Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Would the Committee of Supply please come to order.
This section of the Committee of Supply has been dealing with the Estimates for Executive Council. We are on Resolution 2.1(b) Management and Administration.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Chairperson, I just had a couple of questions coming out of this particular area, line of questioning, that the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Doer) was asking, and that is with respect to Executive Council. With Mr. Leitch, the Premier had indicated that he gets an annual salary. In one of the Public Accounts, the '94-95 Public Accounts, Executive Council indicated that Mr. Leitch in addition received $18,836.
I am wondering if the Premier would be able to indicate what that money would have been used for or why Mr. Leitch would have been provided that money.
Mr. Chairperson: Could I ask the honourable member to identify which Accounts he was looking at?
Mr. Lamoureux: Yes, Mr. Chairperson, it is Public Accounts '94-95. It is highlighted.
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): I am going to suggest that that is a question for Public Accounts committee. We are dealing with the 1997-98 Estimates of Expenditure, and we are dealing with the numbers that are in there. I think he would have to go to Public Accounts committee to have that question answered.
Mr. Lamoureux: I know that the Premier has at least attempted to be as up front as possible with respect to tabling information with respect to salaries which people are making within the Executive Council. I think that it would, in fact, be appropriate to pose the question, are there additional monies that are given, in whatever way, to members of the Executive Council? Here is just one example which was brought to my attention.
I guess, ultimately, I would ask the Premier, has Mr. Leitch, for example, because his name is the one that appears in Public Accounts, been receiving additional monies, and what would he have been receiving those monies for?
Mr. Filmon: I am informed that this section that he is referring to would include any expenses that would be incurred with respect to travel, entertainment, registration at conferences, whatever else would be allowable expenses for the Clerk of the Executive Council.
Mr. Lamoureux: An individual who works for Executive Council, would they not have a spending account, or does the department not have some sort of a spending account that would take those sorts of expenditures? I am wondering why the money would have been given to--I trust the reason why it is showing up under his name is because a cheque would have been cut in his name.
Are these reimbursements then that we are looking at? If that is, in fact, the case, is this something that has been ongoing over the years? For example, in the next year's Public Accounts, will we again see expenditures?
Mr. Filmon: I am informed that it is a reimbursement for allowable expenses, out-of-pocket expenses, and is no different than that which shows up for other public servants in similar fashion in the Public Accounts.
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Dealing with some policy issues now, the Premier on previous occasions, in fact in a town hall meeting in 1995 had stated that the government would be saving $10 million to privatize the Home Care Program in Manitoba. The Minister of Health, the new Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik), has said that there is very little savings to be realized by the privatization.
Was the Premier given wrong information by his staff, and why did he communicate this to the public in terms of justifying the original decision to privatize all of home care?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I think that at the time we were dealing with a vastly different proposal. We decided to scale down the privatization from a larger privatization to no more than 25 percent, I believe, of home care, and subsequently contracts have been issued for the new clients in only two quadrants.
With all due respect, this is not my area of responsibility; it is that of the Minister of Health. I do not have the details at my fingertips, but I am operating based on my recollection of the events. The decision was made to award a contract that was referred to in Question Period today to the Olsten temporary, or at least Olsten health services, and it was for an area in which there were savings to be realized. Those savings I think have been referred to by the Minister of Health.
Mr. Doer: It is the Premier's word about the $10 million, so I thought that he would be responsible for his own public commitment and his own public statement. Of course, his statement was at variance from the former Minister of Health who said they did not know what the savings would be. Then, of course, the Premier said there would be $10-million savings, and now the new Minister of Health is saying a very small saving to deal with the proposal, their so-called scaled down proposal.
So there are two Ministers of Health who have said one thing, and the Premier who said quite the opposite in the town hall meeting. Was the Premier wrong when he made the $10-million statement?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I would expect a little more honesty on the part of the Leader of the Opposition when he refers to--firstly, it was a proposal that was vastly different from what has been awarded. As I indicated, the estimates were of full privatization of services, that there could be savings in the amount of $10 million. I at all times indicated, we as a government have indicated, that we would not be absolutely certain of that until we had gone through a tender process in estimates and had tenders called for and then contracts awarded. The proposal is entirely different to what was being debated two years ago in that it represents now an award of a contract for the new clients in two quadrants, hardly anywhere close to the proposal that we were discussing two years ago.
So it was not a promise; it was not a commitment. It was an estimate of a possible award of all home care. We are not anywhere close to that. We are dealing with a small fraction of what we were dealing with potentially at the time. Whether we are dealing with a privatization that refers to 5 percent of home care at the moment, if that is so, then what would 100 percent achieve?
If we were going to do it, who can compare now when they are such vastly different proposals? All we can say is that we have awarded a contract based on an area that does save money for the taxpayer, and the government is satisfied that it is the right decision to make.
Mr. Doer: Well, the word "honesty" is thrown around by the Premier and he should be very careful, because his former Minister of Health had a different number than he did on the same proposal. His present Minister of Health has a different number than he has on a different proposal--[interjection] Let me finish. His own advisory group, a home care advisory group appointed by the government, said there would be no cost saving and it would cost more. So they had a different position of honesty than the Premier in his statement about the $10 million.
Connie Curran said it would cost more, a person who received a great deal of remuneration on behalf of the Manitoba public. Dr. Evelyn Shapiro said it would cost more and did the studies in Vancouver, Quebec City, and a number of other jurisdictions internationally. So all we have in terms of honesty, we can believe Evelyn Shapiro, Connie Curran, the government's own advisory committee on home care and two Ministers of Health, one now and one previous--albeit that the Minister of Health is now looking at a different proposal, the present minister--or we can believe the Premier.
Was the Premier telling the truth when he said $10 million, or was he just trying to justify a horrible ideological decision when he made that statement in the town hall meeting to the public of Manitoba?
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Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I know that the Leader opposite is trying to enter into some sort of philosophical debate, and he stretches the truth wildly and irrationally by trying to make comparisons on entirely different proposals. All we do know is that a contract has been awarded for the new home care services in two quadrants of the city of Winnipeg amounting to, I think, a small fraction of the total home care to be delivered in this province.
That contract will be delivered at a price that will save the taxpayer money in the province of Manitoba, about 10 percent less than the cost would have been to do it through our direct forces. So we do know that this has nothing to do with ideology. It is a practical solution to a practical challenge, and that is to be able to provide home care to an ever-increasing demand at a savings to the taxpayer, and that is precisely what we have achieved.
There is no ideology involved, otherwise we would have proceeded with full privatization without going through this kind of process of demonstrating whether or not there can be savings and picking and choosing those areas in which we can produce savings while providing an appropriate and at least equal level of service to the clients of home care.
Mr. Doer: Of course, the Premier will note that there was quite a bit of opposition from the public to the extreme and ideological decision of the government. [interjection] I apparently did not hear all of what the Premier said earlier today when the Minister of Education was interrupting the proceedings. If she wants to be part of the Estimates process in here, perhaps the Premier could bring her to the table. If not, I would ask her to be called to order.
If I have missed something that the Premier stated earlier in the afternoon when the Minister of Education was yapping on in such a rude way, then I think that the Minister of Education should be controlled by the First Minister and allow us to have our disagreements, but let us have our disagreements on our own. We do not need any help from the Minister of Education, I assure you.
I would like to ask the First Minister a question on the privatization of home care. On the whole issue of home care privatization, can the Premier indicate to me the quality standards that were used by the government to make this decision? There are two parts to health care, obviously. It is the cost and the quality of care. I mean, you could get somebody that did not have any experience providing a health care service with inadequate or substandard--and I am not saying this company has not--but how can I tell a constituent in the northeast quadrant of the city, a person, a new home care patient, say, on Hawthorne, how can I assure them that the quality standards that have been available and documented by all kinds of studies on nonprofit, publicly administered home care, how can I assure them they are going to have the same quality of care under the new private system?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, that is an issue of detail that should be more properly asked of the Minister of Health in the process of Estimates debate for the Ministry of Health where all of his officials will be there with him. All I can tell the member opposite is that from a policy perspective the issue is set up in a fashion that says we will only proceed with the privatization if (a) we can save money for the taxpayer, and (b) we can assure that the standards of care will be at least as good as they currently are.
Mr. Doer: I expect that these were the questions the Premier would have asked the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) prior to the Premier approving the contract. These are the questions he would have asked. [interjection] You did not ask these questions to the Minister of Health on behalf of the--
Mr. Filmon: Yes, and I was assured it would be done.
Mr. Doer: Then I would like to ask the Premier, and let the record show that the Premier said, I am assured it can be done, that he did, therefore, ask the questions to the Minister of Health, as he should have, that the Premier will know the continuity of care is one of the key ingredients and the minister, when he finally discovered his reports from his advisory committee and other groups, the former minister, would have noticed that the continuity of care was one of the key predictors of quality of care for elderly and disabled people that had to have home care services.
Can the Premier indicate whether the continuity of care is part of the standards that have been identified for this new contract? Can you please tell us how that will compare with the present publicly administered system?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chair, that is precisely why the contract was not awarded for existing patients, so that they would continue with their continuity of care, and that the new providers would provide services only to new patients coming on. The objective would be that they would have the same caregivers on a continuous basis. The member opposite knows that that continuity of care is not guaranteed by our present system, that if something happens to a provider, if the provider of care, the employee of home care for some reason is ill, transfers with his or her spouse to a different area, leaves for another job, goes on holidays, we have all these reasons why there is not an assurance of continuity today other than on a best efforts.
But the same best efforts will be made in respect to the contract with Olsten as are currently made with respect to the services provided by home care providers in the Manitoba health system.
Mr. Doer: The Premier will know that Dr. Shapiro and others and the government's own advisory task force compared the issue of quality of care and continuity of care with the nonprofit system here in Manitoba and a number of other systems that were private and profit in other jurisdictions and found that because more money was devoted to competitive salaries in a nonprofit system, that you had a longer period of time where people worked and you had a longer and greater continuity of care that contributed to the quality of care.
I would like to know if the government took that into consideration when they made their decision for the private, profit company that they have retained for the new patients. I was not talking about the existing patients in terms of continuity of care; I was talking about the comparison of systems which the government had available to it.
Mr. Filmon: I am informed that one of the considerations is that every attempt will be made to continue to have continuity of care, just as is currently provided by the civil servants employed in Home Care.
Mr. Doer: Has the Premier obtained from the new successful bidder their comparison on average length of employment as a home care staff compared to the existing average length of stay for the existing nonprofit system here in Manitoba?
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Mr. Filmon: I think we are getting into all the detail that should be gotten into in Health Estimates, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doer: I just want to know whether the Premier asked that question because he had a number of reports available to him through his previous Minister of Health--the Curran report, the advisory committee report, the Dr. Shapiro report. He had three reports available to him that made the statement and made the analysis that for quality of care, the more competitive the salaries were in home care, you had a greater opportunity for continuity of care which improved the quality of care. So there were numbers there, hard numbers there on this quality of care comparative factor. In fact, there were even grids available to the government, as I recall them. I am just going by memory, but there were grids available.
Can the Premier table today or have his Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) table with us, send a letter to us, comparing the experience of Manitoba on length of stay and quality of care compared to this new private successful bidding company?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, we also know that the continuity of care varied even within our own system, so there are great variabilities. As I said before, one of the objectives that has been put before the contracting company is that they, as much as is feasible, attempt to ensure that there is a continuity of care that would not disrupt that care for the individual, so that they could have that sense of security by having the same person come to them on a regular basis.
Mr. Doer: I agree that there is continuity for everyone in every profession. I just want to know whether they have, because of the correlation between quality, has the government got any numbers and can they table it today, or do they not have the numbers?
Mr. Filmon: With all due respect, those are questions that should be put before the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) in the Health Estimates.
Mr. Doer: So I have to assume that the Premier did not ask the Minister of Health these questions and does not know the answer.
Mr. Filmon: No, Mr. Chairman, I am just saying that I do not have the staff of the Ministry of Health nor all of their statistical data here. The Minister of Health would have that. I think that if he really wants that information, he should ask the Minister of Health in Health Estimates instead of trying to play political gamesmanship here.
Mr. Doer: While the Premier may think it is political gamesmanship to ask about quality of care on home care, we do not, and that is why we will keep asking them. We do not care what cheap shots he throws back at this side of the table. That is fine with us, and it is acceptable to us.
The Premier indicated that he does not have those with him. Would that have been part of the cabinet submission to approve this final decision for this private company? Would this not have been in the cabinet submission that would have been reviewed by his staff before it got to the final decision making of cabinet?
Mr. Filmon: Those issues would have been very carefully looked at by the senior staff of the Department of Health. The basic requirement is that they have to meet or exceed the current standards. That is the basis on which the contractor will be judged.
Mr. Doer: Did the government use the same kind of advice from their Department of Health experts as they used in the Rimer Alco decision?
Mr. Filmon: Again, the Ministry of Health senior administration gave us their best advice on Rimer Alco. Their best advice was to award the contract to the lowest qualifying bidder, and that is precisely what was done. They were recommended by the Department of Health in their submission to Treasury Board, and that is how Treasury Board made its decision, as I understand it.
Not being on Treasury Board, I am only repeating information that I have been given. These are things that if the member wants to get into, again, detailed debate on that, he should bring them forward to the Minister of Health.
Mr. Doer: Of course, we already tabled documents in this House that refutes what the Premier stated. We have tabled the recommendation from the government's own health committee on the Home Oxygen Program, and, of course, it does not recommend the company that the Premier chose.
I recall a day when everybody in this House, including the former Minister of Health, stood up about the decision of the CF-18 and talked about the fact that the government of the day, the federal Mulroney government of the day, did not follow the advice of their own technical committee dealing with the awarding of a military contract and instead chose to award it to the province of Quebec and to a company that was not suited to get that contract. Everybody in this House stood up for western Canada and for Manitoba and against the federal Mulroney Conservatives. [interjection] That is right; they certainly did. I wonder which way Jean Charest voted on that issue, but we are not going to get involved in the federal election right now.
We had the best bid, and there was a tendering process. There was a technical committee not made up of politicians but made up of experts to review the cost and quality of the contracts. The proposal was to go with Bristol. Of course, this federal Tory former government went with their own decision and justified it just like the Premier is today--oh, we had two identical bids, and we went with one, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But the bottom line is this Premier (Mr. Filmon) had one set of advisors, one set of health care experts who provided a recommendation to the government which they in their so-called wisdom supplanted with their own decision. I think it is unfortunate that where a Legislature has in the past demonstrated somewhat of a unanimous voice about this kind of decision making in the awarding of contracts, that this Premier would be rejecting the advice of his committee just like Mulroney did with the CF-18 contract.
I think that is wrong, which leads me to my next question, and that is we have proposed an all-party committee to deal with the Bristol issue. I am sure his office under this line is dealing with the Bristol jobs that are so important to our community. We note again that there are other contracts going all across Canada, being awarded by the federal government to other aerospace jobs and aerospace communities that Manitoba is in competition with.
Can the Premier please tell us whom he has talked to, or whom his office has talked to about Bristol? Will there be an announcement this week on Bristol? We have heard rumours about the 16th. We have heard other rumours that it will not be the 16th. Can the Premier indicate what the status of the situation is of Bristol in terms of people that rely on those jobs in the community?
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Mr. Filmon: Before I respond to the question about Bristol, I have to indicate that I cannot let stay on the record more untruthful comments being put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. He said that the Premier chose to award the contract to Rimer Alco. I have said to him in this House, and I have said publicly a point that has never been challenged by anybody, that I did not know anything of the award of the contract until it was raised in this House. I had nothing to do with the award of the contract. It was done through the normal process that takes place in government. Departments go through their analysis process. Departments make recommendations to Treasury Board. Treasury Board has the authority to award these contracts. That is the process that was followed.
He refers glibly to a committee of health experts that made the recommendation with respect to an award of contract to a multinational firm that he is championing. That committee of health experts was a committee of all sorts of people, some of which might have been construed as health experts, many of which were procurement people. There were people from Rural Development; there were people from Government Services; there were people from the procurement arm of Health, none of whom could be in any way suggested to be health experts. There was a user of the service who would not be construed as a health expert.
There were all of these people who were on a committee, and of that group I would say the vast majority of them would not be construed by any rational thinking person as health experts. They made, on the basis of their own priorities, a recommendation, a recommendation that when it was looked at, as I understand it, by the senior managers of Health, they said this is not going to be acceptable because it is not the low bidder. It is not the lowest qualified bidder. So they made the recommendation on behalf of the lowest qualified bidder, a recommendation that was accepted by Treasury Board, and the rest has been canvassed very, very well publicly.
With respect to the comparisons, for instance, as to whether or not we accept all recommendations that are made to us by various different groups, expert or not, the member opposite knows full well that we had a committee of so-called experts that recommended to us that we ought to de-insure the annual physical examinations to healthy males between 25 and 65 years of age. I could be wrong in the age bit--[interjection]
An Honourable Member: Seventy it was, initially.
Mr. Filmon: Seventy years of age. We did not accept that recommendation. Is he going to condemn us for that? We had a committee of so-called health experts that recommended to us that we convert the Seven Oaks Hospital into a geriatric centre. We did not accept that recommendation from those health experts. Is he suggesting to us that we should have accepted that? The fact of the matter is government reviews every single issue and takes its recommendations and tries to abide by certain principles. Our principles are the lowest qualified bidder receives the tender, and that is the basis on which the home oxygen supply was made and no amount of fudging of the issue by the Leader of the Opposition will change that. That is precisely what happened, and it was the basis on which Treasury Board made the decision, Mr. Chairman.
With respect to Bristol, Bristol is a file that is being actively pursued by the Deputy Premier, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey). He has one of his senior staff on the liaison committee, on the committee that is working with the unions and the various management people at Bristol Aerospace. Bristol Aerospace are an organization that we have kept in close contact with, and certainly they have been with us on numerous trade missions in South Africa, in Malaysia, in various different places that I have travelled with Mr. Burrows, the president of Bristol Aerospace. I am informed by the Deputy Premier that he met twice last week. I met briefly with Mr. Burrows who introduced me to senior representatives of Agusta Helicopters and Westland Helicopters, who were here last week with respect to a potential for a very large, I think $40 million, $45-million contract. We are doing everything we can to ensure that Bristol continues to be a very big player in the aerospace industry of Manitoba and to promote their efforts to continue to be a strong and viable company.
We certainly are also very much aware of the fact that we have fostered co-operation by virtue of funding an aerospace industry association that works co-operatively, that is resulting in Boeing now subcontracting some substantial work to Bristol Aerospace. Again, an endeavour on our part to ensure, an endeavour on everybody's part, to ensure that Bristol remains a very viable company in Manitoba with a great deal of work prospects here in the near term. We are doing what we believe is very appropriate, and that is supporting any opportunity to expand Bristol's business here to ensure that they continue to have work flowing in, work that will keep the job numbers high. We certainly are also closely working with those who are monitoring their process of attempting to find new ownership.
Now, the member opposite automatically assumes that new ownership will somehow be a detriment to Bristol. He obviously has not spoken to management at Bristol, because I think that the record is fairly clear that the current owners, Rolls Royce, have not necessarily reinvested any significant amount of the profits in the operations here in terms of retooling away from a shrinking defence business into a more commercial-oriented business. In fact, they have an outstanding MIOP offer from this government as part of a proposal that was intended to help them retool towards commercial aircraft business and away from defence business.
All of those things were as a result of a great deal of effort to look into the business and to try and assist with moving them into a business that would be a growth business for the future, as opposed to the shrinking defence dependent business. [interjection] It is working, but we are not seeing necessarily the capital reinvestment from the current owners. So new owners who come forward with capital to invest in the business would be a boon to Bristol Aerospace and something that all of us should applaud and all of us should work towards.
I do not understand why the Leader of the Opposition is taking a negative perspective and simply trying to fight against a change of ownership if the new owners would be ones who would invest in the future of the aerospace industry in Manitoba. That is precisely what we are attempting to work towards.
Mr. Doer: Well, I thank you for the Premier's hallucination about us fighting the decision to have a new owner. If the Premier wants to read back the statements, he will not find it either in my question or in my previous question to him. I think all of us in this province want to have a heads up about what will possibly happen with the Bristol operations. All of us know that there is considerable amount of federal contracts being awarded all across this country, included in that to companies that are competitors to Bristol or even companies that could, in fact, purchase Bristol and enhance the possibilities at Bristol, and put an actual line in the plant there or do other work that could expand the employment base.
So we have not obviously taken a position that, quote, new ownership in itself would be negative or positive. I guess it depends on who buys it and what their intent is, whether it is positive or negative. So for us we do not believe we have peace in our time because it is being sold, nor do we believe that the status quo with the situation there with the declining number of defence contracts and the declining amounts of money being spent in defence would, over the long haul, serve that plant well, and with the amount of work it is getting. So I do not know where the Premier has created this illusion of our position, but I do think that the workers there want to know what is going on. The community wants to know what is going on.
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We obviously have been involved in the past, both in government and in opposition, with the Boeing operation, and we think that obviously with a lot of the new contracts and sales that have been made it is going to be quite positive at Boeing, notwithstanding some of the concerns that were stated last summer about the situation at Boeing.
But I just want to know if the Premier knows of any companies that are looking at purchasing the operation and when the announcement may or may not be made. I am aware of the helicopter contract, but the Premier will also know the federal government in some places right now in Canada is awarding billion-dollar contracts to aerospace companies in Canada.
Mr. Filmon: I do not have a list of the potential buyers other than what I have read in the newspaper, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doer: Has the Premier looked at the recent announcements by the federal government for aerospace technological contracts and the procurement contracts that have been awarded in the aerospace industry? It seems to me that again we are having these huge amounts of contracts awarded including the CF-18 contract which was extended, as I understand it, without any consideration at all of Bristol, a kind of a situation that we had in 1986 again repeated after all the opposition from the Liberals in the past period of time.
We see this same process being exercised by some of the same people who were so critical of the former Mulroney government. Has the government analyzed that, and can it advise this House accordingly?
Mr. Filmon: Certainly, Mr. Chairman, we are well aware of the propensity of successive governments in Ottawa to award aerospace contracts into Quebec. We have had briefings from our Ottawa office that informed us that despite the approaches, and we had certainly encouraged Bristol to approach the federal government with respect to the new extension of the CF-18 contract, the CF-18 maintenance contract, and that was awarded untendered to Canadair, and we are disappointed in that. We have, certainly in our discussions with the federal government, indicated that we are very, very concerned about keeping up the content of work for Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg. The member opposite will have noted an award of, I think, $50 million for development money to Canadair-Bombardier to develop their new executive jet.
This is a lot of money that is going into Quebec, and it certainly carries on the pattern that we have seen in the past, and as the member knows, the Liberals when they were in opposition made negative comments about that, and now they are carrying on the same process, and these are things that obviously put stresses and strains on the Canadian federation as people look at the treatment that is given to different regions and perceive a favouritism being shown towards one region of Canada versus another. These are very difficult issues to deal with.
We are very, very anxious to see more work go to Bristol, which is why, as I said, I spoke last week with Mr. Burrows and with the representatives that were with him of Agusta and Westland in our hopes that they will get a significant share of the new helicopter contract.
Mr. Doer: Yes, as I understand it, the Agusta contract, or the helicopter contract, could be worth approximately $50 million, which is quite a bit less than even the cancelled contract for Manitoba, and that the maintenance extension for Canadair was worth over $1 billion and awarded by the federal government. Can the Premier confirm those numbers?
Mr. Filmon: I cannot confirm those numbers, Mr. Chairman, but I do know that the EH-101 would have produced between $250 million and $300 million worth of contracts to the Manitoba aerospace industry. Interestingly enough, Bristol would have been the smallest player out of that, probably getting less than $25 million. The biggest were Paramax, Standard Aero Engine, and Advanced Composite Structures, I think they are called. They would have been the biggest ones, and Bristol would have been the smallest of them, but that, of course, died with the decision in the fall of 1993 by the Liberal government to cancel the EH-10.
Oh, sorry. The other reference to $50 million was in the ballpark. I think it was $45 million is what would come to Bristol.
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, I, too, like all members of the Chamber, share a great deal of concern in terms of the future of Bristol Aero. I guess in looking at some numbers that were provided for me, and we look currently in the province of Manitoba where we have approximately just over 4,000 or 4,135 employees, and we make up somewhere in the neighbourhood of 9.8 percent of the overall aerospace industry in Canada.
So I believe our ranking is somewhere around No. 3, and we have always, or at least I know I have on behalf of our party, emphasized the importance of the aerospace industry, and I guess I would ask the Premier before I do some comments, and some of the remarks that he has put on the record with respect to the feds, would ask the Premier if, in fact, he sees the Bristol scenario potentially going in the same type of a direction of the de Havilland in Ontario. Does he see any similarities here?
Mr. Filmon: If he is referring to the fact that Canadair took over de Havilland and that he is looking to Canadair to take over Bristol, I do not understand what parallels he is seeking. I will say that the 4,135 jobs that are in the aerospace industry in Manitoba are now much less as a result of any federal initiative, and the federal Liberals have severely downsized the work that was being done in this province. For instance, the CF-5, which we used to call the consolation prize that was given by the Mulroney government to Bristol for having lost the CF-18 unfairly to Canadair, that work disappeared and is disappearing. The last bit of it is just on the way out of the Bristol plant thanks to the decisions of the federal Liberal government.
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They are certainly doing much less in the way of procurement in Manitoba for federal defence purposes. Whether that is related to the withdrawal of the Air Command from Manitoba by the federal Liberal government, it probably is in some way related. In fact, the strength of the developing part of the industry, because again it was a huge loss, the loss of the EH-101, and the $260 million of work that would have accrued here was probably worth close to 1,000 jobs. That all was destroyed by the decisions of the federal Liberal government since 1993. So I do not think that the 4,135 number that he refers to should be given in any way as credit towards Liberal decisions. In fact, I guess we could be looking at at least 1,000 jobs more were it not for federal Liberal decisions and their impact on Manitoba.
Certainly, the growth areas have been as a result of Standard Aero Engine gaining substantial jobs and contracts from the United States Air Force and worldwide, and also from the growth in Boeing, and Boeing's subcontracting even within the industry here. I think that the member opposite is probably quite supportive of growth in the aerospace industry here in Manitoba, and I would hope that he would take that message to his colleagues in Ottawa and work very hard to try and change their decisions so that more and more of the work that they have available to be contracted out in Canada comes to this aerospace industry in Manitoba, which is highly capable of doing the work, not only efficiently and in top quality, but cost-effectively.
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, I will pass on the remarks that the Premier, is, in fact, putting on the record just so that at a later time I will be able to bring some more of the facts, because there is no doubt in my mind that if 50 percent of what the Premier has just put on the record is factual I will be absolutely amazed.
Mr. Chairperson, if I stand corrected--I do not believe this government has bought 25 aircraft lately or that they have invested millions upon millions of dollars in investment into the aerospace industry. They are very quick to criticize the federal government in terms of causing damage to the aerospace industry. I would question the government in terms of to what degree, what they have done, to ensure the longevity of this particular industry in the province of Manitoba. They definitely have not financially invested it. In fact, when it came across the Boeing strike, it was the federal government that assisted in getting involved with training programs that prevented, or at least got people back to the table, which allowed for the negotiations to continue to ultimately resolve the strike. This government's approach dealing with the aerospace industry in terms of training programs go to Red River College and other potential facilities. Find out just what this government has actually done to ensure that there is going to be growth.
Now, the Premier is going to stand up because he is going to be provided all these wonderful programs which he believes he has brought in, and as a result of that, we now have 4,100 jobs. Quite frankly, Mr. Chair, the reason why we have that is because we have good, qualified Manitobans that are quite prepared to fill those jobs in the state-of-art production lines such as Boeing and other aerospace industries, which have allowed us to see growth in this industry. Nothing that this government has done has allowed for that growth.
In fact, the Premier talks about the $260 million taken away from Manitoba with respect to the Mulroney helicopter deal. Ten minutes ago, the Premier stood up and said that there was a $250 million investment from the federal government. I would go further by saying, if, in fact, we broke down the amount of dollars that are spent on defence in the province of Manitoba versus the province of Quebec, just strictly speaking with aerospace and the amount of aerospace industry that is in the percentage in the province of Quebec compared to the province of Manitoba, it would be very interesting to see if, in fact, the Premier is correct when he says that Manitoba is getting shafted.
I do not believe that that is, in fact, the case, Mr. Chairperson. I would look to the Premier to actually be more factual. When he talks about provincial-federal relations, what good is he attempting to get across when he is not prepared to put the facts on the table and be more straightforward, not only with individuals in this Chamber. I would trust and hope that the Premier is more forward and upfront with our federal counterparts in Ottawa because they see the gamesmanship that is being played.
Yes, Mr. Chairperson, the F-18, the loss of the F-18 contract back in '86--1986 I believe is when the contract was awarded out--was a complete shame, absolute shame. The F-5 contract was just something which was supposed to make Manitobans happy. Yes, maybe it would be wonderful if we were still flying F-5s or the Freedom Fighters across Canada. Is that what the Premier is, in fact, suggesting? At least we had individuals like John Harvard, the member of Parliament for St. James, that went out and assisted in getting those F-5s being sold to other countries which created some jobs. At least acknowledge where maybe the federal government has been doing work. I would wager, if I was a betting man, the Premier, that I could come up with, or if I had the same resources that the Premier has in his office, that I could come up with more things that the federal government has done to sustain an aerospace industry in the province of Manitoba than this government has done.
When he asks about, well, I do not know what the member for Inkster is talking about with de Havilland versus Bristol. Mr. Chairperson, de Havilland was an aircraft company that started to take a bit of a nose dive inside the province of Ontario, and there was government, political involvement that many would argue saved de Havilland. What I was asking the Premier was, does he not acknowledge that maybe the government should be doing more? What sort of backups? It was interesting, the Leader of the New Democratic Party posed the question, well, do you know who is putting in any bids, to the Premier, and the Premier comes back and says, well, no, just what I read in the newspaper. I find that absolutely amazing. He talks about that he has met with Mr. Burrows. He says his lead minister, the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) is out there doing all these negotiations. Well, if that is the case, they do not know anything else. They do not know who Rolls Royce is approaching or they have no idea.
I would have felt a little bit better if he would have stood up and said, well, we have an idea who they are negotiating with; we cannot disclose it because we want to keep it in confidence. That would have made me feel a little bit better in the sense that at least he is in some sort of a loop with respect to the sale of Bristol Aero.
The Premier has not given me any indication, any indication whatsoever, other than platitudes that he might be giving Bristol Aerospace and its employees that this government is serious about trying to assist or save Bristol Aerospace. That is why when we ask the Premier in terms of does he see any similarities between de Havilland and Bristol Aerospace. There were governments that got involved. Does he not believe--I have seen this Premier sit in his chair, or who knows where he has been sitting, while we have been losing manufacturing jobs in this province.
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Since 1988, we have lost manufacturing jobs. We had more manufacturing jobs in 1988 than we have today under this administration, so we should be concerned when the government takes a laid-back attitude, letting the economy, or certain sectors of the economy, just kind of whittle away. First we had Labatt; now we have Molson. We had Rogers Sugar. We want to see a Premier that is prepared to be more aggressive at ensuring that we are going to be able to retain some of these manufacturing jobs, especially those manufacturing jobs that, in fact, can be competitive.
I would argue that the aerospace industry does have a prominent role to play in this province well into the future, and what we do not need is a Premier that is quite content to pass off any responsibilities or any blame onto Ottawa. The Premier has to start taking some responsibilities, Mr. Chairperson, or we could lose those jobs at Bristol Aerospace. What is the Premier actually doing to protect those jobs at Bristol Aerospace? That is a legitimate question, and I do not believe the Premier has answered the question. We would expect him to be having some meetings, and I am glad to see he has met with Mr. Burrows, but to tell this Chamber he does not know in terms of who Bristol Aerospace is actually talking to or whose Rolls Royce he is talking to. I find that astonishing, given the importance of this particular sector.
Instead of trying to deal with the issue at hand, what does he do? He takes his shots at the federal government. As I say, I will pass on the comments from the Premier, and I will bring back, and maybe it will be during concurrence or another opportunity, because I get this feeling as we get closer to a federal election, we are probably going to see a little bit more of the politics of bashing the Liberals in Ottawa.
I hope I do not become too defensive of my federal counterparts in Ottawa, of course, but having said that, I will acknowledge if, in fact, the Premier can demonstrate. So do not just come to the House and just blame Ottawa with nothing to be able to demonstrate that, in fact, they are being this big, bad government and this government is all wonderful and doing wonders for the aerospace industry.
I want to see things that are tangible before the Premier stands up and starts making light of an issue by not addressing the question that was put right straight forward and that was, what specifically has the government done? These are valuable jobs. The people that are working for Bristol Aerospace want to hear and get assurances from this Premier that he is prepared to do whatever is possible in order to ensure that these jobs are, in fact, going to remain. I would leave it at that and ask the Premier to answer those specific general questions.
Mr. Filmon: That was quite a stirring defence of the federal government that was put forward by the member for Inkster. I assume that he is seeking a nomination federally somewhere or perhaps even a call to the Senate.
I have never heard anyone try to do so much with so little because, quite honestly, he will see, if he checks the records, that during the time when he and his colleagues, who are now in government in Ottawa, were criticizing the Mulroney government, there were over 5,000 jobs in the aerospace industry, which have shrunk, according to his figures, to 4,135 as a result of the lack of commitment by his federal colleagues here. If he believes that the people, that the workers at Bristol Aerospace or Boeing honestly think that they can thank John Harvard for their jobs, I will tell you he had better try and fly that one there. Only fasten your crash helmet when you go there to say that, I would suggest to him. That is an absolutely absurd position to take.
He asked specifically what have we done with respect to the aerospace industry in Manitoba, and this is an interesting one because he has just stimulated my thoughts. I recall when he was the official opposition in this House--it was either late 1988 or early 1989--when we as a government in partnership with the then federal government, the federal Conservative government--I was on the same stage as the former Minister responsible for Western Diversification, Mr. Mayer, at Boeing when they put in something over $20 million, the feds, and we put in $7.5 million to Boeing so that it could move into the retooling to do the 777 work, to anticipate what we knew would happen and is happening today, which is a massive expansion in their market for these commercial aircraft.
We made the substantial investment in repayable loans I might say, and his party and critic had the audacity to criticize us saying we ought not to have wasted taxpayers' money on investing in a repayable loan, no less, in a large multinational corporation that could well afford to do it on its own. That is what the Liberals in this Legislature said, and he has the audacity to sit there and say that he is a friend of Boeing and Bristol and the aerospace industry in Manitoba, when they criticized that investment which is now paying the dividends as Boeing is rising to 1,200 employees and to 1,400 employees and giving off substantial work to other subcontractors including Bristol, adding other hundreds of jobs in the aerospace industry in Manitoba. Mr. Chairman, he is absolutely talking out of all sides of his mouth and he knows not what he is saying, and that is exactly what we see every day.
In addition to that, this government has a MIOP offer to Bristol should they take us up on the opportunity to retool for the commercial field as opposed to the current emphasis that continues to be in that plant on defence industry spending. We also have invested in Stevenson Training Centre, which is, of course, training people for the aerospace industry. We have aerospace training programs being developed in our community colleges. We have aerospace programs being developed at Southport Aerospace and investments being made there.
So he does not know what he is talking about very, very candidly, when he talks about these issues. The fact is this administration has been consistently supportive of the aerospace industry and the major players in that industry in Manitoba, and he and his federal Liberal colleagues have not been consistently supportive of it, despite all the rhetoric that he puts forward, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doer: I guess the fact that we have never been in office federally allows us to condemn the Mulroney government for the original CF-18 contract and the $1-billion extension untendered contract by the federal Liberals, and I say a plague on both your houses when it comes to the fact that Manitoba's aerospace industry was second in the nation at one point. Some of the political decisions that have been made by Ottawa on our community have worked against the best interests of our workers and our communities and our industry.
I think that is very, very unfortunate, and I think it is continuing today, unfortunately, because of the domination of the numbers of M.P.s from Quebec and actually the substantial effort--we started this all-party group to deal with the Air Command. I think one thing Quebec does better than we do and that is work together between the political parties, and I would include myself in that. I think in the aerospace industry they have made a deliberate effort to be united, to speak with one voice across both the federalists and the separatists, and all the federalist parties in Quebec. They have spoken very strongly on an aerospace industry, very consistently. Yes, they have population, et cetera, and political seats, but they also have that focus, and I say to the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey), we did not want to just see an all-party committee dealing with the Air Command because part of the Air Command was the aerospace industry and their procurement policies.
I think that to some degree when we proposed the idea of the all-party committee in Question Period a couple of weeks ago on a couple of industries, we were very sincere when we joined the committee of the Deputy Premier, and I thought that committee should have gone on past the provincial election and on to some of the other decisions that are being made now affecting Manitobans. I say that, as I just mentioned, with a plague on both the federal houses, but perhaps a plea for all of us to work together in this industry.
I want to move on to another project of jobs and concern to Manitoba and that is Repap. The Premier will recall his 1989 press conference on the sale and divestiture of Repap. If I can recall correctly, at the time we had some positive statements to make and some negative concerns about the announcement that was made at Repap.
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(Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)
I think we worried aloud about the treaty land entitlement issue, and that is still an ongoing challenge for all of us. We disagreed with the former Minister of Finance on the extension of the cut area to the Swan River Valley area, and that eventually has been changed partially with other contracts. We opposed the chlorine bleach carcinogen issue with the expansion plan, and said so publicly in the Legislature to the public. That plan has been dropped. We talked about some of the guarantees. We did not see them in any contract or any documents for highways and other economic activity, and talked about more security and predictability for First Nations people to be involved in the long term of this forestry operation.
We have always known that the best asset for Repap has been the forest. The biggest asset, the most important asset for the public interest, is the forest and the wood supply, and it continues to be the greatest asset for the Repap plant in The Pas, in our view. We also have a very dedicated workforce in The Pas and in a number of other adjacent communities both in the sawmill and the plant, and, of course, we witnessed just recently that after the government announced again another agreement in 1995, that Repap in 1996 and in 1997, it was announced that it was up for sale, and the sale of Repap to Avenor would affect the situation in The Pas.
Then Avenor announced that it was going to sell the B.C. operation as a stand-alone plant and was looking to get out of the business here in the Repap plant in The Pas. It did not surprise us. Avenor, which is the old Canadian Pacific operation, did not seem to us to have experience in the niche markets that The Pas served with both the sawmill and the plant itself.
Of course, in the end of this deal along came Domtar with speculation that they were going to take over both Avenor and Repap. Of course, the Avenor deal went south. As we understand it, the initial deal that was negotiated by Avenor executives was not really communicated or sold to the shareholders of Avenor. It was defeated. There was also the threat of the Domtar takeover which was announced again by some of the players just shortly before the deadline for the shareholders' meeting just a couple of weeks ago.
We believe that the plant and the jobs and the forest are of value. They are of value, first of all, to Manitobans because it is our forest. The sawmill was originally scheduled to be closed in the 1989 deal, but has since maintained its economic viability somewhat due to the market and somewhat due to other changes that have been made. We now know that the plant is potentially in play again, either by Repap or somebody that may take over the plant in Manitoba.
I would like to know from the Premier what is the status of the second announced expansion plan at Repap, and what is the status of this forest wood supply which is owned by Manitobans, which is the primary asset, what is the status of that situation? Surely, we do not want to see Manitobans just have this operation pieced off to another private company which wants to get control of the wood supply without us having some say of the value of that company and the jobs and the economic activity that it presents to Manitoba.
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I think that the member opposite has adequately gone through all of the various different scenarios that have been affecting Repap. At the moment, they still own the mill in The Pas. Because of their financial health, they are looking for investors or buyers with respect to their whole operation.
Everything that I have been told and has been confirmed for me by their management in The Pas and certainly verified by members of the business community and the leadership in The Pas is that the mill in recent times has been profitable primarily because of the sawmill operations. The lumber operations have ironically carried the operation through during periods of low value for their pulp and their craft paper side.
That was the area, I might say, that Repap showed the least interest in when they took over the mill in 1989. Their objective was to go into a bleach kraft operation that involved shipping for coated papers in the U.S. and so on. They have been carried through with very, very solid employment numbers over the period of the last half dozen years by virtue of good lumber prices and a very productive sawmill operation.
They are currently well along the way in the sawmill upgrades that they are doing but not yet begun with the phase 3 which was the BCMTT conversion of the mill itself for the kraft operation. That was to have involved, I believe, a couple of hundred million dollar investment in a new process, and that remains outstanding as an obligation of Repap. It has been confirmed for us and for any potential buyers of the mill that that obligation goes with the mill if it transfers ownership, and the penalty for failure to deliver on that phase 3 expansion would be our rights to the timber supply.
That is the hammer that we hold over any operator of that particular mill at any time. They do not have the approval of the forest management licence for the full timber supply, and they stand, of course, to lose some of the timber supply as they did when they did not fulfill the early obligations from the 1989 agreement and part of the lumber supply was taken away that allowed us to give a sufficient timber supply to Louisiana-Pacific with the creation of the oriented strand board mill and some 400-odd jobs, including the forestry jobs in that area in the Swan Valley.
So that remains the ultimate hammer that we as a government hold over Repap or any successor company, that if they do not fulfill job creation and investment obligations that were made by Repap to this government, then they stand to lose their rights to the full timber supply that was implied by that agreement. So we certainly have made that information available, and I believe that, certainly, Avenor made inquiries and was given that information, and any prospective buyer would certainly be given that full information as well.
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Mr. Doer: Repap does not have the $200 million in liquid assets to invest in this plant at this point. In fact, I would imagine it is in pretty strong leverage position. I have not looked at the share price in the last few days, but it has been--I think from the time the government announced the second deal in 1995 the shares have dropped dramatically, and I think there are some real losses of money in British Columbia in the plant there and some real questions about the New Brunswick operation. I think it is safe to say that right now, at this point in time, Repap does not have the money to proceed with the obligations made to the provincial government and the people of Manitoba.
Mr. Filmon: Certainly, Repap being a publicly traded company, that information is obvious from its financial statements, and I would not disagree with the conclusion that the Leader of the Opposition has arrived at.
I guess the question is is he suggesting that we somehow trigger or force an action that could throw a thousand people out of work in The Pas, or should we continue to do as we are, which is to maintain the employment and look to achieve an investment that will see the continuance of the jobs and the economic opportunity and maybe even some growth in The Pas, which we believe is possible with the right set of circumstances.
Mr. Doer: Yes, well, the Premier will recall over the years that we have not tried to take a position contrary to the expansion in chlorine bleach and then ask the government where is the obligation that was agreed to in 1989 and announced by the government.
We have tried to be consistent, and when others have criticized the provincial government for not proceeding with the expansion, we thought that was inconsistent with our position that the expansion for chlorine bleach should not take place, that the environmental assessment should take place and that we really worried about the long-term sustainability of that technology and that downstream potential negative impact. Similarly, we have not stood up in the House about Avenor and Domtar and other proposals and said to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson), here is your word, here is the paper that says $200 million. We have not taken that position.
I guess the real question is, where do we go from here? Do we look at some of the players that are looking at taking over Repap who potentially may spin this out again to another owner, or do we look at the long-term possibility of--it seems to me, it is kind of interesting, Repap has got a forestry supply, nonlicensed. It has got a bit of a niche industry going quite well in the sawmill originally scheduled to be closed down.
It has got the kraft paper situation, and so are there other options we should be looking at besides the options just Repap is looking at? If you look through the years, we have not stood by and waved the previous two agreements in the government's face because we do respect the fact people are working, and it is a profitable plant based on our forestry resource, and we are happy to see that people are working. We have not agreed with all the decisions that have been announced by the government, and you know what those decisions are that we did not agree with, but we are at a really interesting point now. Where do we go from here? Where is the best way for us to proceed?
One of the options is that Repap is able to weather this situation. That is one option. The other option is another company buying it. One of those companies could spin it out to another company, and I guess I am just asking the question, has the government looked at what is best for Manitoba and Manitoba workers, and are there other options we are exploring as a contingency plan, not to, quote, take dramatic action, but Repap is taking dramatic action. It is selling itself to Avenor one week and potentially on the market with Domtar the next week, and there are other people, as they say, kicking the tires, this week.
So what is best for us? Are we taking a look at that or are we just allowing that? I am just asking these questions in a way that respects the employment in Manitoba and respects the fact that the government has given its word on the licensing procedures that would take place for both an expansion of the plant, although I think at this point that is a moot point, and the forest supply.
Mr. Filmon: Our objective would be to maximize the value of the forest supply, which is a Crown resource, a resource that belongs to all the people of Manitoba. Our objective would be to ensure that it creates the maximum possible jobs for the Manitoba economy, in particular the people of The Pas and surrounding area, and our objective would be to ensure that it brings the greatest possible return to the economy and the Treasury of Manitoba through that process.
There are issues that would involve the greatest security that we could achieve, that the jobs would remain in Manitoba, perhaps expand in Manitoba, but, certainly, the kind of steady employment and secure operating conditions that have prevailed over the last half dozen years we would want to try and ensure remain there for the distant future.
We have certainly been approached and offered comments with respect to other options that are available to people who are seriously considering other options. With respect to the confidentiality of the approaches that have been made to us, I cannot go into any detail other than to say our bottom line would be to give the maximum possible security to the operation, to the maintenance of jobs, and the solid economic foundation of the operations, the continued operations of the company. That is our major consideration.
Mr. Doer: I can respect the confidential nature of, I am sure, some initiatives that would be developing on Repap and the forest operation in the North, and I would agree and have always stated that the sustainability of the forest with a predictable employment level and a good employment level to me is much better than a peak and valley and a rapid deterioration of a sustainable resource. So I have no difficulty dealing with a kind of a longer-term sustainability of that resource rather than some of the peaks and valleys we see in other communities across Canada, including British Columbia now, I think it is Prince Rupert, and I think we see the plant in New Brunswick, another situation. I much prefer that option. I think the workers and the northerners prefer that option.
We have the whole issue of treaty land entitlement and how that fits with a more sustainable way of dealing, but if we were to deal with the sustainable way of working with First Nations people in the North and the sustainable way of maintaining that industry, to me that makes more sense than the kind of flashy, dare I say, press conferences, announcements and expansions, et cetera. In the long run, it is better for our kids, it is better for our province, and I think that we will respect that. I have said it before and will say it again, on Repap and the forestry resource which we, as the Premier has indicated, it is only ours to steward not to own and that included in the stewardship is who owns it on a private basis.
I have some other questions and I think I--[interjection]
Mr. Filmon: I appreciate the responsible approach that is being taken by the Leader of the Opposition. I just want to reference the fact that in a number of areas of Canada right now the forest products industry is facing very difficult times with many plants being shut down, pulp and paper, lumber, other types of plants. British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario have been referenced. Hundreds, in fact thousands of jobs being jeopardized and lost, and we have been fortunate I think because of people taking this kind of positive long-term attitude towards the sustainability of the operations to have seen one successful transition into local ownership at Pine Falls, and a company that just, three or four years ago, was in great jeopardy of being closed. In fact, its sister companies did close in a number of locations under Abitibi-Price's ownership, and local ownership was not found to be able to fill the breach, and so there are significant differences between how we attempted to handle the situation.
The same thing is true of The Pas, that its operations I would argue are stronger today than they might have been seven years ago because of the significant investment that was made in the right places over that period of time. Unfortunately, some plans did not proceed, and maybe that was for the best as well, as the Leader of the Opposition has indicated.
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So we do not want to put pressure on to force a sudden decision that may be the wrong decision. We would like to work co-operatively with the current or successor owners, and there are options that very seriously are being pursued, and we will attempt to play a positive role. We will take the advice of the Leader of the Opposition as it was intended to be, in a positive sense that long-term sustainability of the jobs and indeed of the forest resource and indeed our environment are all interconnected.
Now, the economy, the environment, the forestry resource and the jobs for The Pas and surrounding area all have to be part of the ultimate equation that we settle on in resolving this issue. So that is my response to him, that we take his advice, and I do not think that anything we are doing is inconsistent with what he is saying.
(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)
Mr. Doer: I have a couple of questions, and one of them may be a little more controversial. I do not even like to change the tone here, but the Manitoba Telephone System, now here is an area where we disagree, and I am not going back over the old battle. We have already agreed to disagree, and we will fight that battle down the road with the public where it belongs. But the Premier made a commitment in May, going by memory again--I like to go by memory--May 2 I think it was, to us a day that will live in infamy, but, of course, we knew in December when we exposed the brokers that in our opinion the die was cast. The Premier denied that and said they were just evaluating this operation.
The Premier made the commitment that 70 percent of the shares would be owned by Manitobans. Can the Premier indicate today what percentage of shares are owned by Manitobans?
Mr. Filmon: The date was April 2. I recall because we did not want to announce it on April Fool's Day, so we waited an extra day to make the announcement, Mr. Chairman, but the information that the member is seeking is not available to me. I do not know whether it is available through the company, Manitoba Telecom Services. I am not sure that they would reveal the identity of their shareholders. Certainly, I am not sure how the Securities Commission regulates that privacy of shareholding, but I would not have that information.
Mr. Doer: I will have to check my May day versus April 1 day, but just trying to go by memory, I think it was in May. I think it was actually a sunny day, and it is April 6 or 7 now.
The Premier made the commitment of 70 percent. He made the promise to the people of Manitoba that it would be 70 percent. It was in his press release, it was in his announcement, it was in his statement to the House. He made the statement. How do we know he has been able to keep his commitment?
Mr. Filmon: Oh, indeed, we did keep our commitment. I believe it was 74 percent ultimately, 73 percent of the shares that were issued were bought by Manitobans, and they had to have their identifying information, including their social insurance number, in order to buy those shares. So we are very confident that we kept that commitment.
Mr. Doer: Yes, the government had incentives for Manitobans to buy. Why did the government not put in any strings to the incentives, that they would have to maintain their ownership here in Manitoba for a period of time, these public incentives which really are a subsidy from the former owners, those being all the shareholders of Manitoba.
Why would the government not have a longer-term commitment so that it could keep its word? Because as I understand it from people I know in the financial industry, a lot of Manitobans flipped their shares immediately. These people received a financial incentive to buy shares as Manitobans. Then they flipped their shares, and we have nothing to show for it a couple of weeks later when the numbers of Manitobans decreased through initial profit-taking by the people of Manitoba who got the preferred financial conditions to buy the shares.
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, the incentives were provided by Manitoba Telecom Services, and they were provided to employees, former employees and to Manitobans in a variety of ways. I am also given information that I think is very reliable to suggest that in the purchase in the open market of shares subsequent to the initial preferred offering, closed offering to Manitobans and to employees of the company, there was substantial uptake of shares by institutions and funds based in Manitoba. So it is very, very difficult to judge the mix if it includes pension funds that are resident here in Manitoba, to the benefit of and to the holding of Manitoba employees, if it includes significant investments by large corporate and institutional buyers here in Manitoba, again resident here, for the benefit of Manitobans.
So it is very difficult for us to argue against that. I think that is a strength when you have Manitoba-based corporations, institutions and funds investing in a company such as Manitoba Telecom Services.
Mr. Doer: The Premier did not change the Premier in the House on an issue of safety with the telephones on the highway, said that there was no Minister responsible for the Manitoba Telephone System. Yet we have members on the board of directors. The Premier did not change or delete the minister responsible for the telephone system in his cabinet shuffle.
Can he explain the discrepancy between what he said in the House and what he said in his announcements to cabinet and his Order-in-Councils which included a minister responsible for the telephone system?
Mr. Filmon: I am not sure exactly that I get the point that the member is making. The way the process works is that the Minister responsible for Highways and telecommunications continues to be the Minister responsible for Highways and telecommunications. Because of the passage of the act, the new act respecting Manitoba Telecom Services, he is no longer the minister responsible for what used to be a Crown corporation, Manitoba Telephone System. So that is deleted from his responsibility.
That is the way the transition works. He is still the minister responsible for telecommunications. Telecommunications policy issues would be responded to by him, but he is no longer the minister responsible for a Crown corporation known as Manitoba Telephone System.
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Mr. Doer: Is the minister still responsible for The Manitoba Telephone Act?
Mr. Filmon: That act was repealed by virtue of the new act.
Mr. Doer: The new act includes obligations and responsibilities and rights of the provincial government in its act. When the Premier made his cabinet shuffle announcement, he deleted people but he did not delete responsibility for this act in terms of the present minister. So there was no change in the status of the Orders-in-Council that were agreed to or signed off by the Premier. There was actually the status quo of announcements.
We could not square that with the Premier's comments that nobody was responsible now for the Manitoba Telephone System in terms of asking questions in this House. The Orders-in-Council were as I recall it, and I will check my files, but as I recall it, the Orders-in-Council did not change. Is that not correct? I am sure the people have them here.
Mr. Filmon: The new act which repealed The Manitoba Telephone System Act sees responsibilities for financial obligations of Manitoba Telecom Services in their relationship with the government; that is, with respect to the debt that continues to be guaranteed by the government of Manitoba and the repayment requirements for that debt.
So I believe that the new act designated for those purposes the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) as the minister responsible for those issues. Everything else that falls in the realm of telecommunications policy issues then are responsibility of the Minister of Highways and telecommunications, but he is no longer responsible for a Crown corporation entity known as the Manitoba Telephone System, because it does not exist.
Mr. Doer: I will double-check the Order-in-Council, but I believe that the Order-in-Council was not changed when the Premier made his announcement of cabinet changes. It was the status quo. Was that an error or am I in error? I will double-check it. As I understand it, the same status for ministers responsible for the Telephone System were in place. Mr. Findlay's name was still listed in a similar way to the last time, but I will double-check that.
Besides that, the minister responsible for telecommunications--to us part of telecommunications is the safety of people using telephones, so we will continue to ask the Premier questions notwithstanding his protestations to the opposite.
Mr. Filmon: My understanding is that on the day that the Minister of Highways and Transportation and minister responsible for telecommunications was reconfirmed in his role, the new act, the Manitoba telecom act had not yet been proclaimed. So two days later or three days later when it was proclaimed, it automatically then cancelled his further responsibility for the Manitoba Telephone System.
Mr. Doer: I was right, but I was wrong. Well, if you do not ask, you do not find out. Okay.
When the Telephone System closes down a telephone call box on the Perimeter Highway, it is no longer the member for Springfield's (Mr. Findlay) responsibility; it is the member for Kirkfield Park's (Mr. Stefanson) responsibility.
Mr. Filmon: In fairness, it can be seen as an issue of telecommunications policy, or it can be seen as an issue of safety on the highways. In either case, certainly the member for Springfield can respond in that respect, and I believe he did ultimately respond in that respect.
So it was my error in saying that he did not need to respond in his role as responsible for telecommunications and for highway safety. So I was wrong when I said that he was not to respond as Minister responsible for the Telephone System--no, I am sorry, I was right when I said he was not responsible to respond as Minister responsible for the Telephone System, but I was wrong when I said he did not need to respond because for telecommunications and highway safety he was the right person to respond.
Mr. Doer: Well, now that we have got that straight--so if the Manitoba Telephone System is now under The Manitoba Telephone Act which was amended, passed unfortunately and regrettably and against our deep objections and the objections of the majority of the public, if the Telephone System is now under the responsibility of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) and telecommunications is under the responsibility of the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) and transportation is under the responsibility of the Minister of Highways, who do we hold accountable, and I appreciate the Premier's acknowledgment that somebody is accountable.
Who do we hold accountable when the Manitoba Telephone System, now that it is going back to a more traditional private-sector way, closes down calling boxes or pay phones in inner city communities where they were put in place in the past because of the issues of safety of the citizens who did not have a lot of phones in certain communities and needed the safety and security of a telephone which was asked for by a public nonprofit corporation and the shareholders being members of this Legislature? Who is responsible then?
Mr. Filmon: Well, there is no longer a minister that can be held accountable for the actions of the telephone company in making certain policy decisions. On the other hand, there can be any number of ministers who might be urged to take action with respect to a decision of the telephone company that does impinge upon public safety or that does impinge upon the public's access to needed services.
So it could be any number of things. I mean, it could be raised, as it often is, as an issue for the Minister responsible for the Status of Women (Mrs. Vodrey) if that telephone were in a position where it might give some safety and security for single women who might be vulnerable. I mean, one could urge action by a certain minister with respect to a decision of this corporation, but you could not hold any particular minister responsible for that decision because it is a private corporation. [interjection]
Mr. Doer: Those people on No. 6 Highway would have had a lot more ability to get things done when they had the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) as part of the board of directors of the Manitoba Telephone System--[interjection] That is right. Well, also it is a reflection upon your influence as a member of the board of directors and part of the board of directors in this Chamber as opposed to a private company.
The four members of the board that have been appointed by the provincial government, and I do not know whether the chair of the board is one of them--the first board has been appointed by a combination of interest--but the four individuals that are the purview of the provincial government, who recommends those appointments to cabinet, and who do they report to in terms of their responsibility?
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Mr. Filmon: My understanding is that at the next annual shareholders' meeting, which will take place sometime later this spring, an election of directors will take place. Cabinet will appoint four members to the board based on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) who is technically the holder of the golden share or the province's share in the corporation. The others will be elected by the shareholders at that meeting.
Mr. Doer: So this Minister of Finance holds the golden share, does he? He holds the golden share. He holds the Lotteries Corporation; he holds Finance. He has quite an array of responsibilities. [interjection] Yes, he has also got debt here, too.
An Honourable Member: More all the time.
Mr. Doer: You are running for the federal Conservative Party. As I understand it, you have doubled the debt. I was quite shocked to see that after I knew your alleged position on debt. It will be interesting. However, back to--[interjection] That is right. Be careful. We may not run a candidate there. They will all vote Liberal. You have got to be nice to us for awhile. No, we always will run a candidate. Just be nice; just be careful.
I would like to ask the Premier then if, because we hold the debt and the debt must be repaid over a period of time and we appoint four members of the board, then I could ask the Minister of Finance to look at the public interest in terms of safety of citizens if there was any action of the telephone system that was contrary to the safety of our public, whether it is motoring or otherwise.
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I am sure that the member could ask any number of people, as he often does. He could ask me to look after the public interest. He could ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson). If it was a safety on our highways issue, he could ask the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay). I am sure he would have quite a range of people he could ask to take responsibility for the safety of citizens.
Mr. Doer: Well, I will quote that back to him when I ask him the question when they close down any phone offices. I thank the Premier for that advice. I would just like to ask him any question that he would try to answer in the next while, so if he is now giving me the commitment that he is responsible for the safety of citizens in Winnipeg and Manitoba and for those towers on the highways, on 391 up North and the Perimeter Highway, and for those pay phones that are so vital to citizens, I thank the Premier for that commitment, and I will let the member for Inkster ask some questions on the economy now. I am very happy to get that answer from the Premier. Thank you.
Mr. Lamoureux: I acknowledge the Freudian potential slip there. Having said that, Mr. Chairperson, I want to follow up a question with respect to the Premier. I made reference to Molson and Labatt. I made reference to Rogers Sugar. I am wondering if the Premier could indicate--and particularly with Molson, you, know, I was in my vehicle at the time when I heard being broadcast that Molson was going to be shutting down, and it would appear to be that the primary reason is they only had 12 percent, and they were hoping to increase the percent in the province to a larger share, and that would have then justified their remaining in the province of Manitoba.
I am wondering if, in fact, the Premier had any idea that these companies were looking at closing down and, if he did, what sort of actions did he take?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I just want to put on the record, and I know that the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) will pass it along to her Leader to look at the record, that I said he could ask me those questions. I did not say that I would be held responsible for all the issues of the Manitoba Telecom Services. I just want to clarify that position.
In response to the question of the member for Inkster, certainly I had ongoing discussions with representatives of the major breweries located here, going back for half a dozen years. I know I met with Sam Pollock, who those hockey fans will remember as the former general manager of the Montreal Canadiens and became the chairman or CEO of Labatt Breweries. He was with one of the breweries--
An Honourable Member: Molson.
Mr. Filmon: Was he Molson? Anyway, I had discussions with him, I had discussions with several successive CEOs of Labatt over the years. The member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) refers to one former Winnipegger, and at all times the questions were of awareness on our part that the market forces were changing with respect to the new rules of trade. GATT, for instance, caused the United States to challenge Canada's restrictive laws that said that you could not sell beer in a province unless you had a plant in that province. I know that it was the government of Bob Rae that I think sparked one major challenge from the United States that saw that action actually lost in a trade dispute about five years ago.
As soon as that happened and that restrictive circumstance for Canada was struck down by international trade decision, we knew that each of our major breweries was put at risk. So I have met over the years with a number of the senior executives from these breweries to discuss how they were approaching their operations here in Manitoba. I might say that we always were concerned about Molson because they had such a shrinking share of the market and such a small share of the market that we always felt that they were the most vulnerable. It was a great shock to us that Labatts was the first to close down when they had close to 70 percent of the market share.
There obviously was not any subsidy or government action that could have prevented that in the sense that they had major plants to the west of us that could supply all of western Canada. So we then immediately turned our attention to Molson, and they, in fact, immediately after the Labatt decision invested I believe it was a couple of million dollars in some upgrades to the plant here and in a major campaign to try and capture more market share by trying to convince Manitobans that if they showed a loyalty to this plant that they could maintain the plant here.
Well, despite a fairly significant investment in a program to try and get market share, they actually saw a shrinking market share here during the next couple of years. As a result of that, we were then faced with the decision by Molson to close down that one major remaining plant here.
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Those are things that are as a result of forces that are certainly well beyond our control. The best information that we have from people is that we are looking at a continuing rationalization of the brewery industry in Canada to the point that likely the two major competitors, the Molson chain and the Labatt chain, will eventually get down to about three plants each in Canada, and that they will serve the entire Canadian market from three plants. It has been argued that they could do it from two plants and get not only adequate distribution but adequate productivity. So that is the rationale behind that decision.
Similarly, with respect to sugar, and sugar, of course, is quite an anomaly from our perspective in that we believe we had the lowest-cost production sugar in the country right here in Manitoba. Our sugar beet growers were very, very efficient. The plant, although it was very old, was producing sugar at very competitive and low cost, probably lower than many of its competitors. But, again, as a result of federal decisions on trade that did not support the sugar industry here in Manitoba, and we urged the federal government to ensure that they did support sugar as part of their overall negotiations with the United States, but it is my firm belief that essentially the federal government sacrificed our sugar industry here in favour of other issues that they wanted to achieve with the United States on trade. So those jobs that were in the plant here in Manitoba were the consequence of it, as well as the loss of production to a number of sugar beet producers, very efficient sugar beet producers.
Now, one will argue, and probably rightly so, that those sugar beet producers will go into other crops, but we lost a significant value-added industry to Manitoba that was very important to our agri-business sector, and it is very regrettable. But certainly that was something that was well beyond our control, and needed some federal action that was not forthcoming.
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, with respect to Rogers, and again, ultimately, I would argue or question whether the Premier or the government has done enough in order to maintain or, in some areas, improve the circumstances in the province, and I will cite a couple of specific examples. We talk about Rogers sugar plant, and the Premier himself says that we have the cheapest processed sugar in the country. Well, there are other sugar plants in the country, and if, in fact, we are as efficient as the Premier talks about, why not promote or do something with the possibility of employee ownership?
Did the Premier, in fact, even look into that, and if so why did we not hear about it? Was the Premier aware that this, in fact, was going to happen? You know, if the sugar plants from across Canada were closing down, then one might argue about the tariffs or imports and how they are being subsidized, and so forth, but to the best of my knowledge, these other sugar plants in Canada, this is one that was just being shut down for no doubt a number of reasons, but if we do have a good quality product and it is the cheapest in terms of processing in Canada, why is this Premier or this government not prepared to look at other options and just prepare to accept the loss of this particular industry?
When we talk about Molson or Labatt, the Premier says, look, ultimately we are going to see three scattered across Canada of each company if they, in fact, do not amalgamate the two companies themselves, and one never knows. Well, what about microbreweries and things of this nature? Has the Premier looked at the possibility? You know, it was interesting, when I posed the question did he know about Molson, he somewhat skated around it. He did not indicate whether or not he knew that they were going to be closing down that particular plant, or when he did find out about it, it was too late. If, in fact, they would have had 14 percent, would they then have guaranteed? Were there other things that we might have been able to do to add more modernization to the plant?
The Premier criticized the Liberals about our position with respect to Boeing a number of years ago. Well, was there something that could have been done? I look at a Premier like Frank McKenna who is very aggressive at trying to get jobs, and the Premier will say he robs jobs from other provinces and things of that nature, but, quite frankly, Mr. Chairperson, what I see is a Premier who is prepared to be aggressive on being able to retain and bring jobs to the province.
I am not going to suggest that you have to open up the Treasury Board and start competing, because it would be unrealistic for us to be able to do that given some of the other provinces like Alberta and the type of Treasury Board that they have, but one can legitimately question in terms of why it is the Premier appears not to have had the information in advance or at least be aware of it and has not been seen as coming up with alternative solutions. What has I, T and T done, for example, to promote microbreweries in the wake of Molson cutting back? There are things which the government can be doing in order to facilitate or minimize or marginalize, if you like, the number of jobs being lost in some of these industries.
Mr. Chairperson, because it is somewhat limited in time, the other issues that I want to touch upon briefly with the Premier is with respect to education. I am interested in knowing from the Premier what his policy is with respect to the financing of public education, because we have seen a growing reliance on the financing--and this is a favourite topic between myself and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) as I see him smile. There has been a growing reliance on the financing of public education through the property tax. The Premier when he was in opposition, or at least his critic at the time, talked about trying to get the general revenues paying a larger share. I would be interested in hearing the Premier's comments with respect to that.
I would also be interested in hearing--under this health care reform, we are moving towards these regional superboards. You know, I look at it, and I was an opponent of the regional boards first of all coming into place because I felt the government was going to be using these boards in order to deflect criticisms levelled at the government, if you like. Mr. Chairperson, what I was interested in hearing from the Premier is what he believes or why he believes that these boards, now that we are going to have them, cannot be, in fact, elected. We suggested from the Liberal caucus that the most ideal time to provide that election in all likelihood would be the next municipal go-around in 1998 when we have the municipal elections. So, in reality, you would be looking at electing school trustees, municipal councillors and the health regional board representatives.
Mr. Chairperson, these are some of the issues the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Doer) talked about. Crime, it was, in fact, highlighted today in Question Period. What is the government doing in this area, because when you put everything to the side, the perception is--and I have canvassed my constituents on this particular issue--that violent crime in the city has gone up, and has gone up dramatically. That is what the perception is.
Mr. Chairperson, when you watch the six o'clock news or you read the newspapers, at times it gets very scary in terms of the way in which we see some of these crimes coming across. What people want is to be able to feel comfortable and have some hope. A somewhat scattered question, as you can tell, but that was all I was going to be asking for this evening.
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Mr. Filmon: Just to finish off the commentary on the policy with respect to sugar, the net result of the fact that the federal government did not listen to our pleas for a national sugar policy was that they chose to, in fact, support jobs in eastern Canada, in Toronto and Montreal, where they use imported cane sugar, so that they do not benefit the agriculture or the production side of the industry. They simply benefit producers in Cuba and various other countries around the world, and import this cane sugar to create processing jobs by virtue of its being dumped in eastern Canada. They abandoned completely the sugar beet industry of western Canada.
An Honourable Member: Sugar is still being produced in Alberta.
Mr. Filmon: Because of the fact that the market was shrinking, they forced Rogers into a position where they had to choose among their plants. They chose to continue to support a newer plant, with newer, more modern equipment and infrastructure in Alberta and closed Manitoba. That is the net result of that policy decision by the federal government. I am sorry the member would not have spoken so strongly and passionately to his colleagues in Ottawa, instead of now crying over spilt milk here in Manitoba. He would have been far better to go after his federal colleagues as we did for several years, saying, you must have a national sugar policy or we are going to lose the industry in Manitoba. Then, when it happened, what happens, their Liberal colleague here in this Legislature says, what did you do about it? Well, that is what we did. Even after, he talks about whether the plant could have been run by a local co-op or by a management or employee buy out.
I wrote to the CEO of the Rogers Sugar in Vancouver and said: please, do not dismantle or sell that equipment, because we would like to try and engineer a local buy out. I met with the former governor of North Dakota, George Sinner, who came here at my request. We wanted to try and see what we could do with respect to a partnership, perhaps, with the American sugar beet producers south of the border. Looked at all sorts of options. Rogers Sugar, incidentally, just simply said no. It is our plant; it is our equipment to do with what we want. In fact, it was only a matter of weeks later, they said we have already substantially dismantled the plant. That is the kind of thing that happens. It happens because people do not look at the long term when they are given an opportunity to. I wish that he would have been as passionate with Mr. Goodale as he is being here in this Legislature.
With respect to Mr. McKenna, I would say to him just very simply, that he may want to check with Mr. McKenna and see whether or not the job creation that is taking place there is anywhere close to the job creation that is taking place here in Manitoba. I happen to know, because I regard Mr. McKenna as a friend, that he would change job creation stats with me any day of the week. We have had very substantial increase in our job creation here. If he wants to go and trade results with Mr. McKenna, he is welcome to do that, but if he wants to run on those results, he will lose provincially. [interjection]
Oh, everything is different, of course. Their unemployment rate is higher; their job creation rate is higher. They are a province that is about 80 percent of ours in population, but they are not even close to what we have been able to achieve in the last eight years in job creation.
I wanted to say the other thing, that when he brings in commentary on education, I would tell him that the one thing we will not do is wipe out every school board in the province as Mr. McKenna did. If that is his policy, he can run on that one in the forthcoming election too, I say to the member for Inkster, and see how far he gets with that policy.
Mr. Chairman, the member opposite asked about our commitment to education, and I would say to him that this government contributes a greater share of its budget towards education than our predecessor administration did. We have continued to place a greater emphasis on education funding in this province. The fact of the matter is that education spending at the local school level has continued to outstrip not only inflation but certainly the transfers from our government, and, as a result of that, they have chosen to put more and more and more of the cost of education on the property tax. That is their responsibility and they will have to answer for it when they run again for election.
(Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)
Mr. Doer: Just a couple of comments on the issues raised by both members. First of all, in terms of the brewery industry, I think the decision of Labatt a couple of years ago or a year and a half ago, November 6 or 7 of 1995, I believe, was a horrible decision--November 9--for this province, and I think it is an issue of corporate greed, because Labatt was making some $14 million in this province. As the Premier indicated, it had 70 percent of the marketplace, and it wanted to, quote, maximize its profits.
I have talked to people I know in Labatt, who used to work for Labatt, who used to run Labatt, and other people, and all they did--it comes down to the whole issue of what responsibility people have to their own community in a profitable operation. Mr. Chairperson, $14 million in profit and Labatt wants to make a little bit more on the market here in Manitoba, and it closes down one shift in the Labatt plant here so that it can add a third shift in Edmonton. That is what happened. Ralph Klein gets to have the photo opportunity. We get to get 150 families that lose their livelihood here in this province.
At what point does a corporation with 70 percent of the market have an obligation back to the community it serves? At what point do all of us get mad about it and say that publicly so that we can affect the only thing that really matters to that company, which is market share. There were a couple of announcements in their public relations efforts and, you know, the maximizing profit--they had the charts about production and gallons, et cetera, and after you strip away all that material--the Premier's former press secretary was involved in the PR campaign.
But this community did nothing. We did not fight. We did not stand up against what I consider to be a greedy decision. The local media ran stories about what a great financial decision it was. Then they took something we said about fighting this decision totally out of context and wrote stories about the NDP supporting a microbrewery in the plant, which is just ridiculous, dishonest, and tells me, tells other corporations that if they are looking across the country and want to close down a plant, there is not a lot of fight in this community on market share.
If we cannot fight Labatt and make a difference as a whole community, the media and the government and the opposition and make it a big campaign to keep a plant here for 150 people, if we just throw up our hands and say, we surrender to this decision, that this company has no obligation back into our communities, then I think it is very regrettable. Because the next operation we are trying to save then is Molson who is left with 30 percent of the market and was able to make very little dent on the market share.
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In fact, its advertising campaign came out, I think--you know, who am I to judge it, but it came out not right when the initial decision was being made by Labatt, but came out after Labatt had closed and before the decision to close Molson. I think as a community that buys 70 percent of one product, which is making money in our community--they had some of the best technology. They were stripping that plant down. The buzzards were there immediately to take the kettles out of there and take some of the other lines out of there to take them to other places across Canada. It is not my view that a community and a province should surrender without a little bit of a fight, and I would have liked to have joined the Premier in a fight on this issue rather than just to surrender. I think it was regrettable; and, as I say, Edmonton has got a third shift, we have got no shifts.
On the sugar beet situation, I would agree with the Premier that we have been really let down by the federal government in terms of the sugar policy. The member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) has spoken about this in the past. I have listened to him in the coffee shops and listened to him in interviews, and we have listened to the Chamber of Commerce on this issue. We have raised it ourselves. The Manitoba Chamber, Mr. Kelly, I think, from the Chamber of Commerce is very knowledgeable in this area, and he certainly gave us very good advice on this industry.
We needed a national sugar policy. The U.S. and other countries have them. We, I think, were victim of other decisions that were made and other corporate decisions that were made by the federal government in dealing with its trade relations with Washington. Interests in eastern Canada, I believe, came above our interests in terms of the sugar industry here.
I dare say the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) raises the issue of the Alberta Taber plant. I think Rogers will want to serve this market probably from Vancouver soon, and that, too, is regrettable. I hope I am wrong because I do not want to see our misery transferred to Alberta, but I would agree that we need a national sugar policy. We tried to get the federal government involved. I know this government did.
We also agree with the Premier that they should not be allowed again to have a scorched-earth policy with that plant. That plant, yes, is owned by the private company, but what rights do the community have to those jobs? What rights do the growers have to that access, to that capacity to process their product here in this community? What rights do we have as a community collectively to pay fair-market value perhaps for that plant and keep it here before they just take the equipment out immediately, because they do not want to leave the equipment here. They do not want somebody else to make a go of it because they want to serve this market without leaving the jobs and commitment back in our community.
We do agree with the government about the whole need for a national sugar policy and a domestic sugar policy, and I look forward to the day where we can implement one in this country. Perhaps it will not be too late for the existing plant. Perhaps if it is, we can start all over again because there are lots of good growers. As I understand it, the quality of the product, the quality of the workers--the plant was not exactly modern, but it was a profitable operation. It could even be more profitable in the future, and we could serve our own domestic market a lot more with the domestic sugar policy.
I have another point I want to raise to the Premier, and that is to deal with the Crocus Fund. This, of course, as I understand it, is doing quite well here in Manitoba. When I look at the labour-sponsored funds across Canada, I see the Manitoba operation doing reasonably well, small, in comparison to other provinces. I see the Quebec fund, a billion, $2 billion now, very centralized. The majority of the money administered and collected and dealt with by one fund, a very small amount I think raised by the CNTU, a second fund.
In Ontario, they have about 12 separate funds, and what I hear from people in the financial community is the real fear that a proliferation of funds will eventually lead to financial difficulty in one of the funds because of mistakes that are made. There is a recommendation that the expertise be maintained, the education programs be continued, that there be a focus of the solicitation, focus of the investments, and that over the long haul, rather than going to too many funds, that we eventually go to more regional funds under the one umbrella.
Quebec, I am sure the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) is aware, has I believe 12 or 18 regional funds that work with smaller projects in communities for community economic development with funds that are available through workers and investments that take place. The future of these funds as we proceed with them is to continue to grow the expertise, to continue to solicit the funds, not proliferate these funds but rather to regionalize them, if we look at, as I say, the Quebec experience as being obviously the model because it was established long in advance of other models in Canada.
So I would like to ask the Premier--in the Speech from the Throne, they announced the new fund. I was a bit surprised about that. When we look at the Ontario model of 12--I think 12 separate funds--what is the advantage to proceeding with that and why not look at longer term more regional funds with the expertise that is being developed in the existing fund here in Manitoba?
Mr. Filmon: I want to indicate to the Leader of the Opposition that we are not dissatisfied, obviously, with the performance of the Crocus Fund. It has performed well and provided venture capital for a number of different companies and organizations in Manitoba, and based on that, we believe that we should take a look at the possibility of establishing perhaps another fund. We have no preconceived notion as to whether that other fund would be regional in its orientation, whether it would be specific to say, value-added agriculture, another sector of the economy that is in significant need of venture capital.
I think the only thing we have in the Crocus Fund is that that legislation is very specific. It only set up the Crocus Fund. It did not set up the possibility of a number of labour-sponsored venture capital funds. All we have announced in the throne speech is that we will be introducing legislation that is enabling, that would allow for other labour-sponsored venture capital funds.
Our view is that the economy, in its current circumstances, which is very buoyant, which is seeing expansion in many, many areas, one of its limitations to expansion is availability of venture capital. The Crocus Fund is limiting in that it only set up the one fund and it is very specific to its orientation for investment. We would like to ensure that we have as much flexibility as possible to attract as much venture capital as possible.
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Mr. Doer: So the Premier is saying that they are satisfied with the successes to date of the Crocus Fund. I mean, our reading of it is it has been quite positive. I have talked to business people that have received investments from the fund. Others feel it has been a very positive part of our economy and has performed, in fact, exceeded expectations in terms of not only the funds that have been raised but the investment in the funds, the jobs created and the performance of the investment decisions they have made.
Mr. Filmon: We have been very supportive of the Crocus Fund and are very pleased at its outcomes. We have continued to support it in other ways. There have been requests by national funds to come in here, national labour-sponsored funds, and we have declined that in the past. We want to continue to have control over funds that are labour-sponsored but are Manitoba funds. That is what the intent is of this legislation.
Mr. Doer: Has the government reviewed in their decision making the kind of focus, success, and the job creation record of the Quebec model which is quite focused with the one huge major fund?
As I understand it, it probably has close to 90 percent of the investments through the one fund, as opposed to the Ontario model where you have a proliferation of funds through enabling legislation that has not necessarily worked in the best interests of--in terms of you get greater administrative costs, et cetera, with more funds and more administration of more funds.
Mr. Filmon: I am informed that certainly we look at all the different funds that are existent in Canada today. The Quebec fund is the oldest. It has served as a model for many of the subsequently established funds in Canada, but it is huge. I am informed that they have a biweekly payroll deductions of $14 million that flow into the fund, so it has got billions of dollars of assets that in 20 years have accumulated. So it has done well. It has achieved tremendous purposes, and we certainly have learned from it, as we have from other funds in Canada.
Mr. Doer: As I understand it, and the Premier mentioned the biweekly payroll deductions, they have more than doubled the amount of contributions to payroll deductions through a campaign over the last few years, and they are up to 35 percent of their contributions now on payroll deductions as opposed to funds that are raised at the "lump sum contribution level" of the "year-end" and that they have been able to focus this activity to really, really work on this effort to get payroll deductions for capital and investment and jobs by having an administration that can really focus in on that task of, for example, payroll deductions.
By going to a proliferation of funds, potentially, notwithstanding its enabling legislation, we may be increasing the administrative costs and diffusing the kind of focused attempts that can be made and results that can be obtained obviously on a much smaller scale in Manitoba, but going to a 35 percent, I think, and the government would know these numbers better than I would, a payroll deduction produces a lot of--you mentioned $14 million. This just did not happen overnight. It has been worked on the last couple of years, and it required a concentrated effort and focus to do it.
Mr. Filmon: I do not disagree, but I cannot see how limiting the numbers of venture capital funds here in Manitoba will increase the possibility of venture capital being obtained by those who need it.
Mr. Doer: Well, as I say, the best model we see is Quebec's model on these funds. We will have to debate this issue when the bill comes before the Legislature, but, again, I am not raising it in Question Period, I am raising it now, and there are other ways of improving the existing model as we proceed. I would like to look at improving the existing fund here in Manitoba, but not proliferation of funds like I see in Ontario.
The advice I receive from people both from the labour community and in the investment community is they feel that the Quebec focus is a better way to go than the Ontario enabling model where they have 12 separate funds, and there is quite a lot of fear about what may or may not take place in Ontario in terms of the 12 different administrations. But the government has looked at that. We will have to debate this issue in the legislation, and I was quite interested to know what the government was doing with it.
I have one other question on the trade trip. The Premier was quoted as saying that it was the federal government's fault that Team Canada did not have a food exhibition on the latest Team Canada, that Manitoba was not represented at this food fair. There was quite a bit of media coverage on it. The Premier said, it was not our fault; it was the federal government's fault. Whose fault was it, who is responsible for it, and what action has been taken?
Mr. Filmon: It appears as though the federal government system chose to funnel their requests through Ag Canada offices in each of the provinces, and the request came into Manitoba. We I guess were peripherally made aware of it by a contact from our Manitoba representative in Hong Kong who, in his briefings about what Team Canada would be doing over in Thailand, found out that there was going to be this food fair and asked for a listing of who was going to be displaying food or what companies were being asked to provide food for the display. He attempted to assist in the process and was told that the matter was well in hand, that it was in the hands of the Ag Canada system and that they were providing the food displays from all the provinces.
As it turns out they provided a list of food producers in Manitoba to the embassy in Bangkok, the Canadian embassy, and when we eventually did see the list after the fiasco and after the great disappointment of arriving at the food fair to find no Manitoba products displayed, it turned out that virtually every name that was provided, there were about 10 names provided by the local office of Ag Canada, were major wholesalers of food like EXCAN and Roy Legumex and companies that sold food on a wholesale level but did not have retail products.
As I indicated, any fool could have told them that we had people who produce salsa here, people who produce flax products, Old Dutch potato chips, the organization in Ste. Anne that produces a kind of potato chip, wild rice, all sorts of products. In fact, Rural Development has a travelling display of food products that would have been made available to them, and I could not for the life of me understand why the federal system would not have directly contacted the province to ask for its input to this particular display.
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I was furious and certainly vented my anger and received apologies from everybody right up to the Prime Minister and the ambassador and others, but, unfortunately, the error in judgment was made by a bureaucrat working on behalf of the embassy in Bangkok, and their choice and decision to use only the federal government system as the source of information was the result.
I might tell the member opposite that I left the display in quite a bit of anger in the company of the Premier of British Columbia, who was also angry, because he had at least two people with him who were food product producers from British Columbia whose products were not on display in the British Columbia display. There was a very, very limited display in British Columbia, and he was very embarrassed that two people who had paid $14,000 to be a part of Team Canada did not have their products on display, again because there was absolutely no provincial input to the process.
The federal government has I think learned by this unfortunate incident and is very embarrassed and apologetic for it.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Penner): Item 1.(b) Management and Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,876,400--pass; (2) Other expenditures $392,000--pass. 1.(c) Intergovernmental Relations Secretariat (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $332,100.
Mr. Doer: The Premier was mentioning that he went right to the Prime Minister on the food fair issue, and I hope it is resolved--[interjection]
Mr. Filmon: He was with me when I walked up to the booth.
Mr. Doer: Good.
Has the Premier discussed the issue of the flooding compensation for municipalities with the Prime Minister in either his meetings with the Prime Minister or these long plane trips and meetings that he has with the Prime Minister, in fleet of a food fair or other forums that would be appropriate to deal with this matter that is a grievance to all municipalities affected by flooding, and a concern obviously that has become even more acute with, dare I say--I do not even want to look out the window to see if it is still snowing--but dare I say it is not. I know I will be throwing a lot of sandbags around in a couple of weeks.
Mr. Filmon: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I did specifically raise this issue with the Prime Minister while we were away on Team Canada. It was one of several issues on my agenda, and I subsequently wrote to him explaining the concern in detail. He assured me that the matter would be reviewed and that the new minister responsible would take a fresh look at it. The initial decision was made under a different minister. The new minister I believe is Doug Young, and the result of it was that shortly after the Team Canada mission we had a number of auditors sent out by the federal disaster assistance system from Ottawa to review 20-odd years of records in which they had been making payments based on the use of municipal employees for emergency purposes.
I understand that was intended to take only a matter of a day or two and they were here for something like three weeks reviewing in intimate detail every payment that was made over the last 25 years, and we are now awaiting a response from them. We have, through senior officials in our administration, contacted their senior officials repeatedly over the last month because we anticipate, of course, a federal election, and we anticipate that this is a good time to pursue them about such a major issue.
It is also, of course, on the eve of the potential of another major flood, which might occur right in the middle of a federal election campaign, and we have suggested that this would be a terrible black eye for Ottawa to be campaigning on such a dismal record on this issue where they have, no question, changed their interpretation of the guidelines that were in place for 25 years and denied municipalities the legitimate opportunity to collect for the services of their employees on an emergency basis.
Mr. Doer: Has the Prime Minister replied, or only replied in the form of sending auditors out? Do we have any reply at all from the Prime Minister, and is there any correspondence that can be tabled in the Chamber, both the Premier's letter to the government and the response?
Mr. Filmon: I stand corrected. My understanding is that the preference was that rather than have the Prime Minister essentially go over the head of the minister, he asked that our minister write the new minister and that they have an opportunity to see if they could review the file, which is exactly what took place with respect to the auditors having been sent out here for the better part of three weeks.
Mr. Doer: Who is the new minister, the federal minister? I know the new provincial minister. When do we expect a decision from Ottawa dealing with this matter, and can the correspondence between the two ministers be tabled? It is a public interest issue.
Mr. Filmon: The minister here had been, of course, the Honourable Brian Pallister, and our new minister is the Honourable Frank Pitura. Their minister had been the Honourable David Collenette and is now the Honourable Doug Young--[interjection] Yes, it is now Doug Young. So we have been assured by both the PMO and the PCO that this is a high priority issue that is being attended to by the federal minister.
Mr. Doer: When was the audit completed, and when do you expect an answer, or will we read it from an Ottawa dispatch in the local newspaper shortly?
Mr. Filmon: My understanding is that the federal auditors left here about two to three weeks ago. Very shortly after they arrived back in Ottawa, Mr. Axworthy announced a $1.5-million advance on emergency expenditures in Manitoba, which we took to understand to be a down payment on the expected amount that was going to be agreed upon by the Auditor's report. When I said that publicly on a Steinbach radio station, we immediately got a call from a federal bureaucrat saying, no, no, this is a down payment on expected damages this year.
It seems rather ridiculous to us because, you know, despite the fact that it does look as though we are going to have a flood, there is not any assurance yet that there is going to be emergency expenditures. But it seemed to us to be a totally preposterous way of trying to indicate that they were doing something when they were not doing anything. So we will just have to wait and see.
Mr. Doer: Well, we will have to wait and see. Speaking of the federal minister responsible or the lead minister of Manitoba, the Premier's Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) got quite exercised in this House about the so-called federal gang initiative announced and a federal gang co-ordinator announced by the federal lead minister.
I would suggest a lot of members of the public found a forum on, quote, youth gangs, five or six weeks away from a federal election a bit--they viewed it with some cynicism, I think, if I am to be accurate listening to people that I have discussed it with, and quite disappointed that there has not been action.
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We were hearing from our constituents last summer and the year before about their major concern, about the growing youth crime. We have been having disagreements with this Premier on what we believe to be opportunities that have been cut. I have already gone over that at this opening statement.
I think the reaction of the public was, on this one, we got a federal minister making a proposal; we have a provincial minister in a huff. I think the reaction of the public was, why do you people not work together instead of taking political disagreements with each other?
Has there been some attempt by the Premier to get a longer-term strategy in place rather than just political shots across the bow that have taken place in this Chamber and in the public in the last couple weeks between the initiative of the federal Liberal government and their closed-door meeting and their invitees? Not everybody was invited. I do not know whether the Premier was invited to this meeting. I understand the leader of the Liberal Party was invited to the meeting. Many are called but few are chosen, I guess, is the way to get to the so-called gang meeting.
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I could not agree more with the Leader of the Opposition, that this needs a partnership approach of everybody--community, aboriginal organizations, the federal government, the provincial government, the city government. I guess what caused the response of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews), the very aggressive response, was that our government had been working with both the city and the federal government under the WDA, the new Winnipeg Development Agreement, for several months on a number of issues, including a gang initiative, but certainly street safety and many justice issues.
(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)
The plea of our Justice minister to Mr. Rock, to Mr. Rock's people, was that there ought to be a comprehensive strategy, not just a series of one-off announcements whenever the federal government decided that it was in their political interest to make an announcement. Because of the dialogue that had been carrying on for at least six months, we would have at least expected to be made aware of, or to be brought into the announcement.
Such was not the case, and that is what I think triggered a rather aggressive response from the Minister of Justice, that it came out of the blue, despite the fact that there had been six months of dialogue ongoing among all three levels of government. This one came out as a commitment or pronouncement from on high by the federal Justice minister, obviously with the involvement of the chief of police in the City of Winnipeg which is certainly acceptable and supportable on our part. But what happened to the rest of the players who had been involved in attempting to work toward a comprehensive strategy? What is the rest of the strategy when there is this one-off announcement of a gang co-ordinator?
With respect to whether or not I was invited to the gang summit discussion, no, I was not. I guess at the initiative of a couple of our ministers, they were given invitations by expressing some concern that they were not included. I know that there were other, for instance, Conservative members of the Senate from Manitoba who had been involved in discussions and justice issues in Ottawa who had to phone and twist arms in Mr. Rock's office in order to receive invitations to be there.
The list of invitees seemed to be very, very narrow in its scope and seemed to involve only those people who were acceptable to the Liberal Party here in Manitoba, which is unfortunate because I think that there were many people who could have, and should have, been there and had things to offer. Certainly, many who were there, including Liberals such as the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), did contribute, as I understand it, very substantially to the discussion and the process. It is just that the scope of people invited was too narrow. Aboriginal leaders and aboriginal spokespeople have also expressed that concern.
Mr. Doer: You know what I find rather interesting is, I guess the best way to put it, the young people at the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre had 500 young people brought, I think, in November to their centre. They came out and produced a report about six weeks later dealing with youth opportunity, hope and crime, and the member for Riel (Mr. Newman) was there. There were many members of our caucus there. There were no federal members as I recall it there.
I think Glen Murray was there, which I thought was rather ironic because the day I was going down there to listen to what they were going to announce the young people, there was another report coming out of one of the committees from the City Parks and Recreation that the resources in our community clubs are going to be cut back and the fees for using the community clubs were going to be increased by 15 percent. In the same report, young people are saying we need access to recreation, education, employment, et cetera, et cetera. So if people wanted to have a "summit" really listening to kids, what they were saying right across the whole city, it was there for all of us, rather than a closed-door meeting this spring.
What I want to see is, after the federal election, we have a strategy to really deal with this issue, because I think now we are in the announcement stage, the unilateral stage, and we are not naive enough to believe that that will not take place before an election. I even noted that the member opposite has made a few announcements just before elections himself, and that happens, but we need to do something about this and we are going to continue to push it, and we have been in the past.
As I say, we have raised this 18-point plan which we think is workable and got some good ideas to it. There is no such thing as anybody having an absolute lock-up on the right answers and the right combination of answers, but I have to say I was really impressed with the kids in Nelson Sanderson's group, young people that presented their views and wrote a very, very comprehensive report, very easy to understand report, with very common sense solutions.
A lot of the recommendations mirrored the document that was not released by the government from their Youth Secretariat, the one which we have referred to and released in the past, so, hopefully, we can go from here and have some success and some strategy, and I will not belabour that any further, but it is going to continue to be a priority for our caucus.
We asked the Premier questions a couple of weeks ago, or a week and a half ago, on the devolution of power and the human resource agreement. As we understand it, Newfoundland has signed a co-operative agreement for the human resource decisions between the federal and provincial governments, that New Brunswick and Alberta have signed a devolution of power, a three-year agreement and that Manitoba is looking at signing and has agreed to sign a similar devolution agreement with the federal government on human resources.
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There will be some language protection or hopefully some protection for the minority Francophone population in human resource centres here to mirror the proposal that hopefully is in Quebec to protect the English minority language issues with human resource centres as a bilingual country with a former service that because it was provided by the federal government was provided in both official languages.
We understand there are going to be reductions in staff. There is not going to be a longer-term guarantee of money. We are being told by our sources in the federal government they are quite happy with the agreement they have signed with Manitoba, because they are able to reduce their investment here in this province, and in a sense, start the process of what they believe to be offloading this responsibility with a few strings attached to the provinces.
Manitoba's agreement, as I say, is only three years, and then other conditions are "negotiable" as they go along. As a province that is quite worried about having services offloaded, why would we agree to a devolution agreement?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I just want to indicate that we have not signed an agreement with the federal government. We are still in the process of negotiation with the federal government. We have gone through a number of reviews at the cabinet level of the negotiating mandate, and we are in a process that is also concurrently going on with several other provinces. The member opposite refers to agreements having been signed already with New Brunswick and Alberta and Newfoundland, and the Newfoundland one being co-management, the New Brunswick and Alberta ones being devolution of authority. I think the member should be aware of the fact that the federal government has indicated that they are going to be devolving authority for this, and it is a question of whether the devolution takes place to us or to some other entities in Manitoba.
We believe very strongly that it is in our interest to be the co-ordinating body for labour force development in Manitoba. We would not want to see it distributed to other community levels of organizations. I think that the member opposite would not disagree with that, that we could not afford to have a fragmentation of responsibility for labour force development by giving it up to several locally based organizations. The federal government is going to be devolving. It is a question of whether or not it is to the provincial government or to some other entities that they choose, and we do not believe that that is in anybody's interest to have a diffusion of responsibility for labour force development.
We ultimately have said over and over again that, for the ultimate long-term positive development of our economy, the labour force development is a key lever, a key area of influence in our ability to grow as a province, whether it is to adopt and adapt to technological change, whether it is to help in the shift from a production-based economy to an information and knowledge-based economy. All those reasons to shift into the new economic opportunities of the future. We need to have labour force development as a key investment and a key element in that process.
The federal government has already signed agreements that are based on a three-year rolling model. That does not mean it is a three-year agreement. It is a three-year commitment that is a rolling commitment that keeps being renewed at the end of every three years, so there is an intent on the part of the federal government to maintain their commitment. Every agreement has a clause in it, certainly ours would have, that says that if any other government receives anything that is better than what we have received, is more beneficial to us, then we have the right to ask for that to be added to our agreement.
So it is our understanding, for instance, that Quebec is holding out for a two-year notice of change. That is, the federal government would have to give two years notice of any change in their commitments under the agreement, and so that would be added to our agreement should that take place for the Province of Quebec. It is not in the agreements that have been signed to date with New Brunswick, Alberta or Newfoundland.
We have, I believe, agreed on a certain number of positions that are based on the current level of activity of the federal government in Manitoba. It does not matter whether those positions are filled or not filled. So if they run up vacancies that are to be filled that are unfilled that those numbers of positions would still be part of the funding that would be transferred to the Province of Manitoba. So that does not seem to be material to the concern about funding. The funding would be based on a certain number of positions, whether filled or unfilled and, if they were unfilled we, having taken them over, would be in a position to fill them with provincial employees.
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Ultimately, all the employees will be provincial. We prefer that situation to the so-called joint managed area that Newfoundland has, and I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that one of the major thrusts that we are attempting to accomplish by all of this in the disentanglement process is that we should get the federal and provincial governments out of each other's hair, that we do not need to duplicate management and direction of programs and services, that what we need to have is one coherent policy, and we have just talked about the difficulty that we have with respect to having a coherent strategy when you have two different administrations at the table with perhaps two different political objectives.
That is an inefficient system that is being called for by the Leader of the Opposition, and I disagree with it completely. I think that we ought to have one coherent, long-term vision of what we want to do with our labour force development strategy, and we do not need two different heads on the dog trying to wag the same tail. We have to have this in a way that is as manageable as possible, efficient as possible and we believe that this is the way in which we should be doing it.
There are a number of side issues that have yet to be negotiated, which is why we do not have an agreement, a number of outstanding matters that continue to separate us from an agreement. The language component, we are told by the federal people at the negotiating table that they are satisfied that Manitoba has the capability of providing for the services in both official languages and that they are not, in any way, concerned about out ability to deliver on those services in both official languages.
I remind the Leader of the Opposition that we are still very large net contributors to the UI program in Canada because of our traditionally low unemployment rate, and the fact is that I do not believe we have been getting our fair share of training dollars from Ottawa throughout the piece. We have not had large numbers of people collecting UI so, as a result, two years ago the figure was almost $300 million of net contributions to the UI system; that is, the total contributions from employers, employees, less the UI payments and all the training dollars that were funded back to Manitoba.
Although that figure is probably somewhat less now, it is still substantially in the favour of the federal government. We are very large net contributors to the UI system. Our job is to make certain that the dollars that are invested in training and labour force development go to the right purposes for addressing the many skill shortages that we may have in our workforce, addressing the many opportunities that we may have for employment in the workforce that are not currently being addressed.
Mr. Doer: Of course, the Premier will know that the EI, the employment insurance, which is a misnomer in our opinion, politically incorrect in my view, the new program will be administered by the federal government. There will be offices in Manitoba dealing with the so-called insurance side, and there will be offices now in Manitoba dealing with the human resource side. So we will have a, quote--you may want to use the term dog. I will use other terms, but there will be some shared jurisdiction to begin with.
When the Premier talks about our vision of this program, we believe in the whole issue of having a strong program from coast to coast to coast in terms of human resources and human resource training. I would like to ask the Premier are there any documents, any materials, or any concepts that can be made public in a comparison between the Newfoundland system, for example, and the system that has been agreed to in New Brunswick and Alberta in terms of advantages and disadvantages, because the decision this government makes is going to be long term in terms of the federal government's devolution and the model it chooses.
Because there are offices all across Manitoba and this program not only deals with the employment of people but also deals with the training of our public, surely there should be some debate in this Legislature. We have tried to raise it in Question Period, but we would admit that it would be much better if we were dealing with a debate about, this is option 1, this is option 2, this is option 3, this is why we are going conceptually to option 1, and that this debate take place in this Legislature rather than just take place in either the federal-provincial negotiations or in the cabinet room.
Mr. Filmon: We do not have the documents from Newfoundland, New Brunswick or Alberta. I do not believe that the federal government would agree to making them public. If so, obviously--sorry, we do have the agreements, but we do not have a comparative analysis. Those are there and available. They are in the public domain. If the member opposite wants them, I guess we can arrange to have copies given to him.
My understanding of the federal government's intent was that they were intent on devolving to all jurisdictions, that they have only created a special deal for Newfoundland because Newfoundland was concerned with its capacity to manage the entire labour force operations in their province. So they struck a co-management agreement because they did not believe they had the capacity to manage it on their own.
Mr. Doer: I also understand that Newfoundland did not want the federal government, over time, to totally offload the program to them under the name of devolution, and that was another consideration that was made.
We see offload, offload, offload as concerns raised by the government time and time and time again, and all we are concerned about notwithstanding our different view of the vision of this strong national government, what we are concerned about is one person's devolution may be another person's offload. What we want is if the government has an analysis--the agreements apparently are in the Legislative Library. The Alberta agreement is at least. It is apparently available in Alberta. If the government has done an analysis of the benefits of the Alberta agreement and New Brunswick agreement and they compare it to Newfoundland, we are certainly willing to read it and pay attention to what is being stated in there.
We disagree with the federal government's decision to devolve, but the second question is how best to do it. That question, to some degree, we have got an open mind on. We did not like the three-year limitation or the three-year guarantee. That is one concern we have. We did not like the reduction in numbers of employees. We do not like the lack of certainty in the offices, the questions which I raised last week. We do not like the fact that these negotiations are taking place in secrecy, as raised by the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen), but if the government is willing to open this process up, either in these Estimates or in another Estimates of the Department of Education prior to final signature, I think that would be of public value. It is a longer-term agreement. Governments come, governments go. Sometimes we think not quickly enough, but we are biased, of course. We would like to debate this issue because obviously somebody else may be responsible some day in the future.
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Mr. Filmon: I think it is somewhat ridiculous for the member for Wolseley or the Leader of the Opposition to talk about negotiations in secret. Every agreement that the Pawley government negotiated with the federal government was negotiated in secret, whether it was the initial Winnipeg Development Agreement, North of Portage, the Core Area Initiative. All those things were done in secret.
Governments who are exchanging positions and negotiating do so in private because things may never turn out to be the way they intend them to be. They take positions. They offer suggestions. They are flexible. The Leader of the Opposition never did any of his union negotiating in public. It was all done in private. It is absolutely ridiculous to make that as a serious criticism.
Having said that, we have looked at the alternatives and believe that the model of devolution of responsibility would be the most efficient model. It would provide us with the ability to manage to the best of our capabilities and most efficiently by eliminating two different sets of administration, two different sets of reporting relationships, two different sets of political imperatives from the equation and leave us with the challenge and the responsibility of managing for the best interests of the labour force development of Manitoba.
(Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)
We believe that that is in the best long-term interests of the people of this province, and we are prepared to stand by that. We note that virtually every other province, with the exception of Newfoundland, has arrived at the same conclusion. So I do not think that this is being done for any philosophical reasons. I do not think that this is being done for anything other than attempting to find the most effective model of delivering labour force development activities in a province. I would say that we believe there will be a significant ability for us to protect the interests of the people of Manitoba by virtue of the part of the agreement that says if anybody else negotiates any more favourable circumstances, we will benefit by them.
If the federal government is going to pull out of labour force training, then they are going to do so in every province. It would not matter if they had a co-management agreement in Newfoundland. Because we are all entitled to equitable treatment or effectively equal treatment, then we are going to get whatever Newfoundland gets out of it in terms of the funding side. So I do not think that one way or another is going to stop the federal government from getting out if that is what they choose to do.
On the other hand, they would be hard pressed to justify the continued take of all the EI money from the province and not putting anything back into labour force development, and that holds true everywhere in Canada. If they are going to get out of responsibility for labour force development, then they are going to have to devolve the rest of the EI program to us and let us take the money then instead. I do not think that the people of Manitoba nor any other province are going to stand by idly and see that happen.
Mr. Doer: Well, perhaps the government and the Premier may want to look at what is going on with EI right now. There is a $6-billion surplus being removed from Canadians, employers and employees, being maintained by the federal government, and there is no big outcry. People standing idly by. I think perhaps the Premier will understand that there is not a lot of, how should I say it? Sometimes we are into these jurisdictional issues. They are not exactly issues that people readily start to fight for.
I think it is regrettable that the government is running a major surplus. Where does that money come from? It comes from people in Manitoba, and it comes from people across this country in terms of the surpluses now being basically hidden as a so-called contingency plan by a federal government. They almost equal some of the contributions that could be made to the CPP deficiencies or contributions that have been withdrawn from health and post-secondary education.
So on the one hand, they withdraw billions of dollars from health and post-secondary education, and on the other hand, they are running major surpluses in the EI fund. I would like to see a lot more public accountability in those decisions. Perhaps the Premier feels that Canadians are storming Ottawa on the issue of the EI surpluses right now, but I do not see it. I wish we could see it. Perhaps he sees something I do not see.
On the issue of negotiating in public, I would remind the Premier that there is sometimes a real advantage to negotiating items in public. We mentioned, the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) and myself, the last set of negotiations dealing with The Forks. The proposals from all the governments were made in public. Yes, there were meetings to deal with those proposals, but the whole concept plan was put out to public meetings and public hearings and how much money would go to this proposal.
There were disagreements about whether there would be money for the river walk program and how much that would be, how much would be for clearing up the yards, how much would be for some of the transportation routes, how much would be for recreation and cultural activities and historic investments, and all those negotiations were taking place between governments, but they were also taking place in an open public debate with open public meetings. That is an advantage because--I know they are not necessarily comparable, but then at the end of the day the plan that was developed--and I know the member for Wolseley was involved in one of the planning groups with Mr. Artibise for the provincial government, one of six people who was appointed--at the end of the day the public vision was contained in the ultimate negotiations that were concluded between the three levels of government in the planning document.
I remember having federal-provincial meetings on telecommunications. We put our position out public because we felt it was important for the public to know before we met with Flora Macdonald what our position was and why it was such, and what we would be going to the federal-provincial meeting to represent.
(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)
I do not think there is anything wrong with that. I am not naive enough to believe that everything should be--there are discussions sometimes with private corporations about private assets, but I think when we are dealing with jurisdictions that are owned by the public now through the federal government and jurisdictions that are going to be devolved to the provincial government and are delivered to the public, there is nothing wrong with having more transparency and openness on these negotiations.
So, yes, I do not agree with the Premier about (a) the fund and the surplus in the existing fund, and (b) the need for secrecy, and the Premier has provided some answers tonight that are helpful for us. I think that there is nothing to fear about the debate about this issue. If you are making the correct decisions on the basis of the correct, in terms of the analysis and the long-term best interests of Manitobans, it is always going to be defended by Manitobans. If you are not, there are going to be some caution signs, maybe some yellow lights or red lights about it from Manitobans. What is wrong with that? It is Manitobans that receive the service from the federal government, and I believe we could trust them, and I do not think we have to fear public debate about this issue. I do not think it weakens the Premier's hand. I think it helps it, if there is any disagreement.
I similarly said that we should have more of an open debate with the federal government on immigration. A lot of these decisions being made in Ottawa, we should try to get more of an understanding in Ottawa by members of all political parties on the whole issue of immigration here in Manitoba.
So I do not think all negotiations have to be in secrecy, in private, and I do not think we practised that in the past ourselves, and I do not think it is advisable in every case in present. In fact, I would argue the opposite. Sometimes having the public with you on an issue is better than surprises later on, but the Premier will decide to keep it in secret and that is his decision, and we will agree to disagree on it.
I have some other questions on matters dealing with federal-provincial relations. I just want to ask the question about the most recent announcements on settlement policies and immigration policies, the federal-provincial agreement with Manitoba. What is the status of these negotiations? There have been framework agreements announced, et cetera. Where are those agreements with the federal government on immigration, and what has been the position of the provincial government on the so-called settlement fees?
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Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I understand that the federal government has offered us a one-time payment from share of the federal allocation for settlement services, $750,000. It was a take-it-or-leave-it-basis and our government has decided to take it. The Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Vodrey) will hold discussions with the community to decide on the priorities for utilization of that money.
The federal government will then, for the next two years, top up their own expenditures in the province by an equivalent amount, and that will be their way of, I think, getting out of their responsibility in this area. It is not something that we are terribly happy about. It has been very arbitrary. They gave a significant settlement to British Columbia in lieu of their deal to stop putting the six-month residency requirement on new migrants from the rest of Canada for welfare.
This was clearly a major political deal that they made, much to the detriment of the rest of Canada. The feds have been very, very arbitrary and certainly not terribly consultative or participatory in a partnership sense with us or other provinces in Canada for that matter.
Mr. Doer: The Premier and our side have agreed before that the fees for new immigrants have virtually been a head tax on immigration and have been detrimental to Manitoba. What is the status of that? I think all of us have classified that as a racist policy by the federal government. What is the present status of that? What is its impact on Manitoba?
Mr. Filmon: We have steadfastly opposed that head tax. The Leader of the Opposition and I have been in common cause on that issue. Our parties have been in common cause on that issue. The federal government continues to impose that head tax. They seem to have a dual-track policy whereby the new leader of the Liberal Party as recently as last weekend was making speeches to a group of immigrant Manitobans about all the wonderful things that the federal Liberal government was doing for them, completely ignoring the very negative impact of the head tax.
I will say that we have had some recent improvement in our numbers of immigrants coming to Manitoba. This past year was the first year in almost a decade in which we had an increase in immigrants. I believe that some of the impact has been on our ability to influence, through our immigration agreement, the numbers and the particular people coming to our province from other countries. We may continue to improve our circumstances by virtue of a concerted effort that we are able to put forward as a result of our agreement. Having said that, we certainly believe that the head tax is a great negative to overcome and a wrongheaded policy by the federal government.
Mr. Doer: I would like to ask the Premier about another topic of federal-provincial relations, the status of the treaty land entitlement agreements here in Manitoba. As the Premier knows, in 1986-87 there was a major treaty land entitlement agreement between First Nations here in Manitoba and the provincial government. First of all, it was indicated that it would be accepted by the federal government. Then it was rejected by the former federal minister, Mr. McKnight.
I would like to know, we heard that the framework agreement is close to being signed, and we believe that this is crucial for long-term economic and social progress with First Nations people, the historic wrong that must be righted along with many others, and a very, very important step that is necessary. We know that the federal election may help us move things along, but we would just like to know where this is at and when do we expect any announcements.
Mr. Filmon: It has been some months that the federal negotiators, the provincial negotiators, and the negotiators for the 19 First Nations that are covered by the framework agreement reached agreement in principle and signed off on the terms and conditions.
As the member opposite knows, the federal responsibility is to fulfill their obligations under the treaties to the First Nations. Our obligation is to turn over unoccupied Crown land where it is available, and we believe that we have made available sufficient resources to meet our obligation both in land and in financial compensation that has been added to the package to make the agreement work.
As I say, that was agreed to by all the parties, and we are now waiting, I guess, for the federal system to turn out the ultimate detailed agreement, which then can be signed by all parties to the agreement. We keep hearing rumours that it will be any day. I think that there is some significance to the availability of senior federal people, maybe even the Prime Minister, for such a major signing here in our province. But we want to see this brought to a successful conclusion. We went out of our way to ensure that the negotiations came to a successful conclusion. We believe that has happened, but we are awaiting now the federal government to have this all put in legal form to be enacted.
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Mr. Doer: Yes, we heard rumours too about the Prime Minister being in The Pas on the 21st of March and then we heard rumours he is in Ottawa, and then, of course, the federal minister is in China, the lead minister in Manitoba. Certainly people are worried that a detailed agreement will not be signed and there will only be a framework agreement, again prior to the federal election. Will this government ensure that there is a full, detailed working document that will be very specific, or will it be just another advancement of a framework document for announcement purposes shortly?
Mr. Filmon: Certainly our strategy has been to get as much nailed down as firmly and in as much detail as possible as we can, as soon as we can, anticipating that there might be a federal election. Knowing that there has been a decade or more of hard work put in by many, many people to arrive at this, we would like to see the whole legal agreement finalized before a federal election. Whether or not that is possible depends on others besides ourselves, including the First Nations who are parties to the agreement, including the federal government.
Mr. Doer: Another question on federal-provincial relations, the child benefit, the so-called down payment on children, from the federal government, the Premier has made statements in the Speech from the Throne about the advantages of this.
I read with interest the comments made by representatives on the social advisory bodies across Canada who have commented on the impact of federal government policies on families with one child is actually a negative, and families with two children, it is actually just barely breaking even after the second year. When you get into three or four children, the benefit would kick in.
I would like to know from the Premier whether Mr. Northcott's assessment of this issue, as the Manitoba representative, and others on the national advisory committee who produced materials to show that this was not all it was hyped up to be, was, in fact, the case. I know the government has committed that it will not claw back this benefit, but with some people it may be a statement that will ring hollow for poor families.
Mr. Filmon: I am informed that that issue was raised by this government, specifically our Deputy Minister of Family Services, in a phone call across the country--Mr. Pettigrew was part of the phone call, as were other social services ministers, family services ministers, across Canada--within 12 hours to the federal government.
We were the first to raise it and to identify the negative impact of the decision that was made with respect to the federal government cuts in the CAPC program, the Community Action Program for Children. We endeavour to get Mr. Martin and Mr. Pettigrew to restore those cuts, and I want it to be known that our minister and deputy minister were right on the mark on that one and are leading the way in having, as well, the federal government restore federal cuts for the disabled under the VRDP, Vocational Rehabilitation for Disabled Persons program, and we similarly ensured that the federal cutbacks in services for aboriginals were front and centre in the all-province ministerial council report on social policy. We led the provinces in that as well.
I want the member opposite to know that those are issues that have been consistently put forward by this government, and we recognize the importance of that issue. We have certainly been among the leaders in working on the key aspects of the National Child Benefit and child poverty issues and will continue to do so. We are working in close co-operation with governments of all political stripes. The member opposite, I know, is complimentary to my colleague and friend Roy Romanow. Certainly he is not the only minister who has been working on this. The member opposite and his party supported this government when we brought in at that time the richest child tax benefits in Canada; now we have got some significant benefits put in by the Clark government in British Columbia and others.
The whole issue here is that we want to have something that adds to and enhances things that are already in place. The difficulty is that there are a lot of provinces in Canada that do not have the benefits that we already have in place. Anything from the federal government will add to enhance that. Clearly, in places where we already have put significant benefits in place, the federal government has to do more in order to make this a truly national benefit program. We want to work with them on this.
Mr. Doer: We did vote for the 1989 budget back when the Minister of Finance consulted with us, the former Minister of Finance consulted with us prior to the '89 budget. He said, what does it take to get the support of the minority government? I said, read our election promises from the year before. He did a good job, because the family tax credit area was an area that we had looked at when we knew that we had a surplus coming. Unfortunately, we thought that we would be giving that surplus to the succeeding government, but that is history.
The other area where I disagree with the Premier on, and you will find a real difference, if you look at the social assistance supports in Saskatchewan versus Manitoba. There have been cuts here to families, to children, unlike Saskatchewan. You will see a difference between the two provinces. I respect the fact that the Premier is initiating ideas for the federal government, but we have been critical before of the decisions made from the federal government to the provincial government, and from the provincial government to the so-called standardization of social assistance, which is meant that people like babies under a year's age have received the biggest cut on social assistance of 24 percent last year in the budget. I am not going to re-engage in that debate. You will find this did not take place in the province of Saskatchewan. So I think there is, to my view, greater credibility from Saskatchewan, but that again is another debate for another time.
I would finally like to ask a question on the child benefit provisions. We were public about our comments about the clawback impact of the CAP-C program. Why did the provincial government not make public statements about this and point out to try to develop some public attention to this issue, to try to get Paul Martin to really have a down payment on child poverty rather than for some families to actually have the opposite?
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Mr. Filmon: I am told that when the telephone call was made among the ministers responsible for social services across the country 12 hours after Mr. Martin's budget, that the gist of the comments being made from ministers across Canada was to compliment the federal government on the announcement of the child benefit, the National Child Benefit. Our Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) interjected after there were several commentators saying that there was one problem that seems to have been ignored and raised this whole issue of the impact on families with one child, the negative impact.
The federal government undertook to review it. They seemed to be caught unaware by it. Our expectation then was that there could be some positive response to this. That is why we did not make a public spectacle of it because we believed that the federal government had legitimately agreed to review it, and there was a possibility of getting it turned around.
Mr. Doer: When will we hear from the federal government, and how will they implement a retreat on this regressive clawback, particularly parents with one child and parents with two children that barely break "even"?
Mr. Filmon: Clearly, it will take federal action. They would have to spend more money. We have not any indication as to what they might be looking at. This might be a matter that could be discussed further with the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) to get an update, but at this point we have not heard back.
Mr. Doer: One can think about if this is the so-called down payment on child poverty, hold on to your hats when we see the Pharmacare proposal coming down the pipe next, but that is a matter for another question at another time.
There are lots of other federal-provincial issues, but if I need to ask them, I can ask them in Question Period, and you can refer them to somebody else as you usually do, but that is fine. I am trying to goad you into answering some questions this week. We will have to see, but we are prepared to pass this line at this point. I do not see my friends from the Liberal Party here. I am not supposed to say that. That is out of order, is it not?
Mr. Chairperson: Item 1.(c)(1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $332,100--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $66,400--pass; (d) Government Hospitality $10,000--pass. (e) International Development Programs $450,000.
Mr. Doer: I just want to say that I look forward, I think there is going to be a forum here in the Legislature in the future, and I look forward to reviewing that amount of money and the various projects that the International Development Programs is sponsoring. It is a program that we think is very, very positive. We have been always very impressed with the great work of volunteers throughout the religious organizations and the other social action groups in Manitoba. We are certainly willing to pass this line, but also to listen to the people on the front lines of world economic development.
When you think about the great wealth we have in Canada and the great wealth we have here in Manitoba, it is good that we are doing this, but there is so much more we can offer.
Mr. Chairperson: Shall the item pass? The item is accordingly passed. We will now move on to 1.(a) Premier and President of the Council's Salary. At this time we would ask the minister's staff to leave.
Mr. Doer: I just want to say that the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition and cabinet members and Speakers are getting the biggest increases of anybody in the direct public service. I have said it before and I do not want to belabour it at this late point. We believe that we should not have a double standard.
I am not going to get into huge debate about this again, but we believe that there should not be a double standard. If there are going to be cuts or freezes in salaries for direct public employees, we believe the same practice should take place for all of us, and we believe the legislation should be changed to do that.
I just say that to the Premier. I pointed out to the media that I also was getting, the Leader of the Opposition was getting a substantial wage increase in those Estimates that were listed. I think we have said it before, and we maintain that position in LAMC as well.
Mr. Chairperson: Shall the item pass--pass.
Resolution 2.l: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $3,168,100 for Executive Council, General Administration, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1998.
This concludes the Department of Executive Council.
In view of the hour, committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Marcel Laurendeau): The hour being close to midnight, as previously agreed, this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday).