LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF
Monday, April 18, 2005
The House met at 1:30 p.m.
PRAYERS
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
Riverdale Health Centre
Mrs. Leanne Rowat (Minnedosa): Mr. Speaker, I wish to present the following petition to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.
These are the reasons for the petition:
The Riverdale Health
Centre services a population of approximately 2000, including the Town of
The need for renovation or repair of the Riverdale Health Centre was identified in 1999 by the Marquette Regional Health Authority (RHA) and was the No. 1 priority listed in the RHA's 2002-2003 Operational Plan.
To date, the community has raised over $460,000 towards the renovation or repair of the health centre.
On June 1, 2003, the Premier (Mr. Doer) made a commitment to the community of Rivers that he would not close or downgrade the services available at Riverdale Health Centre.
Due to physician
shortages, the Riverdale Health Centre has been closed to acute care and emergency
services for long periods since December 2003, forcing community members to
travel to
We petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:
To urge the Premier to consider ensuring that acute care and emergency services are available to the residents of Rivers and surrounding areas in their local hospital and to live up to his promise to not close the Rivers Hospital.
To request that the
Minister of Health (Mr. Sale) consider developing a long-term solution to the
chronic shortages of front line health care professionals in rural
This petition is signed by Eric Fast, Mike Roth, Alvin Lepp and others.
Mr. Speaker: In accordance with our Rule 132(6), when petitions are read they are deemed to be received by the House.
Mr. John Loewen (
These are the reasons for this petition:
Overcrowded schools throughout Whyte Ridge, Lindenwoods, Linden Ridge and Richmond West subdivisions are forcing Pembina Trails School Division to bus students outside of these areas to attend classes in the public school system.
Elementary schools in Pembina Trails School Division have run out of space to accommodate the growing population of students in the aforementioned areas.
Five-year projections for enrolment in the elementary schools in these areas indicate significant continued growth.
Existing high schools that receive students from Whyte Ridge, Lindenwoods and Linden Ridge are at capacity and cannot accommodate the growing number of students that will continue to branch out of these subdivisions.
Bussing to outlying areas
is not a viable long-term solution to meeting the student population growth in
the southwest portion of
The development of
Waverley West will increase the need for a high school in the southwest sector
of
The government is demonstrating a lack of respect for the students and families in Whyte Ridge, Lindenwoods, Linden Ridge and Richmond West by refusing to provide adequate access to education within the community.
The
NDP constituencies in
We petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:
To request the provincial
government recognize the need for a public high school in the southwest region
of
To request the provincial government, in conjunction with the Public Schools Finance Board, to consider adequate funding to establish a high school in the southwest sector of Winnipeg.
Signed by Allan Randall, Melanie Sekundiak, Joanne Flynn and many others. Thank you.
* (13:35)
Coverage of Insulin Pumps
Mr. Kelvin Goertzen (Steinbach): I wish to present the following petition to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.
These are the reasons for this petition:
Insulin pumps cost over $6,500.
The cost of diabetes to the
Good blood sugar control reduces or eliminates kidney failure by 50 percent, blindness by 76 percent, nerve damage by 60 percent, cardiac disease by 35 percent and even amputations.
Diabetes is an epidemic in our province and will become an unprecedented drain on our struggling health care system if we do not take action now.
The benefit of having an insulin pump is it allows the person living with this life-altering disease to obtain good sugar control and become a much healthier, complication-free individual.
We petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:
To request the Premier (Mr. Doer) of
This is signed by Joyce Renz, Bob Cesmystruk, Evelyn Wilchuk and many, many others, Mr. Speaker.
Ambulance Service
Mr. Ron Schuler (
These are the reasons for this petition:
In May 2004, 46-year-old Peter Krahn suffered a heart attack while exercising in East St. Paul and was pronounced dead just under an hour later after being transported to the Concordia Hospital in Winnipeg. Reports show that it took nearly 18 minutes for an ambulance to arrive for Mr. Krahn.
The Interlake Regional
Health Authority claims that 21
minutes is an acceptable emergency
response time, whereas the City of
Ambulance coverage for
The municipalities of
East St. Paul and
We petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:
To request the provincial
government to consider providing East St. Paul with local ambulance service
which would service both East and
To request the provincial government to consider improving the way that ambulance service is supplied to all Manitobans by utilizing technologies such as GPS in conjunction with a Medical Transportation Co-ordination Centre (MTCC) which will ensure that patients receive the nearest ambulance in the least amount of time.
To request the provincial government to consider ensuring that appropriate funding is provided to maintain superior response times and sustainable services.
Signed by William Lesuk, Mary Jane Lesuk, Troy Lesuk and many others.
Closure of
Maternity Ward
Hon. Jon Gerrard (
The background to this petition is as follows:
It has been decided that
the birthing ward at the
Some say the birthing ward is being closed due to safety issues. It has been proven time and time again that outcomes for normal pregnancies in normal women are better in a community hospital like the Victoria General Hospital than in a tertiary care centre like the Health Sciences Centre and with a general practitioner or a midwife rather than an obstetrician. Not a single study has ever shown the contrary.
Obstetrics services at community hospitals can work if the political will is there to make them work.
We petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as follows:
To request the Minister
of Health (Mr. Sale) to allow women with options when they give birth and to
consider stopping the planned closure of the
Signed by Emily Barrett, Ian Gillet, Mia Aiello and others.
* (13:40)
Standing Committee
on Human Resources
First Report
Ms. Marilyn Brick
(Chairperson): Mr.
Speaker, I wish to present the First Report of the Standing Committee on Human
Resources.
Madam Deputy Clerk
(Bev Bosiak): Your
Standing Committee on Human Resources presents the following as its First
Report.
Some Honourable
Members: Dispense.
Mr. Speaker: Dispense.
Meetings:
Your committee met on Thursday, April 14, 2005, at 6:30 p.m. in Room
255 of the
Matters under
Consideration:
Bill 10 – The Pension Benefits Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur
les prestations de pension
Committee
Membership:
Your committee elected Ms. Brick as the Chairperson.
Your committee elected Mr. Jha as the Vice-Chairperson.
Substitutions received prior to commencement of meeting:
Ms. Brick for Hon. Mr. Rondeau
Mr. Murray for Mr. Goertzen
Mr. Faurschou for Mrs. Mitchelson
Hon. Ms. Oswald for Mr. Aglugub
Mr. Jha for Ms. Korzeniowski
Mr. Dewar for Hon. Ms. McGifford
Mr. Santos for Mr. Altemeyer
Mrs. Driedger for Mr. Hawranik
Public
Presentations:
Your committee heard 14 presentations on Bill 10 – The Pension Benefits
Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les prestations de pension, from the
following individuals and/or organizations:
Charles
Bill Turnbull, Co-operative Super-Annuation Society Pension Plan
John Klassen, Private Citizen
John Corp, Private Citizen
Jim Neil, City of
Albert
DeeDee Rizzo, Retired Teachers Association of
Darlene Dziewit, President,
Wesley M. Stevens, Private Citizen
Brian Peto, Credit Union Central
Jerry Woods, Private Citizen
Webster Webb,
Private Citizen
Lori Bourgeois,
Private Citizen
Robert Zeigler,
Private Citizen
Written
Submissions:
Your committee received one written submission on Bill 10 – The Pension
Benefits Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les prestations de pension,
from the following individuals and/or organizations:
Doris Mahoney, Private Citizen
Bills Considered
and Reported:
Bill 10 – The Pension Benefits Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur
les prestations de pension
Your
committee agreed to report this bill, with the following amendments:
THAT Clause 11(17) of the Bill be amended by replacing the proposed
clause 21(26)(b) with the following:
(b) if there is no
spouse or common law partner entitled to a pension under clause (a), pay an
amount to
(i) the member's
designated beneficiary, other than the member's spouse or common law partner,
or
(ii) the member's
estate, if there is no such designated beneficiary.
Ms. Brick: Mr.
Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Radisson (Mr. Jha), that
the report of the committee be received.
Motion presented.
TABLING OF REPORTS
Hon. Dave Chomiak (Minister of Energy, Science and Technology): I would like to table the
Supplementary Information for Legislative Review, 2005-2006, Departmental
Expenditure Estimates for the Department of Energy, Science and Technology.
Bill 30–The
Hon. Rosann Wowchuk (Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural
Initiatives): Mr.
Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Conservation (Mr. Struthers), that
Bill 30, The Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation Act, be now read a
first time.
Motion presented.
Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Speaker, this bill will bring together the Manitoba Crop Insurance
Corporation and the Manitoba
Agricultural Credit Corporation. The
amalgamation will allow for efficiencies in the areas such as human resources
and information technology while maintaining the existing functions of the
respective corporations.
Mr. Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion? [Agreed]
Introduction of Guests
Mr. Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, I would like to draw the attention of all
honourable members to the public gallery where we have with us from Killarney
School 40 Grade 5 students under the direction of Ms. Alisa Moran and Mrs. Mary
Kennedy. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable Member
for
Also,
in the public gallery we have Maria Marrone, executive director of Seven Oaks
General Hospital Foundation and Gail Smidt who is the president of Seven Oaks
Hospital Foundation. They are the guests of the honourable Member for The
Maples (Mr. Aglugub).
On
behalf of all honourable members, I welcome you here today
Labour Agreement
Mr. Stuart Murray (Leader of the Official Opposition): In the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday, this Premier used the same scare
tactics that the federal Liberals are using to try to manipulate voters when he
said that an election threatens to delay or derail more than a billion dollars
worth of projects in
Mr.
Speaker, significant government commitments to projects like the floodway
expansion or the human rights museum are priority projects for all Manitoba
taxpayers, all political parties regardless of political stripe. For this
Premier to use voter scare tactics or to suggest otherwise is taking it to a
low of extremes.
What
this Premier should be doing is standing up for hardworking Manitoba taxpayers
by telling them today that he will scrap his wrong-headed floodway agreement
that forces non-unionized workers to pay union dues, Mr. Speaker, and also
diverts hardworking Manitoba taxpayers' dollars to his union boss friends. Will
he do that today?
* (13:45)
Hon. Gary Doer (Premier): Mr. Speaker, the member opposite might know that in the past when I was
in a minority, not in a government situation but in a party situation, I felt
it was very responsible at the time to try to make minority government work as
best we could. As a leader of a party that had in essence the balance of power
between the former Premier Filmon and then-Leader of the Opposition Carstairs,
I thought it was very important to try to do the people's business.
I
was asked the question, Mr. Speaker, not a dissimilar question to what the
mayor of
I
just stated the obvious, Mr. Speaker. The member opposite might not know the
obvious, but we do in government.
Mr. Murray: Mr.
Speaker, first the NDP manipulated the floodway expansion project, then this
Premier set his sights on the new Hydro tower downtown. With his record, taxpayers are wondering if he is going
to use the same political pressure and the same political steps to put a
similar agreement in place for the building of the
Mr.
Speaker, these taxpayer-funded projects are too important, and this Premier's
scheme to divert taxpayers' dollars to his union boss friends has to come to an
end. He should learn something from the federal Liberal mess in
I
ask the Premier again. Will he scrap his scandalous floodway agreement that
forces non-unionized workers to pay union dues and divert much money from that
agreement to his union boss friends? If he knows the obvious, as he says, the
obvious thing is to scrap this wrong-headed deal.
Mr. Doer: Mr.
Speaker, the Treasury Board policy on these major projects was established by
one Brian Mulroney when the member opposite worked for him. I did not notice
that he resigned and, by the way, I think all members of this House would wish
the former Prime Minister the best of health and recovery in his current
situation.
But
this policy was established under that government. Mr. Speaker, the member
opposite, I do not know why he is opposing us raising the issues of
federal-provincial agreements. There is the issue of a child care agreement
that is still pending. There is the issue of the second phase of the floodway.
There is the issue of agricultural support which is in the federal budget.
There is the issue of fuel tax to cities. There is a different view. We support
the federal government's investment of some fuel tax into cities. Where is the
member opposite?
Mr. Murray: Mr.
Speaker, there is only one reason why this Premier wants to avoid a federal
election, and that is because he is worried about his own political payback
agenda that could be in jeopardy.
All
parties support the initiative of expanding the floodway. All parties support
the initiative of building the museum of human rights. In the same way, all
parties should do the right thing and ensure that not one worker is forced to
pay union dues who is a non-unionized worker and not one back scheme should be
part of this agreement.
Mr.
Speaker, I ask this Premier today. Will he scrap his floodway expansion
agreement that forces non-unionized workers to pay union dues which diverts
taxpayers' money to his union boss friends, and will he give Manitobans the
assurance that he will not taint any other publicly funded project with such an
agreement? Will he stand in the House today and say that?
Mr. Doer: The
member opposite stated, and I guess he is a surrogate for Stephen Harper, but
stated that all parties supported–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
* (13:50)
Mr. Doer: Thank
you, Mr. Speaker. And I have had the
experience of working with former Minister Epp when we did the Forks Agreement
with former Mayor Bill Norrie. Obviously, whoever the people elect is who we
will work with, but the member opposite neglected the east-west grid. He
neglected to state the deal for fuel tax to cities. He neglected to state what the Conservative position was
for child care. So I think these are
all legitimate questions, whether there is going to be an election–[interjection]
Mr.
Speaker, the only party that is willing to look at the old way of where there
are perceptions of "payback" are the members opposite who voted
against a ban on union and corporate donations to political parties. After
1995, if we had a situation when the federal Cabinet was passing this
sponsorship scandal that banned union and corporate donations to political
parties, we would not have the mess we have in
Crocus Fund
Agreement with Board of Directors
Mr. John Loewen (
On
Saturday we learned that two individuals that have been involved in this sordid
mess at Crocus did the right thing, finally, and resigned from the board of the
Teachers' Retirement Allowance Fund. Too late, I might add. They should have
done that back in December at the earliest.
The
question is why did they not resign from the board of Crocus. These are the
same board members, along with others, that are under allegations from the
Manitoba Securities Commission. They are facing fines. They are facing
judgments. They have lawsuits hanging over their heads and yet for some reason
they continue to stick around and give the impression they can manage this fund
when they are clearly distracted by all these events swirling around them. I
wonder if the real reason is because this NDP government has made some type of
commitment to the board members at Crocus that regardless of their conduct,
regardless of their lack of diligence in managing this whole affair, they will
not suffer financially. Has this type of agreement been made by this NDP
government?
Hon. Jim Rondeau (Minister of Industry, Economic Development and
Mines): Mr.
Speaker, I think it is very important that we do not pass judgments until all
the facts are heard. Right now the Manitoba Securities Commission is conducting
an investigation. Right now the Auditor General is conducting an investigation.
The
Manitoba Securities Commission and the Auditor are independent bodies,
independent of government. Clayton Manness has said that that is the
appropriate thing from your side. Filmon, the previous Premier, has said that
is also appropriate. What we want to do is ensure that the proper organizations
go do the investigation, do good due diligence and act appropriately. The board
members are responsible for managing the fund. They work within the parameters
set by government, that was set by your government prior to this, and we will
allow due diligence to take place.
Protection for Investors
Mr. John Loewen (
Mr.
Speaker, they keep paying and paying and paying, and they continue to be
fleeced by Crocus and by this lack of oversight from this NDP government. I
would ask the minister if he would stand up today and give some assurance to
the unit holders who purchased their shares in good faith. Will he give them
some assurance so that there will be some point, there will be some money left
over, some of their fund left over to see them get some money back in their
investment, or is this minister going to continue to ask them to pay and pay
and pay?
Hon. Jim Rondeau (Minister of Industry, Economic Development and
Mines): What I would
hopefully have is accurate information presented from the member opposite.
First, there are no fines. He is already casting aspersions on the board
members before the Securities Commission, before the Auditor General has found
what are facts.
What
happens is we are allowing the proper authorities to do due diligence. We are
allowing independent, nonpolitical bodies to go in and find out what happened. What we are trying to do
is not cast, throw rocks at people before they are tried, before they have
their day in their hearings. What we want to do is ensure due process takes
place. The board has clear parameters under which to act. The proper
authorities are investigating to ensure the board acted appropriately and they
are independent of government and they will remain independent of government.
* (13:55)
Crocus Investment Fund Act
Amendments
Mr. John Loewen (
But,
Mr. Speaker, the real issue is those unit holders who are continually left to
hang out to dry, left to hang out to dry by this government. The problem is we
have a board there that could not manage, that lost $60 million and yet, for
some strange reason, they continue to sit there and act as if they somehow are
going to now start acting in the best interest of the unit holders. There is
action this government can take.
One
thing this government can do right away is bring in amendments to the Crocus
legislation that removed the MFL as a controlling member of the board, that
removed their friends and cronies. [interjection]
Well, the Premier (Mr. Doer) says that they wanted someone to sponsor them.
Why
does the Premier not get out and find someone to sponsor them? Will the
minister do the right thing and look at amending this legislation? Wrap them in
with the other labour-sponsored fund, the act that covers all funds in this
province. Do the right thing.
Hon. Jim Rondeau (Minister of Industry, Economic Development and
Mines): Mr.
Speaker, I would like to quote from a document. What it says is that basically,
"the responsibility, the majority of the board members are MFL members,
the control of the board is MFL members." When was this document signed?
1992. Who signed the document? Eric Stefanson. The members opposite set up the fund
so that the MFL was in control. You set up the rules. You set them up as a
control. You should know what your party did as far as setting up the
governance of the act.
Provincial Debt
Debt to GDP Ratio
Mr. Gerald Hawranik (Lac du Bonnet): The Minister of Finance in public
communications answers the questions I have put to him and has continually
stated that the debt is affordable because the debt to GDP ratio is going down.
The minister is simply using the operating debt numbers which have been
manipulated by this minister. He manipulates them by not counting expenses that
are really expenses, and counting income that is not really income.
Will
the minister take responsibility for his comments and come clean to all
Manitobans that the operating debt to GDP ratio is being manipulated by the
minister only for political purposes?
Hon. Greg Selinger (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, the member is completely wrong
in his accusations. The debt to GDP ratio is evaluated by the bond rating agencies
in both
Mr. Hawranik: Mr. Speaker, is this Finance Minister calling the Auditor General wrong
because, according to the Auditor General, the net debt to GDP ratio is going
up, not down? As a result, we are less and less able to pay down and service
the debt. By increasing the debt and increasing the net debt to GDP ratio, the
NDP is mortgaging the future of our children.
Why
does the Minister of Finance not make an appointment with the Auditor General
and ask him the numbers instead of misleading Manitobans by omission?
Mr. Selinger: The member asked me if I was saying the Auditor General was wrong. No,
I am not. I am saying the member is wrong. You are wrong. I spent a good amount
of time in Estimates with the member just this last Friday explaining to him
all the questions he has answered. He has come here to the Legislature now, he
has ignored everything we explained to him. He has jumped back on the old horse
that he did not understand anything about in the first place.
The
debt to GDP ratio is going down. The investments we are making today are going
into hospitals in his riding, schools in his riding, roads in his riding, as
well as many other constituencies across the province. I repeat again, the
member wants these things, but he does not want to pay for them.
* (14:00)
Mr. Hawranik: Once again the Minister of Finance is misleading by omission. The per
capita debt of Manitobans is by far the highest in western
Mr. Selinger: I must say, Mr. Speaker, that the members opposite increased the debt
in Hydro. They kept half a billion dollars off the books. That is included in
the number the member gave. I suppose the members would like to privatize Hydro
which would automatically reduce the debt. We believe Manitoba Crown
corporations should stay under the
control of Manitobans so the benefits flow to Manitobans. I note that most shares
from Manitoba Telephone System are owned by people outside of this
jurisdiction, and the profits are flowing there now. Is that the member's
solution; more privatization? I would not be surprised if it is.
E-Health
Development Costs
Mrs. Heather Stefanson (Tuxedo): Mr. Speaker, today a story involving hundreds
of millions of taxpayers' dollars was leaked to the Winnipeg Free Press. Apparently, the Minister of Health confirmed
that the first stage of E-Health will
unfold at St. Boniface Hospital later this year and that a consortium to
undertake the project has already been chosen, but the minister is not able to
confirm who the member firms are that will be the potential beneficiaries of
hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. What was the process that took place
by this government to choose these potential beneficiaries of hundreds of
millions of taxpayer dollars?
Hon. Tim Sale (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to
beginning Estimates this afternoon with the member, and I am certainly looking
forward to some dialogue with her about what the chambers of commerce, the
Business Council of Manitoba and
other leading spokespersons have called on us to do in terms of investing in
information technology so that we can improve patient safety, patient tracing,
productivity in our system, do more with the same or fewer resources. If she is
against that, then let her say so.
Mrs. Stefanson: I am simply asking about the
process or lack thereof that did or did not take place, Mr. Speaker. This
government loves to crow about transparency and accountability in the health
care system; yet, once again, Manitobans are on the hook for hundreds of
millions of taxpayer dollars committed by this government, and the NDP refuses
to reveal what process took place to choose the consortium for the St. Boniface
pilot project.
Mr.
Speaker, will the government reveal today who the group is that will receive
hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars?
Mr. Sale: Mr.
Speaker, again, we will have lots of time this afternoon, but let me just tell
the member, there are over 250 professional–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Sale: Let
me tell the member that there were over 250 professional people from our health
care system involved from every corner of
Mrs. Stefanson: Mr. Speaker, if a contract has
yet to be negotiated and
finalized, that is clearly inappropriate for the government to be telling the Winnipeg Free Press and the people of
This
government has effectively committed hundreds of millions of tax dollars without
informing Manitobans of the process or the actual true cost of the project. Did
this project go to tender? What was the criteria for selecting the winning bid,
and will the minister table this information for the House today?
Mr. Sale: One
thing I can tell the member is, Mr. Speaker, this is not a $30-million giveaway
to Ross Perot and the Royal Bank in
an untendered SmartHealth program.
I
would also just like to read the member a quote, "I have to ask this
Minister of Health will this minister do the right thing today and roll out an
ER patient tracking system so that we can track patients." The member from
Charleswood, in 2004. Maybe they should speak to each other.
An Honourable Member: You are a liar, Timmy. You
are a liar, and you know it.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to take this opportunity to caution all members. I am
hearing some very unparliamentary language being thrown around. All members in
this Chamber are honourable members, so I throw caution to all members.
Workers Compensation
Expansion of Coverage
Mr. Cliff Cullen (
Can
the minister tell this House this: Where in the proposed legislation would we
find this recommendation?
Hon. Nancy Allan (Minister of Labour and Immigration): Mr. Speaker, I want–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Ms. Allan: Thank
you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ensure members opposite that they have read
both pages 16 and 17 of the report, because what it says there is that they
want to see The Workers Compensation Act modernized. They want to see it
reflect–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Ms. Allan: The
current coverage model that we now have is antiquated and very difficult for
some stakeholders to read.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I need to be able to hear the questions and the answers, so I
ask the co-operation of all honourable members.
Ms. Allan: Thank
you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have made a commitment to the stakeholders that I
am working with in regard to Bill 25, and that is a commitment I will keep in
regard to consultation with stakeholders.
Mr. Cullen: Mr.
Speaker, we do agree that this act has to be modernized. Let us take into the
factor one of the key stakeholders in this whole arrangement. According to this
legislation, employers who pay workers compensation premiums will effectively
be removed from the decision-making process. The Premier (Mr. Doer) and Cabinet
would now have full control. This has left employers, one of your stakeholders,
feeling and I quote, "alarmed and betrayed by this NDP government."
Is
the minister still prepared to move forward on this proposed amendment?
Ms. Allan: Mr.
Speaker, my public responsibility as the Minister of Labour and Immigration is
when I bring any legislation forward, it is my responsibility to work with the
stakeholders. We were in committee on Bill 10, The Pension Benefits Act, on
Thursday night. The stakeholders, the Manitoba Society of Seniors, complimented
me–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Ms. Allan: –complimented
me, Mr. Speaker, on the consultation that they had with me as the minister
responsible for The Pension Benefits Act.
* (14:10)
Mr. Cullen: Mr.
Speaker, the Legislative Review Committee
has spent months and months consulting with employers and employees, the
stakeholders the minister talks about.
Over 200 submissions were provided to
the committee. Employers and employees reached consensus on 100 recommendations.
This
NDP government has effectively pulled the rug from under this process. Why does
this government refuse to listen to Manitobans? Why do they continue to push
its own agenda, and particularly as to who will be included in this coverage?
Ms. Allan: Mr.
Speaker, I have said very, very clearly, over and over again, that the day Bill 25 is passed there will be no
expansion of coverage. Coverage will occur in consultation with stakeholders
and be initiated by the Workers Compensation Board. That is my commitment to stakeholders.
Gang Activity
Reduction Strategy
Mr. Kelvin Goertzen (Steinbach): Mr. Speaker, today in
Today
we learn that developers are hoping that surrounding the Hells Angels clubhouse
with school children and with sundecks will drive them elsewhere in the city.
Why is the NDP Minister of Justice leaving the problem of organized crime in
Mr. Speaker: Order. The honourable member of Steinbach asked a question. He should
have the right to be able to hear the answer. I ask the co-operation of all
honourable members.
Hon. Gord Mackintosh (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, the issue of gang members
was a subject of some consideration in Estimates. According to the figures from
Winnipeg Police services, the
estimates that I obtained from the City of
Mr. Goertzen: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows full well that there has been an
increase of between 1700 and 3200 gang members since he took office. Ten years
ago, the NDP Minister of Justice released an 18-point plan on reducing gangs.
Perhaps point No. 19 for the minister should have been to surround the Hells
Angels with school children and family barbecues.
The
new development will either move the Hells Angels to another part of
Mr. Mackintosh: Rather than some groundless fearmongering by members opposite for
partisan advantage, Mr. Speaker, the member is simply wrong in terms of his
characterization of the locations of this. My understanding is that the future
location of the school is blocks away. Perhaps the member can get his facts
right before he comes in here.
Mr. Goertzen: That is no comfort. If the minister thinks that the Hells Angels are
groundless, perhaps we could take a ride and I can show him the clubhouse, it
is just few blocks down the street, because I am sure he does not get out of
his office very often.
Mr.
Speaker, point 17 of the NDP 1996 Gang Action Plan was to find street workers to interact with gang members. Who
would have thought that these street workers would be high school students when
the NDP got into government? The drugs that far too many young people are
addicted to in our province are being provided by gangs like the Hells Angels,
and now we are going to surround the clubhouse with these young people who are
vulnerable to these drugs.
Why
does the minister not recognize the answer to getting rid of the Hells Angels
and the Bandidos in this province is
to drive them out of business and not surround them with school children?
Mr. Mackintosh: Again, Mr. Speaker, just groundless statements. Organized crime is not
welcome to neighbours in our communities and they do not control the
development of our communities. Since we have come into office, we have brought
in the most aggressive strategy, I understand, in
Mr.
Speaker, we do not need lessons from the members opposite. All they could do
was set up a gang hotline that was not hot, it was not confidential. That is
the best they could do. We are not done yet. We brought in the most aggressive
anti-gang legislation and will continue to develop strategies to protect the
safety of Manitobans.
Crocus Fund
Operating Expenditures
Hon. Jon Gerrard (
I
ask the Minister of Industry this: Has the government communicated with its
representative with respect to recommending Crocus decrease its operating
expenditures during this period when it is unable to sell shares and until we
have reports from the Auditor General and the Manitoba Securities Commission?
Hon. Jim Rondeau (Minister of Industry, Economic Development and
Mines): As the member
knows, we do not direct our appointment to the board on how to conduct
business. Once we appoint the director, his fiduciary responsibility is to the
shareholders. I would like to remind the member that although there are
expenses, there is also income coming from the investments that are of the
fund.
Our
job is not to run the fund every day. Our job is to set up the system, make
sure the rules are fair and appropriate, and then allow the fund to conduct
business. It is the board of directors that manages it. It is the board of
directors who does the investments. It is the board of directors who looks
after the expenses.
Government Representative
Hon. Jon Gerrard (
Will
the government, which says its representative is responsible to the unit
holders of Crocus, now allow unit
holders to elect a replacement for the provincial government's representative?
Hon. Jim Rondeau (Minister of Industry, Economic Development and
Mines): Mr.
Speaker, I would like to point out to the member opposite you were part of the
Liberal government that had as a requirement that the Federation of Labour had
to be the majority shareholder for it to be considered a labour-sponsored fund.
You set up the rules. You set it up where the Manitoba Federation of Labour,
your Liberal government and the Tory government set it up so that in 1992, the
Manitoba Federation of Labour had the majority of the shareholders.
You
should know that Bernard Wilson, director of Corporate Governance branch,
basically what he has said is that
the fiduciary responsibility of all
board members is to the shareholder. It is not to the person who appoints them. It is
not to the organization that they represent. It is to the shareholder.
So
your question is wrong where the responsibility of the board is to the
shareholders. It is not to the person who appoints the board members.
Approval Process
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
If
you look at it, they are talking about, they are saying pickings are slim in
terms of expanded or vacant lots. They make no reference at all to Meadows
West, as an example. They say that 90 percent, this one really gets me, 90
percent of demand for new housing is not in the inner core but in south
I
can tell members of this Chamber that there is demand in north
* (14:20)
Hon. Scott Smith (Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Trade): Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member
finally got around to a question.
Mr.
Speaker, the City of
Mr.
Speaker, the member opposite talks about demand all over the city of
Prairie Production Centre
Purchase Price
Mr. Jack Reimer (Southdale): Mr. Speaker, the other day I asked the
Minister of Culture and Heritage in regard to the Prairie Production Centre and
at that time the minister said that the private sector, when it was approached
about the purchase of the Production Centre, said that they would only purchase
it if it could make a profit.
I
found it very, very ironic that he then admitted that the Province shelled out
$3 million for this Prairie Production Centre when it has shown that it has not
been able to make a profit. It has shown over the last seven years that it has
not made a profit. What kind of due diligence or business plan was presented to
the minister to justify a purchase of $3 million?
Hon. Eric Robinson (Minister of Culture, Heritage and Tourism): Mr. Speaker, as I indicated last
week, because of decisions that were made prior to 1999, our government was
left with the option of having to write off the $1.3 million in unsecured loans
or face the possibility of losing a sound stage, and of course we could not
afford to do that.
Mr. Reimer: Well,
Mr. Speaker, we can only look back to in the days of Howard Pawley and Ed
Schreyer when they got into the pickle factory business. They got into the
bicycle manufacturing business. None of that survived. Their record on buying
and being involved with business is dismal.
This
industry here in this particular Prairie Production Centre has shown that it
cannot make money. The minister has said that they have to buy it. Mr. Speaker,
I find it very ironic when $3 million could have been used for hip
replacements. It could have been used for knee replacements for seniors. It
could have been used for dental surgery for children that are waiting on the
list, and yet they feel that they can make money on a $3-million business that
is shown to lose money.
I
ask the minister was there due diligence. Was there a business plan that he
would be able to share with this House and the people of
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I am satisfied that the proper procedures occurred with
the purchase of the Prairie Production Centre. The $1 scenario that the member
from Southdale mentions would have only come into play if
Mr. Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired.
Sargent Park School
Mr. Andrew Swan
(Minto): Music
is a key part of student development that makes school a more enjoyable place
and enriches the school's character. I am proud to speak today about the
fantastic music programs at
* (14:25)
In January, Sargent Park hosted an event called "Strumming for Sargent." This concert featured classical and jazz guitar and a performance from members of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. This event was a great success, and I was very pleased to see parents, teachers and other members of the community taking such a genuine interest in the work of Sargent Park students. The concert raised about $2,000 for the purchase of new guitars for hands-on learning of music skills. I would like to extend congratulations to parents Carolin Peters, Marika Winters, Barb and Steve Hamilton, Donna and Dan Brooks, Michelle Warkentin, Kurt Rifik and Laura and Don Gilberto for organizing this successful evening.
During February and
March, Sargent Park's choirs participated in the Winnipeg Music Festival, winning
two gold and six silver awards. It is my understanding that several students
from Sargent Park were also selected to perform with the Winnipeg Symphony
Orchestra Choir and the Provincial
Honour Choir.
On March 23, Sargent Park held its annual spring concert which featured an Aboriginal-themed multimedia presentation put together by the band and art students under the guidance of teachers, Mrs. Claeys and Mrs. Lalonde. The junior high trip choir and trip band have both been practising very hard in preparation for a trip west to Alberta that began this past weekend. I would like to take this opportunity to wish them the best of luck.
Mr. Speaker, I would like
to thank Mrs. Claeys and Mrs. Lalonde, as
well as the rest of the staff and administration at
Grenadian Association of
Manitoba
Mrs. Mavis Taillieu (Morris): On April 2, 2005, I had the pleasure of attending the 25th anniversary banquet of the Grenadian Association of Manitoba to celebrate the many accomplishments, rich traditions, ethnic heritage and cultural milestones of Manitoba's Grenadian community.
The Grenadian Association of Manitoba was established in 1980. For over 25 years, this non-profit organization has been serving the vibrant Grenadian community while simultaneously promoting a sense of unity and cultural awareness within the Grenadian community and other ethnic and cultural groups across our province.
The evening included entertainment courtesy of the Grenada Senior Cultural Performers and the Grenada Association Choir, as well as an awards ceremony in which Aminat Lawanson, a young Grenadian Manitoban, was recognized for her outstanding achievement as a cultural dancer and performer.
Organizations such as the Grenadian Association of Manitoba are tremendous assets for our province because it is through the promotion of cultural heritage and awareness that different cultures can come together, learn from each other and help build a more understanding and culturally sensitive community.
Again, I would like to congratulate the Grenadian Association of Manitoba on their 25th anniversary, and I would ask all honourable members to join with me in wishing them continued success in the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Seven Oaks General
Hospital
Mr. Cris Aglugub (The Maples): I am proud to share with my colleagues some good news about Seven Oaks General Hospital. On March 22, 2005, we announced $5 million in funding assistance for the expansion and upgrading of the hospital's emergency room facilities.
Mr. Speaker, Seven Oaks hospital is one of the busiest community hospitals in Manitoba. The hospital sees slightly more than 36 000 patients every year. Our government's funding is good news for Seven Oaks General Hospital, my constituents in The Maples and for residents living in and outside of Winnipeg. The expansion of Seven Oaks General Hospital will see emergency room facilities expand by almost 50 percent. The expansion will include a new ambulance bay, an increased number of treatment rooms, improved cardiac monitoring capabilities, a secure room for aggressive patients, and a new decontamination and isolation room. Construction should be completed by January 2007. Total construction will be valued at $7 million.
The expansion of the emergency room at Seven Oaks General Hospital would not be possible without the hard work of the Seven Oaks General Hospital Foundation. The foundation, through its fundraising efforts, will donate $2 million towards this project, Mr. Speaker. It is this same hard work and determination that won Seven Oaks General Hospital the distinction as one of Canada's top 100 employers for 2004.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank CEO Mr. Mark Neskar, chairman of the board, Bob Minaker, Gail Smidt, president and executive director, Ms. Maria Marrone of the Seven Oaks General Hospital Foundation, and all the hospital staff on this very good news. Also I would like to mention that the Seven Oaks Foundation will be hosting a fundraising gala dinner in May 2005, which promises to be a very worthwhile and exciting event. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Glenboro Panthers
Basketball Team
Mr. Cliff Cullen (
Mr. Speaker, Glenboro Collegiate has a long history of fielding competitive sports teams. The school has a track record in provincial volleyball, second to none. This is a tribute to the coaches and volunteers who aspire to keep children active and involved in friendly competition. Congratulations to this year's Provincial A winners. Your community and school are very proud. I wish them continued success in the future.
Vincent Massey Collegiate
Ms. Kerri Irvin-Ross (
Students from Vincent Massey's Grade 12 World Issues class took it upon themselves to organize and host a special morning seminar on April 7, 2005. The seminar focussed on addressing the importance that alternative energy sources will play in the very near future.
Mr. Speaker, the significance of this event cannot be minimized. Young people today will be facing environmental issues such as adverse climatic changes, depletion of fossil fuel energies and rising oil and gas prices in their adult years. They will also be facing the ever-increasing need for the development and use of alternative energy sources.
Mr. Speaker, the morning
consisted of a keynote address by Mr. Shaun Loney, director of energy policy
for the government of
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank principal Richard Martin for his leadership, teacher Ken Corley for helping co-ordinate this event and for inspiring his Grade 12 students to address this issue. I would also like to thank all panellists and guests who took time out of their busy schedules to meet with these young people. Finally, I would like to thank all the students from Vincent Massey Collegiate for co-ordinating and participating in this seminar. Thank you.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS
Hon. Gord Mackintosh (Government House Leader): Would you please call Supply.
Mr. Speaker: The House will now resolve into Committee of Supply.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, please take the–[interjection]
Point of Order
Mr. Speaker: The honourable Official Opposition House Leader, on a point of order?
Mr. Leonard Derkach (Official Opposition House Leader): Yes, Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.
I was wondering whether we could canvass the House and whether there would be agreement to deal with Bill 10 in third reading today since it was passed in committee. In view of the words of the Premier (Mr. Doer) on CJOB saying that this bill was being held up by the opposition parties and the fact that the bill has now cleared at committee stage, I was wondering whether we could seek leave of the House to give unanimous approval to this bill today and have royal assent given to it before 5:30 this afternoon. Would you please canvass the House?
Mr. Speaker: The honourable Government House Leader, on the same point of order.
Mr. Mackintosh: Mr. Speaker, as we discussed last week in House business, the member opposite if he had an interest in this that was genuine, perhaps he could have raised it with us earlier. We on this side are prepared to move this expeditiously. The report stage now is the next stage. I am prepared to have discussions with the member opposite in terms of dealing with that bill either tomorrow or on Wednesday.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable Official Opposition–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Before recognizing the honourable Official Opposition House Leader, I hope this does not turn into a debate, because–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Because negotiations should really be done in the loge or in the privacy of the House Leader's office, but I will recognize the honourable Official Opposition House Leader for additional information on the same point of order.
Mr. Derkach: Just for additional information, Mr. Speaker, I think it is an established fact that the government seemed to be very anxious to see this bill passed. As a matter of fact, that was made known on public radio. In no way do we want to hold this piece of legislation up, because it does affect seniors who are waiting to be able to access their pension funds.
Mr. Speaker, it was the Premier (Mr. Doer), the First Minister of this province, who said on public radio that he was anxious to see this legislation passed so that seniors could access their money. We are saying, as an opposition party, and I am sure I would seek the support of the Liberal Party, the Liberal caucus here today, to ensure that this legislation gets passed today. We are prepared to do it, to set aside other business of the House to be able to give third reading to this bill and royal assent this afternoon so that we can get on with doing the duty that seniors expect of us.
Mr. Speaker: Order. On the point of order raised by the honourable Official Opposition House Leader, government business, when it is called by the Government House Leader, it is really the prerogative of the government.
I will read you the rule pertaining to that in our Manitoba Rules and Practices. It is Rule 29(2), precedence of government orders: "When government business has precedence, the government's orders and private members' orders may be called in such sequence as the government determines." That is where we are, Orders of the Day; it is government business, and it is at the call of the government. So the honourable member does not have a point of order.
* * *
Mr. Derkach: Mr. Speaker, then I seek leave of the House. I am requesting that we seek leave of the House to set aside the Estimates and to call Bill 10 in third reading and to dispense with it this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker: Okay. Leave has been requested to set aside Supply to deal with Bill 10, right?
Is there agreement?
Some Honourable Members: No.
Mr. Speaker: No, there is no agreement. So we will proceed–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Derkach: Mr. Speaker, I just want to put on the record that the Government House Leader (Mr. Mackintosh) has denied leave today to deal with this legislation.
Mr. Mackintosh: It is really, I think, unfortunate for the workings of the Assembly that House business is done in such a pathetic way. I would advise the House–
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Mackintosh: I would advise the House, indeed, that if the member genuinely was interested in this, we could have had that discussion. We are prepared to consider this after discussions with the opposition for calling it in the next two days, either tomorrow or Wednesday. That would be something, I think, that would be preferable. There are departments now ready for Estimates.
* (14:40)
Mr. Speaker: I do not really want this to turn into a debate because the floor of the Legislature is really not the place to negotiate House business. It is very clear that House business is called by the government. Any negotiations that take place, hopefully, I will even let you use my office if you wish, because I would strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you, the House leaders, to negotiate either in the loge or in privacy. I would really discourage you to be negotiating on the floor.
Point of Order
Mr. Speaker: The honourable Official Opposition House Leader, on a new point of order.
Mr. Derkach: Mr. Speaker, I certainly heed your advice, but it was the Premier (Mr. Doer) of this province who chose to negotiate the business of the House on radio. He was the one who identified this piece of legislation as being held up by both the Liberal Party and the official opposition. I think that was shameful. We did not in any way hold up this legislation. Last Tuesday, the House Leader, without consultation did, in fact, alter the business of the House.
What I am saying this afternoon, this being the first day after that committee hearing was held, and now that the bill has been reported to the House, we are prepared, on this side of the House, to set aside the Estimates debate this afternoon. Yes, departments are ready with Estimates, and those Estimates can continue after the bill is passed or tomorrow. But, Mr. Speaker, this is in the interests of senior Manitobans who want to access their money, and if the bill is proclaimed today when it is given Royal Assent, those people can get on with their lives. We are anxious to do this. The Government House Leader has chosen to deny it, and I regret that.
Mr. Speaker: The House will now resolve into Committee of Supply.
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent Sections)
* (14:50)
Mr. Chairperson (Harry Schellenberg): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order.
This section of the Committee of Supply will now be considering the Estimates of the Department of Health.
Does the honourable minister have an opening statement?
Hon. Tim Sale (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, but I did want to, first of all, welcome my critic. I guess we have not done this before, either of us in this department, so I am looking forward to the process.
Secondly, I thought I might just spend a few minutes talking about the context that we are in, in Canada through the lens of the accord that was reached last September by First Ministers from all provinces, territories and the Prime Minister. As the member will obviously know, these provinces represent all stripes of political interest and different views on many things. But they came to a common accord on the basis of, I guess, several critical issues, first being that health funding from the federal government had fallen far behind the commitments and intentions of former Prime Minister Trudeau in 1977-78 when he brought a funding formula that was supposed to be a secure formula for all time. So the federal recognition was welcome that they had to get back into the game in a serious way.
Secondly, that we had a major challenge in chronic disease, both management and prevention, and that the provinces, federal government and territories had a huge stake in particularly managing the diabetes epidemic, but no less important are the hypertension, congestive heart failure, symptoms of obesity and poor physical fitness, respiratory issues, et cetera. So chronic disease identification, prevention and ameliorating the things that led persons with chronic disease into more and more sickness and, ultimately, to premature death.
The third area that was of great concern was the whole question of health human resources and a recognition, in the 1990s when Morris Barer and John Stoddart suggested that we should cut back on enrolment in medical colleges. The provinces raced to fulfil their recommendation, the Barer-Stoddart report, that this was based on an inadequate reading of their recommendations in that they also recommended a significant expansion of nurse practitioners and a broadening of the scope of practice so that family practitioners could be significantly assisted in their practice by a more comprehensive model of practice, what has come to be called collaborative practice.
Then, finally, that we would focus what might be called a better care sooner, closer to home. In other words, to address waiting lists, not just by throwing money at them, but by looking at the management question. So who can do what procedures? Where can we do them? How can we improve the productivity of our existing system through strategic investments in information technology, in better management and in using consistent clinical guidelines, for example, in hips and knees. We have a situation in Canada where, by and large, apart from a very few provinces, of which we are one, there are no consistent clinical guidelines being promoted or used in most provinces, and again we are moving away from being part of that "most"; there is no central management of wait lists.
I think the work that was pioneered by my predecessor in the cardiac care wait list management process has shown what you can do if you put wait list co-ordinators and a relatively small amount of actual new money, and aggressively manage the wait list, you find that it is possible to arrive at a situation where, for example, by today we have only 88 Manitobans on our elective cardiac surgery waiting list. Most of those are well under the maximum suggested wait times. There are a few that are over, but very few.
We have simply got a whole lot more efficiency out of our system by centralizing wait lists, by getting our cardiac surgeons to co-operate with each other, by providing resources for wait list co-ordinators and managers and by focussing on centres of excellence. We intend to repeat that success that we have had in cancer and cardiac to a significant extent in cataracts. We intend to repeat that with the other two high priority waiting list areas.
That all said, in terms of how we are going at it, as I have said in a long presentation to the Business Council of Manitoba and have also shared with the Chambers of Commerce and with a number of other audiences, we are still faced with a sustainability challenge, and we are not at all unique in this regard. In fact, we may be in slightly better shape than a number of our sister and brother jurisdictions.
In summary, health care
demands grow on a long-term average of between 1.5 and 2% greater than health
care funding. So the obvious problem is that the gap between revenues and
expenditures has continued to grow in all jurisdictions, including in the
This is not a simple issue. It means re-engineering workflows. It means using IT in a very strategic way. It means supporting and, I would say, incenting collaborative practice instead of incenting solo practice. It means making investments strategically in equipment so that, for example, in our rural areas we can attract and retain quality physicians so that people in the rural areas not only have good equipment but, because they have good equipment, they can attract and retain skilled professionals. It is very hard to get a doctor trained in the 21st century to want to practise in a hospital that is equipped in the 1950s level of equipment.
So that is why we have prioritized investing in CTs, MRIs, cancer treatment, 24 community CancerCare sites, 26 Telehealth sites. All of these are things that not only provide better care closer to home without people having to travel but they also help us in recruiting and retaining physicians. So our focus in the next few years is to close that sustainability gap between what we can reasonably put into the system from the growth of our revenues to what we can reasonably expend so that even though Health will always be a priority and may always attract a slightly higher proportion of new money than other government departments, we have to move away from the situation that we were faced in Canada, not just Manitoba, for the last number of years where Health spending was crowding out other priorities.
So that has been our focus over the last few years: repairing the damage of the 1990s, putting us in a position with strong capital investments to spend appropriately for this decade, retaining and expanding our human resource base, investing in rural Manitoba and rural health care, and making the biggest single investment ever in the Health Sciences Centre in our diagnostic and emergency capacity so that we can sustain this thing we call medicare far beyond either my or any other member in this room's tenure as a member of government or opposition.
* (15:00)
Mr. Chairperson: We thank the minister for those comments.
Does the official opposition critic, the honourable Member for Tuxedo, have any opening comments? The Member for Tuxedo, the floor is yours.
Mrs. Heather Stefanson (Tuxedo): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank the minister for his comments and for welcoming me to my post. I, too, welcome him to his new post as the Minister of Health. Being the opposition critic for Health, I am not so healthy today, so I am sure the members opposite will be quite happy that I will not be as long-winded, maybe, potentially as I sometimes can be. So bear with me, but I do have a few comments I would like to put on the record today.
I, firstly, would like to
recognize the efforts of our front-line health care workers, many of whom I
have had the opportunity to meet with in the short period that I have been the
Health critic. I have certainly heard a great deal about the stresses and
frustration associated with being on the front lines in the somewhat overtaxed
health care system that we are currently in. To all those people involved in
our health care system, I say to them thank you for your dedication and thank
you for the sacrifices you make in order to serve the people of
I also have had the opportunity of seeing our health care workers in action as a patient in the system when I delivered my two children, Victoria and Thomas, at St. Boniface Hospital last January and in November of 2001. Certainly, the nurses, doctors and all the health care professionals were absolutely outstanding.
I just want to take this
opportunity to thank each and every one of them for their help and support during
my time there. I know many of my friends who have also delivered at St.
Boniface and Health Sciences and also at the
I think what we have seen lately is there is some frustration with the fact that some of these facilities are closing, and there are not the opportunities for some of those people to deliver in those communities. Certainly, I am hearing from people who are frustrated by some of the decisions that have been made by this government.
I know that the Minister of Healthy Living (Ms. Oswald) is currently expecting and I hope that she, too, and I am sure she will, have a similarly positive experience with the health care workers in the system as I did. You know, not to take a shot at the government, but there is a bit of a reality check. I just hope she is not in a situation where she and, indeed, any other woman is turned away and denied access to care as a result of the influx of people from south Winnipeg, from the closing of the maternity ward at Victoria Hospital and from Brandon, Dauphin and other areas in rural Manitoba who are short obstetricians and pediatricians.
I have heard from many
people around
Unfortunately, I do not believe things are going to improve until this government provides some sort of a direction and some sort of a plan. I do not think that simply pumping more money into the ailing system and addressing problems only once they have reached crisis proportions is a responsible way to deal with health care in our province.
Once again this year,
CIHI identified
In September of last
year, the First Ministers' Health Accord was signed, a document which
substantially increased the amount of money that
Certainly, we saw in the Health budget for this year, which begs the obvious question about the impact that continuing to spend these rates will have on other government departments, not to mention on taxpayers' wallets. The Health budget currently represents 41 percent of the provincial budget, a number that has increased over the years this government has been in power. Such growth in levels of spending is certainly not sustainable and will inevitably impact on the funding of other government departments and, indeed, will cause taxes to increase significantly to compensate for this government's inability to manage the system. Manitobans no longer believe that throwing more money at a system that is not working is the answer. They know it needs to be better managed.
Certainly, there have been several high profile glossy news releases and announcements from this government and this minister in the past six years. Unfortunately, many of those announcements have not been followed by any real action. We have seen the wait list for orthopedic surgeries skyrocket up to three years under this minister and yet, the announcements made and the money promised to deal with this issue have not flowed. Similarly, we have seen the number of children waiting for dental surgeries significantly increase. Yet, again, the so-called plan announced by this government had still not been implemented some months later, with the result that children are waiting and continue to wait in pain for surgery.
We have also seen the
number of patients in emergency room hallways increase under this NDP government
despite their promise six years ago to end hallway medicine in six months with
$15 million. We also see the closure and converts of rural hospitals because of
staffing shortages despite this government's promise not to. Now, we have also
seen that this government has decided to close a maternity ward at
Manitobans are tired of
the empty promises made by this NDP government over the past six years. They
want and deserve real action by this government. In the absence of a long-term
plan to deal with our ailing health care system, Manitobans will be forced to
continue to spend more and get less out of this government. More and more
Manitobans will look towards seeking alternatives to our long wait list for
diagnostic and surgical procedures by going out of province to access health
care services in a more timely fashion. It is the responsibility of this
government to come up with a plan to deal with these wait lists. They have had
six years and, yet, no long-term plan has been put in place despite this
government's promise back in the 1999 election campaign to fix the health care
system in
We have already seen this government's decision to raise the Pharmacare deductible by 20 percent over the past four years in an attempt to offset the increasing costs of prescription medications. We have also seen the negative impact this increase has had on seniors and low-income Manitobans who have been forced to choose between their medication and other necessities. Is this, indeed, the long-term plan for dealing with the rising costs of pharmaceutical drugs, simply to offload the expense onto the backs of the most vulnerable people in our society?
The government has been aware of this issue for a long time and has been in a position for six years to develop a long-term plan to deal with this issue, yet, has failed to come up with any vision to deal with the rising costs of pharmaceuticals other than looking at an increase in taxes to cover the increased costs. This is not a long-term plan, but essentially an outcome of a government that has no real vision when it comes to the challenges of our health care system.
So many Manitobans have been asking about the $1.3 billion in increased health care expenditures in our province since the NDP came to power. Saved by the bell.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please.
A recorded vote has been requested in another section of the Committee of Supply and, therefore, I am recessing this section of the Committee of Supply in order for members to proceed to the Chamber for a formal vote.
The Committee recessed at
3:09 p.m.
________
The Committee resumed at 3:23 p.m.
Mr. Chairperson: Will the Committee of Supply please come to order.
The honourable Member for Tuxedo, you have the floor.
Mrs. Stefanson: Before I continue on with my opening statement, I just want to say for the record the minister questions our CIHI numbers, that we are spending the most money per capita on health care at $4,406 per person in 2004-2005. I will just say for the record that CIHI is an independent body that does these numbers themselves, and if there is some discrepancy over what those numbers are, perhaps the minister would like to bring that up with CIHI themselves. As it stands, that is the reality of what it is. Certainly, if the minister wants to dispute that, then he can bring it up with CIHI.
So many Manitobans have been asking about the $1.3 billion in increased health care expenditures in our province since the NDP government came to power in 1999. They simply want to know where the money has gone. Wait lists continue to rise for diagnostic and surgical procedures. Manitobans continue to line emergency hallways. Now they are being forced to endure a new phenomenon, highway medicine, forcing mothers from Brandon to travel by ambulance to Winnipeg to have their babies because of the shortage of pediatricians.
Manitobans ask a good
question. Where has the money gone?
Since the NDP government refuses to
come clean on its mismanagement of health care dollars, I will tell them where
the money has gone. Since 1999, the
administrative costs of
We are encouraged by the WRHA's recent move to take a baby step in the right direction by making a few minor cuts to the administrative costs within the WRHA, but we call on them to provide Manitobans with full disclosure as to the true administration costs in the WRHA. Further, we know that administration costs in other RHAs have doubled since this NDP government took office in 1999, so we encourage the government to follow suit in other RHAs as well, when it comes to the administration costs.
Mr. Chair, there are a number of questions that need to be asked throughout these Estimates in terms of the spending in health care and the value Manitobans are getting for their dollar. The financial burden of our health care system is rapidly growing beyond our ability as a province to fund it. Our health care system needs meaningful reform if we are to deal with the future challenges associated with an aging population. We cannot afford, as Manitobans, to continue to support a government that is so blinded by its ideology that it loses sight of how the private sector can save the system money by contributing to the delivery of health care services in our province.
Despite the lies and fearmongering of this NDP government, we on this side of the House are not advocating, and let me please reiterate that, are not advocating the Americanization of health care, but more, we are advocating for a more efficient system which will reduce wait-lists and still recognize the importance of maintaining universal access to health care in our province. This NDP needs to start putting patients first, ahead of their own ideology. If private clinics can deliver health care services in a more timely and economic fashion, then why are we not letting them?
The Labour Party in
Britain seems to have moved beyond allowing ideology to get in the way of what is
right for its citizens by allowing for competition between health care service
providers. Why will this NDP government not follow suit with their British
cousins?
Why can we not? Because
we have an NDP government in our province that refuses to look beyond the
Americanization of health care as the only alternative to an ailing system.
This NDP government lacks the political fortitude to envision a health care
system that better serves our citizens. This government is so opposed to any
private-sector delivery of health care services in our province, even if it is
universally accessible. Why? Because their ideology is more important than what
is in the best interests of patients. Even their cousins, the Labour Party in
This government and its minister need to develop a vision for health care and put a plan in place, rather than continuing to respond to individual crises as they arise. We need to see more visibility, transparency and accountability so that the public can determine whether key issues in the health care system are actually being addressed in a timely, effective and responsible manner. Without such a plan, the health care system will continue to absorb every cent that is thrown at it, yet patients will continue to fall through the cracks.
* (15:30)
Mr. Chair, I will leave
my comments here. I certainly hope for the sake of the taxpayers of
I guess I am prepared at this time to move forward in a global discussion of Health Estimates.
Mr. Chairperson: We thank the critic from the official opposition for the remarks.
Under Manitoba practice, debate on the Minister's Salary is traditionally the last item considered for a department in the Committee of Supply. Accordingly, we shall now defer consideration of line item 21.1(a) to proceed with consideration of the remaining items referenced in Resolution 21.1.
At this time, we invite the minister's staff to join us at the table, and we ask that the minister introduce his staff in attendance.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, Heather Reichert is the assistant deputy minister for Administration and Finance in our department. She is joining me at the table.
Mr. Chairperson: We thank the minister. Does the committee wish to proceed through the Estimates of this department in a chronological manner or have a global discussion?
Mrs. Stefanson: I think it is customary and, certainly, we have gone this route in the past where we go in a global discussion.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, I do not have a major objection, but I do have one
observation. That is that the Minister of Healthy Living (Ms. Oswald) has a
section of my Estimates as well as Estimates for Healthy Child
Mrs. Stefanson: What kind of notice time are you looking at?
Mr. Sale: What is reasonable? Do you need her today, tomorrow? In other words, a day or a morning, but a few hours notice so that she is not essentially sitting with commitments, which all of us have, without a chance to give people some reasonable time to adjust their lives. So, if you know you are going to need her tomorrow, let us know and she will be available.
Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, I think that is fine. I do not think we will need her today but, certainly, we will need her tomorrow.
Mr. Chairperson: Is it agreed that questions of this department will follow in a global manner with all items to be passed once the questions are completed? [Agreed]
The floor is now open for questions.
Mr. Sale: Just to put on the record some information, I tried to give the information to the member informally, but she insists on doing it formally, so we will do it that way.
The Canadian Institute
for Health Information indicates
that the total spending on health care
per capita in
So, in the total expenditure line, all of those private discretionary or non-discretionary purchases in health care are included, as well as the federal expenditures on Aboriginal persons, public health, et cetera.
The actual number in Manitoba is that we are the third-highest provincial government expenditure in '04-05 at $2,885 per capita compared to the Canadian average of $2,628. The actual per capita spending a couple of years back, we were fourth in 2002 and 2003, and when you do any adjustments for age and sex because of our population's age, we range between third and fourth over the last number of years.
So I think it is important when the member puts comments on the record that they have some relevance to the real world. The real world is we control the provincial budget and we are accountable for that. We do not control the private sector budget, or the federal budget, and are not accountable for that. Just so the member has the correct information, Mr. Speaker.
Mrs. Stefanson: Well, I think it is important for the record to indicate that CIHI is an independent body. The minister and the government can put any amount of spin around it that they want and try and take out certain components that they do not wish to include. The fact of the matter is this is an independent body that says that Manitoba is spending more for personal health care than any other province. Those are the facts. Those are reported by an independent body so, again, I would just caution Manitobans that one is an independent body, the other is a minister of the Crown that tends to put some political spin that will benefit their own numbers and their own agenda. So I again would caution Manitobans about that.
Having said that, I would like to get into some questioning, please.
Mr. Chairperson: Honourable Minister, point of order?
Mr. Sale: No, just a response to the comment, Mr. Speaker.
Again, the member has absolutely every right to put on the record whatever she wishes to, but the fact is that I am not putting any provincial numbers out when I speak about CIHI's numbers. They are CIHI's numbers. They report provincial spending, federal spending, personal spending and total spending. Those are the same institutes, they are independent, and I believe that they are accurate. I simply want to suggest to the member that polemics are not usually helpful during Estimates. Usually, it is more effective to ask and receive information and to have a respectful dialogue, so I want to just make sure that the committee understands that none of the numbers I have quoted are Manitoba's numbers; they are all CIHI numbers. They always break it down this way. They did from the beginning.
In fact, Statistics Canada, long before this when the previous government was in power, also put out tables of private spending, provincial spending, municipal spending where it occurs, federal government spending where it occurs. That has always been the way statistics are reported in Canada. That is not polemic. It is not spin. That is just history. So the member might be just cautioned to just be a little reasonable about understanding that, when information is brought to the committee from a body like CIHI, it is information. She can put any spin she wants on it. It is not my information. It is not from me; it is from CIHI. That is my point, Mr. Chair, and I just want to make sure that she understands that.
Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, and I also understand that when it comes to numbers, I think it is rather ironic that this minister is talking about numbers in such a way, particularly when he knowingly provided false numbers to this House and to the committee in last year's Estimates, and that the Province never had any intention of meeting the budget for Health. How can Manitobans trust anything that this minister says, and how can Manitobans trust the number that we are debating before us today in this process?
We do, however, have a number of questions that we would like to ask the minister with respect to a number of areas of health care systems in our province.
Point of Order
Mr. Chairperson: Point of order. The honourable minister, on a point of order.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, I would like you to take under review the questions that refer to the words used by the member opposite where "knowingly provided false information" is clearly unparliamentary. It has not been tolerated by any Chairs that I am aware of. Incorrect information is sometimes provided by accident and is usually corrected, but when she makes such a statement she is just inviting a non-productive process. Let us get down to the business of asking and answering questions, but to allege that a member, any member knowingly provided false information is essentially accusing of intentional misleading, which is unparliamentary, has been ruled unparliamentary for years and years and years, and I do not think it is a very productive way of starting an Estimates process.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask you to review the record in that regard.
Mr. Chairperson: On the same point of order, the Member for Tuxedo.
Mrs. Stefanson: On the point of order, clearly it is a dispute over the facts and not a point of order.
* (15:40)
Mr. Chairperson: I thank all honourable members for their advice respecting the point of order raised. I will take the matter under advisement so that I may peruse Hansard and report back to the committee. Thank you.
* * *
Mrs. Stefanson: I think it is important to note for the record, once again, and this is a very serious issue, it was reported that the minister had said the Province really had no intention of ever meeting the budget for Health set in April of last year because it expected the federal government would bail it out. I am just merely going by what has been reported, what has been said by the minister. I find it somewhat disturbing and, as well, very serious when it comes to parliamentary procedure. I also take my job very seriously, as I know the Minister of Health does. I believe it is very serious that if we are to debate the Estimates, the numbers in books that are provided to us, we want to know the numbers provided to us are the accurate numbers the minister is putting forward to us.
I guess I would start off by asking him if the numbers that are put forth before us today are the actual numbers that he believes to the best of his ability.
Mr. Sale: First of all, Mr. Chairman, let me absolutely refute any suggestion that any numbers, whether they are in this year's budget, or in any other budget that we have presented during our five years and six budgets now were anything but the most accurate reflection of what we knew at the time.
I think that the member, perhaps, has not had a lot of involvement in large organizational management, but if she had, she would know you bring a budget forward and then you have to manage it. You manage it with a view to what is happening in the environment, what is happening with your revenues, your expenditures, what the opportunities are. A budget is not a static document, so the numbers presented in all of our Health budgets have been accurate to the best of the knowledge of the Cabinet that stood behind them. This budget is no exception.
Mrs. Stefanson: The minister is then saying that he was misquoted, I guess. I would ask if the minister was misquoted in an article in the Winnipeg Free Press dated Sunday, December 26, 2004, when it says, and it is quoted here as words coming from his mouth, "We had reduced the budget for Health to an absolutely unattainable level in terms of reduction. We put a budget figure out there, but we were reasonably confident the Health Accord would get signed once Martin made the commitment in the election, so we essentially let Health expenditures run above the budget."
Is the minister saying this was not his quote? Was he misquoted? To me what that says is they put budget figures forward knowing that they were wrong and that they were absolutely unattainable.
Mr. Sale: First, Mr. Chair, I am sure the member is aware that I was not the Health Minister at the time. I was on Treasury Board and, of course, take responsibility with my Cabinet colleagues for all of the numbers. May I just ask to cast her memory back. It seems we are going to replough some ground that was ploughed earlier this year in the legislative Chamber in response to the same question. Perhaps I could also refer her back to Hansard to review the answers that I gave then, but for the record, I will say again what I said then.
We are reviewing the question of the '04-05 budget at that point, so it is not really germane to these Estimates. Let me just refer her back to the timeline. The '04-05 budget comes into preparation in the summer of the preceding year; that is in the summer of '03. It is worked on through the summer, through the fall, through the winter. It is finally closed usually about the end of January or so, maybe early in February, and then presented to the House sometime in April usually, sometimes March, but usually in April of the fiscal year then under consideration, which would be '04-05.
I am asking the member to remember what the situation was in the summer of 2003 and the fall of 2003. We were still, at that point, dealing with SARS. We were still dealing with the fallout of SARS. We had, at that time, the beginnings of the worst drought we had experienced as a province for about 50 years. We were still in a mini-recession following 9/11. Business was still being affected by that, particularly tourism. We had a federal government that was still in denial of the fiscal imbalance, which it has come to be called; that is the huge difference between the revenues the federal government was enjoying and enormous surpluses and the considerable difficulties that all provinces were having meeting their obligations for social services, health, justice and so forth.
We had a majority Liberal government at the time that had not been willing to enter into a long-term framework for funding health. The member probably knows some of this history, but in 1978-79 we entered into a program called the Established Programs Financing Act, EPF, which supposedly had an escalator in it, but under Mr. Mulroney, the escalator was essentially removed by 1990. Then, under Mr. Martin as Finance Minister, a $7 billion cut was incurred by our health, social services and post-secondary education systems.
We were in a situation provincially where we had flat revenue growth and an uncertain future with the federal government in terms of the way they were going on health, and we were dealing with some exigencies. Whether it was mad cow, whatever the external environmental issues we were dealing with, they were severe enough that our revenues were, to say the least, not buoyant. In light of that, we set a very challenging target for our health care system. It accurately reflected our revenues and expenditures in terms of what we needed to achieve. A budget is, after all, a set of intentions, and our intention was to achieve that budget. We felt we had no alternative given our commitment to a balanced budget, which we have met every year. Those numbers were accurate.
When Mr. Martin succeeded Mr. Chrétien in the early part of '04, the latter part of '03, and made his commitments around a health accord. He provided significant commitment as the prime minister to try to repair some of the damage he had himself taken part in doing and all of us had suffered from. We believed he would make good on that commitment. So the numbers we put forward when we were planning the budget in the fall of '03 and early '04 were accurate. They were absolutely borne out by the reality of our revenues and our need to live within balanced budget. When Mr. Martin made more money available, that money, as was the agreement, flowed into our health care system.
The member can make of that what she likes, but the numbers we have put forward in all of our budgets, including this one and all of the previous ones, fairly reflect the reality that we have in terms of expenditure capacity and fiscal capacity, revenue capacity. They have all been balanced, and this year we are fortunate to be able to both significantly increase our commitment to our health care system and, while balancing the budget, replenish significantly the Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which gives us some buffer against other unforeseen things. In a government of any kind and any size there are always unforeseen things. I tell the member that our numbers are correct. They were correct. They are correct, but no budget is a fixed document frozen in stone, never to change.
* (15:50)
If that were not the
case, the member would have a hard time explaining why her predecessors in two
subsequent, sequential years drew down the Fiscal Stabilization Fund by $185
and $184 million, two years in a row when there were buoyant revenues. She would
probably have an even harder time explaining why the biggest deficit in
So I give the member that answer. It is the same answer I gave in the House. We can go over it several more times if she wishes, but it will not change.
Mrs. Stefanson: Well, I guess I find it unfortunate that we even have to have these discussions over the numbers that are put forward before us. I guess I would say to the minister that I know he mentioned earlier that these questions are not relevant when it comes to this year's Estimates, but they absolutely are, because if we sat through this Estimates a year ago and the minister knew, basically, that the numbers that were put forward were not necessarily accurate, what is the point in going through this process?
Again, I take my job very seriously. In going through these, scrutinizing the way the government plans to spend and, I guess, if I asked the minister specifically if he was misquoted and he refused to answer that, rambled on about some tough times that the government is facing when there have been unprecedented levels of increased revenues to the province, I think that it is unfortunate. But I guess what the minister was saying in his answer to my last question is that what he is saying that he knowingly put false numbers out there in the health care Estimates, knowing that they could not meet it unless they were bailed out by the federal government. What if they were not bailed out by the feds? That budget would not have been balanced.
I guess I find it unfortunate that this is the way. I think this is a very risky and inappropriate way to manage a department. I think that if we are going to be debating health care expenditures, we at least have to have the appropriate numbers before us. I do not want to go on at great length in this again. I think it is unfortunate that we even have to have this conversation, but it is something–
An Honourable Member: We do not. It is optional.
Mrs. Stefanson: Well, I guess when the minister says we do not, well, we absolutely have to, because it is a very, very serious issue when it comes to, again, what the minister said. He was quoted as saying that, and I quote, "We had reduced the budget for Health to an absolutely unattainable level in terms of reductions. We put a figure, a budget figure, out there, but we were reasonably confident to the health accord that the–"
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I would like to interject.
The matter being raised in a member with a topic of a matter of privilege raised in the House on March 10, 2005. On March 23, 2005, the Speaker ruled in the House that no prima facie case of privilege had been established. With this in mind, it would be out of order for questioning to continue on this topic, as it could be seen as a reflection on the ruling of the Speaker.
I would like to also add that I would like to take a moment to caution all honourable members on their language here in committee today. I thank you.
Mrs. Stefanson: Thank you very much. As I was just concluding, I would like to move on with other questioning anyway, so that is fine.
I would like to turn to the organizational chart in the Health Estimates and just ask the minister if there are any secondments. Is anyone in the chart seconded from somewhere else?
Mr. Sale: Currently, Mr. Chairperson, Arlene Wilgosh is the new deputy minister and Heather Reichert who is here with us are secondments from the WRHA and serve with us. We are very glad of that because they bring tremendous skill and confidence to the work that they do. There are other secondments in both directions at a lower level in the system. If the member wants a full list of all of those, we will have to take it as notice and get back to him.
Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, I would like that information as well. I gather the minister will take it as notice and endeavour to get me those secondments.
I am not quite sure how the whole process works and I will just ask it straight out because I am sure the minister will be able to provide me with the information. How exactly does that work so these individuals are seconded from the WRHA? Is there a process that takes place where the salaries will then be implemented and coming from the Department of Health at some point in time, and what is that time frame, or will they continue to be paid by the WRHA?
Mr. Sale: In general, secondments are usually paid for by the organization receiving the service, and that is the case in this situation. The salaries for Heather and Arlene are paid for by the Department of Health through the Estimates process.
Mrs. Stefanson: They are paid for by the WRHA right now–oh, sorry, from the Department of Health.
I understand that the Deputy Minister of Family Services, Milton Sussman, was seconded by the Department of Family Services. Who would be paying his salary right now?
Mr. Sale: Well, that is really a question for the Department of Family Services, but I think I can reasonably assure the member that the Department of Family Services pays for their own deputy. I think you should make sure you ask that question in the appropriate section of Estimates which is not this section.
Mrs. Stefanson: Perhaps I will rephrase then.
As I understand, Milton Sussman is being paid for by the WRHA as it stands right now, so that is not true.
Mr. Sale: It has not been true for some years. He has worked as the deputy for the Department of Health for a number of years and was paid for by the Department of Health. He is now working as deputy for Family Services, and while I urge you to confirm the information, I would expect that, as has been the case in the past, he is being paid for by the Department of Family Services.
Mrs. Stefanson: Could the minister just confirm the name of his special assistant?
Mr. Sale: Jennifer Moszynski.
Mrs. Stefanson: Does the minister only have one special assistant? Is that the only special assistant?
Mr. Sale: Yes.
Mrs. Stefanson: Does the minister have a special advisor? If so, what is his or her name?
Mr. Sale: There are two people in the office. Shauna Martin is my chief of staff, and Patrick Caron is communications and events, co-ordinating my schedule of things that I wind up doing.
Mrs. Stefanson: And the name of that communications person?
Mr. Sale: Patrick Caron.
Mrs. Stefanson: And the name of the minister's senior advisor?
Mr. Sale: As I said, Mr. Chair, Shauna Martin.
Mrs. Stefanson: How long has each of these people been in their positions?
* (16:00)
Mr. Sale: Ms. Moszynski came to us at the beginning of this year, I believe. If the date is really important, I can get it for the member, but basically the beginning of the year. Patrick Caron was with me in the Energy, Science and Technology office and came with me when I moved over to Health. He was with us about a year, maybe a little more than a year there. Shauna Martin came as my chief of staff, more or less when we moved over from Energy.
Mrs. Stefanson: What were the names of the people that were in these positions prior to your current staff members in these positions?
Mr. Sale: I would have to get that information for the member.
Mrs. Stefanson: Thanks, and if the minister could also find out, I would like to know where these people have gone. Have they moved to other government departments? Have they gone with other ministers' staff, or where else have they gone? Have they gone outside of government?
Mr. Sale: We will add that to the list.
Mrs. Stefanson: Does the minister have an executive assistant, and if so, what is the name of the executive assistant?
Mr. Sale: Geof Langen. L-A-N-G-E-N.
Mrs. Stefanson: Are there any other staff members in the minister's office?
Mr. Sale: There are four administrative support staff, secretaries, who are long-time civil servants. I am not sure whether that is what the member means. There is a person who provides policy advice, who has been in my office, works with our health reform group. His name is Wade Derkson. He has been with us about three months, maybe four months. No, it will be five months. He started, I think, in December. If those dates are really important to the member, I can get the dates, but these people basically all came either at the time I became minister or subsequent to that time. The latest one came in, I believe it was January.
Mrs. Stefanson: To whom are these people responsible for reporting?
Mr. Sale: Well, Mr. Derkson, Ms. Moszynski, Mr. Caron, report to our chief of staff, Shauna Martin. I think that is the question the member is asking. The secretarial staff has the normal reporting relationships that all ministers' secretaries have.
Mrs. Stefanson: The administrative support positions, who are they? Who are these people responsible to then? To the minister? Whom do they report to?
Mr. Sale: Any minister's office has a co-ordinator in it who essentially reports to the minister for the functioning of the office, but they are usually career civil servants who have been in ministers' offices for many governments. That is no different in Health. People come and people go, but they are not political appointments. Ministers do get to choose their secretaries, but they are generally long-term civil servants.
Sorry, I did omit one other person who is in our office who has been there for some time, who deals with casework. That is Lisa Bukoski. She has been there for a number of years. I could not tell you how long, but she was there when I came to the ministry. If that is important, we can get that information.
So there is an intake co-ordinator, Lisa Bukoski; special advisor, Wade Derkson; communications, Patrick Caron. The chief of staff is Shauna Martin. She is listed as a program specialist because that is her classification.
In terms of the administrative secretary in the office, Laura Truman–correspondence has been changed recently–is a person who was in another office and has come to be with us. The appointment secretary is Judy Wickstrom. Admin is Beth Chomor. So there are four people in the administrative roles.
EA is Geof Langen; SA is Jennifer Moszynski, as I said.
Mrs. Stefanson: How many administrative staff or secretarial supports are in the deputy minister's office?
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chair, I am told there are four secretarial administrative support people and one policy analyst who essentially co-ordinates the work of the office.
Mrs. Stefanson: Could the minister indicate if Dwight Barna is still the ADM of Policy Planning and Program Support?
Mr. Sale: He is, but he is also retiring from the civil service in about a week, or maybe today. Friday was his last day, or is his last day, so this Friday is his last day.
Mrs. Stefanson: Who will be replacing Mr. Barna?
Mr. Sale: I have no idea. We are posting positions shortly. I think we posted one, I believe. We posted Darlene Wilgosh's job as Regional Care's ADM and I expect we will be doing the same with Mr. Barna's job.
Mrs. Stefanson: When does the minister anticipate that someone will be hired in this role? How long does the process take?
Mr. Sale: I really cannot answer that question until we find a good person. We are going to replace that position as quickly as we can, but we are not just going to find a warm body to do it. Generally speaking, ADM replacements take at least two months, maybe three months. There is no hard time line. What is hard is getting the right person into the job.
Mrs. Stefanson: Will someone be in an acting role to take over the responsibilities of Mr. Barna in the interim and, if so, who will that person be?
Mr. Sale: That is Marj Watts, who has been with the department for many, many years.
Mrs. Stefanson: What has Marj Watts done for the department for a number of years?
Mr. Sale: Ms. Watts's current title is Executive Director of Policy and Planning, but she has served in a number of different positions over, gosh, 30 years, 25 years, in a variety of health positions. She is a very experienced and able person.
Mrs. Stefanson: I am just wondering, in the replacement of this role, what kind of a process takes place? Is this a position that is posted? How does it work?
Mr. Sale: On the case of the Regional Affairs position, it has been posted. It is through the normal civil service open competition model. We have not yet reached a decision about Mr. Barna's position as to whether it will be an internal posting or whether it will be an open posting. We have not had that discussion yet.
Mrs. Stefanson: Just to confirm, he is leaving Friday? When will that decision be made as to what direction you are going to take?
Mr. Sale: Soon.
Mrs. Stefanson: How soon?
Mr. Sale: Very soon.
Mrs. Stefanson: Can the minister provide us with a date that we can expect that? If this person is leaving on Friday, I think it is very important that we know the process is going to take place. I would think, upon his retirement, will it at least happen by Friday, the day that Mr. Barna leaves?
* (16:10)
Mr. Sale: We did not have a whole lot of notice of Mr. Barna's decision to retire. I think he intended to be here for a couple of years. He stayed for five, I think, or seven. I am not sure which. It was five, he stayed for five years. We were very glad of that, but the deputy minister will, with me, discuss that process, and we will look at whether the current configuration of the role is the configuration that we want to have in the future. The department has lots of competent people in it. We will miss Mr. Barna, and Marj will work very hard in the interim, but I have every confidence that she can handle that job effectively. I am not going to be stampeded into making a hasty choice about either process or individual people.
These are people who oversee a system that employs around 37 000 Manitobans, touches all of our lives on a regular basis and spends over $3 billion a year. I think those kinds of decisions are not best rushed. They are best thought carefully through, but if the member wants an analogue, Ms. Wilgosh was appointed deputy minister, and within a matter of weeks we decided to post that position and have an open competition with open advertising. So we do not sit around, but I am not going to be held to a specific date. I say very soon, and that is as clear as I am going to be.
Mrs. Stefanson: Is the minister saying that he is now looking at potentially changing the structure of his department?
Mr. Sale: Well, Mr. Chairman, in any large organization–and this is an organization that has, as I have just said, 37 000-plus employees in the public sector and a budget of over $3.4 billion–any time you have an opportunity to review the role of a senior person when you are in the process of replacing him, you should take that opportunity.
Organizations need change. The world changes outside, and sometimes you want to shift responsibilities among your senior staff and sometimes you do not. I am not prejudging whether the answer to that question this time is we do or we do not, but we will determine what process to follow in the light of what it is we think that position needs to achieve.
Mr. Barna has been in his position for some time. The department was reorganized in terms of the roles of the various pieces of the department about two years ago. I do not have any feeling that that has to change, but I do not have any feeling that it should not change. So we will look at that question carefully, and we will make what we think to be the best decision. So there is nothing surreptitious or wrong about an organization being conscious about what the opportunities are for its senior officers and asking that question and thinking about it before they fill the new position. So I do not take a position either that I should change the structure or that I should not or that Mr. Barna's successor should do exactly the same job or a somewhat different job, but that is the process that any organization should go through when it is reviewing senior officers and their roles.
Mrs. Stefanson: Again, I am not trying to get at anything, suggest that there is anything sinister going on or anything like that. I am just asking because the minister brought up that when they would be looking at reviewing the position and that would affect how you are going to go forward, whether it is a public posting or an internal posting, and that is all I am getting at. Because you mentioned it, so I thought I would ask.
Just one last question. Is Mr. Barna retiring altogether from government or is he moving to another government department or moving outside government?
Mr. Sale: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Barna is retiring to another province where he is building a house.
Mrs. Stefanson: Unfortunate that we are losing another member to another province, another Manitoban. I think that is unfortunate, but, certainly, we wish Mr. Barna well in his future endeavours.
Moving on, can the
minister indicate the number of medical officers of health in
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, we will get that number for the member as well as a list of where they are appointed. The member probably knows that some of them are full time, some of them are part-time appointments, depending on the workload in the regions and other factors. The total number of people is somewhat different than a full time equivalent, so we will get that information for the member.
Mrs. Stefanson: Can the minister indicate how many vacancies there are in
Mr. Sale: We will get that information for the member.
Mrs. Stefanson: Again, so how many vacancies, and which ones are vacant, the positions that are vacant? That would be helpful.
Can the minister indicate the budget of the Chief Medical Officer of Health?
Mr. Sale: It is going to be awkward answering these questions if the member is hopping around from subappropriation to subappropriation. Can she point to the appropriation she is wishing to discuss at this time?
Mrs. Stefanson: That is fine. We will leave that for right now. We will come back to that, then.
Can the minister indicate what–
Mr. Sale: Just a minute. The specific question the member asked, the total budget of that–
Mrs. Stefanson: The total budget of the Chief Medical Officer of Health.
Mr. Sale: That is in subappropriation 21.5, which is on page 80 of her book,
and it is in line f. The office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, which
includes the
All I am saying to the member is, I do not mind taking the time if we are going to do it this way, but it is really awkward for staff and for me to try and respond to questions that are flipping back and forth through the whole Estimates book.
On a sort of point of process, when we agree to a global discussion, generally what that means in Estimates is that we work through the Estimates book in a relatively orderly way, but we do not prevent the member from going back and asking questions for clarification or from pursuing a line of inquiry that leads them to a different Estimate line. Normally, a global discussion does not mean flipping back and forth to and fro through the Estimates process. We can do that, but it is going to take a lot of time, and it is going to lead to a lot of confusion if we pursue that approach.
Mrs. Stefanson: That is why I said I would come back to the question later, and then the minister decided that he wanted to answer it. I respect that, that is fine, but I had indicated already that we would move on.
Can the minister indicate if there is an overall public health strategy document?
Mr. Sale: I am not sure what the member means by an overall strategy document for public health. There are many, many documents in the Department of Health, including strategic plans and lots of stuff on the Web site. Could the member be a little clearer about that?
Mrs. Stefanson: Is there a public health strategy for documents, say for example,
Mr. Sale: Yes, there is a strategy for
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Mrs. Stefanson: I am just asking if there is an overall strategy for this government
to deal with cases of
Mr. Sale: Well, there is a very elaborate emergency planning documentation for the Department of Health, indeed for all of government. There is a pandemic strategy paper; there are significant SARS protocols, not just SARS, but any infectious disease. There is a lot of education that goes on with infectious and communicable disease prevention staff in our province.
If the member would like us to gather a range of documents that would show the kind of level of detail that we go into with RHAs and Health and emergency preparedness departments, then I would be glad to gather a sample of the kind of documentation that we have. There are large manuals, for example, to deal with various contingencies that happen. So, if that would be helpful for the member, I would be glad to gather a sample of such planning documents.
Mr. Drew Caldwell, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair
Mrs. Stefanson: Yes, and that is exactly what I am looking for. So I would appreciate a copy of the public health strategy documents, specifically for SARS, but if there are other ones as well that the minister is pertaining to or discussing, then I would appreciate seeing those as well. Will the minister endeavour to get that information to us?
Mr. Sale: We will.
Mrs. Stefanson: I would like to move on and just, perhaps, probably, at this point, ask some questions on administration costs.
As I understand, just in general, and perhaps the minister could indicate to me, again, on a global discussion, as to the purpose of regionalization was to streamline administration costs and make the provision of health care services more efficient, but what I see, unfortunately, what has taken place since this government came to power in 1999 is that the administration costs have increased significantly. They have doubled in rural RHAs and, in fact, tripled in Winnipeg, based on the old information that we have.
Certainly, if we look at the information I have, the Brandon Regional Health Authority, the administration costs have doubled since 1999. In Interlake, they are almost two and a half times what they were back in 1999. In NorMan, they have almost doubled. In northeast Manitoba, they have more than doubled. In central Manitoba, they have doubled, and in southeastern Manitoba they have almost doubled as well. I know most of the rural ones, if you add them all together, it is about doubled. In Winnipeg, we know they have gone from $5.6 million, $5.7 million in 1999 to $16.65 million as reported, I believe it was in '03, but we do not have the up-to-date numbers on the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority when it comes to administration costs.
I am wondering if the minister will ensure that the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in future provides these numbers to Manitobans.
Mr. Sale: I have given them that direction this year, that in their annual report they are to disclose a comparable administrative expense number.
While I am answering that question, I would like the member to know that, according to CIHI, we have among the lowest, if not the lowest, admin percentage in the country. I think the number is in the 6.8 or 6.9, CIHI's number, and that also includes some public health expenditures which, in my view, should not be there, but it does. The actual number, I believe, is a little lower, but, maybe even more importantly, the database the department has shows 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Those are the years ending March 31, 2004, so we do not have 2005 yet. In percentage terms, 6.5, 6.8, 6.6, 6.7, that is a very consistent level of administration. The department itself, our administrative budget has actually fallen over the years in terms of the total administrative budget.
Everybody loves to pick on administration and I am no fan of overspending on administration, but if you are going to have efficient, effective, well-managed systems, you have to spend money on administration. Otherwise, you do not have a clue what is going on. You do not have control of your budgets. You do not make good HR decisions. You do not make good IT decisions. In my view, when you compare the Canadian expenditures in this range of 6.5 or 6.6 versus the American expenditures of 18 and 20, I think we get very good value for our administration.
That said, we set a very
aggressive target for
The member talks about taking delight in the recent announcements. I do not take delight in anybody's loss of their job, but I do think it is necessary for us to always look at our administrative expenditures and try to get the very best value we can. The $2-million savings from WRHA alone, without any savings from the hospitals that are independently administered by boards and CEOs, is a pretty significant saving, and not without pain and not without hard work for the organizations.
I think the 6.5, 6.6 percent that has been absolutely consistent over the last four years indicates that admin costs are not spiralling out of control, contrary to what the member says. The recent reductions, I think, indicate that we keep a very tight reign on administrative expenditures. I expect our administrators to deliver a system that performs better and better every year. I think that is a very important perspective. I do not know of any system–and I used to run a small planning agency and then I was ADM of Education–that can administer a complex set of services for less than 6, 7, 8, even as high as 10 percent. In the private sector, administrative costs that are allowed for general budgeting purposes are usually in the 10 percent region, so I think we do very well, Mr. Chairperson.
Mrs. Stefanson: Well, I do not know what to say to that, but I am sure that Manitobans would certainly be interested to hear that this minister believes the doubling of administration costs in rural RHAs and the tripling, and probably even more than that, in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, although we are not privy to those numbers so it is hard to say, but it certainly had tripled over that time frame, I am sure that Manitobans would interested to hear from this minister that to him that is acceptable.
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For the record, I will
say that I do not believe that is acceptable. I do not believe that Manitobans
believe it is acceptable, especially when they are suffering from some of the
problems with respect to doctor shortages and health care professional, nursing
and other health care professional, shortages in our rural areas and in
I think people would be interested to hear that this minister believes their track record on administration costs is acceptable. Again, we certainly do not. Even the WRHA has admitted that their administration costs are obviously too high. They have taken the step to reduce their administration costs. We applaud them for admitting that there is a problem in the increase in admin costs, a significant increase in administration costs in the WRHA. They are starting to do something about it, so we respect that and, certainly, they are going in the right direction. I am happy to see that next year, the minister has asked that they do report the administration costs in their financial statements. We will be happy to see where exactly they are at.
I think because the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has admitted they have a bit of a spending problem when it comes to administration and have endeavoured to go in the right direction, I guess I would ask the Minister of Health today if he will endeavour to talk to the other RHAs, many of whom their administration costs have more than doubled since they came to office. Will he talk to them about reducing their administration costs and following suit with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority?
Mr. Sale: I guess if you are stuck on a particular position, information does
not really help in changing that position, but CIHI from 2000 to 2004, for example, the
This year,
I simply reject the premise which is that these costs are skyrocketing, and indicate to the member that on any kind of normal economics or mathematics, if it is 5.9 in 2000, and it is 5.8 in 2004, then, yes, it has grown because their budgets have grown. Salaries have grown, Xerox costs have grown, phone costs have grown, thanks to MTS going private. There are a number of things that have happened, but in terms of proportional growth of administration, no, it is not up. It is down.
Earlier, the member wanted to tell me about the wonderful independent CIHI and I am giving her the wonderful, independent CIHI numbers. If she does not like them, that is fine, but she cannot claim they are not independent, third-party-verified numbers, although she may want to try to do that.
Mrs. Stefanson: The minister was rejecting the numbers that we gave from CIHI earlier. Now he is quoting CIHI.
Certainly, I would suggest that what we are really talking about here is
sky-high. We are talking about sky-high admin costs. Certainly, people in
Manitoba are concerned about the fact that the administration costs have
doubled since this NDP government took power in the rural RHAs. They have more
than tripled in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. To me that is
unacceptable. That is money that could be well spent in reducing wait-lists in
All I asked was that the minister perhaps talk with the RHAs, some of the rural RHAs and some of the other RHAs into streamlining their budget as the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has, but, obviously, he does not see that that is something he should be doing, because he does not see it as a problem. I guess that is the difference between them and us. They think it is fine, we do not.
Mr. Chairperson in the
Chair
I will move on and ask again,
we have asked this time and time again. Well, actually my predecessor, the
Member for Charleswood (Mrs. Driedger), has asked several times We have called
upon the minister to review regionalization. When the previous government was
in, they had given a five-year timeframe I believe, at which time they would
have conducted a review in regionalization. I think in any new system that is
put in place, it is important that we do put reviews in place from time to time
to make sure we are going in the right direction and in this case, delivering
health care services in
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, before I comment on that I would just like to correct the member's statements. Earlier on, I simply provided information from CIHI because I believe it to be accurate. In regard to total expenditures on health care in Manitoba in the private, public sectors, and breaking it down between provincial, federal and sectors in the public side and of course, private is private. The numbers I quoted were CIHI numbers which I approve of. Far from what she said about my view of CIHI, I believe it is a useful organization that has evolved into providing, in the main, pretty helpful information to Canadians about their health care system. That was the source also of the numbers that I was giving her on administration costs.
In terms of the regional
system, when we formed government, we immediately amalgamated the two
authorities in
Secondly, a year and a
half ago, we reviewed the situation in western
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To give the member another example, a couple of years back, we established Diagnostics Services of Manitoba, DSM Manitoba to take responsibility for our lab and radiology systems across the province so that we would be providing an integrated approach to those very costly pieces of equipment and very highly trained staff who operate them. That was a decision based on a review of the future of diagnostic and laboratory services across our province.
More recently, we are in the process of developing E-Health Manitoba, which takes an overall enterprise level responsibility for our information technology and our information technology decisions on an enterprise level, a system-wide level, so that we can maximize our purchasing power, so that when we buy a system, we buy a system that will suit the province, and we have significant buying power to lever the best possible deal in both the purchase and in the support of that system. So we are in, I would say, a fairly ongoing process, a review of the organization's roles.
I just say to the member that every jurisdiction in Canada, without fail or without exception, except Ontario, has moved to a regional health delivery model. I was meeting last week with my colleague from Ontario, and he was bemoaning the fact that the previous government there had not put a regional health system in place because they have so little capacity now to be able to plan and administer this enormous system that they have in Ontario, $50-something billion. They wish very much that they had a regional capacity.
So I think the notion of regionally planning and administering services is sound. The specific roles that each region would carry versus roles that Manitoba Health might carry, or a collaboration between the regions and Manitoba Health, I think, should always be reviewed from time to time to see whether the split between central and regional responsibilities is appropriate and meets the needs of everybody. That is what we have done with, as I said, diagnostic services, E-Health Manitoba. A number of our central services, such as our disease surveillance services, are a collaboration between regions and the centre, but the fundamental model of regional planning and delivery, I think, is a sound model. It is just that you should never wedge yourself to something forever without reviewing it and being willing to change it when circumstances require.
Every jurisdiction in Canada except Ontario has a regional health delivery system of one kind or another, some larger regions in some areas. Some have gone to very large regions, indeed. Some have stayed with regions more the size that we use.
Mr. Cliff Cullen (Turtle Mountain): Just to follow up on the minister's comments, then, there is no overall review in the offing in terms of assessing whether there will be changes to any of the RHAs in terms of size, either becoming larger or smaller?
Mr. Sale: The member is correct. There is no overall review of the whole system in the offing. That said, we are working with different pieces of it on issues of appropriate responsibility. For example, it is very hard to conceive of in the member's own area how you can think about Brandon without thinking about the Assiniboine region, or how you can think about the Assiniboine region without thinking about Brandon, because they are incredibly interdependent. Approximately 44 percent of the patients seen in the Brandon RHA are from outside, most of them from the Assiniboine Health Authority. In terms of patient days in hospital, if my memory serves me, about 30 percent of the patient days in the Brandon Regional Health Centre itself come from patients outside Brandon.
So, if you are thinking about diagnostic equipment, if you are thinking about specialists, thinking about long-term care, thinking about rehab, it is very hard to do that without having a view of that whole area including the Assiniboine and the Brandon systems. For that reason, and I am sure the member knows this, we have cross-appointments between the two boards so that they talk to each other at a formal level. The chairs are cross-appointed, and there is a great deal of collaboration between the CEOs of the two authorities. I think that can only be for the better.
So the answer is, no, we are not doing a mega-review, but, yes, we are continuing to work within the existing regions to review roles and responsibilities and see what changing circumstances require in terms of changing models of organization.
Mr. Cullen: I appreciate the minister's response. He did bring up the issue of the directors and board of directors from the RHAs. Would the minister be able to provide us a list of those directors and also the names of the directors, and, as well, from what area of the province those directors reside, whether or not they actually reside in the particular region they are part of?
Mr. Sale: Yes, Mr. Chairman, we will get that list for you.
Mr. Cullen: Further to the budgetary process for the respective RHAs, I just want to get a bit of a feel for how the budget is prepared and once the budget is forwarded, I take it that it is forwarded to the minister's office for his approval. Could you just confirm how that particular process works in terms of the ongoing budget?
Mr. Sale: Well, Mr. Chairman, the Estimates cycle is almost like a perpetual motion machine. We will presumably approve these Estimates sometime in the next couple months, provincially, and we have already begun next year's Estimates process in the department. Treasury Board has called for proposals and information, so it is, really, a rolling annual process in government. It heats up in October, November, December when the detailed submissions from departments come in. This, by the way, has been the case since time immemorial. It was the case in the 1980s when I worked in Finance and it is the case today. It has not changed.
That is the annual cycle.
We give an overview of the department's budget to the RHAs. We gave this
year's, I think, in early March to the RHAs saying here is our picture after we
had the budget in the House. We then went over it in some significant detail
with the chairs and CEOs of the RHAs at a large meeting hear in
We then give them, roughly now, a target for next year's planning so that, sometime in April, they get a target for next year saying–and, usually, we try to give them a multi-year target, in fact, so they can do multi-year budgeting–okay, for the next three years, let me use a number; you can get 3 percent. You can count on a 3% increase.
So look at your expenditures. Tell us how you can live within that. Tell us what the capital needs are you think you have. Give us a prioritized list of your capital needs, and if you have some particular issues, if there is an infectious disease issue, or if there is a particular crisis around, I do not know, whatever, seniors, or you have got a hospital that suddenly has got a problem for some reason that really needs a big capital infusion.
So what are the big things that are coming at your region? We ask them to prioritize those capital expenditures and then to give us their shot at what this expenditure level, 3 percent, as we are saying as an example, would mean for their region.
Heather and her staff review all of those budgets in great detail. I do not. I do not consider myself competent to be able to review a detailed hospital budget. I am stuck at the level of saying, "What has the pie got in it, and how do we share it out?" We then try and do the best possible job we can in apportioning the available dollars to the priorities from the regions.
Of course, these change up and down, so for a couple of years, northeast might get a larger increase than, say, southwest, and that pattern will shift, but each RHA is reviewed individually. There is no averaging across, but we have to then allocate the available dollars, and so somebody is going to get less and somebody is going to get more. We just try to do our best to be fair in that.
The process is the government process rolls yearly inside the department. We then roll out a target to the RHAs who, together with their boards and their senior staff, work up a budget within the target. They give that to Heather's area and say, "Here is what that would mean for us," and, usually, "Here is why we need more," and then we struggle with that around what we are given by Cabinet to live within.
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It is that kind of rational process on one level, and then allocating scarce resources on another level. It is kind of a two-level thing. I do not know if that helps the member to know how we go about it, but that is roughly it.
Mr. Cullen: So, at the end of the year when, and I use an example of the Assiniboine RHA, they are expecting to be in a deficit position at the end of the year, how does that work in the process? How will that million dollars plus be, where will that money come from?
Mr. Sale: Well, Mr. Chairman, it has worked differently under different governments and differently from year to year. Sometimes governments have said to RHAs or to hospitals before they were RHAs, "You have a deficit. That is your problem. We are not eating it. You have got to manage within the budget that you were given. End of story." Sometimes you recognize that the deficit occurred because of circumstances that they had absolutely no control over. So, in those cases, usually the government says, "Okay, we will make your deficit whole in your budget for next year, but do not do it again."
In the case of our annual rolling process, we ask for the Estimates of the year-end position that RHAs will have early in the beginning of the year, January, February. So we ask them to give us as accurately as possible, where they think they are really going to end up. Then we look at the causes of that surplus or deficit, and we adjust their next year's budget, that is the budget for '05-06, taking into account the surplus or the deficit of that RHA, but there is no fixed rule. Sometimes it is pretty clear that the RHA really could not control their expenditure. It was not something they could do anything about. Sometimes they could. So our staff is in pretty constant contact with the RHAs, and they get a pretty good sense of who is working hard to manage their budgets, and who is maybe not putting out the same level of effort. So we try to recognize deficits as best we can, where they are incurred in good faith, but we sure challenge our RHAs to live within what is available because we do not have any more money. So, when we eat their deficit, we are eating it out of somebody else's deficit, so we sure want to reward and support good management.
I just would tell the
member that in the main, in
Mr. Cullen: Getting back to the administrations costs then, each RHA, then, would provide or budget their own administration costs. Is that how the process would work? Then they would be responsible for attaining that budget at the end of the year.
Mr. Sale: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Each RHA has to submit a budget that includes its entire expenditures and identifies according to our management information systems requirements their admin costs, then they report on them, and they have to be accountable for that. As I said earlier, pretty consistently, according to the CIHI information that we have, those costs have been very stable as a proportion of their budget and, obviously, as budgets have increased, administrative costs tend to go up more or less in line with the budget because they have to buy computers and phone systems and pay the phone bill and the hydro bill and all of those things that have increased, plus salaries tend, also, to move up more or less in line with overall expenditures. So increases have been experienced, but, as a percentage of budget, it has been incredibly stable. I am actually really surprised how stable it has been, slightly trending downward.
Mr. Cullen: Yes, I know within the Assiniboine RHA there certainly have been a
lot of cutbacks in terms of some of the operational side of things. I know
staff are being encouraged to cut back as much as they can in terms of very
small items and cut costs wherever they can. I know staff is being urged to cut
back where they can, and at the same time,
Mr. Sale: Well, first of all, I did quote numbers earlier that indicated from
2000 to 2004, five years, the
I would have to ask Penny Sorensen, who is the CEO, for the job descriptions but, generally speaking, decision support means people who are doing analysis of the needs for, let us say, a surgery program or an increased medical program of one kind or another. They would be able to analyze data, look at costs and provide information to the board through their CEO as to whether or not a particular decision is a wise decision from a cost benefit point of view or from a service demand point of view or whatever. That is generally what decision support people do. If the member wishes the position descriptions, we can ask the CEO to make those available.
Mr. Cullen: Thank you, I think that would be a very worthwhile endeavour.
Mr. Sale: If I could just give information to the member about Assiniboine's budget. In 1997-98, which was the year that regionalization essentially started, their budget was 61.4 million. In the 2004-2005 year, the budget is 95.2 million. There has been roughly a 50% growth in the budget in terms of that period of time.
All regions, I think, particularly in the late nineties were really stretched. There is no question that budgets were tight. I think if there had been reductions in service, it is not because there had been reductions in budget. In fact, the budget has grown by 50 percent during that period of time. I think if you talk to any health administrator, they will always tell you they could sure use another 50,000 or 100,000 or whatever, and that is true of all of us. The budget has grown by 50 percent to Assiniboine region, a little more than 50 percent, fractionally more.
Mr. Cullen: Yes, getting back to the staff, as part of this classification and part of the qualifications, the salary is indicated as per RHA salary scale. Does each RHA establish their own salary scale? Is that something we see similar across the province?
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, for out of scope administration positions, the answer is yes. They do establish their own. Now, they are in a competitive field so they do not have unfettered ability. Every time they make an administrative decision, it impacts their whole budget.
I do not expect these positions are paid wildly differently, but the answer to the question is the board of the RHA determines its administrative position salary scales probably on recommendation from the CEO. Yes, they do have that authority and they use it.
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Mr. Cullen: I wonder if the minister is aware of where we are at, in terms of human resources and any shortages we are short of in terms of people. I am particularly concerned about western Manitoba and where we are in terms of enough staff. Are we short of staff? Are there a lot of vacancies in terms of our human resources?
Mr. Sale: This is a huge subject that could occupy a book, I guess. We have in Canada, as the member knows from questions in the House, a structural shortage of physicians and, within that, of many specialists. The roots of that are, as has been said many times, decisions to cut back medical college enrolment, not just here but everywhere in Canada, I guess, in response to a report which also included strong recommendations to increase the training of nurse practitioners. Unfortunately, governments took the decrease but did not do the increase.
So we had a structural shortage of doctors. We had a structural shortage of nurses. The previous government ended the training program for lab techs, radiology techs, and so we have a shortage in that area. That program has been reinstated, I believe.
We did have a tremendous
shortage of nurses. The member may know, I am not sure whether he knows, but in
the year in which we formed government there were only 210 nurses graduated in
So, given that we have about 13 000 nurses in our workforce, you can see that graduating 210 is not even going to begin to deal with replacement, let alone the shortage that we have. That is why my predecessor re-established the RN program, in the face of significant opposition, by the way, and expanded the BN program at the university, expanded the Northern Nurses Training Program.
This year, 2004, we graduated 713 nurses, but we are still playing catch-up for the fact that in the late 1990s there were five years where we graduated under 300: 296, 284, 287, 210 and 213. So, in those five years, we were way under replacement for the nurses who were retiring or, in fact, in the nineties leaving, because of inadequate salaries and crappy working conditions.
It is going to take a number of years at this level of 713 or higher to replace what we lost. So we still have nursing vacancies, but we are in a whole lot stronger position. Our CEOs of hospitals are telling me that the number of shifts where they have to use overtime has fallen dramatically, and the number of shifts where they are calling in the private nurse companies, agencies, has also fallen dramatically. So we are catching up, but we have got a ways to go.
In terms of doctors, my
most recent numbers indicate that we have gained 160 doctors since 1999, having
lost 116 during the nineties. That said, about half of graduating doctors today
are women, which is great, but women practise differently than men do as
physicians. They are not prepared to practise 70 hours a week or 60 hours a
week even. The average physician in
So we still have
shortages of physicians in urban and
rural
In terms of our nuclear
medicine techs who are the people who run the MRIs in particular and bone
density scanning, unfortunately, that program was cancelled in
All across, in fact, it
is not just
What we are trying to do, and I think we are in some ways in the lead in this area, we are not perhaps at the very top, but we are making good progress by approving the extended practice nurse regulations, which were developed collegially between the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the pharmacists and the Manitoba Association of Registered Nurses. Those three bodies agreed together on what an extended practice nursing registry should be, and how you should get on it.
I think that is going to, in the longer run, and by longer run I mean probably three or four years, make maybe one of the biggest differences of anything we have done. Nurses are incredibly competent, but they have generally not been allowed to practice up to the scope of their competencies. They have always been under medical supervision and, in the last few years, we have some places where, by delegation, we have given nurses some authority to do things they are capable of doing, but they do not have the right in law until now, which they do have now.
If they meet the skill test to go on the college's registry as a, let us say, emergency room nurse with skills to diagnose and treat minor injuries and to know when to refer, then they will be able to work in an ER, order diagnostic tests, order pain medication, order drugs and treat patients, not totally independently, but without the direct supervision of a doctor. All of us will remember times when we have had people complain to us that they were in the ER and they got seen by the doctor or the nurse, but they had to wait because somebody had to approve a drug prescription or a pain prescription.
This would eliminate that problem. That is why we are very keen to get this registry up and running so that we can have midwives, people who are doing pre and postnatal work that are not necessarily midwives, trauma nurses, ER nurses, nurse practitioners, and use those skills. Where we are going to make the most gains is by moving into a more collaborative practice model using a broader range of professionals and extending our physicians' capacities by doing that, but the shortage is not going to go away in a year or two.
We are doing better, and 160 is not a small number of doctors to be better than we were in '99, but there are still shortages, and there are going to be shortages for the next while. That is true. As I was meeting with my colleagues recently, health ministers across the country, they all had exactly the same story. That is where we are at.
Mr. Cullen: I do appreciate the minister's comments. I hope some of the initiatives undertaken through the nurses, nurse practitioners and whatnot may benefit some of the rural communities down the road as well.
In terms of bringing doctors on side, recruitment, is there an overall strategy within the department, or is each RHA really responsible for their own recruitment?
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Mr. Sale: There is a physician recruitment office that is part of the Regional Health Authorities of Manitoba, RHAM, that helps to provide regions with more capacity for recruiting physicians. Regions are responsible for identifying their shortages and for making efforts to recruit to those shortages, we provide, through our department. The assistant deputy minister of the area is Bev Ann Murray, and our physician recruitment lead is Dr. Chris Burnett, who is himself a physician who practises part-time and resources that office part time. We also have the office of Rural and Northern Medicine, headquartered in Dauphin, which assists with recruitment.
I am of the view that we can do a better job in this area by a higher level of co-ordination. So I am looking forward to some advice from the department as to how to strengthen this process, because I think we can make it easier for physicians to identify opportunities in Manitoba if we work together a little more closely. It is an area where I think we can do better.
Mr. Cullen: Mr. Chairman, I guess over the last year or two there has been more and more of an onus on local communities to get into the recruitment business. Does the department agree that the local communities should be assisting financially with that recruitment process?
Mr. Sale: I think that there has always been a recognition that physicians are a very valuable resource for any community but, particularly, I guess, in the case of smaller communities, it is even more obvious. I think, from a positive point of view, if a community, take whatever community you want, Treherne or Birtle or wherever, is positively engaged and welcomes people who come for interviews, looking at their community and puts the strongest case for why this is a great place to live and why we will make you very welcome, I think recruiting a doctor to a community is not unlike recruiting anybody into a very important position. Generally, you want to put your best foot forward and welcome them with a variety of ways that we can all do, whether it is friendship circles or whether it is the curling club, or whatever it is.
I think there is a role for the local community in making it plain to people who might consider practising there that they would be very welcome and that they would be valued members of the community. How communities choose to express that is, certainly, tremendously varied across the province. There is certainly no one dominant model of how that works, but I think the member probably knows if you are trying to get somebody to come and invest their skills in your community you want to make them feel welcome and their family welcome and if they have kids you want to make sure they get a good introduction to the school system and all those other things.
Different communities do it differently, and I do not think I can comment on that huge range of variability that is out there.
Mr. Cullen: Again, I appreciate the minister's comments. I know in some instances the RHA has been actually sending an invoice to some of the local towns or municipalities. Is this going to become a customary procedure throughout Manitoba?
Mr. Sale: Let me just clarify. Are you referring to the
Mr. Cullen: In this specific case, yes. I am just wondering if it is happening in other RHAs as well, or if it will continue in the Assiniboine RHA.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, we will attempt to get information about that. I am not aware of that practice, but I have only been in the department for five months, so we will attempt to find out more about that and get back to the member.
Mr. Cullen: In particular, I am going to get back to the Assiniboine RHA again. I know the Board of Directors has put a proposal forward to the minister, I believe it is on the minister's desk, and I believe the nature of that proposal is to look at various facilities and how their future may change.
I am just wondering if the minister is prepared to share the nature of that report, or if he could tell us when we could expect some answers to that proposal that has been put forth by the ARHA.
Mr. Sale: I do not, in fact, have their final report on my desk. I have not
received it yet. I am aware of the work that they have been doing over the
last, I guess, particularly the last year and a bit, but it is the product of
two things. My predecessor, about two years ago, or a little more, asked for an
independent review of the position issue in rural
The ARHA did undertake a planning exercise to look at, as best they could, the current and future demographics of their region, population movement in the region, the kinds of health needs there are in the region, the facilities, in terms of their age and structure, and whether they were associated with a personal care home or not, whether they had a primary care clinic or not. To my knowledge, the current work of the board is being workshopped in various communities, I think, virtually as we speak. As far as I know, they are beginning to meet with each of their communities. I do not know how many meetings there have been to date, but they are meeting and discussing with them their sense of the criteria that they might use in future decision making.
I think they are trying to approach this from an evidence base, as I have been told, to say what the reasonable guidelines are you might use for making a decision about how you allocate your resources. What is happening with the population? Is it growing or declining? How far is it between adjacent ERs or adjacent acute care facilities? In other words, as an organization, what would be the criteria we would use for making those difficult decisions in the future?
My understanding is that they are workshopping that information currently. I expect when they finish that, they will have feedback and, hopefully, incorporate that into their report. At some point, and I do not know whether that is later this spring or in the early summer but, at some point, they will then send me their final report with that information and those criteria included in it, but I do not have a final report from them at this time.
Mr. Cullen: Just to confirm, at this point in time, you have not received the report from the RHA board of directors, Assiniboine RHA board of directors.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairman, what the member said, he assumed I had on my desk their report. What I have said to him is that I am well aware that they have been working on a report. I met with their board, talked with their chair and our staff has certainly talked with and worked with their staff, so I am aware of the direction they are taking, but I do not have a final report from them in my possession. As far as I know, there is not a final report at this time. I believe, I am not sure whether the member would know, but I believe there have been community meetings as recent as last week, workshopping with community groups. I do not know whether the groups included locally elected officials, or whether it was health advisory groups. I do not know who was at these meetings, but I am aware that there have been meetings within the last couple of weeks in some communities. I do not know how many and I do not know what their schedule is for the remainder of their communities.
* (17:20)
Okay. Staff, thank you.
Staff is going to tell me. The note is that the CEO and executive team will
travel across the region, meeting with staff and stakeholders, including
elected community officials–I was not sure about that–in early April. This will
comprise some 60 meetings in total with different groups. They have recently
met on March 15 with seven representatives of some of the seven First-Nations
communities in the southwest and western areas of
Mr. Cullen: Would the minister be prepared to comment on some of the direction that his understanding would be of where the board wants to go in this point in time in terms of, again, we are thinking of, worst case, the closure of acute care facilities within the RHA?
Mr. Sale: I think that it is, first of all, for them to do that, not for me. I can say that in the meetings that I have had, I have been very impressed with their dogged commitment to try and maintain and in fact improve services, and some of the proposals that I think they are working on would strengthen services, improve access.
As the College of Physicians and Surgeons has repeatedly said, you just cannot get very many doctors who are willing to do a one-in-two rotation on every second day for 24 hours. It plays hell with family life, and it means that if anybody gets sick, you are done, because you have got to be on permanently, then, until the sickness is over. It is very hard to get continuing medical education in that kind of rotation.
Given small populations,
there is not work for three or four doctors in a community of that size. In
fact, southwest
The same is true of nurses. When you have a hospital that is down to its, you know, it has got three or four patients in it, it is down to one charge nurse. If that nurse gets sick, you are sunk. If you have got a hospital with two physicians and one gets pregnant, you are sunk.
Those are the
non-sustainable models that we have got out there. Now, they are being
sustained at this point by heroics and by continuously recruiting, but it is
not a very good way to try and plan a future. That is what they are struggling
with and I respect the work they are trying to do. It is not easy work for all
of the reasons that all of us know. I grew up in a small town too, and your
hospital is pretty important. The reality is that southern
I will give the member a
current, real-world example. I will not tell him the hospital. It is a very
small hospital in another region. The lab tech got seriously sick. It did not
matter if they got a doctor there, an ER, they cannot do any blood work. So
there is not much sense saying you are open in an ER if you cannot even run a
hemoglobin check. That is how fragile these little hospitals are. In that case,
they have a dedicated physician, and they have very good nurse dedication, but,
out of the blue, the lab tech gets seriously ill. That is the real world of
trying to deal with rural health care in all parts of
Mr. Cullen: In our experience in my local area, we have found, I guess I will use the term cluster model has worked fairly well. What we have is a group of hospitals, three or four in particular, that are sharing resources. They are sharing doctors. They are sharing lab techs. It seems to work out quite well. I am hoping that something that we can certainly look forward to helping us out down the road.
Getting back to a comment
you made earlier, it was in regard to the independent study about doctors in
rural
Mr. Sale: I will have to find out. I know that the College of Physicians and Surgeons commented on it, but I do not know whether it was released or not. Frankly, I have not reviewed that report. We will get back to the member on that question. I cannot see any reason why it would not be, but I do not know whether it was or not.
Mr. Cullen: I would appreciate that. Any time frame when you might be able to get that to the committee?
Mr. Sale: We will find out whether it has been publicly released and where it is at.
Mr. Cullen: Just getting back to kind of a global question, I am inquiring about the funding that we receive directly to Manitoba Health from the federal government. I am wondering just what amount of money has been allocated for this budget year and, maybe, if you have the numbers, going forward as well, if you are able to get your hands on those numbers for us.
Mr. Sale: The money coming from
If you look at the top box, that is Manitoba's share and the bottom box is Canada as a whole under the health accords. The member will see, if we start with '03-04, that is two years back, we received–this, if I can just say, we are going to run out of time in a couple of minutes so I will have to come back to this tomorrow, I guess, but you will be able to see some of the complexity in trying to figure out the puts and takes with federal funding.
In '03-04, you had a base transfer of 449 and then a one-timer that was at that time called the health renewal transfer or something. I cannot remember what HRT stood for; 37 million for a total of 486. In '04-05, we got a bunch of new funds that are either one-time or short-term. So $37 million in the Romanow gap number that goes to 73 this year and then ends, which is not great news. Homecare and catastrophic drugs top up a one-time $18 million this year. Wait time reductions fund is flat-lined until it goes down in 2009-2010.
You see that each year the number at the bottom of 594, 716, 779 and so forth, is made up of a whole bunch of other numbers, some of which start and end in one year. Some of them go over three or four years, and some are continuous in terms of their growth through the whole time. In spite of all the rhetoric about increase, you can see that this agreement was front-end loaded, so that in '04-05 you got a big increase, '05-06 a significant increase, and then it drops right off to 8.7, 5.7, 3.0, 4.3, and then climbs back if, indeed, it continues this way, to 5.9 on average.
That brings the federal funding up to about 20 percent of our total expenditures. I would be glad to try and answer more questions on this at another date.
Mr. Chairperson: The hour being 5:30 p.m., committee rise.
* (14:50)
Madam Chairperson (Bonnie Korzeniowski): Good afternoon. This section of the Committee of Supply we will be considering the Estimates of Family Services and Housing. The floor is now open for questions.
Hon. Christine Melnick (Minister of Family Services and Housing): Yes, I just wanted to read a correction into the record. This deals with the number of foster children that may be placed in a foster home, the number of children under certain ages who may reside in the home, and the total number of dependent residents. These limits, as taken from the foster home licensing regulation, are as follows:
7(1), subject to this section:
a foster home may be licensed by a licensing agency to provide care and supervision for not more than four children.
7(3), a licensing agency may license a foster home to provide
residential care and supervision for more than four foster children where all
the foster children in the foster home are siblings.
7(4), a licensing agency shall not provide care and supervision in the foster home for more than a total of seven persons from the following classes of persons unless the mandating authority approves otherwise: (a) children, including foster children; and (b) adults requiring residential care and supervision.
Finally, 7(5), of the children referred to in clause 4(a), no more than two can be infants and no more than three can be under five years of age unless the mandating authority approves otherwise.
Mrs. Mavis Taillieu (Morris): Can we now proceed to the resolutions?
Madam Chairperson: Resolution 9.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $207,039,900 for Family Services and Housing, Employment, Income and Housing, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 2006.
Resolution agreed to.
Resolution 9.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $372,279,300 for Family Services and Housing, Services for Persons with Disabilities, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 2006.
Resolution agreed to.
Resolution 9.4: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $245,356,700 for Family Services and Housing, Child and Family Services, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 2006.
Resolution agreed to.
Resolution 9.5: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $127,934,700 for Family Services and Housing, Community Service Delivery, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 2006.
Resolution agreed to.
Resolution 9.6: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $5,534,000 for Family Services and Housing, Cost Related to Capital Assets, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 2006.
Resolution agreed to.
The last item to be considered for the Estimates of the Department of Family Services and Housing is item 1(a), Minister's Salary, $29,400 contained in Resolution 9.1. At this point we request that the minister's staff leave the table for the consideration of this item.
Mrs. Taillieu: Thank you, Madam Chair. [interjection] No. There have been several reasons.
First of all, in over 30 incidents since this minister has been the Minister of Family Services and Housing she has not answered questions posed to her in the House, but rather has gone on some rant or other or some other unrelated topic which has nothing to do with the question, and this is not accountable, transparent government. The government and this minister have a responsibility to answer questions which we ask on behalf of all Manitobans.
The decision to put $40 million into MDC goes against all senses of what is right. Vulnerable people were not put on this earth to create jobs for people. They deserve the respect, dignity and privacy afforded to all people, the right to live in their own homes and make their own decisions. The decision to put this $40 million into bricks and mortar flies in the face of the world-wide movement to keep vulnerable people in their homes, in their communities and near their loved ones.
It is clear from these Estimates processes that the minister is not familiar with her department, as she has, on almost every question, had to consult with her staff. This, of course, is a tactic also to burn up time so fewer questions can be asked, but really it makes the minister look very, very uninformed.
The Department of Family Services is a department in chaos. We have, what, four Auditor General investigations? There is a scandal at Hydra House where there is $1.5 million not accounted for, and this government has not taken steps to recover that money. The board at Osborne House resigned en masse, certainly signifying something wrong there. The Aiyawin Corporation, more money missing. We will be waiting for the Auditor General's report on that. Devolution is leaving many social workers scared for the future care of children in our province and, not to mention, their own jobs.
For these reasons and more, Madam Chair, I move, seconded by the Member for Minnedosa (Mrs. Rowat), that the minister's salary be reduced to $1.
* (15:00)
Madam Chairperson: It has been moved by the Member for Morris (Mrs. Taillieu) that the minister's salary be reduced to $1.
The motion is in order, and it is debatable. Is there anyone wishing to speak?
Ms. Melnick: Certainly, I can speak to several of the points raised by the member.
When we talk about the devolution process, this is a process that has been a long time in coming and that has been five years in the planning. While we understand that change can be very difficult for people, we also know that great care has been taken by the Child and Family Services to ensure that people who were employed before December 2000 received a letter of employment. Several people who joined the department after that time have been made permanent. My estimates are that there will be under, say, 40 people, many of whom are term employees who have come on very recently to the department, may be either leaving the department, but an effort is also being made to have the people stay in other areas of the department.
When we talk about the Manitoba Development Centre, I think that we have to realize that there are needs on a very individual basis, for individual people, and that while community living is certainly a preference for many people, MDC is considered to be home for a lot of the residents who are still there.
Our record on community living speaks for itself. We have increased the budget to $80 million which is a 130% increase since 1999. Certainly, it was our government that brought in the Welcome Home initiative during the eighties which was the first initiative of its kind. We have also undertaken to accelerate the pace of transition from MDC into the community, but based on the individual's readiness to move into the community, based on the readiness of the community to accept individuals into their support network.
I think, too, that we have to recognize that a lot of the folks who are in MDC face often multiple challenges. There are many dual diagnoses, and there is within MDC a cornucopia of services that are available to individuals. Within MDC there is 24-7 care. As I may have mentioned, I do not think in this discussion I have, two thirds of the individuals at MDC have been living there for, I believe, over 30 years. I think that where there is commitment to community living, we also need to understand that we have to ensure that services for individuals are there whatever their needs may be.
Perhaps I shall just stop
my comments there. My closing comment would be a thank you to staff for all the
effort that they put in. While there was concern from the opposition, it may
have made me look incompetent. Certainly, that is not the case. I consider this
a first-line staff, a group of very dedicated professionals who have been long
in this area of service to the people of
As I tell the department,
there are a million great things that happen every day in
Madam Chairperson: The motion moved by the member from Morris is that the minister's salary be reduced to $1.
Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
Some Honourable Members: Yes.
Some Honourable Members: No.
Voice Vote
Madam Chairperson: All those in favour of the motion, please say yea.
Some Honourable Members: Yea.
Madam Chairperson: All those opposed to the motion, please say nay.
Some Honourable Members: Nay.
Madam Chairperson: In my opinion, the Nays have it.
Formal Vote
Mrs. Taillieu: I request a recorded vote in the House.
Madam Chairperson: Does the honourable member have support of another member?
An Honourable Member: Yes.
Madam Chairperson: The committee will now recess in order to proceed to the Chamber for a counted vote.
This section is now recessed.
The committee recessed at 3:06 p.m.
________
The Committee resumed at 3:27 p.m.
Madam Chairperson: The committee will now come back to order.
Resolution 9.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $11,133,800 for Family Services and Housing, Administration and Finance, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 2006.
Resolution agreed to.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
Meadows West is a
beautiful area of the constituency which I represent. There is a good number of
people and approximately about 950-plus homes. Last year, I had a public
meeting in which we had over 60 people that showed up, at least 40 different
residents, and just to get a sense in terms of what they feel, it is
interesting more than half of the people that were there had been living in the
community for over 17 years. The community itself really started to be
developed in the early eighties, just to give you a sense of it. There have
been expectations, a bit of a pent-up demand for housing in that area of the
city. In fact, both of my neighbours on either side of me are now moving into
the new Meadows West ,just across
I have had opportunity in the past to have discussions with the minister and she has referred me to MHRC on occasion and I do appreciate the contact. I do want to express some of the concerns that were expressed to me at any meeting that I had. One of the interesting questions that I had put forward, and these are just people that took the time to respond to some specific questions that I had, one of the questions I had asked was do you see Meadows West as being your future home over the next number of years? Out of 40 people that responded, 36 of them said yes, this is where they want to be able to continue to live.
* (15:30)
There was concern in regard to retail stores. I think that, again, they want to make sure that the commercial development, predominantly, is not going to be mixed into residential development. We had talked about the possible expansion and, technically, especially if you include the private development, you could see somewhere in the neighbourhood of close to a thousand homes being built. It is very encouraging. We found that a vast majority had indicated that that would be a good thing. When we say a vast majority, 36 out of 40 is a good thing. There was a great deal of concern in regard to the type of housing that would be built. Again, a good, solid majority of people want to see the single detached homes being built as concern in regard to the higher density that was expressed.
I had posed a question. "What sort of facilities would they like to see?" The only reason why I am going to list off some of these is just to emphasize that this is really the last real good opportunity we have at providing a jewel in that area of the city. I think it is really important that we take it into consideration. Some of the ideas that came about were things like a walking park, education facilities, of course, a skateboard park, tennis. You can see all sorts of physical activity.
I sub in on the Healthy Living Task Force and I was really encouraged just to hear some of these positive things that they would like to be able to see, a community centre. They have been sharing the Tyndall Park Community Centre virtually since its inception. Meadows West does not have a community centre. Again, racquetball, green space, parks, outdoor ice rink.
One of the things that
was really emphasized were the roads of
The reason why I raise this today with the minister is I want her to believe that I have a very genuine interest in wanting to make sure what happens there is in the best interests of the community and to advocate that interest. I would ask the minister, at this point, if she can give me some sort of an update as to what is happening with the MHRC land that is just north of Old Commonwealth Path, and what would she advise that I do to ensure that these interests are, in fact, being protected?
Ms. Melnick: Certainly, I can assure the member from
We have also been watching the private sector developments that you referred to early in your comments. When we look at housing development, we are focused on how the development happens, and this certainly has been a contiguous development. As we see there is a shortage of housing throughout the city of Winnipeg, we will keep this in mind, as well as any of the other land banks and open spaces that may be available for development, of course, including our infill housing and our renovation, rehab and building of houses within the inner city. I would like to thank the member very much for sharing the information of the meeting that he had, when he had it, and then also sharing it today.
Mr. Jack Reimer
(Southdale): Again, along the same line of
questioning that the member from
Ms. Melnick: Is the area that you are referring to the Fraipont ands? Okay, as of
yet, we have not entered into any negotiations, but we are certainly open to
any discussion. If any offers came forward not only for Fraipont but also the
area that the member from
Mr. Reimer: As has been mentioned by the Homebuilders Association here in
Ms. Melnick: None that I am aware of.
Mr. Reimer: I am assuming, then, that the department may be looking at or is receptive to possibly looking at some sort of joint development agreement similar to the Royalwood area with the developer in that area for the development of the Fraipont area.
Ms. Melnick: Well, again, with all areas around the city looking at the housing shortages, if a group wanted to come forward to begin a discussion, we would certainly be interested in hearing it.
Madam Chairperson: Resolution 9.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $11,133,800 for Family Services and Housing, Administration and Finance, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 2006.
Resolution agreed to.
Madam Chairperson: This completes the Estimates of the Department of Family Services and Housing.
The next set of Estimates that will be considered by this section of the Committee of Supply are the Estimates of the Department of Advanced Education and Training. Shall we briefly recess to allow the minister and the critics the opportunity to prepare for the commencement of the next set of Estimates?
An Honourable Member: Okay.
Madam Chairperson: We will recess for ten minutes.
The committee recessed at
3:37 p.m.
________
The committee resumed at3:38 p.m.
ADVANCED
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Doug Martindale): 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 Advanced Education and Training.
Does the honourable Minister of Advanced Education and Training have an opening statement?
Hon. Diane McGifford (Minister of Advanced Education and Training): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would not so much say I have an opening statement as that I have some points I want to make. I just discussed it with my critic, and I think we have agreed that we will be very brief in these introductory remarks. However, I do want to highlight some of our achievements over the past year.
Let me start with the Council on Post-Secondary Education, which deals directly with universities and colleges in the province. We are, of course, very pleased and delighted with the development of the University College of the North, which means the beginning of new university programs that can be offered this fall. We are also pleased with the development of linkages and partnerships between University College of the North, or UCN as we usually refer to it, and Campus Manitoba, which will increase the number of courses available in the North through this linkage.
There have been continued increases in enrolment in post-secondary education, and I am pleased to say there has been an overall increase of 32 percent since 1999.
* (15:40)
We have continued to
respond to the need for trained health care personnel. There have been high
graduation rates, particularly in nursing. As well, we have offered a specific
LPN to RN upgrading program in rural areas. I am sure the member is familiar
with the three sites,
We have also continued
our commitment to access programs which are one of the features of
We have also pressed for the development of credit transfer and articulation committees in the areas of nursing, teaching assistant and environmental studies and, perhaps, if the member wishes, we can explore that more as we go through the Estimates.
Beginning this year, we
will fund a school psychologist program at the
We also have funding in
the budget, as I am sure the member knows, this year to increase the capacity
of the
We have increased the
numbers of veterinary medicine positions. I had a discussion with the member from
One of the things I will just add as a postscript, the Council on Post-Secondary Education has also been a participant in the development of a northern midwife Aboriginal training program in conjunction with the federal government and the Ministry of Health, and we are very pleased with that.
Madam Chairperson in the Chair
To move on to Training and Continuing Education, which is one of the big branches in my department. In '04-05, over 50 000 Manitobans were served across a wide range of services, and community institutional and industrial service delivery partnerships were extremely important. There were 12 500 adult learning centre and literacy learners. They pursued their learning and employment goals through these centres.
We have been very busy in building capacity in key northern communities through training northern Aboriginals for Hydro jobs. They feature the Aboriginal-led approach, community-based training and emphasis. Two thousand non-designated trades have been completed. Training positions have been completed and 120 plus participants in designated trades related to pre-employment programs. We are very pleased with the developments in the North.
We have 5000 active apprenticeships, 700 Aboriginal apprentices, so this, again, is something that is very important. We are particularly proud of our innovations in community-based training and trades qualifications as it is really important in increasing learner success and very important to communities.
Under the sector-council partnerships or in conjunction with sector-council partnerships, we have upgraded the skills for 11 000 existing workers in the province. Our new course is to support industry competitiveness, innovative workplace-based projects, extend workplace literacy, the development of essential skills and PLAR credits.
Last year, 30 000 job seekers were served through 16 provincial employment centres, and we were able to supply support for provincial priorities like housing and health.
All in all, we co-ordinated activities and investments to support the Northern Development Strategy objectives, and we are very pleased with that work, too.
In '05-06, new investments
of $2.2 million to increase skills and employment opportunities for rural
farm-based and older workers in
We are investing about a half million dollars in new apprenticeships, and we think that is extremely important. We will also be furthering northern education and training capacity through the development of a common assessment tool and essential skill solution for northern learners. We have attached some money to that.
Student aid, if I might
just mention a couple of highlights
from student aid. Student loan enhancements,
We are very proud of our graduate scholarship which we began last year with a $350,000 investment. We hope to do more. The Manitoba government bursary, which began several years ago at 6 million, I know the member will know from the budget and from the Throne Speech that we have also promised additional monies for the bursary. We have worked with the Winnipeg Foundation on– well, you know, I think I am just going to leave it now because the next few things that I have to mention are not absolutely finalized.
So I think I will leave it and just tell the member that I think I have a great job. I love my work, I have a fabulous staff, and it is really important to know the work that we are doing for young people and the not-so-young in our province. Thank you.
Madam Chairperson: We thank the minister. Does the member for the official opposition, the critic, have any opening comment?
Mrs. Leanne Rowat (Minnedosa): I would like to thank the minister for her opening remarks. There are a couple of things that she has identified in her opening remarks that I would like further explanation on and status on. I appreciate her sharing the words that she did.
I agree with the minister
that this is an exciting and an interesting portfolio. Advanced Education and
Training provides opportunities for individuals throughout
Our time will be short, so I believe that I want to look at different and diverse issues, both that she has indicated here and that I have sort of identified through the supplement document as well as in discussion with different stakeholders.
When we talk about advanced education, we are talking more than about universities and colleges and, certainly, issues like tuition freeze, accessibility and quality of post-secondary education learning tend to be an annual issue, but there is more to that. On the issues of funding our universities and colleges, the official opposition shares the concerns of the presidents of the Brandon University, the University of Manitoba, St. Boniface College, University of Winnipeg, Assiniboine Community College and Red River. All the talk about tuition freeze has been covered in the media as well as through discussions with myself and the minister.
On that point, we want to
indicate that we are very concerned
that despite the best efforts of these institutions, they will gradually lose
the ability to provide the kind of
education
The issue of skills
shortages is a significant issue for me. Prior to my election, my previous
career was a rural economic development officer, which gave me first-hand
experience with the issue of available skilled workers for many small- and
medium-sized businesses in Manitoba. The Canada West Foundation recently
reported that 41 of 76 major industry associations believe that the number of
students currently graduating from post-secondary institutions will not be
enough to meet the labour demands of their industries. The concerns raised in
their report appear to be particularly widespread in Manitoba where all 12
association groups who participated in the CWF survey said that they are
already experiencing some to severe shortages of skilled labour.
Hydro training is also a front of mind issue for many Manitobans. While nobody would question the merit and goals of the program, there is growing concern about the level of accountability currently in the system. Manitobans need to be assured that the dollars invested will yield measurable and positive outcomes for the participants. The participants need to be assured that they are being appropriately trained for jobs that exist and will exist in high-need areas. Recent reports of $14 million for Split Lake Nation, without any indication of where the money went, while 90 percent of unemployment in the area remains, will not provide Manitobans with the assurances they are looking for. Government must be committed to measurable outcomes, that Hydro is really a ladder into and through the labour market, not training for the sake of training.
Although the official
opposition is supportive of the
Thank you, Madam Chair. These are my opening comments and I look forward to the remaining Estimate time.
Madam Chairperson: We thank the critic from
the official opposition for those remarks. Under
Ms. McGifford: Let me introduce my staff. To my immediate left is Dwight Botting, who is the Acting Deputy Minister of Advanced Education and Training. To Dwight's left is Claude Fortier, who is the Director of Admin and Financial Services, which is a duty that he provided for both Education, Citizenship and Youth and for my department. In other words, it is a shared service. At the bottom of the table is Bob Knight, who is the Acting Senior Executive Director for TCE, Training and Continuing Education. Beside him, Curtis Nordman, who is the Executive Director of Student Services and Special Initiatives. Beside him is Louise Gordon, who is the Executive Director of the Council on Post-Secondary Education.
Madam Chairperson: We thank the minister. We will now proceed to the remaining items contained in Resolution 44.1 on page 27 of the main Estimates book.
Resolution agreed to.
Mrs. Rowat: Thank you for your patience. I would like to go global on the Estimate's process if I may, please.
Ms. McGifford: There is not an issue with going global except if we are going to be coming back here afternoon after afternoon, there is, obviously, because of the staff time. My staff are all here this afternoon so global would be fine for this afternoon.
Mrs. Rowat: I believe we have two hours in Estimates, so we will be quick and I will try to stay within the sections. Thank you.
Madam Chairperson: It is agreed that we will go globally.
Mrs. Rowat: Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I would like to welcome the minister's staff or the departmental staff. I appreciate opportunities where I will be meeting with them on a briefing basis and get to know them more and learning more about their various departments, or area sectors.
I would like to start with page 10 of the Estimates book and looking at, actually, the organization chart, and just talk a little bit about the positions that have changed and get some indication of where staff have moved to or come from.
I would like to start with the private vocational institutions' director and ask, I think the name is Jacqueline Ratté Kohut, where would she have come from, and how long has she been in the position?
Ms. McGifford: Madam Chair, I am advised that the individual here won a job competition about one year ago and that she came from the apprenticeship branch. If I remember correctly, the person who was in PVI moved to B.C.
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, another individual is the Hydro Northern Training Initiative and the acting executive director is Jennie Styrchak.
Ms. McGifford: Ms. Styrchak assumed that position when the then-occupier of the role, Bob Knight, who is with us today, moved into the position as the acting senior executive director.
Do you want me to keep going and explain that the former ADM in that department became my Acting DM, and that is Mr. Dwight Botting?
Mrs. Rowat: I would like to know where the individual had come from, what position she had come from.
Ms. McGifford: She was the co-ordinator of training within the initiative. When Mr. Knight assumed his current position, she assumed his then position.
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, over to the right, Sustainable Development Initiative, Christina McDonald; where would she have come from within the department or outside? Also, if she could give some explanation of what this initiative is responsible for, what their mandate is.
Ms. McGifford: I understand that Christina McDonald has been in the position for three years and the Sustainable Development Initiative is because there is a Sustainable Development Act. This individual provides those services for both my department and Education, Citizenship and Youth.
Mrs. Rowat: I would also like to know, if the minister would please go through the departmental and political staff that are in her office, as well as the deputy minister's office, please.
Ms. McGifford: I think that would be under a different area, Madam Chair. I think that would be 44(a), would it not? Page 13, no, it is not page 13; 23.
So, Madam Chair, as I understand it, the member would like to know about the political staff in my department. I have two political staff, a special assistant and an executive assistant.
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Mrs. Rowat: Would the minister please provide the names of these individuals, and how long they have been employed within her office?
Ms. McGifford: Yes. Actually they are both new employees. My special assistant is Cristi Frittaion, and she has been with me since, I think it has either mid-February or the beginning of March, quite a short time. The second person is Patrice Miniely, and she has been with me since the beginning of April. I could provide the member with the exact dates, but the point that I am making is they are both quite recent appointments.
Mrs. Rowat: Would the minister then indicate to me who were the staff in her office prior to those positions being taken over by the names she has indicated?
Ms. McGifford: Thank you, Madam Chair. My special assistant was Rick Rennie and my executive assistant was Doreen
Wilson.
Mrs. Rowat: I would like to know if the minister would please provide the number of staff currently employed in the department and the number of staff employed by the department for each year of 2003 and 2004.
Ms. McGifford: On a point of clarification, Madam Chair, I am assuming that the member is asking for the total numbers of employees in Advanced Education and Training for '02-03, '03-04 and '04-05?
Mrs. Rowat: That is correct.
Ms. McGifford: I believe we have this information with us today, and it is Schedule 6. Is it at the back of the book? It is page 98. That might make it easier for the member. I cannot remember quite the years, but the member can see at the bottom of the page that '01-02 there were 376.5; '02-03 390.75; and then 394.75, 386.25, and then for this year, 385.55.
Mrs. Rowat: Would the minister, Madam Chair, be able to provide a description of any positions that have been reclassified in the last 2003, 2004 and 2005?
Ms. McGifford: I am sure we could do that, but I think we will have to get back to the member with that information because it will involve some work within the branches to get it ready for the member.
So, on a point of clarification, Madam Chair, would you give me–
Madam Chairperson: Madam Minister.
Ms. McGifford: Did I call you Madam Minister?
Madam Chairperson: No, I called you that.
Ms. McGifford: And rightly so. On a point of clarification, we did not quite get the years that the member wished to have the information for.
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 and projections for 2005-2006.
In asking for that information, I would also like a listing of all current vacant positions that are available within the department.
Ms. McGifford: Madam Chair, we will get back to the member with that information as well.
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, on page 14 of the Estimates book, there is, looking at the staff categories and the position summaries, I just need some clarification of numbers. There is a substantial change in increase in Administration and Finance, and I know there is likely a good reason for this. I just need to know what it is and the reasons for. The Administration and Finance numbers under Managerial increased 120,000, and I just wanted to know if she could indicate to me what would have justified that or what has created that increase.
Ms. McGifford: Again, a point of clarification. If we look at the first line, Administration and Finance, we see the FTEs at two, then under professional/technical; two, under administrative support; three, for a total of seven. The total is seven, so I am not sure what the member means by the numbers have increased substantially.
I understand that 399.6 is a cumulative figure, so it includes the 149.4 plus the 109.2 plus the 141.0 for a total of 399.6.
Mrs. Rowat: Under Administration and Finance, under the main appropriation, under Managerial breakdown, Full-Time Employees indicates two; last Estimates indicated one. The dollar amount in that area was 29.4. This 2005-2006 position summary indicates 149.4. I just wanted to know what the change would have been.
Ms. McGifford: Then I understand the member is comparing last year's figures, which are not on page 14, to the figures that are on page 14 for this year. Is that correct?
Mrs. Rowat: Comparing 2004-2005 position summary dollars to 2005-2006 position summary dollars.
Ms. McGifford: I understand the difference between last year and this year is we now have a second DM and the 149.4 is there because it includes the salary of one position, plus the current acting ADM, Mr. Dwight Botting.
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, back to page 10, and this will be the last time on the org chart. I would like the minister to indicate to me who are on the board of the Council on Post-Secondary Education, the COPSE board. The names of the individuals, please.
Ms. McGifford: Yes, my staff person is looking for the list of board members. I do indicate while she is looking for it, that we consider a number of things when appointing members to the Council on Post-Secondary Education. We want to have a council that is geographically representative, that also represents the young, the middle-aged and the old, so there is a balance.
The chair is currently Mr. Don Robertson, vice-chair Muriel Smith. The other members include: David Turner from Winnipeg; Carolyn Frost, Winnipeg; William Dumas from Thompson; Lucille Bruce from Winnipeg; Christopher Macdonald, Brandon; Rita Lécuyer, Winnipeg; Darlene Hendler of Winnipeg; Dolores Samatte, Cranberry Portage; and Howard Almdal from Winnipeg.
* (16:10)
I might point out that Don Robertson is a Cree from Norway House. I think he is from Norway House. Lucille Bruce is a Métis and a graduate of ACCESS programs. I believe Dolores Samatte is also very concerned about Aboriginal and Métis history, culture, education and administration. Since this government has a very clear commitment to Aboriginal education, we feel that Aboriginal people have to be very well represented on the Board.
Mrs. Rowat: I have no issue with some of the representation on there, but I do have
a question regarding representation from rural
Hon. Christine Melnick
(Minister of Family Services and Housing): I thank
the member for her advice. I do want
to point out that we had a member from
Mrs. Rowat: In the minister's opening remarks, she spoke of UCN and the new
programs that are going to be issued
this fall and the linkages between that institution and Campus
Ms. McGifford: The first university program under the auspices of UCN is the
Bachelor of Arts in Aboriginal Studies which I understand will begin this
September. Under development are a B.Ed. program and also the program that I
cited in my introductory remarks, the Aboriginal Midwifery program. As far as
the linkages with Campus
Mrs. Rowat: Could the minister share with me what current programs are presently being offered out of the UCN programs?
Madam Chairperson: Could you repeat that, please?
Mrs. Rowat: Can the minister indicate to me which current programs are being offered out of UCN?
Ms. McGifford: I think the programs would probably to be too numerous for me to address, but is the member referring to all the college programs?
Mrs. Rowat: Maybe I can be specific, and that will help with the research or the response. I am looking for the number of students enrolled by faculty, and I am also looking for the number of new intakes at UCN that are not transfers from programs that were previously housed out of U of M, University of Winnipeg or BU or other institutions.
Ms. McGifford: I want to explain to the member that there are not any faculties because the new university component will begin in the fall of 2005. I believe we have a list. The most recent enrolment we have is '03-04. We do not have the enrolment for '04-05 as of yet because of the complexities of collecting these statistics. There is usually a delay between the enrolment and when it is reported.
So I can tell the member
that in '02-03-04 the total enrolment at, well would have been at
Mrs. Rowat: Could I get that broken down? You are saying '02-03-04. Could I get a breakdown of the '02-03 and the breakdown of '03-04 and, if she could indicate to me, were any of these transferable from other programs?
Ms. McGifford: I do not know quite how far I should go back.
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, '02-03, and if the minister could indicate, I guess that would be in connection with Keewatin, or are those from other institutions, or Keewatin right? Yes.
Ms. McGifford: I think we have given you some inaccurate information. I am just checking on it.
I thought that the numbers that I read to the member were quite staggering, and too good even for us. So I want to indicate then, the member is looking for enrolments at the University College of the North, and I want to indicate that, maybe I will start with '02-03, 1334 full- and part-time students and in '03-04 there were 1444 full- and part-time students.
Mrs. Rowat: Thank you, Madam Chair. This critic role is new to me, so I am wanting to make sure that I get a good understanding of where this has come from and where we are wanting to go, or where the government is planning to go with this in the future, so I apologize if my questions are a bit detailed. I have not had a chance to have a briefing with the department, so some of this, we will follow through and whatever I need further clarification on, I am hoping that I can access.
In '02-03, back to those points, you indicated 1334 full time and part time. Can you break that down also a bit further to how many of those are full time and how many of those are part time in each of the years that you have indicated?
Ms. McGifford: In '02-03, 915 students were full time and 419 were part time. In '03-04, 924 were full time and 520 were part time.
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, could the minister also indicate to me for those two years whether these were new intakes and, if they were, if there is a breakdown of where these students would have come from previously.
Ms. McGifford: I regret to tell the member that we do not get that kind of detail.
* (16:20)
Mrs. Rowat: Madam Chair, back to Keewatin Community College. At one point I understand that there was a mould issue. Can the minister just give me the status of that issue and how progress has been made in dealing with it?
Ms. McGifford: I understand that the problem developed in the winter of '03-04, and work was done and they are called the mould remediation program. The mould is now remediated and the institution is running and is safe.
Mrs. Rowat: You have shared with me several numbers on past enrolment. Can the minister indicate to me when she believes the first UCN degrees will be conferred?
Ms. McGifford: I am advised that the first degrees will be conferred in the spring of '09 because it is a four-year degree program; the bachelor of Aboriginal studies, Bachelor of Arts in Aboriginal Studies, to be more specific.
Mrs. Rowat: Can the minister indicate to me how many students are presently enrolled in that program full time as well as part time?
Ms. McGifford: That is the program that starts in September of 2005 so, yes, there are not any enrolments there yet.
Mrs. Rowat: in September of '04, there was an announcement of 50 nursing spaces. Can the minister give me a progress report on that initiative? How many of those positions or opportunities have been filled?
Ms. McGifford: I am assuming the member is talking about the program promised for Northern Manitoba. My understanding is we are making the investments now and the program is ramping up and will be available in September '06. They are new seats. It is a new program in that area. No, not a new program, simply new seats.
Mrs. Rowat: So the current program is an LPN program, is that correct? It is an RN program?
Ms. McGifford: Yes, currently UCN has a joint program with