THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

(Sixth Day of Debate)

Mr. Speaker: On the adjourned debate, the sixth day of debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) for an address to His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, in answer to his speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed amendment of the honourable Leader of the official opposition (Mr. Doer) in amendment thereto.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have the opportunity to be here and to represent my constituents again and to welcome you back, your staff and the new Pages. I look forward to being guided by your sense of fair play, your good humour and your very obvious respect for the history and public purpose of this Chamber.

Est-ce que je puis vous offrir dans le sens personnel mes meilleurs souhaits pour la saison et la fete de Noel.

[Translation]

May I offer you personally my best wishes for the season and Christmas.

[English]

How does one sum up the last six years of Tory rule? How do I begin to put on the record what these years have meant for the people whom I represent and try at the same time to reflect on the meaning for the longer term of the temporary triumph of the free-market Tories at the end of the 20th Century?

Mr. Speaker, most Manitobans are well aware that their world has changed. Most will tell you that this is not Manitoba as it ought to be or as it was. Of course, change is inevitable; in some cases it is also desirable.

The generations which are represented in this House have experienced what an eminent historian has recently called in a new book, the Age of Extremes: Our Short Twentieth Century. He describes in three parts as a kind of historical sandwich, an age of catastrophe from 1914 to 1945, followed by some 25 years of extraordinary economic growth and social transformation which probably changed human society more profoundly than any other period of comparable brevity. In retrospect it may be seen as a sort of golden age and was so seen. Almost immediately it had come to an end in the early 1970s. The last part of the century has been a new era of decomposition, uncertainty and crisis. Indeed, for large parts of the world, such as Africa, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the catastrophe has indeed been very sharp.

During the 1980s and as they gave way to the '90s, the mood of those who reflected on the centuries past and future was a growing fantaisie et la glum [phonetic]. Has this been the experience of our province and our people?--I asked myself. We tend to think of ourselves as a fortunate people, not the lucky country in the way that Australia has come to define itself, but a fortunate province, sheltered from the intimate face of war or the desolation of famine or of extended civil strife.

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There is a good measure of truth in this, Mr. Speaker, but as I reflected on our short 20th Century, it took a slightly different form. Between 1914 and 1945, Manitoba faced enormous challenges. The post-war recession was severe. Class and ethnic divisions were evident and unsolved. A short boom period was followed by the harshest of depressions. A Second World War again took sons and husbands and daughters to Asia and Europe, some never to return.

In the late 1950s, however, like Western Europe, we shared in the expansion of prosperity, individual mobility, and perhaps we too will come to regard it as one of our golden ages. The governments of Roblin, Schreyer and Pawley led a steady economic expansion and welcomed immigrants in those years, particularly from Britain and Europe. They created a public infrastructure which was open to all. Like John Dafoe, the earlier John Dafoe, before them, they saw the public school as the foyer, as the hearth place of this fortunate society, and they built them and supported them. Through public celebrations of centennials and other festivals at the provincial and local levels, they created that sense of the common good that was at the foundation of this fortunate society.

The art galleries, the zoo, the museums, the city and provincial parks, our colleges and universities all experienced significant growth in this period. Universities and colleges in particular opened their doors to women and to many others who were the first in their families to attend post-secondary education, and I suspect that includes a number of us here in this Chamber.

Modern-day Tories characterized this as the product of, and I quote, government spending like drunken sailors and expanding the role of government at the expense of the individual. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it argues and represents a remarkable consensus about the building of a plural society and the importance of community investment. Such institutions served our generation and, indeed, they enabled the majority of us to do together what we could not possibly have undertaken on our own.

Public roads and transport gave us access to our parks and beaches, which were open to all. The public school system gave us trained, dedicated and energetic teachers from all over the world. Our classrooms, too, reflected the United Nations. Although there were strains, the remarkable achievement of Manitobans of that generation was that the ideals of a plural society, built on tolerance and learning and mutual support, survived and indeed survived to become our dominant public culture.

In that historian's view of the short and brutal 20th Century,

perhaps we would be an anomaly. Perhaps we can and should remind ourselves of this achievement.

In part, of course, the economic expansion of the 1960-to-1980 period made it feasible. But what made it happen was a commonly held belief that the role of government was to bring people together across the province to participate in the broader political life. The role of government was to build a community and a public ethos which sought to equalize opportunity in all parts of the province, particularly in rural and northern Manitoba and across racial and class lines.

(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

Madam Deputy Speaker, it was a public culture which was mutually reinforcing. When the people believe that government is on their side, and when they see that government will build the bridges of public schools, public health care and publicly accessible recreation, which ensures that none of us is limited by accident or place of birth, they will offer an allegiance to their community. This was evident in those years in the absence of vandalism, in the lower levels of crime rates and in a visible common sense of responsibility for our children.

But as our fellow citizens look around their communities today, they sense that we are now living in a very different world. Wake up and smell the coffee, say the good old boys on the other side of this Chamber. It is the new global economy, tougher, meaner, leaner. Only the fittest, the toughest and the meanest will survive. And they speak of it as though these new economic laws have been handed down from heaven like some eleventh commandment. But this is not so, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Around the world, the new libertarian right and the neoliberals represented by the Education minister and the rest of his colleagues set out to alter the consensus of community which had been built in the post-war years.

The awarding of the Nobel prize in economics to Freidrich A. von Hayek in 1974 and to Milton Friedman in 1978 are landmarks in the ascension of this new, more brutal intellectual world.

The 1980s saw the creation of numerous think-tanks and policy institutes of the right which set out not only their intellectual agenda but a campaign of propaganda to ensure that their message entered into the schools, colleges, the press, the speeches of all the bank presidents and the national public debates. We should not accept the argument of this government that they are merely hostages to a new world order that they do not control.

They and their fellow believers around the world, they and the multinationals, they and the banks, they and the financial institutions which form such a major part of their Manitoba PC Fund created the new conditions. They created them knowingly and deliberately. They knew that the consequences of their new order were greatly divided communities and greater inequality.

They dismissed it as structural adjustments and were prepared to see the emergence of a new unequal and divided Manitoba. We must now all live with the consequences of those decisions.

Manitoba of the late 20th Century is an increasingly insecure society. We have lost jobs, we have lost people, we have especially lost young people. Those who have jobs are under increasing stress as they are forced to take on the work of two or three, and they live in constant anxiety that they too will soon be joining the ranks of the part-time labour force or the unemployed.

That is why there is so much concern about the proposed changes to the unemployment insurance scheme. Most Manitobans now know that it might be their turn next, and as the downsizing continues, people in more and more sectors are being faced with the insecure society which has been deliberately created. Fears of economic insecurity are well founded. One of the ways in which the new Toryism works is to increase the gap between rich and poor in our society.

In Canada, as a whole, their rhetoric proclaims loudly the importance of training in high-skilled jobs, but in fact the majority of jobs which are being created, and particularly in Manitoba, are at the low wage end. They are frequently part time or seasonal, and they are one of the obvious ways in which the Tories have created low wage economies in Canada.

The decline in real wages in Canada and Manitoba has been well documented and is evident to all of our people. But from the perspective of our once fortunate province, the full story is to be found in the redistribution of wealth in the community. The redistribution of income from low and middle income to high income groups in Canada has accelerated in the post-free trade era.

The post-war trend of redistributing income from rich to poor began to end by the late 1970s, but this shift has accelerated strikingly since 1988. Between 1987 and 1991, the share of the income pie of the top 20 percent of Canadian income earners increased an average of 1.2 percent per year, almost double their annual increase of 0.69 percent in the previous decade.

The bottom 60 percent, the majority of my constituents, saw their share of national income drop 1.8 percent every year from 1987 to 1991, two and a half times faster than the rate at which they were losing the income in the earlier periods.

What is significant is that not only is the gap between rich and poor growing, it is picking up speed. In Manitoba, there has been a similar trend, a story which is told in the statistics, which show us as the child poverty centre of the country, and behind every poor child there lies a poor family.

The insecurity that people face in their economic life is compounded by the certain knowledge that, not only will they fall, but they will fall very far in the economic scale. As economic conditions deteriorate for Manitobans, they find that they are being asked to bear a greater proportion of the costs of the province than are the high income earners.

At a time when they are most in need of what we used to call the social wage, those public services and public institutions which treated us all equally and which enabled us to create secure and reasonable lives for our families, they now find that those are the very services, education, health, recreation and transport which are being rendered less and less accessible--less equal by the very deliberate policies of the New Conservatives.

Manitobans can no longer assume that their education will enable them to find a job. They can no longer assume that their government will provide equal educational opportunities or equal access to health care. They can, in fact, no longer assume that government is on their side, and that marks an important transition for this province, one which may have ultimately the severest of consequences.

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Manitobans feel insecure in their classrooms, their streets and even in their homes. Crimes of violence, including suicide, are increasing. Increasingly, these may be the acts of young people, some of whom seem to show little remorse.

Madam Deputy Speaker, such periods of alienation and such periods of increasing crime have occurred before. They occurred in similar conditions of rapid industrial change because the general tendency of industrialization has always been to replace human skill by machines and has always led to dislocation and to families in despair.

Is it any accident, asked a recent authority, that 10 of the largest mass murders in American history have occurred since 1980, typically the acts of middle-aged people in their thirties and forties after a long and prolonged period of being lonely and frustrated and full of rage? The same authority asked, was even the growing culture of hate in the United States an accident, a hate which becomes audible in the lyrics of popular music in the 1980s and which is evident in the growing overt cruelty of film and television programs?

Poverty and unemployment lay the conditions for crime. They do not in themselves create the crime or cause the crime. Correlation of rising crime rates and rising unemployment rates do not necessarily mean causality, but they do indeed lay the conditions.

I am reminded of a speech that the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Driedger) made last year, when he talked about growing up in Steinbach in the 1930s, when everyone was poor, and the crime rates were low. Indeed, I went back, and I checked the rates for Canada generally. I thought perhaps that Steinbach and similar communities, where there is a uniformity, a unity in the community of cultural values and of family links, perhaps that was the exception. But in fact, across Canada during the Depression, crime rates did not rise substantially.

So what is the difference between the correlation now in the increase in crime rates and in the increase in poverty and in unemployment? I think there are two differences. What is different today is the widening gap between rich and poor. During the Depression, everyone was poor, and the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Driedger) made that point very well and very clearly, but now the gap is growing. As I mentioned earlier in my speech, the rate at which that gap is growing is speeding up like a ball rolling downhill, and it is gathering speed as it goes. We know the consequences of that in the cities, not just in Winnipeg but elsewhere, and we are well aware of the implications that that widening gap has for, particularly, our young people.

I think a second difference that I would see between now and the 1930s is in fact that the evidence of the gap between rich and poor is not as readily apparent to the majority of people. In the days in the 1930s, when we had the young and beautiful, the Great Gatsbys or the Timothy Eatons of their day who lived well during the depression, that wealth and the evidence of that wealth were not widely known to people outside the small enclaves of Rosedale perhaps or of Westmount or of Shaughnessy. The great majority of people did not know of the way in which the very rich lived.

But now in every home are beamed the television dramas, the television melodramas, the evidence of glitter and gilt that is there in the idealized version of North American society. People, whether they live in Pukatawagan or whether they live in Steinbach, are now very aware of a great variety of different kinds of life, ones which are lived in a way very different from the conditions into which they are put.

I think a third difference is now the difference between the place where children are born and the aspirations to which they can legitimately achieve. I would expect in Steinbach in the 1930s it was legitimate to expect, as it was in Winnipeg in the 1950s, that one would achieve a higher standard of living, a higher level of education than one's parents and that one would be able to find a job as one came to be an adult. Those assumptions are not there now. None of those assumptions are present in our young people, and that is a substantial difference from the 1930s.

What is also different is the violence of our own day and the speed with which it is taking hold and its poisonous and racial overtones in parts of our inner cities. What is also different is the response of Tory governments.

In the middle and late 19th Century, when instability and insecurity brought increasing violence, the state responded here and in Europe in a variety of ways. Yes, they created police forces and they used the power of the state to mitigate the worst excesses of their new free market capitalism. They brought public enterprise to social services, clean water, public health facilities, wash houses, sanitation and disease control, public housing inspection and health facilities.

To be sure, the control of disease and the creation of police forces all made life more safe and more comfortable for everyone, particularly in the cities, but it also gave relief to the lives of those who industrial capitalism had made poor and hungry and homeless.

Now, as then, the market brutalizes as it forces wages down. Strong families cannot and do not flourish in a world of declining wages, diminishing educational opportunities and increasing economic disparities. Strong families weaken where their people have no sense that they have some control over their world and their pace of change.

I have said many times that you fundamentally cannot restore communities such as we need in Manitoba without restraining the market. You cannot have the stand-aside economic policies of this government of the last six years and not take some of the blame for the increase in crime. If you are to make life more secure for the majority, you must also be tough on the causes of crime and on the causes of insecurity and despair in our society.

The reformers of the 19th Century, Tories and socialists both, understood that. The new Tories are not prepared to take responsibility for the public culture of insecurity that they have created. Yet it is obvious, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the more people grow up with a stake in society, with a chance of getting a job and some prosperity, the more likely they are to be a responsible member of society.

The abandonment of secure employment and the slashing of the welfare state are clearly causes for the loss of that social solidarity that was once one of the hallmarks of an earlier Manitoba society. In Manitoba as well we have a government which has chosen to divide us. Indeed this has been the most divisive government I have seen. It is pitting parents against teachers, dividing nurses and staff of our health care system. It is also a government which has chosen to cut welfare rates, have cut friendship centres, which has introduced user fees in health care, abandoned children's dental care, cut public schools and public school financing, increased by 140 percent the daycare charges, made no increases to the minimum wages over four years, and made a tax on labour with its ending of FOS and with its Bill 22, attacking what John Kenneth Galbraith has called, the most civilizing force in capitalism.

Manitoba is now a very different place than it was six years ago. The insecurity, the diminished public service and the loss of hope will all present challenges for a new government. Madam Deputy Speaker, we believe that the job of government is to bring people together, to bring together the parent, the child, and the teacher to pull in the same direction in education, to use public spending to overcome inequities, to bring labour, education and business together to create the conditions for prosperity and high employment which will enable Manitoba to regain its sense of itself as a civil society.

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Hon. Harold Gilleshammer (Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship): Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to have an opportunity to make a contribution to the throne speech debate.

Before I commence that, Madam Deputy Speaker, through you I would like you to let the Speaker know how pleased I am that he is back in charge of us again. I am sure that if you do not get that opportunity somebody else will--[interjection] He will get the message anyway that we are very pleased to have him back in charge of this Assembly so that fair play is something we can all expect from the arbitrator of this Assembly.

I would also like to welcome the new Pages as other people have and I hope that they indeed enjoy their stay here in the Assembly.

It is indeed a pleasure to make contribution to the throne speech, a speech that has been widely acclaimed across this province. I note from legislation being proposed by opposition members there is a tremendous amount of agreement on the direction that this government is taking, and in fact I do suspect that many of them would like to perhaps vote in favour of this throne speech, if they were given the opportunity to do that.

The other thing, of course, that we enjoy about the throne speech is to listen to fellow members of the Legislative Assembly and in many ways get to know them a little better as they make their contribution. I particularly enjoyed the member for Rupertsland's (Mr. Robinson) contribution the other day in speaking about his experiences and his thoughts and feelings about the Assembly. I know as there are great strides being made toward self-government within this province and even talk about a new aboriginal party I would encourage him and his members to give that support because I think that certainly this is a step in the right direction. I know the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) agrees with that.

I will tell you that over the last year and a half I have had the pleasure of being the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship and being responsible in many ways for the quality of life that we enjoy here in Manitoba. I would like to just take a little time to talk about the department.

We have a very vibrant, cultural community here in Manitoba. Our major cultural groups are known throughout the country and throughout the world for the tremendous performances they give and acclaimed here in Manitoba as well, and is part of that quality of life that we enjoy as Manitobans.

In comparison to other jurisdictions within this country where there are massive deficits and debts, our industry is in relatively good shape. We have been able to work with those groups on deficit reduction programs and, I might say, maintain the funding for our cultural industries where the municipal government and the federal government has decreased. In fact, there are certainly discussions again about the Canada Council making massive cuts to cultural industries in this country. It will have a devastating effect on our industries here in Manitoba, but I am pleased that our funding and our support for them has been fairly constant.

As well, we have a number of heritage groups within the province which enjoy the support of the public, all levels of government, and I am very pleased that we are able to do that.

I would like to perhaps make some comments on my responsibility in the citizenship area. I know that I expected the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) and his colleague perhaps to get into that in their discussions in the last few days. I am rather disappointed that they were not able to find the time or maybe have the courage to put some thoughts on the record as far as immigration and citizenship is concerned. I know my friend from Wellington (Ms. Barrett) is quite interested in that.

We have a situation in Canada where the federal government is making some dramatic changes in the levels of immigration that they are going to allow into Canada, and this is going to have a rather devastating impact on us here in Manitoba. We desperately would like to increase the number of immigrants coming to Manitoba. We feel because we have 4 percent of the population that we perhaps should expect 4 percent of the immigrants to reside here or to come here to Manitoba. But changes that the--

Point of Order

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Second Opposition House Leader): Madam Deputy Speaker, on a point of order. I would want to know if the minister would entertain a very short question either now or at the end of his speech.

Madam Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for Inkster does not have point of order.

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Mr. Gilleshammer: I am most encouraged that the member for Inkster has some interest in this issue, and of course surprised that he did not put anything on the record when he had an opportunity the other day. I am sure either today or in the next short while we will have a chance to get into that discussion. I know this is a tremendously important issue for him. I am surprised and disappointed that he has not stood up for Manitobans.

I want to talk a little bit about the responsibility of members to stand up for Manitoba, to look after Manitoba's interests first. I mean, this covers a wide spectrum of activities. We had major taxation reduction on cigarettes which has a tremendous negative effect on health here in Canada. The member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) and his Leader--I am sure he is not listening today wherever he is, but I think it was important that all legislators in Manitoba speak out on this issue and the Liberal Party was strangely silent on that issue.

Similarly, we have not heard anything from them on the durum wheat issue. We have not heard anything on the massive reductions to airports in rural and northern Manitoba which is going to mean the closure of airports in northern Manitoba. The Liberal Party of Manitoba has said nothing about that, and I think it is time that they stood up for Manitoba, took a stand with their federal cousins and supported the government in some of the criticisms. We have supported the federal government, we have worked with them on a number of issues on infrastructure, and we think these are good programs, but as Manitobans we also have a responsibility to criticize when criticism is warranted.

I might even mention in the national park in Manitoba and I am not sure if the member for Inkster has been to the national park in Manitoba, but there is now talk of introducing user fees which is going to impact on families and seniors in Manitoba. They will be unable to attend that park the way they have in past. So besides abandoning these northern and rural airports, making it difficult for Manitobans to visit a national park, they have also been very silent on immigration issues. I would like to get back to that at this particular time.

In Manitoba last year, in the family class, immigrants coming to Manitoba, the immigrants that came, 49 percent were family class. The changes that the federal government is now proposing to make is going to seriously cut the number of immigrants coming to Manitoba particularly of that family class. In Manitoba this province was built by immigrants and we have jobs and opportunities here in Manitoba that are going unfulfilled, that these immigrants would have an opportunity be part of mainstream Manitoba, but the federal Liberal government with the assistance of the Manitoba Liberals are going to hamper that activity.

I think that what Manitobans are looking for is a consistent message from the Liberal Party of Manitoba and I think that the new Leader of the Liberals is falling into the same trap that the previous Leader fell into when she was the Leader in Manitoba. I might just reference decentralization.

The Liberal Leader was in my hometown of Minnedosa not too long ago and a quote in the local paper says that decentralization is another area where improvements can be made. I can only assume from that that the Liberals now are supporting decentralization, but I would remind the Liberal Party that this is a massive change in policy.

I am looking at a headline here in the Brandon Sun: Carstairs condemns decentralization. This brought forward editorials in fine rural family newspapers like the Minnedosa Tribune, which says, Liberals have given up on rural Manitoba. That was a result of their decentralization policy at that time. I sense, although it is not clear, that there may be a change in that policy developing.

I see my friend the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) here. People in Minnedosa remember her attack on the Minnedosa courthouse when this government in 1988 and '89 put some small resources forward to repair a heritage building, to repair a courthouse in Minnedosa, and I remember her condemning that and saying what a waste of money this was and that those resources should not be spent in rural Manitoba.

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I remind her of what her Leader and one of her colleagues said about the building of the Minnedosa Hospital, that they would have cancelled that construction in Minnedosa, in Virden and in Elkhorn and they would have spent that money in Winnipeg. The Liberals in Manitoba have never been supportive of rural Manitoba, but I am sensing a change. I am sensing a change if in fact that is what the Leader of the Liberal Party is now saying.

In that same visit to Minnedosa, it was a picnic, I think, in June of this year, the Leader of the Liberal Party says that 100 percent of VLT monies will be returned to rural Manitoba by that party if they become government. [interjection] Your Leader said that, and it is a quotation in the Minnedosa Tribune.

I am wondering what he is going to do about the $14 million we put into rural development. Either he will cut that or he will raise taxes to find it. I am wondering what he will do about the $20 million from those revenues that we put into health care. Either he will have to cut that or he will have to find new revenues through taxation. I am wondering what he will do with programs like this department where we depend on Lotteries revenue for $35 million. I suppose he will have to cut part of that or else find new revenues, but that of course should not surprise us.

The federal government, and we applaud them for looking at efficiencies, looking at savings as they prepare for their February budget--the headlines in yesterday's paper, of course, said, yes, we are going to do some of those tough things but we are also going to raise taxes. In yesterday's Globe and Mail, the headline, Grits propose income surtax, but they call it a special temporary.

I would remind my friends in the Liberal Party that income tax in 1917 was to be a temporary tax. Liberals have to understand that what we have in Manitoba and Canada is not a revenue problem for government, it is an expenditure problem, and this is what the federal Liberals would do, and I suspect because there is such agreement on the part of the provincial Liberals in the area of immigration, in the area of transportation payments, in the area of changes to durum wheat and today sugar beets, that they would do the same thing.

I would say that Manitobans should expect a Liberal government here simply to raise taxes. Now, this was not only reported in Canada's national newspaper but also in the local paper. A headline in the Winnipeg Sun, Feds in our pockets. That is exactly what they would do, and they talk about temporary tax hikes to deal with their problem.

David Walker, who I think was the campaign chairman in 1990 for the provincial Liberals and often a spokesman for the Liberals, says tax hikes on the horizon.

The consistency that we see with the provincial Liberals and the federal Liberals could only lead one to conclude that a Liberal government would contain massive tax hikes. I caution members who are here from the Liberal Party and I would hope that they would perhaps pass that on to their Leader when they see him again, that there has to be consistency. What he says in rural Manitoba he should say here in the city.

In fact, I have a letter to the editor that was recently published in November of 1994, where the Leader of the Liberal Party is in the Steinbach area saying, government has few roles to play beyond providing health care, roads and a few other basic services.

When he spoke in the Legislature back in April he said, government, I believe, has a greater role to play, more than the Conservatives believe it does. So again there is this lack of consistency in the message. Of course, probably no greater example than the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) demanding that his Leader build more casinos in Manitoba, and should he have been leader and, I mean, a lot of us and a lot of Manitobans are disappointed that he is not the Leader of that party, we expect that there would have been more casinos.

In that same trip out to the fine community of Minnedosa, the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards), at that same time he tells rural Manitobans not to give up. He says, you cannot expect to go out and find 600 jobs at a time, but we have to look at creating six jobs at a time. I kind of in a way agree with that, yet when he is speaking elsewhere he says rural development programs are "small potatoes."

In fact, in using those kinds of analogies, I can recall when we did not receive the North American Centre on Environment here in Winnipeg, something that I think the previous government and our government worked very hard to do, his response is, we have bigger fish to fry. Again there is quite a basic inconsistency in the message that we are getting from the Liberal Leader (Mr. Edwards) and the Liberal Party although the consistency is in the style of his analogies.

So Manitobans are wondering where the Liberal Party does stand on issues like decentralization, and again I remind them that we do not forget their condemnation of the Minnedosa courthouse and the Minnedosa hospital and that they were wanting to spend those resources elsewhere. Of course, in another trip to Minnedosa I can remember the former Liberal Leader saying that we do not need personal care--that would be Senator Carstairs--that 40 percent of the people did not need to be there. She was going to throw them out into the street, and yet she wanted those expenditures here in the city of Winnipeg and some of the urban areas.

Now that she has gone to the Senate, of course--

An Honourable Member: In her crusade against patronage.

Mr. Gilleshammer: Of course, I think it was the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureaux) who was going to bring legislation in on board appointments. What was the title the member for Inkster had as a critic? It was the ethics critic. Of course there was to be no more patronage. He has been very silent on that appointment, very silent.

I know that they have lost other staff from the Liberal caucus who have been appointed to immigration boards and other things. So again we see that inconsistency.

I know that Liberals have been talking about this balanced budget legislation.

An Honourable Member: What balanced budget legislation?

Mr. Gilleshammer: I know that we cannot ask the member for Inkster to vote on that, because he has not seen the legislation, but let us talk about the principle. Let us talk about the principle of a balanced budget.

This government has worked very hard for seven years not to raise taxes, not to raise personal taxes, income tax, sales tax, and we have worked very methodically towards a balanced budget, and the balanced budget is on the horizon. We also intend to bring out balanced budget legislation.

So on that principle, where does the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) and where does the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) stand? They have not said. In fact, when there were stories in the media not too long ago about perhaps increased transfer payments and perhaps more revenue from other sources there was not one member of the Liberal Party who said, here is a chance to balance the budget.

They had 10 different ways to spend it. All they could think of was additional expenditures. So it does not surprise me that the Liberals are not going to support balanced budget legislation because, in principle, they do not believe in a balanced budget.

I might just also comment on the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) sending petitions around the country. In fact, many school principals and school teachers in my area are rather offended that some stranger from the Manitoba Legislature is sending petitions across the province begging people to sign them. Their first question is, who is this person, and they say, well, usually when there is grassroots support for something in a staff room they might get a petition together and they are wondering why a member of the Legislature is out there promoting and sending these things at some expense to the taxpayer and creating some misunderstanding out there. I just caution him on these expenditures and whether it is to try and get a constituent work or whether it is to send out petitions, people wonder about these expenditures. I would just caution him about doing that.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about McKenzie Seeds while I have an opportunity, because there have been some issues on that in the media in recent times. I just want to let members of the House and Manitobans know that the government is very much working with the board of McKenzie Seeds and the staff of McKenzie Seeds to bring about a sale if it is in the best interests of Manitobans. To ensure that, we put forward some preconditions, preconditions that would ensure that there was employment security for the employees of McKenzie Seeds, that the operations would remain in Brandon, that the union would remain intact, that there would be an enhancement and expansion of the business through the upgraded facilities, technology and competitiveness. We maintain and increase the market share and that whoever would be the purchaser would demonstrate a long-term commitment to McKenzie Seeds and the community of Brandon.

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I commend the board under the chairmanship of Dale Smeltz and other board members for the thorough due diligence they have done and the job they have done in turning that company around to make it profitable. My hat is also off to the president, Ray West, and his staff who have worked so hard to make that a viable business. Having put forward those six preconditions, which no one has disagreed with, and I suspect by not hearing any disagreement there is support for that. We have had a number of unsolicited bids, and we have been working with Regal Greetings & Gifts of Toronto and their new owners the MDC corporation to see if we can in fact provide an opportunity for the private sector to come forward and purchase the business and grow the business in Brandon.

The mayor and council of Brandon have been very supportive. The Chamber of Commerce in Brandon similarly supportive. We have had a number of meetings with groups in Brandon and with the staff, and I must say that the president, Ray West, has a very close working relationship with his staff and there is tremendous support at the staff level.

In fact, the only naysayer is the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans), and it surprises me because, at an earlier point in history, he was Minister responsible for McKenzie Seeds. He at that time was attempting to sell McKenzie Seeds to Ferry Morse and he was saying then as Industry minister that the deal fell through because Ferry Morse was unwilling to guarantee that the Brandon plant would keep operating for more than two years.

This was a time when he was minister responsible, and he goes on to say: "`If the U.S. company had agreed to remain in Brandon, we would have approved the sale and possibly assisted them to put up a new plant.' . . . Nevertheless, he indicates that the Government is still prepared to sell if the right offer comes along. An attempt has been made to interest several prospective purchasers--but there have been no takers as yet."

My final direct quote: "'Frankly, the seed business is the last industry that we would want to be in,' comments Mr. Evans."

An Honourable Member: Say that again.

An Honourable Member: Tell us one more time.

Mr. Gilleshammer: There are calls from all sides of the House for me to say that again. I think perhaps maybe what I should do is table a copy of this article. Then not only can all members have a chance to have a copy and read it--I know it is on Hansard--but I would like to table a copy of that.

It is more than a little bit surprising that that same member now is raising doubts. In fact, the Brandon Sun says he continues to cast the shadow of doubt, and when he does this, he says in a later paragraph: No, I have no documentation, but I make these comments anyway.

Then he makes further comments, and then he says: No, I have not seen the agreement.

So it is not surprising that when Miles Nodell [phonetic] from MDC was apprised of these that he talks about rumourmongering. I cannot think of a more apt title, and in the quotation, he says: I think it is malicious rumourmongering by Mr. Evans.

I would caution him to make those conclusions and comments only after he has some opportunity to see direct evidence. But this is not unusual and unexpected, because earlier in discussions he was known to have said that the fact is, economics of location would dictate to any private enterprise a central Canadian site because 80 percent of the market is in central Canada and all the materials are brought into McKenzie from the east.

Not only is the market split 50-50 between east and west, also the raw materials that are used are also split 50-50 between east and west and, of course, the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) later publicly apologized for this and said that these direct quotations were taken out of context.

He also concluded from that that Brandon is not the most viable location. I can tell you there was a fire storm within the City Council of Brandon and the business community and the Chamber of Commerce or someone who represents Brandon to publicly say that Brandon is not the most viable location for a venerable old company like Mckenzie's that is just on the verge of celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Rural Manitoba and Brandon needs supporters not detractors who are labelled by members of the business community across Canada as being a rumourmonger.

My final comment on that topic would be another direct quotation where he says a written guarantee is virtually meaningless. I suggest that in the world of business, guarantees are written and they are meaningful, so as we continue to work with McKenzie Seeds and the people who are interested in purchasing it, I would hope the member for Brandon East would talk from a basis of fact and not make up some of these stories that he has been charged with doing.

Maybe just in conclusion I would like to mention a few other areas of my department that I think all Manitobans can be proud of. We have recently concluded a recreation convention in Brandon and met with recreation groups from across the province who are extremely pleased with the partnership and the relationship that recreation groups have with government. We know that recreation is just a tremendously important part of life in the city of Winnipeg and life in rural Manitoba and that we are pleased that that partnership continues. We know that good recreation programs have a tremendous effect on other aspects of life, that where we have put good programs in place the crime rate has been reduced. We know that healthy communities and people who are interested in wellness know that recreation is an integral part of life within those communities. We look forward to continuing to work with them.

Similarly I was recently at a library convention in Brandon where librarians and library boards from across the province gathered paper that came forward from the library community, asking for increased resources for communications, increased technology. We have been able to do that through additional grants and through the Manitoba Community Services Council. We are automating those libraries to take advantage of the information highway that they will soon be on. Similarly, we were able to give the libraries a 50 percent increase in their operating grants by putting another million dollars into rural libraries. Part of that was a $5,000 collections grant, and I know that libraries across the province are benefitting from that.

In libraries that I have been in in recent times--a beautiful new library was opened in Stonewall. My colleague Ed Helwer and I were in Stonewall, and it is gratifying to see the beautiful building that has been erected there by the Town of Stonewall. I believe the Town of Teulon and rural municipalities were involved in a partnership to build a tremendous library there.

I was hoping the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) would have time to ask a question on immigration. Perhaps we will not have time, but I do not want him to forget that, and I would hope that maybe in Question Period soon he would raise that.

Getting back to libraries, the Stonewall library is one that any community in North America would be proud of, and their bookmobile and their new facility and their enhanced facility is going to certainly provide, not only a recreational aspect for people there, but an informational one as well. Similarly, libraries across the province are improving their collections, and we are very pleased to be able to respond to that.

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Having said those things and not having the opportunity to get into a lot of the other issues that I would expect all of the members of this Legislature to stand up for Manitoba on--and I am sure that the member for Inkster and some of his colleagues will have that opportunity to put their platform forward, to put their stance forward, where they do stand on the reduction in the tobacco tax, the alarming discussions that are taking place on the removal of military personnel from this province, both in Portage la Prairie and St. James, that they have been strangely silent on. I believe his Leader represents the constituency of St. James. I am concerned with their lack of policy, their lack of concern for rural Manitoba, where rural airports are going to close because of the reduction and the disappearance of those airport grants and many other issues that the deputy leader of the Liberals should be speaking out on.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I think, with those few comments on the throne speech and what I see as widespread support throughout Manitoba, it seems to me the only area we differ on, just judging from the legislation coming forward, very similar to government legislation, that they would be supportive of this throne speech. The only place we depart, I think, is on that balanced budget legislation. Even though they cannot speak directly on the legislation, they could make comment on the principle, but I think perhaps they do not support it, and they probably should say that.

So, Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank the Assembly for the time and look forward to other comments on the throne speech. Thank you.

Mr. Oscar Lathlin (The Pas): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Once again I am very honoured and feel privileged to rise again in this Chamber to offer some remarks as a reply to the throne speech.

First of all, as everyone else I am sure has done in their replies, I want to take the opportunity to welcome all members back to the Legislature, to this Chamber. It is nice to be back even for the short time that we are sitting, 10, 12 days, I believe, is the time that we are sitting. Nevertheless, it is nice to be back to see once again the members of this Legislature.

I want to acknowledge the work of the Speaker and yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, for having all the patience and giving us support in times of debate.

I want to also congratulate the young people who have been appointed as Pages for this session. I hope that their stay in this Legislature, their experience in this Legislature, will enhance their growth and development and that this work here in the Legislature will be meaningful for them.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I guess before I get into my speech, I also want to wish you and the Speaker and all members of this Legislature good health, contentment and happiness as we approach the holiday season.

I wanted to concentrate on issues that are most important to the people of northern Manitoba. For example, this morning we talked about the transportation system in the North, the condition that our roads and highways are in. I have been here just a little over four years now and I remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, when I was chief of my band and coming to the provincial government to do whatever business I had to do with the provincial government, I was always told that we cannot deal with you because you are a federal responsibility. You have to go and knock on the doors of the federal government because you are a treaty Indian.

Now that I am here as a member of the Legislative Assembly, I feel now that I have become a northern problem. In those days they used to tell me that I was a treaty Indian and that I would have to go to the federal government. Now I am being told that I am a northern problem, Madam Deputy Speaker. At the same time, I am told that the resources, revenues that are derived from the citizens of Manitoba, the natural resources of Manitoba belong to all Manitobans. We agree with that. We agree with it wholeheartedly except that we find it extremely difficult to understand the actions of this government.

When you look at the natural resources that are generating revenue for this government from mining, from forestry, from hydro, and yet it turns around and tells people from northern Manitoba that essentially we do not count because we only number so much. We only have so many vehicles travelling on our roads so not to worry, you do not matter, you do not count, and at the same time being told that all the resources belong to all of Manitobans. That is what we are having a hard time accepting and understanding.

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The transportation system, as far as we can gather, is one of the crucial prerequisites for any economic development to take place. If we hope to have any economic development activity in the North, naturally we have to have a transportation system. We have to have roads. We have to have airports. We have to have the railway. We have to have the Port of Churchill, and yet when this government talks about all of the good things that it is doing for northern Manitoba and when we look around northern Manitoba to see where all these good things are happening we have trouble accepting what the government is saying.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I think sometimes the government expects people from northern Manitoba to jump up and down and say that the government is doing a good job, but the government is not doing a good job. Therefore the people from northern Manitoba are going to continue to press for fairness, for equality, for equity and for equal access to the resources that this government talks about when northern people ask for their fair share.

We have to have the Port of Churchill maintained. We have to have the railway system maintained. We also have to have the airport system maintained. You see, not only is the transportation system an economic issue in the North, it has become a health and safety issue. When you look at Norway House, for example, if they have to medivac people who are ill to Thompson or to Winnipeg, and if the airport is closed we are going to have some pretty serious problems, Madam Deputy Speaker, and somebody in government is going to have to address that.

About a year ago the Northern Economic Development Commission finished their work, and they produced a report. During the time that the study was being done, from time to time I would ask the Minister of Northern Affairs then for an update on the commission's work. The then-Minister of Northern Affairs would respond by saying that once the report is released that I would be pleasantly surprised.

(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)

Well, the report has been out for over a year now and not one recommendation has been implemented from that Northern Economic Development Commission work that was done. A lot of people spent a lot of time. They genuinely believed the government when it announced the establishment of the commission. They took it very seriously, and they came to the meetings, to the hearings, to put forth their ideas as to how they saw the economic development taking place in the North. So far we have not seen anything. Not one recommendation has been implemented.

I am not surprised, however, that the report is sitting there collecting dust because the government did the same thing with the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, a very important piece of work that was done by two eminent citizens of Manitoba. Over 100 recommendations under the provincial jurisdiction were put forth by the two commissioners, recommendations that the provincial government did not have to go to the federal government for anything. In other words, there were no jurisdictional problems. All the government had to do was have the political will and implement the recommendations of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, the justice system in the North is another thing that I wanted to mention in my speech here this afternoon. In the court in The Pas for example over the past year one position was eliminated, and yet when I speak with the people from The Pas in regards to the flow of cases that are handled by The Pas court system, there is a huge backlog, yet the government saw fit to eliminate one position, Mr. Speaker. Even one position had a very significant impact on the work that is being done by the court officials in The Pas.

The Victim Assistance Program, as far as we are concerned in The Pas, served a very useful purpose. It provided a lot of help and assistance for people who are affected by crime.

One example of the good work that was done by the Victim Assistance Program was the recent tragedy that we had in The Pas. It was a very, very serious tragedy. A lot of people were impacted by the event. Not only the family, but the whole community of The Pas was impacted. The Victim Assistance Program came in handy, trying to pull the community together and helping them cope with the event that took place in The Pas.

The people in The Pas are also very concerned with youth violence in schools and on the streets, vandalism and so on, yet since I have been here anyway, a little over four years, I have yet to see anything significant, anything substantial being launched by this government in regard to the prevention of crime awareness programs and other things.

Mr. Speaker, I also wanted to touch briefly on health care. I know the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) has been going around saying that every is A-OK. I am sorry. We have to disagree with the minister's assessment on the health care reform and the effect that it is having on people, particularly from northern Manitoba.

I did a survey not that long ago, and I asked people to talk about the health care in the survey. Over 70 percent of the responses that I got back said that the health care had a negative impact on the lives of themselves and families in northern Manitoba.

What I am particularly concerned about, however, is the way the health care reform has been carried out so far, especially in northern Manitoba. I agree that there should be health care reform. I do not have a problem with the government creating some reforms in the health care field. I do have a problem, a serious problem in the way that it is neglecting aboriginal people in the health reform.

If you know northern Manitoba, and I am sure you are familiar with northern Manitoba, the geography of northern Manitoba, the transportation system, some of the communities, most of the communities are only accessible by air. In the winter time from January to late February we can use the winter roads. We are talking about people who are isolated, who are there when--if a person, for example, breaks a leg or has a heart attack, the only place they can come to is the nursing station, and the only people who can look after that person who may have a heart attack or the person with the broken leg is the nurse who happens to be working there. They have no other place to go.

If the patient needs to be taken to a hospital for further treatment, then that person would have to be go by medivac. An airplane is summoned. It takes an hour sometimes to get to the community, sometimes more depending on the availability of aircraft at the time and depending on the weather, and in a lot of cases, depending on the time of the day that the incident is happening.

There is only Flin Flon, The Pas, Thompson and Winnipeg that our people can go to, and yet the reform is taking place in such a way that a lot of--like the aboriginal communities were not taken into consideration when this health reform is being implemented. For example, a person coming from Moose Lake to The Pas to see a physician, the first thing the physician will consider is was this medivac or was this trip from Moose Lake necessary. I have documents in my office, Mr. Speaker, where people from Pukatawagan, for example, were being told by the emergency doctor in The Pas Health Complex, the nurse being told, why do you people have to keep sending people into The Pas? Do you not know that it costs $5,000 every time you send somebody in from Pukatawagan to The Pas Health Complex? This is what the emergency doctors are telling these people, and that is why I am saying that the health reform process has neglected one segment of our society here in Manitoba, and that segment is the aboriginal community. They are out there. They are not being counted.

Mr. Speaker, last spring there was a meeting held in Toronto, Ontario, where all the senior officials from all the jurisdictions in Canada were invited to go to this meeting, and that meeting had to do with aboriginal health. It was hosted by the Ontario government. The Ontario government has a directorate called Aboriginal Health. The Saskatchewan government, the B.C. government have within their Health departments a portfolio that specifically addresses aboriginal health care.

Even in Alberta, Mr. Speaker, there is such an office in the Department of Health that addresses aboriginal health. In any event, this meeting was held in Toronto last spring and the invitations had gone out to all the provinces and, you know, this government failed to send a representative to that meeting. Yet the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) goes around saying that everything is A-Okay even when it comes to aboriginal people. That is not so.

The attitude of this government toward aboriginal people is shameful as far as I am concerned. Why else would they ignore the plight of aboriginal people especially in the area of health care? Why else would they not have a department that would specifically address aboriginal health care? Mr. Speaker, I am not going to congratulate the government. I do not have a reason to congratulate the government.

Mr. Speaker, about a month ago I wrote a letter to the Minister of Health talking about this very subject, quite a lengthy letter. In that letter I asked the Minister of Health if this government was not prepared to do anything in the area of aboriginal health, then why do they not get out of the 1964 agreement? If they got out from the 1964 agreement, that would enable the aboriginal people to go on their own and negotiate with the federal government and maybe secure better health services on their own.

Mr. Speaker, I will end my remarks there. I understand I only have so much time, so I will end there so that perhaps other colleagues of mine will have the chance to make their replies to the throne speech. Thank you.

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): Mr. Speaker, I realize that I will only get started today, but it is indeed an honour and a pleasure for me to address the members of this Legislature on behalf of the fine citizens of the Gimli constituency on matters of the throne speech and on the efforts of the government to ensure the prosperity and security of the people of this province.

I would first like to extend a warm welcome from all of my neighbours in the Gimli constituency to you, Mr. Speaker, on again assuming the role of orchestrating the smooth process of this Chamber. I am sure that all of my honourable colleagues share in my appreciation of your consistent, direct and just execution of your duties.

I would also like to welcome back the Deputy Speaker, the honourable member for Seine River (Mrs. Dacquay). Like this government, she has exemplified the leadership and prudence in her role in her service to the people of this province over the past four and a half years. Her dedication to the execution of the duties is much appreciated and duly acknowledged by all honourable members.

We are again fortunate this session, Mr. Speaker, to have some fine Pages attending the Chamber for this sitting of the Legislature, and I would like to extend a warm welcome to them also.

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Mr. Speaker: Order, please. On that note, the hour being 12:30, I am interrupting the honourable member. The honourable member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer) will have 38 minutes remaining.

The hour being 12:30, this House is now adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. Monday.