COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

(Concurrent Sections)

Consumer and Corporate Affairs

Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon, this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 3. Corporate Affairs on page 28 of the Estimates book and on page 30 of the yellow supplement book.

Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): I think there is a general agreement here that we pass Corporate Affairs and move on to Minister's Salary.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 3.(a) Corporations Branch (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $934,100--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $590,000--pass.

3.(b) Insurance Branch (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $309,300--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $99,500--pass.

3.(c) Manitoba Securities Commission (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,304,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $265,200--pass.

3.(d) Public Utilities Board (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $778,700--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $1,224,600--pass.

3.(e) Trust and Loan Corporations Branch (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $221,900--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $70,200--pass.

3.(f) Co-operative and Credit Union Regulation (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $359,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $51,800--pass.

Resolution 5.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $6,209,700 for Consumer and Corporate Affairs for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

The last item to be considered for the Estimates of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is item 1. Administration and Finance (a) Minister's Salary $22,800.

At this point, we request the minister's staff leave the table for the consideration of this item.

1.(a) Minister's Salary $22,800.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, I would have liked to have asked this, while the staff had been here, on an earlier line, but unfortunately I have been in Education Estimates on the other side of the House.

It is a constituency question, and it is about a building at 54 Young Street which I believe the minister has been dealing with. The issue is that the building has been in receivership for three months and during that time there has been no caretaking and the door has often been wide open. There has been no security either according to my constituents.

I believe the constituents have been in touch with the Residential Tenancies Branch and have been asking for a rental reduction for the months without caretaking or security, and I understand that they are not getting the kind of answer they had hoped for from the Residential Tenancies Branch.

I wonder if the minister would undertake to investigate this as quickly as possible, and whether he would give us some idea of what opportunities are available for these constituents to deal with their situation. I think, first of all, the aspect of security and caretaking is an important one, and secondly, what restitution is there for the months without it?

Hon. Jim Ernst (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Firstly, let me say, Mr. Chairman, that the building is not in receivership. The landlord has disappeared, shall we say. We have been attempting to get in touch with him for some time and have not been successful. We have talked to his daughter.

We are redirecting all of the rent so the rent is now going to the Residential Tenancies Branch as opposed to anywhere else. We do have on-site representation. One of the tenants is, in fact, acting as our representative there. The door is fixed. There is security on the premises. The maintenance orders and repairs that are required are being looked after by the Residential Tenancies Branch, and we are hopeful that we can have the arrangements with respect to this property back in some kind of order fairly soon.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I passed the building this morning, and I was not sure that the minister's information that the door is fixed and that the security is in place was necessarily the case. I wonder if the minister, does he have an order that has been fulfilled on that? I will check it again tonight on my way home, but it did not look to me as though it had been yet.

Mr. Ernst: The information I had from the Residential Tenancies Branch was that it had been repaired. Now it may be damaged again, so I will pass that along to the Residential Tenancies Branch. They do have somebody in the building who is acting as onsite representative of the Residential Tenancies Branch. We will get in touch this afternoon and make sure that things are as they should be.

Ms. Friesen: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 1.(a) Minister's Salary $22,800--pass.

Resolution 5.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $1,030,100 for Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Administration and Finance, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

This completes the Estimates of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

The next set of Estimates that will be considered by this section of the Committee of Supply are the Estimates of the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism. Shall we briefly recess to allow the minister and the critics the opportunity to prepare for the commencement of the next set of Estimates? Agreed? [agreed]

The committee recessed at 14:38 p.m.