LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA
Monday, June 27, 1994
The House met at 8 p.m.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY
(continued)
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent Sections)
SENIORS DIRECTORATE
Mr. Deputy Chairperson
(Marcel Laurendeau): Will the Committee of Supply please come to
order. This section of the Committee of
Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Seniors Directorate.
Does the honourable Minister responsible for the Seniors
Directorate have an opening statement?
Hon. Gerald Ducharme
(Minister responsible for Seniors):
Absolutely. I am pleased to be
able to present the '94‑95 budget Estimates for the Seniors Directorate.
During Seniors Month, I participated in the celebration of
outlining the directorate's activities for the past fiscal year and those
planned for the next, so I am going to give you an overall.
Seniors play an important role in our society now and, as
their numbers increase, will play an even greater one in the future.
I consider it a privilege to be Minister responsible for
Seniors. I view my own role as one of
enhancing the quality of life of older adults in Manitoba. I am aided immeasurably in this task by the staff
at the Seniors Directorate, which promotes the interests of seniors within
government and works to ensure that policies and programs remain sensitive to
the needs and concerns of seniors.
The directorate gathers information regarding seniors needs
and concerns by several means, largely, of course, from seniors
themselves. For instance, the
directorate meets on an ongoing basis with community groups to identify
concerns and issues relating to seniors and discusses such issues as elderly
abuse, housing and safety.
Outreach staff continue to provide support to seniors and
seniors organizations in rural and northern Manitoba. Outreach takes the form of educational
workshops, information, referral and consultation services.
As a result of their involvement, staff have identified
issues and worked toward resolution in their respective areas.
Another way information is communicated to the directorate
is through the toll‑free Seniors Information Line, a central source of
contact for seniors across the province.
This information line, which has been in existence since 1989, provides
a vital link between the Seniors Directorate and other government departments
and agencies.
It is well used. For
instance, in 1993, the directorate received 1,650 calls from Manitobans
regarding seniors issues. Often these
inquiries are for further investigation by the directorate on issues important
to seniors, such as housing, health, income security and transportation, to
name a few. In addition to addressing
issues and concern, this line ensures that seniors receive good service.
Part of that service commitment is also met by the recent
distribution of information booklets developed also by our directorate. Among these are the Manitoba Seniors
Directorate Information Guide, Questions to Ask Your Doctor and Pharmacist on
Taking Medication, and the Seniors Emergency Preparedness brochure.
On the difficult subject of elderly abuse, we have provided
just recently information to professional service providers and seniors. The directorate continues to distribute Abuse
of the Elderly, a guide for the development of protocals. The financial abuse video, Standing up for
Yourself, with the three accompanying booklets, What is Power of Attorney?, How
to Recognize and Avoid Financial Abuse and Home Repair and Door‑to‑Door
Sales.
The directorate develops other resources as the need
arises. We maintain regular contact with
other provincial and territorial Seniors Directorates as well as the federal
Seniors Secretariat in order to share their information and knowledge of
seniors issues with our counterparts across Canada.
Just briefly, I will review what we will be doing in '93‑94. I have listed the ongoing activities of the
Seniors Directorate. I would also like
to tell you about the specific activities undertaken in the past year.
In '93‑94 the directorate distributed to seniors the
Emergency Preparedness brochure province‑wide. The brochure provides practical advice from
experts on how to prepare in advance for emergency situations and suggests
appropriate measures to take when they occur.
So that more Manitoba seniors have access to the
directorate's resources, five brochures were translated into Saulteaux and Cree
languages. In June '93, during Seniors
Month, the directorate held special days in Russell, Carberry, Gimli and
Winnipeg.
Directorate staff also participated in the planning
committee for the Alternatives for the '90s to End Abuse conference held in
October '93 in Winnipeg. One full day of
that conference was devoted to issues concerning elderly abuse. In 1993, our directorate's video on financial
abuse was selected for recognition in the education/training category for
Manitoba's Blizzard awards. I am proud
to say that the video also won a second place Silver Screen award for outstanding
achievement in the education category.
This was conferred at the 26th United States International Film and
Video Festival screenings and awards presentation in June '93 in Chicago.
Another video called Designing for People, not Prizes was
developed recently by the Manitoba Advisory Committee on Seniors Housing. My staff played an active role in the
development of this video by working closely with seniors' representatives and
the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
I am pleased that my department and the Department of Housing were able
to contribute financially, and they will be working with CMHC to distribute it
to seniors groups throughout Manitoba.
Committee members hope that the video will be useful as an educational
tool for groups who are planning to develop or renovate multiunit housing
projects for seniors. I would advise the
members, if they have not seen this video, to look at it. It is a very, very good and enlightening
video.
As part of our ongoing work in the area of elderly abuse,
we distributed the Abuse of the Elderly:
A guide for the development of protocols, to service providers
throughout the province in the fall of '93.
Those again who have not received that guide should ask for it. It has been very well recognized. As a matter of fact, I believe that another
couple of provinces across Canada are now looking at our guide and will
probably be using it when they develop theirs.
The guide provides practical assistance in identifying and
responding to incidents of elderly abuse throughout the province. With this tool we hope institutions,
agencies, organizations and police will be encouraged to implement policies and
procedures for dealing with the abuse of the elderly. On this same subject, we also explored the
use of the multidisciplines area team concept to address elderly abuse in
Manitoba.
Situations of abuse are often complex and go beyond the
scope of any one department or agency to provide solutions. This year, the director established an
interdepartmental working group to develop a resource manual for
professionals. This manual will help
make them organize and run the same similar team to deal with complex
situations of abuse. The manual was sent
to several organizations for consultations and, as named, The Abuse of the
Elderly, A Manual for the Development of Multidisciplinary Teams, has been
printed and is being distributed.
Our staff will work with communities to establish these
teams and will be available to provide education and support. As you can see, '93‑94 was a very full
year; '94‑95 also will be. Some of
the initiatives for '94‑95, as I just mentioned, we did distribute The
Abuse of the Elderly, A Manual for the Development of these Teams, and helped
communities establish these teams.
Caregiver stress is another area of ongoing concern. One of our initiatives in the coming year is
to work in partnership with the community and the private sector to explore
options providing information and support to the informal caregivers. Since we feel we must use many different
vehicles of communication to reach Manitoba seniors, we will launch this year a
seniors' biannual newsletter.
* (2010)
It will provide factual information on government services
and programs and advise seniors how to access them. This is the result, as the questions on my
column that we write bimonthly, the publication, Seniors Today. I am optimistic the newsletter will be
equally effective when we send it out.
Seniors are important members. We all know they are important members,
probably the most important members of family.
In celebration of International Year of the Family, we are working on a
number of projects revolving around this theme.
For example, a series of posters about seniors in positive family
situations was developed with the Manitoba Council on Aging.
We are also working with the Seniors Today newspaper on a
writing contest for seniors, inviting individual stories about the good old
days.
Also, the directorate has worked closely with the seniors
community to plan special events in Winnipeg and, of course, tomorrow in
Killarney to recognize the contributions of seniors. I am proud to say that the Winnipeg
celebration was again a success. I am
sure the event in Killarney will be terrific as well.
As you are aware, the Council on Aging has begun reporting
to this Minister responsible for Seniors.
I view this as a very positive move.
A direct link between the minister and council will be re‑established,
as was originally intended in 1980 when it was originally set up by the
Honourable Mr. Sherman. It was
originally intended to work on that basis.
Since the council reaches many seniors, I will hear first‑hand
the issues and concerns. I can inform
the members that already I have met with the group three times‑‑two
informal and I attended their last board meeting.
This move ensures that the seniors advice, experience and
knowledge is available to government in formulating policies and programs. Seniors will have direct input on the issues
that affect them and, of course, future generations.
The council and the Seniors Directorate will be able to
address the needs, concerns and issues of aging in a collaborative way that
will benefit our community.
In closing, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I believe that the
Seniors Directorate will continue to play an important role in meeting the
needs of Manitoba seniors. We will
continue to actively seek the involvement of seniors and now the Council on
Aging, members of the community at large and the private sector.
We honour the contributions seniors have made and continue
to make to the quality of life in this province. We are very aware of the fact that seniors
issues affect us all. How we work with
communities to resolve issues such as housing, transportation, health and
elderly abuse will determine the kind of Manitoba we will all live in.
I can tell you that on behalf of my staff, to let the
people know on behalf of the staff of all three plus my director, we are
committed to a positive future. That includes
a healthy and harmonious society.
I thank you for the opportunity of giving you these
remarks.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the minister for those opening
remarks.
Does the critic for the official opposition party, the
honourable member for Broadway, have an opening statement?
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): If you remember the movie Student Prince with
Edmund Purdom as the star, there were soldiers, cadets who were singing a song.
An Honourable Member: Why do you not sing us a song right now?
Mr. Santos: Oh, thank you. I am just waiting for that invitation.
I would like to repeat the song he sang and then to remind
us about the importance of those subjects that they talk about in this.
Okay, it is the song they sang in the Student Prince.
Latin song was sung.
Nobody understood that because that is in Latin, but let me
translate‑‑
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. Just one minute. Could I ask the honourable member to give us
a translation on that? Go ahead.
Mr. Santos: I will.
The song is basically saying, let us enjoy life while we
are young, for after the pleasures of youth and the tiresomeness of old age, we
will still be on this Earth. That is
what the song was saying.
I am saying that life is too valuable. The pleasures of life are most enjoyable when
you are still young, but being young is not merely a matter of age; it is not
merely the number of years. It is your
attitude towards life.
I would like to begin with that note about life. It is life, not years, that count in our
life, but when you are already old or middle aged, you should be careful about
getting your partners in life. I
remember a story about an older man who got his wife, a young woman, and, you
know, on the wedding night the husband died after the wedding. The widow was explaining to those who
attended the funeral, how did your husband die?
She said, well, my husband came and then he went.
An Honourable Member: Is he going to translate that?
Mr. Santos: I do not want to translate any more. That is all the widow said.
It is very important, therefore, just to be careful about
our own life. When we get old, men
usually mellow down with age, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes made this impressive
statement about people: Men‑‑and
this, of course, includes women‑‑like peaches and pears, they grow
sweet a little, they grow sweet a little before they begin to decay.
So we will become generous and good generally in old age,
because we have no longer any way, any strength to confront people, so I think
we should be very co‑operative in our relationship with other persons,
even those in the opposition, even anybody, even those who hate us, even those
who dislike us. There are people who
dislike other people‑‑
An Honourable Member: I just like some people better than others.
Mr. Santos: Yes, but regardless, I think we should adopt
that kind of attitude, because sometimes they say, old people, they object too
much, they consult too much, they are seldom adventurous and they repent too
soon. That is the quality that we should
avoid.
As we grow older, we grow in wisdom. It is not in length of days but it is in
understanding that we have to develop in old age. We should not worry about too many
things. You know, Bill Cosby said‑‑
An Honourable Member: On his 50th?
Mr. Santos: Yes, he said it in 1987.
An Honourable Member: When he was 50 years old.
Mr. Santos: Yes, he said, I do not worry about senility
because my grandfather told me not to worry about senility because when it hits
you, you will not even know about it.
But nobody loves life like an old man, as long as he had
lived his life fruitfully and enjoyed it.
I think just living is good in itself, regardless of the condition that
you sometimes find yourself in. There
are many people who say they are fed up with life because they have too much
pain, too many problems they cannot solve.
I think otherwise. I think,
regardless of all the vicissitudes of life, living in itself is a
blessing. I still want to live
regardless of whether I am suffering pain every day. Because pain has some curative spirit, I
would say, to the soul of man.
When we are young, we always say, when you commit adultery,
it is a sin. But when you are already
old, even adultery becomes a miracle.
An Honourable Member: A miracle?
* (2020)
Mr. Santos: Yes, if you can do it. As we grow older, it is my feeling that we
should become‑‑I said it before, you should become kind and nice
and gentlemanly, but sometimes the occasion demands that you become a radical
also. I have a quotation here from
Margaret Laurence. I would like to quote
this in full: It is my feeling that as
we grow older, we should become not less radical but more so, in a willingness
to struggle for those things in which we passionately believe. Social activism and the struggle for social
justice are often thought of as natural activities of the young but not of the
middle aged or the elderly. In fact, I
do not think it was ever true.
So if you believe passionately in certain ideas in life,
you should fight for those ideas even in old age.
There might be a little bit more diplomacy because you have
lots of experience to draw from, but still you have to fight for the ideas that
you passionately believe in, and I accept that opinion. Of course, the old have much wisdom to drawn
upon, and they can do it with effectiveness and with understanding and with
consideration for other people.
I would like to talk in a more serious vein, Mr. Deputy
Chairperson, about health care concerns.
Next to health, of course, and related to it are the diets that we
indulge in, the food intake we have, our housing needs, housing concerns and
when retirement comes, problems related to retirement, like pension and lack of
money. Then I want to conclude about our
duty primarily to ourselves.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I would just like to inform the member he
does only have 30 minutes, and you have already used 10.
Mr. Santos: I will condense it in 30 minutes.
Health is, of course, a value that we should be aware is
very important in our life. You see,
health according to Franklin Adams is the thing that makes you feel that now is
the best time of the year. I think that
is a good description of a healthy person.
When you feel that now is the best time of the year, you are at the peak
of your health.
However, when health is absent in your life, everything
seems to be meaningless. Wisdom no
longer reveals itself. Art cannot
manifest itself. Wealth becomes
useless. You know those people who are
wallowing in wealth, if they are in pain and unhealthy, they are willing to
give everything they have to gain back their health, but, of course, it is too
late. So we have to take care of
ourselves.
It is like we should take care of the things that we eat,
and we should listen to advice because they are changing things in our modern
day world that we should be aware of.
Too many people are suffering from diseases in old age. I happen to believe, Mr. Deputy Chairperson,
that this is partly or primarily their own doing. I say so because of my observation.
(Mr. Bob Rose, Acting
Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair)
There are people who, for example, have been hooked to
smoking, and they already know from beginning to end all the consequences, the
strain of bad consequences flowing from that habit, but they still do it. They will go to that room there and puff
themselves up, yes, in that room, and they know fully well all the outcomes
that will flow from the thing that they do.
So in old age, when they have difficulty breathing, when they have high
blood pressure, when they have arthritis, when they have all kinds of
inconveniences in their life, I say they have contributed to their own health
condition.
Now I said our diet is related to the kind of condition
that we have, the health problem that we experience in ourselves. I have some information about diets and
things like that. We should be selective
in the food that we eat. Mostly, we
should select a whole food, wholesome vegetables and fruits, especially
olives. We should avoid heavy‑‑
An Honourable Member: Is that the responsibility of the minister?
Mr. Santos: No, no.
I am talking about the seniors‑‑in general, those who will
read all these things that we have been talking about, that they can profit by.
Sometimes the costs of our own misfortune is lack of
information, lack of knowledge about consequences.
The Acting Deputy
Chairperson (Mr. Rose): Order, please. Could the honourable member direct his
comments through the microphone?
Otherwise, Hansard would not be able to record all of these remarks, and
for the Chair as well, please.
Mr. Santos: Thank you.
So we should be selective in the things that we eat, in servings: general servings of fruits and vegetables,
grains and legumes, fibres, minerals, legumes, vegetables, minerals, avoiding
such things like salt and sugar.
An Honourable Member: But salt is tasty.
Mr. Santos: Of course, of course. Mostly those things in life that are
pleasurable shorten your life.
An Honourable Member: Well, not everything.
Mr. Santos: Most, I said.
I am not saying everything. For
example, cream and cakes.
An Honourable Member: Cakes, ooh!
Cheese cake?
Mr. Santos: Yes, cheese cake, ooh!
An Honourable Member: Red wine?
What about red wine?
Mr. Santos: Wine, there is some research in France about
wine drinking. You know, the French
people, they hardly drink water.
Whenever they eat at the table, they have wine, but they found that,
generally speaking, they live longer than Americans, than Canadians. I do not know if it is because of the wine
because [interjection]‑‑French wine, it might be one of the causes,
but they also eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and I think there is some kind
of merging here of benefits from the kind of food that they eat.
It is also important that we exercise. It is not just eating, because when we have
food intake, we imbibe, of course, these minerals and vitamins and the things
that our body needs, but we have to burn these things. [interjection] Yes. And, you know, the minister, I heard him
saying that he jogged too much today.
This is good for himself, I would say, but remember‑‑
An Honourable Member: For his age.
Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Santos: For himself.
An Honourable Member: Oh, not for his age, though?
Mr. Santos: No, no.
Age, I am saying, is not a matter of years. It is a matter of how you feel.
The minister must be careful again. I have to caution him, because the inventor
of jogging, his name is, I think, Fixx.
* (2030)
An Honourable Member: No, he died of a heart attack.
Mr. Santos: No, whatever he died of, he died of
jogging. He was jogging.
An Honourable Member: Yes, but he was 300 pounds before he started
jogging. He smoked a pack or two packs a
day.
Mr. Santos: Yes, so you can overdo it, and if you do, you
are risking your own health and even your life.
An Honourable Member: It is like everything else. You should not overdo it, as you told us at
the start of your speech.
Mr. Santos: Yes, moderation is a good rule in life,
moderation in everything. If you are
moderate in your ideology, nobody can tell whether you are an extreme left or
an extreme right. If you are moderate in
your food intake, your body will not be overburdened. If you are moderate in drinking or whatever
it is that you enjoy, then you enjoy it to the fullest.
Do you not know that, if we drink too much, we have a
hangover; we cannot even wake up the next morning. It is terrible. Even with eating, if you overeat, you feel
very uncomfortable. So moderation is a
good virtue to develop in life.
I said I am talking about housing also. I have some housing problems. These are problems, real ones, of our senior
citizens.
An Honourable Member: There is one of our seniors that just walked
in.
Mr. Santos: A senior is walking in now. [interjection] I
did not say anything dirty, no. They
were all clean words that I used.
(Mr. Deputy Chairperson
in the Chair)
This is housing, honourable minister, and this concerns
real people this time. I had constituent
calls‑‑I would like to narrate and ask for advice. I have a senior citizen‑‑not one,
but at least three of them, who talked to me about the same problem. Obviously, I have to bring it up as their
spokesman.
She was telling me and he was telling me‑‑it
was both a man and a woman‑‑that a Housing representative or some
worker with the Housing department had informed them that they were going to
visit their rooms frequently and regularly, because they want to know what is
going on inside. They feel that it
invades their privacy and their independent life. I tend to agree with the seniors.
Mr. Minister, an immense domicile is placed up above. It is a sacred place. He must have the comfort and security and
privacy that no one should invade without his consent or her consent. If this becomes a rule and a regulation, we
are becoming or we are opening the door of a police state where representatives
of government and state are inspecting what we do.
I think how a man or a woman behaves inside their suite,
inside their home, is their own concern.
We should respect that. We feel a
little bit insecure if there is always someone snooping around, looking at our
behaviour, what we do, how we dress during the summer, in the heat waves,
especially. I can take off my clothes
and wear nothing as long as I lock all the doors and all the windows. Who should be concerned about that?
I am saying we should respect the privacy of senior
citizens and not insist, without their consent, on this regularity of
inspection.
I also have specific cases of rent increases that were, to
my mind, unreasonable. For example, let
me cite specific statistics here. This
resident's rent was $205. I will not say
who they are or where they live because I want to preserve confidentiality, but
these are real people. His rent was
$205. It was increased to $286. We can compute that if you wish, and I can easily
find out the percentage increase, $205 to $286, the difference will be‑‑[interjection]
Yes, to me, it is unreasonable. That is
one case.
Another case is this one, $205, and it is increased to
$289. That is even higher than the first
one. You could say that that is an
unreasonable kind of increase. To me,
that gives problems to senior citizens who have very limited resources. It is all right if you have savings and income
and money set aside, but this is regularly increased. You have to pay this month after month. It will be terrible, in my way of thinking,
if this kind of policy is allowed without consideration of resources of senior
citizen.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I am already on housing, and that
is the most important problem that I think I had to bring up.
I said I am going to talk also a little bit about
retirement. You know, we have to plan
for our retiring. On the other hand,
retirement should not be based on mere age because this Claude Pepper, a U.S.
senator, said: Age‑based retirement,
if you have a policy that is based on simple, simple age, then you force people
to retire. Age‑based retirement
arbitrarily severs productive persons from their own livelihood. It squanders their talents; it scars their
health; it strains an already overburdened social security system; and it
drives many elderly people into poverty and despair. Ageism is as odious as racism or sexism.
It is a form of discrimination against old age. I am glad that in Manitoba the judicial
ruling is that nobody can be forced to retire‑‑as far as I know,
this is the law now‑‑when there is agreement between the employer
and employee. The employee can continue
to work, regardless of age.
We always yearn to retire, you know, when we are quite
burdened with pressures in life, and yet we do not know the consequences that
will flow from that. Once you retire,
you are placed on fixed income, and the cost of living all around you is rising
and increasing. As the years roll by,
you are being pushed, slowly but surely, into the brink of poverty. Nothing is more usual than the sight of old
people who yearn for retirement, but nothing is so rare as those who have
retired that do not regret it. Most of
the time they do regret it in old age.
So I would say to those people who are under pressure, they
should be praying that they be slowed down, and they should be steady in their
hurried pace of life. All we need to do
is take the break that we need to give some ease in our tensions, in our
muscles, so that we may appreciate the power of rest and sleep so that we may
regain the strength that we need and face again another day of challenges in
life.
I am almost done, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, but I come to a
connected problem about retirement; it is the problem of lack of money, lack of
resources. Most people are not so lucky
like other people who may have pension plans, who may have other pension
benefits. The normal run of individual
who had not cared about the future‑‑instead, he had no money and
will be relying on Canada Pension or old age assistance when they do
retire. Those people who are retiring
nowadays at the present or current time are luckier than we because there are
still more funds in the pool of money in those funds; but, when government
changes and policies change and they reallocate some of this money to public
uses, it is not inconceivable that they may run out of money and that we who
may retire later may have less to draw upon.
We must be assured that we should plan and put some money,
if we can, to RRSPs just for the sake of keeping it there for the time that we
need it. You can be young without money
and enjoy life, but I say, you dare not be old without money.
* (2040)
Money is a a most curious commodity; it is a fascinating
thing. It is good in itself for
nothing. You cannot eat it, you cannot
sleep on it, you cannot wear it, but it has the power to give you all these
things. It is valuable to you only if
you are willing to part with it. Those
who are misers and want to embrace money and keep it with them all the time do
not enjoy it. They enjoy maybe having
it, but they never enjoy the benefits that money can bring.
On the other hand, money is simply a means. It is not life itself, but look at
people. They will almost do anything for
money. They will lie for money; they
would cheat for money; they will sweat for money; they will even kill for
money. That is why they say, and it is
written, the love of money, you know that, is the root of all evil. Not money itself, money is very useful if you
know how to use it, but if you love it so much, it can take you to things you
do not want to go to. It can bring you
to jail if you love it so much that you violate the law.
Now I would like to conclude, Mr. Deputy Chairperson,
because of time limitations. I say,
everyone has a duty to oneself. He must
first fulfill his duty to his own self before he can be said to fulfill his
duty to others. Aging people should know
that their lives are not mounting or unfolding anymore. It is an inexorable inner process of life
that life is contracting, so they must give serious attention to themselves,
yet remembering all the time‑‑Adlai Stevenson said one time: It is not the years in your life, but the
life in your years, that really counts.
That is a good piece of wisdom to remember.
We should avoid pitying ourselves‑‑self‑pity‑‑never,
never, never do that. There is nothing
wrong with being poor or having a lack of money, but do not dwell on it. Do not dwell on the fact that you cannot even
enjoy yourself and take yourself to a fancy restaurant. You can still live without those fancy things
in life. You should be genuinely happy
with the fortune of other people. Do not
make your friends who are blessed with resources guilty because of the
blessings that they enjoy. Your friends
are your most valuable assets in your life.
You can really know your friend when you are in trouble. When you are successful, all of them are
around you, and you do not know who your friends are; but, when you are deep in
trouble, then you recognize who your friends are.
Be frugal in the resources that you have command of. Use them most intelligently and be
creative. There are certain things that
do not have to cost money, and you still can enjoy them. For example, going out on a picnic under the
tree does not cost too much, but you enjoy it.
These are some of the things that I leave behind to those people who
would like to have some guidance in their old age. I am not leaving in any sense, but I am
learning all these things and trying to impart and share them with other
people.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Chairperson. I reserve the question privileges on specific
items later on. I conclude my remarks.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the honourable member for Broadway
for those remarks.
Does the honourable member for St. Boniface, the critic for
the second opposition party, have an opening statement?
Mr. Neil Gaudry (St.
Boniface): Oui, Monsieur le vice‑président.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will be very brief because it was
very interesting to listen to the member for the official opposition.
First of all, I would like to thank the minister's staff, I
guess, because it appears that any time that a brochure comes it is delivered
to my office in quantity so that I can deliver it to my senior homes in St.
Boniface.
An Honourable Member: Is it in French?
Mr. Gaudry: In French also, yes. It is well appreciated. I delivered some just a few weeks ago again,
the guide that he was talking about in his opening remarks. They find them very useful. They have even requested to have a few more,
which have been forwarded from his office.
Since the minister has announced that he will not be
seeking re‑election in the next election, I would like to thank him also
personally for the openness that he has added over the years as Minister
responsible for Seniors, because any time that he has had an event or anything,
he has certainly offered our participation as critics in the senior area.
I wish him well in his upcoming retirement. I am sure he is not going to retire because
he has been too active to do that, and he has not reached that magic age of
senior, I do not think, because he looks too young. [interjection] That is
probably because he worked hard for the seniors.
The member has touched many concerns there in regard to
housing and calls he has received from seniors.
We all do. Usually, when I get
those calls, if it has anything to do directly with the Seniors Directorate, I
certainly would pass them on to the minister.
But it is usually, like, housing, and I direct them to the Minister of
Housing or the Minister of Health, where also I have always been very fortunate
in getting responses in regard to questions directed to those departments.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we will have questions, going
through the Estimates here, but I would like to mention that I have been
involved working with seniors for a number of years‑‑in housing,
for example, in the early 1980s. I even
mortgaged my house to start a project for the seniors. [interjection] No, no
problem. There were six of us, and I
thought it was showing leadership from these people.
Six months ago, I did the same thing again. There is another project going up on Des
Meurons street. It is for the seniors of
St. Boniface, and six of us again signed for a line of credit to start the
project.
It may be taking a chance, but I think for the seniors,
what they have done for our community‑‑they have been helpful, and
they are people who have worked very hard in the community. When you work with them, the knowledge that
they have and what they have passed on to us, it is always fair to help them if
we can.
I feel that has been my contribution to the seniors, and I
will continue working with them.
Hopefully, in about a couple of months, that senior building‑‑it
is 86 units‑‑will be opening on Des Meurons street in St. Boniface.
* (2050)
We have been very fortunate, I think. The people who have been involved have been
community‑oriented individuals who have given their time as volunteers to
make sure that we give this project a good end, and it will be, because if you
go by on Des Meurons street, what it has done to the community, and like I say,
I continue‑‑I think if need be at times we have had the support of
the government. So it is important to
continue to do that. Like I say,
personally, I will continue working with the seniors.
Again, I would like to say thank you and wish him well in
his retirement, to the minister. After
the election is called, I am sure he will be around. We will probably want his advice as a senior
at a later date also. Thank you very
much, Mr. Deputy Chairperson.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We thank the honourable member for St.
Boniface for those kind remarks.
Under Manitoba practice, debate of the Minister's Salary‑‑there
is no Minister's Salary. At this time,
we will turn to page 139, and we will ask the minister to introduce his staff
present, please.
Mr. Ducharme: Kathy Yurkowski, my Executive Director.
Maybe I could just reply to a couple of remarks made by the
members. I appreciate and‑‑I
guess you pick your time when it is to retire, and I decided to do that a
little while ago. I know the member
understands under the circumstances why I am retiring. I guess you would not call it
retirement. I guess it is like Earl's
story about the army going over. The
commander says to the young lieutenant, you take me over the mole there. He commands him to take his troops over the
mole. You go over there, and all of a
sudden the commander notices that the lieutenant is not directing his people
that way. He is going in the opposite
direction. So the commander yells back
and he says: why are you retreating? And he yells back and says: we are not retreating; we are just going in a
new direction. I guess that is about
what it amounts to. Right?
To the member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), I always enjoy his remarks, especially in '86‑88. I sat in opposition and we had fun with your remarks. You mentioned a couple of problems you had in your housing. One was‑‑and, as you know, I rewrote The Residential Tenancies Act. There are ways to deal with the inspections because we did put in part of the act, and I will get you the part of the act that stipulates when they can inspect the building.