ORDERS OF THE DAY
Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Would you call Bill 5, please.
DEBATE ON SECOND READINGS
Bill 5--The Food Donations Act
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), Bill 5, The Food Donations Act; Loi sur les dons d'aliments, standing in the name of the honourable member for Burrows, who has 30 minutes remaining.
Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr. Speaker, I think probably I should start by apologizing to the Chair for possibly coming close to something I should not have yesterday.
I have before me the minister's press release dated December 7 on The Food Donations Act. The minister sums up the purpose of this bill in one paragraph, saying that it would remove barriers caused by concern over liability, and once this bill is passed this should encourage corporations, unincorporated organizations and individuals to share surplus food.
Certainly that is one part of food banks that I think all of us can support, and that is the fact that surplus food in the food system and food that otherwise might be wasted is being put to good use by being given away to people who need it.
There have been estimates of the amount of food in the food production and retailing stream as to how much is wasted. Research shows that up to 20 percent of all food in the production and marketing stream is wasted.
If Winnipeg Harvest food bank and other food banks are able to make use of this food that is otherwise wasted, then I think they are doing all of us in society a favour. That, once again, shows the importance and benefit of food banks.
The minister's press release goes on to say that most people wish there would be no need for food banks. While I do not always agree with this minister, I would have to agree with that. In fact, I would go a little bit further and say that all people should wish there is no need for food banks because there are much better ways and much more appropriate ways to feed hungry people than through food banks, which have a number of disadvantages that I outlined the first time I spoke on this bill.
The press release goes on to say that this act would encourage the donation of healthy nutritious food to food banks and to people who can use it, rather than the waste in needlessly being thrown out. That is certainly something that we would concur with. If this act is successful and corporations make increased donations, and if individuals make increased donations and nonprofit organizations, that is good.
It is significant that the minister mentioned the word "nutritious" because there is a need for a more balanced kind of diet, a more balanced kind of food donation, particularly in the area of high protein foods, because right now, as I said before, we have a surplus of foods that are high in carbohydrates and sugar and what we need are foods that are high in protein. This is not always understood. Just recently I was talking to someone in my constituency who was complaining because lentils were being handed out at a food bank distribution point. They thought it was demeaning to be given lentils that were in loose form and being poured into a bag. I pointed out that lentils are very nutritious. A lot of lentils are being grown in Manitoba now, I believe. That is probably the source of these lentils--Manitoba.
What people need is a little bit of help with education. We used to do that in North End Community Ministry. We actually used to give people recipes, because another huge donation to Winnipeg Harvest every summer is zucchinis. Zucchinis are fine if you know how to cook them and if you know how to prepare them and use them. Many poor people do not, so what we did was we used to give them a recipe for a zucchini loaf, because people need that kind of help if they are going to take them. Many times I saw fresh vegetables that were left behind because people simply did not know how to cook them. So there is a need for some education to help people with that.
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There are many very good things that are happening today in terms of alternatives to food banks and working in co-operation with food banks. One of the best summaries of those various alternatives and solutions I found in a publication that I ordered called Building Food Security in Canada: A Community Guide for Action on Hunger, and the editor is Laura Kalina. This publication comes from, I believe, Kamloops in B.C. I will not go into detail on this, but I would like to summarize some of the alternatives and initiatives that she lists in Chapter 3, entitled Food Action Projects That Work. She talks about food-related job creation and training.
There are some really interesting things happening. For example, I had a tour of Helping Hands organization in Brandon. They provide meals much like the Agape Table and food much like a food bank outlet. One of the things is that they are doing is taking fresh fruits and vegetables, and they have designed solar ovens--well, actually not powered by solar, but by light bulbs. They are dehydrating the vegetables and fruits, and they are freezing them. Then in the off season they are handing them out. So they get these huge donations of fresh fruits and vegetables in season. They put them into their ovens to dehydrate them, and then they freeze them and hand them out or use them in their soup and in their meal preparation later in the year. It was very interesting to learn about that project.
In this Building Food Security document, the author talks about food-related small businesses, participant-managed food banks, community kitchens. There are a number of community kitchens springing up in Winnipeg--one at St. Matthew's-Maryland Community Ministry. People there are buying food together in bulk, cooking the food together, eating together and then taking food home to provide a number of meals for the balance of the week. There are many, many benefits to this. In many cases, they are using food from Winnipeg Harvest, using it quite appropriately, and they are teaching each other food preparation and cooking skills.
Now, a new organization is doing somewhat similar. I had occasion, actually on Tuesday night of this week, to enjoy a meal that was prepared by this group, because what they have done is they have gone into catering. So you can see that there are many positive spin-offs from food banks. Their organization is called Pioneer Cooking, and they have banded together and actually incorporated. Their goal is to encourage the development of self-esteem and self-reliance amongst their members; and to promote responsibility for personal and family well-being and for maintaining health, based on adequate diet and nutrition; and to enhance community economic development by providing and encouraging role models; and combatting poverty through co-operative endeavours which emphasize the efficient use of skills and resources. There was an article in the Inner City Voice on September 7 about that.
They are charging money for the meals that they are catering. Because these people are on social assistance, what they do is they keep the maximum allowable, which I believe is $50 a month on provincial social assistance, and I think it is still $90 a month on city welfare, so they are using the money they raise to provide some extra income for themselves. I think that with the skills that they gain in cooking and in catering, this could help many of them to find permanent employment, probably in the restaurant and hotel industry. If it gets them off social assistance, then it is another very positive thing that has happened in our community.
The Building Food Security in Canada Guide talks about school food programs, food co-ops and buying clubs, shoppers alerts, collective shopping, and there are a number of food co-ops in Winnipeg, including one also at St. Matthew's-Maryland Community Ministry for low-income people so that they can stretch their dollars further.
Another part of this chapter is called, From the Garden, and there are peer education programs, kitchen equipment library, hunger hot line, composite food action projects. So there are many, many ideas that are out there in the community. Usually they start in one community and spread. I believe the idea for community kitchens started in Montreal, and there are about 70 of them now. Most of them are based in Catholic churches. Now this idea has come to Winnipeg, and it is quite interesting to meet with people who are involved in a community kitchen and talk to them and watch them preparing the meals and to hear what they have learned.
In addition to these small-scale projects, I think there are many other things that can happen and should happen. Of course, the best alternative that people could possibly have to relying on food banks for income is employment or food banks to supplement their income is paid employment. Certainly when people get a job they are quite likely to stop going to food banks.
You know, there are a number of myths about who it is that are poor and who it is that are on social assistance. I think the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) of Manitoba really insults people on social assistance when she says that these people have chosen welfare as a career option.
I do not think that anybody chooses welfare as a career option. In fact, when the government of Ontario commissioned a study on social assistance and published a report, I believe in 1989, called Transitions, they did an analysis of people on social assistance. What they found out was that on average social assistance recipients were only recipients for three months. That comes as a real surprise because the mythology in our society is that people are on social assistance for generations.
Just yesterday, in my reading, I came across an American study which looked at the same thing and came up with quite a similar result. I do not know whether I can find the title page to this document, but somebody did research on the American statistics. What they found was that the vast majority of income poverty is temporary. The researcher was Sawhill, and in 1988, in a review article, he documented that of those who experienced poverty on an annual basis, about 45 percent of poverty spells end within one year, and 70 percent are over within three years. So a great deal of poverty, both in Canada and the United States, is short term.
Another way to look at those statistics is to look at single parents. We know that single parents are vastly overrepresented in the ranks of the poor. Over 60 percent of all single parents live below the poverty line, and it is rising. But if you break it down further, you see that it really depends on the age of children and that when there are children who are preschoolers, there is a much higher percentage of single parents and poverty. But once their children enter school, they tend to go back to the paid labour force, so then, of course, there are fewer single parents living in poverty.
As my colleague from Osborne (Ms. McCormick) pointed out, child care is a big factor here. We know that when there is affordable and accessible child care and that people take advantage of this and find a suitable child care space, then it is much, much easier for them to go back to university or college and/or to enter the paid workforce. So child care is a very important component in helping get people out of poverty, out of social assistance and into paid employment. Regrettably, this government capped the number of child care cases at 9,600 and recently has increased it by 300, but it does not nearly go far enough to meeting the need.
The second most important thing, I believe, that could be done in order to stop people from relying on food bank handouts would be to ensure that there are adequate benefits for people both on social assistance and on unemployment insurance, and not just people who could be in the paid workforce but also seniors.
One of the ideas that I have suggested in my comments on the federal government's social security review is that the federal government should look at the categories in groups of people who are poor and see what they can learn from the trends over the last 25 years. If they did that, what they would find is that there is one group that has experienced a very significant decline in poverty in the last 25 years. That is seniors, and why is that? Well, it is due to a number of reasons. I think the major reason probably is the guaranteed income supplement which was brought in many years ago by a federal Liberal government, and the other reason is more women being in the paid work force and retiring with Canada Pension benefits and company pension benefits. So there has been a very substantial decline in seniors' poverty.
I think if governments can target a particular group of people in our society much as they did with seniors and watch the rate of poverty decline, then I think we could do that with other groups, whether it is children or whether it is single parents or whether it is families or the working poor. If government has the will, I think we could do the same thing with other groups of people.
But, regrettably, the federal Liberal government is going in the opposite direction. They are cutting unemployment insurance benefits; they are increasing university tuition.
They have offered child care spaces. It will be very interesting to see what happens in Manitoba, and we were very interested in what the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) had to say in her statement to the House earlier this week, and also the document she put out called A Manitoba Perspective on the Federal Government's Proposals on Social Security Renewal. We have been waiting for this for a long time, and we finally have it.
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Wherever the federal government has been offloading, of course, the provincial government is very critical, and one of those areas is the cost to the Province of Manitoba of providing social assistance to off-reserve treaty aboriginal people. They have been keeping track of this cost, and now it is up to $60 million. The government rightly points out that, under the Constitution of Canada, legally these people are the responsibility of the federal government. The province also points out that when there are reductions in benefits for people on unemployment insurance, there is a cost to the Province of Manitoba. The original calculation that I saw was $2 million for 1994-95. I think that has gone up. I do not have the statistics in front of me, but of course, it is going to go up as time goes on.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)
We have two examples where the provincial government has been very critical of the federal government for cutbacks in their funding to individuals and provinces. They also talk about the rollback of the Canada Assistance Plan or, as some people have called it, the cap on CAP. We know that there will be a reduction of funds to Manitoba, which the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) calculates to be $60 million. That is a considerable cost to a province like Manitoba.
When there is something positive on the table, like new child care spaces, I believe $70 million, the Minister of Family Services kind of waffles and talks about the need to create new flexible spaces or to put the money into flexible child care. In fact, there is an offer on the table to provide new spaces in Manitoba. We are waiting to see if this government is going to take up the federal government on that offer. I doubt very much if they will. I think those spaces will remain empty, and that money will not be used in Manitoba.
I do not know what the minister is going to argue. Perhaps she will say that during the election campaign, this promise was made to create 150,000 new spaces in Canada, but no one said that it would be delivered through the Canada Assistance Plan and therefore cost shared on a 50-50 basis with the Province of Manitoba. We are hoping they will do the right thing.
Another example of a provincial program that was eliminated by this government was the SOSAR program, which allowed single parents to attend university or post-secondary institutions and have the cost paid by the provincial government. Now that is no longer possible because that program was eliminated, and it was a very good program. I know some of the graduates of that program. Some of the students that I taught in a social work course at the University of Manitoba were in that program, and they have jobs now. I think it is always to the benefit of the government and the taxpayers if people have paying jobs and are paying income tax as opposed to being on social assistance. I am disappointed that the government has eliminated that program.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I think I will try to wind up my remarks shortly. I would like to conclude by saying that some of the alternatives I have proposed and some of the things I have criticized the government for obviously cost money. This government might rightly say, well, how are we going to pay for that? One way would be to cancel the operating agreement with the Winnipeg Jets, an operating agreement that is going to cost the taxpayers of Winnipeg and Manitoba $43 million if it runs its full course, and to not putting any money into a new arena. That is a lot of money that is on the table. The Kenaston underpass is another example.
If the--particularly the federal government--but if the provincial government wants to point out where some of the money is available and the federal government really wants to get serious, they could look in the federal government publication called the Personal and Corporate Income Tax Expenditures December 1993. It itemizes billions of dollars of uncollected revenue that the federal government could collect if they so choose. Probably one of the best examples is the private family trusts which have billions of dollars, none of it being taxed because the Liberal government in the 1970s passed a 21-year rule to exempt this from taxation; the Conservative government in Ottawa, I believe in 1993, extended it another 21 years, and so there is no taxation on private family trusts.
There are many, many other sources of revenue that are itemized with amounts in this excellent publication. If the government is serious about wanting the federal government to pay for some of these things instead of offloading the cost to the province of Manitoba, then this is where they can find the money.
With those comments and observations, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will conclude and also say that we are prepared to pass this bill to committee.
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): I want to spend a few moments speaking about Bill 5, The Food Donation Act. It is obviously a bill that has a fair degree of support. All parties have placed it before the Legislature today, over the last couple of weeks, and I think that is extremely positive in terms of this bill.
As we had said in our alternative speech from the throne, when we had proposed this legislation amongst other bills, obviously preventing poverty has got to be the first goal in our communities and our society, and intolerable levels of poverty are totally unacceptable to all of us.
(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
Having said that, there is a reality out there that people are hungry, and people that are hungry need food. There is a tremendous increase in the number of food banks and distribution centres and soup kitchens in Manitoba, and unfortunately in other provinces, and this need has been met by food banks in this province--[interjection] Yes, I do. As I say, this food bank increase is not germane to Manitoba in the 1990s; it is across the country.
Mr. Acting Speaker, this bill will deal with the part of distribution of food and the obtaining of food in a way that protects, to some degree, those people that are donating the food to the food banks. Therefore, it is a good bill and one worthy of support.
I had the opportunity to visit Harvest about three weeks ago. It was not my first visit. I have had other visits before. I remain very impressed with the staff and the thousands of volunteers who work in the Harvest operation, whether the distribution of food points in other places in the city or whether it is directly in Harvest itself or whether it is people contributing food. I have always been very, very--not only impressed with the people, the volunteers, who are tremendous sources of strength for our community, but I have also been saddened by the increased numbers.
You know, none of us have easy answers to these questions. If you read the Uptown newspaper last week, there was a very, very in-depth article about child poverty and poverty here in Manitoba. Why do we have a situation in only a year that we have gone from 1,900 children a month to 3,400 children a month who need food from a food bank in Winnipeg?
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All of us are here and believe that we have different solutions to this, but all of us collectively know that this is a challenge beyond all partisan politics for all of us to deal with. Children who are hungry needing food banks, 3,400 of them a month, in a society and a community that is wealthy relative to the world. A community that is a decent community with lots of strengths, lots of advantages, lots of, as I say, wealth, lots of financial strength. Yet we have 3,400 children a month needing food from food banks.
We have to deal with this, and we have suggested in our alternative to the throne speech some measures, not all the measures, but some measures, to deal with this, putting back some bridges for people to get opportunity and get off social assistance, which does two things. It not only gets people off of social assistance in terms of the cost, but it also provides positive role models in terms of dignity. The dignity of work is very important. It provides not only in the short term a return on our investment rather than welfare; it also provides in the long term that kids are growing up with a positive role model in their family in terms of work and the dignity of work that that brings.
That is one way in terms of dealing with and stopping the cycle of poverty. We applaud the government for bringing this bill forward. It replicates bills that the other two parties have brought forward. But we ask the question, we cannot stop asking the question today, why have you cut students' social allowance? Why have you reduced New Careers program? Why have you cut back on the ACCESS programs, programs that had impact on families in dealing with poverty?
Why has the federal government cut back on ACCESS? What have they got to replace it with both in terms of the former Conservatives and in the budget that we saw last February?
Where are programs like ACCESS in the Axworthy paper on reform, because we are the ones in Manitoba, when you look at our communities from where we were 20 years ago, we have trained social workers from First Nations communities. We have trained doctors. We have trained engineers. We have provided positive role models in those communities through ACCESS programs and New Careers programs, and Student Social Allowances was a similar program.
The government said they cut it because no other province does that exact same program. That was the answer given by the former minister. Well, but there are similar programs in other provinces. Saskatchewan has similar programs, because people know that to train somebody, to get them off the social assistance makes more sense than paying people welfare in perpetuity.
It is not a difficult concept. I mean, there are old-fashioned sayings: you give a person a fish and they eat for a day; you teach him how to fish and they eat for life. These are not new thoughts. Many of us that have some beliefs, some religious beliefs, have heard these in our churches before. I am sure my good friend the member for Steinbach (Mr. Driedger)--I keep wanting to say Emerson, but it is Steinbach--has heard this himself and believes that because in his communities that is the tradition.
In fact, Manitoba knows that we have some of the highest per capita citizens contributing in the communities that are representative of the member for Steinbach than anywhere in Canada, doing world development work. What are they doing? They are teaching people how to run their own economies. They are teaching people how to get off dependence and how to get on to independence.
It is a Manitoba tradition that we have cut back on. We have gone in the opposite direction. We are being penny wise and pound foolish, because we know to spend one dollar on training to get people off welfare ultimately returns seven times more money back to our economy. I say break some of that poverty cycle that is so important to deal with. Let us look at the old proverb of teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish. Let us look at that.
Maybe we do not have to go too far away. You know, we have a world of megabytes on computers and fibre optics, and we can plug into Australia. In my basement we have a computer there that I am learning to work that fascinates me, but sometimes, you know, in those computers that we should not lose sight of some of the old-fashioned common sense logic of teaching people to fish. Let us have a province that teaches people to fish. We have to deal with that when we are dealing with giving people a fish today in this bill.
Now we want to protect the people who are handing out those fish, and I, therefore, support this bill. But we want to do something more than that because hungry people should not exist in a community like Manitoba with all our wealth. With a $22- billion to $23-billion gross domestic product, there is no room for hungry children in our communities. We have failed collectively to find a way to deliver, and the member for Lac du Bonnet (Mr. Praznik) makes a point which I did not hear, but there is a food bank in his community since he has been elected. I visited the food bank in his community. It was not there in 1988. Now that is not his fault. [interjection]
Well, maybe the Minister of Labour (Mr. Praznik) does not think it is a problem. Maybe the Minister of Labour thinks freezing the minimum wage for four and a half years is not contributing to poverty. We think he is dead wrong.
Point of Order
Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): On a point of order, Mr. Acting Speaker, I always enjoy listening to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer). His remarks are generally eloquent and most of the time well put together. I do not necessarily agree with all the content, but in this case he is nowhere near the bill, and I would ask you to please bring him back to some relevance.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): I thank the honourable minister for that. I was not quite following it that closely, but I will listen a little clearer.
I would ask the honourable member to keep it close to relevancy on the bill.
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Mr. Doer: When you are talking about food, Mr. Acting Speaker, and you are talking about child poverty with food, I would suggest the minister may not like my comments. I would not expect he would, but you cannot even begin to argue that talking about food is irrelevant to The Food Donations Act. I suggest that is a pretty weak argument on behalf of the honourable House leader for the government side.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I was just suggesting and I am talking about the old proverb. I think we were all raised with that. I think we all believe that.
I had the opportunity, as I say, to visit Harvest a couple of weeks ago. It was not my first visit. Even last night I had the opportunity to visit with a number of volunteers that are working with the Harvest.
Last night was the sixth anniversary of the Huron Carole sponsored by Tom Jackson, and I want to congratulate Tom Jackson and Graham Greene and Manitoba Pool Elevators who last night probably made the point I would make to relevance. Manitoba Pool Elevators last night sponsored the Huron Carole, and they said it is absolutely relevant for a company that produces food to be involved in the distribution of food to those who need it. That is why they are a corporate sponsor. As producers of food here in Manitoba, they were very concerned that producers of food are plugged in with those who need it the most. There are many other corporate sponsors, Mr. Acting Speaker; I want to congratulate them.
We have to deal with all the issues causing poverty. We also have to deal with child poverty when it occurs. We have suggested that this bill be passed. We have suggested this bill be passed by all members of the Legislature and that the public have an opportunity to speak out on committee, because we believe this bill should go to committee to let the public speak out on this bill.
It is a tradition of this Legislature that the public is involved at the end of second reading on legislation. We would like speedy passage of this bill, but we would not want to miss the step that allows people on the front lines to speak out on this legislation, because I think it is important for us to hear the real stories and the real issues that the volunteers and agencies who are dealing with food and poverty deal with on a daily basis.
Mr. Acting Speaker, even today the Agape Table had a breakfast this morning. I did not get a chance to go this year. I have been in past years. But, again, it is an effort of the community to do something about poverty and the feeding of people that need that.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we support this bill, and we support all measures that this government or any other government or any other party will take to work on an economic strategy to create jobs; to work on an economic strategy that provides fair minimum wages to get people out of poverty; to have a strategy that builds bridges for independence rather than taking away those bridges through cutbacks in ACCESS, New Careers and Student Social Allowances and other programs that are vital to the working poor and the welfare poor in our province.
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We support strategies to deal with aboriginal people across Manitoba in a co-operative way with the federal government. The government always says that child poverty has a correlation with aboriginal population. Well, the two provinces that have the highest child poverty rate happen to be Manitoba and Alberta, and the only thing we have in common, Mr. Acting Speaker, is an ideology that I believe is a race to the bottom rather than an ideology that is one of sharing and compassion in terms of our society. That is my bias, and I am entitled to it.
We believe that this bill, in our conversations with volunteers at Harvest and David Northcott, he says that this bill has been requested by corporations like Safeway, by SuperValu, by other food stores that are donating generously of their food to the Harvest organization. I do not want to miss any company. I think that all food stores, Family Fare and others are involved in participation with Harvest. I was there, there was a whole trayload of buns coming in from Costco for people. That, too, is a company that has been supporting the Harvest food bank.
I also want to congratulate the producers. Farmers have produced a lot of food. There are tons of potatoes that have come into the food bank. There are lots of fruit and produce that comes in to the Harvest organization from farmers across Manitoba.
Last year's parade, the Thanksgiving parade, which was co-sponsored by Harvest and farmers in Manitoba, produced tons of food from people at harvest time donating food to Harvest.
So I believe this bill protects all of them. People in good faith that are donating food to our food banks should be protected by this legislation. They should not be subject to potential lawsuits if the food is donated in good faith. We, therefore, support this bill, and we want this bill to pass, and we want this bill to go to public hearings at the end of second reading stage, as is customary in this House. We want this bill--obviously after a speedy set of public hearings we would like this bill to be passed as expeditiously as possible.
An Honourable Member: Speedy hearings? That is really meaningful, is it not?
Mr. Doer: Well, I think the government wants hearings; we want hearings; the public wants hearings. That is our tradition. That is one thing we can agree on, that people have a right to speak out on their legislation in their House. It is useful that all three parties agree on this legislation. All three parties have proposed it. Now it is, we believe, the opportunity for the public to speak on it and we can get on with passing this very positive bill. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ernst: Mr. Acting Speaker, I have heard people from all sides in the House here deal with this bill and indicate that it is a good bill, it is good legislation, it should happen.
My suggestion, and I make the offer to the opposition parties, that we can make this bill law today if we want. We can simply go into Committee of the Whole, deal with the bill and have the Lieutenant-Governor come in and give it Royal Assent later this morning, and the bill will be law.
For those who wish to donate, particularly at this time of year when there are all kinds of bountiful food that in many cases may well go to waste, we can put it into law and we can have those donations made over the next week leading up to Christmas so that those families who are in need can have an opportunity to have a decent Christmas.
Points of Order
Mr. Doer: On a point of order, Mr. Acting Speaker, we have had calls from members of the public who wanted to speak out on the bill. So I know that all of us are in agreement. We are certainly willing to have a committee meeting--[interjection] I beg you pardon? Yes, from Harvest and other people. Well, I mean we are prepared to pass the bill. [interjection] Okay, well, we will want to consult with the people that have been calling us about presenting a brief, so other people can speak to the bill and we will be making some phone calls. Thank you.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please. The honourable member did not have a point of order.
The honourable member, on another point of order, or is the honourable member getting up to speak?
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Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader of the Second Opposition): Another point of order, Mr. Acting Speaker. I just want to allay the fears of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer). We have the same concerns, and it certainly is a tradition if a bill has any opposition or controversy that we would do that, but--
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order. That point of order has already been concluded. The honourable member does not have a point of order.
Is there anyone else speaking to this bill? The honourable member for Broadway.
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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Second Opposition House Leader): Mr. Acting Speaker, on a point of order. I believe that the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) initially had stood up on a point of order. Once you made your ruling, he was standing up to actually continue on in speaking on this particular bill.
We would be prepared to grant leave to the member for Broadway (Mr. Santos) to speak following the member for St. James so he does not lose his spot. I am sure there would be leave to be able to accommodate that.
Mr. Ernst: Mr. Acting Speaker, speaking on the same point of order as the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), let me say that it was my understanding when the member rose on a point of order that he had intended to speak on the bill, but was seeking clarification raised by the point of order by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer).
So with all due respect, I think it is only fair, and no one needs to give leave for anyone to speak. The bill is before the House. Anyone can speak who has not spoken before, so I think, at this point, the floor was in favour of the Leader of the second opposition party (Mr. Edwards).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please. I would like to thank the honourable members for their input on the member for Inkster's point of order, but the honourable member for Inkster did not have a point of order because I had already recognized the honourable member for Broadway to speak.
Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): I am willing to yield to the Leader of the--
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Thank you. Is there leave of the House for the honourable member for Broadway to yield to the member, and he will not lose his turn? [agreed]
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Mr. Edwards: I want to thank the member for Broadway for that, and I will be short in my comments. I have very few comments, because I have made my views known on this bill as I did on the NDP bill, as I did on the resolution put forward by the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry), all covering the same thing.
It certainly is a tradition in this House that all agree that we want to send bills of any controversy to public committee. It is also a tradition in this House that for non-controversial pieces of legislation, we have often gone right to the Committee of the Whole, we have often gone through third reading, and we have often had Royal Assent and done it very quickly.
In fact, we have sent a signal to the public that when there is no controversy, we can act quickly, and we can act decisively, and we can act productively in this Chamber.
I took the preliminary step this morning, before speaking on this, to speak to Mr. David Northcott, who is the head of Winnipeg Harvest, who probably in this province has more interest in having this bill passed than anyone else because he sees the need for it every single day. His comment was this morning to our caucus, he has no desire to speak. If there is any chance that we can get this passed into law today, that is what he wants.
He wants it passed into law because he says, as the government House leader (Mr. Ernst) has pointed out, every single day at this particular time, probably more so than any other time of the year, thousands and thousands of pounds of foodstuffs are being donated, and he would like that protection as soon as possible. He would have liked it years ago. But the fact is, every single day that goes past, he will be disappointed that this bill is not passed. So he wants it into law.
There is one person registered to speak on this bill, Mr. Tracy Young from Brandon. I just spoke to Mr. Young, just moments before I had the opportunity to stand and speak. Mr. Young was going to come to the committee to give us all heck for not passing it sooner. That was his sole purpose in speaking to the committee. He said--I want to get this right. His verbatim comments to me were: I have spent 20 years trying to get this type of legislation into place. Would you please get the job done. That is what he was going to say to us.
It seems clear to me that we should send a message to those most interested, like Mr. Young and Mr. Northcott, that we can act decisively. He was the only individual. He specifically asked me, Mr. Young did, to call him back later on to let him know what we have been able to do today to get this law into place, because he is going to be very upset if we do not put it into law today, given the chance.
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Mr. Acting Speaker, he had no desire to propose amendments or to make any other comment to our committee except to give us heck for taking so long to do it. We can make Mr. Young happy. We can make Mr. Northcott happy. We can do the right thing. We have all put forward similar pieces of legislation. I suggest we take the government House leader's advice, get on with it and do the job, and there is a precedent for this in this type of noncontroversial situation.
We are in the Christmas season. Donations are being made every day, more so than at any other time of the year. I think we can send a signal to the public that we can act quickly and decisively and productively and do the right thing and not get caught up in the rhetoric, in the partisanship, but just get on with the job. Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
Mr. Santos: Mr. Acting Speaker, we would like to support this bill because it is important that donors be protected from liability.
The food itself is essential to life, and without food, life cannot go on. There are some people who are unfortunate and have no means to feed themselves. The poor of this world will always be poor, and the rich of this world will always be rich. It is always a world where some people are deprived of the basic necessities of life and some people have so much that those who are deprived sometimes have to get under the table and get the crumbs from those who have the most.
We want to facilitate the charity and good nature of people with some facilities to use it. The processing of the food itself, however, is the most wasteful of all the stages in the food production process. I have seen how food had been served in cafeterias in universities and in other cafeterias. That is the greatest waste there is that takes place in all of those places. Yet when food distributors and restaurants and other places where they manufacture and process food distribute this food, they sometimes have to throw these things to waste. They are afraid to donate it for fear that they may be subjected to some liability. Therefore, we ask the immediate processing of this bill, Mr. Acting Speaker. Thank you.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Is the House ready for the question?
Point of Order
Mr. Doer: On a point of order, Mr. Acting Speaker, we have consulted a couple of groups that we were involved with directly drafting our own bill on this bill. There is a consensus from those groups to do it today. I just caution members here that taking an extra day sometimes instead of playing politics is useful because we are not absolutely perfect in terms of drafting bills.
We will agree because we do not want to get caught up in a political game about something that makes uses--
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Is the House ready for the question?
Some Honourable Members: Question.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading of Bill 5 (The Food Donations Act; Loi sur les dons d'aliments). Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion? [Agreed]
Mr. Ernst: I move, seconded by the Minister responsible for Government Services (Mr. Ducharme), that Mr. Acting Speaker do now leave the Chair and that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 5.
Motion agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 5, with the honourable member for Seine River (Mrs. Dacquay) in the Chair.
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
Bill 5--The Food Donations Act
Madam Chairperson (Louise Dacquay): Order, please. Will the Committee of the Whole please come to order. The Committee of the Whole will come to order to consider Bill 5, The Food Donations Act (Loi sur les dons d'aliments). Does the honourable Minister of Family Services wish to make an opening statement?
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): No.
Madam Chairperson: Does the opposition critic, the honourable member for Burrows, wish to make a statement?
Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): No.
Madam Chairperson: Does the critic for the second opposition party, the honourable member for Osborne, wish to make a statement?
Ms. Norma McCormick (Osborne): No.
Madam Chairperson: We shall then proceed to consider Bill 5 clause by clause. Clause 1--pass; Clause 2--pass; Clause 3--pass; Clause 4--pass; Clause 5--pass; Preamble--pass; Title of the Bill--pass.
Is it the will of the committee that I report the bill? Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.
Committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
IN SESSION
Committee Report
Mrs. Louise Dacquay (Chairperson of Committees): Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered Bill 5 (The Food Donations Act; Loi sur les dons d'aliments), and reports the same without amendment.
I move, seconded by the honourable member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson), that the report of the committee be received.
Motion agreed to.
REPORT STAGE
Bill 5--The Food Donations Act
Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move (by leave), seconded by the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), that Bill 5, The Food Donations Act (Loi sur les dons d'aliments), as reported from the Committee of the Whole be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
THIRD READINGS
Bill 5--The Food Donations Act
Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), that Bill 5, The Food Donations Act (Loi sur les dons d'ailments), be now read a third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable government House leader have leave for third reading of Bill 5? [agreed]
Motion agreed to.
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House Business
Mr. Ernst: On a matter of House Business, given the Christmas spirit that has been evident here this morning, it has occurred perhaps a little more quickly than the Lieutenant-Governor can be available, so we will have, I think maybe, about 20 minutes or so before he can be available to give Bill 5 the Royal Assent, as we have collectively agreed to here this morning.
So perhaps we may wish to either adjourn for a short period of time, recess until the Lieutenant-Governor is available, or we can start on something else. It makes it a little more awkward if we do start on something else rather than simply recess until perhaps twelve o'clock, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: What is the will of the House?
I am informed that the Lieutenant-Governor, His Honour, cannot be present until 12:15. We will be recessed until 12:15. The bells will ring for one minute at 12:14, be present in the House for 12:15. This House now recesses until 12:15.
The House recessed at 11:52 a.m.
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After Recess
The House resumed at 12:15 p.m.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I have been advised that the Lieutenant-Governor has arrived. Will all honourable members please rise?
ROYAL ASSENT
Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms (Mr. Garry Clark): His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.
His Honour Yves Dumont, Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Manitoba, having entered the House and being seated on the throne, Madam Deputy Speaker addressed His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor in the following words:
Madam Deputy Speaker: May it please Your Honour:
The Legislative Assembly, in its present session, passed a bill which in the name of the Assembly I present to Your Honour and to which bill I respectfully request Your Honour's assent, Bill 5, The Food Donations Act; Loi sur les dons d'aliments.
Mr. Clerk (William Remnant): In Her Majesty's name His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to this bill.
(His Honour was then pleased to retire.)
Madam Deputy Speaker: The honourable government House leader, what are your intentions, sir?
Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Madam Deputy Speaker, I think if you look closely at the clock, you will find it is 12:30.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is it the will of the House to call it 12:30? Agreed? [agreed]
The hour being 12:30, this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m., Monday.