the family makeup, number of children and ages of the children. And then that's where the subsidies sort of come into play, Mr. Chair.

      So, as far as–I know that we'll probably have another couple questions coming from the member on this topic, so I look forward to those and provi­ding more clarity as time goes on here, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sala: In relation to confusion about the subsidy, I'm going to read the minister an email that was sent from a local child-care director to ELCC, and the response that they received.

      This is to ELCC: Hello, I'm looking for more infor­ma­tion on the whole subsidy advance situation. I did not encourage our families enrolled as of February 6th, 2022 to apply. It seemed unlikely that they would receive a quote, unquote free child care, and I did not want to infer they would.

      Very few of our families took this up and applied, so now it seems our other families were at a dis­advantage since they did not apply. It now appears to me that the program is extended to July 23rd, 2022, so can I now encourage all those older families and any new ones to apply and receive the three months credit?

      This has been a very unclear process, and cer­tainly not the way I would expect our gov­ern­ment to do busi­ness. Clarity is much ap­pre­ciated.

      Here's the response from ELCC, from your gov­ern­ment: Hello. Thank you for your email. I under­stand the frustration. Yes, ELCC is advising all licen­sed child-care facilities to strongly encourage all families–not those that should qualify; all families–to apply for subsidy.

      Facilities should use the subsidy advancement to credit all families enrolled in the child-care facility–subsidized families and non-subsidized families–starting February 6th, 2022. If facilities have not done so and still have a surplus of the subsidy advancement allocations, the facility may credit all families three months free child care using a subsidy advancement to cover child-care costs starting imme­diately. If the facility does not have a surplus, then only credit those families who have approved subsidy.

      I wanted to read that for the minister, just so that he could hear it right from what was shared by gov­ern­ment to a child-care director in our com­mu­nity, to give him a sense of what's driving confusion, frustra­tion and, frankly, what's driving a huge missed op­por­tun­ity for a lot of low-income families who are not learning about the subsidy, who are being left behind. Meanwhile, as this states, we have other families that are far beyond the income limits that are applying and are getting free childcare.

      This isn't partisan politics, Minister, this is just infor­ma­tion I'm sharing. And it's genuinely con­cern­ing, because there's families that are missing out on potentially thousands of dollars of income support at a time when they're really struggling.

      And I am happy to share this email with you. I've mentioned this to you and I will send this to you so you can see it.

      I do want to insert one last question, because I think we're going to run out of time here. Very quickly, around supply: we need more child-care spaces for Manitoban families in this province. We're in des­per­ate need of that. The minister knows there's a huge line–a huge number of families that are in the queue for spaces. The Manitoba child-care agree­ment that was recently signed states that this province will seek to add 23,000 child-care spaces by '25-26. That will ultimately create coverage for a total of only 41–or, 40.1 per cent of preschool children in Manitoba, assuming that we have 121,000 children zero to six that would qualify. And that's–those are numbers that are all from the agree­ment.

      Every other province, or almost every other pro­vince has committed to meeting 59 per cent or cover­ing 59 per cent of children in those age categories. Why is Manitoba getting these same federal supports getting 20 per cent less spaces than other provinces?

Mr. Chairperson: I would ask the member for St. James, is that letter that you read, is it private cor­res­pon­dence?

Mr. Sala: It is private cor­res­pon­dence, but I was given permission to share this.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay, if you could–we would need four copies tabled, and if you only have one, we can take it and photocopy it for the members of this com­mit­tee.

      The hon­our­able minister. Are you ready to an­swer yet? No?

Mr. Ewasko: I think, you know, definitely, I look forward to taking a look at the email, taking a look at the response and, of course, see the timing of that and whatever.

      I mean, definitely, you know, we're trying to make sure that those who absolutely need are getting and that they're applying and they're going to be get­ting their money. This is the most generous subsidy program ever in the history of the province, Mr. Chair, in regards to child-care spaces.

      I'm assuming we're going to be going back into Estimates shortly as well, so I can continue on some of the member's ad­di­tional questions the next time. But, definitely, I want to point out that the subsidy indexing increase–Mr. Chair, basically, if we take a look at various amounts, the 45 per cent that we have done here in Manitoba is the largest. The last indexing fee increase by the previous NDP gov­ern­ment, in July of 2012, was five–

Mr. Chairperson: Order.

Hour being 5 p.m., com­mit­tee rise.

Chamber

Executive Council

* (15:10)

Mr. Chairperson (Andrew Micklefield): Will the Com­mit­tee of Supply please come to order?

      This section of the Com­mit­tee of Supply will now resume con­sid­era­tion of the Estimates for, or of Executive Council.

      At this time, we invite min­is­terial and op­posi­tion staff to enter the Chamber, and we ask the members to please intro­duce their staff in attendance.

Hon. Heather Stefanson (Premier): I just wanted to intro­duce the staff that I have with me today Mr. Michael Richards, the deputy Cabinet secretary as well as the deputy minister for intergovernmental relations, and I have Jordan Sisson, my chief of staff.

Mr. Chairperson: As previously stated, in accordance with subrule 77(16), during the con­sid­era­tion of de­part­mental Estimates, questioning for each de­part­ment shall proceed in a global manner.

      The floor is now open for questions.

Mr. Wab Kinew (Leader of the Official Opposition): I wanted to begin with some­what of an opening comment for this afternoon before I pose the first question.

      You know, I would like to begin com­mit­tee this afternoon by asking about the tragic fire that happened in Pimicikamak Cree Nation earlier this year. Everyone across the province was very moved and very upset at the tragic loss of the young people and members of a family.

      And I know the Premier travelled up to the com­mu­nity at the time, and as a result, I think there's that shared interest in making sure that we do what we can, that we take the steps to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring again.

      I have invited the–some of the members of the family to join us today. We have Orton and Jen Muskego who are the, you know, grandparents on the mom's side of that family. And I should say for the benefit of the com­mit­tee, quite often when we have guests, it's like, you know, an adversarial situation sometimes. But I just want to assure the com­mit­tee that this is not being done in a partisan way. I took the op­por­tun­ity to speak with the Premier beforehand and just to give her the heads-up as to the sort of the ques­tions that I want to explore here, and we just took a moment to speak with the family as well, just for a few minutes before getting started.

      And I think all of us across the province, we want to see steps taken to ensure that there's safe housing on reserves across the province, including in Cross Lake, which is the com­mu­nity that we're speaking about here. This is an issue that moved many people, and so we just want to make sure that there continues to be that focus on what we can do to address it.

      So I did want to begin by talking about the Northern Flood Agree­ment which, you know, Cross Lake and Pimicikamak is still a party to, and ask about what the Province is doing to implement that. But I'm sure the Premier probably would have some com­ments as well, so maybe I'll just leave it at that for the time being.

Mrs. Stefanson: I just want to thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion and welcome our guests in the gallery today. Orton and Jen, it was, you know, pleased to meet you today and, obviously, our thoughts and pray­ers go to you and your family for the horrific tragedy that took place in Pimicikamak Cree Nation.

      And I just wanted to say I did–I was able to, as the Leader of the Op­posi­tion mentioned–I was able to get to the com­mu­nity to visit with members of the family at the time and just the horrific tragedy that has taken place and really visit it, you know, myself. It affected not just family members, but, indeed, an entire com­mu­nity. Certainly, what I saw and the out­pouring of love and support for the family members was amazing to see, and just, again, just so honoured to be there and to offer our con­dol­ences in person to the family.

      And so I'll leave it at that in terms of the com­ments today, and these are im­por­tant discussions. And I, again, ap­pre­ciate the Leader of the Op­posi­tion, you know, that this is not a partisan issue. This is one of wanting to ensure that we get services into those com­mu­nities that are needed and that we work in all levels of gov­ern­ment to ensure that we work towards en­suring those services are there for members of the com­­­mu­nity when they need them.

      And so I will leave it at that for now, and I'm happy to take any questions from the Leader of the Op­posi­tion.

Mr. Kinew: I want to–on behalf of our team and, you know, so many people across the province–extend our con­dol­ences to the family and let them know that we are not going to forget your loved ones.

* (15:20)

      I wanted to ask about the Northern Flood Agreement in relation to this because the NFA is an agree­ment that the Province is a party to, directly, and also Manitoba Hydro is a party to that agree­ment, as well, along with the Gov­ern­ment of Canada. And as a result, even though quite often there's a con­ver­sa­tion about on-reserve issues being federal juris­dic­tion, here with the NFA, we have an agree­ment that brings the Province into the fold.

      So I wanted to ask just a very general question at the outset, which is, when it comes to Cross Lake, what is the Province doing to implement and to honour the Northern Flood Agree­ment?

Mrs. Stefanson: I just want to start by saying that we take our obligations under the Northern Flood Agreement very seriously. I know that this issue came up when I visited the com­mu­nity and I spoke to several individuals there, including the chief, about Manitoba Hydro, as well. I think there was some challenges of maybe meeting with Manitoba Hydro, and so from that meeting, I know, you know, we did ensure that, you know, I did pass that along that we obviously need to sit down at the table to have these discussions further. I think that was the most–that was the issue sort of at the time.

      And I'm certainly–I'm happy to go back and follow up with Manitoba Hydro to find out where the status is of those discussions with those com­mu­nities under the Northern Flood Agree­ment.

      I do know that after–there were other issues that were brought up there, as well, including issues of overcrowding and housing and so, subsequent to my visit to the com­mu­nity, I did speak to our Minister of Indigenous Recon­ciliation and Northern Relations (Mr. Lagimodiere) and asked him to send a letter to the–his federal counterparts, Minister Hajdu and Mr. Hussen, I believe, and call on them to take imme­diate action on–in some of these areas as well.

      And so that letter did go out, I believe, in February 22nd, so it was some­what after that–it was just shortly thereafter–shortly after my visit to the com­­mu­nity. So those are some of the actions that we have taken, but of course, we take the situation very seriously. We want to work very closely with the com­mu­nities affected, and we want to work very closely with other levels of gov­ern­ment to ensure that we get the services that are needed in these com­mu­nities.

Mr. Kinew: And–[interjection]–oh, yes. I can intro­duce staff.

Mr. Chairperson: You can intro­duce your staff, perhaps.

Mr. Kinew: Yes. So, I intro­duce my chief of staff here, Mark Rosner, who's joining us again today.

      Thank the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) for the answer to the previous question. We had sent a similar letter to the federal gov­ern­ment as well. I'm wonder­ing if the Premier would be able to share the letter with the committee either by tabling it or as a matter under ad­vise­ment later on.

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes. I don't have any problem with sharing that with the com­mit­tee. I believe we'll get some copies. This one has some markings on it; we'll get a clean copy of it and make sure that it's–and three copies of it as well, and make sure that it's available here.

      It was also cc'd to Dan Vandal, Grand Chief Arlen Dumas, Grand Chief Garrison Settee, Grand Chief Jerry Daniels, as well as Chief David Monias as well. 

Mr. Kinew: Yes. Thanks for that commit­ment, and I don't believe that we've received a response to our letter, but I would ask whether the Premier or the minister ever received a response to the letter that their gov­ern­ment sent yet.

Mrs. Stefanson: I don't believe that my office has received a response to the letter but, again, I will double-check to see if there was a response in the de­part­ment of northern recon­–oh, sorry–Indigenous recon­ciliation and northern relations.

Mr. Kinew: All right. I thank the Premier for that.

      I was speaking with, you know, Chief Monias about the issue of the Northern Flood Agree­ment and, you know, I think I'm sharing his words fairly ac­curately when he says the Northern Flood Agree­ment is about the eradication of mass poverty in Cross Lake and in other com­mu­nities.

      And speaking with the family and also sub­sequently to Chief Monias, in that con­ver­sa­tion they  talk about imple­men­ting the Northern Flood Agreement to eradicate mass poverty, spe­cific­ally around housing and access to water and sewage for the com­mu­nity.

      So I'm wondering if the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) will implement the Northern Flood Agree­ment in a way that addresses those issues of housing and water and sewer services in Cross Lake.

Mrs. Stefanson: So, again, I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for that question, and I know we're en­deavouring to get a copy of the letter to–that we've sent off to the federal minister.

      But in the letter, we did high­light the importance of these very issues that the Leader of the Op­posi­tion just mentioned, and I'll just read from the letter as we're going to table this anyway: The time has come for meaningful action and funding for basic neces­sities like safe housing, safe potable water and to sup­port and mobilize Indigenous housing and rapid housing initiatives through home building, adequate water and wastewater infra­structure, fire suppression services and other health and safety measures.

* (15:30)

      So this is certainly something that we have brought up with the federal gov­ern­ment. It's very im­por­tant that we work col­lab­o­ratively on those initia­tives. And, again, I'll endeavour to find out if we re­ceived a response, and if not, you know, certainly, we'll send a follow-up letter to them as well to follow up on these issues.

Mr. Kinew: I ap­pre­ciate the response there and the willingness to col­lab­o­rate with the feds. So just to put a bit of a finer point on it: is the Premier willing to col­lab­o­rate in the form of addressing housing issues and water issues and sewage issues with the com­mu­nity as part of their obligations under the Northern Flood Agree­ment?

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes. I mean, I think it's im­por­tant to recog­nize the need for a part­ner­ship and taking that kind of approach when it comes to these very im­por­tant issues to address overcrowding and other issues related to this area. And under–you know, we're definitely committed to reaching out to the federal gov­­ern­­ment, to working with the federal gov­ern­ment in a part­ner­ship to address these im­por­tant issues.

Mr. Kinew: I would like to ask about the same issues on the town side, if you will. And I'm sort of doing air quotes for the town side of Cross Lake, there, because you have a–I believe a Northern Affairs com­mu­nity there as well, as they're kind of known. So that would be an area of prov­incial responsibility. What steps is the Province going to take with respect to housing and water and sewer infra­structure when it comes to the quote, unquote, town side of Cross Lake?

Mrs. Stefanson: I just wanted to say I've got a copy–three copies of that letter, which I'm happy to table now.

      And just in response to the Leader of the Opposition's question, I think it's very im­por­tant that we work very closely with the federal gov­ern­ment. We certainly recog­nize our respon­si­bility when it comes to Northern Affairs com­mu­nities, and–but we also–I think we need to work very closely with–both on, you know, on reserves as well as on the town side as well and take sort of a whole approach to all of this to ensure–not–it's not sort of one as opposed to the other; it's really looking at both and really developing a strategy that is complimentary, I think, to addressing many of the issues of concern: things like basic neces­sities like safe housing, safe potable water, and to sup­port and mobilize, you know, Indigenous housing and rapid housing initiatives.

      So I think these are very im­por­tant issues that we can't look in isolation. I think we need to take, you know, a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach, which we are working between our different gov­ern­ment de­part­ments, including, you know, housing; so it would be the De­part­ment of Families, including Infra­structure and, you know–so we'll continue to work on our side in a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach when it comes to offering these services to those com­mu­nities.

      But I think we can't look at it in isolation. We've got to look at it together and ensure that we're also bring­ing in the federal gov­ern­ment as they are, you know, a sig­ni­fi­cant partner in all of this.

Mr. Kinew: Yes, I thank the Premier for the answer to the question there.

      I just wanted to share some words just for the Premier and her team about the importance of housing on this issue.

      The, you know, family who joins us today have spelled out very clearly, the home that we're talking about with respect to this fire was 16 feet by 16 feet. It was a house that built for–to be an isolation unit for COVID‑19. So when we're talking about 16 feet, we're talking about the distance between the Premier and I–even less than that right now. And so you imagine a space of that distance, squared, and then you put a fridge, you put a stove, you put a mattress in there–seven people were living in that space at the time of this tragedy.

      So I share that because, when I heard that from the grandfather, it was very striking. Like, it just made the issue of overcrowding and the necessity to have more access to housing, made it very clear, very visible–you can visualize it–and it made it very plain. So I just wanted to share that comment as an illustra­tion for the need–the urgent need–for action when it comes to these issues.

      And the issue of Northern Affairs–and, again, I know the naming has changed with the change in the de­part­ment, of course, so I guess they're probably Northern Relations com­mu­nities now. But, you know, whether you're in Cross Lake or you're in Norway House, Nelson House, Berens River, many other com­mu­nities, there is many com­mu­nities where you have a large First Nation with a–either a quote unquote, you know, town side or Métis com­mu­nity side not too far away. So I would also just share those comments on the record, that we do have these similar dynamics across the province, parti­cularly across northern Manitoba.

      One of the issues that I think we have–or, one of the responses to this issue that we've seen in other juris­dic­tions has just been the provision of fire detec­tors or smoke detectors on reserve; I know some pro­vinces have moved in that direction. I'm wondering if that's some­thing the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) can com­mit to, a program to provide smoke detectors on reserve across Manitoba.

Mrs. Stefanson: I ap­pre­ciate the question from the Leader of the Op­posi­tion.

      And, certainly, that was an issue that came up, as well, when I was meeting with members of the com­mu­nity and Chief Monias as well. And it is one of those things, it's one of those basic necessities, and that's some­thing that we also brought up with the federal gov­ern­ment as well, to ensure that, you know, part of safe housing is ensuring that there's adequate, you know, smoke detectors in place to ensure that–you know, that that's all part of provi­ding safe housing, I believe.

* (15:40)

      So, this is some­thing that we have brought up with the federal gov­ern­ment as well, and is all a part of those discussions that–those ongoing discussions that we'll continue to have with the federal government and with the com­mu­nity, to ensure that we have the access to that, you know, safe housing in the com­mu­nity.

Mr. Kinew: I thank the Premier, also.

      I wanted to ask about training, both for fire­fighters and on the fire pre­ven­tion side because, cer­tainly, we know–well, I just recall, like, you know, growing up, you'd hear talk of, like, fire plans; you know, what's your fire plan, what's the safety plan? We do that at work quite a bit, you know, there's a safety plan for a building, for example; school, they often do fire drills, et cetera, et cetera.

      So, I'm just wondering what sort of prov­incial pro­grams–maybe we could just start on the pre­ven­tion side, in terms of fire pre­ven­tion. What sort of prov­incial programs do we currently have, or might we look at in the near future, to prevent fires, both across Manitoba but also, you know, spe­cific­ally, in this in­stance, on reserves in Manitoba?

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, I think this is a very im­por­tant discussion to have and to look into. Obviously, what prov­incial programs or fire pre­ven­tion programs that are being offered out there. I just don't have the detail–that kind of detail with me today, in terms of what–you know, what some of those programs are.

      And I think it's an im­por­tant discussion to have and would be good, I think, to ask in the Com­mit­tee of Supply of Indigenous Recon­ciliation and Northern Relations, where they would be, I think, more ade­quately able to provide the Leader of the Op­posi­tion with the answers to those specific programs.

      But I think it is a very im­por­tant question, and I think it is some­thing that, obviously, we will–you know, I'm pretty passionate about wanting to–you know, to help in this situation, and to help on these First Nations, as well, to ensure that we have–you know, that safety initiatives are offered in those com­mu­nities, when it comes to fire pre­ven­tion.

      And so, I think that those–that would be a good question to ask at those de­part­mental Estimates. But a very good discussion to have kind of the overarching–you know, these are some of the things that should be considered when looking at how do we work col­labor­atively with the federal gov­ern­ment, with the com­­mu­nity, to ensure that these types of programs are there.

      And I think that's an im­por­tant high-level dis­cussion for us to have.

Mr. Kinew: I thank the Premier.

      I wanted to ask a similar question, just with re­spect to fire­fighters and to ask what programs there is–there are, rather, about training fire­fighters, in­cluding ones that would operate on-reserve.

      I know there's–there are many firefighting crews across the province, many of them located on First Nations. Many of them are fire­fighters locally in their com­mu­nity; others fire–others fight forest fires. We have, I guess, 70-some-odd fire­fighters in Whiteshell right now, that the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) and I toured overhead of. So, by way of acknowl­edgment of all those folks and their efforts on all of our behalves.

       But I wonder whether one of the things coming out of this isn't maybe more resources and more train­ing op­por­tun­ities for fire­fighters to be able to game out the various situations that they may encounter, and therefore, be better positioned to respond to the var­ious challenges that might face them.

      So I wanted to ask about firefighting training that the Province might be under­taking, including that which could be offered on reserves across Manitoba.

Mrs. Stefanson: I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for the question. It's an im­por­tant one and, in fact, I think he'll see the letter that we tabled. And in that letter, we did raise fire suppression services that are being offered and how can the federal gov­ern­ment help to ensure that those services are offered on reserve, as well, to ensure that, you know, the safety of people living on the reserve.

      So, it is, again, some­thing at a high level that, you know, we are having discussions about. We would like to see what kind of training. I think these are good questions to ask, as well, and we'll continue to work with the federal gov­ern­ment and see what kind of pro­gram­ming is being offered elsewhere that could be offered in these com­mu­nities in Manitoba as well.

      And, so, again, we'll continue to have that col­lab­o­rative approach to all of this and ensure that we have, you know, the ap­pro­priate, you know, training of fire­fighters on reserve. And, again, those are discussions that we're having with the federal gov­ern­ment.

Mr. Kinew: I wanted to ask spe­cific­ally about a, I guess, technique of responding to a house fire called breaching a house and wonder whether the Province would commit to ensure that training for fire­fighters in this sort of situation would encompass, you know, whatever training is necessary for a fire­fighter to be able to breach a house, should that be necessary or ap­pro­priate under–in a fire.

Mrs. Stefanson: Again, want to thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for the question.

      And, you know, I believe very passionately in these–in ensuring that these services are offered in these com­mu­nities. And I will work and do whatever I can with–in a col­lab­o­rative way with the federal gov­ern­ment to ensure that these services are offered.

      When it comes to training programs with–you know, in general, training programs that are offered with respect to fire­fighters, it certainly would fall under the Office of the Fire Com­mis­sioner, which falls under Munici­pal Relations.

      And so I think, again, I would just–to have a high-level discussion, I think we're in agree­ment that, you know, that we need to move to ensure that there's more that is offered in terms of the basic necessities on–in those com­mu­nities. When it gets into the details of the types of training programs that are being offered, I think that would more appropriately be asked under Munici­pal Relations, spe­cific­ally under what those programs are that are being offered, and the Office of the Fire Commissioner.  

* (15:50)

Mr. Obby Khan, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair

Mr. Kinew: I also thank the Premier.

      There is a wage and salary inequity for some of these life-saving first respon­ders on reserve. It's my under­standing that, I guess, some of these fire­fighters, their compensation is just $40 per call. It doesn't matter if they're there for 10 minutes or 10 hours. It's like a lump-sum payment, as opposed to how remun­er­­a­tion might exist in other situations.

      So I was just wondering if the Premier might commit to raising that issue with the federal gov­ern­ment and trying to ensure that, again, for these folks who are being asked to step up in times of crisis and, you know, who we're turning to to be heroes, if they can have that issue addressed.

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes. No, I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion.

      I don't know whether or not that is the case. That's the first I have heard of this and–but certainly, I have no problem bringing that up as the wide range of the issues that we have brought up with the federal gov­ern­ment with respect to these basic necessities and the safety within the com­mu­nities, and certainly, when it comes to our fire­fighters, the in­cred­ible work that they do day in and day out to save lives in our com­mu­nities. And so I just want to thank them–just take this op­por­tun­ity to thank them for the incredible work that they do.

      But obviously, I have no problem bringing some­thing like this up with the federal gov­ern­ment to see, you know, whether or not this is the case, and if it is, what the plan is moving forward.

Mr. Kinew: I thank the Premier.

      One of the ideas that came up in con­ver­sa­tion with some folks is perhaps a fire hall in the com­mu­nity, named in remembrance of those young people who passed away, which I think is a fitting and ap­pro­priate tribute.

      And I'm sure there are many, many con­sid­era­tions that go into the construction of a new fire hall, chief among them being the planning of the First Nation itself and the local leadership's commit­ment and, you know, their priorities for planning in the local com­mu­nity. I'm sure the federal gov­ern­ment also has a role.

      But assuming that there's perhaps an ability to col­lab­o­rate there, I just wonder whether the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) would also commit to raising that idea of a new fire hall in response to this tragedy, as one of the possible follow-ups here.

Mrs. Stefanson: I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion.

      I think–you know, for his question. And I think it's a good idea, frankly, to look at a fire hall for the com­mu­nity. And I'd be honoured to, you know, to pass that along to the federal gov­ern­ment and have those discussions with them and call on them for some­­thing of that nature, a fire hall in the com­mu­nity itself.

      And I–I mean, I like the idea of naming it after the individuals who tragically perished as a result of this horrific situation that transpired in that com­mu­nity. And so, certainly we'll endeavour to add this to the list of things that we discuss on a regular basis with re­spect to this. And with our follow-up to the letter, as well, we'll add that to the list of things to discuss with them.

Mr. Kinew: And I thank the Premier, as well. So, I ap­pre­ciate the Premier's interaction here with myself. I'm just trying to bring forward issues on behalf of folks in the com­mu­nity and, by extension, on behalf of people across Manitoba.

      With that in mind, and we've certainly touched on a few issues here, smoke detectors, fire pre­ven­tion pro­grams, fire­fighter training, some specific tech­niques within training, remuneration for those fire­fighters, the prospect of a new fire hall for the com­mu­nity. I'm wondering if I might ask the Premier whether she'd be willing to put some of these issues in writing to the federal gov­ern­ment.

      The reason why I say that–and I do acknowl­edge the letter that was tabled, and I do ap­pre­ciate that–is I think it helps to put a finer point on the issue. Where the letter does say fire suppression, if we do have, perhaps, some of these specific points just laid out in a more com­pre­hen­sive and detailed way, I think that that might help ensure that there is the ap­pro­priate follow-up, not only from the prov­incial level but spe­cific­ally from the federal gov­ern­ment here. And then, if nothing else, the family and com­mu­nity, at a later date, can say, well, you know, these issues were raised to you in black and white in such-and-such date of 2022.

      So I just wondered whether the Premier might be willing to enter­tain putting these issues and questions into writing to the federal gov­ern­ment.

Mrs. Stefanson: Certainly follow up with the minister respon­si­ble for these areas and action these items. I–and perhaps he–you know, in his follow-up to this letter, we'll see where it's at and add those items to another list of things to be actioned, as well, by the federal gov­ern­ment.

Mr. Kinew: I wonder if I might ask the Premier to take it as, like, a matter under ad­vise­ment to under­take to come back to the com­mit­tee at a later date, once that follow-up has happened.

      So let's say, for instance, just pulling the dates out of the air, let's say that follow-up con­ver­sa­tion with the minister happens a week from now and the minis­ter's able to send that piece of writing to the federal gov­ern­ment a week thereafter.

      Would the Premier then commit to coming back as a matter under ad­vise­ment just to provide an update whether, you know, it's an email or a docu­ment or some­­thing else, just to provide that update later on once there is some­thing to report?

Mrs. Stefanson: I don't really believe that that's required under these circum­stances. I believe I've already agreed to follow up, and I'm committed to doing that with our minister and to following up on the issues that are–that have been discussed today.

Mr. Kinew: Will the Premier commit to following up with the com­mu­nity on these points?

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes.

Mr. Kinew: And can we be assured that that com­muni­cation would be in writing?

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, I think any follow-up letter, obviously, that will go out by the minister in response to, you know, the issues that have been brought up by the Leader of the Op­posi­tion, I mean, that will obvious­ly be cc'd to the individuals who were cc'd before, so the three grand chiefs as well as Chief Monias, as well.

Mr. Kinew: I wondered if we could just ask to recess for five minutes. I just wanted to go talk to the guests and, you know, they have other, you know, commit­ments today. So, just wonder if we could take that recess for five so–five or so minutes.

The Acting Chairperson (Obby Khan): Is it the will of the com­mit­tee to take a recess, five minutes? [Agreed]

      Com­mit­tee is then in recess.

The committee recessed at 3:59 p.m.

____________

The committee resumed at 4:09 p.m.

The Acting Chairperson (Obby Khan): The com­mit­tee will now resume con­sid­era­tion.

Mr. Kinew: Mr. Chair, thanks to you and the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) and to everyone else for indulging the recess there. I just wanted to be a decent host and talk to our guests who are going to hit the road soon. So I ap­pre­ciate the back and forth there on that and, certainly will be, I guess, more to come and more to follow up there.

      I wanted to turn now to some discussion of Manitoba Hydro, and just talk about some of the issues with Hydro when it comes to, I guess, some of the projects that Hydro's been working on and some of the status of, I guess, the overall picture of the organi­zation.

* (16:10)

      I wanted to begin just by–ask what the status is of the Keeyask Generating Station Project. Spe­cific­ally, is it complete and is it all online now?

Mr. Chairperson in the Chair

Mrs. Stefanson: I've been advised that all turbines are installed and operating, but that there is still some con­struction under way.

Mr. Kinew: Thanks for that.

      I understand that the turbines all went online on March 7th of this year. Why was there no public press release or an­nounce­ment around that?

Mrs. Stefanson: You know, I think we're getting into a–maybe a line of questioning here that's either better asked of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Friesen), but I certainly, as a premier, don't get involved in com­muni­cations strategies at Manitoba Hydro. I think that's a bit of an overstep–that would be an overstep on my part, getting involved in that area.

Mr. Chairperson: The hon­our­able official leader–the hon­our­able Leader of the Official Op­posi­tion (Mr. Kinew)–it's a mouthful, I'm sorry, I mess it up sometimes. Anyway.

Mr. Kinew: Nailed it–you nailed it.

      Have any new firm export contracts for Manitoba Hydro been signed in 2021 or 2022? Firm contracts to export power, just to–

Mr. Chairperson: The hon­our­able official Leader of the Op­posi­tion–the hon­our­able Leader of the Official Op­posi­tion.

Mr. Kinew: Just to get the phraseology right, as we all endeavour to get our own phraseologies right, new firm contracts to export power by Manitoba Hydro; either–were there any new deals in 2021 or new deals in 2022?

Mrs. Stefanson: I think when it comes to issues of this nature and detailed nature when it comes to Manitoba Hydro, I think those questions are best asked of the Minister of Finance who is also respon­si­ble–the minister respon­si­ble for Manitoba Hydro.

Mr. Kinew: I guess I just consider Manitoba Hydro to be so im­por­tant to our province and to the overall not only finances of the prov­incial gov­ern­ment, but also to the economy of Manitoba, that, you know, the Premier ought to engage with the issue in a sub­stan­tive fashion.

      So just returning to the question around the, you know, lack of a press release, you know, the Keeyask generating station might have been the biggest construction project in Manitoba's history, if not  absolutely the biggest, and certainly one of the largest construction projects in Manitoba's history, so wouldn't it have made sense to put out a press release, even so that the construction partners and others could hear about this milestone, with the turbines coming online?

Mrs. Stefanson: I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for the question.

      Of course, Manitoba Hydro is in­cred­ibly im­por­tant to our province and to the finances as well as our province–of our province, but I think the Leader of the Op­posi­tion is asking very detailed operational-type ques­tions that would be more appropriately asked of the minister respon­si­ble, and he can endeavour to get the answers to those questions.

      I don't think it's ap­pro­priate for the premier to have to get into the detailed operations of Manitoba Hydro. We leave that up to those at Manitoba Hydro to carry those out, so when it comes to press releases or things of that nature that–for Manitoba Hydro, we leave that up to them to do that.

      But again, I think if we have overarching and high-level discussions on Manitoba Hydro, I'm happy to have those discussions. But when it gets into the detailed operational-type issues of Manitoba Hydro, I think those are more appropriately asked in the Minister of Finance's (Mr. Friesen) Estimates, which, I believe, will be coming up soon.

Mr. Kinew: What's the current aggregate value of Manitoba Hydro's firm export contract sales?

Mrs. Stefanson: I don't have the numbers at my fingertips right now. Again, I would say that those are questions that are more appropriately asked in the Estimates of the Minister of Finance.

* (16:20)

Mr. Kinew: Would the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) like to sell more hydroelectricity to Saskatchewan?

Mrs. Stefanson: You know, the Leader of the Opposi­tion, we are always looking for new customers for Manitoba Hydro, and if he has a line on an interest­ed party that we could bring forward to Manitoba Hydro, we'd be happy to pass that along to Manitoba Hydro. So I certainly ap­pre­ciate the enthusiasm of the Leader of the Op­posi­tion in wanting to find more customers for Manitoba hydro.

Mr. Kinew: All right, we're back in engaging sub­stantively on the issues that would say, yes, look west. Look south, look north. You know, there's many op­por­tun­ities. We've got, certainly, Saskatchewan and Alberta who need to decarbonize their electricity sup­ply, and, certainly, there's a ton of op­por­tun­ity there. We have the Kivalliq Region in the North; certainly, not only a hydro but also a broadband connection to that region, I think is very promising.

      We know that we already export power to our American neighbours but, certainly, we can always endeavour to explore that and, you know, even con­verse with other juris­dic­tions, as well. So I think there's a ton of good op­por­tun­ities.

      When we get into the con­ver­sa­tion around export sales, quite often, in addition to having, you know, hydroelectricity, which is clean in terms of the generation, there's also a question about the part­ner­ships with Indigenous com­mu­nities that lead to the generating of that power.

      So I just wanted to ask about the part­ner­ships around Keeyask, with the First Nations there–you got the four Keeyask nations as their known–maybe just at a high level, does the Premier believe that the agree­ment with those First Nations and Manitoba Hydro to get Keeyask done, does she believe that that's fair? Is the agree­ment fair, or does the agree­ment need to be revisited in any way?

Mrs. Stefanson: Just–I want to start off sort of a high­er level here and looking at–we're obviously looking at decarbonization as part of our economic dev­elop­ment strategy moving forward. Manitoba Hydro is a sig­ni­fi­cant part of that and an im­por­tant part of our clean, green, renewable energy here in Manitoba where there's great op­por­tun­ities to work in part­ner­ship towards that decarbonization for economic dev­elop­ment op­por­tun­ities in Manitoba, and we look at Manitoba Hydro as an im­por­tant partner in all of that.

      What I would say is with the Keeyask Cree Nations, with the–there's ongoing–I'm sensitive, ob­viously, to ongoing negotiations that are continuing to take place. And I think it would be inappropriate at this point in time, Mr. Chair, to intervene in those. Those are ongoing discussions, and so those are im­por­tant discussions that will continue to take place, and I think it would be inappropriate to intervene in those discussions while they're–as they're ongoing.

Mr. Kinew: Thank the Premier  again.

      Does the Premier intend to direct Manitoba Hydro to file a general rate application this November? And I ask the question given the fact that her predecessor, the member for Steinbach (Mr. Goertzen), directed Hydro, by order-in-council, to file an application last year.

Mrs. Stefanson: No, it's not our in­ten­tion to direct them in filing a rate application.

Mr. Kinew: Can the Premier just explain the rationale for the difference in approach there?

* (16:30)

Mrs. Stefanson: Well, I think it's im­por­tant to put this into context, and certainly, the–and I'm not going to comment on what the previous premier and his deci­sion that would've made when I wasn't around a Cabinet table when those decisions were being made.

      But what I will say, that at that–at those–at that time, very different set of circum­stances at that time. We now have legis­lation that provides clarity now on the Public Utilities Board's role in approving hydro­electricity rates. We have a bill before the Manitoba Legislature now, Bill 36, that protects ratepayers, and so–and provides clarity around the PUB role.

Mr. Kinew: So, will Hydro file a general rate applica­tion this November?

Mrs. Stefanson: I think that question is better asked of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Friesen) in his role and respon­si­bility for Manitoba Hydro.

Mr. Kinew: The finances of Manitoba Hydro have a huge impact on the budget of the prov­incial gov­ern­ment, you know, general rate application. You know, if a rate moves 1 per cent in a certain direction, that can have impacts–tens of millions of dollars. Rate application and rate-setting processes could move the financial picture potentially by hundreds of millions of dollars, and again, that would materially impact the province's budget, both in terms of–on the revenue side, but also, you know, in other im­por­tant aspects, as well.

      So does that mean that the province prepared this budget this year without knowing whether or not there would be a general rate application done by Manitoba Hydro?

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, well, I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for the question because it brings about a very im­por­tant issue, which is the exact reason why we brought forward Bill 36, was to protect ratepayers.

      So, it's 5 per cent or the rate of inflation, which­ever is the lesser. So that protects Manitoba Hydro from–if inflation rises beyond those amounts. And so it's the lesser, and if it's lesser than 5 per cent, that will be the rate, so it protects ratepayers.

      And so that's exactly why we brought forward Bill 36, and I think the Leader of the Op­posi­tion is making the case for the importance of Bill 36, and so I'm hoping that he and his colleagues will support that, because it's in the best interest for ratepayers of Manitoba Hydro.

Mr. Kinew: No–Bill 36 is a bad bill. We will not sup­port it. That's why we delayed it.

      What the Premier's (Mrs. Stefanson) effectively said, though, given the fact that inflation is running north of 5 per cent right now, on an annualized basis, is that there will be a 5 per cent rate increase at Manitoba Hydro this year. That is far in excess of what the long-term-rate picture approved by the Public Utilities Board set out and, you know, I think that's why we need a PUB and that's why we can't have a Bill 36.

      A Bill 36 will take away the teeth from the Public Utilities Board, will take away the in­de­pen­dence from the Public Utilities Board and take away their ability to protect Manitobans from another set of PC rate hikes. We know that it was only the Public Utilities Board that prevented Brian Pallister from raising rates by 8 per cent. I think we all remember that. I know Mr. Pallister was talking about 8 per cent; we need 8 per cent, 8 per cent. And the PUB said, no; that's absolutely not acceptable; it won't be permitted and it doesn't match up with the financial picture.

      Then again, you know, even as Mr. Pallister moved on, we heard the–all the same Cabinet mem­bers who are still around the table today make the case about how we need all these other big PC rate hikes; that came in here and brought legis­lation to circum­vent the PUB and increase rates directly through legis­lation. An un­pre­cedented move–only political opera­tion in Manitoba history to ever increase rates through that measure.

      That was a big mistake. It was un­neces­sary and it speaks to why Bill 36 is not a good bill because again, it will under­mine the PUB's in­de­pen­dence. You would think that for a Conservative political organi­zation, they would welcome the PUB because all the Campus Conservatives are taught growing up that, you know, if you have a monopoly situation in a given market, that you need an in­de­pen­dent regulator or some in­de­pen­dent body to protect the consumer from the mono­poly power of that organi­zation, right?

      And so, you would think that a right-leaning political operation would embrace the PUB. However, there must be ulterior motives at play as to why the PCs are so intent on taking away the PUB's ability to protect Manitobans and seem set on increasing rates on the people of Manitoba, even as cost of living con­tinues to go up and up and up.

      So, that's a cogent analysis, both of, I guess, some of the hypocrisy of modern conservatism and also the failings of Bill 36. Happy to put that on the record.

      Will Cabinet or Treasury Board approve any general rate application from Hydro prior to it being sub­mitted to the Public Utilities Board? So, just curious as we're talking about the PUB here. Will a GRA be approved by the Cabinet or the Treasury Board before it gets submitted to the PUB by Hydro?

Mrs. Stefanson: You know, I thank the Leader of the Op­posi­tion for the question. And, of course, distorting the history, you know, doesn't change the fact that the PUB will–has played a sig­ni­fi­cant role in setting the hydro rates, and they will continue to play a sig­ni­fi­cant role to that end.

      And so, obviously, Bill 36 is before the Manitoba Legislature right now. It continues to bring clarity to the role of the Public Utilities Board. It also protects ratepayers. And so, you know, I will continue to look and call upon the Leader of the Op­posi­tion and his colleagues in the–his NDP caucus to support that bill, because it will protect Manitoba ratepayers.

Mr. Kinew: So, will Cabinet or the Treasury Board approve a general rate application from Hydro before it's submitted to the Public Utilities Board?

Mrs. Stefanson: Again, I mean, this–you know, this brings clarity to the Public Utilities Board and the role–and Cabinet has no role–including Treasury Board, has no role in setting rates for Manitoba Hydro.

      Those are decisions that are made at the Public Utilities Board.

* (16:40)

Mr. Kinew: This was in the BITSA bill last year. TRA, because of the PC's legis­lative changes in the Budget Imple­men­ta­tion and Tax Statutes Amend­ment Act last year, you know, the PCs wanted to get that, you know, process to go through the Cabinet and the Treasury Board there, so, just wanted to see if that's actually what's going to happen, if there's a general rate application this year. Do they intend to follow through on what they legis­lated in BITSA last year, effectively, is the question.

Mrs. Stefanson: Again, to the Leader of the Opposition, you know, the Public Utilities Board is respon­si­ble for setting the rates for Manitoba Hydro, not the Cabinet table, and this process is outlined in Bill 36. It's a bill that protects ratepayers of Manitoba Hydro, and so–and provides clarity to this very line of questioning where those decisions reside at the Public Utilities Board, not at the Cabinet table.

Mr. Kinew: Yes. And thank goodness we have the Public Utilities Board to prevent, you know, an 8 per cent rate increase like the one Mr. Pallister tried to bring about.

      But this is just–this is a question, just to acknowl­edge, I guess, like, the legis­lative framework that the PCs set out in their BITSA bill last year, which is that according to the legis­lation that they passed last year, that they took it upon them­selves at the Cabinet level or the Treasury Board level to approve a general rate application before it gets submitted to the Public Utilities Board.

      Yes, the Public Utilities Board will be the arbiter of adjudicating the contents of that rate application, but I just wanted to ask the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) to confirm that it is, in fact, going to go through Cabinet for Treasury Board approval prior to arriving at the PUB.

Mrs. Stefanson: Well, I'm not sure how much more clear I can be on this issue that the Leader of the Opposi­tion is questioning. I've been very clear that there is a process in place right now where the Public Utilities Board sets the rates for Manitoba Hydro. That's not the Cabinet table. Also, it provides more clarity in Bill 36 and protects ratepayers in Bill 36, so I'm not sure why the Leader of the Op­posi­tion and his members of the NDP don't want to support that, Mr. Chair.

      You know, we, on this side of the House, want to protect ratepayers in Manitoba. We believe in the Public Utilities Board process that exists now and will continue to exist in provi­ding even more clarity around that role with respect to Bill 36. I don't know how much more clear I can be than that, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kinew: The–you know, Public Utilities Board, as an in­de­pen­dent body, protects Manitoba ratepayers by virtue of in­de­pen­dent interveners and a public hearing process, both of which will be undermined by this gov­ern­ment's Bill 36. You know, they're re­moving the ability of interveners to partici­pate in reality. They're also removing in­de­pen­dence from the Public Utilities Board and trying to bring that closer to central gov­ern­ment. All of these threaten the PUB's ability to stand up and protect Manitoba ratepayers as they have done these past number of years. You don't have to take our word for it; that's from the Consumers' Association–serious concerns about Bill 36 and what it means for the PUB.

      But, again, you know, the Premier speaking about, I guess, potential laws, which are on the table. We know that they capitulated and abandoned their legis­lative agenda last year; I'd hope that they do the same thing again this year. But they do seem intent on trying to change the PUB and Manitoba Hydro process.

      So that's why I'm asking about the current pro­cess. Right now, were there to be a general rate ap­plica­tion, according to the changes that they put under BITSA, you know, they would have to approve that with their Cabinet ministers or the Treasury Board pro­cess. So I just wanted to ask the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) to confirm that; that that's the case right now.

Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, we believe in the Public Utilities Board's process in setting the rates for Manitoba Hydro, and I think that, you know, that process continues right now and is even enhanced and clarified in Bill 36, which is before the Manitoba Legislature. And, again, you know, the Manitoba Hydro rates will continue to be set through the Public Utilities Board's public hearing process; that's all part of this.

      So, I'm not sure–I mean, unless the Leader of the Op­posi­tion is just trying to fear monger with Manitobans. But what I will say is that Bill 36 protects the ratepayers from rising inflation costs, Mr. Chair, and it provides clarity around that role of the Public Utilities Board that will continue to have public hear­ings as part of that process in deciding the rates for Manitoba Hydro. So, again, that's where those deci­sions are appropriately made.

Mr. Kinew: Okay, so I'll just state for the record, the BITSA bill last year amended The Financial Administra­tion Act. It made–oh, you can't hear me?

Mr. Chairperson: Is the mic on? Okay. We are good. Apologies for the interruption.

      The Leader of the Official Op­posi­tion, please go ahead, and I'll reset the clock.

Mr. Kinew: Okay, thank you very much for your in­dulgence there, Mr. Chair, and I also thank the Premier.

      So, again, the BITSA legis­lation last year modi­fied the financial–or amended, I should say, to be more technically accurate–amended The Financial Admin­is­tra­tion Act such that, you know, Manitoba Hydro has to take not only general rate applications, but also capital budgets and other high-level decisions to the Cabinet and to the Treasury Board Secretariat. That's the bill that all the PC members voted in favour of, you know, so I'd hope that they know the contents of what they were voting in favour of.

      So, given that that's the situation, you know, I would like to know what the rate increase is going to be this year that Manitoba Hydro is going to be re­questing and that the Cabinet via TB would be asked to approve? What's the rate increase going to be this year?

Mrs. Stefanson: Again, the Leader of the Op­posi­tion, I guess, is engaging in fear-mongering tactics, and that's fine, he's–you know, that's in his prerogative to go down that line of questioning, but I–you know, I've said it before and I'll say it again, that the Public Utilities Board is an–is a process that we respect, it's in place now. And, in fact, Bill 36 provides further enhancements within that bill for that process. It's–these are positive and provides im­prove­ments to the Public Utilities Board process, Mr. Chair.

* (16:50)

      And so, I think it's im­por­tant that–you know, to reiterate for Manitobans, to reiterate for the House, that we respect that process, and that process is that the Public Utilities Board decides the rates for Manitoba Hydro, not Cabinet.

Mr. Kinew: Just to put a finer point on it: so, I outlined the changes to The Financial Admin­is­tra­tion Act that the PC gov­ern­ment, including the Premier, ushered in by virtue of the previous budget imple­men­ta­tion and tax statutes amend­ment act. And just to put a finer point on the fact that, you know, they legis­lated for them­selves to be the arbiter at Cabinet and Treasury Board for Manitoba Hydro to have to go through them before filing a general rate application with the Public Utilities Board.

      Not only is that reflected in the statutes of Manitoba, were anyone to go read the laws governing this and the bills passed in the House, they would find that this is accurate infor­ma­tion. Just to put a finer point on it, I'm looking at a flow chart, if you will, listing the steps that Manitoba Hydro has to go through, and the first step is to get Cabinet sign-off. The second step is to get Treasury Board sign-off.

      And when you look at this, what's interesting is it's not only about rate applications; it actually goes further to capital projects, capital budgets. It even talks about approving public com­muni­cations, at Cabinet and at Treasury Board.

      You may recall that this discussion on Manitoba Hydro began with a simple question about why was there no press release on Keeyask coming online. Manitoba Hydro's internal docu­ments say that they would have had to seek Cabinet and Treasury Board approval for any comms decision, especially one involv­ing Keeyask, potentially the greatest–or one of the biggest, I should say–construction projects in the history of Manitoba.

      Similarly, Manitoba Hydro is going to seek to make a general rate application. They will have to–according to their own internal process, their own internal docu­ment, they will first have to seek Cabinet approval. And then they'll have to seek sign-off from the Treasury Board.

      Given the magnitude of the financial picture that we're talking about here, given the impact on the prov­incial budget, not to mention the impact it'll have on the average Manitoban who has to pay a hydro bill, I would assume that these con­ver­sa­tions are already well under way.

      So I would ask again: What is the rate increase going to be this year that Manitoba Hydro asks for?

Mrs. Stefanson: Again, I'm just curious as to, you know, what the Leader of the Op­posi­tion is–you know, he's–continues to go down this line of ques­tioning. I've continued to be quite clear, and I'll continue to be clear that the rates for Manitoba Hydro are set at the Public Utilities Board. They are not set at Cabinet. So, I've said that several times now. There is a process that's in place now with the Public Utilities Board, and we respect that process.

      And again, the–Bill 36 actually enhances and clarifies, further clarifies, the role of the Public Utilities Board. And so, again, that's where those deci­sions are made.

      And, again, you know, Bill 36 actually protects rate­payers, Mr. Chair. And I think it's im­por­tant that Manitobans know that and the Leader of the Opposition and the rest of his NDP party are holding up that bill, which protects Manitoba Hydro ratepayers.

      So I'm not sure where–why he's going down this line of questioning. I'm not sure what he's trying to fabricate as a result of this, Mr. Deputy Speaker and Mr. Chair. But what I will say is that, you know, I have said it before, and I'll say it again: those decisions on the rates for–setting the rates for Manitoba Hydro are made at the Public Utilities Board.

Mr. Kinew: I think we all recog­nize that the Premier (Mrs. Stefanson) is deliberately trying to misconstrue the question to evade what is pretty straightforward, right? I've posed the question a few times: What is the rate increase going to be that Manitoba Hydro is going to ask for?

      And instead, the Premier seeks to answer a question in a different way. But, obviously, she could choose to answer the question by telling us what, in fact, Manitoba Hydro's going to bring forward in terms of the rate-increase request.

      I did want to pause for a second just to point out why we are going to delay Bill 36, why we have done so, why we will continue to do so: because it might actually save Manitobans a few hundred dollars this year. If we were to allow Bill 36 to pass on June 1st, we would be locked into a situation where the rate increase is either going to be 5 per cent or it's going to be above 7 per cent, which is the annualized rate of inflation in Manitoba right now.

      So, again, the PCs are in a rush to pass Bill 36. They think it's a great idea.

      Passing Bill 36 in June would guarantee a rate increase this year of between 5 and 7 per cent in Manitoba. That's way too much money. People are struggling right now. People are getting hit every time they go to the gas station with a higher gas bill. Every time they go to the grocery store, they're getting hit with a higher grocery bill. Our team delaying Bill 36 past June 1st means we hold open the possi­bility that we could have perhaps a more affordable result from the Public Utilities Board.

      Again, we know the long-term approvals that the Public Utilities Board laid out for the decade that we're currently in was talking about, you know, 3 per cent, 3 and a half per cent. Why would we abandon some­thing that's been done all above board and it's been done in the public eye? Why would we abandon that–you know, the numbers that we're talking about in that neighbourhood, and instead guarantee that we increase hydro bills on the people of Manitoba by 5 per cent to 7 per cent? As a political proposition, why would you want to go to the doorstep and say, we guarantee that we're going to increase your hydro bill by 5 per cent to 7 per cent this year? I like our message: We don't want your hydro bill to go up. I think that's a good message. We don't want your hydro bill to go up.

      PCs, I'm sure, have invested a lot of time in doing focus groups and testing the message. But at the end of the day, you 're going to try and sell Manitobans on 5 to 7 per cent increases on hydro bills? Okay. Our message is more simple. It's simpler: We don't want your hydro bill to go up, and we're fighting for that.

      I'm looking at a docu­ment here that says that not only does Manitoba Hydro present their budget to the Treasury Board, that they then adjust their budget based on the feedback from the Treasury Board Secretariat. So it's pretty well understood, on the Manitoba Hydro side of the equation, that it is the Cabinet and the Treasury Board who are going to be the ones who decide how much to raise rates on Manitobans by. It is pretty clear under­standing on the Manitoba Hydro side that it is going to be the Cabinet ministers who are saying, raise the bills on Manitobans by 5 per cent or perhaps, no; raise it by 7 per cent.

      You know, that's going to be the direction coming from the Cabinet. Manitoba Hydro, they've got no issue with it. You know, they're not the ones who have to come into the com­mit­tee, I guess, and say this directly to the people of Manitoba. So–and in their own internal docu­ments, they've got no hesitation putting it in black and white: we're going to bring our Manitoba Hydro budget to the prov­incial Treasury Board Secretariat and then we are going to adjust our budget at Manitoba Hydro based on feedback–

Mr. Chairperson: The time being 5 p.m., com­mit­tee rise.

      Call in the Speaker.

IN SESSION

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hour being 5 p.m., the House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.


 


LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

CONTENTS


Vol. 56

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

Committee Reports

Standing Committee on Social and Economic Development

Fifth Report

Isleifson  2335

Tabling of Reports

Friesen  2336

Ministerial Statements

Paramedic Services Week

Gordon  2337

Asagwara  2337

Gerrard  2338

Flooding Update

Piwniuk  2338

Wiebe  2339

Lamont 2339

Members' Statements

Return of In-Person High School Graduations

Guillemard  2339

Krystal Mousseau

Kinew   2340

International Peace Gardens

Piwniuk  2340

Catalytic Converter Theft

Maloway  2341

St. James Assiniboia 55+ Centre

Fielding  2341

Oral Questions

School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas

Kinew   2342

Stefanson  2342

Post-Secondary Education

Kinew   2343

Stefanson  2343

Orange Shirt Day

Kinew   2343

Stefanson  2343

Poplar River Barge Explosion

Bushie  2344

Piwniuk  2345

Public Servants Participating in By-Election

Lindsey  2345

Helwer 2345

Congenital Syphilis Cases

B. Smith  2346

Guillemard  2346

Gordon  2347

Nurse Paycheque Error

Asagwara  2347

Gordon  2347

Health-Care Support Workers

Asagwara  2347

Gordon  2348

Addictions and Mental Health

Lamont 2348

Guillemard  2348

Drug Use Illnesses

Lamont 2348

Guillemard  2348

Safe Consumption Site

Gerrard  2349

Guillemard  2349

Healing Lodge in Thompson

Lagassé  2349

Goertzen  2349

Federal Child-Care Subsidies

Sala  2349

Ewasko  2350

Support for Children with Epilepsy

Naylor 2350

Gordon  2351

Petitions

Drug Overdose Reporting

B. Smith  2351

Afghan Refugees in Manitoba

Gerrard  2351

Speed Reduction on PR 392

Lindsey  2352

Catalytic Converter Engraving Credit

Maloway  2353

ORDERS OF THE DAY

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Committee of Supply

(Concurrent Sections)

Room 254

Health

Asagwara  2353

Gordon  2354

Gerrard  2363

Room 255

Education and Early Childhood Learning

Altomare  2364

Ewasko  2364

Sala  2375

Chamber

Executive Council

Stefanson  2378

Kinew   2378