The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Ben Sveinson): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order.
This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Department of Highways and Transportation. Does the honourable minister have an opening statement?
Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister of Highways and Transportation): Yes, Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to have this opportunity to present the '97-98 Expenditure Estimates of the Department of Highways and Transportation and to review the events and activities on which these Estimates are based.
The '97-98 Expenditure Estimates totalling $223,731,200 represent an increase of $1,521 or 0.7 percent over the '96-97 adjusted vote and a decrease of 21 SYs. I believe as we go through the process, the critic may ask questions about that, and the number will really be 28, I think, is the more firm number now.
In 1996, Manitoba Highways and Transportation staff responded to flood emergency conditions with efficiency and competence. Many Manitobans, in spite of being affected by the flooding, praised the work of the Department of Highways staff, and in that context, Mr. Chairman, for the member opposite, I would like to read a letter that arrived today because it pays considerable tribute to my staff. I do this for his information and for recognition of the staff. This is a letter that came from the Manitoba Trucking Association.
Dear Minister Findlay: The last number of weeks have been very trying and challenging for the citizens of southern Manitoba and Winnipeg. We have been very fortunate that damage we have experienced was minimal compared to the potential damage that could have occurred. During this period, our industry had to adapt to the conditions, the resulting detours, delays and demands placed upon it. We did adapt and were able, in most parts, to deal with the situation and continue to service the citizens of Manitoba. At the same time, our industry has been providing the resources to assist in efforts of fighting the flood. As the waters recede, we will then be faced with tasks of cleanup and restoring normalcy to flooded and damaged communities in southern Manitoba.
The purpose of our letter is to thank you, Mr. Minister, and your department for the advanced planning, communication and co-ordination your department provided to our industry prior to and during the flood conditions. I am certain your staff was working in tense and stressful conditions; however, the professional, efficient and co-operative nature in which they conducted their affairs and the affairs of the departments must be commended.
We are particularly appreciative of Mr. Don Kuryk's efforts in co-ordinating a meeting with the Department of Highways, Canada Customs, U.S. Customs, custom brokers in the industry to ensure the co-ordination and contingency plans were in place to allow our industry to continue to operate between Manitoba and the United States with minimal difficulties. The desired objective was attained due to his efforts.
As well, we are appreciative of Mr. Greg Catteeuw's department in their efforts to keep the industry abreast of ongoing changes to road conditions and closures during this time. As you are well aware, the road conditions were continually changing and the need for current accurate information was a necessity. Mr. Catteeuw's department did provide this information on a current accurate basis. Additionally, this information was provided through a number of mediums, which made access that much more readily available to industry.
All too often, while conducting our day-to-day affairs of our businesses, we are not cognizant nor appreciative of the close and co-operative working relationship between government and industry. These last number of weeks have provided the opportunity to truly recognize and fully appreciate this relationship.
Once again, thank you, Mr. Minister, and your department for your co-operation, direction and effective communication which was provided during the 1997 flood.
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I read that into the record for the member opposite and for the benefit of my staff who will not yet be aware that this kind of very positive letter has come which really does recognize the incredible efforts put forward by them to deal with an emergency, and I will comment a little later, a little further on, in terms of what some of the things they did.
Again this year, staff of my department are working closely with all levels of government to assist in managing the emergency conditions. Manitoba Highways and Transportation has been supplying survey crews to monitor the water levels and providing daily maps updating road conditions in conjunction with Natural Resources. Maps showing the impact of varying water levels have been provided to various agencies to assist in their flood planning.
The Department of Highways was the contractor in building the Z-dike or extending the west dike, sometimes called the Brunkild dike, which ended up being some 26 kilometres. The department became aware that this project had to be undertaken late Wednesday afternoon. Basically, the meeting was around 6 p.m. Wednesday, and by 6 a.m. Thursday morning there were, I think, 25 pieces of heavy equipment already onsite. The amount of equipment grew to about 200 units and about 100 trucks that did that project in--they figured they had three to four days. Weather got in the way, slowed them down once in a while, a bit of rain, but they really got it done in about five and a half days. It started out as, I think it was about a 16-kilometre stretch, and then on further survey it became a 26-kilometre stretch that they built up either using clay, rock, or whatever was available. It was really water and mud.
They had to do borrow pits in many farmers' fields. I would estimate from the air there would be about 20 borrow pits on farmers' fields. Some of it was built on the side of an existing drainage ditch, some of it on highway, some of it on municipal road, but it was a response to protect the city of Winnipeg and the citizens in the Sanford-Domain-LaSalle area of Manitoba. The department and the industry responded incredibly to the challenge that was there, and it was a job exceptionally well done.
Certainly, through the course of the flood, the department was deeply involved in managing roads to determine bridges, ability to be used in terms of stress of water, determine what roads could be kept open, what roads had to be closed. I think at the peak we had almost 60 roads closed. In some cases we had pilot vehicles taking people through the water. In many cases we had flag people onsite to help the traffic move through the water or make decisions on when the road was to be closed.
In a lot of cases that onsite activity was 24 hours a day, which required a lot of staff that just responded to the need. I never heard of a single complaint in that context, and the department brought staff from other parts of the province to do that. We were deeply involved in supplying road information to the public using the 945-3704 number. Between the 20th of April and the 7th of May, 48,000 calls were received by the answering service. At one point we received 7,000 calls in one day. Again the staff were there to respond to help the public deal with the changing circumstances in terms of information they needed to know to do what they had to do.
We added some new lines to make it more accessible to the public, and the information that was available was also put up on the Internet. So people could access road information on the Internet, which is an example of using modern technology to speed up the flow of information to people who wanted to know.
Reflected in the 1997-98 Estimates are programs and policies that recognize the integral role of the provincial transportation infrastructure in the development of Manitoba's economy. Economic development policy issues of which the department is involved include (1) the management of the Winnipeg Development Agreement multimodal transportation program which includes cost sharing of the Winnport development.
Secondly, leading the Manitoba Trade and Transportation Corridor Strategy to position Winnipeg at the head of the midcontinent superhighway, sometimes called the NAFTA highway, from here to Mexico. Thirdly, to review the oversize and overweight trucking policy to maximize highway infrastructure productivity and efficiency.
These Estimates reflect my department's continuing commitment to providing a safe, efficient and environmentally compatible transportation infrastructure.
Three major bridge construction projects were started last year and will be completed in '97-98. I want to remind the member opposite, in our total system we have 18,500 kilometres of road. We have over 2,800 bridges and structures and a structure is any culvert of 6-foot diameter or greater. What I am trying to show is, the degree of our response in terms of dollars to upgrade those structures is quite small. We have 2,800 structures. In '97-98 we did three of them in terms of rebuilding; on Highway 334 over the Assiniboine River at Headingley, at highway PTH 83 on the Assiniboine River at Miniota and Highway 59 south over the Red River Floodway, that is two new lanes for a four-laning of that particular road. So out of 2,800 structures we could do three last year, and Mr. Chairman will certainly identify with one of those projects.
The bridge at Headingley is a research project incorporating the leading edge technology in its construction. This bridge has test sections of the deck and the barrier wall will be reinforced with advanced composite material, and four test girders will use advanced composite material in place of conventional steel strand. This is otherwise called carbon fibre. It is a research project under ISIS run by the University of Manitoba, headed by Dr. Sami Riskalla. To monitor the performance of these test sections, fibre optic sensors are imbedded into the concrete, and the information flowing from that bridge flows right back by computer by fibre optic cable to a computer at the university. Again, that information can be drawn up on the Internet so that you can monitor stress and strain on the bridge from any location in the world, if you want to think of it that way.
This bridge is classified as smart by virtue of the integrated fibre optic structural sensing systems and classified as innovative because of its advanced composite material used in its construction. Clearly the idea is, through this research we can find ways and means to build bridges, maintain them or to reconstruct portions of them, to definitely prolong the life and make it much more cost-effective to do these new kinds of construction.
This will be the second such bridge in Canada to be built with this kind of technology; the first one was in Calgary. Construction of the Floodway bridge on Highway 59 south is a component of an innovative activity to upgrade some 16 kilometres of PTH 59 south to a four-lane, limited access highway between PTH 100 and the south junction of PR 210. This is a stretch of highway that has very high traffic counts, to a large extent due to urban development in that particular part of the province that comes to and from Winnipeg on a very regular basis every day, and the geometry of the road definitely needs improvement.
Recognizing the importance of maintaining and enhancing the province's road network, the department's '97-98 construction budget of $97.9 million represents a $1.3-million increase over the provincial base in the '96-97 construction budget. The federal contribution to Manitoba's highway infrastructure through the Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program, the SHIP program, as it was known, which totalled $3.4 million in '96-97, is reduced to zero in the current year due to the completion of the SHIP program.
This clearly accentuates the fact that the federal government at this point is putting zero dollars into our highway infrastructure capital program in Manitoba and also accentuates the fact that the national government has not agreed to any national highway program, which all 10 provinces have been advocating for about nine years at this point, and still there is no federal commitment.
The Trans-Canada and the Yellowhead highways are major transportation corridors through the prairie provinces. Two projects are planned on the Trans-Canada Highway during '97-98 construction season, and a major paving project is scheduled for 16 from Russell to the Saskatchewan border.
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To improve the efficiency and life of our highways, my department researches and tests new materials and construction techniques. This year a new practice will be tested on a section of PR 227 which will be constructed as a stabilized base course project. This means that as the base is built, in other words the gravel is laid, calcium chloride will be incorporated into the material providing a dust-free surface that will not be subject to spring road restrictions and a greatly reduced amount of dust, which gives you what people want--less dust, preferably no dust, of course, and a road that is not subject to restrictions for economic activity.
The economic deregulation of the rail mode by the federal government, evidenced by the elimination of the Crow subsidy and the expedited abandonment of branch lines, has the potential to shift significant volumes of grains and other products from rail lines to the provincial highway system. Consequently, there will be a greater need for more highways to support tack loadings noted to handle increased loads and larger trucks. This trend will also place new demands on the department to undertake intersection improvements to accommodate truck turning movements and preserve the integrity of the highway system, and that certainly applies all over the province. An example of this is the intersection improvements undertaken this year at PTH 3 near Brunkild to facilitate traffic resulting from the construction of new high thrift through put grain elevator. There have been several of these kinds of projects in the province, and every time one is built you naturally attract a lot of big trucks. So you need the proper turning radiuses, you need the turning lanes to increase the safety on the roads for the other road users.
Winter roads and the department's marine services continue to provide a vital transportation link for the citizens of northern and remote communities in Manitoba. The winter road system comprises approximately 1,600 kilometres of roadways, and provides for lower-cost transportation of bulk goods to northern and remote communities during an eight-week period every winter and also provides those communities with links for the citizens to travel from community to community or to the outside world.
The implementation of a new initiative for the maintenance of the provincial gravel road system was implemented on January 1, '97. Now 30 plus two municipal corporations, in other words 32 in total--it was 30 to begin with, and two more have come on in more recent times--signed contracts with the department to undertake maintenance of the provincial gravel roads within their boundaries for a three-year period. The savings realized by the department from this initiative are being used to enhance on-road maintenance activities in those municipalities, meaning mainly more gravel. My department will continue to provide specialized services including road construction and maintenance and repairs to highway installations to other government departments and other jurisdictions including municipal corporations, Crown corporations and the federal government on a cost-recovery basis. Participation in a number of partnerships provides for more cost-efficient construction and maintenance projects and ensures that highways not under the department's jurisdiction are restored to acceptable standards.
My department places a high priority on safety. We strive to design regulatory services that ensure public safety while promoting the competitiveness of the transportation industry in Manitoba. In 1996 a new division, Transportation Safety and Regulatory Services, was created to bring together all functions of the department that relate directly to the operation of commercial carriers. Already in 1997 this division has implemented spring road restriction reforms that include fixed start and end dates, a simpler percentage loading formula and the elimination of the requirement for permits for some essential commodities. There is a long list of essential commodities that are exempt. This was the outcome of a significant consultation involving the department and all the different players involved in road restrictions, and it was an agreement that they all concurred with, and it is an incredible increase in efficiency and increased protection to our roads which everybody agrees with.
I also notice this year, particularly, that we see a lot more municipalities across southern Manitoba have included road restrictions in their activities, in other words, to protect their roads, because the outcome had been in the past as we restricted our roads the commercial haulers used municipal roads which certainly impacted their roads. We have advocated to them, to protect the roads they should consider restrictions, and I notice a lot of signage up this spring that they have done that for the protection of their roads. It just helps the trucking industry to respond positively to protecting our roads.
The timber haul transportation initiative, which the department co-chairs with Repap, focuses on developing a user-pay overweight permit. This policy includes a self-regulatory component. It is expected that this initiative, once completed, will promote a model for other resourced-based industries.
Effective January 1, 1997, the membership of the Highway Traffic Board and the Motor Transport Board was amalgamated decreasing the number of board members from 15 to seven. This will result in an anticipated cost savings of approximately $50,000 to the government of Manitoba.
Through a variety of programs delivered by the division of Driver and Vehicle Licencing, the department will continue its efforts to ensure the safety of drivers and their vehicles.
In '97-98 dual graphic reflective licence plates will be introduced. This will improve the ability of peace officers and the general public to identify vehicles for law enforcement purposes. This licence plate will start to be on cars probably in late June because the renewal notices will go out on June 17, and the first renewals will be August 1. But I am sure we will see some of the new licence plates on cars by the 20th of June for the very early birds that will renew their licence as early as possible. It will take a full 365 days to go through this cyclical renewal process.
A new stolen and wrecked vehicle monitoring program will be implemented this year. Manitoba will participate in the model program established by the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators to monitor and control stolen and wrecked vehicles right across Canada. This program provides a comprehensive means of preventing the concealment of stolen vehicles that clearly identifies the status of vehicles that have been written off by any insurer in Canada. Again, I want to stress this will be available to any consumer buying a vehicle right across Canada where it has been written off in any jurisdiction in Canada.
Mr. Chairman, we are maintaining and enhancing Manitoba's transportation infrastructure to meet the needs of the transportation industry and the general public. We are developing programs, regulations of policies that further the safety of Manitoba's roads and drivers, and enhance the competitiveness of the industry. Ours is a prudent and responsible course of action that will ensure the viability of Manitoba's transportation network in the years to come.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the back and forth exchange of information we will have with the critic, as I meet with probably over 80 different groups over the course of a year. We always learn something from every exchange, and I look forward to the information we can exchange for the betterment of both of us in terms of our responsibilities regarding transportation. Thank you.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Sveinson): We thank the minister for those comments. Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Flin Flon, have opening comments?
Mr. Gerard Jennissen (Flin Flon): Yes, Mr. Chair, a few brief comments. First of all, I would like to thank the minister for giving me that synopsis and overview. It was certainly a very condensed version of what his department is doing, and I really do appreciate that, as well as reading into the record a letter that was very informative for me. Particularly I found informative the material that he is giving me on the flood, and I certainly do have a number of questions. In fact, if at all possible, considering the limited amount of time, after my brief statement, I would like to talk about flood-related issues if he would not mind. They seem to be issues that would be highly appropriate at this time.
I would like to start by saying there is no doubt that in general--I would like to speak in general terms here for a little while--there are some major challenges facing our transportation systems and not just in Manitoba; I guess, it is all across the country, all across the globe. But in Manitoba there is indeed an outlook for greater economic prosperity as global markets expand. The global marketplace that we are really entering more and more deeply all the time also is extremely competitive. I can buy the argument that therefore we have to be competitive, but, of course, that necessitates the further argument that in order to be competitive, the infrastructure has to be competitive.
Right now new trade agreements, particularly NAFTA, are changing traditional east-west trading patterns, as we are already experiencing, and the trading patterns instead of going east-west, as they have traditionally gone, are now going north-south much more so. Many of the factors though that affect our trade flow are governed by factors that are beyond our control, and as the minister well knows, beyond Manitoba's control whether it is the dropping of the Crow rate or the privatizing of airports and ports or the selling off of railroads. Those are things that we cannot control, either imposed upon us by other governments or by other forces, sometimes outside market forces.
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We are fully aware that we do not live in a fishbowl, that we are mutually interconnected across this country and also across this globe. We do live in a global village. In this prevailing atmosphere of competition and deregulation, the values of the marketplace tend to become the only ones, the paramount ones, and I think that poses a danger and a danger that we have to guard against, because governments everywhere seem to be very quick to let the marketplace determine just exactly what is right and what is wrong. Then what we get is a lack of balance. What we get then eventually is almost minimalistic extremist government in the sense that it is a government that does not wish to govern. That can be very dangerous, because that means making decisions that may well be congruent with the marketplace but may not necessarily be congruent with larger forces.
I do believe that governments have choices, and ministries within governments have choices. For example, governments all across this country, I guess, sat back and let the federal government sell railroad lines that many generations worked hard to achieve, that were expressions of our national sovereignty or national unity. Certainly, one of those railroads led right up to Churchill,, and that north-south link is extremely important to Manitoba. That north-south link is now controlled by a company we hope will be very, very successful--OmniTRAX. Nonetheless, the fact is it is a Denver-based company, so some of our Canadian nationalists, I am sure, will not be happy.
However, faced with the possibility of a line dying and saving a line, you know, we will always take the lesser of several evils, and we wish OmniTRAX the best. But still I decry the notion that we sit back and let some of these things happen, some of these attacks on transportation links that I had assumed, at one point, were almost icons, were almost sacred to us.
I guess I should be old enough to realize nothing is sacred anymore. No matter what we believe, it comes under pressure or is re-examined, and certainly Sir John A. Macdonald would wonder about what we are doing when we are selling off parts of our railroad system, let us say, to companies that are not even Canadian. But that is water under the bridge at this point.
I am concerned though in the larger debate that the variables, or the one variable we deal with most often or almost exclusively is economic viability, because I do believe that there are other factors, balancing factors, the greater need of people, the greater need of the common good that sometimes necessitates a decision that may not be economically sound. I hate to argue not doing economically sound things, but sometimes they are done for other reasons, whether they are sovereignty reasons or for greater-public-good reasons. Sometimes I think there are things beyond user pay, although that seems to be the predominant philosophy.
I may be wrong. I am certainly open to correction, but I sense a contradiction almost everywhere in government where the emphasis is on trade and prosperity and trade links, shrinking the universe, if you like, but on the other hand there is a lack of funding, certainly in many jurisdictions, and Manitoba is not excluded, that would make that work. In other words, you cannot want better tourism and better trade and larger volumes of trade on the one hand and then not provide the dollars to make it happen. This is certainly quite obvious in northern Manitoba, because many of our communities are dependent on single industries, for example, Flin Flon.
We would like to diversify. To diversify though, for example tourism, you do need good road structures, good infrastructure, and we do not have them up to par. I am also fully aware of the fact that there is very little money available. We are trying to do a massive task with minimal amounts of money and that is not helped by the fact that we are living in a era where cutbacks take precedence, where you are always wrestling with the budget, where you are trying to bring down debt and bring down deficit.
I understand that, but, nonetheless, the roads are crumbling. One headline, I do not have it with me here, but I think it said roads are crumbling while politicians are fumbling, and there is a certain degree of truth in that, and I guess we all are part of that reality.
So, Mr. Chair, with those few words, perhaps not the most optimistic of words, I would like to end. If the minister would have no objection, I would really like to, seeing the limited time we have available, ask some questions about how the flood, the flood in southern Manitoba has affected our infrastructure, our road infrastructure.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Sveinson): We thank the critic of the official opposition for those remarks. I would remind members of the committee that debate on the Minister's Salary, item 1.(a) is deferred until all other items in the Estimates of this department are passed.
At this time I would invite the minister's staff to take their places in the Chamber. While the minister's staff is coming in, the minister will indeed give some comments on the flood.
Mr. Findlay: I will comment because I took a tour of the road structures that we knew had some damage yesterday. I will just start by saying we had a major flood in 1996 and in '95 in the Assiniboine Valley, and on both occasions we were very, very pleasantly surprised. There was very little damage to the road infrastructure in either of those two years because the road bed was frozen, the bridges were either weighted down or the water was not high enough to cause impacts on the bridges, but this year is exceptionally different. Our water levels are higher; probably the rate of flow and the current activities were higher.
We went out yesterday and had a view, particularly of Highway 75, which is our major north-south route. It had been closed all the way to the U.S. border, and we had the letter from the Manitoba Trucking Association. One of the things that we did with them was we detoured trucks to the U.S. via Highways 2 to 13 and then down Highway 32 into the U.S. south of Winkler. Highway 75 is now open from the 49th parallel north to Highway 14, and the detour goes west on 14 over to Winkler, Morden, and then back up on Highway 3. That is the detour we used last year, so obviously Highway 75 from 14 to the border, which is maybe about 15 miles, is in A-OK shape.
What we saw yesterday that was out of water--and I want to remind the member that from the air I would estimate it was at least 15 miles of Highway 75 is still under water. At Morris there is at least four feet over the highway because you can only see this much of the stop sign post below the stop sign itself, and, as I say, about 15 miles, mainly north and south of Morris, is under water. A spot just south of Ste. Agathe, I would estimate 400 yards maybe of 75, is severely damaged. The water is roaring through there and the cement sections are like dominoes lying in different angles, so there is going to be significant reconstruction needed there.
At the junction of 205, the Aubigny corner, certainly 75 and 205 are fairly challenged there. I cannot comment on what we will find under that 15 miles of water on 75. Clearly the department will respond and get the road up to operational or usable state very, very quickly once the water subsides.
We also looked at Highway 201 by the Roseau River, a fairly good gap there, about 200 yards maybe in the road, which the department is working on today, trying to get it back to where it can handle traffic. It will not be to its original state right away; that will be done over the course of time. We travelled west along Highway 205 towards Rosenort, and we were flying along the north side of 205. Clearly the shoulder was severely eroded on the north side, and in many cases the north lane was half gone, fully gone. Sometimes a lane and a half was gone on that whole stretch of several miles.
Now my director in charge of construction tells me it will not take long to get it up and operational, but we could not see at all because there was still a bit of it under water. I dare say there are many roads in the flooded area in that situation with water over, some undermining, a lot of erosion on the shoulders, some of the lanes affected, and we only know at this stage of about five bridges that were affected. That is not to say that that will be the total number in the end, but I believe every one of those bridge is now operational with some degree of work having been done to get them back to being operational.
The member might like to know some estimate of damage. It is a tough one when you still have 15 miles of your four-lane highway under water, but I know the staff will say $5 million and I think it is going to be higher than that, maybe significantly higher than that, before we get all the roads back up and operational. I am just talking the provincial roads. There are hundreds of miles of R.M. road that will be affected, maybe even more than our provincial roads because they are not paved so that the surface is very subject to erosion, it takes the gravel, takes the topsoil.
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I think one other road I could comment on was 336, a road that we built last year. [interjection] 332, get the number right, was built last year. The grass was not growing up on the shoulders, so the road was really subject to erosion and a tremendous amount of that topsoil that was put up there at great expense is no longer where we had placed it last year. So that is a little bit of a synopsis of the impact.
Maybe there is one other thing I could say, I think. I refer to my original comments that about 60 roads were closed in the course, and the public at large was very co-operative really and understanding what the department was trying to do to keep the roads open as long as possible. Certainly people are very eager at this point to get back in, maybe even before the roads are deemed to be safe. I am an advocate that, until we get the engineering okay on bridges and roads, the roads should not be opened, because we have not lost lives on the road so far and I do not intent to lose them because we open roads too soon.
But it is a tremendous challenge to get things up and running as fast as the public could want because everybody is eager to get back to their home, their business, and to some kind of normalcy in their life as fast as possible. If the member opposite has some more questions, I will certainly elaborate on what we have just talked about.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Sveinson): Would the minister like to introduce his staff present at the same time, please.
Mr. Findlay: Deputy Minister Andy Horosko; Barry Tinkler, acting assistant deputy minister of Construction and Maintenance Division; John Hosang, assistant deputy minister of Engineering and Technical Services; and Paul Rochon, executive director of Administrative Services Division. If the member is watching my finger, he knows which each of the four are. I am sure he knows them anyway.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Sveinson): We are on item 15.1.Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $438,900.
Mr. Jennissen: Mr. Chair, I am just wondering if, for the remainder of the time, we could just continue asking some questions on the flood.
The minister had referenced the fact, I think it was Mr. Tinkler in the CBC interview, had suggested it was $5 million or in that neighbourhood. But you are saying that is far too early to tell, like there would be nothing preventing that from being $20 million, correct?
Mr. Findlay: The Highway 75 construction might be a million dollars in itself, for that one location I mentioned, south of Ste. Agathe. With all that is still under water, there are tremendous amounts of unknowns and, yes, Mr. Tinkler, has identified $5 million. Flying yesterday, it is hard to believe it would come in that low. I think you asked is that disaster money. That is true, we would apply that it would be funded from the disaster process. There is still a little bit, or at least we hope, expect and want it to come from that direction, but it is subject to some decisions of the federal and what they will accept as flood-related damages.
Clearly, we would want to think that the whole building of the Z-dike would qualify a lot of the remedial activity we did in preparation dealing with the roads for the upcoming flood, then the restoration after the flood would all be reasonably acceptable as disaster activities, disaster-related activities.
Mr. Jennissen: Did I understand correctly when the minister said that that 26 kilometres of the Brunkild dike was more or less constructed in actual condensed period of 5.5 days?
Mr. Findlay: Metric versus English, 26 miles. I guess I said kilometres; 26 miles. It started out, when our staff started on it, it was 16 miles. Then part of the old dike, about 10 miles, was identified as being too low, and they had to do it too. So not only did they have a big challenge when they started on the Thursday morning, they had an even bigger challenge by Saturday, which they responded to. Maybe the water did not rise quite as fast as initially expected, but nonetheless, they had it constructed, had the safeguards in place in terms of straw bales and abandoned vehicles to break the waves, to handle the upcoming water.
I remember there was one point at the Z-dike, the southeast corner where the water was rising, they certainly did not think it was wide enough. They widened it the next day to strengthen it, just did a remarkable job of meeting Mother Nature's challenge head-on for the betterment of Manitoba.
Mr. Jennissen: Yesterday I mentioned a news release by Canada-Manitoba Infrastructure which was dated May 9, 1997, Rural Road Strengthened by $14 million in Infrastructure Funding. I know there are a couple of paragraphs at least suggesting that there is a connection to that, a strong connection to that and fighting the flood. I am still not clear on how many of the 169 roads mentioned are actually negatively impacted by the flood, not an awful lot of them as far as I could see.
Mr. Findlay: In terms of the list of different roads selected that were nominated by municipalities, and I think it was six or seven of our provincial roads in this list, yes, I am not aware of any of them that are really directly affected by the flood so they will still continue as applied for.
As I said yesterday to the member, the disaster assistance activity and this infrastructure activity are complete, distinct and separate. Should there be roads that are affected by flood, it is to be worked out yet. Clearly, the rebuilding part of it would come from the disaster pot and what they have identified as upgrade would still be available to them in the infrastructure program.
Mr. Jennissen: I guess my concern was that I was not sure why flood, you know, like a couple of the paragraphs dealt with flood, when flood-damaged roads had so little to do with the actual funding part of it.
I would like to switch topics slightly and go on to--when we talk about crumbling infrastructure, specifically about some of the concerns we have about the national highway system, apparently that exists, but is virtually, well, a minor factor, I guess, in terms of overall percentages. I am sure the minister has some thoughts on a much better or more improved version of a national highway system and the role that the federal government should play in that kind of a structure. Would he comment on that?
Mr. Findlay: We have identified a system right across Canada. It connects all major highways. It is east, west. It connects its major routes to the U.S. So in Manitoba's case, it is 1, 16, Perimeter and Highway 75. In Manitoba, it is 5 percent of our network, of our 18,000 kilometres of network, but it carries 29 percent of the traffic. That shows you high use, and high use means some degree of deterioration on an ongoing basis. On an ongoing basis, we spend $20 million to $30 million a year on this road infrastructure, whether it is rebuilding, bridge reconstruction or resurfacing, deck restoration or repaving. The member will notice in the programs, all those kinds of activities go on, on a year-to-year basis.
We collect, out of the users of the highway system, around $160 million, $180 million a year in road taxes, licence fees, dues. At the same time, the federal government collects about $155 million of taxes and fuel tax in Manitoba. At this point, we are putting all our money back in either capital projects, around the $100 million, and around $60 million in maintenance and what we collect out of the system, we put back in. At the same time, federally, they collect $155 million of tax, and this year in our budget we get zero back.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Sveinson): Order, please. The hour being 5 p.m., and time for private members' hour, committee rise.
Call in the Speaker.