LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA

Wednesday, May 11, 1994

The House met at 1:30 p.m.

PRAYERS

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

TABLING OF REPORTS

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the 1992‑93 Annual Report of the Department of Labour.

Introduction of Guests

Mr. Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, may I direct the attention of honourable members to the gallery, where we have with us this afternoon from the Crystal City Elementary School twenty Grade 6 students under the direction of Mr. Larry Hamilton. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable member for Turtle Mountain (Mr. Rose).

Also this afternoon, from the River Elm School, we have twenty‑six Grade 6 students under the direction of Mrs. Jennie Bellino. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable member for Concordia (Mr. Doer).

From St. Norbert Collegiate, we have twenty‑five Grade 9 students under the direction of Ms. Michelle Beaulieu. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau).

On behalf of all honourable members, I would like to welcome you here this afternoon.

ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

Goods and Services Tax

Replacement‑‑Manitoba Position

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Finance. It is dealing with the goods and services tax.

We asked the Premier (Mr. Filmon) during his Estimates whether Manitoba would be presenting a position to the federal Finance committee of Parliament dealing with the so‑called scrapping of the GST and its replacement, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier could not indicate at that point to his knowledge whether Manitoba would be presenting a position paper. He thought they would not. Five provinces and the territories have presented a position to the federal government on the replacement of the GST. We note that the former Minister of Finance, in 1989, presented Manitoba's position to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance in October 1989.

I was wondering whether the provincial government has presented a position to the federal government on this tax, which I would suggest most Manitobans hate. What is our position to the federal government on this tax?

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Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, as the Leader of the Opposition knows, the current federal government campaigned on the basis of a replacement to the existing GST. This is all a part of their initiative. They have a committee that is holding various hearings, and they attended here in Manitoba.

I do not believe that any representation was made from the government or from the two opposition parties, to the best of my knowledge. We had officials in attendance gathering information.

I have met with various groups on this issue, but, really, we are utilizing that process as an opportunity to hear from Manitobans, to hear from Canadians, on the particular issue. It is on the agenda for Finance ministers' meetings at the end of June, and we will have an opportunity for input at that meeting.

Goods and Services Tax

Replacement‑‑Manitoba Position

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, the minister will know that during our discussions of the GST during the Premier's Estimates, the Premier indicated that the discussions between the provincial government and representatives of the federal government‑‑two themes recurred in those discussions. One is that they want to have the tax hidden, and two, they want to have some form of harmonization collection with the provinces, harmonization to overcome the criticisms coming from small business.

I would like to know from the Premier, is that still the position that we are hearing in terms of what will happen with the GST from the federal government?

We are expecting a report from the federal Finance committee. Certainly, I do not believe that Canadians want to go from a bad tax that is visible to a bad tax that is invisible.

Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I mentioned to the Leader of the Opposition during the Estimates that those were the only themes I had heard, not that I had heard them recently. Those were the themes that occurred, in fact were under discussion last time we got together with the federal leader, Mr. Chretien, which was back, I guess, in December.

Since then, we have not heard anything other than that they are out for consultation, presumably listening to what Canadians are telling them about what ought to be done with the GST, but those were the only ideas that it appeared the federal government had at the time. Whether or not they adopt some of the suggestions that are being made to them by Canadians‑‑there may well be better suggestions put forward by people across Canada.

Goods and Services Tax

Replacement‑‑Manitoba Position

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, one of the proposals that the Finance committee is dealing with, allegedly, is the whole issue of replacing the GST with a business transfer tax. All of us have been briefed by a large coalition of people against that proposal, primarily a business coalition. We have not had the capacity to review except on a very, I would say, superficial basis the business transfer tax and its impact in Japan, the only country where it is applied.

But this coalition of small business, retail business and other business argues that the business transfer tax is a tax which would be imposed on food, residential rents, financial services, educational, health and government services.

I wonder whether that is the analysis or assessment of the provincial government about replacing the GST with the business transfer tax. What is Manitoba's position on a business transfer tax, on its impact on our consumers and on our citizens, particularly on the issue of food and education, health services and housing in terms of how it will impact on Manitoba?

Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of looking at the various alternatives that are being put forward. The Leader of the Opposition is correct. One suggestion has been a business transfer tax, and we are in the process of determining what the ramifications of that kind of a tax could be here in Manitoba.

He also did indicate, I believe, that the coalition that I think he met with and we certainly met with, the Manitoba coalition for GST replacement, is promoting a different approach, really a broadening of what currently exists. They have eight or nine fundamental principles in theirs, and we are not convinced that all of the principles necessarily correlate to one another.

There is some suggestion you might be able to lower the overall tax and so on, but there are other aspects to the tax in terms of input tax credits which do not necessarily allow for the kind of reduction that many people are talking about. So it is a very detailed and a very complex issue, obviously, when you are dealing with taxation.

We are analyzing all of the approaches being put forward, and as I indicated to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), we will have an opportunity for input at the Finance ministers' meeting in June and certainly, I am sure, First Ministers will be discussing the issue.

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Health Care System

Funding

Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, first the government had a plan to cut hospital beds and put in place community services. They did not put in place community services; they only cut beds. Then the government brought in Connie Curran, and she was going to do all of the reforming of the health care system, and we know what happened to Connie Curran, and we know how well off she is today.

Yesterday, we learned from the minister that for the first time we have heard that a hundred million dollars is going to be cut from the urban hospitals and that the management of those hospitals are saying that this arbitrary decision is without any apparent understanding of the service implications.

My question to the minister is, can the minister table the plan for the cutting out of a hundred million dollars, and could he advise us what the effect is for each hospital and how many jobs will be lost in the health care system as a result of the government's hundred‑million‑dollar plan?

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I have been consistent in making it clear not only to the honourable member, but to all facilities and the Manitoba Health Organization, anybody involved in the operation of acute care facilities, saying to them that whatever proposals they make, I will not accept any that have any negative impact on patient care.

The honourable member wants me to table a plan. I have not made a plan. The honourable member should be aware that I have asked hospitals in Manitoba how they propose to respond to the declining demand that will be placed on acute care facilities as we continue to build services in the community, build services and spaces.

For example, the honourable member's question takes no account of the fact that River East Personal Care Home has established 120 new personal care beds; Kildonan Personal Care Home has established 120 new personal care beds; Concordia Hospital has established 60 beds; Deer Lodge, 44 beds; the municipal hospitals, 20 beds.

The honourable member's question does not take into account that the shift from acute care to community care is happening and is working and working well.

Mr. Chomiak: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that their cuts to this point have affected patient care.

I ask the minister, again, it is their plan. They have told the hospitals to cut a hundred million dollars that will affect jobs, that will affect beds and, most of all, will affect patient care. The minister cannot have it both ways. He cannot set out a plan for a hundred million dollars and then say, oh, it is not going to affect patient care.

Will the minister table the plan to cut a hundred million dollars that they have asked the hospitals in Winnipeg and Brandon to cut?

Mr. McCrae: The honourable member's question assumes that nothing has happened in the last six years in the community. I remind him that the government has increased spending for home care services by 93 percent in six years.

The honourable member has to look at this in a historical perspective, too. That program began in the mid‑'70s. Before that, there was almost total reliance on acute care spaces in hospitals. Average length of stay has changed very, very considerably.

The honourable member and his colleagues want to continue to see patients in hospitals who do not need to be there. That is not an appropriate place for people who can be looked after at home and who can heal better at home. The honourable member seems to be saying, scrap the Home Care program, and I will not do that.

Mr. Chomiak: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that most of the increases in Home Care in this budget is as a result of the user fees that have been imposed on home care supplies.

Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary: Will the minister outline how much of that hundred‑million cut has already been realized and how much remains to be realized from the urban hospitals, and how much, in addition, are rural facilities to cut from their budgets?

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Mr. McCrae: Because patient care is the bottom line of this government, last fall, those hospitals moving to comply with staffing guidelines were asked to put on hold any layoffs at that time while we could review those guidelines. We have the help of the Manitoba Association of Registered Nurses. We have the help of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the help of the Manitoba Association of Licensed Practical Nurses and others involved in the review of those staffing guidelines.

I suggest to the honourable member that what he wants to defend is hospitals in Manitoba with low occupancy rates having the capacity to look after large numbers of patients who are not there, who do not need that service. What the honourable member wants to defend is the old way of delivering service to people, which is not going to be appropriate in the future and is not sustainable.

I want to preserve the health care system, but the honourable member wants to destroy it.

SHI Limited

Government Loan

Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I questioned the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism on the wisdom of raising expectations of the people of Selkirk about 600 jobs and about a $2.5‑million loan to a company called Saskatoon Heavy Industries.

Mr. Speaker, in 1990, just before the Conservative government of Saskatchewan went to the polls, the same company, a one‑man company led by a man by the name of Blue Taylor made a promise to the people of Corman Park, just outside of Saskatoon, that there would be up to 10,000 jobs, doing what? Manufacturing heavy equipment.

Mr. Speaker, not one of those jobs was ever created. The man has not registered that company in Saskatchewan since that time. It has lost its federal registration in the last two years.

Why is this government hopping into bed with a fly‑by‑night operation which has never built anything?

Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Mr. Speaker, it is not this government's or any member of this government's intention to raise expectations. I think the member should refer to his question yesterday as to the way in which he approached it. He was criticizing this government for working to create jobs in Manitoba. We have not lent any money to anyone in SHI. We have said if 18 conditions are met, we will negotiate with them the possibility of some 600 jobs in Selkirk.

By the way, the member is saying we are jumping into bed. No, it is the community of Selkirk, the chamber of commerce, community leaders who have come forward asking for consideration, so he should refer his comments, I believe, to the Selkirk Chamber of Commerce. That would be more appropriate, Mr. Speaker.

SHI Limited

Government Loan

Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, this government saw fit to pass an Order‑in‑Council guaranteeing up to $2.5 million. They will not loan any money to students, but they will sure loan to Saskatoon Heavy Industries. They put that money on the table, committed it in the event that conditions are met.

Saskatoon Heavy Industries have led the people of Selkirk in this province to believe there will be hundreds of jobs. They did the same thing before the 1990 election with Repap when they promised 800 jobs which did not materialize.

Why is this government going down the road that even Grant Devine pulled away from before the election because he realized what he had gotten into? Why is this government prepared to get into bed and commit this money and raise these expectations unfairly for the people of Selkirk when this company has never built anything and went through this four years ago with Mr. Devine?

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Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I think the member opposite ought to firstly consider his words. He is the one who raised this in the House. We did not put out any press release‑‑

Point of Order

Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a press release entitled Progressive Conservative issued yesterday by this‑‑

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order.

The honourable Leader, would you kindly take your bench, sir.

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Mr. Filmon: Mr. Speaker, this government did not raise the issue in the House. That member raised the issue in the House. This government did not‑‑[interjection]

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Leader of the second opposition party, you have already put your question, sir. He is attempting to put more questions on while the honourable First Minister is trying to attempt to respond to the first question.

I would ask the honourable First Minister to deal with the matter raised.

Mr. Filmon: I know that the Leader of the Liberal Party knows he is looking foolish on this issue, but I will just ensure that he knows he is the one who raised the issue, that this government responded to the work that has been done by the economic development group in Selkirk, by the chamber of commerce, the local community and all the interested people to attract an industry.

This government has only agreed to put forward loan money provided that they meet 18 conditions that include them raising $24 million of available capital financing.

I think what the member opposite ought to be doing is trying to tell the public how he can square his position yesterday about being against government financing for business when he put out a news release on the eve of the opening of the Legislature entitled, Liberal legislative agenda, that says that the Liberal Party legislative agenda will lead with a dual strategy, training strategy focused on youth and tax incentives for business.

This is the most confused individual we have sitting in this Legislature. He does not know what he is saying. He changes his mind from one day to the next, and he is acting as an absolute fool. If he wants to dig himself out, that is fine, Mr. Speaker, go ahead.

SHI Limited

Government Loan

Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, what I am against is a government trying to dupe the public just before an election, and that is what you are trying to do.

Let me just remind the Premier of a headline in the Saskatoon Star‑Phoenix two years ago. Forty million factories still remains a dream‑‑and it is going to be a dream here, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism why he put forward an Order‑in‑Council naming a company as being deserving of a commitment to a $2.5‑million loan, albeit on certain conditions, when it is not even a registered corporation. It has lapsed. Secondly, where and when has this company ever built anything, because yesterday the minister said on the record in response to my question, he specifically said, this is a company which constructs or manufactures or makes heavy manufacturing or heavy mining‑type equipment.

What have they ever made, Mr. Speaker? Why is this government leading the people of this province to believe they are creating jobs? They are creating false hopes. They know they are not coming. They have no intention. They did it in 1990, and they are doing it again.

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Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Mr. Speaker, it is not the intention of this ministry or this government to falsely raise expectations. It is not our intention at all.

Yesterday, I responded to a question in the Legislature which the Liberal member raised, which I think he is finding extremely embarrassing today and by which he has now caused himself some embarrassment and is trying to dig out of it.

Mr. Speaker, it is a federally registered company. It has exclusive production rights for a product from Germany that manufactures heavy industrial equipment for mining and that like‑type of activity.

I would agree. Maybe I misstated yesterday that they have built something. They probably have not, but they have a proposal, Mr. Speaker, that the community of Selkirk found acceptable. The Economic Development Board, the chamber of commerce, they came forward requesting that this government give consideration to their proposal. We said if 18 conditions are met, we will entertain a loan proposal. We will not give it unless certain conditions are made, one of which is there has to be $24 million of equity and/or loan capital raised by that company.

That is pretty clear, Mr. Speaker. Maybe the Liberal Leader has a hard time understanding it, but I think the general public will clearly understand it, if communicated properly.

Point of Order

Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, the minister has, I believe, put on the record that I was misleading the House about the federal registration. The company has had its registration lapse‑‑

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order.

Grow Bond Program

Jentan Project

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, last night I had the opportunity, along with 50 residents in Selkirk, to attend a public meeting in Selkirk concerning the proposed Jentan project which could create 15 to 35 jobs in Selkirk.

As the Minister of Rural Development knows, this project is endorsed by the Triple S business development centre in Selkirk.

I would like to ask the minister today if he can tell the House when the firm will know whether or not it will be accepted for a Grow Bond program.

Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): I would like to tell the member that the company Jentan has been working with the community of Selkirk for some time in putting the proposal forward, but there has been no application to the Department of Rural Development for a Grow Bond to my knowledge.

Now, I think there has been some work done as background work, Mr. Speaker, for the potential of a Grow Bond, but I do not believe there is an application that has come forward for a Grow Bond or for any amount.

Mr. Speaker, the project would be examined, as all projects are. The review committee would examine it, as well, but we will wait until there is indeed an application forwarded to the department and to the review committee.

Mr. Dewar: Fortunately for Selkirk, Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Leader nor was any of his candidates there at the meeting last night, opposing jobs, opposing development for Selkirk. Fortunately for Selkirk, they were not there.

Grow Bond Program

Jentan Project

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, my next question is for the Minister of Environment. This project depends upon the price for recycled tires remaining at the current level, and I ask the Minister of Environment, will he assure the House and the people of Selkirk that the program will continue and that these rates will not be lowered?

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Environment): Mr. Speaker, this system that Jentan is proposing has certainly been one that has been intriguing from the start. Their proposal is certainly eligible if they meet certain criteria. However, I would caution the member and anyone who would apply under the Used Tire Program that it would have to meet particular criteria, as the establishment of this plant would have to meet environmental criteria.

SHI Limited

Government Loan

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, my final question: I would like to table a letter from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) thanking me for my support of the SHI program and the 600 jobs that will come to Selkirk. I guess the minister has a poor memory, and he forgot that he signed the letter on March 18.

My question to the Minister of Rural Development is: Can he tell the House whether the SHI project will find out whether or not it is in line for a Grow Bond as well?

Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism laid out the conditions that have to be met prior to any funds being made available to the company. Indeed, no application at this point in time has been made, as far as I know, to the department with respect to a Grow Bond.

Before we would even consider it, those conditions that have been outlined by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism would have to be met before we could even take the first step.

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Brandon General Hospital

Funding

Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health.

The Brandon General Hospital has suffered serious cuts in its budget by this government in the past few years, forcing it to close the palliative care ward, the gynecology ward, and reducing the level of nursing care in that hospital. Now it has been required to cut another $4 million in the next three years. One option being considered is the elimination of one‑third of its surgical beds, but this will only save about $300,000.

My question to the minister is, where is the Brandon General Hospital supposed to find the remaining $3.7 million it has been ordered to cut?

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Well, I thank the honourable member for raising this question, because, like him, I share the view of the importance of the Brandon General Hospital today and the services it delivers well into the future for future generations of western Manitobans. That is why we are looking at a phased approach to the delivery of services in Westman.

We do not start, as was done in 1987, with no planning whatsoever for the permanent closure of 42 beds at Brandon General Hospital by the honourable member and his colleagues. I remind the honourable member, he sat in the cabinet that made that decision, and after it was made, he went away and hid.

Mr. Leonard Evans: The people of the city of Brandon and Westman want to know of this minister and of this government, when will these cuts to the Brandon General Hospital's operating budget cease? When will the downgrading cease?

As the minister knows, over 5,000 people in Westman signed a petition in 1992, and they believed that the quality of health care at BGH was suffering. The minister knows that.

Mr. McCrae: The honourable member has already proved that his thinking is the thinking that goes back 25 years. We know that. He has demonstrated that in this House.

The honourable member says, when is it going to end? Reform of the health system and change in the whole world's industrial, economic and political system is going to go on for a long time. The honourable member should have gotten used to that by now. He has been around long enough.

The point is, you cannot continue to apply the solutions of 25 years ago to the problems of today. The fact is the honourable member and his party did little or nothing to promote and to enhance home care services, little or virtually nothing to promote seniors services in our communities, little or nothing to promote adult day clubs in this province. Those are the things this government has been promoting and funding.

By way of illustration, to show who has the interests of the health of Manitobans at heart, I point to the record of spending of our government on health care as a percentage of total spending and compare it to that of the government represented previously, in the olden days, by the honourable member, and his government looks very shoddy indeed‑‑

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Leonard Evans: Well, the people of Brandon and area know that we built $18 million worth of nursing homes in three years, '86, '87 and '88‑‑$3 million, and the member knows that, too.

On behalf of the people of Brandon and Westman, I ask the minister, what is your long‑term plan for the Brandon General Hospital? The people out there want to know, how far is this minister, is this government going to go to cut levels of services? How many more beds are you going to cut? How many more staff are you going to lay off?

Mr. McCrae: It is exactly long‑term planning that we are trying to do and that honourable members opposite want to stop. I think it is paradoxical that they rise in the House so sanctimoniously, when really, if we followed their advice, we would have destroyed the health care system about a year ago.

The honourable member asked about a long‑term plan for Brandon General Hospital. Our government, not the one that he used to be involved in that cut hospital beds at Brandon without any plan, has approved the first phase of a $72‑million redevelopment for Brandon General Hospital. That redevelopment will take place over 10 years and will take into account the population health needs of western Manitobans, and we will do so far more efficiently than the honourable members opposite ever dreamed of doing. In fact, whenever they dreamed of efficiency, they felt they were having nightmares.

Provincial Judges

Early Retirement Package

Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Mr. Speaker, we now have record backlogs in the provincial court. For young offenders, this means that consequences are not meaningful and are not related to the offence. For abused partners, it makes a mockery of the zero tolerance policy against spousal violence.

My question for the Minister of Justice is, now that the government has made a back‑room buy out of eight judges at a cost of $1 million to Manitobans, meaning, by the way, that Manitobans will be short 11 full‑time judges by July 1‑‑that is a quarter of the bench‑‑will the minister advise of the projected impact on the court backlog?

Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, as the member tries to characterize an agreement which was offered, I totally reject his characterization of back‑room. He is entirely wrong.

I would also like to remind him, I tabled in the House information which spoke about a severance package which the NDP offered to judges when they were in government. What has been offered is a severance package. I would like to say also that I have received no confirmation from the chief judge as to those judges who are accepting the severance package, so I am not able to confirm for him exactly an amount.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to say that there are currently three vacancies in the provincial court, and we are moving with the Provincial Court Chief Judge to deal with those vacancies. Then for any judges who do accept the severance package, we will be working with the chief judge to determine replacements.

Mr. Mackintosh: If the minister is saying this is not a secret back‑room deal, will she now immediately table this deal in the Legislature at a minimum, or will she do the right thing and bring in the arrangement as provided under The Provincial Court Act?

Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, the agreement that was reached is outside of the scope of what the member refers to in terms of The Provincial Court Act. This is a one‑time‑only severance package, time limited.

As I said to the member, when the NDP were in government, they made an agreement, a severance package with judges which covered a year, and I believe he knows the terms which we have also provided.

Mr. Mackintosh: A simple question, Mr. Speaker: If it is not a secret deal, why is she not tabling it in this House so that Manitobans can look at it and determine, in light of the backlogs, in light of the layoffs, the cuts, a flat budget for Corrections, if that is a good deal for Manitobans?

Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Speaker, the member makes a number of accusations as he asks his question. I will be very happy to deal with each of those accusations in detail when we get to the Estimates. However, I think he should not attempt to dangerously exaggerate facts to Manitobans in terms of how the courts are operating.

I can tell the member that, certainly, all the courts are operating within the time lines of the decision that the Supreme Court brought down, so they are not operating outside of that in any way, shape or form. However, I will say that in terms of court procedure, I am working with the chief judge to ensure that it is the most efficient procedure that we can have for Manitobans.

Hog Farming Operations

Moratorium

Ms. Norma McCormick (Osborne): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Rural Development.

Yesterday, about a hundred residents attended the council of the Local Government District of Armstrong to ask for a proper review of the issue of hog plant development. The LGD of Armstrong Council committed to the preparing of a development plan and to pressure the Minister of Rural Development to place a moratorium on the construction of large hog operations.

Can the minister tell us what his position is on this request for a moratorium?

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Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Mr. Speaker, the LGD of Armstrong did in fact request in a resolution that a moratorium be placed on the expansion and the construction of hog barns in the LGD of Armstrong. They also, in their resolution, indicated that they want to get on with their development plan.

I can tell the member this afternoon that indeed staff from my department will be working with the LGD immediately on the development plan, but I have to indicate to the House that there is no way I have the authority to put a moratorium on the construction or the expansion of hog barns in the LGD.

I must also add that indeed there are new regulations that have now been put in place, and the interdepartmental committee has met with the proponent, and the proponent is meeting the conditions of the regulations. So although there have been some statements made by a consultant, I must indicate that, obviously, the consultant did not know or did not read the regulations, according to the comments that he made on the radio.

Hog Farming Operations

Moratorium

Ms. Norma McCormick (Osborne): Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the same minister. The LGD of Armstrong in the resolution that the minister speaks of is in effect rescinding its support for the hog barn construction, including the Pur‑A‑Tone's feed project which is currently underway.

Will the government commit to a review and approval process which ensures that the site selection for these operations will include a mechanism whereby the local people's concerns can be addressed and their land and water is protected from environmental degradation?

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Environment): Mr. Speaker, the environmental consultant who was leading the charge last night at the LGD is a former member for Wolseley‑‑what was his name‑‑Harold Taylor. I believe he is a close personal friend of many of the members of the Liberal delegation in the House here. I quote from his comments. He says: There is absolutely no damn scrutiny of these applications.

Well, I wonder if he has not read our regulations that we have just put in place that refer to storage facilities of sufficient capacity to store the fertilizer used for the effluent; must design and construct so as to prevent escape of any livestock waste.

There are about 10 pages here that I would like to read into the record, Mr. Speaker, but I think he has missed it.

Ms. McCormick: My final question is for the Minister of Environment.

Will his department conduct a review on the development of hog farm sewage lagoons which will result in serious pollution if not‑‑[interjection] No, you have not; you never have‑‑which will result in serious pollution if not properly designed and managed?

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Speaker, I hope you will indulge me for a moment. I am afraid that the member does not appreciate the significance of the livestock waste management regulations that we have recently proclaimed that refer directly to the standards of construction and management of livestock waste.

It speaks to the technical aspects of the construction of the lagoons. It directly addresses the handling of dead stock. It has been consulted with a very broad base and brought in specifically with the intention of making sure that the construction of additional livestock lagoons and livestock waste management in this province is well handled, well managed and within safe environmental standards.

Workforce 2000

Northern Blower

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education.

Over the past two years, Northern Blower has received $80,000 worth of tax rebate to train its workers in what government documents call technical education.

Would the minister, who has had advance notice of this question on April 19, tell the House today which classification of worker was trained and what curriculum was followed?

Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, I do not have that information. When I do, I will share it with the member.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Speaker, the minister promised that information on April 20.

Management Training

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Will the minister then tell us what proportion of the millions of dollars spent on Workforce 2000 has been spent on management training? Will he undertake now to table that analysis in this House so that Manitobans may know how their tax dollars have been redistributed?

Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to determine whether or not I can provide that information in the detail sought by the member.

Mr. Speaker: Time for Oral Questions has expired.

NONPOLITICAL STATEMENTS

YM‑YWCA Women of Distinction Awards

Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, may I have permission to make a nonpolitical statement?

Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable minister have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed]

Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say it was a privilege and a pleasure last evening to bring greetings on behalf of the government of Manitoba to the annual YM‑YWCA Women of Distinction Awards dinner. The awards dinner was extremely well attended by Manitobans who have become longstanding supporters of this established award.

Eighteen years ago, the YM‑YWCA established the tradition of celebrating the outstanding achievements of Manitoba women. Through the years, many women of distinction have inspired us by their commitment and their dedication. Their contributions and their commitments have enriched all of our lives.

Last evening, 27 women who are recognized as leaders in their respective fields were recognized through their nominations for this award. They are all a confirmation and a celebration of the valuable contributions that women make to every aspect of our society. These women are each role models who have the power to inspire dreams and to challenge women's career choices. As more women distinguish themselves in nontraditional fields and in every sector, business, volunteerism and community development, young girls will be encouraged by their horizons.

I would like to extend my congratulations to each nominee and recipient of the Women of Distinction Award for their inspiration, commitment and their hard work. Our communities are enhanced by their efforts, and the Province of Manitoba is proud to have these women of excellence publicly recognized for their contributions that their lives have made to the status of Manitoba women.

The recipients of the 1994 YM‑YWCA Women of Distinction Awards are: Vanaja Dhruvarajan, Janice Dodd, Shirley Matile, Katherine Pettipas and Win Torchia.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member for Wellington have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed]

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to give our congratulations to the Women of Distinction who were nominated and selected last night at the awards dinner.

I would like very briefly to mention a bit about the background of the five women who did get the award this year.

Vanaja Dhruvarajan is one the few women of colour to become a full professor at the University of Winnipeg. She is instrumental in raising the consciousness of her students and colleagues around issues of racism and gender exclusion.

She was awarded a professorship in women's studies at Simon Fraser for her education and advocacy on behalf of immigrant women and women of colour, and was instrumental in getting the Margaret Laurence Chair in Women's Studies at the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba.

Janice Dodd received her Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of Toronto in 1981, is now an associate professor in the Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Manitoba and directs a research program in molecular endocrinology and cancer.

She has been instrumental in improving the opportunities for women in science, and has helped develop a course unique to western Canada within the women's studies program entitled Women in Science.

Shirley Matile has broken ground again for women in the traditionally male occupation of engineering. She was the only female in her 1977 graduating class at the University of Manitoba in Civil Engineering, and 17 years later she is director of admissions for the Association of Professional Engineers of Manitoba, the first woman in this position. Among her achievements in the post has been the creation of the first directory of women engineers in Manitoba.

Katherine Pettipas has been for the past 19 years curator of native ethnology at the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature. She has been at the forefront of discussions between First Nations and museums and has contributed to the recent national task force report which has become a blueprint for defining a new relationship between museums and aboriginal peoples.

She was given last year the Canadian Museums Association Outstanding Achievement Award.

Finally, but certainly not least, is Win Torchia who is at Red River Community College. She was a pioneer in the field of assisting women in nontraditional or alternative careers. She was co‑ordinator of women's awareness for CN Rail in the 1970s and developed a first step employment equity program before this term had ever been even designed.

She is currently department head of women's programs at Red River Community College and has been working in the area of freeing the college publications from sexist language. She was the first chair of CN's fundraising campaign in support of the United Way, the Cancer Society and the Salvation Army.

I think these five women, as well as all of the women who were nominated, show what women can do, and it is up to us as members of our society to ensure that all women are given the opportunity to fulfill their dreams and desires.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member for Osborne have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [agreed]

Ms. Norma McCormick (Osborne): Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to add my words of congratulations to the five women who were honoured in this way yesterday.

I had the privilege of receiving this award in 1977, and I know from personal experience that the recognition is indeed heartfelt, but when we accept an award like this, there is an overwhelming feeling that we accept it on behalf of all women.

We are honouring women who have made contributions in the academic world, for advocacy, public and community service and to business and industry, but we must recognize that these contributions as exceptional are only so in addition to making their day‑to‑day contributions in their personal lives to the benefit of their children, their families and to their community.

Again, on behalf of our caucus, I congratulate them.

Committee Changes

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Economic Development be amended as follows: the member for Minnedosa (Mr. Gilleshammer) for the member for Arthur‑Virden (Mr. Downey); the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister) for the member for Charleswood (Mr. Ernst); the member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer) for the member for Assiniboia (Mrs. McIntosh).

Motion agreed to.

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ORDERS OF THE DAY

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.

Motion agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty with the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the Chair for the Department of Education and Training; and the honourable member for Seine River (Mrs. Dacquay) in the Chair for the Department of Health.

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

(Concurrent Sections)

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply, meeting in Room 255, will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.

When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 2.(b)(1) on page 38 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Mr. John Plohman (Dauphin): Well, we were just talking about professional development at the time that we had to adjourn yesterday, and I expressed my concern about the minister's discussion or comments about professions in his view and also the way that teachers were being treated by the government measures, and that it was contradictory to anybody's definition of a profession.

I wanted to ask the minister briefly, as we talk about this whole area of reform, whether he finds the move to eliminate professional development days, which has been initiated as a result of his government's action, somewhat contradictory with the needs for teachers in a time when he is saying major change is required in the public school system‑‑major curriculum changes. We see that a new blueprint for reform of the education system is going to have an impact in the classrooms. How does the minister rationalize this reduction, or is it just convenient to find the dollars for a short time and that he would not want to see that happen over a longer term? But how does he rationalize those two views of the world, when in fact there is more demand for professional development, and, on the other hand, those days are being eliminated to a great extent in many divisions across the province?

Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the question is fair. It is one that has been posed to me many times by presidents of local associations and, as a matter of fact, by chairs of boards of trustees.

As I have said on many occasions, the government believes in professional development. As a matter of fact, my predecessor, the member for Roblin‑Russell (Mr. Derkach), when he brought in the new formula, one of the very significant variables within that was support for the first time, or certainly increased support, of professional development days. I can remember the minister bringing that to cabinet and what a strong proponent he was of that commitment by way of funding formula. That was readily accepted by the government of the day.

So I would say in the broader context the government understands the importance of professional development days and hope they will continue. We still provide workshops during the school day‑‑I am talking about the department now. Of course, we are always mindful that professional development, or lifelong learning or anything you want to call it, is a responsibility not only of employers but indeed employees. As I said in this very committee room to representatives of the Teachers' Society and, indeed, some representatives of the local association in attendance, when we considered Bill 22 when I was the host minister, at that time I said, was there anything with respect to Bill 22 that prevents you as teachers from attending, without pay, professional development days? I did not receive, at any of those questions that I posed to those who were here to provide information with respect to Bill 22, any contradictory statement indicating that the legislation prohibited anybody from attending professional development activities, because indeed nothing prohibits that.

If the element is that you have to be paid to attend those days, then that becomes the issue. I am saying that the higher order then, even overriding the commitment we made to professional development days by way of the funding formula, was indeed the sharing of the limited and finite dollars within the public purse.

That was the overriding consideration, and as I have said to people everywhere, trustees, teachers, superintendents, 100,000 of us, including every person around this table, take our salary and our remuneration from the public purse, every one of us. And the very essence of Bill 22 was to ensure that everybody made a commitment to that without exception.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we stand by the higher order, in this case being Bill 22 which, in some cases, obviously, worked against or at cross purposes with the professional development support that we have built into the new formula.

Mr. Plohman: There are so many contradictions in the minister's statements because, in fact, he is saying, well, nothing prevents teachers from undertaking professional development on their own time. That is part of being a professional, and many, many teachers if not all or most do that, and in fact it points back to the ridiculousness of reducing their annual salary by one two‑hundredth when they miss five and a half hours in the classroom because they are forced to do so by way of Bill 22.

It shows how ridiculous that is and unfair to deduct one two‑hundredth and that is why I said to the minister there should have been another system for determining the amount to be deducted, and certainly not one two‑hundredth because it really belittles the job of the profession.

The minister did not seem to have thought about it other than to say, well, they said the maximum was eight days and the rest had to take 10, but there are divisions now taking 10. That would demonstrate to me that everyone is being asked to take and can take, in that legislation, up to 10. [interjection] There is no 15; I do not know where the minister came up with that. I guess the minister may have been advocating 15.

So that makes my point, when he talks about teachers as professionals engaging in professional development activities beyond school hours, and as I say, most teachers do that.

I think the minister also has to look at how efficient this is. Would he agree with me that as a result of the elimination of the days that were provided for this in many school divisions, more and more teachers are engaging in professional development during class time, so it is cutting into class time, contact with students, which is I would say undesirable?

The minister can indicate if that is true, and whether that means that the department out of another budget, through the support for professional development that he just referred to when he talked about his predecessor increasing funding for support for professional development, that there has been increased‑‑a draw for substitutes and for workshops that go on during the school day because there is no time to do it on professional development days. Those days do not exist any longer.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we do not have at this point any evidence of the assertion made by the member for Dauphin. We have not received letters from school divisions, particularly with respect to the increased call on substitution dollars.

I am disappointed that the member would not be prepared to accept my challenge in his statement. He can talk about my contradictory statements in his terms, but, again, I told him the higher orders. The higher orders were this. One hundred thousand of us draw our support from the public purse, and what we said was there only are 500,000 tax filers in the province of Manitoba. Twenty percent of us draw our livelihood from the public purse, and what we said was, given the difficulties of the time, everybody, whether you work for Hydro or Telephones or are a teacher, or indeed, even if you are engaged within the health care system, everybody should be expected to share the difficulties around the shortage of money in the public purse.

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The member refuses to accept that that is the higher order. I guess that is why we are philosophically apart, and that is why we are in different parties. Because if you accept that as the basic principle, then you have to try and engender some element of fairness across all of us who draw our support again from the public tax dollar.

Mr. Plohman: First of all, that is another debate, and I have put all my comments on the record, and our party's comments on what we felt with Bill 22 years ago, so we are not going to get back into all that again. It is a matter of record.

The issue is, of course, it is kind of odd that the minister would talk about fairness and equity and that, when in fact the way he has applied Bill 22 to the education system is not fair and equitable at all, because there are many teachers who have not been subject to Bill 22. So the minister cannot talk about the higher order being that everyone should‑‑

Mr. Manness: Is that what you recommend?

Mr. Plohman: I am telling the minister he has not accomplished that. I never said I recommended it or did not recommend it. The minister is in the position of having been in [interjection] Well, the minister has no courage. When he starts to stand up in this House and in this committee and tell Manitobans that in fact he has an equitable system when he has not an equitable system because he wants someone else to do the dirty work for him, and that was the school boards, you see, to pass it on to the middle man to do it, that is in fact what has happened‑‑

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. Can I ask the honourable members to curtail from the debate that we are having without coming through the Chair and put their comments through the Chair so we can keep the decorum to a level that Hansard can copy us?

Mr. Plohman: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I find also a contradiction between the relegating of professional development to a lower‑order need, that the minister has said. He says that professional development is not as great a concern as saving those dollars when in fact‑‑and I say the contradiction is there because his own document, in providing a summary of consultations to division staff and consultation and dialogue with stakeholders, said that in order for change to be brought about successfully, staff within a division, as well as in the schools, need to be provided with effective opportunities to develop and enhance their skills.

It is recognized within this document and has been recognized by many who are consulted that this is a major concern and therefore a higher‑order requirement, using the minister's words. I wonder how he is going to rationalize that statement with regard to future directions with his past action, which in fact has relegated professional development to a lower order. In fact, the minister has made an issue of stating that in this committee today.

Mr. Manness: Well, the member overstates the case, and he attempts to put words in my mouth. I said this government fully understands the importance of professional development days. The question here is, who is going to pay for them? We are doing everything we can within the department time, given that the departmental staff, too, have had a reduction in their salaries and yet are expected to work the same number of hours, and indeed no different than anybody else, but we still expected the department, within their time and their effort, to outreach and deliver professional development in the way that we can.

The question is here now, should teachers continue to be paid during this time for these days? Is there no other set of circumstances that could cause the activities around development to occur at some other time. [interjection] Well, if they are, then the system is working, but the question is, can we not grow, can we not build upon that? Can we not build upon that?

I honestly believe that as a professional, if you wanted to increase your knowledge base, which I fully understand many teachers do, and I support them, then I would think that given these difficult times, you may want to do that on your own accord, and you may want to, through your societies and your associations, try to develop a model which would provide other opportunities than have existed in the past.

I say to the member, that does not mean that it is a lesser priority in the scheme of all of the changes we are considering. It is not. It is a very high priority, but with respect to fairness, I have said there are higher priorities, and the priority was that somehow we had to save the jobs of 500 to 600 people in the public sector. The only way we could do that was to pull $25 million out of the public payroll, and the only way we could do that was ask that each and every one who draws from the public payroll take a reduction. In doing so, we saved $500 or $600 across all of government. That is the higher order, the saving of $500 or $600 across the public payroll.

Mr. Plohman: It is odd to hear the minister talk about fairness as being the higher order and to talk about saving jobs when in fact this government has eliminated jobs in addition to imposing Bill 22 and reducing salaries.

Point of Order

Mr. Manness: I just want to correct the record. I think in my emotional outburst, I used $500 or $600. I meant positions and/or people, to correct the record.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the minister for that, but there was no point of order.

* * *

Mr. Plohman: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I know that we certainly got the meaning of what the minister was saying, regardless of whether he stated it correctly during his emotional outburst. The fact is that we find it odd that the minister talks about fairness when he was party to and perhaps responsible for the imposition of reductions rather than negotiated reductions or settlements, thus admitting failure to be able to negotiate, which is the traditional way that these have been dealt with in the past in Manitoba. I said I do not want to get back into that debate.

The minister wanted to ask me earlier on what I was recommending. Of course, we have made it very clear what we recommended, and that was that there should have been some negotiations as we had done successfully in the past to formally save jobs, a freeze on layoff in return for reductions or zero percents and so on in salaries. That is the real way to handle these kinds of situations. This is a false way because, in fact, the base continues to grow for salaries, and once this bill no longer applies, in fact, we have got a higher base for salaries than we had previously. And that has to be paid for by future governments. It might have been politically expedient for the short term for the minister, for him to try to justify to the public at large that he was getting tough with the public sector workers, but, in fact, it is not long‑term savings. It is only temporary, and they have to be made up later on.

Getting back to the issue of professional development, which his staff have identified as a major need in the future, the staff in the school needs to be provided with effective opportunities to develop and enhance their skills. Is the minister now saying that, as far as he is concerned, if he has an opportunity to remain in this position or his government, and be in government in this province and be the Minister of Education, and, in fact, he would like to see a formal end put to paid professional development days, as they have been historically known in Manitoba? Previously 11 days and now 10 days‑‑not all for professional development, some for administrative days, some for evaluation in the schools and so on. But is he saying now that he believes that that is a frill, something that is not required, cannot be justified, and therefore should be eliminated?

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Mr. Manness: Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will not be drawn into this debate very far. I mean, I can indicate to the member that I wish the world could return to the way it was. All the wishing in the world is not going to necessarily provide that if the Minister of Finance, or new Minister of Finance, indicates to us that we have a revenue problem and that we are still going to have to deal on the expenditure side and that education is going to have to have some prominence in that area. So what I wish is, of course, a return to the old system in all respects, including the funding formula we have in place now, which recognizes, by way of dollar support, this government's commitment to professional development. But ultimately the Minister of Finance of the day will dictate through the global revenue consideration how it is that we are going to have to still find possibly savings within the field of education.

Now, maybe there will be a different focus. Who knows? Maybe the government will have to come to grips with resolutions that have been passed by the Association of School Trustees in due course. I am hypothecating now, and maybe the government of the day and the Treasury Board of the day are going to focus on another line of the expenditure envelope. Who knows? It is just too soon to say. I am not trying to take away a benefit that the member would portray, of course, as a long‑run benefit to education in this province. I would support his statement, but the reality is we are caught in a time, which we have not been basically for 40 or 50 years in this country, and we are having to make decisions different than otherwise have been made in the past. I am just telling him my view in a philosophical sense.

Mr. Plohman: The minister talks about this being a benefit to education, not to necessarily educators. I am pleased to hear him say that. By definition, if he is talking about other pressures and concerns, he is‑‑and that this is perhaps something that has to be sacrificed‑‑relegating it to a lower priority. I have to ask him how he can rationalize that, when his own department, in the consultations done on this in the programs division, have come to the conclusion that in fact this is one of the greater needs that is being identified? If he is talking about major change in the education system, how is he going to accomplish it? Is he just going to work with teacher education with new teachers? How are we going to deal with the current teaching staff throughout this province that has to conform or adjust to the changes that are required, in the nature that they might be thrust upon them?

Sure they can do some on weekends and summers and evenings, like they do now. But if the minister is indicating that it is not a high enough priority to include some time for professional development in the existing school year, as it has been done in the past, then what kind of a message is he sending out to the professionals in the province of Manitoba in education?

(Mr. Jack Reimer, Acting Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mr. Manness: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, it just cannot be my priority. I mean, I am sorry. During these difficult times, if it is the highest priority too of the teachers, then I would say they are also going to have to take that into account. I am telling you, we would not have given these powers to school divisions if teachers themselves had voluntarily agreed to roll back their wages. Then this would never have happened.

So it not only has to be a priority of the government, it has to be a priority of the teachers. If it is a priority of the teachers, which I think it is in some respects, then I would say, if it is the priority to the teachers, then indeed they would voluntarily agree to a 2 percent reduction in their agreed‑upon settlements with the local school divisions, and then this would not have been necessary. It still would have been in place. So it is not just the government's priority. It has to be the educators' priority too. If it is, then this will come before the hard maintenance of the agreed‑upon salaries, won through arbitration in most cases, as between teachers and the local school division.

You see, Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, it is so easy to put it into the context of the old‑think of government. If you do not give money to it, it is not a priority to you. Never is the focus turned to the person who is receiving the money and saying, if it is a priority to you, then we would think then that you would be prepared to take a little bit less and then this still would be in place.

You see, it has to be a shared priority, just not the government's. Because in believing that, then that is old‑think. That is saying that government can do everything for everybody, and it is just a matter of shifting priorities, and of course that is the essence throughout the country. I do not care what political party is in place, but that is the essence of all of the difficult decisions that are being made today in provinces across the land. The member can say, ah, that is a bunch of hokey, but the facts will bear me out.

This is happening in NDP administrations, Liberal administrations and Conservative administrations across the country.

Mr. Plohman: The minister can talk about old‑think, new‑think. We are interested in this government's think now. What we are concerned about is the fact that the minister has to take responsibility for the actions he undertakes. He selected those days through the legislation. He selected the professional development days and so then we are talking about his relative priorities. That is what I was zeroing in on with regard to the minister's statements and the fact that I see contradictions between his desire to have major change at a time when he is not ensuring that he is supporting professional development, which is essential to that change.

Does the minister think that there, or is it his plan, is he considering, and let us put it that way because the plan has not been tabled yet, and I expect the minister, as he has indicated, does not want to be definitive about what is in that plan, perhaps it is not fully decided what is going to be in the plan‑‑is he contemplating extending the hours of the day and the length of the school year?

I understand the standard day is five and a half hours, or a minimum day is, as I have been told, five‑and‑a‑half‑hour school day. It does not take many minutes in a day over 200 days to make up another 10 days to the school year. Has the minister been considering that as an option in terms of the number of days that are available for contact to students? Has he also considered whether this would be made available as an optional thing for school divisions, schools at the school level, for committees to decide within parameters whether they could alter the school day or the school year? There has been some discussion about that in southwestern Manitoba recently, about a four‑day week. I just wondered whether this kind of thing is something that we can expect to see in the minister's plan that will be coming out hopefully within two months.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, right today, I imagine the member is aware that school divisions can extend beyond five and a half. I mean, I only approve one thing, and that is the make‑up of the calendar for the year. As far as the length of the day, school divisions today have that option and can go beyond five and a half without my approval. [interjection] Minimum, five and a half, but they can go far beyond that. I guess the question is then, are you considering increasing the minimum? I can tell you, we have not internally seriously discussed that issue, and yet I am contemplating throwing that out as a question mark at the time of the forum.

Again, I have no strong view on that. I honestly believe that if the school is really focused, and when you look at effective schools, an awful lot is done in a five‑and‑a‑half hour day. So I do not have a strong affinity to either, at this point, increasing the school day length and/or even significantly increasing or increasing at all the school year in terms of days. I think that there should be discussion around both of those points, and I probably will seek views in coming out with the blueprint, but in all honesty, to me, that is a relatively minor issue associated with reform.

Mr. Plohman: I have asked the minister what his views are as well on something that was stated at a forum that he was a participant in for principals, I believe, at Tec Voc School, not something he said, although I could quote him a lot of things he said because I have‑‑

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An Honourable Member: A transcript.

Mr. Plohman: No. I kept close touch. Not a transcript. My own transcript. My own notes.

At that time, Gail Watson, the past president of MAST, was speaking as well on the panel, and she talked about Alberta's situation. She has very strong views, as the minister knows, about what is happening in Alberta, but the minister never commented on the actions that have been taken in Alberta to any extent. She said that in Alberta they are prepared to risk the future of the next generation, a quote that I took, and now it is a paraphrase because I wrote this. These are my notes, but I recall very clearly her saying that.

Rolling back to a 1930s system was another comment I took down that she referenced, going back to the 1930s. She said that superintendents will become inspectors hired by the province. A basic education is defined only in the narrowest terms, the three Rs plus social studies and nothing else, and funding will be based on 30 students per class, a student ratio, which means, of course, in terms of contact, it is much higher than that, because when you have a ratio of 1 to 30, in fact, when you consider all the other staff that are involved, like administration and so on, that in contact terms, a 1 to 30 teacher‑student ratio would probably mean like 1 to 40 or more, 1 to 45.

All grants for older students will be cut out. No education tax can be levied locally, massive layoffs, and some trustees retained, of course, a number of divisions, I think, cut in half. She said, trustees retained in fewer numbers, and I do not know whether this is my editorial comment or hers, but I think she said, to cushion the impact or take the blame for the government on these decisions. I would not want to on that particular item say that she definitely said that, but I think she referenced the fact that they are more tokenism than real in terms of decision making.

Now, those are sweeping changes by the Alberta Conservative government, which are‑‑well, it is worth stating. It is of, I think, concern to many people in education that that model may be copied to some extent by this minister. He has not said anything in the Estimates that would indicate he is contemplating anything quite as sweeping as that, although he has not really given us cause to believe that that could not be possible.

It is something that many people would view with a great deal of deep concern and alarm for the future of the public education system in this province. They are also going into charter schools as well, which I have some of my own biases about and concerns about. Without bringing in that issue, just on some of the changes that are made, the comments made by Gail Watson, rolling back to the 1930 system, the narrowed definition of basics and the higher student‑staff, teacher‑student ratios, does the minister have any concerns about those kinds of moves and would he contemplate those kinds of things in Manitoba?

Mr. Manness: I am not going to be drawn very far into these third‑party comments by a person whom we all respect, the former head of the association of trustees. I would sense that these are Gail's interpretations or the conclusions that she senses will result from some of the actions taken by the Alberta government. I have been in conversation with the minister there at meetings, and I have asked, what plan of implementation? It is one thing to state goals and it is one thing to state objectives and how it is you plan to do things, but quite often it is more difficult to put it into a plan of implementation.

I would think that that government is wrestling with some of those issues right now. I am no more or less interested in what is happening in Alberta than any other Minister of Education across the land. I can assure the member that the NDP Ministers of Education are watching Alberta just as closely as I am, because the fiscal reality in their provinces dictates that they do that. So yes, Alberta certainly seems to be moving on, some would say, a radical but certainly a different approach, and everybody is watching.

I am not losing any sleep over what is happening there. I have my own responsibilities to lead here. I do not think, within the Manitoba context, that we have as many financial difficulties, because we have managed extremely well, if I do say so myself, over the course of the last six years. A lot of the decisions that we have made have precluded us from having to take some of the very hard measures which apparently are being taken in Alberta at this time.

But just like I would not look kindly on Alberta, a government, a leader there and/or a minister there reflecting on how we are trying to do things in Manitoba, I am sure they would be of the same opinion if I were to reflect on activities there, that they would also sense that I had overstepped my bounds.

Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, therefore, I will not comment on provinces elsewhere. I never have made a habit of doing that and I will not engage in that at this point.

Mr. Plohman: I think the minister is quite prepared to reflect on actions in other provinces when it suits his political agenda, and when it does not, obviously he does not want to reflect. As Minister of Finance and in speeches in the House, we have many times heard stories about how Ontario was doing things in terms of finance. His Premier has been one of the experts at that, I would think, and so this is rather foreign, for any minister to say that I would never contemplate reflecting on what another province has done. As a matter of fact, it is a very positive reflection to be able to indicate whether‑‑[interjection] It could be a positive reflection for this province if you were to say that he rejects most of the measures undertaken. The minister is not prepared to do that, so then he is not prepared to reflect.

I also want to ask the minister about something that was raised‑‑in the interest of time, I am not pursuing that any further, incidentally, insofar as Alberta. There is a lot of discussion that could be undertaken there in terms of whether the minister is moving in some of those areas. But I want to ask about the issue of curriculum and what model will be followed with these teams that the minister is putting in place.

When the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) was asking some questions about this area the other day, I noted the minister's comments regarding emphasis on curriculum, and I am wondering whether he would agree with the statement that it is not so much the curriculum that is centrally prescribed that is so critical for maintaining some degree of uniformity in education in the province, but the standards and the bench marks that are established by the province. There has to be much more flexibility in the curriculum in terms of what is actually the recipe to get there, as long as the students get there and meet those standards and benchmarks, and there is room for flexibility in curriculum. It is standards and bench marks that are the key here.

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Mr. Manness: In theory, I support what the member says. I might not have. I mean, coming into this office, I sensed that the only way you could still work toward greater uniformity was a greater focus on a consistency of curriculum being presented. But through the discussions‑‑and as I said, I will try and stay open‑minded‑‑I have learnt too that there are different ways of doing different things. I will at this point withstand the pressure being presented by some that we move to a very specific curriculum in some of the core areas, which would allow for lesser experiences with other sources or differing sources. But then the pressure is going to come very much onto‑‑but then there is going to be added pressure with respect to grades, grading, standards, benchmarks, because we cannot have it both ways.

So to those who of course do not really want that either, but who want standards and/or grades in some terms of some subjective overview, then we are going to have some difficulty. What some are seeking to do, then, is to maintain the good‑faith model which says: Hey, just tell me what the concepts are and let me bring my various sources in; I will bring into the classroom from my various reference sources‑‑one of which may be the provincial textbook or which may not, as one of many sources. And then let me also do testing or do my evaluation based on subjective measures. I am sorry, that model has failed, and we are going to have to address it on one or two issues. I do not think right today we can go hard and fast in both areas. That means there is a hard‑fixed curriculum and a hard‑fixed test or evaluation or benchmarks or standards issue, whatever term you want to use.

We are heavily involved in discussions around these points, and how can you fairly then‑‑if then you are going to put this added pressure on, because you still have flexibility on the curriculum side, and I am saying, okay, then if we are going to put added pressure on the standards side, how then do you constitute the test? The member for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie), I know, is keenly interested in this. He and I have had a lot of dialogue, and I am sure anybody that has been close to the education community has. That will become a challenge, but, my goodness, everybody then better contribute meaningfully to that challenge. If turf protection or some way of moving to where we are now‑‑which, in my view, is unacceptable‑‑results, then obviously we are going to have some problems.

Mr. Plohman: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, it is interesting to hear the minister differentiate on this area in response to the question. I think, perhaps, if we went back in some of the Estimates during discussion when he was critic for Education years ago, we might find maybe a more strident view and rigid view on curriculum. We could dig that all out and it might be some interesting reading, but we do not have time, quite frankly, for old news. We are more interested in what the minister has to say today rather than trying to find contradictions in what he said years ago. We know they are there‑‑

An Honourable Member: So they are hard to find.

Mr. Plohman: No, they are not very hard to find, as a matter of fact. So, if the minister wants to throw out a challenge, we can all do that, but clearly there has always been a difference between the printed or prescribed curriculum, the taught curriculum, and the learned curriculum.

Some people have done a lot of writing on this kind of thing, and what we have seen is a tremendous variation because, even though you try to prescribe curriculum centrally, it very seldom manifests itself in terms of actually what is being taught in a uniform way in all the classrooms of the province. Perhaps it is not even desirable‑‑I do not believe it is‑‑to have a uniform curriculum across the province for every detail as to prescribe precisely how certain outcomes shall be met and how the standards shall be met. I think the key is the standards and the bench marks.

If the minister is showing some flexibility in that regard and some inclination to look to the standards and the bench marks as the key areas here, then I think he is on the right track, and so I was interested in seeing whether he did differentiate between the two.

I notice, as well, when you look at some of the concerns that were raised in the consultations on the reorganization, that one of those that was focused on, No. 6‑‑there needs to be an increased focus on classroom issues and recognition that these needs will be different from region to region and from school to school.

So I find a bit of a contradiction when we are trying to prescribe everything that shall happen, recognizing these regional differences and school differences. That is one of the difficulties with standardized tests, depending on what they are being used for, because of the regional and cultural differences, different socioeconomic conditions and so on that impact on the ability and readiness of children to learn certain things at certain times. If there is some flexibility in how the material is taught, as long as ultimately the bench marks and standards are met, then I think we can still accommodate differences from region to region and school to school.

Mr. Manness: Two points, Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson. I guess I can say yes, generally, to the member's comment. That is why I want the department to be very involved in some of the core subject areas. There will be basic concepts there that will have to be learned. Outside of that, if we are going to reach out to the community, there is still a lot of time in the day‑‑the five and a half hours we have talked about‑‑where the community can reflect itself.

I would hope that in some of the other courses however they are constituted and indeed in some of the core subject areas that teachers who have these special gifts will take time to introduce to our young people the issues of the day that are important to Canada and to Manitoba. To me, that is what knowledge is all about. The department does not need to reflect upon that and/or certainly test for that, but the department, I think, should focus its attentions more on some of the core subject areas.

Mr. Plohman: One other statement that was made in the dialogue, No. 8‑‑there should be an increased emphasis on early identification and intervention, since this approach is the most effective and least costly way of helping students.

Does the minister agree with that statement as a principle? It is not stated as his policy; it is stated as an identified concern by those consulted. Does the minister endorse that statement? If he does, does he feel that he is putting sufficient priority on that issue insofar as the reform of education is concerned?

(Mr. Edward Helwer, Acting Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mr. Manness: Well, I certainly agree with the statement in principle. To that end, the reading recovery pilots that we have now in two divisions are very relevant to us and we will make every effort to shift resources to the extent that we can to give greater support to this area, because I am more convinced than ever that unless we begin to deal with some of these basic issues at an earlier age, we will end up with a much larger problem at a later age.

I do not know whether society is going to support, and I have said this, a very risky statement on my part; I will say it anyway. I do not know whether the way I see society unfolding, whether or not many of our citizenry are not the magnitude today, that exists today, will be given a second chance to, I mean, funded by the state at least.

Mr. Plohman: Second funded chance.

Mr. Manness: Second funded chance to improve their skills, their basic literacy skills. So I think then we are going to have to do a better job at the beginning.

Mr. Plohman: This is a key area and one in which I agree completely in terms of being the most effective and cost‑efficient in terms of the future impact on society. If we have students who have learning disabilities that are not detected early and go on and languish in the school system, inevitably it is going to cost society more in the long term in terms of not only direct disruption of the classroom and difficulties in dealing with the child in the classroom therefore causing lost productivity for the other students in the class, but to society by way of frustration and by way of drugs and violence and ultimately perhaps frustrated individuals who will commit serious crimes and who have to be housed in prisons at a cost of $50,000 a year. So it is all very much related. We have to do more in this area, and yet I think that the government would have to be found guilty of not making this a priority over the last number of years.

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Now, there was one decision taken last year, and I would like the minister to comment on that. I will get into this whole issue of protocols for special needs children and who delivers the service and how can we ensure that all the services are available at the earliest possible age for children and what action is being taken there, but we also had the situation where clinicians involved in this type of activity in school divisions across the province were eliminated from the department. Then school divisions were given a grant, albeit not sufficient to cover their total costs, to hire these specialists in their divisions as an employee of the division.

In retrospect, considering the minister's recognition of the importance and the priority placed on this issue, does he not feel that that was a step backward in this area and one that perhaps may have to be addressed as part of reform in order to ensure some equity in providing for these services throughout the province?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, answering the last question, no, I do not agree with the member at all. Our indications are, given that clinicians are now employed by divisions, for the most part it has gone very well. The sharing model is working. We can detect no apparent problems from where we are today as from where we were previous to that.

This is what makes the member and myself belong to different political parties. In principle, and the member brought up the issue under early identification and we agree, in principle we agree, but you see, as he then stated and the record will show that, he seems to say, well, if you throw enough resources at it, you will be able to fix the problem, or if you throw more at it than you have been in the past, this government should be able to fix the problem.

Well, the reality, Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, we have thrown an awful lot of money after early identification, and we have helped somewhat, but we still have these growing problems. So then what is it that we have to do? Something is not working right, even though we share the same principles. Something is just not quite working as well as we would want. No, it is not. It is not.

The member then assumes and accepts then it is society's responsibility, in totality then, to deal with this problem. I guess I reject that. I am saying it is the state's responsibility to identify where there may be shortcomings in abilities and learning. I also accept that it is the state's responsibility within the given resources to try and do what it can but not accept for itself as either the final success as to how well the state is doing as to whether or not everybody is successfully brought to the highest level, however you define that.

I think this is where we have to turn back to the community and say to the parents, well, this is what we found. This is the short gap coming; this is the gap. We will try and find the resources that we can to help, but you have a significant responsibility also, because remember, the child is with us, as we said, five and a half hours a day, and there are other influences in that student's life which I would say are even more powerful.

So to those households then that want to also make a shared commitment to helping and indeed those communities outside of the household who want to make a shared commitment through volunteer efforts of service clubs and whatever, they are going to have to make that commitment also. Yes, it is the government's responsibility to identify. It is the government's responsibility to the extent we have resources through reading recovery. We hope that is a better thrust, and we will do what we can, but I think it is foolhardy to leave the false expectations there that if there were even unlimited funding, we could do it all.

That is what makes the member opposite and me different. That is what makes him different, because he will try and leave with society the false expectation that it is a money issue. Put more money at it and you will, after the early identification, be able to provide the solution. I am saying no. Even if we did have all the resources available to us, or even if we shifted them all into this very identifiable need, that in itself would not do it. I guess that is what makes the difference between him and me.

We know that we are going to have to make some of the changes. They will never satisfy the community in totality, but the community to be totally satisfied is also going to have to be a real partner in this attempt to identify early, react early, and that is why I am so convinced that these standards that we talk about have to be imposed at an earlier age in a diagnostic sense so that we know if any gap exists as early as possible.

Mr. Plohman: Well, the minister unfairly characterizes our position. Of course, it is very unfair because he is not considering that we may take issue with the priorities and decision making that he has undertaken in terms of the approach and its impact insofar as efficiencies. We are not convinced that this approach that was undertaken last year with clinicians and specialists was the most efficient way to go.

The minister is talking about throwing unlimited amounts of dollars. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that it is more efficient to have a team approach, where you have all of those specialists who are available to deal with a myriad of different kinds of difficulties that are out there in terms of identification and early intervention. It is way beyond what one school division or even a group of school divisions in a particular geographic area could contemplate in terms of specialists. They cannot afford it, but if they are housed centrally, they can respond. It is a team approach and therefore much more efficient at dealing with the problem. So that is what we are saying to the minister. I mean, he has adopted the team approach in Curriculum. Instead of having individual specialists for each subject, he is taking a team approach, and I think that is not a bad way to go.

I think it is an excellent way to go with regard to identification of special needs problems, and I think the minister has gone the wrong way here. It has nothing to do‑‑well, it has something to do with dollars but that is not the major overriding concern here. As a matter of fact, it took some time before the minister even admitted there were any dollars saved last year in this change.

It is a different way of doing it, and I was asking the minister about that, whether he felt this was a better way, it was more productive, it was more efficient and met the needs better. The minister went on a tirade about differences between him and I in terms of spending money. I recognize that there is also a community responsibility.

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I know that many of these parents are at their wits' end in trying to deal with behavioural problems particularly, which come about as a result of some other problem. If the child has a hearing problem or some other disruption to their development, very often behaviour is the way this is manifested. Those parents are at their wits' end and they have nowhere to turn for help. Their children then are ultimately going to end up costing society a lot more, so why not the team approach? The specialists are there to be sent out to deal with these kinds of situations. Also the diagnostic centre which was there to accommodate diagnosis and prescription for treatment to plan a program for children from rural Manitoba, that was eliminated by this government.

I have to say that completely contradicts the minister's understanding of the need to deal with this problem. If he was not responsible last year directly, then he has an opportunity now as a new minister to perhaps take another look at this issue and see whether it is not a better way to go and perhaps say, well, I would like to move away from what we did last year. I think it was wrong.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I have to reject most of the statement made by the member. I do not see where the team approach, to use the words of the member, has been violated. The employer is different, yes. The employer is no longer the department. The employer is a division and/or a group of divisions. I do not know why the source of employment breaks down any team approach. There may be some slightly different roles than existed in the past‑‑[interjection] Oh, so it is not the team approach he is talking about. It is the resources he is talking about.

I am saying, in my view, we maintain the service enhanced, and what is wrong with that? I think the client has better service today because the employer is not the department but indeed is the division and so the client is closer to the resource. I say that nothing is materially changed except the employer. The team approach still is‑‑if it has value, its value is made continuous because of the willingness of people to work together, and nothing has prevented that.

Mr. Plohman: I am not going to say too much else except to say the minister is oversimplifying this issue. He is forgetting in his response that when you have a variety of professionals available, made possible by the sheer numbers of students who are being serviced by one jurisdiction, that being the province as opposed to school divisions, then you can respond more accurately with the kinds of professionals that are needed for a particular situation than school divisions can now because of their limited numbers. They only have one of these allocated for what‑‑is it 700 students‑‑I do not know what the number is. I think it is 700. I know in the city of Winnipeg under Division 1, they have a much lower ratio of one to 390 students. But the province's ratio of support, I believe, is on the basis of one to 700. The minister can correct me if I am wrong. [interjection]

The point is though, there are very few of them in a division. That is my point. They cannot afford to hire the kinds of specialists, because there is hearing impairment, speech pathologists, behavioral psychologists, many different professions within this discipline. They are specialists, and you cannot have all of them within a particular division or even a region.

You can have more of them available if you house them centrally and respond as need be. That was the concept, and that is why I am questioning the minister on it. I think he should address that, part of it, rather than just simply trying to confuse the issue by saying that it is a matter of our advocating and throwing all kinds of money at a problem and not recognizing limitations in resources.

We recognize there are limitations in resources, but there are two aspects to this, priorities, and it is the way it is done. Both are important.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): I wanted to ask a number of questions in this area still. The first is to just pick up on what the member for Dauphin was talking about with reference to the actual curriculum. The minister made reference to the hard, fixed curriculum, or there was discussion about a hard, fixed curriculum.

I am wondering if the minister could comment to the extent that there might be a need to have some sort of local discretionary authority for possibly the principal to be able to look at individual students and make some sort of a value judgment, whether or not it is in that student's best interest to be taking a particular course?

Mr. Manness: The question is put in very general terms; therefore, I will give a general answer. My general answer would be yes, but within the core subject areas and those leading to greater literacy, those leading to greater understanding and comfort or ease of manipulation. I am thinking computing and mathematics. Those in my view have to be made pretty uniform across the province. But within the school day there is an awful lot of opportunity for the community to reflect itself, and I dare say even by way of curriculum in a number of other subjects.

Mr. Lamoureux: The other day I had mentioned the individuals, and I had asked the minister in terms of he might even have been made aware of it. He indicated that in fact it does happen, when you get someone graduating from Grade 12 and not being able to read or write.

I have had some discussions with, in particular, administrators with respect to, how does something of that nature happen? It was indicated to me by at least one individual, whereas they do not have too much of a choice in the sense that you have a core curriculum which dictates that you have to teach this, in some cases it might not necessarily be in that child's best interest, possibly because of an inability, if you like, whether it is through fetal alcohol syndrome. There are some problems that are in fact there.

I am wondering if the minister could comment in terms of whether he sees some flexibility in that specific area of the core curriculum where a valued opinion from, say, an administrator at a local level is that this particular student maybe should be spending more time and effort in an industrial arts program as opposed to as much time in some of the other areas?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I am flabbergasted by the comment from the Liberal. I mean, today society is going to have to give a focus in our industrial arts and indeed within our vocational education system like it has never given before. I dare say, if it is not happening now it will happen in such dimension in the next couple of years. The so‑called deemed to be better students are going to be focusing their futures and their attention on some of the vocational courses in a technical side like never has been the case. That is what we have to take into account when we provide the blueprint. It is something that we are trying to come to grips with internally.

I can foresee when the demand to move into those courses is going to be by students of all ability, and we are going to have to come to grips with that.

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The member, I do not know what he is suggesting. I sense he is suggesting that there are inherent reasons, no fault of the child, of the student, as to why they cannot achieve at a level that is consistent with what we would hope and want. I do not know what he is saying in his statement. Is he saying, well, take that into account and make sure that student then proceeds orderly through the school period and is not held back, taking into account that reality? I am not troubled with that, personally.

All I am saying is, though, the standards that apply to the grade average have to be at a level that significantly challenges those who are going to make up the reality of society in the years to come. That is not necessarily the individual to whom you refer. It is not necessarily the very, very gifted person to whom the member did not refer. Indeed, my concern is the great, great majority who had to be challenged at a higher level and the standards that apply to them and, as importantly, the honesty with which we make the system accountable to their better understanding as to how they are doing. That is what will drive me.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, the reason why I bring it up is that the minister was making reference to that hard‑core curriculum and the vocational schools, industrial arts or whatever. No doubt there is, I would argue, a demand today for those sorts of courses, and it will continue to increase. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

The question that I was asking the minister to be more specific on, and he did answer it, if not indirectly, was the individual decision or the possibility of having the local authority to be able to have some discretionary power on what is in the best interests of the student. The minister has indicated that authority would in fact be there. I am not convinced that it is there right now, and that is the reason why I put forward the question.

I wanted to move on to the reshuffling that was done within the department. I know the minister had made reference to the regional teams as being one of the higher priorities for replacements. Under the regional teams he used the example of I believe it was the Parkland, and within the Parkland for example there is‑‑[interjection] Parkland‑Westman, the member for Dauphin points out‑‑that there are, from what I see, currently six vacancies in that area, two from within Parkland‑Westman. I am wondering if the minister can give some sort of indication when he believes that they will be up to staff.

Mr. Manness: In the examples referenced by the member, one of the positions, vacancies, has just been filled. One is still vacant but will be filled after the full impact of the reorganization has been felt through the organization. We give very high priority to filling these vacancies.

Mr. Lamoureux: The minister made reference to, under the education reform I believe it was supposed to be nine individuals that were going to be brought aboard, six for Curriculum, one for the library resource, two for Distance Education. Would these individuals now be in place, or are they looking for these individuals currently?

Mr. Manness: No, these positions have not been filled. They though are a very important placement to us, but more importantly than filling them is to find the right people to fill them. I mean, these are crucial positions.

Mr. Lamoureux: The minister had indicated that the regional teams were in fact a priority, and just going through the number of vacancies, there seems to be a good number of vacancies through the department. I am wondering with these new positions being created and there is the‑‑I do not know if you want to call it unwritten or a statement that the minister made in terms of 5 percent, a general rule 5 percent for vacancies. I am wondering what sort of impact that particular rule is going to have on the hiring or filling of the positions in the regional teams.

Mr. Manness: I think I answered that question yesterday. It is part of the record. I said that within that general guideline‑‑and the government vacancy right now is not too far away from it‑‑but within our department that we have to set into place priorities. We always do have positions that come open, but to the extent that we have to fill a position here or somewhere else, or another division in the department, I mean this one will receive the higher priority.

Mr. Lamoureux: Can the minister indicate what percentage we are at right now of vacancy?

Mr. Manness: As a department?

Mr. Lamoureux: Yes.

Mr. Manness: As I said, at the end of the last fiscal year, end of March, we were at 7.2 percent, and last month that is dropping off to a little below 7 percent. It cycles. It cycles from department to department. For the whole year, indeed for '93‑94, when the same guideline was in place, it seemed to me the average vacancy was 4.8 for the department for the whole year.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, in terms of actual numbers, what would that work out to?

Mr. Manness: On a base of 700 employees, we are looking at roughly 35 positions.

Mr. Lamoureux: In going through some of the vacant positions there is‑‑

Mr. Manness: I am sorry for interrupting, Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson. The member should realize that if we went to 100 percent employment, the best that we could ever achieve as a government, I mean we would have‑‑it would almost be impossible to drive the vacancy rate below 2.5 to 3 percent. It would almost be impossible to drive it lower.

To give a specific answer, 712 total positions at 5 percent, the guideline then would call for 35 staff years to be vacant.

Mr. Lamoureux: I have noticed that there are in fact currently a couple of current Curriculum vacancies right now out of the department. I take it that those would be a higher priority also than, let us say, the regional teams.

Where would the Curriculum consultants fill in for vacancies that are currently there, or are there any current vacancies in Curriculum Development?

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Mr. Manness: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, we thrashed this all out yesterday. We spent a considerable time doing so. I do not mind re‑entering it all into the record, but as I said yesterday, and I will try and be very brief, as we come to a clearer understanding how our protocols are going to work with other provinces, and as we get a clearer understanding of the reform package, then we will begin to fill the remaining positions within the Curriculum Development area.

Mr. Lamoureux: My apologies if the minister feels that it is somewhat repetitive, but I still am interested in knowing now‑‑unfortunately, we do not have yesterday's Hansard‑‑if you like, in terms of what the current number of Curriculum consultant positions that are vacant.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I remind the member that we have changed around the reorganization. It does not lend itself to a comparison, as similar as it might have been in other years. I point out to them that within the ed reform package, out of the nine positions as shown, eight are going to be directed towards Curriculum. We hope to fill them, or a significant number of them, by the end of June and within the regions, well, in two parts: six in one part, Curriculum Development; and the other two were also Curriculum Development but in a computer‑assisted learning area. So they are all program development consultants.

Then within the regions, there are five vacancies out of a total of, I think it was, 33.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I know that in terms of the reorganizing of the department itself, you bring in a new initiative in terms of education reform and allocate out a considerable amount of dollars and say that you are going to be hiring some individuals to deal with curriculum, if you like, and then yet we have a number of positions that are in fact vacant.

I am wondering why that would be, why you would not be necessarily hiring, at the very least, individuals to fill these positions and possibly put them, on an interim basis, on the regional teams or whatever.

Mr. Manness: We just announced the change to the field a month ago, and we are trying to fill these vacancies as quickly as possible. We filled one last week. As I have stated again, we will try and fill as many as we can by the end of June, but you must remember there are procedures in place. There is still impact of some of our previous staff. There are redeployment issues here. The member should know that. He has been in government long enough. There are some other people within government and within the department who have now found their way to the redeployment list because of decisions made elsewhere, and they have to have an opportunity and a time to determine whether or not they fit these positions. That is the very meaning of the redeployment process.

Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, yes, again I will try and reflect more detail. We still do not have a cleaned‑up copy, but we will endeavour to have that in place for tomorrow.

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

Mr. Lamoureux: All I know is that I get representation and it is saying, look, industrial arts, phys ed consultant, gifted education consultant, English as a second language‑‑there was some concern with respect to a co‑ordinator from the heritage language which the member for Dauphin had mentioned, and there were some vacancies that are currently in place. The minister talks about establishing priorities. Is he talking about the new individuals coming from education reform plus filling these vacancies, and none of those are going to be dealing with those that I just finished listing off.

Mr. Manness: I cannot answer that question right now. I have listed out the priorities. Obviously, some of the areas the member reads out because he has been heavily lobbied to ask this question. I mean, I have frozen the firings‑‑or pardon me, the hirings. Well, which sounds better, though? I have frozen the firings. That is kind of a partial alliteration.

As I have indicated, we are putting our priorities into other places right now, and ultimately how and when and if these positions are filled, the hard ones are the ones put on the record by the member for Inkster and yesterday by the member for Dauphin. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that will be determined in due course.

Mr. Lamoureux: I do not realize why the minister would take great offence to some questions that he might have felt were asked yesterday. I have seen duplication of questions within Question Period itself. A minister tends to give different answers even to the same questions at different times.

The minister is expanding the whole Curriculum area, or at least making the commitment to expand the whole Curriculum area. I think it is fair to ask the minister to try to give more clarity to the issue of what he intends to do with some of the areas in which he has cut in the past. If he is hiring additional individuals to deal with the curriculum as consultants/co‑ordinators there should be some sort of an indication of whether or not ones that have been cut are going to be reinstated.

If he does not want to give that sort of clarification, that is fine. I will go on to the reform area where he mentioned two pilot projects, one which was with respect to the special needs. Under this particular area, I wonder if the minister could give a bit of detail on that. Hopefully, that question was not asked yesterday.

Mr. Manness: We are doing no pilot with respect to special needs. We are doing a special needs review.

Mr. Lamoureux: Can the minister indicate what that will include?

Mr. Manness: I can, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, but I would ask to wait for some information to come to me.

What we are proposing to do is to identify all special ed programs and services provided by divisions and districts throughout the province. We do not have a strong catalogue of the programming throughout our province. We would like to examine the operational effectiveness of provincial policies and special education. I mean, we have heard the word "effectiveness" being used and we are going to try and determine if it is done better in some areas as compared to others. We have all been working in this for several years now. It is time to do an effectiveness analyses.

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We would like to review the quality and cost effectiveness of special ed programs in our province, given that we have some benchmarks of comparison. We would like to review the effectiveness and efficiency of the current provincial funding mechanisms in meeting the intent of the provincial policy directions in Special Education. This is a program that obviously has grown in significance now for, what, 15‑20 years, and it is time to do an evaluation. That is what we propose to do.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I know one of the concerns that has been brought to my attention with special needs is in fact the funding formula. The argument that I have heard is that the province is not contributing the actual cost, if you like, of having this particular program instituted throughout the province. I know, for example, in Winnipeg School Division No. 1, where there is a higher per capita of special needs students, there tends to be more reliance on the school boards to make up for some of the shortfalls of the government's inability to provide enough resources to be able to service special needs students. I am wondering if the minister might want to comment on that.

Mr. Manness: Well, I have no comment to provide. I am aware of the arguments also, basically, but the reality is, this is not a funding issue, this is a society issue. I mean, we have to decide, we have to do the evaluations and see whether or not the present model is one that we want to continue to support either in greater or lesser fashion into the next century.

Mr. Lamoureux: Could the minister indicate whether or not he believes that the financing does cover the cost of the special needs, the current financing?

Mr. Manness: Yes, I think our support is fair under the circumstances. What else can I say, Mr. Deputy Chairperson? I mean, the funding formula is in place, I believe an adjustment was made again two years ago again to take into account the view of some and obviously the view of the government that maybe the funding was not quite adequate, and so we provided a 20 percent increase in this one envelope in 1992‑93 funding changes in the levels. So today, in Level II we provide $8,520 for each pupil identified, and we also pay $18,960 for Level III. Then, of course, we also provide for the severely‑‑so those are the increased levels under support under Levels II and III.

Mr. Lamoureux: Under Level I, from what I understand, it is based more on a percentage and, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I am wondering if the minister can indicate or give me a better idea in terms of the Level I special needs student in terms of how the percentage dollars are broken down, not the actual number of dollars, but I am referring to I believe it is 5 percent or the actual percentage.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I do not know if he is talking about percentage of students who are in Level I‑‑[interjection] The member is right in his latter comments. We just take the number of students within the school division, divide that eligible enrollment by 180 and multiply by $43,700, but that money has to then be spent. If a lesser amount is spent, then that is what is received.

Mr. Lamoureux: I am wondering if the minister would acknowledge that there are some school divisions that might have a higher percentage than other school divisions of special needs student, or does he find that that is not the case?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that is the way we used to do it. It became such a bureaucratic nightmare because it called upon resources of school divisions and departmental staff at such a high level, we were spending so much money on book work and monitoring that this was an agreed‑upon approach, acceptable to the school divisions and all.

Mr. Lamoureux: I am surprised that all school divisions would have agreed to it. I know if you take a look at demographics of the province of Manitoba, socioeconomic strata, that there might be an argument, and I would put it forward that there is a need for some variances between the school divisions. I would ask the minister specifically if his review will take this into account.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, it seems in this job you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't. You set up advisory committees to try and openly consult with people. The former minister, Mr. Derkach, set up an advisory committee to deal specifically with this problem and this issue.

He sought wide‑ranging views and they came in, and I am led to believe that the majority of you strongly supported, let us say we go to the model that we do and then we abandoned the old model which, of course‑‑well, they recommended staying with the model that had been introduced back, I believe in 1986, introduced by the other government, the government before us, and not to go back to what had been in place before then.

That is what we have done, except we have also put additional funding taking into account Level II and Level III, and Level I too.

That factor of 43,000 has been going up. It went up as high as 45,000, and we have reduced it slightly this year, but I am indicating to the member that we followed the process the vast majority of education community wanted.

Now, if he says that he is here now speaking specifically for one segment of that, and that is more important than the process, then the strong chorus of voices in harmony who have asked us to follow this, then he should state his position clearly and tell us who he is speaking for and who he is speaking against.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will try to be very clear for the minister. Even though this policy might have been implemented in 1986, I still believe that it is wrong. I will again ask the minister, does he not believe that depending in different geographic areas of the province of Manitoba, that some have a higher percentage of special needs children than other areas, or does he believe that there is no differences between the different geographical areas in the province?

Mr. Manness: Special needs, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I tend to favour staying with what we have. That is why we are trying to go into the study. We are trying to more readily define in a uniform manner across the country who we should include in that label, special needs.

There is quite a little education industry that has developed around that, and so we are trying to get clarity. Maybe at that time, we will be better able to address the issue as far as the differences that may or may not exist as between school divisions.

You must remember that this funding was also put into place for special needs of all descriptions. Some school divisions now seem to take the funding and target it specifically at those who would have learning disabilities. There was a time when this money was put into place to also be directed to those who had high academic achievement potential. I mean there have been focused changes too, and within the latitude provided to school divisions they have made decisions accordingly.

The level of funding, through this period of time, has continued to increase pretty significantly, much to the chagrin of those of course who say that where it is coming from is basically the portion that should be directed to the great majority who are in regular instruction.

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Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I indicated yesterday we would table some of the detail associated with the reorganization within this division. I am prepared to do so. Also I would like to table‑‑this was requested by the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen)‑‑Student Records System, 1989‑90, Pilot Evaluation. This was prepared by the Planning and Research Branch. I would also like to table A Statistical Portrait of University‑Level Education in Canada brought forward as a joint effort between Statistics Canada and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I thank the minister for that.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, again my final point that I would make is what we are trying to do in the special needs review is that we will be looking both at the financing and of course the outcomes. It is time to do an evaluation to see how successful the program has been.

Mr. Lamoureux: The minister continuously defends it by saying that this is in fact a model, and the model used to be worse. We would like to think, as we move on that‑‑[interjection] Worst, whatever you want to call it‑‑worser. What is the difference?

Let me start over, as the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) would say. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the Minister of Education, in the Chamber, talked about being fair, especially when I brought up the special needs or the Student Services area. He said that there is a general cut in the budget, but this budget is in fact fair.

I would like the minister to answer the question specifically on whether or not he believes it is fair for some areas that have a higher percentage or per capita of special needs children getting the equivalent in terms of percentage of other areas that would not require as much as areas with a higher per capita. Is that fair?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, it may be fair. It is a hypothesis though at this point. In the mind of the member it is a conclusion. In my mind it is a hypothesis, and we are going to test that hypothesis by doing this study. So where there is already a lead pipe guarantee in the mind of the member that that is the way it is, I am saying let us do the study and then we will know and we will be able to reflect some numbers, just not speculate idly.

Mr. Lamoureux: I would like to think that it is not just a hypothesis, that it is fairly clear in terms of‑‑just by looking, as I say, at the social strata, demographics of the province of Manitoba. If the minister is indicating that there is no difference throughout the province of Manitoba and he needs to have a study in order to make any sort of conclusions, I believe that he is somewhat off tune with this particular area.

It is unfortunate that the Minister of Education and the critic for the NDP party are not quite happy with the words that I am using. That is fine. I will still talk the way I know best. [interjection] You are trying to help him out, I appreciate that.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I do believe that the Minister of Education does have a responsibility. I am glad to hear him say that will be part of the study or part of the review. I look forward to seeing that review. I am convinced that if in fact it addresses this issue, that it will point out that the Minister of Education is wrong, that there are some differences, and this Minister of Education is not reflecting those differences.

I know, for example, even in private schools, the private schools are given the percentage. Maybe the member for Dauphin might even want to defend that, but I do believe in a very strong way that is something that does need to be looked at so that the school divisions with the higher demand for special needs services are in fact receiving a fairer portion of the finite amount of resources that are there.

Having said that, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I did want to move on. I know the Minister of Education wants to respond to that.

Mr. Manness: The member is not going to get away with just sort of doing a little guerrilla warfare here and then running off. I am going to share with him the facts. He will not say it, you see, he talks in terms of generalities and he does not have the courage to state his hypothesis.

I mean, is he talking about Winnipeg 1 specifically? Did he indicate how many dollars they do get today, what percent of the share of the money that is available for special needs supporting? I want to indicate, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, for the record, that today within the categorical grant area, $10.2 million is set aside. Winnipeg School Division No. 1, with 30 percent of the students in this province, receives 59.6 percent of that $10‑million‑plus figure. In other words, for '93‑94 they received $5.7 million.

Those are the facts. If the member wants to say they should receive 70 percent or they should receive 80 percent, let him state his case. Right now the 30 percent of the students in that division receive 60 percent of the funding in that categorical line.

Mr. Lamoureux: The funding formula is this, that every school division has a number of students. The number of students determines the amount of money that they are able to receive. If Winnipeg 1 is maximizing their percentage because of the 33,000 students that attend Winnipeg School Division No. 1, I would imagine that would in fact be what I would personally expect to see. If because the special needs students are there or the percentage or the population of the student base, if you like, which justifies the percentage of dollars that it would be receiving, because I take it that they are living within the funding formula, because if they are not living within the funding formula then the minister is doing what it is that he is saying that he is not doing, and that is, giving them a higher percentage.

Mr. Manness: The member does not understand categorical grants. The special needs grants come within the existing formula. I was not even talking about that. At Level II and III you divide by certain numbers and that generates almost a per capita basis. I am talking about categorical. The recognition that some divisions, by the demographics indicated by the member opposite, have special call beyond the formula‑‑$10.2 million is set beyond in the categorical sense.

I am saying, the division today in Manitoba that has one‑sixth basically of all the students in Manitoba receives 60 percent of the funding.

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Mr. Lamoureux: But you are factoring in Special Needs II and III.

Mr. Manness: No, I am not. Special Needs Levels I, II and III all come under the general funding formula. This is in addition. So the member, I do not know what he is trying to say other than, it is still not enough. If that is his claim then get up and say, it is still not enough. But I mean the recognition that Winnipeg School Division has this special call has been there by governments before us and has certainly been maintained by our government.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I am sorry for being unkind, but I just do not need the Liberal critic to come in here pretending that nothing has been done, because it has been done over successive governments. Now, if he says, but you have not done enough, fair, let him state it that way. But do not let him make it appear for the record that this is a whole new issue and he has just somehow fallen upon this great discovery and that he is now going to become a crusader to bring forward formulas that are going to be fair. The formulas are in place. If he thinks there is not enough money there to support the formulas, say so.

Mr. Lamoureux: Can the minister then provide me Special Needs monies for Special Needs I for Winnipeg School Division No. 1 in, let us say, Seven Oaks, the actual dollars and percentage?

Mr. Manness: We can do that, but that is under the schools finance area. I mean, that is the funding formula, and we are coming up to that sometime this month maybe. At that time we will gladly present that information.

Mr. Lamoureux: I would appreciate if in fact the minister could attempt to provide that information possibly even before we get to that line and then maybe we can continue this particular debate at that point in time?

I wanted to ask the minister, there were the two initiatives, Distance Education was the other pilot project, if the minister can give some sort of an outline. I know in his opening remarks he did make some reference to it, if in fact he might want to add anything to what is being reviewed or if in fact it is a review, just give some sort of a background.

Mr. Manness: What we are going to try and do is, we are going to try to support some of the field‑initiated distance ed proposals that are coming forward. I must be honest with members here, there are some individuals within certain school divisions who really are advanced in their thinking and who have some interesting models to explore.

I guess what we are saying here is, look, we certainly do not have the monopoly within the department, in all of government for that matter, as to this distance education model, the ultimate model that we would want to support. It is therefore worthwhile to look at some of the field‑initiated proposals, see whether or not some of them might be worthy of putting a methodology into place. We have set aside this money to do that. Hopefully, we can cover at least a handful of them to give support to what is happening in the field.

Mr. Lamoureux: The minister had indicated earlier that it was more of a pilot project. So are we talking about a series of pilot projects throughout rural Manitoba?

Mr. Manness: What we are saying is that there might be several pilots. How related or unrelated they are to each other, it is too soon to say. It is just not rural Manitoba. It is wherever it makes good sense to deliver education, but certainly I would have to think the greater focus would be in rural Manitoba.

Mr. Lamoureux: Can the minister indicate in terms of how he or the department is going up with the selection of which school divisions or which projects would be taken on?

Mr. Manness: That is just evolving at this point in time, Mr. Deputy Chairperson. I have nothing to offer in a hard, fast criteria for selection. We are trying quickly to build a criteria for that selection so that we can move on with the process. What we do not want it to become is a bureaucratic process, where we spend a year building the criteria for pilots. I have seen that happen too many times in governments before, and we are hoping to flow money certainly by September.

I have watched very carefully, as I wear my labour market development hat, how it is the federal Minister of Human Resources development, Mr. Axworthy, has tried to encourage pilots to come forward with respect to social reform. Although I may be troubled in one respect because I have not seen how it is one fits with another, indeed, whether the federal government even understands the area in which they are trying to lead and yet, on the other hand, I am impressed with the quickness, when they do see a decent candidate come along, I am impressed with the quickness in which there is response.

Now, of course, the aside to that is that a lot of the minister's own cabinet members are not that impressed, because they want to have greater involvement in the selection and location of these plants. Well, the process is the same everywhere. If you give greater power to a ministry like ours to select, then obviously we would like to keep the criteria more narrow so that we can get on with it. To the extent that you involve more people and you have more hoops to jump through, then it takes longer. It is a fact of life. So we would like to keep it narrow to the extent we can so that we can live up to the commitment.

Mr. Lamoureux: In the interim while the department is trying to establish some criteria, I would anticipate or would have anticipated that the minister's office would have had some sort of contact from other school divisions to participate. I am wondering in terms of what it is that he would be telling these divisions in terms of a process and more so, I guess, if he can better define some form of a time frame as he sees this being implemented.

Mr. Manness: Well, again, the general criteria would include, is there a specific need in the proposal that comes forward? Is it innovative? I am talking now about concepts that are worthy of test. Does it have a good chance‑‑I am talking about the concept now‑‑of being used elsewhere? Will it integrate delivery as between not only education, but does it lend itself or add on other delivery application? Those are going to be the general, broad range and certainly everybody will have a right to access, but not everybody obviously will be selected. That is a given. There just are not enough resources available.

We are hoping that quickly divisions will understand the ground rules. I might say, this is not just for divisions. There is a post‑secondary dimension, too, so it is just not divisions. [interjection] That is right. We are setting up partnerships between all of the providers of education. So we are hoping that the ground rules are understood with greater certainty within the next month and a half. We hope people will spend some time through the summer in bringing forward their proposals, and we are hoping that we can agree to some by September.

Mr. Lamoureux: A major aspect of the distance education is in fact the infrastructure program between Canada and Manitoba. I am wondering if the minister can give some sort of indication in terms of how that application is going and in particular how that would be implemented into the reform itself.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that is a fair question. Certainly, I think it is going fairly well. There is a real strong commitment by both levels of government. The lead minister in our case is the Minister of Finance in all infrastructure programs.

The federal government is at a kind of a slight disadvantage because education per se is a responsibility of a provincial government. Yet, we are working in harmony. We understand that it is best to, in unison, try to put in place the remaining links so that the highway can be built. The member should know that. I mean, most of it has already been built.

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The Manitoba Telephone System, when we committed $800 million upon coming into government to the Manitoba Telephone System, a significant part of that was for fibre optic cable throughout rural Manitoba. Now you have digitalization technology coming in, you have advances in microwave that were never contemplated; yet, a lot of that system is in place, either with your Telephone System or the private cable carriers. So there is an awful lot of the system that is in place.

What is not in place though in some cases is the linkages between the end of the fibre optic and the facility. In those cases, I mean, that would be an education facility, i.e., a school, but when you are putting all this money in, you just cannot have purely education ultimate application. That is now the challenge, the challenge for our government particularly, because we want to see these integrated. I mean, anybody and their dog can build these things, but it takes incredible resources to maintain them if they are not built properly.

This is where we hope that the federal government will certainly buy into our greater program and that they will encourage municipalities to the extent they are interested, encourage, as we are trying, the business community to the extent that they want to be part of this to come forward with a Manitoba integrated model.

There is no doubt that in the first instance, and for several years, the main user will be government, and within that sphere, it will be mainly education, but libraries, of course, are‑‑I mean, they can hardly wait to be part of it, and they will have a key responsibility. I look at the member for Minnedosa (Mr. Gilleshammer), who is in charge of library outreach in this province. There is no doubt he is keen and his department is keenly interested in this whole development. I look at the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) and the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach). I mean, it all has to be integrated.

In response to the member's question, right now there is a good working relationship between the federal government and ourselves. Right now we sense the greater amount of dollars here has to be directed towards completing the linkages that will provide an opportunity for every community to come on to the highway. Yes, there are some nuances around that. I know Minister Axworthy particularly would like to see an outreach component of it within the downtown area, and those are all dimensions that we are discussing at this point in time.

Mr. Lamoureux: The timing of that particular agreement being achieved, will that have any impact in terms of the pilot projects themselves, in particular, the starting point of the pilot projects?

Mr. Manness: No, they are two completely unrelated activities. The pilots are purely the provincial government activity. It is sort of a bilateral. It will be a bilateral as between our educational institutions and the department. The other issue is again directed more purely to building a capital structure or an asset, pardon me, a fixed asset.

Mr. Lamoureux: I would ask the minister if there is anything in place that ensures that there is in particular school board input into the infrastructure or potential infrastructure agreement. I am thinking in terms of, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) is leading all the discussions and debates with the federal government. Are there areas in which the school boards have or potentially could be assisting?

Mr. Manness: Well, the very essence of what Beth Cruikshank has been doing for six months is all that consulting and indeed dialoguing with school divisions. I do not know if I have ever seen a person work harder and try and reach out to the education community to try and bring forward their views so that all that could be taken into account when we are building the project and the proposal to be shared with the federal government.

Mr. Plohman: Yes, just to pick up on some of these items dealing with distance education, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I wanted to ask the minister whether in fact some of the already existing projects will be eligible for this funding. For example, Evergreen‑Interlake, or I think it is Evergreen‑Lakeshore, or is it, yes, they have put in place linkage between Gimli, Riverton, Arborg and Fisher Branch.

By doing so, they tell me that they have saved the Riverton School from being closed because they are able to offer courses from one of those centres to the others and in some cases, perhaps seven in one location, five in another and eight in another. So they are able to continue to offer courses they would never be able to offer with one instructor in one of those centres, completely interactive two‑way television. I do not have to describe it further to the minister. He is obviously aware of it.

Is that project eligible, even though it was built, put in place prior to this money being available, because one of the biggest problems they have is provincial funding and support? What they have been telling me is that there was very little provincial support. If anything, it went into this program and this project except for an evaluation. They said that the province was going to do an evaluation on the project, but there was no other provincial money, from the Department of Education and Training at least. I do not know if there was any from other economic initiatives or area from Industry, Trade and Tourism or Rural Development, but the question is, now that they are operating, and they did sacrifice other things to put this in place because they felt it was important, will they be eligible just as a new project in another division be eligible under the minister's criteria, and will the dollars available pay for operating as well as for capital?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the member states for the record fairly accurately what has happened. To the Evergreen project in particular, we have committed $30,000 for an evaluation phase and we are presently doing that in two phases at this point in time. But the member asked the hard question whether or not this pilot will be supportable.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the pilot the member talks about has been in use now, or will be at the end of this school year, a year. We are very mindful that we have been watching it carefully. We are going to do the evaluations. At that time, I guess, we will determine whether or not it fits into a model that should be in place for the rest of the province. This is what we are trying to do. We are really trying to work towards a model.

We are not so naive to believe that one model can address all situations, and yet, from the very beginning, we have been a little bit troubled as we have watched a couple of these from the beginning because of the very high cost of operation, and notwithstanding the remarks that the member said, that this has saved a school, which is very important in itself.

The very fact is if you do not build these very efficiently and are very resource conscious at the beginning, everybody of course will demand whatever it is that you provided elsewhere, and all of a sudden you cannot provide the model over the whole plant, so to speak.

So again, to reiterate, I made comment with respect to $30,000 and that was provided for the operation of the Evergreen project. In turn we got to work with them, learn, and we will get an evaluation, which we are taking right now. So we put $30,000 into that project. Right now I do not contemplate how it is we can put more into that until we understand fully how it is performed vis‑à‑vis the changes that occur almost daily, not with respect to the transmission of signal and how else put it in the classroom, but the costs associated, which, of course, have come down and continue to come down because of some of the competitive factors at work, not the least of which is the competition between the Manitoba Telephone System and some of the other providers.

So here we have Evergreen, which in itself, if the world had not changed over the last two years would be a model which I would say would be too rich, that we could not support it through all of Manitoba.

Coming up from below are the new technologies, an incredible competition, people who are getting very interested in delivering an education signal and who are honing their pencils on a daily basis, providing cheaper and cheaper rates. Now will the two meld? Obviously, there is going to be a delivery mechanism of some sort in that district. There has to be because the very essence of keeping our schools open is to try and use this meeting. Is it going to be exactly today, what Evergreen has in place? It may, but it may not. It may be different.

These are all of the variables that are at play right now, and, obviously, we will know a lot more once the evaluation is done. Again, the hard question, is it seeking support or will it be provided support under the infrastructure program proposal? I cannot say that it is, because we are still putting some significant detail in place with respect to that whole plan.

Mr. Plohman: The interesting thing is that other pilots will not have to prove their effectiveness prior to getting funds and/or their efficiencies.

Mr. Manness: We put $30,000 in pilot funding into this.

Mr. Plohman: The minister knows that the evaluation at $30,000, while a significant amount, is still rather insignificant in terms of total cost of the project and its ongoing operating costs. The question is should they get some support?

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My position would be that since the evaluation will undoubtedly assist the government in determining future projects and the shape and form of those projects‑‑in other words, there is a great deal of benefit to the government‑‑this project perhaps should at least get some portion of their costs funded for a period of time, in any event until they can move to a different, more efficient perhaps, more futuristic or whatever you might want to call the system for that particular division.

So since there was that benefit, since they were pioneering, I would think that there would be some validity to a portion of their costs being covered and ongoing costs. That is why I asked the question earlier and the minister really did not answer, and that is: Is it the intent of the government to cover operating as well as capital expenses involved with these projects? In other words, ongoing day‑to‑day operating costs, is there going to be an operating grant involved here?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I know the member wants a definitive statement, but the issue here is not add‑ons; the issue is using Distance Education to be able to work towards savings. So right now, the way the member has broached the question, it would smack to me of meaning add‑on costs right now.

Let me say, in fairness to the Evergreen situation, to the extent that we have some flexibility with an agreement that is ultimately reached‑‑and if we have not learned enough, we would like to‑‑I mean, it should be considered as a pilot. We will try and be pretty open‑minded as to whether or not we can find some additional resources.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Could I ask the honourable members to carry on their conversations at the back. It is a little bit disrupting.

Mr. Plohman: I think what is important here is that they are not automatically disqualified because they are already in place, and I think that the minister is fair for that. In addition, he did not answer the question regarding operating. He says that I am trying to get him to be very explicit. It is just that, it is a general question really, not one that narrows it down to a specific project or anything. In any of these, there are capital costs associated and there are operating costs, line costs and so on, depending on the nature of the service to the pilot that is involved. There are operating costs involved, and I am just asking if it is part of the plan, if there is a plan, for this money, that some of it will go to ongoing operating support for these projects?

Mr. Manness: Absolutely not, when he talks about "this money," because that would be setting ourselves up as the government of Manitoba, and if we are going to support operating costs, we are going to have do it in the context of the realization that we are going to have cover them for years to come and then that decision has to be made on the basis of where the savings can be found elsewhere. That is a completely different position or situation than taking the money that may come forward by way of an agreement, and hopefully it will, and saying, okay, we are going to use this to put in place for operating.

Once the federal government is gone two years from now, then who has to pick that up? By disqualification, obviously, the provincial government. If we are going to support operating, it will be done in the context of our model that we believe makes good sense in providing education wherever we can and either supporting it through additional money that is provided by the Treasury and/or savings within some other dimension of the public school system funding. We will make that decision in isolation, not on the basis of having been dragged there by way of some federal support at this point in time that will last for only basically two years.

Mr. Plohman: I was not assuming that the $750,000 that was being used for projects as outlined in the budget news release was to be cost‑shared by the federal government. [interjection] I am talking about that $750,000‑‑[interjection] Not the infrastructure program. Why I was asking, and that is what all my questions were related to insofar as the Evergreen School Division, was whether the minister on those pilot projects meant‑‑I was shocked when he said operating would not be covered because, in fact, that is one of the major costs and you are trying to find out whether this is efficient.

It seems to me operating should be included for at least the duration of the pilot. That is all we are talking about, and that is how the minister can prevent himself from having to build these costs forever into the provincial responsibility, because it is a pilot, and it naturally should be funded, maybe on a shared basis or whatever‑‑we have not got to that question yet for the minister as to what kind of formula might be used in terms of how the division shares the costs. I just want to know on principle whether the pilots would include operating support.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I am not trying to duck the question. Our thinking is not hard and fast yet in this area. We are grappling with that very issue right now, and I cannot indicate whether it will or will not be.

Mr. Plohman: That is fair enough, although I am sure school divisions will want to know very soon, if we are talking about next fall. Obviously it is too late for them to set aside additional dollars. There is not necessarily dollars available and savings immediately. It may be that through these pilots the government and divisions will be able to quantify what kinds of savings they can have as a result and how they will change the delivery of their services in order to accomplish those savings. It may not happen necessarily in the first year or the initiation of the pilot project, and that is why there may be a need to have, in the initial stages, some operating fund support from the province.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I guess we are contemplating that we are going to have such a wide array of concepts come forward, many of which will not be in the traditional department division model. I mean, I can think of some divisions where the business community is very involved, and there could be a source of revenue that is provided by them. So we are keenly awaiting the proposals that come forward, and the call then on operating funds in those divisions as supported by the department, there may be no call. So this is the wide array of models that we are expecting to be presented to us.

Mr. Plohman: By the nature of the minister's answer, we can assume then that we are talking about integrated services here rather than just education services under this pilot project.

Mr. Manness: Well, certainly we would list the pilots that come forward, yes. I would like to see if we do five, if we do eight, if we do as many as 10, yes, I would like to see three or four of them come forward hopefully in an integrated one, yes.

Mr. Plohman: Does the minister at this time, from the work that has been done by Beth Cruikshank and others in this department and other departments, in the Telephone System and perhaps cable companies, does he see fibre optics cable being used to connect as clusters in any approach that is taken or are they also considering possible digital microwave for this purpose?

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Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, this is the most fascinating area of advancement that exists anywhere today in our jurisdiction and, I dare say, in most. Two years ago when we started this, or indeed when the Distance Ed Task Force started, I mean, there were basically two options, hard wire or fibre optic and/or satellite. Yet now, just two years later, we have moved in to realize that the Distance Ed report, which focused very heavily on clustering by way of fibre optic, now is challenged to suggest why it is not that we might be able to use an even lower cost digitalized microwave, and that is where we are at.

Of course, we are trying to draw in all the resources of government, including Manitoba Telephone System, because they have a plant there, to the extent that they become more competitive in their fees. Naturally, we might as well use whatever we can in fibre optic because there is a capital debt there that has to be considered. So it is fascinating. It is as flexible and diverse and dynamic as any issue I have ever seen, but right now, you know, we are trying to work towards that model.

Mr. Plohman: It is a very exciting emerging area and it changes from almost month to month if not more often than that, but I guess I just wanted to know whether there are limitations with the microwave in terms of two‑way transmission. Is it now possible with digital microwave to have two‑way transmission of television and computer link‑ups rather than using fibre optics? Is that capability there?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, not yet in all instances. I mean you still have topographical issues. I mean, if you have got a big mountain in the way it is pretty hard to do, but still specific to the technology, yes, and given that there are not topographical issues, yes, we can do two‑way voice and two‑way video.

Mr. Plohman: Okay, that is very interesting, and certainly all of those options have to be considered and, I am sure, are.

I wanted to know what role the contract that AT&T had under‑‑I think it is Rural Development, the Premier's Estimates now. I know that if the contract was not let by this department, the minister can easily say, well, that is not my jurisdiction. But I want to know what role they will be having in determining what pilot projects should be pursued and what concepts should be pursued by the government‑‑priorities and so on in this area, in Education.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I am not going to comment on AT&T Canada and the proposal they have made to the government. I will let the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach) comment upon that. But I can indicate to the member, because this government is so committed to doing an integrated approach throughout all of government, doing a corporate approach to the provision of distant technology services‑‑since Education, as I said previously, will be the prime user in the foreseeable future, obviously Education will have an awful lot to say.

But this government prides itself in the approach it tries to take with respect to a corporate overview. To that end, realizing that there are significant requirements to enhance service delivery in the area of libraries, also a growing need in health areas, and obviously, hopefully, the business community becoming involved, we are trying and we are quickly putting into place internally an integrated approach. Education, though, without question, will be significantly involved and close to the leadership.

Mr. Plohman: The minister obviously wants to leave the issue of the AT&T proposal, and, of course, that‑‑

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson.

Mr. Plohman: He said that he wants to leave it for the Minister of Rural Development.

Mr. Manness: I do. I just want to correct the member. It is AT&T Canada proposal. There is quite a difference, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, as between AT&T Canada and AT&T.

Mr. Plohman: Well, AT&T Canada, if the minister he wants to get into that, we can talk about how big a presence it is at the present time. Certainly it will be huge in the future with the kinds of contracts that there will be made available, so it will become a growing concern in Canada. But it is based in the United States; it is a major communications company; and that is why we are concerned about why the government was pursuing or responding to proposals by American companies in Canada. I mean, you say it is Canada because they have incorporated in Canada, and that is certainly fine, but we would have liked to have seen the telephone system and other Canadian companies playing a major role in this in terms of the studies on Manitoba's needs.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, for the record, much of the $800‑million activity that Manitoba Telephone System engaged in‑‑the buying of digitized switches, the fibre optic‑‑much of that equipment was purchased through AT&T in, I believe, Canada. I mean, there has been a longstanding business relationship between the Manitoba Telephone System and AT&T Canada and also AT&T U.S. That is part of the record.

Mr. Plohman: Since the minister wants to get into that, then I will not take any more time than to ask him how long, how many years has AT&T Canada been operating? Is he aware of how long this relationship has been in place?

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I cannot answer that question.

Mr. Plohman: Okay, I wanted to ask the minister about one of the pilot projects, and he has obviously responded with this initiative in the budget to developments that were taking place. It is not a matter of just calling for them; there was a lot of pressure building. The Evergreen was one area where there was not operating funding available or support dollars except for the evaluation.

I know there are some in southern Manitoba as well, and I believe there has been a lot of activity from the context I have had in the Parkland region and north actually to The Pas and Flin Flon [interjection] and, yes, Swan River. The activity centred really in Swan River but all of those areas included and involved in the consortium that has been established there, and I am wondering whether this is one of the prime candidates for consideration under the funding that is now available for next year.

Mr. Manness: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I cannot indicate one way or the other, and I am not even sure that we have had application. I do not know how anybody could apply when the criteria I have put into place for selection has not even been provided. I am well aware, though, of the good work that is being done in the Parkland north area.

Mr. Plohman: I can see where the minister would be‑‑if he has not established the criteria and he has not had applications formally accepted now that he does not want to prejudge them, but I want to just draw this to the minister's attention. He is obviously aware of what has been happening there to a certain extent, that I think there is a great amount of interest and initiative being taken, and they have some pretty innovative people, forward‑looking people that have been working on this, and I am really impressed with what kinds of things they have been proposing and putting forward, and I hope they will be successful‑‑I think that if they are not, I will be rather surprised‑‑in receiving some funding from the minister.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we are just at the point of adjourning for the day, and I want to indicate that we still have some questions on the special needs area, the protocols, for example. I meant to get into that previously, and I still want to deal with that and a couple of other questions as well before we move on, but we will have that opportunity tomorrow.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The hour being 5 p.m., time for private members' hour. Committee rise.

HEALTH

Madam Chairperson (Louise Dacquay): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order.

This section of the Committee of Supply is dealing with the Estimates for the Department of Health. We are on item 2.(b)(1), page 82 of the Estimates manual.

Would the minister's staff please enter the Chamber.

Shall item 2.(b)(1) Salaries and Employee Benefits pass?

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Chairperson, I propose to let the honourable member go ahead if that is his wish, but I was dealing yesterday, when we were closing, with our Support Services to Seniors groups. I was prepared to continue with my answer on that, or I can wait until someone asks a question. Whatever way the honourable member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak), who was on his feet, wants to do it is fine. If he prefers to go ahead, I will be quite happy to allow him to ask his first question.

Madam Chairperson: What is the will of the committee?

An Honourable Member: Because I was going on a different line of question, so‑‑

Mr. McCrae: Oh, well, maybe I should finish up then.

An Honourable Member: If you are bound and determined to finish up, you may as well do it now.

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Mr. McCrae: Madam Chairperson, yesterday I was dealing with new and expanded Support Services to Seniors organizations in Manitoba in the last year. I want to deal with the Support Services to Seniors organizations that continue to receive funding from the government. There are two reasons for doing this. One reason is to respond to those who make the allegation that services in the community are not there, so I want to make sure that it is very clear that is not the case. The other point I want to respond to is that, as I began to address the issue of Support Services to Seniors organizations, the suggestion came from across the room, I think the honourable member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) made the suggestion, that Support Services to Seniors organizations were only being supported in Progressive Conservative ridings. Of course, that is not true, and I want to make sure the honourable member and his colleagues know that is not true and that there is indeed support for Manitobans wherever they need it.

I also pointed out that yesterday there was support coming for a Support Services to Seniors group in Transcona, and I think that was important to underline for the honourable member who perhaps does not know what is going on in his constituency, but the fact is there are seniors in Transcona just as there are seniors everywhere else in the province, and seniors in Transcona are entitled to the services that government can provide province‑wide. Certainly Transcona is a very important part of our province.

If the honourable member who represents Transcona does not know anything about what is going on in his riding, well, even I know that there is support for Support Services to Seniors organizations in Transcona, just as there is in Ashern. That is in the riding held by the honourable member for Interlake (Mr. Clif Evans) and the Ashdale Holdings Inc. is the group in Ashern. The approved level of support for 1994‑95 is $11,900. We are providing support in the amount of $34,500 to the Gimli Seniors Resource Council Inc., $29,300 for the Bethel Mennonite Care Services Inc. of Winnipeg, $19,800 for the Manitoba Housing Authority Inc. in Brandon. I think that is in Brandon East which is the riding of the honourable member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans).

Madam Chairperson, $24,900 for Chalet Malouin in St. Malo, $34,900 for the Community Help Centre Inc. in Roblin, $33,300 for the Dauphin & District Community Resource Council Inc. That would be of interest to the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman), and the honourable member for Transcona ought to be interested in that too because last I checked, Dauphin was represented by the honourable member for Dauphin in this place who is a member of the New Democratic Party.

There will be $15,000 available for the Ethelbert Support Services to Seniors Inc. and if I know where Ethelbert is, which I do, that is in the constituency of the honourable member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), presently a New Democratic riding.

The Fisher Branch Medical Facilities Inc. will be receiving $11,100. The Foxwarren Leisure Centre Inc. will receive $23,400. Foyer Vincent Inc. of Winnipeg will receive $9,500. The Gateway Manor Inc. in Teulon will receive $11,500. Gladstone Area Seniors Support Program Inc. will receive $26,400 and, Madam Chairperson, a whopping $74,200 will be going to the Gordon Howard Senior Centre Inc., and that is in Selkirk, Manitoba, presently held by the New Democrats. Last time I looked that was an NDP riding, next time I look it will probably be a Conservative riding.

An Honourable Member: I think so.

Mr. McCrae: I think so too.

The Gretna Prairie Seniors will receive $6,600; the Hamiota Seniors Council will be receiving $10,800. I remember a few months ago visiting Hamiota. Their health facilities there operate much like a community health centre. There is a real team spirit there. They work together very well. Their positions there are salaried. They have a very progressive outlook on the continuum of health care in their area, and we are pleased to support the Hamiota Seniors Council for $10,800.

Six thousand nine hundred dollars will go to the Hebrew Sick Benefit Association Seniors Group; $32,300 will go to the Home Assistance in Neepawa and Districts Incorporated; $41,800 will go to the Seniors Home Help Project Incorporated of Winnipeg; $11,500 will go to the Inwood Manor Incorporated; $19,900 will go to the Deaf Centre; $20,000 will go to the Broadway Seniors Support Project; $25,100 will go in 1994‑95 to the Living Independence for Elders Incorporated of Ashern and Moosehorn.

Ashern, now I think I mentioned already. This is the second time I have mentioned Ashern. Ashern and Moosehorn are in the riding of the honourable member for Interlake (Clif Evans). [interjection] No, these are the ones we are continuing to support. [interjection] Not on these ones. The reason I raise this is because of the allegation that somehow our support for seniors is targeted to something other than New Democratic Party ridings.

Some of these no doubt will be Liberal ridings as well, although so far most senior support service groups are found in rural Manitoba, though some are coming in Winnipeg. That process is accelerating, and then some of the Liberal ridings will have Support Services to Seniors organizations as well.

Forty‑eight thousand two hundred dollars will go to the LGD of Piney Community Resource Council; $35,500 will go to the MacGregor‑Austin Seniors Support Program Council; $6,600 will go to the McCreary Support Services to Seniors. Here we have Moosehorn again. I do not know what it is about these NDP ridings getting all of these grants, Madam Chair, but $9,900 again there; $41,500 to the Morden Services to Seniors.

I do not know how many ridings in north Winnipeg are Progressive Conservative, but $64,900 is going to North Winnipeg Co‑operative Community. In one of these organizations the honourable member for‑‑is it not one of these organizations that the honourable member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak) is involved with by way of membership on the board? I think it might be one of these organizations. He is not saying one way or the other. I am not sure which one it is, but I understand he has an understanding of the way Support Services to Seniors works.

Madam Chairperson, $64,900 will go to the Council for Seniors, the Winnipeg Presbytery, that is Society for Senior Citizens Homes; $56,800 will go to the Oakbank‑Springfield Kinsmen Seniors Complex; $13,400 to the Oak Park Lodge. This is in the Woodlands area.

Parkissemo Lodge at Miniota will receive $11,500. Plumas Senior Citizens will receive $9,200. Maple Manor Meals Service will receive $9,300. The Poplar Field Development Corp. will receive $6,900. I think that is in an NDP riding.

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The Portage Services for Seniors will receive $57,200. The Rhineland Community Assistance for Elderly Inc., $46,200.

Last I checked with Riverton, it was in an NDP riding, and Riverton and District Friendship Centre will receive $24,300 under this program.

Rorketon, well, that is in the Dauphin constituency, I believe. That is held by the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman), a New Democrat, although I think that Dauphin may not continue to be New Democratic. But it is right now, and it is receiving $6,900 for the Rorketon Support Services to Seniors.

Then what will we do when it is a Conservative riding? Will we remove those grants? Is that what the honourable member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) is suggesting? I hope not because the seniors of Rorketon would not be very pleased if we followed the advice of the honourable member for Transcona to remove services from people in Conservative ridings.

The Ste. Rose Support Services Inc. will receive $11,500. Seniors Access to Independent Living in Virden will receive $52,200.

Seniors for Seniors Inc. of Brandon: Now that might have some honourable members wondering, because I am sure that there are people from Brandon West who receive services from Seniors for Seniors Inc. in Brandon where they receive a $25,900 grant, but the offices are actually located in Brandon East which is in a New Democratic Party riding.

That riding, too, is one which may well become a Progressive Conservative riding for a lot of reasons, but certainly the position of the honourable member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) and the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) and all of the colleagues over there on such issues of the future of Ayerst Organics is that they would like to shut it all down, and we certainly disagree with that approach.

The position of the member for Brandon East on GWE and all the jobs that were created there, his position about those jobs, how he does not think they are good enough and how he does not think McKenzie Seeds and that the seed house can be viable in a place like Brandon, his personal attacks on the integrity of Ray West, the president of McKenzie Seeds, will long be remembered by the citizens of Brandon. You do not start taking personal shots at Ray West unless you are well armed, and the member for Brandon East is anything but.

You know, Ray West's dad worked for McKenzie Seeds for 44 years, and Ray West has worked for McKenzie Seeds for 37, and the honourable member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) comes along and he takes personal‑‑

Point of Order

Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): On a point of order, Madam Chairperson, of what relevance is the minister's personal reminiscences about Brandon? The minister is completely off base, is completely off target, is completely off the line. He is wasting the time and the taxpayers' money. If he wants to continue doing this, let him do it on his own time, but he is wasting valuable time. It is completely irrelevant to the questions at hand, the minister's personal reminiscences about his political successes or failures.

I wish he would get back to answering the question dealing with the matters that are relevant to this Chamber and not going on and off on some kinds of tangents to obviously waste time and obfuscate the answers to questions that he cannot deal with, Madam Chairperson.

Madam Chairperson: Order, please. Regrettably, relevance is a point of order, and the honourable member for Kildonan I believe has implied that perhaps some of the comments of the minister are less than relevant. I would appreciate the co‑operation of all honourable members in the House in keeping their points relevant to both the questions and the responses. Thank you.

* * *

Mr. McCrae: I appreciate your advice, Madam Chairperson. I would like to point out that in the context of what I am saying here today, the position of the member for Brandon East on the whole issue of McKenzie Seeds and Ray West is indeed relevant to the point raised by the honourable member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) when he made the point that support services‑‑

Point of Order

Mr. Chomiak: On a point of order, Madam Chairperson, I have no idea what the minister is referring to. If you wish to check the record, I do not think you could find anything in the record dealing with what the minister is even remotely referring to in terms of the comments or comments from any members in this Chamber. If the minister wants to deal with a point raised, let him put it on the record; let him deal with it.

But, again, it is not relevant to this issue. There is nothing on the record that deals with what the minister is trying to deal with. Relevance, Madam Chairperson, is a brick in a brick wall. This has nothing to do with even the minister's attempts to form a defensive maneuver around himself.

Madam Chairperson: Order, please. I believe there is some dispute over the facts here. However, because we left off the previous day at a point and my understanding was that the minister was completing his response to the last question posed that day‑‑I do not have a copy of Hansard in front of me to clarify that either.

The honourable minister, to quickly finish his response. I believe the members of the committee are wanting to put more questions on the record.

* * *

Mr. McCrae: All right, Madam Chairperson, I will discontinue my response. I am sorry that the members in the New Democratic Party are not interested in Support Services to Seniors, not interested in hearing what is going on in Manitoba with respect to the expansion of programs and the continued support for programs to help people living comfortably in their homes so they do not have to be in acute care centres.

I understand their position, because they think that all we need are acute care centres and we do not need any supports in the community and we should just have these great big hotels and call them hospitals. That is the position of the New Democrats. They do not want to hear about the very, very significant and growing support that is being placed in communities throughout Manitoba. They are going to hear it at some point. I will make sure I get it into my answers, Madam Chair. I will stop now because the honourable members are just clearly so disinterested or uninterested in seniors in Manitoba that they want to stop me from answering questions, and so I will sit down.

Mr. Chomiak: Madam Chairperson, the minister knows full well we asked him to table the document that he is reading from, but he has refused to do so.

While we are at it, I asked the minister on Monday to table a number of documents which he promised to table. I am wondering if the minister has those documents, namely the letter to all the health facilities.

Point of Order

Mr. McCrae: On a point of order, Madam Chair, the honourable member says I refused to table this. I thought I gave this list to the honourable member yesterday.

An Honourable Member: You said you had two lists and one you were not going to table because you were reading from it.

Mr. McCrae: Yes, the one I am reading from here I gave to them yesterday. So the honourable member is putting false information on the record‑‑

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Madam Chairperson: Order, please. I believe it was my understanding that there were two documents shared with both critics; however, neither of those items were tabled. Regrettably, the table officer is unable to clarify for me whether indeed they were.

I remember distinctly drawing to the attention of the honourable member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak) that the minister had indicated he would be sharing the information, and I was of the impression copies had been distributed. However, I drew attention to the fact that they were not tabled with the Clerk.

* * *

Mr. Chomiak: Madam Chairperson, to resolve the issue I will table the documents in this Chamber so that they can be on record as soon as I locate them.

My question to the minister was, the minister promised me on the last several occasions we had met that he would provide information, namely, the letter that went to all facilities concerning the three‑year cut. The minister promised that he would provide that.

Also, the minister indicated that he would provide some other documentation. On May 4, he said he would get back to me on the letter to the facilities. Also on May 2, he said he would table the terms of reference concerning the committee that has been set up to study personal care homes.

Mr. McCrae: Madam Chairperson, the honourable member asked about the personal care committee, and I am just having the names brought forward so that I can read those names into the record. The terms of reference, I already put on the record. So they are on the record of Hansard. The letter that we sent to MHO and all its members, I will be getting that. I do not have it here, but I will be making that available to the honourable member. That letter sets forth our intentions with regard to the next few years and also sets forth our intentions with regard to Bill 22.

Before I go further, I have to observe that what the honourable member has been consistently arguing for is that we allow the system to continue. Our only response is the kind of response that we have seen in NDP jurisdictions and that I am not wil