Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): 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 Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Does the honourable Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs have an opening statement?
Hon. Mike Radcliffe (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Thank you, Mr. Chair. In fact, I do have an opening statement and I welcome the opportunity to address the Chair and my honourable colleagues opposite.
Mr. Chair, I am very pleased to introduce the Estimates of Manitoba Consumer and Corporate Affairs for the year 1998-1999. As we know, in our competitive marketplace, consumers and businesses, and landlords and tenants need a variety of accessible information to function effectively and to make their best decisions. My department has been working to take advantage of the growth in technology to satisfy the need for accessible information.
One of these advances in technology is that of the Internet, and I am proud that the Consumer and Corporate Affairs home page has been a popular site with an almost unbroken pattern of increases in visits. In June of 1997, its first full month, there were 1,561 hits. In January of 1998, there were 3,331 hits and 3,059 hits in the shorter month of February. The nine-month total from June to February was 20,291 contacts from members of the public to the Consumer and Corporate Affairs home page on the Internet.
One of the most important branch sites for my department is that of the Residential Tenancies Branch, which also went on-line at the beginning of last June. The site provides answers to 10 of the most asked questions that are faced by the Residential Tenancies Branch and enables users to download the forms most used by landlords and tenants that are issued by the Residential Tenancies Branch. It gives both landlords and tenants an automated security deposit interest calculation instrument as well. In addition, it has the complete Policy & Procedures Guidebook and The Residential Tenancies Act itself with access to the sections on mediation, orders of possession and security deposits. The site had 6,876 hits from July to February, which shows that Manitobans appreciate the quick and easy, 24-hour, seven-day-a-week access that it offers to the members of the consuming public in Manitoba.
In the coming year, the branch is ready to test its residential tenancies order system on the Internet. This is a matter which I have been able to consult with the department on. There are a few pending reorganizations or directions that are yet to be completed, but it is imminent that Residential Tenancies will be able to place on the Internet copies of orders of possession, orders for payment, the result of the deliberations of the Residential Tenancies Branch on the Internet so that all members of the public will be able to review what has transpired and in fact publicize the records of the branch. This will give the public access to these orders, the director enabling landlords and tenants to make decisions based on the information in those orders. Tenants can check on an outstanding repair order, and landlords have an additional way to check out a tenant.
Mr. Chair, we will ensure that privacy is protected by making available only essential order-related information. So, in other words, if somebody has moved to a new address, that new location of the individual person involved will not be disclosed on the Internet.
I am pleased to note that the branch has a full-page ad in the Talking Yellow Pages. It has been in operation in English and French since May 1, 1997, and has proved to be another useful 24-hour tool for helping the public. The ad covers some of the questions most asked about security deposits, rent increases, repairs and notices. In the 10 months from May 1997 to February 1998, 2,497 people called for this information.
Mr. Chair, we have worked hard over the past two years to develop legislation to protect life-lease tenants. The Life Leases and Consequential Amendments Act was introduced recently in this Chamber. Life leases are a useful way to raise funds for rental housing. Tenants of life-lease projects contribute to the cost of constructing the project, and in return they obtain housing that has the desirable apartment size, recreational facilities and other amenities. The tenants' contributions are commonly called entrance fees. Tenants expect to recover these fees through a refund fund from the landlord when they leave, or in the alternative, by assigning the right to occupy the unit which they hold to a replacement tenant and obtain their funds from the incoming resident.
We have consulted with many tenants, with landlords, lawyers, lenders and others involved in life leases, and as a result we have identified three main issues. The first issue is the need to ensure that prospective tenants are given adequate information to enable them to make an informed decision about entering a life lease or to continue in a life lease. The next issue is the need to protect the tenants' funds. The third issue is the need to change The Residential Tenancies Act to apply it more effectively to life leases. It applies now, but it was not designed, that is, The Residential Tenancies Act was not designed to include several of the features of life leases such as a tenancy for life.
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The bill requires life-lease projects to disclose specified information to prospective tenants and to disclose annually specified information to ongoing tenants. The act further requires life-lease projects to protect tenants' funds by having these funds held by a trustee, by prohibiting trustees from releasing the tenants' funds for construction purposes until after the landlord has provided evidence of having met several conditions and by requiring life lease projects to have capital repair and replacement reserves. We are making other changes to The Residential Tenancies Act to make it consistent with life-lease rental housing.
Now, Mr. Chair, turning to my department's special operating agencies, I am proud to report that our Companies Office has won a 1998 silver Manitoba Quality Award presented by the Manitoba Quality Network. I actually had the opportunity to be present at the event when this award was presented to the director of the department, and it was in fact a very happy event. This is the second award for the office in the past four years. The two achievements reflect the ongoing work of the office on a continuous improvement since 1991, and its establishment of a bringing-excellence-to-service and training committee in 1993.
In the Property Registry, we are continuing the process of automating Land Titles offices around the province. The computerization of offices in Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage la Prairie and Morden has given us an increased operational flexibility, additional revenue and enhanced access for clients. In fact, this January, I had the opportunity, the very happy opportunity, to attend at Morden at a ribbon cutting where a number of members of the local bar, and the near-legal community members of the town administration, and our Land Titles people were present to inaugurate the commencement of the computerization service in Morden.
I also had the opportunity last year to attend at Portage la Prairie at a similar event, and so I can see where the technology is now effectively and thoroughly spreading throughout our province, so that we can bring services of our department to all Manitobans no matter where they may be located. We are conducting a review of the Land Titles Offices in Neepawa and Dauphin to prepare, to extend the automated system and electronic database to their operations.
We have made provision for a fund and are working on implementing a survey outline, Monument Restoration Program, on a 50-50 cost-share basis with municipalities. I am very pleased to be able to announce this program in Manitoba because, in fact, as you well know, Mr. Chair, we can have the best database in the country, we can have the most thoroughly investigated paper title system or registry system, but if in fact the Land Titles Offices do not know where monuments are located on the land in the territory of Manitoba, then in fact all the rest is irrelevant because the monuments form the key and essential ingredient to a Torrens system of landholding in Manitoba.
We have been told that at the inception of the initial survey of the province of Manitoba, when the Canadians were taking over the Red River settlement, the surveyors went across southern Manitoba and staked out the province and created wooden monuments which were placed on the appropriate sections, townships and ranges in Manitoba and that these monuments have disappeared with the passage of time, either by the deterioration of the substance or by misadventure from municipalities or local landowners.
So we now have a program to restore this monumentation to be shared equally by the Land Titles or the provincial government and the local municipalities. This step was met with great jubilation by the local municipalities.
Mr. Chair, under The Municipal Act, municipalities are responsible for maintaining and replacing these survey monuments on property, and up to $150,000 a year from the revenues of the Property Registry will be used to help municipalities to fulfil these responsibilities.
Now, the next issue that I would like to direct my opening address to, Mr. Chair, is to turn to the issue of insurance. We formed a committee consisting of the superintendent of Insurance, local insurers, and the object of this committee was to address issues raised by people who are unable to purchase insurance and bring this problem to the attention of the superintendent. I must thank members opposite for bringing this issue to my attention last year and, more particularly, I think it was the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) who in my Estimates indicated to me that there were citizens in her district who were unable to obtain insurance, house insurance, no matter how much money they were prepared to pay. So we have addressed that issue, and I am pleased to report that this committee has not been called upon to meet.
The statement, I guess, that this government has given to the industry and to the consuming public is that we are concerned and we want to be proactive in the settling of this difficulty on a conciliatory basis. In fact, we have accomplished our ends by virtue of the fact that this committee has not had to meet to address any of these issues.
In addition, we understand that two new groups specializing in what are called hard-to-place insurance risks have begun to operate in Manitoba, and this will likely ease the problem for many of these customers.
We are also now preparing to proclaim The Commodity Futures Act to be in force. The new legislation gives the Manitoba Securities Commission regulatory responsibility for trading in commodity futures contracts and options. The Winnipeg Commodity Exchange will be the location for this activity. The commission will take this role over from the Canadian Grain Commission.
We are confident that the bill and related legislation brought in about the same time will enable our major financial markets, especially the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, to move forward to meet the needs of its clients.
Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. I invite questions from members opposite, and thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.
Mr. Chairperson: We thank the minister for those comments. Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Elmwood have any opening comments?
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Given the time constraints that we find ourselves under, I would prefer that we move right into the questions with the department. With that in mind, I would suggest we go into Minister's Salary, if possible, and deal with the wide variety of questions under that area.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I thank the honourable member for his remarks, but before we do that I would recommend that we pass all the other lines prior to going to Minister's Salary, or we would have to pass the other lines or deal with the other lines on a line-by-line basis.
Mr. Maloway: We should simply stick to the questions before Minister's Salary then. I know last year we were very general in our approach here.
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Mr. Chairperson: What is the will of the committee?
Mr. Radcliffe: I would like to accede to the honourable member's request opposite, Mr. Chair. I want to facilitate the widest possible examination of the issues at hand that he might have, so therefore, I would urge the Chair to accommodate the member opposite.
Mr. Chairperson: Let me get this understanding straight. So the honourable members would like to deal directly with the Minister's Salary. Is it the will of the committee to have his staff present at this time? Is there leave then for the staff to be present during the debate on the Minister's Salary? [agreed] At this time, we invite the minister's staff to please enter the Chamber.
May I recommend to the committee that we do the general discussion under 5.(b)(1). Agreed. So at this time we will move on to 5.(b)(1) and leave the Minister's Salary till the last resolution to be passed. The honourable member for Elmwood, 5.(b)(1).
Mr. Maloway: I would like to begin by asking the minister for an update on the circumstances surrounding the Elmwood Cemetery problems. A number of months have gone by, and in the last number of months I sent out the surveys to my constituents and received one of the best responses that I have ever had to a survey. In fact, I believe several hundred responses came back. People are extremely concerned about what is happening with the cemetery, and they want to see the issue resolved and solved as soon as possible, so perhaps the minister could give us an update as to where we are with this issue now.
Mr. Radcliffe: Yes, I would be very pleased to give my colleague an update on the proceedings that are transpiring on the Elmwood Cemetery. As I have no doubt this committee is aware, the Elmwood Cemetery is owned by a private individual through a series of corporations, namely Elmco and the Elmwood Cemetery Ltd., I believe, and the individual involved is a Mr. Brian Stewart of Georgetown, Ontario.
The difficulty which has arisen with the Elmwood Cemetery is that it is a very mature cemetery going back well before the turn of this last century. The available land to generate revenue in this cemetery has been sold to citizens and largely occupied. There are, I think, 50 or 60 grave sites that are available for future sales and that is it. There is an ongoing liability for presold sites. The Province of Manitoba in its wisdom in, I think, the late '50s, legislated a perpetual care fund. However, unfortunately, the revenue--I think 30 percent of each sale of a grave plot was to be set aside in a perpetual care fund, and this fund now stands at about $1,100,000. It is administered by the National Trust Company at the present time, and under the auspices of the Public Utilities Board, this fund generates, due to the nature of the investments in which it is held, approximately $65,000 a year. I qualify my remarks on these numbers that they are approximate to the best of my ability right now and to my most recent information. The $65,000 a year is a fund that is to be dedicated and directed for perpetual care of the graves that are found in the Elmwood Cemetery.
There are a number of problems that confront the cemetery. Firstly, as I have already mentioned, a lack of revenue or a diminishment in the revenue either from burials or from sale of land because both activities are diminishing. The next issue is the fact that the Elmwood Cemetery is located on the banks of the Red River in the city of Winnipeg, and the riverbank is eroding. Nextly, the Elmwood Cemetery is the location of a significant elm wood urban forest, and the urban forest in this area has been subject to the depredations of the elm bark beetle and Dutch elm disease; therefore, there is significant pruning and maintenance that is required in the graveyard. A number of the personal monuments, grave curbings and stones that are located in the graveyard have also deteriorated over the passage of time, so there are ongoing expenses, liabilities, needs which are ever increasing with the operation of the graveyard.
Mr. Brian Stewart, the current owner of the graveyard, announced, I believe, in January of 1998, that he was closing his doors and ceasing to operate as an active graveyard. Since then, I am advised by Mr. Gerry Forrest at the Public Utilities Board that Mr. Stewart has applied for the current year for a new licence to operate the graveyard, and this permission to operate was granted by the Public Utilities Board on condition of a number of terms: firstly, that he proceed to pass his accounts forthwith before the Court of Queen's Bench to give an explanation as to what he has done with the perpetual care account over the last five years since the passage of the last review by the Court of Queen's Bench; that he is to advise the Public Utilities Board on an ongoing monthly basis the distinction between operating expenses and perpetual care expenses and to report these to the Public Utilities Board; and that he is to report for the period of, I think, January through March a summary of these expenses.
It is on the basis of this that the Public Utilities Board was prepared to grant the request to issue a cheque to Mr. Stewart for, I believe, approximately $8,800, which was to go to current needs for the operation of the graveyard, all of which can, in one form or another, perhaps be related to perpetual care, although some of the issues at hand are perhaps more immediate perpetual care issues, and some are perhaps more long-term perpetual care. So that is sort of the background and the framework of this.
There was public concern raised at the time that Mr. Stewart indicated that he was closing the yard. He has one employee present remaining, a Gerry Mason [phonetic]. His groundskeeper and grounds staff have been dismissed. So at the present time there is nobody in the employ of the Elmwood Cemetery and its various manifestations or corporations to cut the grass, to trim the trees, to retain the riverbank. In fact, this year, as we did last year, as I believe I advised my honourable colleague, last year the Manitoba government contributed to a fund on a 50-50 basis with the City of Winnipeg to move a significant number of bodies that were on the edge of the riverbank. These individual remains were removed and moved inland to safe locations, and this activity was repeated again this spring. I believe there were some 50 graves that were moved with the permission of the Coroner's Office and under the guidance of the Department of Vital Statistics. Mr. Chair, I believe my honourable colleague had a question.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister then: what is this $8,800 that is being forwarded to Mr. Stewart to be used for?
Mr. Radcliffe: The funds in question are to be used for the maintenance of the records at the office. There is an office of the graveyard on Hespeler Avenue in a converted residential building which I believe is the office for the Elmwood Cemetery. It is essential that individuals who are wishing access to the graveyard to bury, to deposit the remains of their family either in urn form, in cremated form, or in whole body form that they know where their grave is located, that they have access to the records of the graveyard, to the plot plans. So until arrangements can be made for some other authority to take over--and I do wish to tell my honourable colleague the plans that are afoot at the present time and, in fact, I had a meeting at seven o'clock in my office as late as yesterday with a group of citizens who are discussing and negotiating with Mr. Stewart, with the City of Winnipeg on these issues.
The necessity of maintaining the office so citizens of Winnipeg who either want to locate their deceased members and find out where their graves exist, or to locate their graves so that they can place family members in graves that they have purchased, it is essential that this aspect of perpetual care be enabled or perpetuated. So therefore the $8,800 is to go to such items as a wage for Gerry Mason, who is the one remaining staffperson at the cemetery, heat, light, what else is there? Oh, insurance for the records and the contents of the building, and I presume fire insurance for that building. This is the general nature of the expenses that comprise of that $8,800.
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So just to go back to my recitation. The bodies were moved this spring before the onset of the crest of the Red River and they were moved inland again. The City of Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba both contributed on an equal basis to a fund to move those bodies. There was also an allocation from provincial funds and city funds to address the whole issue of the urban forest, and I believe that the City of Winnipeg holds--I believe, and I stand to be corrected but just to give my honourable colleague an indication of the extent of the funds, there is $20,000, give or take--I think it is actually about $17,500 now that is left in the fund that was to move the graves that has not been expended from the province and I think an equal amount from the city that is being held by the city as a stakeholder pending resolution of other needs and issues of the graveyard. And then I believe there is another fund of $60,000 from the province and a comparable amount from the city which is to go to maintenance of the urban forest.
We cannot trim elm trees now until September due to the vagaries of the elm bark beetle. If you open the sap in the elm trees, if you make a wound on the bark of an elm tree at this time of year, the sap is running and that would offer a port of entry for the elm bark beetle to infect live, healthy trees, so therefore we must wait until the end of the growing season in order to trim the dead wood out of the elm trees that are found in the graveyard.
However, one of the other issues that we want to address in the Elmwood Cemetery right now--and I have been in contact with Mr. John Angus who is the elected contact person from the City of Winnipeg, and a number of his employees, a solicitor for the city, a Mr. Stone, who has been a person knowledgeable about the operation of management of graveyards, who have been in to see me, and we have resolved on an ad hoc basis that the city is to go about conducting spraying right now for forest tent caterpillar, because I gather that I think the end of May is the optimum time when we suffer from the major thrust of the infestation of this parasite. So we want to avoid, if possible, having the Elmwood Cemetery look like a scene from Edgar Allan Poe which I believe has been the description that has been tagged to it in years gone by with being festooned with the webs of these creatures.
So there is a spraying campaign that has been financed, and the City of Winnipeg has been mandated and has agreed to undertake the spraying in the graveyard. Also, the City of Winnipeg has agreed--and this is as of as late as yesterday I believe--to go about a hygiene or cleansing process of the non-elm trees which are safe to cut and trim and manicure in the graveyard at this point in time, having in mind the resources that are available. It is the intention of the City of Winnipeg, as of September, after the onset of September when the growing and leafing season is concluded and the sap in the trees starts to decline again into the rootball, that it is safe to trim the elm trees, that they will then set themselves about the hygiene process of removing the dead wood in the elm forest.
So those are a few of the pragmatic and ad hoc issues, but I would like to address the overall management of the problem of the Elmwood Cemetery. I, too, have received a number of letters from concerned citizens in the province and received phone calls. I have responded by saying that there is a group of altruistic-minded individuals in the city of Winnipeg who have a connection with the graveyard, Mr. Bill Norrie, who is the ex-mayor of Winnipeg; Mr. Charles Birt, who is an ex-city councillor; Gordon Sinclair, who is a prominent journalist in the city of Winnipeg and Mr. Bob Filuk, who is a chartered accountant and a spokesperson for the Sill Foundation in the city of Winnipeg, which is a private foundation, all of whom have expressed interest in the ongoing future of the foundation.
They have formed themselves into a committee of citizens to be styled euphemistically at this point, for lack of anything more formal, as the Friends of the Elmwood Cemetery. As late as yesterday, this group has mandated and the City of Winnipeg has agreed to seek permission from the Corporations Branch to incorporate a not-for-profit public corporation--not a public corporation but I guess a private not-for-profit corporation to be styled the Friends of the Elmwood Cemetery Ltd. with a view that this corporation would ultimately take and hold title to the cemetery. It would be for the purposes of the very limited maintenance as a graveyard and the maintenance of a respectful repository for the remains of the deceased members who are found in that particular graveyard.
This committee of individuals has travelled to Souris, Manitoba, about two weeks ago, and met with Mr. Brian Stewart who was actually doing business out in Regina and agreed to meet these individuals on a Saturday morning in Souris. Mr. Stewart has agreed either to transfer the Elmwood Cemetery to this committee or to a nominee or to the City of Winnipeg, whomever he should be directed by this group of citizens, for $1 and other good and valuable consideration. So for a nominal amount, he is trying his best to be very co-operative on this issue.
I can tell my honourable colleague that the City of Winnipeg is very loath to take title to the graveyard. There is an outstanding foreclosure process against the Elmwood Cemetery itself, where the land where the graves are located--not the office building. The office building, I believe their taxes are quite up to date, but the area where the graves are located, there is about a $400,000 tax bill outstanding or a $450,000 tax bill, and the City of Winnipeg had initiated tax foreclosure proceedings and was right up to the final application for foreclosure when they stopped the process a number of years ago.
The City of Winnipeg now is agreeable to taking title only as a means to eliminate or remove the existing tax liability, being school tax and municipal tax, against that land, and then the idea is, possibly--and this is now where we get into the speculation, because I do not want to commit the City of Winnipeg--to transmit title to the property to this new corporation, the Friends of Elmwood Cemetery Ltd.
The City of Winnipeg's solicitor is incorporating the corporation, and this is proceeding as we speak at this point in time with the object, as well, that this is to be a charitable corporation, so charitable status will be sought. I am told that this is a process which could take up to six months for the federal department of revenue to grant charitable status to this corporation. The object of this corporation, then, would be not to operate but to let out the actual operation of cutting the grass, trimming the trees, the hands-on operation to some other authority which has yet to be determined, be it the City of Winnipeg or a private corporation.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Could I just ask the minister--I have a member who wants to rise.
Mr. Gerry McAlpine (Chairperson of the section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254): Mr. Chairman, a formal vote has been requested by two members. This section of the committee will be proceeding to the Chamber.
Mr. Chairman, a motion was moved in the section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 by the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh), and the motion reads: that this committee recommends that the Justice minister now resign.
The motion was defeated on a voice vote, and subsequently two members requested that a formal vote of this matter be taken to the House.
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Mr. Chairperson: A formal vote being requested, call in the members.
All sections in Chamber for formal vote.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. In the section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 considering the Estimates of the Department of Justice, a motion was moved by the honourable member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh). The motion reads:
THAT this committee recommends that the Justice minister now resign.
This motion was defeated on a voice vote and subsequently two members requested that a formal vote on this matter be taken.
Mr. Chairperson: The question before the committee is the motion of the honourable member for St. Johns.
A COUNT-OUT VOTE was taken, the result being as follows: Yeas 19, Nays 24.
Mr. Chairperson: The motion is accordingly defeated.
Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): The reason I was not in my chair, I was paired.
Mr. Chairperson: I thank the honourable member. This section of the Committee of Supply will now continue with consideration of the departmental Estimates.
(Continued)
Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Will the minister's staff please enter the Chamber at this time. The Committee of Supply will come to order.
Mr. Edward Helwer, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair
Hon. Mike Radcliffe (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Mr. Chair, while we are waiting for my staff to enter, perhaps I can continue. I was in the middle of an answer to my honourable colleague with regard to the Elmwood Cemetery when we were interrupted by the proceedings from the other committee.
I was reviewing with my honourable colleague the recent arrangements and ongoing deliberations and the concerns and the issues. I believe I have covered the aspect of some of the immediate, pressing issues. One of the issues that I did not touch on was that with the advent of the growing season, one of the concerns of the members of this citizens' committee and myself, my staff and members of the City of Winnipeg, was that a clear statement be made to the citizens of the city of Winnipeg, the people that are interested in the Elmwood Cemetery, that this matter is not being neglected nor ignored. One of the issues from which people in the public would note an obvious manifestation is the issue of whether the grass is being cut.
In fact, the City of Winnipeg has--I will not say volunteered, because they have agreed, I guess it is perhaps the best verb to use, to send a crew in today and tomorrow to start cutting the grass in the Elmwood Cemetery right now and to do one complete cut. The issue of who is going to pay for that, who is going to continue to serve that function, is still under debate. I can tell my honourable colleague that the City of Winnipeg is very loath to become drawn into the administration, the maintenance and the operation of one more graveyard, and even more particularly a very mature graveyard in the city of Winnipeg that has very little prospect for fresh income or fresh revenue from either the sale of land or the opening and closing of graves, which is another area where graveyard operators derive income.
So I guess I was reviewing with my honourable colleague the issue of the state of negotiations between Mr. Stewart and the Friends of the Elmwood Cemetery. Messrs. Norrie and Burt went to Souris about two weekends ago on a Saturday morning, met with Stewart. The issues they touched upon that Norrie has related was that the transfer of the title to the Elmwood Cemetery, and I have discussed that. Then there is a separate title, I am told, covering the ownership of the house that forms the office on Hespeler. Right now this is a converted residential dwelling. It is filled by the employee who uses that as a place of employment, and the records of the graveyard are kept there at the present time.
There are no taxes outstanding against that property. We believe it does have some intrinsic value. It has some intrinsic value. Mr. Stewart has asked that he be compensated directly with cash or equivalent for that property. I see my honourable colleague shaking his head in a negative fashion, and in fact you echo many of my sentiments. Mr. Stewart also says that he has a certain amount of equipment that has been used, a front-end loader or a backhoe and some grass-cutting equipment and various machines that have been used over the past years for maintenance of the yard. I am told they are in a very poor state of disrepair. In fact, Mr. Stone, from the City of Winnipeg, said that he wished to refrain from directing his employees to even start using them for fear that they would break down, and then the city would be responsible or the Friends of the Cemetery would be responsible, and then we would have to buy them at some inflated price.
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In any event, just for information, I am not saying that there is any sense of acceding to this request, but I am just giving information that Stewart has said he wants $100,000 for the house and all the equipment. So, from the derisive grimace on my honourable colleague's face, I can assure you that we too had a similar emotion on that particular issue. However, that is one of the issues that are on the table.
The City of Winnipeg, as I have said, does not, and I wish to emphasize this, does not wish to get into the graveyard business. I believe executive committee has made this very clear to Mr. Angus, who has made it very clear to us that, albeit the City of Winnipeg is concerned and wants to do everything possible to facilitate the solving of the problem, they do not want to be the recipient of the problem at the end of the day.
I can tell my honourable colleague that one of the issues is that we are faced with Elmwood Cemetery right now, but there are a number of other privately held mature graveyards around the city of Winnipeg that may be facing similar problems. So the ground that we cut on solving this issue will become a precedent for future issues, so we have to be cautious that we come up with the correct conclusion, the correct remedy.
I was interested when I heard my honourable colleague say that he had received results of a questionnaire with regard to people interested in the Elmwood Cemetery because I can tell my honourable colleague that I have responded in writing probably to 20, 30 letters that have reached me telling people that there is a citizens committee, that the goal or the dream and the vision is that that committee will become a charitable function and our best knowledge at this point in time is that we will need approximately $2 million more by way of donations from the public in order to accomplish the upgrades that are required which I have touched upon, which is the trimming the trees, the levelling of grave sites, the levelling of curbing stones.
I believe some of the monuments have been knocked over, and putting the whole graveyard in an area of first-class repair and to be united with a fund, the $1.1 million that currently exists--I was just checking with my deputy, but I believe it is another fresh $2 million which would be solicited from members of the public together with the $1.1 million that is already in the hands of the National Trust company right now in the perpetual care fund, which combined, would be spent on renovating the graveyard and being a fund which would then be invested to generate income which would be sufficient to maintain the yard in years to come.
The best estimate we have right now for costs, realistically by the Friends of the Elmwood Cemetery, and I must advise my honourable colleague that a detailed business plan has not yet been created. That is one of the issues on the agenda, and I believe that Mr. Filuk and Mr. Norrie are going to meet to discuss this, but our best information at the present time is that the Elmwood Cemetery probably needs somewhere in the neighbourhood of $200,000 a year to maintain the yard in the status which we would like to see it maintained. So the goal or the vision that Mr. Norrie and his associates have evidenced is that once it has been determined by the City of Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba and Mr. Stewart, who is going to be the owner of the yard, who is going to be the operator of the yard, and we have got Mr. Stone, I believe from the City of Winnipeg, is conducting a study as we speak, as to the best methods to be employed for maintaining the yard largely as a memorial garden because, and I say that advisedly, there are very few grave sites yet that have the potential to accept more individuals. There are a number but a very limited number and ever diminishing, and as of course my honourable colleague can realize, as we move more and more people off the riverbank and infill them into interior parts of the yard, we use up the available inventory of space.
A long-winded way of saying that Mr. Stone is going to conduct a study and give us a report on the best methods of maintaining the yard. Should it be the City of Winnipeg under a collective agreement? Should it be volunteers? Should it be the Loewen group under a private employment contract or some other alternative? I can also advise my honourable colleague, and I have been really quite enthused by this, that there have been a number of individuals that should be acknowledged who have volunteered time and effort to attend to the Elmwood Cemetery. One of them, I believe, was Lillian Thomas who was the local city councillor for that area who organized a team of volunteers to go in a couple of weeks ago and do a spring cleanup.
I am told, as well, in addition, that there is a Mennonite parochial or independent school across the street from the graveyard, and they have on a regular basis sent children over as a spring volunteer project to also do raking and spring cleanup or fall cleanup on a totally volunteer basis. I did write to I think the headmaster of that particular school and thank him and ask him to thank his students on behalf of the Manitoba government for their efforts at doing this, because we certainly appreciated their sense of responsibility and community in this issue.
Oh, and I know the other thing that I have not addressed is that there is the long-term issue of stabilization of the riverbank, which is an issue which is being considered by Urban Affairs. There have been some funds that--perhaps not even funds designated, but an amount designated which we think will be required in order to stabilize the riverbank in that area. Now, this is not indefinitely, of course, because, as you know, with the whole oxbow process of a prairie river, there is always a growing side and a taking side of the Red River. However, we believe this to be a sum required in excess of $700,000 which the Manitoba government is cognizant of.
So we have allocated $2,500 recently just for the spraying program as our share, as the provincial share. The city has matched those funds, and that will be for the spraying program this spring. There are some residual funds left over from the moving of bodies, and there are some funds left over for the trimming of the urban forest which will be spent this summer and into the fall in order to try and get a handle on the ongoing needs of the graveyard.
These--and I say it quite distinctly, and I want my honourable colleague to realize this--are band-aid solutions at this point in time to try and maintain it, to make a statement to the public that government is not turning its back on it. However, what we have, the funds that we have available to us are public funds, and we must keep that ever in mind that be it the perpetual care fund or the tax dollars that we are allocating to this project, we must be very chary to make sure that we proceed with the transfer of the property out of private hands, because we have no intention of using public money to shore up a private industry that has reached its final time and final hour.
If the individual owner wishes to transfer it to a public purpose, then the whole subject assumes a wholly different issue, which is the public responsibility then, but I want to make it very clear--
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Helwer): The hour being 12 noon, pursuant to the rules, I am interrupting the proceedings of the Committee of Supply with the understanding that the Speaker will resume the Chair at 1:30 p.m. today and that after Routine Proceedings, the Committee of Supply will resume consideration of Estimates.