LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY OF
Thursday,
April 9, 1992
The House met at 1:30
p.m.
PRAYERS
ROUTINE
PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTING
PETITIONS
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Ms. Becky Barrett (
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): I beg to present the petition of M.E.
Graveline, E.K. Larsen, M. Brodsky and others requesting the government show its
strong commitment to dealing with child abuse by considering restoring the
Fight Back Against Child Abuse Campaign.
Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the honourable
member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale), and it complies with the privileges and
practices of the House and complies with the rules (by leave). Is it the will of the House to have the
petition read?
The petition of the undersigned citizens
of the
THAT the bail review provisions in the
Criminal Code of
The problem of conjugal and family
violence is a matter of grave concern for all Canadians and requires a
multifaceted approach to ensure that those at risk, particularly women and
children, be protected from further harm.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray
that the Legislature of the
I
have reviewed the petition of the honourable member for Transcona (Mr. Reid),
and it complies with the privileges and practices of the House and complies
with the rules. Is it the will of the
House to have the petition read?
The petition of the undersigned citizens
of the
THAT the bail review provisions in the
Criminal Code of
The problem of conjugal and family
violence is a matter of grave concern for all Canadians and requires a
multifaceted approach to ensure that those at risk, particularly women and
children, be protected from further harm.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray
that the Legislature of the Province of Manitoba may be pleased to request that
the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae) call upon the Parliament of Canada to
amend the Criminal Code of Canada to permit the courts to prevent the release
of individuals where it is shown that there is a substantial likelihood of
further conjugal or family violence being perpetrated.
I
have reviewed the petition of the honourable member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli),
and it complies with the privileges and practices of the House and complies
with the rules. Is it the will of the
House to have the petition read?
The petition of the undersigned citizens
of the
THAT the bail review provisions in the
Criminal Code of Canada currently set out that accused offenders, including
those suspected of conjugal or family violence, be released unless it can be
proven that the individual is a danger to society at large or it is likely that
the accused person will not reappear in court; and
The problem of conjugal and family
violence is a matter of grave concern for all Canadians and requires a
multifaceted approach to ensure that those at risk, particularly women and
children, be protected from further harm.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray
that the Legislature of the Province of Manitoba may be pleased to request that
the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae) call upon the Parliament of Canada to
amend the Criminal Code of Canada to permit the courts to prevent the release
of individuals where it is shown that there is a substantial likelihood of
further conjugal or family violence being perpetrated.
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(1335)
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 28 seniors from Hamilton House.
These visitors are under the direction of Mary Wilkonski. Hamilton House is located in the constituency
of the honourable Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. McIntosh).
Also this afternoon, we have 45 students
from Grade 4, from the
On behalf of all honourable members, I
welcome you here this afternoon.
ORAL
QUESTION PERIOD
Economic
Growth
Government
Strategy
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of Finance
(Mr. Manness) stated that we were being selective in quoting the most recent
statistics in terms of growth for the province of Manitoba, a growth rate that
declined by some 25 percent since the government has tabled its budget in this
Chamber.
Today, we have a second set of predictions
on the growth in
These are very important numbers, Mr.
Speaker. They have an impact on our
jobs, on our social assistance. They
have an impact on our services and the quality of life in the
I would ask the Deputy Premier, what
impact will these changed forecasts downward have on the programs and services
of
Hon. James Downey
(Deputy Premier): Mr. Speaker, again let
me respond to the member by saying that he is, of course, always prepared to
bring to this House the negativism of the New Democratic Party and to continue
to work on the negative side of what is going on.
Let me say that our government is
committed to health care, to education, to family services, as has been
demonstrated in our budget. There is no
change. There are increases in our
budget to look after those essential services.
Out-Migration
Statistics
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Well, you have a 50 percent decline in the
growth rate of this province from an independent agency, not the New Democrats,
but from two banks and for two days in a row, and this government just
continues to whistle past the economic graveyard of this province.
Mr. Speaker, last month we saw 8,000 fewer
people in the labour force than a year ago.
Last month, in February,
My question to the Deputy Premier is: What is he going to do to stop Manitobans
from leaving this province and leaving us 10 out of 10 in terms of people
staying in the
Hon. James Downey (Deputy
Premier): Mr. Speaker, one of the
things that we have done is to stop putting intolerable taxes on the backs of
those taxpayers like the New Democratic Party did for the last six years of
their administration, spending $27 million in
Mr. Doer: I thank the Deputy Premier for his tirade, Mr.
Speaker.
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(1340)
Employment
Creation Strategy
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Again, let us look at the facts in terms of
what is happening to this province. Mr.
Speaker, we are suffering the worst bankruptcy numbers, personal and corporate,
since the 1930s. We are suffering out‑migration
and net migration worse than any other province in
I have another question to the Deputy
Premier. Would it not make a lot more
sense to have employable people who are now forced onto social assistance in
the
For example, would it not be better to
have some of our young people who are on social assistance, who are employable
today, have some of that money from the social assistance budget of $90 million
placed in a working program to have projects like Dutch elm disease working in
our communities, working across the province, rather than people being
unemployed?
Hon. James Downey
(Deputy Premier): Mr. Speaker, the member
made reference to bankruptcies.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, one thing we have
done as well, as a government, is try to remove some of the payroll tax‑‑the
job‑prohibitive tax that was introduced by the former New Democratic
Party‑‑and introduce a job partnership program for the youth and
carry on with some of the youth employment programs for summer activity. There will be many activities that they will
be employed in through government support.
Child and
Family Services
Response
Time
Ms. Becky Barrett (
Since the minister's office was also
notified of this situation this morning, what action has the minister
taken? Can he confirm that the delay was
due to the recent recentralization and lack of adequate resources faced by the
caseworkers in Child and Family Services?
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr.
Speaker, I will take the specifics of that as notice and get an answer for the
honourable member.
What I can tell you, as far as the centralization
of Child and Family Services, we have seen no diminishing of services in
The Child Advocate legislation is before
the House. The automation of the record
keeping within Child and Family Services is underway, and we should have a
portion of that program up and running probably late spring and early
summer. The high‑risk indicators
are being used with the front‑line workers in the field, so there are
reforms going on.
If the member chooses to bring specific
cases to the floor of the House, this is not the appropriate place to‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Ms. Barrett: Mr. Speaker, this minister's office was
notified this morning‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
This is not a time for debate.
Resources
Ms. Becky Barrett (
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): I remind
the member that the resources that have gone into the Child and Family Services
agencies within the province have virtually doubled in the last four to five
budgets. The issue is not one of
resources.
I have already indicated that I would take
the specifics of her question as notice.
I have every confidence in the professional social workers and the
administration who are in charge of the Family Services agencies within the
province to react appropriately.
Ms. Barrett: Given that there is a continuing lack of
adequate resourcing to the Child and Family Service agencies and an enormous
two to three to four times increase in caseload above what should be in place
to allow for and provide for protection of children, what assurances can the
minister give this House and the children of Manitoba that this situation and
situations like it, which have happened many times in the past and will happen
again unless something is done about it, will not be repeated and that all
children in Manitoba will be assured at least of the bare first minimum of
basic protection of their lives?
*
(1345)
Mr. Gilleshammer: I have already indicated that in the new
resources that have gone into Child and Family Service agencies over the last
few years, this government has dedicated almost 9 percent of new funding to
Family Services in this budget, far outstripping the budget that the member
worked on and that they released the day before our budget calling for a 5
percent increase in Family Services budget.
We have dedicated consistently over the
last five budgets more resources to this department, and the Family Services
are seeing an increase in the amount of funds that they will be able to use for
their work in the next budget year.
Child and
Family Services
Communication
Process
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr.
Speaker, I got the same phone call as the member for
I have learned that in fact the Child and
Family Services agency attended the apartment block within 25 minutes of having
been called and that the situation was resolved. I am very pleased to know that, but I want to
know why the minister would not have some action in his department that he
would not be immediately alerted to this kind of case which was reported to his
office this morning.
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Well, I
thank the member for the comments, and I think this clearly illustrates the
type of information that members bring to the House for political reasons. I have every confidence that the agency, the
administration of the agency and the staff there respond to these issues on a
daily basis.
Some of the information the department has
about specific cases is not information that we are going to share in the House
or with the public. Some of the cases
that individuals deal with are incredibly complicated and incredibly sad.
I say to you and I have said before that I
have the utmost respect for those front‑line workers and those
administrators who, daily and on a 24‑hour basis, seven days a week, deal
with some of the very sad cases in society.
It does not serve anyone well to bring information here in a fashion
that while it is not hysterical, it is certainly clearly there to misrepresent
the facts.
Mrs. Carstairs: Mr. Speaker, with the greatest respect, the
minister did not address what I think is a very fundamental question.
He is the minister responsible for an
extremely sensitive department, a department which deals with children, in this
case, a two‑year‑old. I
would like to know why someone on his staff did not notify him immediately that
there was a breakdown in communication, because when the reporter called the
agency, the reporter was informed it was none of his business, but it is every
person's business in our community that a two‑year‑old child would
be outside in a diaper at minus 8 degrees.
It is everybody's business.
I want to know from the minister why he
would not have that kind of alert team in his office that would make him aware
of that kind of difficulty so that he can ensure that the processes were in
place to look after this child.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Mr. Speaker, we have hundreds of workers and
thousands of cases that are active across this province. Again, the agencies that we fund, whether it
be the Winnipeg agency, the Central Manitoba agency, the Westman agency, the native
agencies in the areas of the province where our department does that work, they
deal with these cases on a daily basis.
Some of these cases are brought to the minister's attention and the
department's attention on an ongoing basis.
This is the work that those people do.
We hear from time to time of specific cases that are ongoing that take
some time to solve.
I think that when cases are put in the
hands of those agencies, agencies that we fund, agencies that work under
provincial legislation, we allow them to do that work, that the minister's
office and the senior staff do get involved with these agencies on an ongoing
basis, but we also allow them to do the work that they are entitled to do.
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(1350)
Child
Advocate
Reporting
Process
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr.
Speaker, it is clear that the agency in this case acted. It is equally true that in other cases, the
agency does not act. We have also seen
an example today where the minister's department did not act.
Will the minister now tell this House why
he is requiring the Child Advocate to report to him? What is wrong with a model that would have
the Child Advocate report to this Legislative Assembly so that children would
not fall between his department and the agency?
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr.
Speaker, I am very pleased the member has raised that question. Her acting
critic raised that question the other day, and I am on the record with the
answers to those questions.
We are setting up a Child Advocate in this
province based on models that exist in
We were going to have an advocate in
Lakes and
Rivers
Copper
Sulphate Buildup
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): Mr. Speaker, the federal government released
today its second State of the Environment Report, which raised concerns about
the water quality in lakes and rivers in the
More specifically, I have a letter from
the Department of Environment which states that copper sulfate is no longer a
registered substance to be used to eliminate algae in lakes in
Hon. Glen Cummings
(Minister of Environment): By not permitting,
Mr. Speaker.
Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Speaker, there are still communities that
are bulletining their intention in the local newspapers to use this substance.
Will the minister make a commitment to
implementing more inspection of those communities that have used this in the
past so it will not be used this summer?
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Speaker, the bulletining that the member
refers to, the community, I believe, was somewhat in error in the format that
they used in their bulletining, and certainly it was not the intention of the
department to permit the use of the material, as was advertised in that
bulletin.
Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Speaker, one of the communities in
question‑‑or one of the lakes in question is
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Speaker, it is confirmed that we are now
talking about the same bulletin. As a
matter of fact, we are, as I said, not willing to permit the use of the copper
sulfate, and we have very good reasons for not doing that, one of which is that
we do not want any buildup.
I do take objection, however, to the
member referring to the pollution in the lake.
The last time it was brought to our attention that there was
considerable amount of bacterial lode in the lake, it was found that low water
volumes in that lake, which are now being addressed by the structures that have
been put in place combined with the high numbers of ducks and geese on the
lake, was what was giving the high bacterial reading in the water.
*
(1355)
Health
Care Facilities
Bed
Closure Proposal
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Will the Minister of Health share that
information with the people of
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, after
yesterday, when my honourable friend brought not one, not two, but three pieces
of incorrect information to this House, it almost seems as if it is epidemic
that they have what I have come to affectionately know for the New Democratic
Party as the "leader's disease."
I will not reflect on that bad information that my honourable friend
brought to the House yesterday.
What my honourable friend is correct about
is, yes, the Health Sciences Centre and other hospitals have been developing
their operational plans to meet their budget allocations for this fiscal
year. The process has been one of
feeding back into
Mr. Speaker, those plans are under active
consideration by the department. I would
hope that when my honourable friend chooses to move along the Estimates process
so that we reach the hospital line in the Estimates, as I have urged her to do
now for 12 hours, we will have a full and complete discussion of the issues
with my appropriate staff there.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Speaker, if we cannot get information
about this government's plans for our hospitals, could we at least get from
this minister the plans of facilities, tabled with this minister, in response
to this government's directives?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, the plans of government and the
respective hospitals will be abundantly clear, as I have indicated several
times in the Estimates process, over the next ensuing several weeks.
I just want to note to my honourable
friend that when she is making these sorts of requests of government, one would
assume from casual observation that those would then become policy that a New
Democratic Party would put in place.
I want to remind my honourable friend that
any budgetary plans from hospitals to the Department of Health have never been
shared by New Democrat, Liberal, Conservative government in the
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Speaker, never before have we had a
government which has refused to provide information about‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
This is not a time for debate.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Would the Minister of Health not now agree
that it is time to end the fears and concerns and confusion in our health care
system and provide, for all of us here in this Chamber and for the public at
large, details of this government's plans for hospital beds and budgets?
*
(1400)
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, I have told my honourable friend
for the last 12 hours in Estimates that when we get to the hospital lines,
those kinds of details on this year's budget can be made available with the
appropriate staff. My honourable friend
wants to chew away on phantoms. That is
her privilege.
Mr. Speaker, I reject totally and
completely the false accusation by my New Democrat friends where they say that
this is a secretive government. This
government has opened up the discussion process more than any other government
in the history of the
That is why we have tabled Centre for Health
Policy and Evaluation studies on the health care system, to enlighten my
honourable friend to the challenges facing all Canadians in reforming the
health care system. That is why we have
tabled, for my honourable friends, the Health Advisory Network reports as I
have received them and made them public.
Mr. Speaker, this is the most open government that the province has ever
had in its history, and my honourable friend persists in‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Point of
Order
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: This is a very serious matter. The minister has five advisory network
reports since last summer, and he has not tabled one or made any of them public‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
The honourable member does not have a point of order. It is a dispute over the facts.
Economic
Growth
Mr. Reg Alcock
(Osborne): Mr. Speaker, I was interested in some of the
information that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) brought forward today
because I think it does underline the very difficult position that this
province finds itself in, in part, as a result of changes in federal policy
that have I think served to weaken the ties that bind the prairie region
together.
On February 13 and 14, a number of people
met in this city to look at some ways in which we can build some strength back
into the prairie economy.
Representatives from all three provinces were there. The Minister of Trade is aware of the outcome
of that meeting, which was an attempt to look at the ways in which the
I would like to ask the Minister of Trade
if he has had an opportunity to discuss these proposals with his provincial
counterparts.
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Mr. Speaker, I have received some of the
information from that conference that took place in
In other areas of co‑operation
recently, in the environmental field on the environmental industry side, we are
co‑operating, so there is extensive co‑operation to build on
already, and we agreed that the idea of continued co‑operation and
potential enhancement would be a very useful topic of discussion at our next
meeting.
Mr. Alcock: I am very pleased to receive that answer from
the minister.
Can the minister tell me whether or not
the suggestions about creating greater co‑operation and perhaps joint
research among the prairie telephone systems is one of the items that will be
up for discussion at those meetings?
Mr. Stefanson: The honourable member for Osborne refers to
one specific recommendation out of, I believe, 12 or 14 or 16 recommendations
that flowed from that conference. As I
have indicated, at this stage, discussions would be at a preliminary stage in
terms of the whole issue, the areas of co‑operation. We are already doing some that I have
outlined.
I think there is opportunity for
more. At what stage we would get to
dealing with the specific recommendations would remain to be seen. Obviously, they also impact on other
departments within our government that would require review. Once we have had
an opportunity to go through the documentation that flowed from that particular
conference in
Mr. Alcock: I wonder if the minister can tell us whether
he or the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) have had discussions with the other
two provinces about creating a pension pool for the three provinces to provide
capital for the development of projects in the prairie region.
Mr. Stefanson: At this stage, Mr. Speaker, no, we have
not. I think most members of the House
will recall from the western Premiers' meetings that took place in Nipawin last
year, what flowed from that was the concept of the code of conduct in terms of
investment promotion to halt, we will call them, the bidding wars that occur
occasionally amongst provinces, certainly in western Canada and across all of
Canada. That is certainly going to be a
topic of discussion.
What the honourable member for Osborne
refers to ultimately might be something that certainly as a topic of discussion
could flow from that very issue because the whole issue of us competing as
provinces for investment, the cost to the taxpayers and so on, is one that is
very timely and is actually to be discussed by all internal Trade ministers
here in Winnipeg at the end of the month.
Protection
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Mr. Speaker, last year, over the objections of
the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Housing (Mr. Ernst), with the
support of the Premier (Mr. Filmon), approved funding for the Rotary Pines
project, thus potentially jeopardizing 130 jobs at
Does the Minister of Transportation still
support airport protection legislation as he did last year and as he did as
early as 1989?
Hon. Albert Driedger
(Minister of Highways and Transportation): Mr. Speaker, most definitely.
Mr. Martindale: Has the Minister of Transport brought to cabinet
the pressing need for airport protection legislation on the
Mr. Driedger: I want to indicate that I am working closely
with my colleague, as well as my Premier and the City of
Also, at the same time, there is federal
legislation being developed that will also tie into that. I am confident that by the time we are
through with this, during the course of this summer, the protection will be in
place.
Mr. Martindale: The real question is whether the minister is
going to rely on the City of
Will this minister bring in provincial
legislation to do what the city is now requesting so that the province can have
some control both in the city and outside the city?
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate that the
authorities who have power to make certain decisions at the present time, if
they will not adequately address the protection of the
55 Plus
Program
Indexing
Mr. Neil Gaudry (St.
Boniface): Mr. Speaker, it is now clear that the 55 Plus program
will again not be indexed to inflation. As a result, those already recognized
in law as living below the poverty line will be forced to accept an even lower
standard of living.
Can the Minister responsible for Seniors
tell this House why his government has chosen to deprive seniors in this way?
Hon. Gerald Ducharme
(Minister responsible for Seniors): Mr.
Speaker, I almost lost a bet when I saw seniors up in the audience and I bet
that I would have a question.
Mr. Speaker, to the member for St. Boniface,
at a time of difficult times, our government has kept payments equal. We are looking after our seniors both in the
health field and the family services.
This government has its pride to work with the seniors throughout the
province with our senior abuse, our financial abuse system, throughout all our
portfolios, and will continue to benefit the seniors of this province.
Mr. Gaudry: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for the
cheap shot.
Can the Minister responsible for Seniors
tell us how the seniors are to pay increased costs of hydro, telephone, food,
clothing, all of which are increasing, many above the rate of inflation, when
this government refuses to provide any help?
Mr. Ducharme: Mr. Speaker, we are‑‑not a cheap
shot‑‑increasing through our health services, through our many
benefits. Unlike the previous
administration, they taxed those seniors who were at the low level at a percent
of 2 percent on the net tax.
Mr. Gaudry: Mr. Speaker, can this minister tell this House
the cost of Seniors Day here at the Legislature, and will they consider using
these dollars to provide for indexing the 55 Plus?
*
(1410)
Mr. Ducharme: Mr. Speaker, we have different seniors groups
who have come forward to us. We sit down
with those seniors groups, and they tell us the different ways they would like
their money spent. For instance, on
continuing care, we are increasing it on all personal care homes. If they are concerned about the health care
in personal care homes, for instance, as announced by the Health minister, we
are going to establish 600 personal care homes shortly in this province. That is the way we will benefit the seniors.
Efficiency
Mr. John Plohman
(Dauphin): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture's
position on the transportation talks is now abundantly clear. His April 4 letter to the Free Press
demonstrates that he has swallowed hook, line and sinker the federal position
with regard to Churchill rail line abandonment and method of payment. He says it is all in the name of
efficiency. He says the federal
government has conducted an internal review of transportation efficiencies to
make the transportation system from farm to port more efficient.
Since it is well known that Churchill has
a $20, at least, advantage in shipping over St. Lawrence ports, I want to ask
the Minister of Transportation why he has not informed his Minister of
Agriculture (Mr. Findlay) of that fact and whether he agrees with his Minister
of Agriculture that in fact shipping more grain through Churchill would not
make the system more efficient rather than less efficient.
Hon. Albert Driedger
(Minister of Highways and Transportation): Mr. Speaker, since I took office as
Minister of Highways and Transportation in May of '88, many versions and many
figures have been thrown about in terms of the advantage or disadvantage of
shipping through Churchill. The member
well knows that there are opponents to the
We have the assurance that somewhere along
the line, when that information comes forward, we will be able to have a chance
to dialogue and check, and we will scrutinize very closely that kind of
information that is being brought forward.
Mr. Plohman: Mr. Speaker, it is clear that that
information is already there, and this minister fails to recognize it.
Why has this minister failed to ensure
that the transportation talks, $1.1‑million consultative sham by the
federal government, did not include balanced information, accurate information,
on the efficiencies of a greatly expanded role for Churchill? Why did he not make sure that information was
in those hearings?
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Speaker, I have the same information that
the member had when he was the minister, but I have to indicate to you that
there has been lots of additional, which I consider, wrong information that has
been out on the hustings and for the public of Manitoba as well as for the
federal government in terms of I do not believe that we have accurate
information. I believe we have accurate
information, but I believe there is a lot of inaccurate information that is out
there.
I am hoping that within the next three,
four, six months, we will be able to establish precise figures that are going
to be not just beneficial to us, that we use, but that everybody will be able
to make themselves available of that, which will show that there can be
viability in Churchill and that Churchill should stay for the benefit of the
people of Manitoba.
Mr. Plohman: Mr. Speaker, this minister has the accurate
information. Why is he not putting it
out there? He knows it is accurate
information.
I ask him whether he will ensure that his
Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay), his colleague, travels to the Hudson Bay
Route Association next week with him so that he too can learn the facts about
Churchill.
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to be taking the
Minister of Agriculture along, but I want to indicate that I am prepared to take
the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Harper), the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton)
and whoever else‑‑if they want a member from the Liberal
Party. Not all of them, but certainly I
am prepared to take‑‑
Some Honourable Members:
Oh, oh.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Speaker, let me rephrase that. I am prepared to take members of the
opposition along, as I did last year, to the Hudson Bay Route Association
meeting that is taking place on Monday.
We will again have a chance to discuss this, where I will raise serious
concerns about the future of Churchill, where I think it is very important that
all members of the House are speaking from the same song sheet when we deal
with this issue.
Public
Schools
Enrollment
Decline
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister
of Education.
We have learned that since coming to
office, this government has seen enrollments at private schools increase by 13 percent
or 1,245 students while, in the same period of time, enrollments at public
schools have decreased 1 percent, or down 1,907.
Can this minister advise the House what
steps this government is going to take to prevent the creation of a two‑tiered
education system in the
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): Mr.
Speaker, I would like to remind the honourable member that in the independent
school system, some schools set up for many reasons. Some of them are for
religious reasons in this province, and parents in fact have the opportunity of
free choice.
Mr. Chomiak: Mr. Speaker, the minister is well aware that
these schools have been in existence for 75 years. Can the minister answer the question and
indicate why the increase, since the Conservatives came to office, is 13
percent in the private schools in enrollment, and it is down 1 percent in
public schools? Has it something perhaps
to do with government funding at a windfall basis to many schools?
Mrs. Vodrey: I certainly hope that my honourable friend is
not indicating that he considers that there are some extremely drastic
difficulties within the public school system, because we on our side of the
House, Mr. Speaker, recognize that the public school system is in fact doing an
extremely good job. There are many hard‑working
teachers and administrators and trustees working in that system.
Mr. Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY
Hon. Jim Ernst (Acting
Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I would
move, seconded by Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings), that Mr. Speaker do
now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a committee to consider
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 Health, and the honourable member for
COMMITTEE
OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent Sections)
HEALTH
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 Health.
When the committee last sat, it had been
considering item 1.(b) Executive Support (1) Salaries on page 82 of the
Estimates book.
Chairperson's
Ruling
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: At this time I would like to bring my ruling
forward from the other day.
On April 6, 1992, during the Department of
Health Estimates in Room 255, the honourable minister used the phrase, "I
can engage in no more debate with hypocrites." The member for
As I mentioned to the committee yesterday,
Beauchesne Citations 489 and 490 have ruled the term "hypocrites"
both unparliamentary and parliamentary.
A review of the Manitoba Speakers' Ruling has revealed a similar
pattern. I would draw to the member's
attention Beauchesne Citation 486(1) which states, "It is impossible to
lay down any specific rules in regard to the injurious reflections uttered in
debate against particular Members, or to declare beforehand what expressions
are or are not contrary to order; much depends upon the tone and manner, and
intention, of the person speaking; . . ."
I should also remind all honourable
members that the Chairperson's Rulings, once made, are not subject to
question. I would like to remind the
honourable minister that I had asked him to withdraw the word "hypocrite."
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): I will certainly
comply with your request, Mr. Deputy Chairperson.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Minister.
*
(1430)
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Mr. Orchard: In the interest of that same spirit of co‑operation,
let us proceed as we have always done, line by line. The quicker we get to the hospital line, the quicker
we will have all of the answers including on Mental Health, Continuing Care,
and all of the other very, very important areas of the ministry of Health.
I am not hung up on the acute care
hospital line alone, I have a ministry of Health of importance to all
Manitobans. I appreciate my honourable
friend's singular focus on hospitals only, but there is a much larger
department to discuss and I would prefer we discuss that as we always have, in
order.
Mr. Gulzar Cheema (The
Maples): I have not given any
thought to that, I tell you very frankly.
I think that the way we have done it in the past and if you want to
change and want to have agreement with the House leaders, that is fine. But, as far as I am concerned, I have been
told by my caucus to proceed the way we have done in the past. If there is any change from my caucus, then I
will proceed. The direction to me is to
proceed line by line.
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Thompson): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, if the minister is
talking about what is normally done in Estimates, the minister who has been in
this House for quite some time should be aware of the fact that there have been
different approaches in dealing with Estimates.
It is not unusual in dealing with Estimates, in terms of a number of
departments, for the minister to have dealt with all questions on one line item
and then pass all the resolutions at the end of Estimates. I remember several departments where that was
done last session.
It is a question of a choice of the
committee which is obviously, most significantly, a choice of the minister and
the government because presumably the minister and the government has control
over the committee. The minister might
not have too much control over this committee right now, but I am sure he would
rather quickly pull in members sufficient to out‑vote the
opposition. So, it is the government's
choice; it is the minister's choice; and the real bottom line here is not a
question of what is normally done. The
minister knows that we can normally do anything that is felt advisable. This committee has control over the agenda in
that sense. We allow questions of
varying degree of varying generality depending on the preference of the
minister.
So what the minister is saying, if he is
saying that he and his majority on this committee does not wish to move to the
hospitals line to be able to deal with the serious questions that have been
raised, to be able to give him the opportunity to provide what I thought was an
offer this afternoon in Question Period, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, which is
essentially to provide information when we get into the discussion of that line
item, we are offering him that opportunity.
I believe his response will have very
little to do with what is normal in this committee, because as I said, the
normal thing is that the committee has control over its agenda. It can deal with whatever it wants. What the minister is saying if he wants to go
line by line, if he does not want to follow up on our offer, is that he does
not want to get into the discussions to what is happening in our hospital
system. He does not want to get into
providing the information that day after day after day our Health critic has
been attempting to obtain from the minister.
What the minister is doing then is essentially avoiding the very serious
questions that are being asked.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the minister knows
full well the length of time that we often spend in Estimates. I remember when I was Health critic we spent
44 hours. I believe that my successor
has spent more than that or close to it and the Liberal Health critic along
with the minister in the past several years. What is happening here is we are
willing to deal with the hospitals right now.
That is the urgent situation. We
need to know what is going on, but we are not in any way, shape or form going
to rush through other items that also have legitimate questions that need to be
asked. Let us not forget, this committee
deals with the budget for the entire year.
If we pass a line item or a series of line items, that is it for this
year. There is no further discussion in terms of Estimates.
What we are saying is in the interests of
following up on the kind of offer I thought was made by the minister, to
provide the information to see if it is a real offer, we are saying let us deal
with the hospitals now. If the minister
is saying no, he is saying no to answering the questions. He is further stonewalling getting the kind
of information that the public wants, not members of the opposition strictly,
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the public wants.
They want to know what is going on in our hospitals. They want to know what is going to be
happening in terms of possible bed closures, other changes in terms of the
hospital system.
The minister ought not to play the kind of
game that we are seeing on this issue.
The minister ought to say right now, with his control of this committee,
that he will be reasonable and follow up on what we feel is a very reasonable
offer which is let us deal with the hospitals now. Let us get the information now. Let us clear
the air. Let us get the information the
public of
Mr. Cheema: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, being not very
particularly astute, I am really puzzled.
This is something that was supposed to be discussed among the caucuses
and then this issue can be discussed and now they are putting us in a very
difficult situation. If I say I will
support him, they will say that is supporting the government. If we say we do not want to discuss the
hospital, then we are against hospitals.
It is my belief that what we have done for
the last five years is to follow the directions within the committee. The committee's normal procedure is to go
line by line, and we are not talking about one chair somewhere and we are going
to move from here to there. We are
talking about a major department, and I will feel more comfortable if we are
discussing the whole policy rather than going here and there and whatever suits
the needs of the day.
I think that is very dangerous, and I am
not personally going to support that. I
want to make it very clear, I will still check with my caucus. Whatever they want to do, and I am sure they
will agree with me, because I think that some kind of game is being played and
I am not going to be part of that stupid game.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I regret that the
member for The Maples has made such derogatory remarks about our
suggestion. It was not done for
political reasons. It was not done to
put him in an awkward spot. It was done
because we have a serious, urgent, pressing matter before us. I remind all members at this committee that
after a series of questions over the last 16 hours about general funding policy
with respect to hospitals, general health care reform plans of this government,
we have been getting no answers.
The minister has said, if we just move
along quickly to that line, we can get to that information. The minister knows that there are a lot of
serious, substantive issues between the line we are presently on and the line
dealing with hospitals and community health services, and he will be fully
aware that we should all have a serious discussion on all major components of
his department.
It was the minister's suggestion that we
could be dealing with this matter in short order if we were on that line, so we
are simply following through on that offer and asking the minister to follow
through with that offer. He says the
information is ready. He says that he
will tell us what budgets hospitals are getting, what the plans are with
respect to reform, what the plans are with respect to bed reduction targets and
budget reduction targets for hospitals.
He has the information. We are simply asking, given the urgency of
the situation and with the co‑operation of everyone here, to move to that
line so we can discuss this very serious, pressing matter.
I want to stress to the minister and
others here that we are not raising this as a tactical suggestion, that
hospitals are not our only preoccupation with the health care department and
with this minister, but right now we are dealing with a very critical
situation.
*
(1440)
Every day, we are hearing from hospital
department heads and administrators who are perplexed and confused and
concerned about directives that they are getting from this government. Every day, we get letters and calls from
patients who are deeply worried and afraid about whether or not they will be
able to have access to the quality health care services they believe are a
right in this province.
Every day, we are hearing from staff,
professionals, nurses, workers in our hospitals who are living in fear and
paranoia, who are living in such fear and paranoia, they are questioning
whether they are able to actually fully do their jobs because of that
overriding concern, a concern and a fear and a paranoia that has been caused by
directives for which this government and this minister will take no ownership.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we cannot allow
our hospitals to continue along that path.
We cannot allow for that kind of worry and fear and paranoia and concern
to permeate our hospitals, our health care facilities that provide such
important care to people in urgent situations requiring emergency care, needing
surgery, needing immediate attention, needing longer term care.
It is too much of a risk. It is far too serious for that and we feel,
given the lack of responsiveness on the part of this government to release its
plans, the details, to provide information to the public, to the hospitals and
to the Legislative Assembly, that we have an obligation and a responsibility to
get to this matter as quickly as possible.
The minister has said he has the
information ready. Our suggestion is
reasonable. We therefore would ask again
if we can all agree to move to line 5.(b) immediately, the line dealing with
hospitals and community health services, and if the minister needs a little
time to get his relevant and appropriate staff here, then I think we would all
be willing to co‑operate in terms of a short recess for that purpose.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I would like to inform members of the
committee that the correct procedure for considering items in the Committee of
Supply is line‑by‑line manner.
In order to skip ahead or to revert back to lines already passed,
unanimous consent of the committee is required.
Mr. Cheema: This is the fifth time we have gone through
the Health Estimates, and each and every time we had major issues that were
affecting the health care of Manitoba, but we always have gone through line by
line and followed the procedure.
I would like the New Democratic Party to
tell me, do they think that everything else in health care is not important? [interjection] No, no, can I just have
my time to say what I would like to say?
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. At this time I would like to inform the
committee that I have made the statement and it has become quite clear, and I
will ask the question, is there unanimous consent to move on to point 5 at this
time? No? Then let us carry on with the normal business
and we will be dealing with 1.(b) Executive Support.
Point of
Order
Mr. Ashton: I just want to indicate we will be raising
this matter again, and I want to give notice to the minister, and I know the
Liberal critic, who had some concern, did not have a chance to discuss this
with his caucus, that we will raise this again on Monday. The minister may wish to have staff available
if he changes his mind over the weekend.
This will give the Liberal critic the opportunity to deal with it as
well. We will be raising this again.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member did not have a point of
order.
Point of
Order
Mr. Cheema: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, these things are a
part of the caucus discussions. They
should have had the discussion with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) who
is the House leader, and Mr. Lamoureux, the member for
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point
of order. If we could carry on, 1.(b)
Executive Support.
* * *
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, let me just thank you
for your ruling and indicate to you that we are concerned about the
situation. We will continue to pursue questions
pertaining to hospitals given the current looming crisis in our hospital system
and health care system, and will keep raising questions about government plans
in that area. As my colleague the member
for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) has suggested, if the minister is still unwilling to
give answers, we will suggest again that we move directly to the line dealing
with hospitals on Monday.
I would like to begin this afternoon by
asking if the minister is now able to respond to my question of the last sitting
of Estimates. When did he first know
about the summer bed closures that became extended bed closures at the Health
Sciences Centre last summer?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I want to generally
respond to the gamesmanship played by the official opposition in terms of
wanting to advance the Estimates.
The reason ostensibly is, according to
their contacts of CEOs and I do not know what other numbers of people, that‑‑my
honourable friend says, all over. Well,
that is all levels, all over.
Now, my honourable friend is therefore
maligning every CEO in the health care system, that they are personally telling
her that every vice‑president of every hospital, every head of a surgical
department, medical department, every head of a department is talking to the
NDP and giving them these dire stories.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that is not
accurate. My honourable friend, in
persisting that all of these people are providing her with all of this
information, is maligning a lot of very good professional people. She could remove the cloud that she is
putting over those people if she would simply identify some of these phantom
sources. But, of course, she will not. She prefers to malign every professional
caregiver in the health care system.
She also wants to create the aura that the
system is crumbling. As we sit here and
discuss Estimates of the Department of Health, the hospital system is admitting
patients who are ill, injured, going in for elective surgery, emergency and
urgent surgery. The health care system,
the hospital system is operating as it operated five days ago, 10 days ago, two
weeks ago. People are receiving medical
treatment. People are not dying on the
streets because our hospital system has collapsed as my honourable friend might
want to create the aura and the impression.
When she uses this language that all of
these professionals are telling her and her caucus of the chaos and all of the
other allegations she makes, she maligns every professional group that is
working in a dedicated way to deliver health care services and is delivering
those health care services.
The crisis exists in my honourable
friend's mind, and here is the problem my honourable friend the New Democrat
has, because in, for instance, the province of Ontario, and I want to deal with
this right now because I am getting tired of this allegation in Manitoba.
In
In
In
When it does not happen, my honourable
friend maligns all the professional caregivers in the province by saying they
are telling her. She will not identify
who the "they" are, but she is saying they, these people are telling
her of difficulties and of problems in the hospitals, maligning all of those
professionals who are working with government to develop action plans to reform
the system of health care.
*
(1450)
My honourable friend may not like to hear
that we have a very, very excellent plan for reform in health care. She may not like to hear that because it
contrasts so starkly with what is happening in Ontario, where I read the
analysis of the Ontario reform, that it is the blunt instrument of budget cut
so that the system will organize itself from the bottom up and hopefully will
be able to care for the needs of the people of Ontario.
That is not what we endorse as a reasoned
system of change in
We intend to move budget with patient from
high cost institutional care to lower cost more appropriate care centres, be
that an urban hospital, be that a rural hospital, be that a personal care home,
be that continuing care services in the person's own home, and where we can do
that and empty beds in our teaching hospitals, for instance‑‑and I
have used this example I do not know how many times‑‑we will close
the hospital bed at the teaching centre, because we do not believe we should be
spending an average of $800 a day to provide for services to a patient who can
be cared for in an environment as low as an expense item as $110 a day in
continuing care. The people who win in
this are the patients requiring care, and also, coincidentally, the taxpayer is
better served.
That is a reasoned plan that I have laid
out, that is being discussed at hospital boards. They are developing their plans right now,
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, right now. They
are reporting back to government as to how they can accommodate the changing
environment in health care delivery that is in place right across the length
and breadth of this country.
They are working in a co‑operative
fashion. They are not saying, as my
honourable friend says, these unknown "theys" whom she talks about
without identifying, that this is wrong, this is inappropriate, this cannot be
done, this is the wrong thing to do.
They are expressing legitimate concerns
about being able to accommodate patient care in a changing environment, but
everybody is concerned about that. They
are pleased as CEOs, as board chairpersons, as professional care deliverers
that at least this government has a plan of action that is under discussion, of
moving services and budgets with the patient, that protects the integrity of
care to the individual requiring care, that is underpinned with the kind of
research I have shared over the last 14 hours of Estimates about where admissions
to the Health Sciences Centre are inappropriate.
They can be provided in lower‑cost
hospitals, but my honourable friend wants to perpetuate that monolith of
hospital care. That has been her entire
and only focus in 16 hours. My
honourable friend has not asked anything about any other area. I give credit, again, to my honourable
friend, the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema).
He has taken a system‑wide approach to health care, because you
cannot discuss one hospital, one professional group, one program of government
in isolation because we are dealing with a health care system and its reform.
Now, let me offend my honourable friend
that there is reason, there is knowledge, there is research, there is
scientific evidence underpinning the plans that we have for reform of the
Manitoba health system, the plans that I outlined to my honourable friend for
her to listen to, to read time and time again from my introductory remarks in
Hansard.
My honourable friend does not like that
because it is a reasoned approach. It is
a planned approach. It is an approach
underpinned with research, with knowledge, with co‑operation, with
discussion, with consultation, contrasted directly with the two NDP provinces
immediately to the east and to the west.
I am sorry I cannot deliver the kind of
chaos that the NDP are delivering in
That kind of an approach will deliver the
best change, the most progressive reform of health care service delivery in
Canada, in this province of Manitoba, not because of me, but because of many
hundreds of professionals within the senior levels and all levels of my
ministry, from professional groups, research organizations like the Center for
Health Policy and Evaluation, Manitobans who have served on the Health Advisory
Network and study groups under the Urban Hospital Council, from literally tens
of thousands of Manitobans who have provided input, knowledge and information
to this government in order that we, as a group of Manitobans, knowledgeable as
citizens, consumers, caregivers, administrators, board members and professional
civil servants, make decisions that are appropriate for the changing
environment of health care delivery.
I know my honourable friend finds that
offensive because it has too much logic, it has too much sense, it has too much
contrast to the difficulties faced in provinces governed by her soul
mates. I cannot do it any differently,
and I will not do it any differently.
I am sorry I cannot give my honourable
friend her narrowed, political approach to carping and harping that she wants
to have for her mailers across the length and breadth of
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
We are very concerned in terms that the
member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema) wants to get on the record on a number of
the issues. In Estimates, there are only
240 hours which means it is very limited.
We share many of the concerns regarding the hospitals. We, too, are just as interested in the number
of bed closures. I understand that the
opposition House leader (Mr. Ashton) has come to the table suggesting that we
go to that particular line. As in the
past, I would suggest that we go through each line by line so that all areas of
the Department of Health are in fact debated.
I know that the opposition House leader has come before the committee‑‑
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. I would like to remind the honourable member
for
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, first let me note that
the minister did not answer my question about the discrepancy between the
information he provided on record to the Legislative Assembly with respect to
extended bed closures at the Health Sciences Centre and the actual time when he
received that information, but we will come back to that.
Let me address some of the concerns and
issues and suggestions that the minister has made and, as well, deal with some
of the statements being made by the Liberal members of the Chamber at this
committee.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, what we have been
asking for over the last 16 hours or more have been the detailed plans of this
government for health care reform. That
is a general request. That is a matter that covers every line in this
budget. When we have asked for those
plans, the minister has said we should wait until we get to the line dealing
with hospitals.
Well, first of all, let me say this is an
overall matter. This is not a specific issue.
This has to deal with our health care system in a general sense and the
plans underway by this government for that system and for health care reform.
*
(1500)
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the minister has
just said in his remarks that this government has an excellent plan and refers
to his speech, his opening remarks, and other general statements made in this
committee and in the Legislature, but we never get beyond the fact that the
plan has to do with moving the budget from the hospital or the bed to the
patient. We never get beyond broad
statements that we are dealing with a change going from high‑cost to low‑cost
care arrangements. We never get beyond
any broad platitudes and generalities.
We do not know what the plan of this
government is for health care reform, and how we are finding out about it is
through hospitals, through administrators at hospitals, through staff at
hospitals, through professionals at hospitals and through patients at hospitals
who are finding out bit by bit, piece by piece about this government's
agenda. So we are engaged in a massive
jigsaw puzzle to try to figure out what the health care reform plans of this
government are.
That is not, in my estimation and in the
estimation of the NDP caucus, fair to the people of
He says the plan before us is an excellent
plan, but there is no plan. We are
expected to take the minister's word. I
have told the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema) over and over again and have
pointed to examples where we cannot take the minister's word because he has
always broken that word. He has never
been up‑front and straightforward and direct with us.
So, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we are on this
line. We are stuck on this line because
it is the appropriate line to hear what this government's plans are with
respect to health care reform, so we have a context, a starting place, a way to
assess, a way to determine whether we agree or not.
We are going to keep asking for those
answers, Mr. Deputy Chairperson. We are
going to keep asking the general questions and specific questions as we hear
about it from communities, from hospitals, from staff, from patients. We are not going to be satisfied with a
minister who turns the tables each time and poses the questions back to us and
suggests that all of this has to do with a no‑deficit policy for
hospitals.
Interesting, let me as a footnote note,
that suddenly, not consistent with the general remarks made at the beginning of
this set of Estimates, but as soon as we got into the issue of the bed
reduction targets and the budget reduction targets for hospitals, the minister
said out of the blue for the first time that the central part of any health
care reform strategy, the starting place, the focal point was the question of
no‑deficit policies for hospitals, not a better health care system, not a
more cost effective system, not a system based on prevention and promotion in
the community‑based needs, no. Out
of the blue when he did not want to answer questions about hospitals and bed
cuts, he throws in this new angle.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we cannot sit
there and accept that nonsense when we know and read about hospitals who
believe they are getting zero percent from this government. The minister did not correct the record on
that matter, or change it, or tell us if we were right or wrong, or give us the
percentages for each hospital. He will
not give us something as basic as the percentage increase for each hospital so
we can make some judgments and understand his plans.
We are going to ask again for this
minister's detailed plans with respect to health care reform, not general
platitudes and broad statements that we all agree with obviously, moving from
high cost to low cost facilities when one can do it, ensuring quality of
patient care at all times. Give us a
break, Mr. Deputy Chairperson. Of
course, we all agree with those statements.
This minister is in charge. This
government is calling the shots, and this is the time for us in this Assembly
and for Manitobans everywhere to hear what those plans are.
I am going to ask again what those plans
are, and I am going to also ask the minister if he would like to now clarify
the record with respect to the fact that he clearly did not present the truth
on July 10, 1991, regarding the summer bed closures and extended bed closures
at the Health Sciences Centre, and also, if he will now provide the information
about those closures that he said he would at our last sitting of Estimates.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I know my honourable
friend is frustrated, but you know, for my honourable friend to say it is
nonsense for government to be concerned about deficits in our hospitals
underpins what I have been saying for the last 14 hours. Howard Pawley's government put in a
policy. The member for
Point of
Order
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that is an outright
fabrication. I did not say the no‑deficit
policy was nonsense.
Mr.
Deputy Chairperson: Order, please;
order, please.
Ms.
Wasylycia-Leis: He has taken my
remarks out of context and he should apologize and withdraw those remarks.
Mr.
Deputy Chairperson: Order,
please. Is it the will of the committee
to take a recess?
Mr.
Orchard: No, absolutely not.
Mr.
Cheema: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I
will proceed with my questioning. It is
too bad the member for
*
(1510)
I want to deal with the issues in a very
systematic way. For the last 16 hours‑‑until
we deal with each and every issue point by point, we will not reach any
conclusions. That is the whole issue of
the Estimates that you go line by line and you discuss all the issues. If the sky is falling apart then, we can with
the consent of the committee, with the prior consent of the caucus members and
with their discussion‑‑and we have done that in the past in a very
minor variation. So I want to proceed
with the questioning.
I asked the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) yesterday‑‑I had some concern in terms of the urban
hospital working group. My question here
again is, the minister knows what the working group is saying and now he agrees
with the conclusion of that report saying that the same body, Misericordia
Hospital, in terms of the emergency care is not a medically and financially
sound one. I would like the minister to
note that on June 30, 1991, we had a discussion in detail on page 3310. We made it very clear that some of the things
which are very clear in that report, that the closing of the emergency at Misericordia
Hospital is not going to be medically sound and not going to be financially
sound because it is very clear that the Emergency Department is a gateway to
any given hospital‑‑
Chairperson's
Ruling
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. Just one moment, please.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I
could not bring it forward a few minutes ago, but at this time I would like to
ask the honourable member for
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will certainly
withdraw that word.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Thank you very much.
* * *
Mr. Cheema: I was simply emphasizing the point of the recommendation
which has come out of the committee, and if the minister's staff would care to
read that. It is probably the same
discussion that we had at that time. I
would strongly recommend him to cancel the plan for the discontinuation of the
Emergency Department at the
Mr. Orchard: Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, as I indicated
when my honourable friend posed this question I believe yesterday, the working
group report was developed and presented to the Urban Hospital Council. I say to my honourable friend that I have
kept the process under the Urban Hospital Council consistent with the one that
we used with the Health Advisory Network where a report comes to the council,
is circulated to affected‑‑maybe modified by the council. At any rate the report, whether in its
original form or modified by the Urban Hospital Council, is circulated to the
affected facilities for their comment.
Their comments are fed back and any other suggestions they might want to
make around the issue, and further consultation is encompassed into a report by
the Urban Hospital Council, which they make to me.
The final report is the only report that I
will assume ownership of. Okay? The working group report has not been either
recommended or not recommended to me by the Urban Hospital Council. I am hoping that we receive reports this
month on some of the issues from the Urban Hospital Council, and I am fully
prepared, as I indicated earlier, to share the report and the government's
decision and subsequent action plan, if any, on any of those decisions.
But look, my honourable friend has
indicated his concern about that recommendation or even that issue, period,
from square one and I appreciate that concern.
In reality, I guess I have to say that is exactly why I said earlier
today and have been saying consistently to the member for
(Mr. Bob Rose, Acting Deputy Chairperson,
in the Chair)
If we did not have those kinds of issues
being discussed, there would not be interim reports floating around for people
to speculate on, to offer comment on, as the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema)
has offered on. I mean, that is the
essence of the strength of our process in
That is why, from time to time, I get a
little distressed with the accusations by the New Democratic Party that we have
somehow this hidden agenda, this closed‑shop approach. I mean, those issues are almost wide open for
discussion, but I am not taking ownership of any of the decisions until the
Urban Hospital Council has made their final report.
I will accept or reject or accept in part
some of their recommendations. I still
have those options open to me, and at that stage of the game I am prepared to
share with my honourable friends the member for The Maples and the member for
I am open to those kinds of reasoned
suggestions, but I say to all who are listening, that is the whole strength of
the open process that we brought in. I
will continue to do that and I will run the risk of having speculative
discussion around what government might do.
I will take the risk of that and the potential fears that some can
generate in the community over those action plans compared to not discussing
the issue. I mean, not discussing the
issue gets us absolutely nowhere.
So, Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I
accept my honourable friend's concerns, and I will certainly look forward to
receiving his advice on issues as I accept reports and give action plans
reflecting them.
Mr. Cheema: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I want to
discuss the issue further because the minister says the process is very open,
and there are a lot of committees. That
is one of the reasons he is telling us that we get reports, because the process
is open, and that is not entirely true.
This press release is from January 15, and
the working group met on February 6. How
can the minister have a press release and say that the recommendation is
already accepted by the council and that was one of the recommendations, and
the committee meets almost three weeks later and says they did not have
adequate information to make a decision on many issues? That is on page 4 of the report.
It clearly says that this is a wrong
decision, and they should have consulted them before the minister issued a
press release because that does create a lot of fear in the minds of
people. I think we may be wasting some
time here because if the consultation was done in a proper way, you have full
information and your deputy minister is a chairperson of the meeting of all the
working groups, so he, in fact, the government is fully in charge of the whole
process, and that is true.
It may be that the deputy minister does
not discuss everything with the minister, but still, there is a connection
within the department and that is the perception. We want the minister to, in the future, when
they are issuing all these press releases, consult with the groups, see what
those groups are saying and open up the process.
Without that, I do not think that some of
the issues, which are very controversial and it will be to the minister's
advantage to get people on his side.
When I am going to interrupt something, if
it was valid, and it is very, very risky to be constructive in the opposition
and we discuss for 16 hours and was there any positive media news?‑‑nil,
zip.
*
(1520)
The only thing is if there is a noise‑‑but
we are not going to do that, but I want the minister to be a little bit more
sympathetic to the open process. It has
to be open, not only from the minister's point of view, but it should be from a
public point of view. I would again urge
him to open the process to the public more than what they are right now.
I will ask the minister that, as he
promised in June of '91, that he will convey some of the issues that we raised
in this committee to the emergency care committee because things that we said,
the committees are saying exactly the same thing.
There are a number of other issues that
the committee has brought forward, one issue is the whole creation of a
paramedic system which is going to cost about, according to them, $1.5
million. I will not go into that
detail. I will certainly ask the
minister that somebody in his department should read that report and probably
let the minister know some of the very controversial issues.
My further question is in terms of the
next line, not on the Executive Support staff, but on the Evaluation and Audit
Secretariat. If we are willing to pass
the present line, then we can go further and ask the questions.
Mr. Orchard: Ask if you wish, it is the will of the
committee.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, we were at the point
of, the minister was I think, going to address some requests made last week,
rather earlier this week, regarding extended bed closures at the Health
Sciences Centre. I am wondering if he
has the information now.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I was about to
provide that information, but unfortunately I did not want to provide it
without my honourable friend having the benefit of hearing it.
I do want to take the opportunity to
correct my honourable friend, even though this may cause her some angst. My honourable friend said to be concerned
over hospital deficits is nonsense. I mean, you cannot talk about the provision
of health care in changing the way we approach health care if you allow the largest
single spending line in your department to operate without any fiscal control.
Everybody recognizes that because the
dollars you allow, if you allow deficits to balloon in your hospital system,
the dollars you consume must come from every other area of the department, a
number of which my honourable friend mentioned. You take them from Continuing
Care. You take them from Health
Promotion. You take them from Mental
Health. You take them from Community
Services.
My honourable friend further went on to
say that we all agree of moving patient services from high‑cost
institutions to low‑cost institutions and lower‑cost community
alternatives. Well, I know that we all agree about that. But where I have taken it one step further,
which is new, and no government has ever discussed it before, is the intention
that when we move those services with the patient from, for instance, the
teaching hospitals to a lower‑cost institution and/or the community, that
we will be closing the bed that was providing those services, I submit
inappropriately, at the teaching hospital to save the budget there to move it
with the patient.
My honourable friend went part way in that
she agreed with moving from high‑cost to low‑cost areas of service
provision, but does she agree that it is necessary to close the bed in the high‑cost
area that was providing the inappropriate service? Because that is where we are
moving. That is what we are discussing
now with those very same hospitals. If
my honourable friend does not agree with that, then my honourable friend ought
to state that. Because that
fundamentally changes this so‑called commitment that we sometimes hear
from the New Democrats, that they believe in reform of the health care
system. I mean, you cannot have it both
ways. That is why both Hospital line and
Community Services line in 15 successive budgets have both gone up in parallel,
because as we have placed more services in the community, we have left the beds
intact, and there is an old maxim in health care that a bed is never an empty
bed. There will always be a patient
admitted to it.
Those patients do not need to be admitted
to some of our very high‑cost institutional beds. Services can be provided elsewhere, and when
you do, you curtail the service delivery, the patient admission, by closing the
bed. That is what happening in
That is the kind of informed change in the
system that the board, the administration, in co‑operation with the
community service providers have been able to achieve. That is as reasonable a model of the kind of
reform that can take place as exists, probably, anywhere in
I will provide my honourable friend with
the information she requested, but first of all, I want to indicate to my
honourable friend that when she picks pieces of information, she tries to leave
an impression that is not accurate. I
want to indicate that my honourable friend, when she questioned me in July of
last year, she said: Now that we know he
knows, will he deny approval for the 60 to 70 beds closed now at the Health
Sciences Centre and being extended as bed closures until March 31, 1992?
My honourable friend maintains twofold in
her questions today, first of all, that I did not acknowledge that there was
summer bed closures going on, and furthermore, that I indicated in my answer in
July that I had no knowledge of summer bed closures, and that secondly, I had
approved the extended bed closures and did not give accurate information.
Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, that is not
accurate because in my immediate answer, I said to my honourable friend: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to my honourable
friend yesterday, summer bed closures are in process right now at the Health
Sciences Centre and at a number of hospitals throughout
I did not, as my honourable friend alleged
yesterday, deny that beds were being closed over the summer period‑‑No.
1 correction of fact for my honourable friend.
Secondly, I had a number of other pieces of information that I will not
use with the committee.
Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I go on to
answer: My honourable friend said to put
those bed closures on hold‑‑and by those, I was referring to the
extended closures to March 31, and by those bed closures, she meant the
extended ones that Health Sciences Centre has proposed until the Urban Hospital
Council has reported, and a co‑ordinated plan taking into account the
needs of patients is presented to the people and dealt with.
When I indicated that was the second part
of her question, here is my answer: That
is exactly the status of that proposed extension on a number of beds at the
Health Sciences Centre. No decision has
been made to close them, nor will any decision be made to extend any closures
beyond September until the Urban Hospital Council examines the impact on the
system in
Again, I provided my honourable friend
with the information that was accurate in July, that there was no decision to
grant the request made in June for extended bed closures when she posed the
question in July. So my honourable
friend erred factually by saying I denied knowledge of summer closures at the
Health Sciences Centre, because I acknowledged the beds were being closed, as I
answered, for the summer closure period.
Secondly, my honourable friend alleged
that I had given approval to the extended bed closures. My answer clearly says that this issue was
not given approval. The Urban Hospital
Council was dealing with it. Subsequent
to that, the Urban Hospital Council did deal with that issue.
Those beds, some 42 of them, have been
closed and are closed right now. Those
are RR‑5, 10 beds; RR‑4, 10 beds; CK‑3, six beds; WS‑5,
12 beds; and D‑5, four beds, which were not in the original plan, as I
can understand here, but were closed for a dining room area for geriatric
beds. In other words, the room for those
beds has been converted into a dining room for geriatric patients at the Health
Sciences Centre.
*
(1530)
But those extended bed closures on those
above‑mentioned wings were granted after it was determined that the
Health Sciences Centre would be able to operate in a reasonable fashion in
terms of admissions and service delivery.
There are an additional 23 beds on E‑6 that are closed, but they
are still considered to be a temporary closure and may, I say only may, be
opened depending on decisions by the Health Sciences Centre around the budget
process for '92‑93.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I appreciate
the information. I will not get into the
minister's explanation for the apparent discrepancy in terms of information‑‑
Point of
Order
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, there is no
discrepancy in the information. I read
from Hansard, July, the time my honourable friend asked her questions and
alleged I denied knowledge of summer closures and had approved extended
closures. I answered to neither
question, as she indicates. There is no confusion around the information except
that my honourable friend wants to fabricate untruths.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: I would suggest that the minister withdraw the
term "fabricate." [interjection]
Well, then I will withdraw my withdrawal.
The Acting Deputy
Chairperson (Mr. Rose): Order, please. I have been informed that the term "fabricate"
is a variation of the word fabrication, and since we asked the honourable
member for
Mr. Orchard: As you wish, sir.
The Acting Deputy
Chairperson (Mr. Rose): Thank you, and on the
point of order, there is no point of order.
* * *
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I was not
trying to question the minister's explanation.
I simply was pointing out the fact, as I had noted before, that on June
26 his department and his commission received detailed information about
extended bed closures, and on July 10 the minister said neither he nor any
member of his staff, nor the Commission, nor commission staff, nor associate
deputy minister were informed. I will
leave the record to bear out the issues at hand.
Let me ask just a question about the 42
beds that have been permanently closed, and let me not put judgments on the
information provided by the minister. Let
me ask for a clarification. Did the
minister say that 42 beds of those extended summer closures had then
permanently closed, and could I further ask if those beds will be included in
the present bed‑reduction target to the Health Sciences Centre or are in
addition to the target that has been suggested to the Health Sciences Centre by
the minister's own department?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, to again
clarify my honourable friend's quandary that she has put herself in, my
honourable friend does not acknowledge my answer in which I said summer bed
closures are ongoing right now at the Health Sciences Centre and that no
approval was given for any extension beyond September, as detailed in the memo
from Mr. Thorfinnson. At the July 17 Urban
Hospital Council meeting the issue was discussed, and it was concluded that the
bed closures would have no impact on other facilities. As a result of the July 17 Urban Hospital
Council meeting, which surveyed the other hospitals, it was determined that
there would be no impact on the group of facilities in the Urban Hospital
Council to grant the extended closure, and hence it was granted and those beds
remain closed.
Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I cannot
and I will not get into the discussion of my honourable friend's last question,
because I have not been informed by my department of their analysis of the
Health Sciences Centre's response to this year's budget.
As I indicated in the Question Period
today, their preliminary budget estimates were given to them some several weeks
ago. They were preparing plans which
would detail their operation, and how they would handle this year's
budget. Those plans have been brought
back to the ministry. The ministry staff
are analyzing those plans, and I have not seen a finalized analysis and
approval of those plans.
That is why when my honourable friend
takes the quantum leap from my answer today in Question Period, saying I have
all the answers, I am afraid that I have to tell her that I do not have those
answers, because the analysis has not been completed and I have not been
informed of how the respective facilities will meet their targets.
I fully expect that information to be
available when we arrive at the hospital line that my honourable friend wanted
to rush to today. That is what I have
told her consistently, and she will have her answers when we get to that line.
Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, I cannot
answer the second part of her question.
I want to indicate to my honourable friend that the 42 beds plus four,
which were retired from services in order to make a dining room area for
geriatric beds, and the 23 beds on E6 still remain out of service. Apparently, the impact on the operations of
the Health Sciences Centre appear to be as expected at the Urban Hospital
Council meeting of July 17 of minimal impact.
I will indicate to my honourable friend why.
In 1989‑90 the total admissions to
the Health Sciences Centre were 34,052.
In 1990‑91 that total admission figure had declined to
32,826. That is primarily because of the
31‑day nurses' strike where the admissions were down somewhat for the
month of January 1991. In 1991‑92
the period of time for which those beds have not been in service, admissions to
the Health Sciences Centre have been 34,313, some 250 more admissions than in
the last full year of service delivery at the Health Sciences Centre
uninterrupted by the nurses' strike.
In terms of patient days of service, the
1989‑90 patient days of service totalled 327,026. In 1990‑91 they were down to
$316,328. For 1991‑92, and again I
will give my honourable friend the normal precaution that I give, '91‑92
figures are not finalized. They are
preliminary because the year‑end is only nine days past, but the
preliminary indication on patient days of care is 319,631.
*
(1540)
That would tend to conform with the
direction that we are moving in acute care service provision of shorter average
length of stays. As I noted to my
honourable friend, the admissions were up, but the patient days were down, so
that means that patients were having stays in the hospital of lesser duration.
The indication, Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, is that those closures have not
adversely affected the level of patient care at the Health Sciences Centre. In fact, it appears as if they have been able
to increase admissions with fewer beds in service.
(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Let me ask the minister about the process he
has put in place for dealing with the responses by all facilities to this
minister's budgetary and restructuring plans.
He has indicated that in the past it has
been the Urban Hospital Council that has given final approval for, or some
approval‑‑I wish the minister would not shake his head because I am
seeking information about how this actually works. I always had understood that approval for
changes in our hospitals, bed reductions or cuts or summer bed closures or
whatever, rested with the department and with the minister.
He has indicated that with respect to‑‑for
example, last summer's extended bed closures at the Health Sciences Centre went
to the Urban Hospital Council for approval on July 17, and I appreciate the
clarification vis‑a‑vis the information I had brought to this
committee. I am just checking to see, is
there a new process then in place in terms of who responds to recommend to
plans or proposals in response to government budgetary targets, or whatever,
than was previously the case, or am I misunderstanding what the minister has
said?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the same process
exists for approval of hospital budgets that always existed, and that is that
government gives the approval to the budgetary plans of the hospitals in terms
of the budgetary process. That has
existed, I suspect, for as long as we have funded hospitals centrally.
What is new to the process, and is the
informed part and the progressive part of the system of change we have put in
place, is the opportunity to understand the system‑wide impact of one
institution's proposal.
In the case of the request by the Health
Sciences Centre to extend to March 31 certain bed closures, which was an
unusual request, we had the opportunity and the benefit of the Urban Hospital
Council to seek the opinion of the other institutions that may be affected by
such a decision by one institution to indicate whether in fact it would have an
impact.
That is a reference ability that
strengthens the comfort that the ministry has that the decisions we are
approving will have minimal impact on the level of patient care delivery.
That is the much more informed, much more
co‑operative, much more enlightened process of change that I refer to and
have been referring to consistently for the last year and a half that is envied
by all other provinces because none other has an Urban Hospital Council to
serve as that sounding board for system‑wide change. That is the new approach, the new and
enlightened approach by this government, replacing former approaches that dealt
only with individual hospitals without the sufficient opportunity, I might
indicate, of understanding the system‑wide impact of individual hospital
approval of decisions.
Point of
Order
Mr. Cheema: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, are we still
discussing the hospital budget? I do not
want to be excluded from the whole process.
We had a discussion last Monday, Tuesday, and if we are going to talk
about the same issue, then I would like to get some time also.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member for The Maples did not
have a point of order.
At this time, I would like to remind the
honourable members, we are dealing with item 1.(b) Executive Support. If the minister chooses to answer questions
in other areas, that is at his discretion.
* * *
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will be happy to
give up the mike at some point in the near future. I just want to clarify‑‑[interjection] The Minister of
Transportation (Mr. Driedger) suggested that it would be next week. Well, I was only continuing on because the
member for The Maples said he had no more questions on this line, but if he is
reconsidering that, I will certainly pass over the mike in a short time.
I did want to point out that I am asking
some general questions here about process that does very much involve the deputy
minister. It is important for us to
understand so that we do not ask, in the minister's words, silly or uninformed
questions, and it will become critical over the next short while as more and
more rumours start coming out, so I want to understand.
Now taking what the minister said about
the process and what is new in that process, do I take it then that in terms of
the present situation, with hospitals responding to how they will meet budget
targets by this government and how they will respond to restructuring plans of
this government, that all proposals and all plans will come forward and be
assessed by the Urban Hospital Council before they go a step further and before
any beds are cut or any budgets are finalized?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that is not what I
indicated in my answer to my honourable friend.
I indicated that government will make the decision, or the ministry will
make the decision on approval of requests by individual facilities where
appropriate, as was appropriate last year on the request for extended summer
bed closures. We deemed it to be an
appropriate vehicle to vet that request by one institution to see whether it
would have any impact, and over a series of meetings starting July 17, the
Urban Hospital Council concluded that the system could accommodate such a
request by the facility. That is the
advantage of the
We will use appropriately the Urban
Hospital Council to seek similar system‑wide challenges, but it is not a
requirement of process. It is an
additional enhanced opportunity that we have put in place to make the process a
more informed one.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I appreciate that
explanation from the minister. I was
certainly not trying to leave the impression that I thought it was a
requirement. I am just trying to
understand the various steps that will be taken for vetting these proposals and
the opportunities that there will be for input and for advice from different
sectors of the health care community.
I am wondering if‑‑and I would
like to refer the minister to a memo that he would be aware of from the
president of Health Sciences Centre to all staff following their retreat on
March 18 and 19 to try to begin responding to the government's budgetary
directives and announced plans for restructuring.
That memo indicates that the executive
staff and board of directors must now take the next step by drafting a set of
recommendations to government together with our observations on the impact
those recommendations would have if adopted. Government and hospital officials
will then review our recommendations, together with those of other
hospitals. Final decisions on the
restructuring of the provincial health system rest with the government of
*
(1550)
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, if I understand my
honourable friend's question, my honourable friend is asking whether the
process as outlined in the memo from Mr. Thorfinnson to all staff in that they
are developing plans around budgetary numbers and are advancing those plans to
government which has the final approval for acceptance, et cetera. Yes, that system is in place for all
hospitals, and all hospitals are in the process of developing their plans of
service operation for '92‑93. That
is the same kind of information that has been brought in for how many years‑‑too
many to count, so that is the process.
The difference in the process or the advantage in the process that we
have compared to previous administrations and even previous years in this
administration is that we have also the opportunity through the Urban Hospital
Council to have the discussion of system‑wide issues if we deem it an
appropriate discussion to undertake.
That was the reference I made to the
request by the Health Sciences Centre last June. That may well be the vehicle used on growing
numbers of issues, but the final decision as indicated in that memo rests with
government and will always rest with government. We will attempt, as we have, and as we are
reinforcing almost monthly, our opportunity to seek wider discussion and
opinion on issues in health care. The
Urban Hospital Council is one of those forums, and I can name a number of
others that are available to us, so that we have a more open opportunity for
discussion around the issues than has ever existed before in the province of
Manitoba and, indeed, far more open discussion and decision‑making
process than any other province in Canada.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Just a quick follow‑up to that and then
I will pass it over to the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema). I just wanted to see if I could get an
understanding of the minister's definition of "appropriate." I know we have had some difficulty in terms of
talking about numbers, of proposals pertaining to bed closures. I am wondering, if there is any truth to
these numbers of 240 beds being closed at the two teaching hospitals and
another 200 at our community hospitals, if those kinds of numbers warrant special
consideration by the Urban Hospital Council or any other mechanism for
consultation, any input. Is that in line
with what the minister means when he says "where appropriate?"
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, my honourable friend
is talking in terms of bed closures. I
have indicated to my honourable friend that we will be developing systems of
moving services with the patient. Where
we remove a patient and provide the care in a lower cost institution and the
teaching hospital happened to have been the place where the service was
delivered, if we deliver that service in a lower cost place, the bed at the
teaching hospital will be closed. That
is part of the process of reform that we are embarked on. The request by the Health Sciences Centre for
extended summer bed closures was vetted through the Urban Hospital
Council. It was deemed not to have a
system‑wide impact, hence was given approval.
Those issues are vetted appropriately to
seek system‑wide advice. Let me
give you an example. A couple or three
years ago before we had the Urban Hospital Council, following the no‑deficit
policy put in place by Howard Pawley and the NDP, one hospital was mid‑year
approaching a significant budgetary problem.
One of their proposals for budget containment was to curtail
chemotherapy for patients suffering from cancer.
Clearly, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we did
not have the forum of the Urban Hospital Council, but very quickly the decision
was made that that would be an inappropriate system‑wide decision, because
all you would do is move that patient requiring chemotherapy to another
institution, and it becomes their budgetary problem.
That is why the reform process that we are
embarked on has the patient as the centre to the theme. The budget as much as possible will move with
the patient. That way you avoid those
kinds of inappropriate decisions that would simply transfer costs from
institution "a" to institution "b." That is not reform. That is attempting to
transfer management problems. We did not
accept that, naturally, three years ago.
We certainly would not accept it today.
So that is why underpinning the reform process is movement of the budget
with the individual.
Mr. Cheema: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, can the minister tell
us within the policy direction by the executive support staff and specifically
the issue of the LPNs, because that is not part of the major reorganization and
has not been very clear with the membership as such. They are in a major confusion as to what is
going to be their role in the future.
There are about 3,800 LPNs who are practising in the health care
profession, and they do perform many duties which include from the active in
the hospital to the personal care homes and in the communities. Some places they are even performing more
duties than are legally covered for, because maybe they are the only person who
is available for those duties.
Number one is: What is their role going to be now? The second issue is in the present system and
is: For their role in the future system in
terms of if they go for further training to be RNs and within two or three
years they have to retrain themselves to BNs, what is going to happen? Are they going to continue to re‑educate
themselves and not really find a suitable role?
We have raised the issue in the House.
At that time the minister said that he had not received the final
reports from the hospitals and other places.
I would like the minister to tell us what
the government's policy is in terms of the role of LPNs in the reform of the
health care system.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I think the LPN as a
professional group can play a very important role in the health care system
today and on into the future. However,
that role may well be changing in some institutions in some areas, because my
honourable friend has been informed of the same staffing changes that I have in
certain hospitals where under reorganization of staff there will be
circumstances where several LPNs would be laid off and replaced with a
combination of RNs and nurses' aides in the workplace to provide care and also
in these cases to contain budget.
*
(1600)
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I cannot give my
honourable friend‑‑and we have had these discussions with the LPN
association‑‑a clear answer as to the role of the LPN a number of
years out, nor for that matter, given the dynamics on the education side, for
the registered nurse with the baccalaureate program being certainly an
objective of the professional association MARN to have as a minimum entry to
practise.
There is a lot of consternation, I guess
one might say in terms of nursing education.
We have over the past year and a half, I guess, had a study group on the
MARN side which led to the commencement of a collaborative program at Health
Sciences Centre. Currently a proposal
for St. Boniface is on hold for a similar collaborative program.
Now, I do not have perfect answers as to
who ought to be the caregivers in the workplace five years out, so what we
undertook as a department was in January of this year, because what really
speeded up the process was this whole controversy over
We developed a survey in the ministry, and
all institutions have been asked to provide us with their current staffing
complement, BN, RN, LPN, nurses' aides, RPNA, RPN, so that we have a sense of
what the current employment patterns are in acute care, long‑term
care. I believe we have done community
health facilities as well, I think, in that survey, but for certain at the long‑term
care as well as the hospital side. We
have asked those same employers to indicate to us five years from now what they
expect their staffing patterns will be.
We expect to have that survey in and analyzed toward the end of June.
Now that is going to present us I think
with one of the better opportunities to try and answer the question that you
have posed, and that certainly the LPNs‑‑because I think they are
feeling pretty crowded in the workplace right now‑‑to try to give
some direction to them, so they know where their future goes. Furthermore to
provide government with a sense of how much training capacity we ought to have
for LPNs at St. Boniface, at
There is the same kind of consternation,
however, amongst the registered nurses with two years training, because they
have the same fears that the system is going to crowd them out and that they
must go back and upgrade their education to baccalaureate. Well, yes, certainly
that would be, I think it is fair to say, the professional goal of MARN, but
what I have cautioned MARN and certainly have cautioned the employers is that
we have to understand what you need to adequately undertake patient care.
I do not know how to put this genteelly,
but the entire focus on length of education can be an argument which develops a
life of its own without any attachment to care delivery in the workplace, like
who actually does what for the patients when they are in hospital or on an
outpatient basis or receiving services through continuing care in their homes. So we hope that this survey gives us that
kind of sense of requirements that the managers of the system view as their
needs and their institutions five years out.
Hopefully, that gives us the opportunity to guide both education and
training and preparation of professional staff in terms of qualifications as
well as numbers of those different qualified individuals that we will need to
meet projected needs in the workplace 1996.
That allows us to structure training programs appropriately. I am hoping that midsummer we have some
pretty definitive direction.
Mr. Cheema: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, can the minister tell
us or table any communication in terms of his communication with the LPN
association? Because when the issue came
out, I think the membership was not very clear.
The membership was not blaming anyone in particular, because the one
hospital was telling them something else.
The other personal care have their own policies and in a way these 3,800
individuals who are practising in the field were getting very mixed
messages. They were frightened and they
are still not very clear.
If the minister thinks that the government
thinks these individuals have a very important role to play, but then at the
same time that is not what they are feeling right now. They are really frightened because there is a
major group of the other health care providers‑‑the RNs and then
there are the services being provided by either the nursing aide or the other
support staff so LPNs are being squeezed out.
That is a reality of life.
They have to feel confident that their
role is very important. Specifically,
they have mentioned that they could even play a more important role in personal
care homes where the LPNs are playing a major role as compared to the other
professionals.
I want the minister to tell us if there is
any communication from his department to this association and the other
hospitals, even though the minister says the hospital as the managers have to
make a decision. There has to be a
policy from the government that we are going to protect these people who have a
very, very important role to play. I
think it is going to be very economical to use the LPNs in many health care
services because of their training, because of the other work they do.
Out there, some individual may say that,
well, LPNs are just doing minor work, but that is not true. They do a very important role and that is a
message they were trying to convey through the public campaign. I am sure they were very successful, and that
is why I think the minister is very sympathetic to their cause. Still, there
has to be clear direction from the minister's office.
I would like to know if there is any
communication in written form he can share with us and the kind of survey they
are doing so that we can also make an informed judgment.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, there has been the
survey go out and then prior to the meeting where one of the issues that the
LPNs were going to put before their membership was of a consideration of a
salary rollback. There was communication
prior to that meeting. I will check with
the association and see if they have any concerns with me sharing that with my
honourable friend. Certainly, I do not
have any difficulty with sharing that information.
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(Mr. Bob Rose, Acting Deputy Chairperson,
in the Chair)
The LPN is a professional
association. I think it is fair to say
that they were the victims of a number of dynamics in the workplace, the
professional dynamics of registered nursing which had management positions
making decisions on staffing patterns which they viewed as compromising their
continued employment. They had concerns that they expressed to me about the
dedication or the commitment by MNU in terms of representing them in those
layoff circumstances. My honourable
friend is quite correct. There was one heck of a pile of concern and
anxiety. The LPN association had a
number of discussions with employers, and I think the employers, some of them
at least, indicated that the dynamics around staffing patterns was a tough one
for them as administrators. As we
indicated back in January of 1991, by "we" I mean MHO and ourselves
as government doing the nationwide survey, the registered nurses in Manitoba had
fallen to about eighth or ninth in terms of relative salary comparison, whereas
the LPNs were at that time the highest paid LPNs in Canada.
That circumstance has, I think, varied
maybe slightly so that they are second, slightly behind, I think,
I think the indication given by some
administration people was that the hourly rates of LPNs led to that sort of
circumstance. That is why the executive
put the resolution to their membership Thursday two weeks ago, I guess.
For whatever reason and for whatever
dynamics that resolution did not pass.
So nothing has changed, and I do not think there is any question that
probably the LPNs are still believing that those dynamics within the workplace
are working against them rather than for them.
I committed to the president of the MALPN association when they were
taking that sort of a bold step, that if as an association, as a professional
group, they passed a resolution like that, it would certainly be an indication
that they were willing to participate and preserve their role in the health
care system.
For whatever circumstances, that
resolution did not receive approval of the membership, and I am wanting to set
up a meeting with the executive of the MALPN as soon as we can. Estimates are kind of causing difficulty in
that regard, but as soon I can I will be meeting with them to hear directly the
dynamics of the meeting.
Mr. Cheema: I just want to share with the committee that
with our discussion with the LPN association and also their membership, and I
know that they have met most of the MLAs belonging in their own ridings. That kind of exchange took place, and we made
a commitment that the LPNs have a very important role to play.
As a member of the Legislative Assembly
and as a policy maker, I think this government has a responsibility, a very
important one, to make sure that even though their numbers may be small as
compared to other associations, they play a very important role. We do not want them to get turfed out of the
whole health care system, and that is the perception they had.
I think with the exchange they have with
the minister and in the future after this survey is done, we would like to
reinforce again that they should and they will play a very important role. Also
it could be a very important part of the cost‑effective system, most
specifically in terms of their role in the personal care homes which is going
to be very essential, and also in the community level.
Some services where you do not need the
home care worker or you do not need the RNs, you need a specialized care where
the LPNs could play a very wide role.
Right now they are not playing a major role there. I think that is one area to explore for
further development as far as the LPNs are concerned. That will be very positive. The member for
Mr. Lamoureux: I had the opportunity as many, no doubt, other
MLAs did to meet with LPNs from our own ridings. I took advantage of that opportunity and met
with them and shared a number of the concerns that the member for The Maples
(Mr. Cheema) our critic has brought forward, and I appreciate the minister
being so forthright with the answers that he has given.
I would ask the minister if he has looked
at what the other provinces are doing, or the general direction of the LPNs in
other provinces?
Mr. Orchard: Well, not all other provinces have LPNs, and
that is one of the difficulties of comparability. I think only about two other provinces have
what you could call a comparable professional training; other provinces have
nurses' aides, or certified nursing assistants, et cetera, the difficulty being
that the training program is not necessarily consistent province to province.
There are comparable programs in a couple
of other provinces that contrast with the RNs.
For instance, RN two‑year diploma nurses essentially train
consistently across
Mr. Lamoureux: Having said that, two things come into my
mind: One is the minister here made reference that the LPNs were the highest
paid in
The second question would be the one of
those two provinces that do have LPNs that we can compare to, are they looking
at expanding, or are they even looking at the issue?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, the comparison
that was used, for instance in January, were our LPNs and were for the level of
training, et cetera, and duties. The
comparison was made with
*
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I will source this information to my
executive member for the LPN association in my area that I met with. Indication that she gave me was that the
That begged the question, and she shared
some information with me which I subsequently was able to confirm in terms of
where the Alberta LPN placed in terms of salary compared to our LPN. Our LPN effective January 1, 1992, which is
now, starts at an hourly salary of $13.81 and with six years of experience will
achieve a maximum salary rate of $16.94 an hour. The starting rate for the LPN series in
Alberta, apparently as of April '91‑‑so this is year‑old and
apparently they are into negotiations, so this will probably change‑‑but
as of now the starting salary is $11.81 an hour and has a maximum level at the
end of year five in Alberta of $13.42 an hour.
You can see that if the information appears to be accurate, they are
more highly skilled, they can offer more skills in the workplace, the Alberta
top of the range in salary at $13.42 would be about what?‑‑39 cents
below our starting salary in Manitoba.
I would suspect that in
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, the concern in most
part was about that, was in regard to the salary. Many felt that in fact that is one of the
reasons why. They had attempted to
explain to me what it is that the LPNs do.
Part of their concern was that they were going to be phased out and
replaced with nurses' aides, because they are cheaper and potentially in the
future those nurses' aides would become a form of an LPN but just at a
different pay scale and possibly with a different name.
The other concern that was brought to my
attention, and I guess all of us can sympathize with it, and that is that you
have 3,800 LPNs in the province, and there are a large number of rumours that
have been out there, and I understand it is more than just since January of '91
or '92, that it has been there for a number of years. For many of them they are at a crossroads. Do
I go back to school? If I go back to
school to upgrade, there really are not very many positions open for RNs. Do I have to go back to a nursing
assistant? What type of a future is
there for the LPNs?
The minister made reference to the survey
that is being done. Without any sort of
expertise like my colleague for The Maples (Mr. Cheema) or the background
information that the minister has, a concern that I would have is that this
survey that is coming out, that is going to be coming back to the minister from
the professionals, from the institutions and the administrations will be one
that will indicate that we are going to see some form of phasing out of the
LPNs because of the bottom line being the cost factor.
I would ask the minister to comment, I
guess, on the first part, and possibly to ask if the minister is going to be
making available those survey results to the individual MLAs and also to the
LPN association so they can distribute it for comment from the LPNs.
(Mr. Jack Reimer, Acting Deputy
Chairperson, in the Chair)
Mr. Orchard: I forget what the first part of the question
was that I was to respond to, so I will respond to the last part first.
We have not made any decision about
circulating the individual responses of facilities, because we did not ask for
that co‑operation with the knowledge that we would be circulating them
beyond. But the results are certainly
going to be there.
Let me anticipate my honourable friend's
next question, because I have had this discussion with the LPN association and
they have a concern that the surveys will be filled out by nursing
administrators who are non‑LPN.
Okay, do not ever worry. We have
thought of that concern, too, because that has been the concern expressed by
LPNs. That is part of the turf
protection, if you will, in the workplace that has caused them some of their
problems. Okay.
You see the advantage of the survey, as I
see it, is that the LPNs make the case that there are some institutions that
hire degree nurses and nurses' aides and establish that staffing pattern, and
there are others who really favour LPNs.
So I think we are going to get an accurate reflection facility by
facility, because those facilities that the LPN association says utilize their
members to a high degree are certainly going to indicate that in today's survey
and into the projection into the future.
I recognize the concern that they have
expressed, but it will show up in the survey if there are pretty substantive
differences in terms of the future projections.
Of course, that is the major concern:
Who is making the future projection?
I know that we will only know after the survey is completed. But I know very well that there will not be
consistency in terms of response, because some facilities will reflect what
they view as a different staffing pattern in the future.
I do not think you are going to find these
surveys consistently eliminating the LPN, as is the fear. Taking for granted and presuming results, I
think it is going to give us probably our best indication of what the future
trend is going to be.
Let us look at the issue of the cost,
because my honourable friend has indicated it; for instance, and the comment
has been made: How can you save money if
you hire BNs and nurses' aides? Well, good question. I have asked that myself. If, for instance, someone who is a manager
says that five years from now we are only going to have‑‑let us
speculate‑‑BNs on our nursing staff, they are going to have to ask
why they have proposed that staffing pattern as being in the future when a
similar facility may well have proposed that they expect their staffing will be
a mixture of a number of trained disciplines.
It will not be too difficult to do a future projection on costing.
The survey is offering us a pretty fair
opportunity to try to get a handle on what the future holds and to give some of
that advice, not only to LPNs, but to two‑year trained RNs, BNs, nurses'
aides, as to what the future may well hold.
I know of no better way to try and give that sort of projection into the
future.
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Mr. Lamoureux: Finally, to the minister, I would ask is‑‑the
survey itself is a good idea‑‑what I would ask the minister is: Is
there any process that will allow the different levels of health care
professions to have some form of equal input into a final decision being made?
For example, the minister has a number of
committees, but not all the committees have that broad representation from all
the health care professionals. I would
wonder if the minister would be willing to make a commitment of sorts to ensure
that there would be some process put in place, so that before a decision is
made one way or the other, however it might turn out, that all the health care
professionals will in fact have had some sort of input in hopes that there
would be a consensus of sorts that, yes, this is the way to move to have better
health care professionals overall.
Mr. Orchard: I guess that is exactly the dynamic we are in,
and it has never been done before. The
survey is going to be, I think, a pretty fair indicator. Bear in mind, although there is the
perception that I can order the hiring of any particular trained professional
anywhere in the health care system, that is not accurate.
I mean we have global budgeting and we
tell institutions, here are the dollars that you have to undertake your
operations for the fiscal year, and we leave them with the management decisions
as how they can do that within the budget and to provide the appropriate
patient care.
We do not tie their hands by saying you
must do all of this or all of that.
There are some founding guidelines which are driven by legislation which
establish the nature of some staffing and hence the expenditures driven by
that, but the LPN association believe that I could take a magic wand and order
their retention and their expansion within the system.
(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)
Well, I cannot do that for LPNs; I cannot
do it for diploma RNs; I cannot do it for baccalaureate RNs; nor can I do it
for nurses' aides; nor should I do it, because that is not the role of the
Minister of Health. The Minister of
Health is to provide overall policy and guidance to health care provision and
budgets to the institutions.
But I tell you, we pay some pretty decent
salaries to our senior management in our health care institutions. If I can be so blunt to say‑‑and
follow up from my honourable friend the member for The Maples‑‑a
heck of a lot more than what I get paid for being the minister. But that is not an issue. We pay professional people to manage the
system. We are asking those professional
people to tell us what they project the employment requirements will be five
years down the road. I do not know who
else will give us a better indication of that.
If we cannot trust our senior managers to
give us what is their best indication, I do not know where else we can go. I mean, will I sit down and between myself
and my honourable friend the member for
Number one, I am not capable of making
that kind of decision. I do not have the
knowledge that is required to make that kind of decision. I am not saying that my honourable friend has
or has not, but I would suspect that she would be pretty uncomfortable trying
to make that decision because her skills development has not been in management
of health care facilities. Neither has
mine.
You have to go to your professional
managers to get the best indication.
There is still apprehension and fear about that by the LPNs. I appreciate that, but I do not know of a better
system with which to seek the information to guide our training decisions, what
kind of schools of nursing of all types of nursing, LPN, Diploma, Two‑year,
RPN, BN. Hopefully, this will give us as
good an indication as we have ever had.
What was the first part of the question?
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, this will be the final
question that I will have for the minister.
The final, final question if you will, and that is even though I can buy
most of what the Minister of Health is saying on this issue, the only thing
that makes me wonder is that if we agree that the services that the LPN
provides and the quality of professionalism, and for whatever reasons we
believe that because of their salary they are receiving that it has virtually
priced them out of being able to possibly play a major role in our health care
field, that because of those dollars we find that we have to phase them out and
take up the lower paying nursing assistant, and possibly have that nursing
assistant doing some of the tasks that an LPN would have been doing that would
have had more qualifications.
That is the only caveat that I would put
on some of the remarks that the minister had put on the record, and if he would
like to respond to it, he can.
Mr. Orchard: I do not quite follow my honourable friend's line
of thought there, because my honourable friend is talking about the care
delivery, the professional care delivery, and I do not think anyone questions
that. That it becomes an economic
factor, I think that is true.
I do not know what the solution to that is
because, as I indicated earlier on, our LPN series in Manitoba has a starting
salary of $13.81 an hour and a top salary of $16.94 an hour, where indications
I have gotten from Alberta is their LPN series starts at $11.81 and has a
maximum salary of $13.42 an hour. So
that although the training appears to be at least equivalent in
Well, health care managers and employers
in
Mr. Lamoureux: I know I said "final" twice. This will be the last time, Mr. Deputy
Chairperson.
If the bottom line when it comes to the
LPNs is a question of dollars to administrations, then I am wondering if it
would not be most appropriate to bring that particular issue to the negotiating
table and think in terms of not only this year, but five‑ or six‑year
agreements, that the unions or the individuals that are going to be affected
should be well aware of what it is the intentions of the administrations are.
For example, if they say that over the
next eight years, you are going to be receiving a 3 percent increase, and if you
do not accept that 3 percent increase, well, we just will not be able to afford
to retain the LPNs or will have to phase them out. Well, at least the LPNs should be made aware
of it, that the reason why they might be phased out is because of the dollar. It is not because of the service that they
provide for our health institutions.
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I would suggest to the minister that if in
fact that is the issue and when these surveys and when all of the consultation
is done, if that is the issue, that at least those professions, whether it is
LPNs, RNs, BNs, whatever it might be, should all be entitled to know the reason
why the administration and the government are moving in that particular
direction, that we do not want to just give the platitudes to those
professions, that we want to be straightforward and let them know exactly as to
why something is being done.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I can seek some
agreement with what my honourable friend is saying with one exception, that the
government is not saying that.
Government does not say that because government gives global budgets to
the employers who then establish the staffing patterns. If I can be so bold as to conclude, that is
exactly the message that Manitoba Health Organizations gave in December of 1990
in trying to reach a settlement with MNU on January 1, 1991.
The employers were given a lump sum of
money from government to cover the costs of a two‑year contract, and we
give to MHO‑‑and this has always been their role, to craft that
funding commitment of government into an offer to the MNU. In that offer, because of the relative
positioning of the RN in Manitoba compared to other provinces, roughly at ninth
I think at that time, they said we are going to focus all of our resources in
year one of the contract, 1991, on the RNs, and because our LPNs, and at that
time their information was they were the highest paid in Canada, you might
recall they put a no‑increase offer out for the LPNs‑‑zero
percent. That was the signal they were
trying, I think, to send to the LPNs of Manitoba through the bargaining
process.
Now, you know, I am not certain, and I am
not a labour expert, so I cannot say whether the managers of the system can
accept my honourable friend's advice to tell them that there is zero percent on
the table, because if you take any more you are going to price yourself out of
the market. I do not know, that might be
challengeable before the Labour Board as an unfair practice, as intimidation‑‑I
am not certain.
I do think it is fair to speculate that
the managers of the system, the employers of the system, MHO in January of 1991
clearly signaled to LPNs through a zero offer for year one and clearly stated
the reason for that, because one observing without knowledge might say, well,
why are you picking on LPNs and giving all the money to RNs? Well, the public information that they put
out, and certainly the information they put out to MNU, was as I have indicated
that the relative positioning of RNs at that time was ninth in
I was on Peter Warren, and there were a
lot of LPNs who phoned up and were very angry at being offered a zero percent
with the MHO structuring of the offer. I
indicated that the reason MHO would put that on the table was, as I have explained
to you this afternoon, at that time their information was they were the highest
paid in
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I have to respond also
as the Labour critic on this, because I do not want anything to come back to
haunt myself, and that is that I am not suggesting a percentage increase or
trying to give the impression that LPNs are underpaid or overpaid. Rather, that if the bottom line is in fact
the dollar then what is necessary is there is a responsibility to negotiate so that
in fact LPNs, whatever the health profession, even outside of health, know
exactly what they are dealing with and potential consequences.
Mr. Daryl Reid
(Transcona): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, like the member for
My question for the minister is, by the
minister's comments that he was making earlier, does he see that the level of
payment to LPNs would be the only way that he can see the hospital
administrators retaining LPNs in the system to keep them an integral part of
the health care system as we know it today?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I cannot answer that
as being the only way. As I indicated to
the President of MALPN I think that would be, as my honourable friend used his
language, quite an interesting resolution to put before the membership. It would certainly put a signal to the
employers across the system that they were serious about retaining their role
of health care delivery. I told the
president that would be a signal that certainly could not be ignored either by
myself or by employers, but for me to answer whether that would have made
everything perfect and well, I simply cannot give my honourable friend that
judgment.
I will tell you that it was a very, very
bold resolution to even consider putting before the membership, because no
other group that I am aware of in public service at the executive level has put
such a resolution out for discussion amongst the membership in general. It was, to me, a very sincere signal that the
LPNs want to continue to care.
Mr. Reid: I have had many meetings with LPNs in my own
constituency. They are very, very
worried about what appears to be a policy direction, whether from an
administrative point of view or from the government's point of view, because
they are not sure where the policy is coming from at this time. Nevertheless, they are worried about their
jobs and what the future holds for them.
Those who are advancing in their years
find that it would be difficult for themselves to go out and seek some kind of
retraining. For those who have newly
moved in to the work force or have been in the work force for just a short
period of time that have just achieved their LPN training, they find it
difficult to have to be put into a position where they might have to go back to
school again to take themselves out of the work force effectively and to seek
some kind of retraining.
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From the minister's comments that he made
here just a moment ago, I am interested in what the minister's thoughts
are. If he sees this proposal, this
MALPN proposal, this resolution that was brought forward as a way of achieving
in his opinion the retention of LPNs in the system, or is there something he
sees that may be greater that would be required to achieve the retention of
LPNs in the present health care system of the
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, first of all, my
honourable friend said there appears to be a policy, whether it is government
or the employers, to eliminate LPNs. My
honourable friend says that is the impression that the LPNs have. Yes, that is right, they shared that concern
with me as well. There is no such policy
in government, and I do not believe there is such a policy within the
institutions. What is happening and it
varies institution by institution. It is
by no means consistent across health care in
My honourable friend wanted to know if I
believed that resolution would be the end‑all and be‑all solution
for the LPNs. I told him, and I will
tell him again, I do not know, but certainly it would have been quite a signal
of commitment to remain as a care provider in the system, should it have been
passed.
I would say to my honourable friend, that
kind of a signal from a professional group to my knowledge has never been given
in the 15 years that I have been here and would be a signal that was of
sufficient seriousness that it could not possibly be ignored by the employers
in the system, that the employers would have to very seriously consider the
LPNs' role if they were willing to widen that gap between RN salaries and
current LPN salaries.
Whether that is the only signal, I cannot
answer that. I indicated to the
president of the LPN that I would think that would be a very important signal
for them to send to the workplace, but for whatever reason‑‑I am
sure that will be shared at my future meeting with the association executive
and president‑‑that resolution did not succeed, I do not know. I do not know what the debate was. I was not at the meeting and I am not privy
to the kind of discussion that took place there.
Mr. Reid: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, it is my understanding
that the debate was heated, because the LPNs themselves were quite concerned on
the impact upon their own personal lives that this type of resolution would
have held for them. There was some
understanding that had it been for a wage freeze then they would have only had
to eat the cost‑of‑living portion of salary impact. The proposal of a 3 percent reduction on top
of the cost of living was something, from my understanding, more than they felt
that they could bear at this particular time.
My question for the minister, though, goes
more along the lines, because he has indicated time and again in the House that
he has an advisory council, the Urban Hospital Council, that advises him on
these matters concerning the health care system. It is my understanding that
these are comprised of administrators in the various hospitals throughout the
cities that are in this working group.
Have these administrators advised the
minister that they would be interested in this type of a proposal and this
would be the impetus that would be needed for them to seriously look at retaining
LPNs in their particular facilities?
Have these administrators given the minister any kind of indication on
their intent?
Mr. Orchard: No, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, and of course the
Urban Hospital Council is the CEOs of our eight facilities in
Mr. Reid: One last question, Mr. Deputy
Chairperson. One group of LPNs that I
met with were employed in a personal care home in my community, were quite
concerned about their jobs in the future, what it holds for them.
As well, the administrators of that
facility are concerned because, if the availability of LPNs is reduced for them‑‑they
rely quite heavily on LPNs in their facility there to provide the necessary
care‑‑does the minister see, because there is a perception out
there that there is going to be a reduction in the number of LPNs available in
the system‑‑at least it is moving in that direction from what I am
hearing from those who are employed in this field‑‑that it may
create some budget difficulties for these personal care home administrators in
the future because they will not have access to LPNs to make up for the normal
attrition rates that they would incur in their operations?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I do not see that as
an immediate problem. The moratorium at
Red River Community College is just that, a moratorium pending determination in
an accurate way of what the future demand might be, because education has
attempted to put some sense to that, too, because Red River Community College
put the moratorium on that training program.
That is the whole essence behind the
employment survey. What we are trying to
achieve is some sense of what the requirements for not only LPNs but RNs, BNs,
nurses' aides, registered psychiatric nurses will be in our institutional side
of the health care system, so that we can take with some greater degree of
accuracy‑‑because you are never going to be perfect, because
nursing is cyclical; we are up and down in nursing; we have gone from surplus
to scarcity over a fairly regular basis‑‑to try to give us some
sense of the future so that we can provide realistic training goals so that,
hopefully, upon graduation there are employment opportunities.
I would find it most discouraging if I was
a person entering nursing, given the expectation that there was going to be
employment, to graduate finding none was there.
I would feel more cheated than if I had been advised upfront, look, you
may have difficulty working your way into full‑time employment because
things are tight right now.
So the employment survey, hopefully, will
give us that kind of guidance on training program tight‑end capacity.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being five o'clock, time for private
members' hour. Committee rise.
FAMILY
SERVICES
Madam Chairperson
(Louise Dacquay): The Committee of Supply is dealing with the
Estimates for the Department of Family Services. We are on page 60, item 3.(d) Regional
Operations: (1) Salaries.
Will the minister's staff please enter the
Chamber.
Ms. Becky Barrett (
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Madam
Chairperson, I appreciate the comments made by the member for
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(1440)
Ms. Barrett: Madam Chairperson, I have a couple of further
questions on Regional Operations, if I may.
At the end of my time in Estimates on
Tuesday I was discussing with the minister the possibility of having the 24
annual trips for disabled Manitobans who are accessing social assistance to be,
instead of having to be requested by the individual of the staff and having a maximum
of two a month, allowing the disabled recipients of social assistance have the
flexibility of the 24 trips credited to their account, if you will, at the
beginning of the year, and then they would have the responsibility for using
those trips in a responsible manner, thereby leading to a greater degree of
independence.
I would like to ask in that same general
area‑‑another request that has come forward from the disabled
community that I would like to ask the minister to respond to and hopefully to be
able to come up with a positive answer is the issue of grocery shopping, a
major concern for people, particularly those who are disabled. The actual physical problems attendant upon
getting to grocery stores and being able to buy enough food and carry it home
is a logistical nightmare at times.
The suggestion has come forward that there
be one trip a month through the Handi‑Transit system, through the
transportation system, paid for by social assistance for grocery shopping which
would be an additional up to 12 a year, and that those trips not be credited
against the 24 annual trips that they already have.
I am wondering if the minister has
considered that suggestion, and if not, if he would consider it for
implementation.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Madam Chairperson, I indicated when we last
met that the issue of trips for social allowance recipients, and particular
those that are in the handicapped category, is an issue that is before the
department and one that I think over the next while we could take a look at,
and the member has said, would we look at additional trips and additional
funding.
Staff were just doing some rough
calculations, and the request the member is putting before us may be upwards of
$2.5 million, and again, I guess we have to look at requests. The member asked about telephones the other
day, and there is a cost to that, and I guess a cost to any enhancement of
programming.
This budget year we did some enhancements
that are a cost to government, and I guess Estimates is about cost and about
expenditures, and I reference the program for the disabled being at about $8
million. The 3.6 percent, of course, was
at a cost. Even the liquid assets has a cost to it, so it is a part of the
total of the additional $41 million that we have put into social allowances.
Having said that, certainly we have
committed to look at this area of trips, particularly on the issue of
flexibility that the member raised, I believe, on Tuesday. I think as we start preparing for next year
which will start in the coming months, and looking at the budget, and I think
the member knows that in the area of social allowances, we have tried to make
those announcements in October, November, December.
Because for historical reasons those
budgets are adjusted on January 1, as opposed to April 1. So the request is, I suppose, timely, and we
will look at the whole area of transportation.
I am not sure what we can do, but if it is a matter of flexibility
within the current budget, I think that is possibly the area that we would have
the most success at addressing.
Ms. Barrett: Madam Chairperson, yes, I appreciate the
minister's willingness to look at these issues and hope that we will be able to
see some progress in those regards.
Just a brief comment on the additional costs,
for example, for telephones: The
minister spoke the last time that 18,000 of the 24,000 Manitobans on social
assistance do have a telephone. Some of those are telephones that are paid for
by social assistance for medical reasons and after proven abuse or concern for
safety. I know there are some women who
also have the phones paid for out of social assistance. The vast majority of those 18,000 Manitobans
are finding that money out of their current social assistance rates.
My suggestion to the minister is that if
the basic phone rate was paid for, for those social assistance recipients, they
would then have that $12 or whatever the basic rate is a month, additional
revenue. The minister could perhaps look
at the whole disposable revenue that a family on social assistance would then
have access to and could perhaps moderate the rate increase each year.
I hesitate to bring this up, because I am
not advocating a lessening of the percentage increase, but if the minister gave
social assistance recipients the basic phone rate, then that would free that
money up to be used for other elements and could be taken into account when
looking at the entire social assistance budget.
So it does not necessarily have to mean a 100 percent of that increase
of that amount over what the recipients would normally get.
One final question, and this is an issue
that I do not know the answer to, and I am not at all sure what parts of it are
federal and what parts of it are provincial, but we have information that the
income tax credits are now able to be garnisheed for past student loans and
that particularly this final income tax lump sum credit that social assistance
recipients are accessing for the final time.
Is that accurate? Does the minister know, and if that is the case is it
a federal or a provincial matter?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I did see something in the media on that
issue. It is a federal issue, and my
understanding of it is that the federal government was going to try and recover
outstanding student loans through achieving that money through the income tax
refunds that were available to individuals as opposed to through any welfare
program. You may recall that there is a
case currently before the courts dealing with the whole issue of the
responsibility to pay back overpayments.
Anyway, the issue you raise is a federal issue.
Ms. Barrett: I have no further questions in this area.
Madam Chairperson: Item 3.(d)(1) Salaries $20,582,300‑‑pass;
3.(d)(2) Other Expenditures $4,513,000‑‑pass.
Resolution 44: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty
a sum not exceeding $378,771,300 for Family Services, Income Security and
Regional Operations for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1993‑‑pass.
Item 4. Child Day Care (a) Salaries.
Ms. Barrett: Madam Chairperson, yes, several questions
about this particular issue.
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(1450)
Mr. Gilleshammer: I would like to introduce a new member at the
table who is responsible for Child Day Care, Gisela Rempel.
I would like to just advise members of a
correction in the Departmental Expenditure Estimates, on page 62, the second‑last
line where it says: Financial assistance
for parents of approximately 7,000 children.
That should be 8,300.
Ms. Barrett: Madam Chairperson, my first question for the
minister in this category was going to be that I compared the Expected Results
from last year's Estimates with this year's Estimates and found them to be
exactly the same. So I see that in one
area at least they are not exactly the same.
I would like to ask the minister, in the
Expected Results category: How with all
of the additional licensed spaces and activity in this area three of the four
expected results are the same? There are
additional families eligible for financial assistance, but the licensing of
numbers of spaces and centres and homes and financial support are exactly the
same.
Can the minister explain how those figures
have not changed at all over the last year?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Our projections, or our actuals from last
year, were somewhat less than the projections.
There has been turnover. With the
pause in the licensing, our projections are similar to last year's projections
and perhaps somewhat above last year's actuals.
We certainly did correct that one area though that was an error.
Ms. Barrett: Last year in Estimates the minister supplied
us with quite detailed information on the number of spaces in the city of
Mr. Gilleshammer: We will certainly get that information for the
critics, and I think we could have it later this afternoon for you.
Ms. Barrett: Also, last year the minister provided us with
information as to the number of organizations and the regional breakdown of
those organizations requesting daycare spaces and the number of spaces that
they were requesting. In addition to the
number of spaces and the numbers actually occupying those spaces, could the
minister also provide us with the number of organizations requesting additional
spaces and the location of those organizations as well?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, I believe we can provide most of that
information, if not all of it for you.
Ms. Barrett: Last year the minister announced $370,000
additional funding for the program for children with disabilities, allowing for
an increase of approximately 50 children.
According to the expected results that figure is virtually the same for
this year as it was when you added in the approximately 50 children from last
year. I am wondering if that is
accurate, and if that is the case, if the minister can tell us if there are
additional children who have asked to be funded under this program?
*
(1500)
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, I have some figures that might be helpful
dealing with children with disabilities.
There are 206 centres that have children that fall into this category,
and over the course of the year some 577 children have been served by this
program. There is a small number that
have not yet been accommodated and I think it is fair to say most of those are
in the city of
The number of children that I gave you
represents the total number of children served from April 1, 1991, to January
31 of this year. I point out that some
of the children are enrolled for only part of the year and one space could be
filled by more than one child. That
happens from time to time. The actual
number of children enrolled as of January 31 was 327. So the increased funding last year did
accommodate more children. There are
still some that are not accessing the program.
In addition, I have indicated the children
that are accommodated in the centres.
There are also approximately 25 children in family daycare homes in
Ms. Barrett: Last July when we were last in Estimates, in
response to the same area, the minister said there were 178 centres across the
province accommodating some 400 children with disabilities and 25 children in
family daycare homes.
So what the minister is now saying is that
there has been a substantial increase in the number of centres that are
providing services for children with special needs, from 178 to 206. That seems fairly clear. I am wondering if the minister can clarify
for me the actual number‑of‑children figure?
I understand that children do not stay in
the program or they do not come in, all of them, at April 1, and they do not
all stay all the time, but the figure that was given last year was 400 children
with disabilities. Which figure for this
year does that one relate to? Is that a
comparable figure to the 577 or to the 327 snapshot picture as of the end of
January?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The number compares to the 400, where we are
now serving 577. I might just say that I
can give you some more detail on the centres and where these children are
located if it is helpful.
There are 125 centres in Winnipeg serving
194 children; in the Interlake, there are 13 centres serving 28 children; in
Westman, there are 27 centres serving 45 children; in South Central, there are
five centres serving 21 children; in Central, there are six centres serving 17
children; in the Norman region, there are five centres serving 28 children; in
the Parkland region, there are eight centres serving 11 children; in Eastman,
11 centres serving 27 children; and in Thompson, six centres serving 21 children. Those totals again would be 206 centres that
provide services to children with disabilities, and they are accommodating 577
children.
Ms. Barrett: As of January 31, they were accommodating 327
actual children. Over the course of that
nine‑month period, they had accommodated 577. Yes, it does appear that there has been an
increase in both the numbers of centres and the numbers of children.
I cannot remember if I asked the minister
if he could give us information on the number of children that are waiting for
special needs subsidies.
Mr. Gilleshammer: We do not have an official waiting list, but
there are a few, I think primarily in the city, who are waiting to be
accommodated. It appears that through
the changes that take place in the centres, the capacity is there in a fairly
reasonable length of time to accommodate them.
Ms. Barrett: Last year I asked the same question, and the
minister's response was that there was no official wait list for children in
this category. He indicated that the
centres themselves had that information, and that that information had not been
compiled at the daycare office. He said
he would attempt to compile that information.
It appears that there still is not a
central compilation of wait list for special needs children. Is that an accurate statement and, if so,
could the minister explain why that particular activity has not been
undertaken?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I guess the answer is that the system we are
employing, in working with the centres and with the families of children with
disabilities, appears to be working. The
children appear to be accommodated without any lengthy period of waiting.
Ms. Barrett: My understanding for the special needs program
is that the subsidy that is made available to enable children with special
needs to attend daycare is attached to the daycare centres rather than
following an individual child. Is that
correct?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The manner in which the system works is that
the grant for the special needs child does go the centre. The subsidy, however, goes with the
child. Not every centre has a staffing
pattern that allows them to accept the special needs child without making
certain adjustments. So I guess it is
fair to say that certain centres have been developing that service, and not
every centre has. So the grant, again,
goes to the centre and the subsidy goes with the child.
*
(1510)
Ms. Barrett: I was probably misusing the word
"subsidy." I did not mean the
subsidy that we talk about and will be talking about as far as the fee
structure is concerned. I guess I meant
the grant that allows that enriched programming and staffing for special needs
children. I meant grant, so I thank you
for that.
So because the grant goes to a centre
rather than being directed towards a special needs child, in effect what that
means is that the families of special needs children have less flexibility or
less choice in their daycare provisions than another family without a special
needs child would have. Would that be an
accurate assessment of the situation?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The special needs grants are only extended to
fully funded centres, and that is, I suppose, the reason that they are not
extended to all centres.
Again, I think the practice in the
evolution of centres is because of facilities and because of staffing patterns,
there have been some centres that have developed a capacity to accommodate
those children. But I think it is fair
to say that all of the fully funded centres are in a position to accommodate
special needs children.
Just in regards to your comments about the
error you made between subsidies and grants, this is something that happens
even with the people who work in the system and are knowledgeable with the
system. I think it is sometimes a source
of confusion to the general public when you talk about subsidies and grants,
and I think one of the things that we have to keep talking about and making
that distinction so the general public has a better understanding of the
daycare system.
It is probably more true in rural
But certainly, when you get into a
discussion of grants, and grants for the children with disabilities, and the
whole system of the subsidies, and the subsidies varying with family income, it
is not an easy concept to explain, even with people who have some knowledge of
the system, but it is confusing for those who are not using that information on
a regular basis. So it is not an uncommon
mistake.
Ms. Barrett: Can the minister explain the difference
between a fully funded and a not fully funded centre?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The partially funded centres receive half of
the grant that the fully funded centres receive. This is, again, part of the evolution of the
system, dating back a little while, that, in adding more spaces to the system,
some centres came on stream with the full knowledge that they were going to be
partially funded and awaited the time when, I suppose, funding and government
were able to fully fund them. So there
is a distinction.
Ms. Barrett: The system is very complex, and by its nature
it is complex, and it has gotten even more complex over the last year. I guess
the issue that I am raising is an issue that has been raised with me by
parents, more than one parent, of children with special needs. Their request and their concern is that they
as parents of special needs children do not have the same access or choice as
parents of children without special needs to‑‑assuming of course
that the ability to pay, but let us assume that is a given. Within that, a parent of a special needs
child does not have the geographical access to a range of child care
facilities; nor do they have the range of the number of child care facilities
that a parent of a nonspecial needs child would have.
Their recommendation is that money that
currently goes to the grant to a daycare centre or a family to provide for
special needs would instead go with the family of a special needs child who
could then say, I want to go to the daycare that is closest to me, and I am
bringing with me this amount of money to facilitate one half or a full child
care worker. If the centre could not
work that through their staffing patterns, that would be one thing, but the
choice would then rest with the family rather than the family having to go to a
less than totally accessible range of services.
Mr. Gilleshammer: In the evolution of daycare and nursery
schools, one of the things that happened last year‑‑if you recall
in the budget that prior to last year and the restructuring, only a third of
the nursery schools were funded. Our
decision in last year's budget was to use that funding so that all of the
nursery schools received some funding.
This did increase the eligibility of nursery schools to receive special
needs children instead of only a third of them being able to do it, all of
them.
I recognize the member was talking about
daycare, but we did by those changes expand the ability of nursery schools to
qualify for special needs children. The
member is right that the full choice‑‑and is frequently right, not
always‑‑by the funding structure now for daycare it is only those
fully funded daycares that accommodate those children. I suppose you are faced with the dilemma here
of sharing that funding with all of the daycares, both the fully funded and the
partially funded, and creating that ability, and then parents having that
complete and wider choice and not, perhaps, allowing some of the daycares to, I
might say, specialize in or accommodate a larger number of special needs
children. If the criticism is that all
daycares, both the fully funded and partially funded, are not accommodating
those children, that is correct. Either
there is an additional cost to it, to have that freedom of choice, or you make
the resulting changes within the system; and perhaps there would be fewer
daycares totally to accommodate the children with disabilities.
Again, it is not an issue that daycares‑‑and
I will have my staff correct me if I am wrong‑‑have been raising
with us, that we should have every daycare able to accommodate special needs
children, nor have I, I do not think‑‑you said, you have talked to
some parents. I do not recall in reading
the literature and the mail that I get that it has been a major issue. But I recognize what has happened within the
public school system on the issue of choice.
*
(1520)
The fact of the matter is that we do not
have a sort of a daycare system that blankets all of
Another idea brought forward by the
Women's Institute was even to have a registry, in communities, of people who
would want to be interested in minding someone else's children. The thinking of the Women's Institute was
that there may be a neighbour who would just love to help out at harvest time
but nobody asked, and if the department could perhaps put into place a process,
so that very short‑term but odd hours of daycare, be accommodated for
those people. So there are some ideas
that we are looking at in that area.
Ms. Barrett: Yes, I believe that the member for
On the issue of rural child care, rural
daycare, yes, there is no question but that the needs in rural
On the whole issue of the rural daycare
centres and families and flexible provision of service, we, too, have spoken
with the Women's Institute about their resolutions about the Child Minder
Program and other forms of rural daycare, and there was some interesting
information about programs in Alberta that had been undertaken in a pilot
project manner. I am wondering, can the
minister expand on that whole issue of rural child care? At what point is the department in in
possibly looking at more and varied forms of child care for rural and small‑town
Mr. Gilleshammer: The member is correct regarding the needs in
rural
I think of them in Rolling River School
Division, where I am told there will be two children in kindergarten at the
school in Onanole next year, and the
What do you do with two children? Do you hire one teacher to look after two
children? Do you bus them to the next
school? That is a dynamite issue, because you may have heard about schools that
have moved children even within the community where perhaps there was a K‑8
school and a 9‑12 and they wanted to combine the sevens and eights three
blocks away, and all of the horrors that anybody could ever think of happening
to their children in school come out.
So school boards are very mindful of
public opinion out there about what to do, and so very obviously the answer is,
you do not move kids from one community to another, especially at the age of
five, to attend kindergarten. One of the
solutions is probably to add them to the Grade 1 class on a half‑day
basis or on an alternate‑day basis.
Why I am telling you this is, it does
reflect the small number of children in some of these communities, and I know
the member is not advocating a daycare centre in every community, because it is
one of the things that simply is not in the cards, and it will not work.
So we have looked at the
I guess I talked about this earlier today
in reference to the Child Advocate, that we have looked at the
Again, I am not sure how well the member
is aware of the different attitude in rural
I think we have a role to play there in
determining some suitability. As you
well know that any adult working with children now has to pass certain basic
tests of suitability. I think there are
some solutions out there that I would hope we can move on within this year.
Ms. Barrett: Yes, I would agree that the needs and the
desires and the programming for rural
I would just like to strongly recommend
that any program that is put in place or any assistance that is given to
programs that are generated from the community itself have a very strong
suitability component however that is defined and also some training. I know there is a difference between having
extended family members watching a child on the odd occasion and some more
regular program, but I do believe that if the government is involved in
providing services and resources to a variety of programs which is what we are
all looking for, that the government also has a responsibility to ensure that
those people that are on a registry or a part of a Child Minder Program have
basic training in such things as Red Cross, as emergency procedures, this type
of thing.
We do not know, we cannot determine what
will happen with children or what kinds of problems or issues may arise in
dealing with children. All of our
children whether they are in a very relaxed informal atmosphere in a very small
community or in a large bustling inner city daycare centre deserve competent,
caring, compassionate, trained individuals who are working with them. I would just like to urge the minister that
that component not be forgotten when they are looking at providing additional
and more flexible resources.
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(1530)
I have some questions as well that deal
with issues that are being faced with, particularly by daycare centres outside
the larger urban communities in our province, issues that have been, to their
way of thinking and certainly to my way of thinking, exacerbated by the fee
structuring changes that took place last spring. The minister well knows my views on the fee
restructuring that he instituted last spring and the harm that I think that is
doing to the daycare system in
One of the things that it seems to me is
an outcome of that fee restructuring is that the individual centres are finding
in many cases that they have less flexibility, less control over, less
knowledge of, what their financial resources are going to be, because their
funding is more volume driven and less based on the operating grant that it has
been in the past. Because there is less
flexibility in that regard, many centres especially those outside of the city
are finding that their costs are not being able to be met through the new
system and the new structure.
In particular, issues such as telephone
expenses, equipment expenses, office supply expenses, transportation costs, the
ability to go on field trips, all those things that are a problem for families
who live outside a centre are as much, if not more, a problem for rural daycare
centres. I am wondering if the minister
can respond to those concerns that have been raised by centres.
Mr. Gilleshammer: I think the member is really saying that
centres are having to take more responsibility for management of the operation
of the centre and be acutely aware of the costs and the empty spaces. I recall under the previous system that empty
spaces were not as great a concern, because they were being in essence funded,
and part of the restructuring is that they are finding themselves with more
management responsibilities and it is the same thing that school boards go
through as well. I know we have talked
before about St. James‑Assiniboia having to close 12 or 13 schools in
that area of the city because of the demographics and the population shift and
so forth.
We have regular meetings with the staff in
daycare not only with the union representatives from MCCA, but we also meet
with the Family Day Care Association and the independent daycares as well. There are a variety of opinions out there
that we do respond to. Certainly,
putting a pause in the licensing has been well accepted by the centres and the
homes that are affected by that. Even
though there were tremendous pressures on government and on the department to
find funding for new initiatives, we were able to increase the operating grants
this year by some 4 percent.
There are difficult economic conditions
out there as well, and I know that staff have met with centre directors and
boards and, in my experience, there is a recognition of the tough economic
times which leads in some cases to less need for daycare spaces. Those are other factors that come into
play. We will just have to see what
changes are taking place. We monitor the
uptake in spaces and the changes, whether they be changes from centres to home‑based
care or to private care. There are
something like 18,000 close to 19,000 spaces out there now.
Maybe I could give the member those
figures that she was asking for. In the
centres and homes‑‑and I will give you the number of facilities as
well as the number of spaces across the province‑‑in
Just in relation to her other comments at
the beginning of her last question about the need to do some regulating in
terms of who is a child minder or looking after children, one of the programs
that we do have is the Competency Based Assessment program where people can
become certified simply by presenting themselves and their credentials and
going through a program offered by the department.
I had the pleasure last year, I think it
was, of attending a graduation that was held here in the Legislature of a group
of students, if I can call them that, or participants in the Competency Based
Assessment program, where they had worked with department staff and with others
to reach a level where they were able to look after children. The point is well taken.
I guess it is fair to say, probably, we
have never been more conscious of the fact that the adults who are working with
children or looking after children have to be screened when they are not family
members. One only has to open one of the
local journals day after day to see examples, if not in residential schools
across the country or in families or wherever, the amount of abuse that is
being disclosed.
I think that awareness has made any
organization and certainly government, who are responsible for licensing
individuals, whether it is in the public school system or in the nursery school
system or in daycares or wherever or treatment centres‑‑we have to
have that essential confidence that the people who are working there have the
best interests of the children in mind.
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(1540)
Ms. Barrett: Madam Chairperson, yes, I appreciate the
statistical, numerical information and also hope that before we leave this
area, I can get the vacancy figures for those spaces. My understanding is,
those are the total spaces available, and what the actual numbers of children
in those spaces is at the latest point in time.
I want to comment, I hope briefly, about
some of the comments that the minister made in response to my question about
the rural daycares and then ask a question about the Competency Based
Assessment program.
First of all, the Manitoba Child Care
Association is under no definition of the word "union" that I am
aware of a union. It is an association
that is joined voluntarily by child care centres and providers. So it is, I believe, a misrepresentation of
what the association does to call it a union.
It is an association.
The minister also stated that under the
new funding formula, centres are taking, quote:
more responsibility for the management of the centre.
If I were a member of a board of directors
of a daycare centre in the
I believe that centres have managed very effectively,
the majority of them. I mean, there are
always a few centres that are not able to financially function, but, generally
speaking, in the past daycare centres in this province have been able to
provide adequate and competent service to the children of the province.
The one thing that has changed in the last
year is the funding formula. The impact
that that has had on many centres is their going from a surplus, an operating
surplus, to in the first year having to utilize all of that surplus that in
many cases centres were using for potential future capital improvements,
moving, being able to put that money to enriched programming, field services,
field trips, toys, et cetera. They have
used that entire money, and in many cases they are tens of thousands of dollars
in the red.
Nothing has changed in the management of
those daycares except the way the money flows to the centres. The boards in many of these cases are
virtually the same people; the staff in many of these cases are virtually the
same staff. They are attempting to
provide the same kind of programming; they do not have adequate financial
resources.
I think it is a misnomer to try and say
that, if boards make better and more responsible use of their funds, everything
will be fine. It is the same kinds of
statements that the minister made a year ago, just about exactly a year ago,
when he was talking about the concerns that were raised and the issues that
were being raised about the Child and Family Services agencies. It was up to the
boards of those agencies to manage their resources effectively.
I think he is making the same kinds of
statements, and I think they are as unreflective of the reality of the
situation as his comments were in regard to the Child and Family Services
agencies.
Mr. Gilleshammer: To just comment on that, I think the member is
misinterpreting what I was trying to say.
I meant no reflection on volunteer board members, who, I am sure, work
very hard to make those management decisions.
What I am saying is in difficult economic
times, whether it is at the family level where the income perhaps is not as
great as it once was or because of other circumstances expenditures are running
higher, there are difficult decisions to make.
I know parents who have two children in
university at this time and may be from rural Manitoba, where not only are you
looking at tuition but also board and room, and it is costing $7,000 or $8,000
per child. The decisions made within
that family are all of a sudden far more difficult, whether it is to do with
transportation, whether it is to do with holidays, or other expenditures.
I am saying that, if enrollments in
centres are not full and there are some vacancies, then the management
decisions become more difficult.
I can say to you what is happening in the
school system. A division I used to work
with in about 1970 had 4,000 students. Today it has barely 2,000 students. It used to have 200 teachers; now it has 140
teachers. The downsizing of those school
divisions and the management of where those resources go has been
difficult. What I am saying is when
enrollments were going up in the school system and the funding that flowed
because of student enrollment, it was easier.
Management in difficult economic times, whether it be at the school
division level or the family level or with the centres, is more difficult. That was the point I was trying to make with
the member. I know that she would not
want to portray my comments as being that management was not there at those
centres. I am just saying in difficult
economic times those decisions become more difficult.
The member alluded to funding with Child
and Family Services agencies and decisions that those boards have to make. I can tell you I was in Brandon recently, and
met with one of the board members there who works at the local hospital‑‑and
I know not unknown to the member across the way‑‑who indicated to
me that they now have a surplus of $1,000,000 in their funds with the Westman
Child and Family, and felt that recent funding decisions that government had
made had served that agency very well. Certainly, they would like to have more
workers. They would like to have more
staff in the field to deal with increasingly difficult family situations and
children, but recognize in the economic times that funding changes had not been
negative towards that particular agency.
I can tell you‑‑and we will
get into those lines a little later today perhaps, or the next time we meet‑‑that
there are additional funds for staffing with the Child and Family Services
agencies that we will be working out with them in the near future. It is sometimes simplistic to say that the
issue with boards is funding. I am aware
that all boards which rely heavily on government funds would like to have more,
because they can think of additional things to do.
I know when I have been out at
So there are tremendous demands on
government to provide funding to boards, whether it be school boards, hospital
boards, boards of Child and Family Services agencies, but we have increased the
funding year over year and I think it does not make the decision making any
easier nor the administration any easier as they apply those funds to staffing
and other costs and do the best job that they can do. So, I would say that I am aware that it is
not easy managing and that a lot of these boards would ask for and require and
be very pleased if there were more and more funds yet. We have tremendous demands and we make those
decisions as best we can.
Ms. Barrett: There is no question that every agency that
comes to this government for funding in every department could use more
money. I am not suggesting that is not
the case in the child care system. I am
suggesting that there are daycares that are saying that even if you did not
give one additional cent more than the $46,685,300 that you have budgeted for
this year that the problem for daycares is compounded and made worse by the
restructuring formula.
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The fact is that it is far more volume
driven than it has ever been in the past, that the operating grant has been
effectively cut back, that the salary enhancement grant has been eliminated,
and the funding available for fully trained staff has been cut back by in some
cases a third because of the change in the funding formula. It is the change in the funding formula that
is the single largest contributor to the financial problems that daycares are
finding themselves in. When you add to
that the worsening economic situation, which is a reality and everyone would agree
with, it is a desperate situation for many daycares.
The
I will just parenthetically add that the
underfunding, the underspending in this department in this division has been
substantial over the past years, and we are certainly hoping that the increase
that is budgeted here all gets spent.
I would like to ask the minister about two
more things. First, the Competency Based Assessment program that he talked
about earlier, could he explain what that program is and who is eligible for it
and the parameters of that program and how it reflects on the issues that we
were discussing about making sure that people who are providing services for
children are trained and have adequate background?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The member mentioned a number of things
including the
First of all, when the board made that
decision and sent the letter out, they did so without ever having contacted the
daycare office to indicate that they wanted some assistance, and assistance has
been offered but declined. There are a
number of reasons for that. Pardon me, I
should not say it was declined. The agreement was that offer would be passed on
to the board.
One of the things that Sister Gerard said
publicly is that now there are so many spaces, and what she was doing was
recognizing that there was a time in history, as a nursery school, that it had
provided a service in an area of the city that was in demand. There has been a large number of spaces in
the St. James area and just as I referenced the school division having to make
those difficult decisions on downsizing their buildings as their population
went down, one of the things in that area of the city is that there is less
need and also an overabundance of spaces.
The other thing that has happened that
Sister Gerard referenced is as the enrollment has gone down, this has also been
accompanied with the fact that there are no new sisters joining the order, and
that they are not willing to make other changes that would allow them to become
more marketable. I think I also recall a
comment made by staff is that they were providing a service in time that was
not readily available. I may be reading
between the lines a bit but now that that service and those centres and those
spaces are so readily available there is not the need that a church‑based
organization would rush in to fill. I think it is a recognition of changing
times that they are not bringing into the order more members who want to work
there.
So there are many, many issues. I know the member said there were and that it
was not just a restructuring, and I appreciate her acknowledgement of that.
The member mentioned underspending. The underspending had occasionally happened
where the money dedicated for subsidies was not entirely subscribed to, and we
did not have the capacity to simply flip that over and spend it somewhere
else. It was dedicated to
subsidies. I am not sure what the
situation is in this past year, but there certainly has been a greater increase
on the call for subsidies.
Finally, the member asked about the
Competency Based Assessment program.
This, I suppose, could be referred to as an on‑the‑job
training program where workers are able to upgrade to the Child Care Worker II
level from the Child Care level I. Our
child daycare office hires an adviser or trainer to work with the candidate. We enroll about 40 students per year in
How long has this program been in
effect? I am told it has been in effect
since 1985. I guess it was an attempt to
do this on‑the‑job training and allow people to get this training
without having to enroll in a longer course where you become a full‑time
student. Again, it is just a small part
of the total daycare package.
Ms. Barrett: I appreciate that information on the
Competency Based Assessment program. I
would assume that this program as it has been defined would not specifically
relate to the Child Minder Program kind of training that would go into the
Child Minder Program. It looks like it
is more a program for upgrading workers who are in more traditional child care
facilities.
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Mr. Gilleshammer: There is a difference between the Competency
Based Assessment and the Child Minder Program.
In the Child Minder Program one of the basics is a knowledge of first
aid and some other training, just more extensive first aid and I am told
infancy CPR so that they can react if necessary.
Ms. Barrett: Could the minister give us an update on the
needs assessment tool that he talked about last July as far as working with the
evaluation of existing spaces and new spaces?
There was work that was beginning, I understand, on a needs assessment
tool, and if he could share with us any updates on that particular part of the
program.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, this is an issue that staff have been
working on, one that the work should be completed in the next six weeks or two
months, and will be implemented when we are slated to resume licensing in July
1.
Ms. Barrett: Can the minister give me a general idea of
what sorts of elements will be part of this tool when it goes into effect in
July?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The work done in this area, I suppose, is
largely research work. The MCCA has
asked if they can have a look at this material.
We will be in a position to share it with them in the not‑too‑distant
future, but some of the research and work that is being done is looking at the
demographics of the area, and I referenced the St. James area before. Some information, certainly, is gathered from
the Family Allowance program, some federal information. We look at labour market statistics and, I
suppose, monitor the economy and reflect the needs of the area through
that. We are certainly looking at the
number of vacancies that are existent in the system.
I might tell the member‑‑and I
may have done this one other time. I
think it was in December that some staff and I met with three board presidents
and directors who came in to talk about their centres. They varied in terms of the vacancies and the
budget and the needs. Some had made some
adjustments rather rapidly, and others were in the process of doing it.
One of the things that they asked‑‑and
I think it was a recognition of some vacancies in certain areas of the city‑‑the
fact that in certain areas of the city there appeared to be too many
centres. As you know, people access a
centre for a variety of reasons. Perhaps
it is close by home or it may be close by the job, or there may be other
reasons for accessing that centre which may have programming or other amenities
that attracted that family. What they
were asking is if we would work with them in some sort of merging of centres,
who felt that they wanted to look at the resources and the facilities, and
merge to make them more viable and perhaps have a situation where the centre
would serve people and be virtually full and be more viable in the long run.
This whole question of where people are
going to access their daycare is an interesting one. As the member knows, we have something called
workplace daycare. I recall reading an
article not too long ago of a workplace daycare which seemed to have been built
with all of the right intentions and with, I think, excellent accommodations
and staffing, but for some reason the staff who had children who were expected
to use it and access it were not.
They were busy studying why that was the
case, because I think in many ways workplace daycare would seem to be the
absolutely most convenient in that the children would go to the same place
where one or both of the parents worked.
For some reason it was not being used, and they were busy trying to see
what the reason was. There were a
variety of reasons, I think, that came forward which surprised them.
So this whole concept of people accessing
the daycare of their choice is an interesting one. It may be because it is close by in the
neighbourhood, it may be because it is at the work site or it may be because
they have a history with another centre.
We are also seeing people who are making
the determination to have their children in a home‑based daycare or for a
variety of reasons it may be in one of the private centres that are part of the
market here in the city. So this whole
idea of choice is important, and sometimes it is difficult to know what the
reasons for those choices are, but I think our feeling is that parents should
have that choice.
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(Leader of the Second Opposition): Madam
Chairperson, I am delighted to join in this debate. Sorry I could not join you earlier, but at
that point I was still having some difficulty breathing.
The minister himself has just opened a
very interesting avenue of questions, because he speaks about what the reasons
are. Why are people, for example,
choosing to leave centres and go into home care? Is it because they genuinely want their child
in a small situation with several children or is it because there are financial
constraints on the family that is forcing them to look at a less expensive care
for that child?
What kind of studies and evaluations are
going on by this particular section of his department to find out what those
reasons are for making the choices that parents seem to be making?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I think I certainly speak for all of us in
saying that we are pleased that you are back and able to join us in the
Estimates process, and I do believe we are speaking for everybody here.
The reason people are choosing that care
is an interesting one, and we are monitoring it. When parents are entering daycare and
exiting, we are doing a survey to record their comments and compile information
on these choices. Certainly, no
question, one of them is cost. When we
did the work with the working group and the members of the community in
studying the whole issue of daycare, we did establish a cost of care.
That cost of care was part and parcel of
the changes that we made in the funding for daycare. With the work that was done by the department
and the working group, it was established and agreed that child care in a
centre was more expensive than home‑based care. So one of the outcomes was this cost of care.
Of course, it was more costly because of the ratios to have an infant in care
than it was to have a four‑year‑old in care. I think parents are making those decisions
for a variety of reasons, and cost is certainly one of them.
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Our belief is that these millions of
dollars that we put into the daycare system should, to a large extent, go to
the children of families who do not access a lot of income. As a result, there is a subsidy level and a
subsidy scale which attempts to reflect that.
When we made the changes, we extended that subsidy scale, and it is very
detailed depending on the size of the family and the age of the children and
the income that family is accessing. The
scale we look at is the net income of that family as opposed to the gross
income, and the subsidies are allotted accordingly.
So we are attempting to monitor the
system. Senior staff meet with the
members of the association on a quarterly basis. We also meet with the home‑based
care people, and they are also surveying the families as well. We also have a relationship with the private
centres. So this monitoring is ongoing
and we are gathering information on reasons people select certain care.
Mrs. Carstairs: If he is doing these kind of so‑called
exiting and entering polls, can he give us any statistical data as to what is
the percentage of parents who are looking to move from licensed centres to
licensed homes and, more particularly, those who are moving from licensed
centres and licensed homes to nonlicensed, totally private care with no
controls on them whatsoever?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Madam Chairperson, I know the member did not
mean to reference the exit information and the entrance information lightly,
because this is very important information where parents indicate, as their
children graduate from the system, some of their thoughts and feelings about
the system, and that information is vital to a lot of the work that we do.
I will just give you some numbers from
1987 and comparing it to 1992. In 1987 there
were 445 facilities and there were 12,695 spaces. Today in 1992 there are 465 facilities and
13,924 spaces. In the family daycare
homes there has been a greater increase.
There were 392 in 1987 and 596 in 1992.
They accommodated 2,067 in 1987, and now we can accommodate 3,375
children in family daycare homes. The
private centres in 1987 were 29 with 1,288 spaces, and today there are 40 with
1,485 spaces.
We have seen some shift in the number of
spaces occupied in centres and the growing number occupying homes. I am not sure if we have that data right here
with us. There is a shift that is taking
place in some areas.
The question on the unlicensed spaces or
the arrangements that parents make, whether it is with their parents or their
relatives or their neighbours, we do not have that information because those
children are not registered.
I recognize that the media and sometimes
the opposition reference the grandparents and the extended family or what other
arrangements that are made as the black‑market care system, because there
may not be fully trained and licensed individuals and there may not be receipts
issued. That sometimes is not a
completely fair version of the arrangements that families make. We do
recognize, too, that there may some circumstances where the onus is completely
on the parent to check the arrangements that they make and that they are
responsible for. Again, that is a
decision that parents make and that government has not got the ability to, in
some cases, interfere with.
Mrs. Carstairs: The government certainly does not have the right
to interfere with a parental choice.
Well, what the government can do is to find out if because of changes
they have made to the system, more and more people are choosing to access an
unlicensed system. Now if you are in
fact monitoring what is happening to children when they leave the child care
system, surely one of those things that you are monitoring is to find out if
any of those children, and what percentage of those children, are going into
unlicensed care.
When we know that they go into unlicensed
care, it does not automatically mean it is bad care. But if there is a significant increase, it
behooves us to find out why they are choosing that option when they were not choosing
that option in the past. They were
choosing a licensed home, or they were choosing a licensed child care
centre. Are a significant number of
them, according to your data, now choosing to put their children into an
underground economy system?
Mr. Gilleshammer: We do have more children in care today than we
did have in the late 1980s. When we do
that exit information, parents may indicate that they are making alternative
arrangements without getting into any specific information on it. Certainly, one of the things that has
happened‑‑and I know members opposite are aware that we do have
more unemployed people in the community at the present time than we did a year
ago, and some of those, because of the economy, do not require child care. I can tell you in terms of the subsidy
caseloads, the current number on subsidy has increased to 8,607, whereas in
1990‑91 it was 7,500; in 1989‑90 it was 6,409; in 1988‑89 it
was 5,370. So we have seen a continual
increase of the uptake in subsidies over the last number of years.
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In fact, the number on subsidy in 1991‑92
is more than double what it was in 1984‑85. So the shift in government dollars is into
the subsidies and providing those subsidies for families that qualify for
it. As the member for
Mrs. Carstairs: Nobody is arguing that there are not more people
in child care spaces and there are not more subsidies being paid. That is really not the issue because I could
point to a whole other range of statistics which will show you there are more
working women in the work force and, therefore, the need for child care has
never been greater.
There are more single‑parent mothers
in our society, increased by rapid numbers, and therefore there are more
children who require care.
My concern is what kind of information are
we collecting about children who are being put in unlicensed spaces where there
is no control on whether or not the individual has any training and, more
importantly, no control on whether any payments are being made under the table
for which there are no benefits paid to that particular individual by the
parent and no receipts given, no tax paid if you will, by the person receiving
that kind of money? Do we know if there
are more people accessing that kind of a system? If we do not know, are we going to try and
find out?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The ability of the department to acquire that
information is limited. Even though we
have spoken about the daycare cops before in Estimates who monitor the licensed
system and the complaints that come in from time to time, we do not have the
equivalent daycare cops who are monitoring the unlicensed system, who are
looking at peoples' tax receipts and checking their banks accounts.
It is difficult. It would be very intrusive to do that sort of
investigation to find out what people are paying for their child care and
checking income tax forms to see what receipts, if any, are being used.
I say to the member that our ability to
give full information on the type of care that people are accessing that is not
licensed and is not part of the system is very difficult.
There is information brought forward in
the surveys we do. We do get information that is very difficult to substantiate
from centres. We do get letters from
time to time indicating to us that somebody is exceeding their licensing
capacity or that somebody is offering unlicensed daycare in a big way, and
investigations take place. The ability
to bring forward hard data on what could be described as an underground system
is very difficult, and our capacity to do that is limited.
Mrs. Carstairs: Several weeks ago I asked the department for the
subsidy program policies and procedures, and I thank the department for
providing me with that documentation.
The reason that I made the inquiry, quite
frankly, was that I had a couple of child care centres contact me about the
length of time that it was requiring for them to get approval for a
subsidy. I know that on page 13 of the
guidelines I was provided, it says that within three days of receipt of
application it is received and reviewed.
Yet I am informed by some child care centres that it is taking up to six
weeks before the individual is informed whether they are in receipt of a
subsidy or whether they are not.
Meanwhile, parents have actually taken their child out of the centre
because they could not afford to pay the cost of the care.
Can the minister give me any indication if
that is the kind of delay that is normal within his department, and if it is,
what they are doing about it to speed the situation up?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I am told it takes about three weeks to four
weeks to process the application and that the department will back pay from the
date of enrollment.
Now there was a time last year when we
were behind, because with the new system there was an increased number of
families accessing daycare and accessing subsidies. Even though we increased staffing, it was
difficult to keep up with the increased number of applicants, and also because
of the changes in the structure, we had to also review current clients to see
what they were eligible for.
We did hire additional staff at that time
and the backlog has been significantly reduced, and I think we are back to
normal conditions. It was a period of
time where it was a little bit difficult to keep up with that. Getting up to date happened probably in
around mid‑December where we were able to work through the backlog.
As well, I would point out that there is a
subsidy advance which is intended to alleviate cash‑flow difficulties
while centres await the regular subsidy cheques. This was increased in November of 1991, and
this additional revenue has helped ease some financial concerns facing the
centres.
But, yes, I would think the major concern
in letters that I received during the fall of 1991 was the difficulty in
processing applications. We did increase
staff there, and I am pleased to say we are back to the normal waiting period.
Mrs. Carstairs: The other complaint that I had with it‑‑I
am delighted that the backlog has been eliminated and there is a processing
going on now that is more prompt‑‑was that the centres thought they
understood who was qualified to get a subsidy, would help the client fill in
the forms and then would be somewhat surprised when the subsidy was not what
they thought or anticipated the subsidy would be. I have had this complaint again from a number
of child care centres, and particularly rural centres, not urban centres.
I wonder what kind of briefing, what kind
of education process went out with the child centres themselves so that they
would have a more realistic understanding of the subsidy payable, so that they
would be able to tell a client, to the best of their ability, that it looked to
them as if this was a legitimate claim and that, yes, there would be a subsidy
in this particular case, rather than giving, what they now think they are
giving, false information and false hopes about a subsidy that is, in fact, not
going to bear out.
Mr. Gilleshammer: With these changes, what the department did
was hold orientation sessions throughout the province. I believe we had upwards of 17 orientation
sessions throughout the province. In, I
believe, most cases, centres and others took advantage of that and, in some
cases, there may have been situations where they were not represented at the
orientation sessions.
But we have field staff who work with the
centres and with the daycare homes and are quite prepared to work with them on
the subsidy forms. I tell you, it is a
complicated exercise because there are so many variables to see whether that
family qualifies for a subsidy and at what level. I can tell you, for someone who perhaps is
just entering the system and had not had experience with that, it was and it is
a difficult exercise.
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I note there are fewer and fewer people
doing their own income tax these days. Unfortunately,
government forms are not always as simple as they might be. I know with the new funding formula that has
gone out to the schools, that school division secretary treasurers and finance
chairmen are busy working through all of the nuances of the new funding
formula, and there is an adjustment period.
I think there was an adjustment period
with centres and, as I say, we did have these orientation sessions. I think, again, we have worked through that,
and people are more familiar with those forms now. Again, it is a complicated system and there
may have been a few problems that I think we have, by and large, eliminated.
Mrs. Carstairs: Well, I have been talking to some of these child
care centres just within the last couple of months, one of them as recently as
two weeks ago. There still seem to be
some problems. I would just make a
recommendation to your field workers that perhaps they make some additional
calls to find out if some of them are still experiencing difficulties in this
particular area, because some of them are.
I would like to move into the actual
application form itself. Just a
curiosity, quite frankly: why would the
child care office want to know somebody's MHSC number?
Mr. Gilleshammer: First of all, I take your suggestion
seriously, and we will check to see if there are centres or daycare providers
that need further assistance with those forms.
I am told on that form that the main
reason for asking for that number is for verification purposes and to verify
the size of the family, to verify other facts about the family. It is one of the checks and balances that is
used in relation to the subsidy system.
I just said to staff, it reminds me of the
social allowances checks and balances that we do to verify information for
people who are accessing sums of money from there, but the sole reason, or the
reason I am given is it is for verification.
Mrs. Carstairs: I have to say that really concerns me if that is
what it is being used for, because that is not what MHSC numbers are supposed
to be used for.
Is the minister saying that the Department
of Family Services has access to information which is supposed to be health
record information. It is my
understanding that nobody could access health care information, therefore,
could not access number information. If
they can now access number information from the Family Services department that
causes me grave concern.
Mr. Gilleshammer: I would put the member's mind at rest. We have no access to health information
through MHSC. We are able to verify
family composition.
Mrs. Carstairs: Well, thank you, and I would ask the minister
to, quite frankly, look into the necessity of this particular department having
to have this kind of information, and maybe it is because I am particularly
sensitive about numbers and information on myself. I mean, I refuse when I sign a Chargex card
to put my telephone number on it. They
do not need to know that information and I simply will not do it. I will not give people my Social Insurance
Number unless it is required by law that I do so, as it is, for example, with
the purchase of Canada Savings Bonds, but beyond that I absolutely refuse to
give out that kind of information because I think it is a clear invasion of
privacy.
I can understand why because a person is
applying for a subsidy they have to give information with regard to their
income. They also have to indicate in
terms of their taxation forms what kind of deductions they are taking in terms
of those children, but I seriously question whether they need to give out their
health care number and the erosion of their privacy that they may feel as a
result of having to give out that number.
The minister may want to answer that or not.
Mr. Gilleshammer: I am told that this has probably been part of
this form since early on in the program in the 1970s and that we are not aware
of any objections to that, but I hear what the member is saying about giving
out information. I suppose anytime that
people are accessing programs from government there is a certain amount of
verification that takes place. I listen
to some of my colleagues who are accessing farm programs, and I have
constituents who were complaining to me that one of the things they had to do
was go out and actually measure their bins and do a lot of verification of the
amount of grain they had on hand as it related to the GRIP and NISA programs.
So I say that at any time citizens I
suppose are accessing funding from government through programs in a variety of
departments, there are certain checks and balances. Again, I would say to the member that we have
no access to health records, and the only thing we are doing is verifying the
numbers and the composition of the family.
In this day and age of some mobility, I
think maybe the member is aware that some of the families who are accessing
subsidies have been almost, well, extremely mobile. I reflect back on the child welfare
system. When I read reports of children
that have gone through three and four agencies in six months because the family
is moving here, there and everywhere, there needs to be some ability to verify
families and family composition from time to time.
I have heard other people make the same
comment and are sensitive to giving out personal data. I recall one of my colleagues speaking
recently about the Social Insurance Number and the fact that it is being used
for far more than it was ever intended to and sort of reiterating the original
use of it and the fact that things like bank loans and other institutions who
are constantly asking for that kind of information are from time to time denied
it by certain individuals.
Mrs. Carstairs: I have to tell him, this is the first time I
have ever seen a request for a Manitoba Health Services number, and it is not
that it may not have been in this form for many, many years. It is the first time I have actually seen the
application form and the first time I have ever seen a Health Services number
requested. Then I might tell him that I
also went through an amusing exercise with MHSC just about a month ago in which
I had an individual who in fact does not exist removed from the MHSC list when
I received a request from a family to say they were getting tired of having
received this information from MHSC and cards for this individual for the last
21 years, and would like to have this person removed from the computer. So do not entirely trust the accuracy of the
information you are getting.
If I can move into another area: this is with regard to the Women's Institute
request for a variety of programs to meet the needs in rural Manitoba and
particularly at two critical times, one being seeding and the other being
harvesting; the need for appropriate child care facilities; and some horror
stories that I am sure they shared with the minister. The idea of having of children in the combine
in harvesting time does not exactly fill me with ease about the safety of those
particular children.
*
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Does the government have any statistical
data on the accident rate or, in fact, the mortality rate of children, as a
result of farm accident, particularly at those two critical times in the year?
Mr. Gilleshammer: It is not information that this department has
access to. I suggest that the Chief
Medical Examiner, who reports to the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), would,
in all likelihood, have that information, and possibly the Minister of Health
(Mr. Orchard).
But it is a concern that comes up from
time to time, and I note that I often read in the papers of those accidents
where a child was drowned in a farm dugout or been, perhaps, killed within the
yard itself where somebody has backed a car or a truck or some machinery over a
child‑‑again, right within the yard and family setting.
It happens not solely because there is not
child care in the area. It is not
unusual‑‑and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay) is
here. I am sure that children want to go
with their dad on the tractor or the combine and, sadly, sometimes accidents do
take place, I suppose, as they do on hunting and fishing trips from time to
time.
Yes, we have met with four or five members
of the Women's Institute, who have talked about child care and have brought
forward some ideas to do with the Child Minder Program. We are well aware of the critical times of
the year when farm families are busy, in the spring and the fall. It is something, again, we are looking at
what is going in
Mrs. Carstairs: When the minister talks about the near future,
does he anticipate that there might be some kind of a pilot project for, say
for example, harvesting, in this year, in which they may address a number of
communities and put into place a Child Minder program to learn firsthand how
many people would access it, or how few people would access it, as the case may
be?
I think that it is fair to say that, just
as those of us living in urban centres do not have the benefit of extended
families as we may have had 20 to 25 years ago, that also that is becoming a
more and more critical problem in rural
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, we would hope that something would be
arranged for perhaps the fall of this year where we can try a pilot
project. Even to assess the demand that
is out there is not an easy task, because I can tell you that rural families, I
think, are still much accustomed to relying on extended family and friends. That is not to say there is not a need in
some areas. There was a centre that was
doing some innovative things with extended hours. We are looking at that, and hopefully we will
bring something forward that will give us a chance to do a pilot project later
this year.
Mrs. Carstairs: Madam Chairperson, I would like to move now into
the whole area of the salary enhancement grants. As I understand the new formula that is now
available, the salary enhancement component has disappeared. What kind of data does the department have
with regard to the reduction in the number of trained personnel in our child
care centres as a result of the loss of the specific salary enhancement grant?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The member is correct that the variety of
grants that existed before the restructuring were rolled into one operating
grant and, as a result, the salary enhancement grant disappeared as such.
The data that we have for salaries goes up
to 1990, but we are aware that the funding available under the restructuring
through the grants and through the subsidies enables centres to maintain the
standards or the levels that are in the legislation which are the highest
standards in North America.
There may be some difficulty at centres
that exceeded those standards in terms of their staffing complement. Boards, by and large, have not shared any
salary adjustments that have been made with us, but we do have data from the
end of 1990 on those salaries and should soon have the data on 1991. Boards have‑‑some of them have
had to make adjustments, some of them have not.
The adjustments to staffing are made, of course, as a board decision and
in some cases it meant reduced staff if, in fact, enrollment was reduced.
I could give the member some figures that
we do have if she was interested from average salaries that we have for
directors and for Child Care Workers I, II and III and just indicate some of
the changes that have taken place.
For instance, in 1990 the average director
in the
A Child Care Worker III in
*
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Mrs. Carstairs: Can the minister tell us if he has any
information about changes in staffing as a direct relationship to the changing
in the grants? Certainly child care
centres have told me that they have let go II's if they could replace them with
I's within the current structure and still not violate the law. Because of the disappearance of the salary
enhancement grant, they specifically made the decision to downsize quality of
the staff because they did not have the funding.
What kind of analysis has this minister
done to ensure that we have the best out there, not necessarily which is what
makes the law? It seems to me to let
well‑trained, well‑experienced people go is not in the best
interests of our children.
Mr. Gilleshammer: What I can tell the member is that the funding
that centres are able to access through the enrollment of children in their
centre, through grants and through subsidies, enables them to maintain the
standards that are set through legislation.
One of the variables is if the enrollment
of the centre is not full, and if they have vacancies, then they have to make
reductions somewhere because their income will be impacted. If they were staffed entirely with Child Care
Worker III personnel, they may have had to make that adjustment.
We do provide funding to allow them to
staff to the standards that have been set in legislation, which again I repeat
are the highest standards in
I recognize that there was a time where if
there was more income generated, whether it was through the grants or through
the subsidies or through other fund raising or through the money accessed from
Community Places and Community Services Council, that perhaps they had
increased an additional funding. In fact
a number of the centres had a surplus, and some of them may have used that on
staff enhancement and had workers qualified beyond the level that was required.
Some of those centres are in the process
of making those adjustments if they feel that their salaries as part of the
expenses were too high. The decisions
that they make internally are sometimes communicated to us but not always.
The MCCA, as I indicated, meets with the
senior staff on a quarterly basis and is sharing information with the
department. We are monitoring the system and compiling that information now.
Mrs. Carstairs: Well, let me put the comparison in terms that he
likes to use which is an educational comparison. I mean it is like firing the masters degree
teachers in favour of the bachelors degree teachers because you pay them less. You only need the bachelors, you do not need
the masters degree teachers, so you let them go.
That is not what is happening in the
public school system because of a whole series of seniority rules and tenured
rules and this type of thing, but it is happening in the child care sector,
where people‑‑for the squeeze that is going on.
Squeeze is going on in a number of
areas. Squeeze is going on because their
fundraising efforts, quite frankly, are bringing in less money because there is
less money in the economy for people to provide them with additional
funding. There is a squeeze going on
because they have fewer children in their centres, and the minister has not
given us the actual statistics because I do not think he has them at this
particular point in time. We do not know
whether child care centres are down by 10 percent or 20 percent or whether this
varies from centre to centre, but there is a squeeze play going on there, and
what concerns me is, does this affect the quality of the care which our
children are going to get?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I guess my response to the honourable member
is that boards do have difficult decisions to make as they look at their
funding from government and their enrollment and their costs. I know, again in responding with a public
school analogy, that school boards are saying we can no longer pay for
extracurricular trips and we will make that adjustment in our budget, or we can
no longer hire teacher aides in every school and make those adjustments in
their budgets.
So boards of daycare centres are also
going to have to look at their staffing components and make adjustments in the
number of staff that they have, but there is not a salary scale, per se, in the
daycare community that there is in the public school system, where there is a
contract that is negotiated between the teachers' association and the school
board. Just as schools need to be
cognizant of their enrollment numbers and their projections, I think daycare
centres have to be as well.
I might just maybe give the member some
salary information from 1991 across
I do not know whether we can get into a
discussion of whether $20,792 as an average is appropriate or not, I am saying
relative to other jurisdictions. When
people negotiate salaries, one of the tests they use besides the cost of living
and other indicators is comparisons.
I think
Madam Chairperson: Order, please.
The hour being 5 p.m., it is time for private members' hour.
Committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
IN SESSION
PRIVATE
MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr. Speaker: The hour being 5 p.m., time for Private Members'
Business.
Committee
Report
Mrs. Louise Dacquay
(Chairperson of Committees): Mr.
Speaker, the Committee of Supply has adopted a certain resolution, directs me
to report the same and asks leave to sit again.
I move, seconded by the honourable member
for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson), that the report of the committee be received.
Motion agreed to.
NONPOLITICAL
STATEMENTS
Mr. Gerry McAlpine
(Sturgeon Creek): Mr. Speaker, I realize this is unusual at this
time, but would the House grant me leave for a nonpolitical statement?
Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member for Sturgeon Creek
have leave to make a nonpolitical statement?
Some Honourable Members:
Agreed.
Mr. Speaker: Does he have leave? Yes.
Mr. McAlpine: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the members
of the House for this opportunity. It is
indeed an appropriate time to do this.
It is my pleasure to rise today in the
House to acknowledge the 75th anniversary of the capturing of Vimy Ridge by the
Canadian troops during the First World War.
Survivors of that battle are located within the constituency of Sturgeon
Creek, the constituency that I have the pleasure to represent. In particular, veterans of that battle are at
Deer Lodge Centre, a facility where many veterans reside.
I had the pleasure, Mr. Speaker, of
attending the service that was held there in honour of these veterans today,
and I am pleased to bring this message to the House and to share the
information of the day. The legacy of
the valour and courage of those who fought and died will live on forever.
Today's ceremonies took place atop Vimy
Ridge in
Canadians succeeded where others had
failed. Through innovative strategies
and sheer determination, Canadian troops captured the ridge. While losses were heavy, the Canadian victory
served as an inspiration to other fighting troops. That victory generated a renewed sense of
patriotism and pride in this country at a time when it was needed most. Each Canadian who served in the battle of
Vimy Ridge has earned a well‑deserved place in our history. Their efforts and their sacrifice on April 9,
1917, will never be forgotten.
I know that our young people cannot
possibly imagine the horrors of that day.
What is important for our youth to appreciate is that Canadians thought
enough of the freedom and the security that they and their families enjoyed in
I am proud to acknowledge and to remember
the sacrifices of those who gave their lives that day, but the ceremony that we
have shared today at Deer Lodge Centre, they honoured veterans of Vimy Ridge,
and I would just like to read these into the record, Mr. Speaker: Walter
Ritchie whom I have already mentioned; Lawrence Gibbons, 94 years of age;
Charles Reaper, 92; John Gibson, 94; Stewart Tanner, 94; William Sykes, 94;
Sidney McCone, 94; John Purden, 96; Donald McKay, 96; Joseph Binnie, 94; Karl
Radford, 95; Vic Walker, 95 years; Paul Hukish, 101 years; Frank Ogston died
March 18, 1992; Herb Hives of Winnipeg; Tom Potts of Morris, Manitoba; Charles
Oke, McCreary, Manitoba; and James Wyatt who has represented Manitoba in Vimy
Ridge today. Thank you very much, Mr.
Speaker.
DEBATE ON
SECOND READINGS‑PUBLIC BILLS
Bill 16‑The
Health Care Directives Act
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable member
for The Maples (Mr. Cheema), Bill 16, The Health Care Directives Act; Loi sur
les directives en matiere de soins de sante, standing in the name of the
honourable Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard).
An Honourable
Member: Stand.
Mr. Speaker: Stand? Is
there leave that this matter remain standing?
Leave? It is agreed.
Bill 18‑The
Franchises Act
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable member
for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway), Bill 18, The Franchises Act; Loi sur les
concessions, standing in the name of the honourable member for Sturgeon Creek
(Mr. McAlpine).
An Honourable
Member: Stand.
Mr. Speaker: Stand? Is
there leave that this matter remain standing?
Leave? It is agreed.
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable member
for Osborne (Mr. Alcock), Bill 25, The University of Manitoba Amendment Act;
Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'Universite du Manitoba, standing in the name of the
honourable member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render).
An Honourable
Member: Stand.
Mr. Speaker: Is there leave that this matter remain standing?
Leave? It is agreed.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
What the bill will do will put in
legislation an appointment, or entrench a student representation onto the
University of Manitoba Board of Governors.
Mr. Speaker, that is something that is long overdue. In the past, there has been student
representation on the board, but in more recent years what has happened is that
we have seen some questionable appointments that the government has made to
that particular board. I am trying to be
as diplomatic as possible when I say, questionable appointments.
That is the primary reason why it is that
this legislation or this bill has to adopt, because it goes a long way‑‑[interjection] the Leader of the New
Democratic Party is having a tough time with this bill, and I hope that he will
stand up. I am sure even he and I
disagree on a large number of things when it comes to patronage, but this is
one of those positions that I am even sure the Leader of the New Democratic
Party would concur with, because I know that in fact one of his own colleagues
the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) no doubt has read this bill, and I look
forward to her remarks on the bill. [interjection]
I am sure she supported the bill. I will be sure to read her speech. Unfortunately, I cannot recall her remarks on
it, but I am going to take it for granted that she supported the bill, because
it is a bill, Mr. Speaker, that I am sure all three sides of this House will in
fact support because, after all, the students at whatever university have to
have representation on the boards, and there is a good reason for that, because
we have to ensure that all sides are in fact being heard.
*
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You know, Mr. Speaker, as I watch the
Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns) kind of wave his hand‑‑it
is now on the record‑‑I would suggest to the minister that contrary
to what the Clerk might have done, giving the thumbs down, which I do not
believe the Clerk would have done something of that nature, I would suggest
that the minister actually discuss this bill with his colleague the Minister of
Education (Mrs. Vodrey), because I think the Minister of Education would be
very sympathetic to this bill, because I understand that she has had some
discussions regarding legislation of this nature.
Mr. Speaker, we would be very favourable
to any form of a positive amendment that would possibly facilitate the
minister's approval in seeing this bill passed.
I know that there has been in the past concern in terms of private
members' bills not necessarily seeing the light of day. Well, this is one of those bills that I
believe can see the light of day, that the government will at some time in the
future, at the very least, bring in something of this nature. We would like to think that if we offer our
complete co‑operation in accepting friendly amendments to the bill, if
the Minister of Education does support it in principle but would like to see
some minor modifications to it, we would be definitely interested in sitting
down with the minister in coming up with a bill that would be acceptable to the
government, because as I say, I believe that the government does support it in
principle even though they might not necessarily support the exact wording that
has been used.
Having said that, I will conclude my
remarks by encouraging the government to speak on this particular bill, but
failing that I look forward to hearing whatever member is speaking on any of
the private members' bills today.
Mr. Speaker: As previously agreed, this matter will remain
standing in the name of the honourable member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render).
Bill 27‑The
Business Practices Amendment Act
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable member
for The Maples (Mr. Cheema), Bill 27, The Business Practices Amendment Act; Loi
modifiant la Loi sur les pratiques commerciales, standing in the name of the
honourable member for Niakwa (Mr. Reimer).
Stand? Is there leave that this
matter remain standing?
An Honourable
Member: No.
Mr. Speaker: No. Leave
is denied.
Mr. Jack Reimer
(Niakwa): Mr. Speaker, thank you very much, it is indeed
a pleasure to stand here to talk on The Business Practices Amendment Act as
introduced by the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema). The consequences of any type of a change in
effect to business is very important.
The government looks very seriously on any type of action on that
part. The fact that the member has
introduced the change on Bill 27 is quite important in the fact that it is
regarding employees acting in good faith.
One of the things that is of concern to
people when they are purchasing any type of equipment or material, the person
that is representing that product has to be in a position to be knowledgeable
of what is being put forth. There is the
old adage, I think, that has been put forth from time to time in purchasing of
any type of commodity of caveat emptor which is buyer beware. At the same time, I think that there is a
responsibility by government to look after the public in a sense that they are
not being taken advantage of in a sense, so that there is always the room for
improvement and there is always the fact that there is the requirement for
people of unscrupulous nature that they may misrepresent the facts. They may misrepresent the product.
Also, what it does is the employee is put
in the untenable position or the tenable position, if you want to call it, of
not knowing how to represent the product in a sense. So that the person who is coming in to buy
the product is either going to have to take complete faith in the individual or
he or she may have to get some sort of indication of what is best for that
individual. The employer at the same
time though, on the other hand, is someone who has to be in a position that he
cannot be around his employees all the time,
to have the person available when the employer, or the boss, if you want
to call him, to be there holding his employees all the time into what they
consider is ethical or unethical, as to the quality or the quantity of the
product that the person is looking at or trying to buy, that the person then
has the opportunity to make the changes and the clerk look at it.
As it is now, the act tries to balance the
interests of all three parties, the consumer, the employer and the
employee. What it does is by enabling
the consumers to seek redress when they incur loss as a result of any unfair
practice. What it does also, in effect,
it is holding the employees and employers liable for unfair practices. Also what it does is it is enabling the
courts when determining penalties to consider that an employee or employer did
not intend to commit an unfair practice and he tried to avoid it.
It is quite an intent really to try to
look after our people who are buying. It
is also an intent to look after our people who are selling, because there is
always the fact of the buyer and seller on any type of transaction, and there
are certain types of proposals that we always have to consider.
Sometimes when we are considering the
provisions and considering that the courts do not generally hold innocent
employees to be liable for their actions, it is unlikely that any employee
would be held liable under the act if the courts believe that the employee did
not intend to commit the unfair practice. A lot of time that can come about because
of the fact that the employee is not totally versed in selling of a product or
a commodity or any type of service, and there are a lot of ramifications, or
there could be other implications that can come about because of unfair
knowledge of a product.
We just have to look at some of the
products that are on the market right now and the complications and
complexities of them and the fact that they fill a lot of bills and a lot of
commitments. At the same time for a
salesperson or employee to have total knowledge of all the products is very
hard. There is always the unforeseen
chance that the product which is purchased or the commodity or even the service
may fall into a classification that there is an intended, or unintended, or
unintentional harm committed or loss, or a situation where the person buying,
the consumer, is put at a disadvantage.
Those are the things that are of concern to anybody who is looking at
the product or the service.
*
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The proposed amendment is also an attempt
to ensure that the innocent employees are not held under the act under good
faith. The interpretation of good faith is something that I guess, not totally
versed with the legalese of what is involved with good faith, then it means it
all comes down to a matter of interpretation.
When interpretation goes before law,
interpretation can sometimes become quite complicated and quite drawn out and
long in the sense that the people are not totally always convinced that the
best action is being taken.
It may be interpreted differently by
different courts, because sometimes a court may interpret it one way and then
there is always the availability or the possibility that a court of a different
nature or court of a different jurisdiction may look upon the transaction in a
different light. There again it creates
problems in the sense that the consumer then is bandied back and forth, if you
want to call it, in trying to get a clear direction as to what the intent was
when the product or the service was purchased by the person.
Given the terms, a specific definition
would create a risk that some innocent employees would be held liable because
their conduct did not quite fall within the definition of it. Also the proposed amendment would also be
harmful for consumers.
The loose wording of an amendment may make
it difficult to satisfy a court when an employee acted in bad faith or outside
the course of employment, and the consumer may therefore be unable to recover
funds obtained by the employee through the deception.
We always hear of the salesman who takes
advantage of people, and the fact that there have been certain instances that
have come to the courts in the last while where there have been unscrupulous
operators who have tried to take advantage of seniors, who have tried to take
advantage of people with limited mobility or availability. I guess to a degree the seniors are
vulnerable, because of the fast talking of some certain salesmen or salespeople
in trying to sell commodities or products.
That person then becomes a person who sometimes loses money or loses a
lifetime of savings because of the misrepresentations by that individual.
There is always that concern and
government should have a concern in trying to protect the consumer, because of
the fact that there are some people who in a sense do have to have that type of
individual around to help a bit.
There could be a problem, in particular,
in such situations where employees operate with a high degree of autonomy, as
mentioned, home improvement contractors and things like that where they can
cause problems with an individual or some person who is getting things
done. There can be the pyramiding of
expenses and the pyramiding of so‑called improvements to the individual's
home or to their business.
The wording of the proposed amendment
infers that the Consumers' Bureau does, or would like to, frequently refuse to
deal with complaints. I think that
possibly there is the sense that the Consumers' Bureau is trying to move its
responsibility or shirk its responsibility in a sense, but the Consumers'
Bureau has been set up, in a sense, to help the consumer.
I know the Minister of Consumer and
Corporate Affairs (Mrs. McIntosh) is quite aware of her department in the sense
of trying to be fair and to be just to all aspects of what comes before
her. In times of tight economic
conditions, as we have in Canada, there is always the availability of
unscrupulous people coming forth, and the fact that the minister has made a
point of trying to be cognizant of what is happening with the market and what
is happening in trying to make things better for the people of Manitoba and the
consumers themselves.
The consumer has to have some sort of a
watchdog, but at the same time bureaucracy can create too much of it so that
the minister works very closely with the concerns and the phone calls or the
letters that come across her desk. I
would feel that something of this nature has become quite cognizant of how the
Madam Minister must deal with these problems, and the fact that the amendment
of this type be put forth by the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema), The
Business Practices Amendment Act, is something that would have to go very close
scrutiny with her department and her people as to the fact that the public is
aware of how unscrupulous sometimes these things can come about.
At the same time, the bureau tries to
resolve all complaints that come before it unless it is clear that the
complaint can be handled by some other form of the law, because the law is
always there in a sense to try to take some of the points that may not come
about in a normal situation for the Consumers' Bureau. So, Mr. Speaker, I feel that the amendment
here that is brought forth by the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema) is
something that is worthy of comment by all honourable members and the concern
that they have on this, because, as mentioned, protecting consumers and the
fact of any type of amendment is something that would come forth as to what
should or should not be dealt with.
The act itself is very new, and the
director's discretion to refuse or to mediate or to investigate should be left
as it is until more experience with the act is gained, actually, because if it
later appears that the discretion should be limited in some way, the act could be
amended at that time. So with the act
that is there, there is always the fact of interpretation and the living
together, if you want to call it. So the
act could then be looked at and it can be amended with the proper direction and
the proper input through the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs,
which the minister has mentioned. It
monitors very closely, and I am sure she is aware of this amendment and the
fact of study would be something that would be quite detailed.
The fact that there is the implication of
limiting refusals to those who complain the directors to be invalid would
create problems in a sense, because the problems must be addressed in all types
of situations with the existing act.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Ben Sveinson (La
Verendrye): I move, seconded by the honourable member for
Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 31‑The
Municipal Amendment Act
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable member
for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry), Bill 31, The Municipal Amendment Act; Loi
modifiant la Loi sur les municipalites, standing in the name of the honourable
member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer).
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Mr. Edward Helwer
(Gimli): It is indeed a pleasure for me to stand and
speak on Bill 31, The Municipal Amendment Act that the member for St. Boniface
has proposed, although, unfortunately, I cannot agree with him. I do not think the resolution is very good. I am sorry to tell him, but I cannot quite
agree with him.
I represent two of the communities that
are mentioned in Bill 31 and therefore have kind of a vested interest in this
resolution. Actually, The Municipal Act
section 46 states that it requires that a candidate for council be for any
municipality, whether it be a resort community or for any council, a Canadian
citizen, 18 years of age or over, and an elector of the municipality, defined
in the Local Authorities Election Act 5.1 as a person who has at least six
months residency at the date of the election or as an assessed property owner,
or as a tenant who is assessed as the owner of right, interests or estate‑‑so
a resident of the municipality for not less than six months and not subject to
any disqualifications under the act.
(Mr. Bob Rose, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
So these provisions apply to candidates
for council to all municipalities, but subsection 45(2) of The Municipal Act
specifically identifies the Town of Winnipeg Beach, the
Anyway, as a resort municipality in which
the residency requirement of a candidate for council is reduced to only two
months and described as two consecutive months in any year‑‑and
this is what the resolution is trying to do away with, just striking out the word
"consecutive." Now, I cannot
agree with that because we are being quite lenient by allowing a candidate to
be elected to council by being a resident for only two months rather than the
six months that is required in all other municipalities, all other towns,
villages and municipalities throughout
The candidate for council still has to be
an assessed owner. The position of the Department of Municipal Affairs or the
Department of Rural Development has always been that the residency required of
cottage owners should be two consecutive months even though the former
legislation did not mention the word "consecutive." Last year when it was amended they did change
it to‑‑subsection 45 did say, "two consecutive," and that
clarifies the legislation. So it is
being referred that the act intended to recognize that most summer residences
are open and occupied at least for the months of July and August at a
minimum. In actual fact most summer
residents use their cottages‑‑probably open for occupancy from the
Victoria Day in May till Labour Day, which is a period of some three and a half
months.
So the introduction of the word
"consecutive" was intended to clarify the legislation and not to
change it. This clarification was
considered desirable as a result of queries from residents or ratepayers of all
three resort municipalities during the 1989 summer elections in which questions
were raised as to whether the two months residency requirement could be made up
by a series of weekend or day‑trip visits throughout the year. That is not possible. You cannot be a resident for the 60 days or
two months by being there only one or two days a month throughout the year.
That would not qualify you for having two months consecutive residency.
So continuous residency is not considered
to mean that it is an uninterrupted physical presence. It has been judicially recognized that a
person can have more than one residence at a time, for example, a permanent
residence in
That is the residency required, so it does
not have to be an uninterrupted period, but it must be, I think it would be
fair to say, in the summer of two months if he gets his mail at
The real question though of residency must
be determined by the candidate himself, by the individual candidate. It is the position of the Department of Rural
Development that nothing has changed as a result of the 1991 amendment. For example, the candidate considered to
qualify in terms of residency in 1989 would still qualify in 1992, all things
being equal.
For most summer residents the two‑month
residency requirement would normally have to be fulfilled in the year prior to
the election year, because it is unlikely that they would be able to establish
the residency for two months prior to the second Wednesday in July, which is
the nomination day.
However, it is entirely possible that some
could establish residency in the year of the election and, as mentioned above,
it is up to the individual candidate to be able to establish that the residency
required has been met. That puts the
onus on the candidate. He can establish
himself what terms of residency really means.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
I think in most cases it makes for a better
council or makes the candidate much more qualified to do the job as to
councillor if he is a continuous resident for two months. I think that is very lenient considering
other municipalities, really.
I have met with the mayor and council of
An Honourable Member: Did it help?
Mr. Helwer: Certainly it helped. I met with the Chamber of Commerce at
The chamber and the committees that I met
with out at
So I think that the amendment is not necessary
and the legislation as it stands is excellent.
It serves a purpose. I think it
is clear and we are quite happy with the legislation as it is.
I know I spent many years on council, as a
matter of fact some 16 years altogether as councillor and mayor of a small
community. That particular town was the
same as any other town or village or rural municipality in
At one time you had to be even a property
owner, and that was changed, in order to run for council. Now, as long as you are a resident, you do
not have to be a property owner. You can
rent property and still be qualified to run for council.
I think that is fair, really. I think that serves the public good and the
best interest of the communities in most cases.
I just wanted to mention
I think this is a step in the right
direction for a community of 500 to 600 permanent residents and some, probably,
4,000 to 5,000 temporary residents that use the community in the summer as
cottagers and campers and one thing and another.
I think a four‑member council is
much easier to work with, and I think would be more effective. I think it would give the mayor and the
council an easier way to deal with issues at
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I think the council at
The
An Honourable
Member: Well, I am sure there
are two sides to the story.
Mr. Helwer: Sure, there are two sides to every story, but
I think it is easier for them to represent the people that are continuous
residents there, that are permanent residents there, that live there all year
round. If you want to do that you have
to, pretty well, at least live there for a minimum of two consecutive months.
I do not think that is too much to
ask. You have to be a resident, you
cannot be there only a couple weekends of the year and expect these‑‑
An Honourable
Member: Tourists.
Mr. Helwer: ‑‑tourists, yes, and expect to be
able to serve on council. I think both
of these communities have very good councils and very dedicated people, that
serve on these two councils, that I have in my constituency that these would be
affected. I certainly respect their
views, and they have served their communities very well.
Mr. Speaker, I see my light is blinking,
and my time is going, but I just wanted to put those comments on the
record. I am sorry to the member for St.
Boniface (Mr. Gaudry). I do not think
that his amendment is necessary. I would
in fact have to speak against it.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Jack Penner
(Emerson): Just to put a few words on record in regard
to Bill 31, and the amendment that is being proposed to The Municipal Act in
Bill 31, regarding the municipalities that are now currently being served by
council members very often who are not resident in the municipality, and how
the effects to the residents, in permanent residence in the municipalities, can
be avoided.
It was, I believe, some two years ago,
when members of the two communities,
I believe that there is some merit, Mr.
Speaker, in fact, to have some uniformity in compliance for the designation, or
for the qualification, as to whether a person should or should not be able to
run. I live 60 miles south of here. Simply by the fact that most of us live
outside of the city of
Simply because we own a second residence
in the city of
Therefore, I concurred with putting in
place some criteria, into an amendment of the Municipal Act, that would, in
fact, indicate that there should be some semblance of permanency. Even though we made some changes and
exceptions to the fact that they need not be six months residence, but there
should be a period of time that they should at least be residents in that
municipality. Everybody, or virtually
everybody, agreed to that, with the exception of a few, and I suppose you could
never get 100 percent concurrence with a proposal that is being put before a
minister or before a House.
But the arguments that the permanent
residents, for those communities, made at the time was that there were periods
of times when there was no councillor around, during winter months when snow
removal needed to be done and school routes needed to be opened, and very often
there was nobody around to look after the best interests of those permanent
residents in those areas.
I respect that, living in a rural area. A snow storm passing through an area need not
necessarily hit some 30 or 40 miles down the road, and you really have no
knowledge then of what goes on over there, specifically if you do not live
there during the winter months.
Therefore, I concur that the council members should, if at all possible,
be made up of permanent or as near‑to‑permanent residents as
possible.
Road maintenance in a given municipality
is another matter that you need somebody there virtually all the time when
construction, reconstruction, maintenance, and all those kinds of things take
place if it is road repair. Rural
municipalities are different than city municipalities or large urban centres in
the respect that rural municipalities seldom ever can afford a maintenance manager
or a construction manager, or those kinds of things that larger urban centres
take for granted.
It is councillors, the elected people that
act as those kinds of people, who look after the day to day, and we have
councillors, or former councillors, former mayors, former reeves sitting in
this Chamber. The member for Gimli (Mr.
Helwer) is a case in point, and he would tell anybody in this Chamber that the
role of a rural councillor is much, much different than an urban councillor and
the responsibility is much, much greater for a rural councillor than it is for
an urban councillor, in respect to actually being the manager, the foreman,
very often even the construction manager, in regard to roads and those kinds of
things. Some members opposite that live
and reside in rural communities certainly concur and know that.
When you have a storm, for instance, such
as you had in Winnipeg Beach some three or four years ago‑‑maybe it
was five years ago, four or five years ago‑‑a major summer storm
passed through an area, and it was the Winnipeg Beach municipality that was
affected by fallen trees and torn‑off roofs and those kinds of
things. Immediately, those people start
calling their council. The council is
then required to immediately come down and inspect and look after, virtually on
an hourly basis, the removal of trees and branches, and see that services such
as all the infrastructure‑‑sewer, water, hydro, telephone‑‑that
all those services are brought back into working order again.
They can very often, as the member for
Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) just said, be even seen as disaster committees.
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They work very often in those kinds of
situations for many hours without break, up to 24, sometimes even more, to
ensure that the services in those communities will in fact be maintained.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I think it is of
utmost importance that the amendment that is being proposed here by striking
out "consecutive," should be rethought. The member who proposed this bill should give
some serious consideration about withdrawing the bill. Therefore, I think one could reflect on
matters even much greater than services that we have already talked about.
My recommendation to the member who
proposed the amendment is that maybe through discussion, maybe we should sit
down as a committee and talk about all the other ramifications of putting
forward this amendment and what it does to the permanent residents in those
areas and how it affects them. Maybe
after that kind of consideration he would be willing to, in fact, withdraw the
proposed amendment to this act.
There are a number of other areas that I
have not touched on and services that we normally take for granted very often
in a larger urban centre that municipalities, municipal councillors, mayors or
reeves very often become very involved in and look after. Those are things such as health service care,
be they the ambulance services, be they fire services, and especially when fire
strikes in individuals' homes sometimes.
Municipal councillors become very involved
in ensuring that the services, be they fire services or ambulance services,
those kinds of things, are provided virtually instantly.
Very often these people, these local
councillors are members of fire brigades.
It becomes very difficult when these people live 30 or 40 miles away in
another centre that is supposed to look after the administration of a
municipality such as
The key and most important issue, I
believe, is the day‑to‑day contact that local councillors have with
their constituents and the day‑to‑day dialogue of needs is
maintained. That can of course be done if you are a resident, an ongoing
resident in an area. That dialogue can
of course be maintained.
Therefore, those councillors would have a
much, much greater degree of knowledge as to the needs of those constituents in
those municipalities, as the member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer) so adequately said
before, in many of the other issues that he raised in the debate and referring
to his own experience especially in that area where he has a much greater
degree of knowledge than I, of course, do.
Because it is such a unique area and
serves in large part the cottagers, and most of those cottages are of course
second residences, as my second residence is in the city of
Being that the area is more often than not
an area that geographically probably has water on the one side, land on the
other, and tourism and all the natural resources around them, there are many
other aspects that need to be looked at and taken care of. Wildlife, maybe, enters a community overnight
and has to be removed, and if you are not a resident, who is going to look
after it? Is someone going to drive out
40 miles and chase a moose out of the back yard of some resident? Are they going to look after mending
fences? Are they going to look after
patching the holes in the roadway? Are
they going to drive out 40 miles to look after those kinds of things? I think not.
That is why the amendment that we passed
less than two years ago is of such utmost importance, that we ensure that the
maintenance of the legislation, as it stands today, be in fact maintained. We believe, on this side of the House, Mr.
Speaker, that it adequately serves the best interests of the residents of those
municipalities that this amendment to this bill would affect.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would ask your
concurrence and the House's concurrence to maybe suggest to the member who
proposed the bill, that he, in fact, consider withdrawing the bill from further
debate in this House.
I thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Bob Rose (
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker: Is it the will of the House to call it six
o'clock?
Some Honourable Members:
Six o'clock.
Mr. Speaker: The hour being 6 p.m., this House is now
adjourned and stands adjourned until 10 a.m. (Friday).