LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY OF
Wednesday,
April 21, 1993
The House met at 1:30
p.m.
Mr. Clerk (William
Remnant): It is my duty to inform the House of the
unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker and to request the Deputy Speaker to take the
Chair in accordance with the statutes.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in
the Chair)
PRAYERS
ROUTINE
PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTING
PETITIONS
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Madam Deputy Speaker, I beg to present the
petition of RoseMarie Hamilton, Fred Hoffman, Rose Pitzl and others requesting
the Family Services minister (Mr. Gilleshammer) consider restoring funding for
the friendship centres in
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Madam Deputy Speaker, I beg to present the
petition of Ruby Miness, Brad McGillivray, Andrew Bik and others requesting the
Family Services minister (Mr. Gilleshammer) consider restoring funding for the
friendship centres in
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): Madam Deputy Speaker, I beg to present the
petition of Murray William Blacksmith, David Blacksmith, Betty Mousseau and
others requesting the Family Services minister (Mr. Gilleshammer) consider
restoring funding for the friendship centres in
TABLING OF
REPORTS
Hon. James Downey
(Minister of Energy and Mines): Madam
Deputy Speaker, I would like to table for members' information the booklet,
Energy in
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I am tabling today
the Twentieth Annual Report of Legal Aid
INTRODUCTION
OF BILLS
Bill 26‑The
Expropriation Amendment Act
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Deputy Speaker, I move, seconded by
the honourable Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness), that Bill 26, The
Expropriation Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'expropriation, be
introduced and that the same be now received and read a first time.
Motion agreed to.
* (1335)
Introduction
of Guests
Madam Deputy Speaker: I would like to draw to the attention of all
members of the House that we have with us this afternoon in the public gallery
from
Also this afternoon, we have with us 17
students from the English program at
On behalf of all honourable members, I
welcome you this afternoon.
ORAL
QUESTION PERIOD
Carter
Report
Government
Position
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Madam Deputy Speaker, my question is to the
First Minister, the Premier, the Chair of our Economic Development Committee
and Minister responsible for Federal/Provincial Relations. The Carter recommendations on barley are
running into tremendous opposition from a number of farm groups across western
I would like to ask the Premier (Mr.
Filmon), in light of the fact that
Hon. Glen Findlay
(Minister of Agriculture): Madam Deputy
Speaker, I would like to tell the member opposite the position we have taken is
the same today as it was the last number of days. We are concerned that we
maximize our penetration of the North American market, that we maximize the
income at the farm gate for producers.
The report does cast some very significant statements, conclusions that
the farmers are losing 17 percent of the value at the farm gate and not
penetrating the market to the extent possible.
As I said yesterday, we will be finding out the degree to which these
statements are true; we want to verify them and ask for all the information to
be gathered from the industry, and those letters are in the process of being
put together.
I look forward to the comments from
everybody in the industry. The member
should also know that the Wheat Board does export around the world and only 10
percent of their exports are currently to the
Mr. Doer: Madam Deputy Speaker, we will await the
recommendations from the
Carter
Report
Plebiscite
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Madam Deputy Speaker, the federal minister
responsible, in questions in the House of Commons yesterday, has said
absolutely no to a plebiscite for producers in western
He has said that he is going to use the
same old Mulroney tactics of having closed‑door consultations and meetings
and making a decision in the secrecy of the cabinet room.
The Premier in his Speech from the Throne
in 1990 said Canadians are tired of the back‑room elite ways, the old
ways.
I would ask the Premier today: Will he recommend to the federal minister
that he change his position and agree to a plebiscite so farmers can have a
vote on this very, very important issue facing producers in western
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Madam Deputy Speaker, the process that is
being followed is one of consultation that allows people to have their views
heard on this issue. That is why 14
different groups have already commented on it.
That is why the study has been put out publicly for consultation, for
confirmation or argument over the facts and the figures that are in there. That is why there is an intent on the part of
the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay) to meet with all the different
relevant organizations in
That is certainly not a closed‑door
process. That is a very open and
extensive consultative process and we believe that it is appropriate under
circumstances like this.
* (1340)
Mr. Doer: Madam Deputy Speaker, the Premier should know
that every one of those groups that is being consulted by the federal minister
now wants and is calling for a plebiscite to determine the final decision on
this issue.
Many of the organizations, the Pools in
western
Impact on
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): A final question to the Premier: The Port of Churchill has been impacted by
the shipment of barley through its port.
In fact, in 1988‑89 some 89 percent of the shipments through the
My question to the Premier is: What is the impact of this report and the
recommendations to go to a continental market? What is the impact on the
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Madam Deputy Speaker, I should remind the
member opposite that last year it was wheat that was shipped through the
In fact, I might say that the evidence is
that the Wheat Board was one of the biggest stumbling blocks to greater
utilization of the
Health
Care System Reform
Reporting
Process
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Madam Deputy Speaker, despite what the
government states, there is considerable confusion, uncertainty and fear in
this province concerning the minister and the government's health care plans.
Will the minister today provide a
commitment to this House and to the people of
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Madam Deputy Speaker, I will even go one
better. As we make decisions and accept
the advice of professional groups, advisory committees and other individuals
who are participating very actively in the changes that the health care system
is undergoing in the province of
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make that
commitment to continue that process as decisions are made to explain what they
are. I would only ask my honourable
friend that when decisions are made by government, that he present the accurate
information that is given to the media and Manitobans instead of the penchant
maybe for less than accurate communication my honourable friend is engaged in.
Mr. Chomiak: Madam Deputy Speaker, the minister's concept
of public meetings is news conferences now.
Public
Hearings
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): My question to the minister: Will the minister undertake today, since it
appears that his $3.9‑million consultant will be laying off people on an ongoing
basis over the year as she works on her $3.9‑million contract, to make
sure those two institutions that are affected, namely the Health Sciences
Centre and St. Boniface, hold public meetings with the public, the patients and
employees prior to those changes taking place, so that the public has input
into the changes, not via press conference?
* (1345)
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Madam Deputy Speaker, I think if my
honourable friend, and I may have to stand to correct myself, but I think if my
honourable friend would take the time to read the contract that was arrived at
between government and APM, my honourable friend‑‑and I might add,
that is the first time that a consulting contract with anybody has ever been
laid out at a press conference for everyone to see. But that was not the
circumstance I inherited of course when I found to my chagrin in 1988 that the
New Democrats hired American consultants to undertake health care
consulting. I mean, that does not matter
now.
Madam Deputy Speaker, my honourable friend
might find just such a process proposed as part of the process and agreement at
both hospitals.
Community-Based
Health Care Funding
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Madam Deputy Speaker, my final supplementary
to the minister: Will the minister,
since he will not change the decision on user fees for colostomies and supplies
and he will not change the decision on the 74‑percent increase in nursing
home fees, at least commit today that any savings in the health care system
that are somehow realized by this process, will go into community‑ and
health‑care‑based facilities, something that has not been done to
this point in time?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Madam Deputy Speaker, that is entirely the
frustration that I have with my honourable friend in his presentation of
questions, because you might recall that my honourable friend posed similar
questions and when I answered those similar questions some two weeks ago, I
indicated exactly what my honourable friend wants, that the contributions on
the ostomy program in terms of the Home Care Program were not stripped away
from the Continuing Care Program, but were reinvested to provide exactly the
enhanced levels of community care that my honourable friend wants.
I indicated that to him two weeks
ago. My honourable friend is never
satisfied with an answer that happens to disagree with the propaganda he and
his party want to spread.
Mr. Reg Alcock
(Osborne): Madam Deputy Speaker, all jobs are important,
but particularly high‑quality, highly skilled, high value‑added
jobs are particularly important in a small economy like this, and in an
industry like aerospace.
I wonder if the Ministry of Industry and
Trade can tell us why the federal government is choosing to relocate the
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Madam Deputy Speaker, for a change I
agree with the preamble of the member in terms of the importance of the
aerospace sector to the economy of
In terms of the specific question asked today,
I will take that as notice and provide him with the further details.
Mr. Alcock: Madam Deputy Speaker, perhaps the Minister
for Transportation (Mr. Driedger) can tell us‑‑it is the school
that trains military pilots in the use of instruments while they are making
night landings. It employs about seven
highly trained professionals, as well as technicians and others. Now there has been an examination of the
decision by the military to move the school to
I would like to ask the Minister of
Transportation: Is he aware of this
decision?
* (1350)
Mr. Stefanson: I already indicated to the member for Osborne
in terms of taking that matter as notice and providing him further
details. I also confirmed the importance
of the aerospace sector, outlined for him some of the things we are doing, not
unlike the initiative of relocating the
Madam Deputy Speaker, it is an important
sector. We are doing very well in that
sector. We still have the third largest
aerospace community in all of
I have indicated I will take that question
as notice and get further particulars, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Alcock: Madam Deputy Speaker, this government
purports to be an activist interventionist government.
To the minister again: Is there no mechanism by which they are
informed of decisions of this magnitude by the federal government?
Mr. Stefanson: As a rule, Madam Deputy Speaker, the answer
would be yes. I have indicated, the
association that we are a part of which is the aerospace association of
Certainly, going over the past two and a
half years, the member for Osborne does not bring many surprises to the floor
of this House when it comes to economic initiatives, whether it is in aerospace
or any other sector. I have indicated to
him I will get further details. It is an
important sector. We are doing well in
that sector.
I referred to the EH101, and I certainly
hope the member for Osborne will support that initiative and take that message
to the leader of a party that he is considering running for in the next few
months, because that is another important initiative for the economy in
School
Dropout Rate
Ms. Jean Friesen
(Wolseley): Madam Deputy Speaker, one of the indicators
of a productive society is the number of young people who are able to complete
school.
I want to ask the Minister of
Education: What is the school dropout
rate in
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): Madam
Deputy Speaker, there have been a number of federal studies that the member may
be referring to, but the difficulty in the term "dropout" is that the
term is not well defined, because the issue of dropout does not allow for those
students who take a temporary leave of absence from school and then in fact
reintegrate or start again. It may be
for a semester period or it may be for a full school year. So perhaps she needs to clarify the question.
Ms. Friesen: Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not think the
question could be any simpler.
What is the school dropout rate in
Mrs. Vodrey: Those statistics are not well defined or
consistently defined, and the important feature is that we know how many
students who in fact do leave school are able to be successfully reintegrated
into school, and if they leave school in
Ms. Friesen: Madam Deputy Speaker, there are Statistics
Canada‑‑
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Question.
Ms. Friesen: Will the minister tell the House what the
dropout rate is that her department is working with in
Mrs. Vodrey: As I said, yes, there are dropout rate
statistics by Statistics
Consequently, during the Estimates process
I will be happy to talk about the new tracking system that we will be
integrating in this province.
Corrections
System
Community
Release Program
Mr. Paul Edwards (St.
James): Madam Deputy Speaker, my question is for the
Minister of Justice.
We have been advised this morning by staff
at Headingley Jail that the government is intending‑‑and they have
been advised by their supervisors‑‑to implement a plan whereby no
person sentenced to a sentence of less than six months would be incarcerated,
but rather would be dealt with through the Community Release Centre, which
would mean that a person sentenced to a sentence of less than six months would
not spend a day in jail.
Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, can the
minister tell members if in fact the government is intending to implement this
plan and if so, when?
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister of Justice and Attorney General):
In response, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the need for inmates in our jails to
do something useful with the time that they have to spend while they are
serving a sentence, we think it is appropriate that they be put to work, and
through community release programs we can put inmates to work doing useful
things in the community and maybe in that way helping to repay their debt to
society.
* (1355)
Mr. Edwards: The first and foremost responsibility of this
minister in the law enforcement system is protection of the public. Rehabilitation is very important but protection
of the public is first.
My question for the minister: How can he guarantee the protection of the
public when these individuals convicted of very serious offences, impaired
driving, for instance, sexual assault, domestic assault‑‑how can he
ensure the safety of the victims when these people, albeit maybe working, but
are in the community?
Mr. McCrae: As we develop any plan for dealing with
people incarcerated in
Corrections, on the other hand‑‑the
philosophy of Corrections is to try to ensure that these people are not going
to be recidivists, people who go out and commit crimes again. Anybody who is going to be part of a program
of community release is going to be very carefully screened and assessed so
that the public's protection is assured.
That is paramount in our thinking.
Mr. Edwards: Let me get this straight with the
minister. Is he intending to put into
place an arbitrary system whereby someone with less than six months, regardless
of screening or what the offence may have been‑‑is that his
intention, that he is going to set a cap at six months, and everyone who falls
under it, regardless of the offence, is going to be allowed to go through the
CRC, the Community Release Centre, and if so, how is he going to protect
victims and get them to come forward and testify against these people if those
people will be back in the community the next day?
Mr. McCrae: I have already said, Madam Deputy Speaker,
that the paramount concern of this minister and this department in the area of
Corrections is protection of the public.
The honourable member often gets certain bits of information, usually
somewhat incorrect to begin with, and by the time they end up in this Chamber,
they are far from correct.
So we have to be careful with this
honourable member because for five years, he has been consistently bringing
incorrect information to this House.
Point of
Order
Mr. Edwards: Madam Deputy Speaker, I received information
and I brought it to the minister, and I am asking him whether or not‑‑
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for St. James does not
have a point of order. It is a dispute
over the facts.
Farmers–Alfalfa
Producers
Government
Support
Mr. John Plohman
(Dauphin): This government's policies in rural economic
development have been demonstrated to be a failure, and they were again
yesterday by my colleague with the loss of 25 jobs in a woodworking plant in
In light of the minister's promise of last
week that he would follow up on this issue this afternoon‑‑I quote
from Hansard‑‑will he indicate to the Legislature today precisely
what mechanism he has put in place to ensure a timely response which is about
one week now, because he has failed to act quickly earlier when he was asked
about this? What mechanism he has put in
place to ensure‑‑
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Contact was made last week; officials
from my department met on Monday of this week.
We were up in Dauphin meeting with the company and I expect to get a
full briefing later this afternoon.
Mr. Plohman: Madam Deputy Speaker, in light of the fact
that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay) said this is a top priority, and
the need is for bridge financing immediately to operate this year, I want to
ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism what mechanism he is putting in
place to ensure immediate response with regard to the short‑term needs,
not the long term, which was what the meeting was about, but right now for
operation this year.
Mr. Stefanson: I am not so sure that you can separate those
two issues, because in the final analysis, we want all
This harkens back to the kind of
philosophy that we have seen from this member when he was a part of a
government‑‑short‑term, make‑work jobs, instead of
creating an environment and a climate that creates long‑term, stable jobs
so that Manitobans have a job today and five years from now and ten years from
now, unlike the kinds of jobs created when he was in cabinet.
* (1400)
Mr. Plohman: That is a disgusting slur on farmers of
alfalfa products.
I want to ask this minister a
question. In light of the fact they have
been operating for over 20 years and are not a fly‑by‑night
operation, what action is this minister going to take right now to ensure that
they stay in operation now, this year, so they will not lose all of the markets
they have built up over these years.
Mr. Stefanson:There was certainly no
disgusting slur on the farmers or agriculture here in
I have indicated, in terms of the priority
that we are talking about, we are talking about long‑term jobs, long‑term
solutions. That is how we deal with any
economic situation in terms of the viability of entities and companies in this
province. I indicated I will get a full
briefing this afternoon and we will be dealing with that issue.
Fisheries
Act
Amendments
Mr. Oscar Lathlin (The
Pas): Madam Deputy Speaker, my questions are
directed to the Minister of Natural Resources.
Last week, the minister expressed in the
House a regret about the lack of support that he was getting for trying to keep
support for fishermen in northern
Hon. Harry Enns
(Minister of Natural Resources): Madam
Deputy Speaker, I have had a considerable amount of discussion with
representatives of the fisheries industry.
Different senior officials of the department have had public meetings
with various commercial fishing groups along the lakes, particularly on our major
fisheries on
Northern
Freight Assistance Program
Government
Commitment
Mr. Oscar Lathlin (The
Pas): Madam Deputy Speaker, since prices for virtually
every kind of commercial fish have dropped this year and at the same time the
cost of fishing has gone up so dramatically, what efforts has this minister
made to restore the funding for the freight subsidy program so that some of our
fishermen in the North can afford to keep operating this year?
Hon. Harry Enns
(Minister of Natural Resources): Madam
Deputy Speaker, the honourable member is aware that $250,000 of taxpayers'
money that is provided to offset the freight costs is virtually exclusively
assigned to the northern fisheries.
If any of the commercial fishermen in the
province have a complaint and they are voicing them to me, it is those in the
southern fisheries, namely again in the
The whitefish industry is not in good
shape, not in good health, and they have lost most of the freight assistance
that the province provides. We did that
on the rationale that it would be fairer to provide the more distant, the
northern fisheries who have the bigger freight bill to pay. They are the recipients of virtually all of
the $250,000 of assistance that is ongoing and has been ongoing, despite the
hard budgetary times that we all face.
Fishing
Industry
Government
Support
Mr. Oscar Lathlin (The
Pas): Madam Deputy Speaker, my final question is to
the same minister.
I would like to ask the minister if he
will commit himself and this government to getting the same support for
fishermen in this province, particularly in northern
Hon. Harry Enns
(Minister of Natural Resources): The
honourable member raises an interesting point.
It is a matter that I have raised directly with the federal minister,
the honourable minister of federal Fisheries Mr. Crosbie, at the time that a
very significant and substantial support program was announced by the federal
government. I believe it was some $500
million for the serious difficulties that the eastern offshore fisheries, principally
in the Newfoundland‑Nova Scotia area, find themselves in. I, at that time, approached the federal
minister directly that some relatively modest proportion of that applied to our
own inland fisheries here would go a long way in helping out some of the
difficulties that I acknowledge our fishermen have.
I will, Madam Deputy Speaker, continue to
try to convince anybody and everybody who is prepared to listen that our
fisheries are in some difficulty, particularly our whitefish industry and the northern
fisheries have a problem getting their product onto market. We keep hoping that there are brighter days
in the future. I have discussed some of
the options with the representatives of the Freshwater Fish Marketing
Corporation, but I will continue working in that direction.
Workers
Compensation Board
Jean
Rochon Case
Mr. Daryl Reid
(Transcona): Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr. Jean Rochon, a
gentleman in his mid‑fifties, sustained a workplace back injury in 1985
which left him permanently disabled. He
now uses canes and a walker and is currently receiving Canada Pension Plan
disability benefits. In September of
1992, the WCB threatened Mr. Rochon with termination of his WCB benefits if he
did not seek work.
My question is for the Minister responsible
for the Workers Compensation Board: Why
has the WCB videotaped, pushed and threatened this individual to return to the
workforce when his personal doctor indicates that he has a total permanent
disability?
Hon. Darren Praznik
(Minister responsible for and charged with the administration of The Workers
Compensation Act): Madam Deputy Speaker, I would say to the
member for Transcona, I would invite him to take up this particular
individual's case with the chair of the board.
There are three labour appointments to the board. There is an appeal process on a variety of
decisions. As I have said in this House
before, we have a Workers Compensation Board with a nine‑member board
with three labour appointments who are very, very capable people, who set the
policies, who are responsible for the administration of the board.
I would suggest that he raise it with
those board members, including Mr. Bruno Zimmer who is a member of that board
appointed by labour, who are responsible for these kinds of issues. That is the process as opposed to raising
this matter directly in the House. I
would suggest he use that format.
Mr. Reid: Madam Deputy Speaker, the reason I raise this
is that the minister is the last person left in the chain of command here to
which I can raise these concerns, because others in WCB have ignored that.
[interjection] He just does not want to take the responsibility on it.
My question, Madam Deputy Speaker, is for
the same minister. Can the minister explain why the Workers Compensation Board
is now forcing this injured person to attend psychiatric evaluation and
counselling by the WCB staff, or the people they appoint, without the presence
of the individual's spouse, whom they refuse to allow into the room, and is now
forcing the individual to attend a
* (1410)
Mr. Praznik: Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to point out to
the member for Transcona that many of the issues he has raised here on the
floor of the House, including the use‑‑I am not sure, but I believe‑‑of
the Sister Kenny pain clinic which is a well‑respected pain clinic, he
may oppose it because it happens to be south of the 49th parallel, but it is a
valid clinic. All of these issues are
administrative matters.
I have had occasion to sit down with
members of the board of directors, including Margaret Day, who is a member of
the
So I would suggest that, since he belongs
to a party that claims to have an affiliation with labour, he raise some of
these matters with those members of the board of directors. I am prepared to follow up with some
questions to the board, but I would indicate that it is a joint board including
labour representatives who develop those policies that he today is coming here
and questioning.
Environmental
Concerns
Contaminated
Soil
Hon. Glen Cummings
(Minister of Environment): Madam Deputy
Speaker, yesterday I was asked a question for which I did not have the answer
regarding soil contamination, how many of the property owners are paying and
how much.
Eighty percent of the cost is paid up‑front,
and the balance of 20 percent is collectable and is collected. The site at Elmwood Motors is within
guidelines. Hespeler Auto has been
issued an order and is in the process of clean up. Petro‑Canada is treating soil onsite by
vapour extraction.
I also take great pride in the fact that
on environmental matters we are always forthright with the information, Madam Deputy
Speaker.
There was a question from the member for
Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) about whether or not the department had made available
information. I want to put on the record
that on December 16 the Department of Environment's Freedom of Information officer
phoned the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) to indicate that the files he had
requested were available. The return
message was left, but the member for Transcona did not return the second
message that went to him. The files are
still available if he wants to come and get them.
Deputy
Ministers
Salary
Increases
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Thompson): Madam Deputy Speaker, Manitobans are
increasingly questioning the "fairness"‑‑and I put that
in quotation marks‑‑of the Conservative government. No group of Manitobans is questioning the
fairness of this government's actions more than the many civil servants who
have had their wages frozen, are having now the involuntary days off, which is
effectively a wage cut.
Yesterday, questions were raised even to
the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) asking, in terms of salaries
in terms of deputy ministers within departments of government. At that time,
the minister said that deputy ministers were being increased at the rate of the
MGEU contract. Well, Public Accounts
indicates that deputy ministers have in fact, while civil servants have been
cut, been getting significant increases, and in the minister's department an
increase of 14.9 percent over the last two years.
I have a very simple question. Is it fair to expect 100,000 civil servants
to take pay cuts and pay freezes and at the same time to have increases to
senior staff of in excess of double digit figures? Is that fairness, Madam Deputy Speaker?
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Minister of Finance): Madam Deputy Speaker,
I do not know to what document the member is referring. Certainly, the Public
Accounts for year‑end '93 are not even yet brought together.
If the member is trying to introduce into
debate, by way of question, Madam Deputy Speaker, '91‑92 year‑end
records, I say to him, that has nothing to do with Bill 22, which, by the way,
I will be introducing for second reading once we move into Orders of the
Day. The member cannot stand here and
try and compare those two sources of information because they come from two
different periods of time.
Mr. Ashton: Madam Deputy Speaker, perhaps the Minister of
Finance should check the figures between 1990 and 1992 where civil servants had
a pay freeze and a 3 percent increase and now a 3.8 percent‑‑
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. Ashton: Madam Deputy Speaker, I will ask the Minister
of Finance, how does he justify deputy ministers getting increases, in this
particular case of 14.9 percent, at the same time when civil servants were being
cut?
Mr. Manness: Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not know what the
member is trying to indicate. He is
trying to indicate that there has been some increase within the higher senior
levels of government, where have been significant reclassifications throughout
the whole civil service.
I dare say, if the member wants to pick
and choose specific indications he can go about doing that all day, but he is
not going to be able to contribute to the debate. He is not going to be able to suggest how it
is that we have been able to freeze the taxes in this province for six
years. He is not going to be able to
point out how it was we brought probably the fairest budget down in all of
Deputy
Ministers
Salary
Increases
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson):
My final question to the Minister of Finance is: Will he not recognize the inherent unfairness
of treating employees who make $20,000 a year one way, cutting them back, and
having senior civil servants getting increases?
Will he now at least be consistent and not
have this unfair system that we are seeing with senior civil servants getting
double digit increases over a two‑year period?
Hon.
Darren Praznik (Minister of Labour):
Madam Deputy Speaker, just to add to the answer to this question, the
member for Thompson very conveniently in his question forgets to mention a
thing called reclassifications which happen from time to time. He may laugh,
but there were over 500 members of the civil service, of the MGEU, who had
reclassifications.
If he is proposing that should not happen
I am sure the MGEU would take a very different position from him. As well, there is one‑third of the
public service which has merit increases that still apply which the member also
tends to forget and leave out of this debate.
So I think what he is doing, quite frankly, is comparing apples to
oranges. He is not making a fair
comparison at all.
If there was one deputy minister‑‑and
we do not even know if his facts are accurate‑‑had that increase,
it could have been a reclassification.
But there were at least 500 members of the MGEU who had positions
reclassified who could have had even larger increases than that.
Now, if he is proposing that not happen,
that not be a tool available, then I would suggest that he take it up with the
MGEU because they have never, never suggested to us that we should not have a
process to properly reclassify positions with their responsibilities.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The time for Question Period has expired.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Madam Deputy
Speaker, would you call second readings of the following bills: Bill 22, Bill
23 and Bill 25.
SECOND
Bill 22‑The
Public Sector Reduced Work Week
and Compensation
Management Act
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Minister of Finance): Madam Deputy
Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General (Mr.
McCrae), that Bill 22, The Public Sector Reduced Work Week And Compensation
Management Act (Loi sur la reduction de la semaine de travail et la gestion des
salaires dans le secteur public), be now read a second time and be referred to
a committee of this House.
Motion presented.
Mr. Manness: Madam Deputy Speaker, I am introducing Bill
22, The Public Sector Reduced Work Week and Compensation Management Act.
Before I get too far into reading Bill 22,
I would just like to react to the last question put by the member for Thompson
(Mr. Ashton), and I will do so in the context of Bill 22.
Point of Order
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Opposition House Leader): Madam Deputy
Speaker, I do believe the minister would be out of order, but if the minister
wants to continue with Question Period on that I would be glad to do it if he
wants equal treatment. Otherwise he is
out of order.
Mr. Manness: As I indicated in my answer, the very essence
of the question put by the member for Thompson will flow quite consistently
with the rationale behind Bill 22. So I
cannot be ruled out of order if indeed the response I give for second reading
Bill 22 indirectly answers his question from Question Period just a moment
ago. It seems though that because the
cameras have now left the Chamber, the member is not interested in answering.
* (1420)
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I thank the honourable members for their
advice, and I am sure that the honourable minister's remarks will indeed be
relevant to his bill.
* * *
Mr. Manness: Madam Deputy Speaker, as members are aware,
the
In the past few weeks, several governments
have announced measures to reduce or limit public sector compensation through
layoffs, wage reductions and reduced workweeks.
Other governments, while not formally announcing public‑sector
compensation restraint programs, have publicly indicated they are considering a
variety of measures. While I can assure
members that this government is not blaming public servants for the fiscal
difficulty it faces, the reality is that the vast majority of provincial
expenditure goes towards wages, either directly to civil servants or as a
funding for wages in other areas of the public sector, including the priority
areas of health and education. The
Madam Deputy Speaker, I just ask members
of the House for a moment, try and understand the magnitude of those
numbers. We have approximately in
Madam Deputy Speaker, in addition,
payments to physicians which were not included in that 100,000 under the fee
schedule total an excessive $250 million per year. Therefore, each 1 percent of the public
sector payroll represents approximately $36 million. In February, I announced a reduced workweek
program for the civil service. At the
same time I indicated that I expected Crown corps and other government‑funded
entities to adopt similar approaches. In
announcing funding levels to education and other sectors, my colleagues have
recommended this model as a means to meet financial requirements.
A number of employers in the public sector
have indicated significant interest in the reduced workweek model as an
innovative way to meet financial requirements without significant layoffs and
with the least impact on priority services.
Indeed, some have entered into tentative agreements with their employees
on the implementation of reductions.
However, many are concerned that existing legislation agreements may
hinder the application of this model in their organization.
Madam Deputy Speaker, to digress only for
a second. When I brought down Bill 70
almost two years ago, there was some request from across
Madam Deputy Speaker, other examples, the
Manitoba Association of School Trustees, at their recent meetings, requested
the province introduce legislation to facilitate days off without pay. In addition, they also requested legislation
to reduce the rates of pay of teachers.
While we were not prepared to legislate
reduced rates of pay, we are responding to these concerns with legislation that
provides an innovative mechanism that can be utilized by public employers to
assist them in their efforts to control compensation costs, while at the same
time minimizing the need for significant staff reductions.
In addition, the legislation will reduce
the compensation paid to MLAs and appointees to the government boards and
commissions. It will also limit the
total payments made to
In developing this legislation, the
government was guided by several principles, as we usually are, Madam Deputy
Speaker. Our legislation is almost
always governed by principles.
In developing this legislation, the
government was guided by: (1) we sensed
that the legislation should provide a mechanism for public employers to meet
financial requirements without having to layoff significant numbers of
employees; (2) that the decision on whether or not to utilize the provisions of
the legislation should be left to each employer following an assessment of
their specific requirements; (3) that a consultation process be provided to
ensure that the views of the employee representatives are sought and agreements
between the parties are made possible, and, as the legislation shows, that has
to be at least 30 days, has to be directed to those efforts; (4) that
impediments to consistent treatment throughout the public sector be removed;
and (5) that other aspects of employee compensation, such as benefits, be protected
to the extent possible.
Key provisions. The legislation is divided into three
parts: (1) reduced workweek and reduced
compensation; (2) medical practitioners' compensation; and (3) the part dealing
with the members of the Legislative Assembly.
First of all, the reduced workweek. The legislation will allow employers,
following consultation with employee representatives, to implement reduced
workweek programs during which employees would take unpaid leaves of absences
for up to 15 days or portions of days totalling 15. These programs could be put in place for up
to two consecutive 12‑month periods commencing in 1993.
The number of days of leave of absence and
the mechanism for achieving the leaves would be established and fixed in a
notice filed with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Praznik).
The legislation will facilitate the
application of the reduced workweek to all employees, including those in
essential‑service areas. In the
absence of the legislation, many employers could only provide essential services
and still achieve financial objectives by having those at the lower end of the
seniority scale bear the brunt of the work reductions through the layoff
mechanism.
We believe that significant additional
layoffs can be avoided through a mechanism which will require all employees to
share in the reduced workweek program.
The legislation will not impact on
negotiated increases in rates of pay and benefit plan provisions, nor will any
provisions of collective agreements not related to the introduction and
implementation of reduced workweek programs be affected.
In order to protect employee benefits to
the extent possible, the leaves of absence will be deemed by the legislation to
not constitute a layoff. Under many
collective agreements, benefits cease upon layoff. However, under these agreements, some grace
period is provided in the case of leaves of absence without pay to allow for
the continuation of benefit coverage.
Reduced compensation. In order to ensure that all groups are
treated in a consistent manner for the '93‑94 fiscal year, members of
Crown agencies, boards, commissions and committees and other individuals
appointed by the Lieutenant‑Governor‑in‑Council will have the
amount paid to them reduced by 3.8 percent.
For the '94‑95 fiscal year, the amounts will be reduced by an
amount equivalent to the effect on pay that the reduced workweek program will
have on civil servants for that year.
The groups affected will include political appointees and Provincial
Court Judges. Wherever practical, it is expected that these individuals will
also take the corresponding number of days off.
* (1430)
Before moving on to Part 2, I would like
to clarify briefly for members the province's intent with respect to reduced
workweek program for civil servants. All
civil servants will be required to take 10 days of leave of absence without
pay. Government offices will be closed for seven Fridays in July and August and
three days between Christmas and New Year's. Employees involved in essential
services or areas with seasonal imperatives such as highways construction will
take the days off on a scheduled basis or at alternative times of the year.
Fee schedules under Part 2. Total payments to physicians under the fee‑for‑service
program for '93-94 will be capped at 98 percent of the '92-93 level. This is consistent with the funding
reductions which have been applied to other sectors. It is also consistent with a desire to have
the impact of the fiscal restraints shared throughout the public sector. Under the fee‑for‑service
program, the total payments are a function of two factors: the amount paid for each service according to
the schedule, and the number of services provided. Since the number of services provided can
vary year to year, it is impossible to know precisely what impact the number of
services will have on total payments.
Therefore, the legislation will allow the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) to adjust the amount paid for each service during the year to ensure
that the funding available for '93‑94 is not exceeded.
I would like to stress that this
legislation will not restrict access to medical services. A fee will continue to be paid for each
insured medical service provided to Manitobans.
At the end of the '93‑94 fiscal year, a reconciliation will take
place, and if less than the amount available has been expended, physicians will
receive an additional amount up to the full value of the fee schedule. If the available amount has been exceeded,
the excess amount will be recovered from physicians. A similar process will also apply to the
'94-95 fiscal year with the funding cap established by regulation as a
percentage of the '93-94 expenditure.
Third part, MLAs. Part 3 of the legislation will reduce the
indemnity and the allowance paid to MLAs under The Legislative Assembly Act by
3.8 percent. Constituency and access
allowances will also be reduced by 3.8 percent.
These sections will put into legislation the changes already agreed to
by representatives of all parties on the Legislative Assembly Management
Commission.
Madam Deputy Speaker, in conclusion, as I
indicated previously, this legislation is intended to make available to public‑sector
employers a mechanism that will allow them to meet their financial requirements
without significantly reducing jobs. The
decision of whether or not to utilize the mechanism will be made by each
employer based on an assessment of their particular circumstances. By that I mean, in some cases if there are
other ways of achieving the target on the salary line, of reducing it in a
manner consistent with what the government has had to do and what Crowns of
government have had to do, then indeed this model may not need to be used; but,
if other ways cannot be found, then we would expect this model, some variation
of this model, to be used by any group which draws its funding, direct or
indirect, in a significant fashion from government.
Madam Deputy Speaker, in addition,
legislation does not preclude employers and employees from agreeing to
alternate ways to meet the financial requirements. Indeed, I understand that several employers
are presently discussing voluntary agreements with their employees. The mechanism provided by this legislation
should provide employers with an innovative and equitable means to avoid the
substantial job cuts that could be required in some areas to meet their
required financial requirements, and it will allow all employee groups to be
treated in a consistent fashion. Consistency was what we sought. The government knew and has been saying for
some period of time that unless employees, direct or indirect, all people who
draw their livelihood in a sense from the public purse, felt that they were
treated in some consistent and fair manner, nobody would buy into the concept
that they had to do their share.
Madam Deputy Speaker, what we have found
out since my speaking notes were prepared is that there are groups within
government, there are groups within the Crowns, who once they have seen that
everybody will be treated fairly, they have come forward. Not that anybody likes to give away a portion
of their disposable income and see a reduction, nobody likes to do that, but
the reality is everybody understands, except for the opposition parties for the
most part, that we have problems that have to be dealt with on the expenditure
side.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I pay tribute to
those employee groups and to those union leaders who have seen that they have a
role to play, who have seen that they have a responsibility in fair sharing of
the difficulties that we have and who have worked towards an agreement and now
who are trying and who are selling this type of approach amongst their
employees. That is why this province is
going to lead this nation with respect to industrial relations for the years to
come and with respect to the fiscal framework so necessary to build the
economic future for our children. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Ashton: Madam Deputy Speaker, I wonder if I might ask
questions for clarification on second reading.
Madam Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for Thompson, the
honourable Minister of Finance has agreed to answer questions for
clarification.
Mr. Ashton: As much as I would like to debate, it is not
going to be anything in terms of that.
It is strictly for clarification.
I would like to get some indication from
the Minister of Finance who made reference in his comments to essential
services. This is a concern that relates
not just to the general civil service, but also Crown corporations as well,
because obviously Telephones, Hydro, also provide essential services.
I would like to ask who defines essential
services, how that is decided, and whether this act sets up any particular
mechanism that will provide for some analysis of what is an essential service
and, under the minister's explanation, will be treated differently than other
services.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Procedurally, I beg the indulgence of the
House. I need to clarify whether indeed
there is leave for the member to pose the question.
An Honourable Member: Leave.
Madam Deputy
Chairperson: Leave?
Agreed.
Mr. Manness: Madam Deputy Speaker, the question is well
put. Certainly, government is trying to more clearly define what it means by
essential services. In the context of
corrections, in the context of certain dimensions of the health care system, we
can readily indicate what essential services are, but still throughout the
various departments of government there are other essential services, I think,
particularly in Justice, a small area within the Land Titles for the filing of
registrations for month‑end closings.
I mean, we are going to have to maintain an individual or something and
that, in essence, would be deemed an essential service.
So we are going throughout all of government,
and indeed officials through departments are bringing these examples to us. We
know, for instance, the jails are essential services. Those are the easy ones, but we are combing
throughout all of government and trying to more clearly define, under the
criteria that we have in place, to try and give greater dimension to that. Ultimately, we will go as far as we can and
as far as necessary to provide the services, but the government will leave upon
itself the ultimate right and therefore the ultimate responsibility and
therefore the ultimate criticism as to whether we have included too much or
whether we have not included enough.
Mr. Ashton: Just one further clarification on essential
services. Presumably there are two
possible dimensions in the case of essential services. One would be not following the seven days in
the summer and three days in the Christmas‑New Year period, which is the
standard amount that was indicated by the Minister of Finance (Mr.
Manness). The second would be, presumably,
that some individuals might not have the 10 days off with leave.
I would like to ask, when the minister
talks about essential services, which of those two scenarios is he looking at
in the act, or is he looking at potentially both? Will there be some cases where, say,
conservation officers may have a different time‑off period but some
conservation officers may be working throughout the year? I am just wondering when the minister talks
about essential services what he is referring to exactly.
Mr. Manness: Well, again, my first answer holds, although
again there is good reason to have some flexibility. The member talks about conservation
officers. Yes, there are areas,
particularly in Natural Resources and within Highways, where there is good
reason that we will not force the hard rule of seven days in the summer and
three days in the Christmas break.
For example, I look into
transportation. I mean, we are building
roads in the summer, so if we need engineers in place on site to build a road,
we are not going to shut down the road construction on a Friday in the middle
of summer because we do not have a highways engineer there. Obviously, common sense would dictate that
that will be deemed an essential service for that day for that particular
occupation.
The same in Natural Resources. We are not going to close down the ticket
booths or the toll booths coming into parks on a Friday. I mean, well, common sense is going to
prevail here, and I make no apology for that.
The guiding rule throughout all the
departments will be seven days off in July and August. All administrative offices, for sure, will be
expected to close by the general guideline, which is seven days in the summer
and three days at Christmastime.
Mr. Daryl Reid
(Transcona): I move, seconded by the member for Broadway
(Mr. Santos), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 23‑The
Retail Businesses
Employment
Standards Amendment and Payment of Wages
Amendment Act
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): I
move, seconded by the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey), that Bill 23,
The Retail Businesses
Motion presented.
* (1440)
Mr. Stefanson: Madam Deputy Speaker, I am pleased to rise on
Bill 23. Members of this House are aware
that on March 26, 1993, our government announced its intention to introduce
legislation to extend the trial period of Sunday shopping in
These amendments come in the form of Bill
23, which is to be considered by the House in two parts, Madam Deputy
Speaker. In effect, Part 1 would amend
the three acts to extend the previous trial period from April 12, 1993, to
September 30, 1993, and would maintain the full effect of those earlier
amendments.
Part 2 would amend The Retail Businesses
Holiday Closing Act to enable municipalities, as defined in the legislation, to
pass a by‑law permitting stores in their jurisdictions to remain open on
certain holidays, including Sundays. In
light of the various issues related to economics, social realities and
community values, we believe this approach to Sunday shopping reflects
reasonable, realistic and flexible choices for all involved. Indeed, one of our
primary concerns throughout this discussion has been to broaden the range of
choices available to all Manitobans.
Briefly, the effect of this legislation,
if passed, will be as follows: The
existing trial period would be extended to September 30, 1993. All provisions under the earlier amendments
regarding Sunday shopping would remain in effect. As well, retailers will have the choice of
whether or not to open on Sunday. Also,
Sunday shopping will not be allowed prior to 12 noon or after 6 p.m., and as well,
employees in retail outlets formerly forced to close on Sunday will retain the
right to choose not to work on Sunday.
Madam Deputy Speaker, as of September 30,
1993, the former regime regarding Sunday openings would apply, except in
municipalities that had passed by‑laws to permit Sunday openings, that
is, municipalities that do not pass a specific by‑law on this issue would
be governed by the previous legislation that only allows specifically
designated retail outlets or those with four or few employees to open on
Sundays. However, municipalities may
pass such a by‑law at any time before or after September 30.
Our rationale, Madam Deputy Speaker, for
this new set of amendments is driven by similar considerations that prompted
our undertaking of the first trial period.
We believe Sunday shopping is something that many
With changes in employment patterns and
demographics, many families are finding it increasingly difficult to confine
all their shopping to one full day, that is a Saturday, and with more and more
two‑income families and single‑parent families, for many
Manitobans, the weekend is the only realistic time to do some shopping.
Moreover, research shows that in terms of
personal preference, the majority of Manitobans support the introduction of
Sunday shopping. In a survey conducted
last year, three‑quarters of Manitobans responded favourably towards
liberalized Sunday shopping when certain conditions were attached. These conditions might include limited hours
or certain seasons, and not surprisingly, people who describe themselves as
cross‑border shoppers were amongst the most supportive of wide‑open
Sunday shopping.
This brings me to the economic rationale
for our approach. When we introduced a trial period, we suggested that Sunday
shopping had significant potential for economic benefit. We were particularly concerned with
countering the effects of cross‑border shopping in certain areas of our
province. However, we were also
impressed with economic studies indicating the general positive impact of
Sunday shopping. In light of these
realities, we felt it was even more important to allow local communities
themselves to weigh the pros and cons of Sunday shopping and make their decisions
based on the actual feelings and needs of their residents.
Let me turn for a moment to what our
assessment of the trial period has told us so far, Madam Deputy Speaker. In December 1992 actual retail sales in
Sales tax revenues were 10.6 percent
higher in December '92 than in 1991, and this increase held for all regions of
the province.
There was no change in retail bankruptcies
in December 1992 compared to the same period in 1991. There was also no significant change recorded
in the consumer price index. Canadian shoppers travelling to the
Some of these changes may appear to be
significant increases. However, Sunday
store openings were of course not the only factor differentiating 1992 from
1991. Besides these detailed economic
studies, the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics conducted a survey of over 500
retailers from all areas of the province.
It found, Madam Deputy Speaker, amongst other things, that 31 percent of
retailers felt Sunday shopping had a favourable impact on the economy, and 17
percent said it had a negative impact.
However, 35 percent also felt it had no impact.
Seventy‑five percent of retailers
felt the decision to open on Sunday should be left to each individual
retailer. That is a very important
message, Madam Deputy Speaker. As well,
11 percent of those retailers who opened on Sunday hired additional staff.
We also considered other factors and
issues in reaching our decision. We were
aware, of course, that public opinion seemed to favour some sort of relaxation
of the current legislation. Seven other Canadian provinces currently allow
Sunday shopping on some basis. This has
provided us not only with some models for legislation which I will speak about
in a moment but also a growing base of public opinion research to consider as
well.
Most of this research has shown strong
support for expanded shopping on Sundays.
In
From results such as these, we have
concluded that complete restriction on Sunday shopping, rather than simply
creating an inconvenience, would actually place considerable hardship on
certain groups in our society who face significant time constraints and others.
I hasten to point out that while
As mentioned, the Goldfarb study addressed
some of the potential negative impact of Sunday shopping. In particular, it found most people did not
see Sunday shopping having a detrimental effect on their family, personal or
religious life or, indeed, the quality of life in their own communities. Of these same respondents, a full 90 percent
said they do not spend any less time with their families because of Sunday
shopping and, furthermore, two‑thirds agreed that Sunday shopping allows
families to better organize their weekends, so there is actually more family
contact time.
* (1450)
Across
Some provinces have unrestricted Sunday
shopping in certain seasons.
After careful consideration of all the
economic and social issues and the models offered in other jurisdictions, we
have arrived at the municipal option. We
feel it allows for individual communities to weigh the same factors that we did
and assess how they would affect their community. It also offers them some latitude, as
municipalities would be able to allow Sunday shopping on a limited or seasonal
basis if they so wished.
As a government, we truly feel Sunday
shopping has proven to be one of those issues where a uniform province-wide
solution is not appropriate and where local communities must have the
opportunity to decide what is the best solution for them. We have not required municipalities to pass a
by-law outlawing Sunday shopping. Those
municipalities that do not pass a by‑law allowing Sunday shopping revert,
as of September 30, 1993, to the old regime.
We have extended the trial period of
liberalized Sunday shopping for another six months for two fundamental reasons:
firstly, to give municipalities time to assess the issue and pass appropriate
by-laws if they so desire; and secondly, to give municipalities an opportunity
to assess the economic impact of Sunday shopping during the high tourist
traffic months of June, July and August.
Nearly two-thirds of
As well, Madam Deputy Speaker, we have
maintained several basic restrictions on Sunday shopping that will apply to all
businesses that employ five or more people in those municipalities that opt
in. These restrictions have applied
throughout the initial trial period and will still apply in the continued trial
period and after September 30 to municipalities that permit Sunday shopping.
Finally, I should note that as with the
earlier amendments, the changes allowing for Sunday openings after September 30
would not apply to the statutory holidays of Christmas Day, New Year's Day,
Good Friday, Easter Sunday,
It is our hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that
this proposed solution to the question of Sunday shopping will address what we
see as at least three key issues:
firstly, the need for local community decision making; secondly, the
need for sensitivity towards specific groups; and thirdly, the need to find
creative ways to stimulate our retail sector.
Thank you, very much.
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Thompson): Madam Deputy Speaker, I must say that it is
hard to know where to begin in this particular bill, because what a tangled
mess this government has wrought in terms of Sunday shopping in this
province. I want to deal with the mess
this government has created in terms of this.
I want to deal with the real reasons why we are seeing this bill. I want to deal with some of the arguments
brought forward by the minister, supposed arguments for introducing this
current bill.
Let us start by putting this bill into
perspective. This bill, Bill 23, I was
tempted to call it the sequel for the first Sunday shopping bill, but even
Is it not interesting that the second
reason they were afraid to deal with it, there were splits in many of the
communities that they represent? If they
say never, I ask one very simple question.
Why, when the opposition took the unprecedented step of passing the
original Sunday shopping bill through to second reading before Christmas, when
we had the opportunity to have intersessional hearings‑‑we could
have had hearings in
Madam Deputy Speaker, I know in other
bills we are criticized in the opposition for giving thorough time and discussion
to bills, but you know where we sit on Sunday shopping.
I spoke in this House in December. I said, what a great opportunity, when we are
dealing with what was introduced as a trial period, what a good opportunity to
have the public of
What did the government choose to do? They had a bill that was retroactive to begin
with, that they had plenty of opportunity to deal with in terms of the trial
period itself, but they deliberately chose not to call the bill before
committee until the trial period was over.
I mean, let us put the cards on the table
here. Let us recognize what
happened. I would say they could not
even get their own caucus to agree to call it for second reading. That is the real reason that they have not
yet called that bill and that is the real reason we are seeing now, if not a
180‑degree turn, it is certainly a 90‑degree turn in Bill 23.
Let us deal with that first question, the
procedural question. I have never seen a
government twisted around like a pretzel to the degree this government has on
the Sunday shopping issue.
Well, let us go one step further. What is this bill? Well, this bill is sort of a trial
period. There is a further trial period
built in. Then it is basically a pass‑the‑buck
bill. It is an interesting
construction. They must have spent a lot
of time in their caucus on this one. I
do not know who came up with this brilliant compromise. He is brilliant, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We are now dealing with a bill that is
sort of a trial period but is actually a pass‑the‑buck bill, a
trial period that really, in this particular case, is going to lead nowhere in
terms of this Legislature because this government has already made up its mind
that it wants to pass the issue over to the municipalities. You know, what it
leads in once again is confusion.
I had the opportunity yesterday to speak,
along with the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) and the M.P. for Churchill
at my high school in Thompson to a Grade 11 and Grade 12 class, and there were a
lot of good questions.
You know, I am just glad they never asked
me on Sunday shopping, because I do not know how I would have explained to them
how a government could bring in a bill that was a trial period, that was
retroactive, the bill is still on the order paper and the trial period is over,
and now they are bringing in a bill that is going to have another trial period,
then pass the buck, that once again is now going to be passed, if it is passed
in this House, after the trial period has begun.
I am sure the young people there would
have said, how can they do this? How can
you bring in retroactive bills to begin with, but how can you then turn around
and end up with this dramatic change of direction?
I mean, Madam Deputy Speaker, what happens
on the original Sunday shopping bill or on this bill if members of the House
say no? What are we going to do?
People have been open for the last number
of Sundays since the trial period began.
What kind of chaos would we end up with?
Would people then have to return all the merchandise they bought on
Sunday? I mean, that would never happen,
we know that. What would happen? What would happen is we would be the laughing
stock of this country.
I must say, and this is an editorial
comment, after what has happened on the tree issue in
* (1500)
In this case, we would be the laughing
stock of the country. We might end up in the pages of the National Enquirer,
but what a dubious honour that would be.
I mean, Madam Deputy Speaker, let us get
serious here. This government brought in
a bill because of the‑‑well, is it not interesting? They are calling for the question now when
they have not called the original bill to committee for the last three
months. Boy, are they brave from their
seats‑‑are they brave.
But this is the problem. There was a struggle within the caucus. Let us be up front about this. There was a struggle within the caucus in the
same way‑‑and this must have been very difficult for the
Conservatives, because the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce was on one side of the
issue and the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce was on the other side of the issue.
For Tories that has got to be awful
confusing, because Tories are usually fairly close with the chamber of commerce
agenda. It must have been very difficult
within the caucus between those that wanted to follow the Winnipeg Chamber
agenda and those who wanted to follow the Manitoba Chamber. I think that is what happened. The urban side won out; the Winnipeg Chamber
of Commerce won out. The rural members
lost the first round.
Then what happened? I am sure people told them, do not worry.
[interjection] Well, the member for
Round No. 2, the reaction comes from the
rural communities, and it was very clear that many rural communities,
particularly in areas represented by members opposite, were not happy with the
decisions.
Madam Deputy Speaker, they said to their
members that this was unacceptable to bring in this kind of legislation,
particularly retroactively, without any kind of consultation with rural
Manitobans.
So that was round 2. Rural Manitobans said, whoa, wait a sec. Well, what did the Conservatives do? They knew they were in difficulty. Round 3 came when we passed the bill. That must have been a shock to some of the
Conservative members who probably had been told by the strategists over there,
do not worry, the opposition will never put this to a vote on second
reading. I do not know how they would
have come to that conclusion, because we were very clear from the
beginning. We said, we want this to go
to the people, we want public hearings.
Then they had a difficulty. It was passed through second reading. What were they going to do? Well, then came the fourth round, because the
pressure continued from rural communities.
I know in
Then something happened. All of a sudden, we do not see the public
hearings. Then a bill appears on the
Order Paper‑‑Bill 23, round 5.
Well, I said in the first round, the Winnipeg Chamber view won out. In this one, I do not know really who won out
but somewhere along the line some‑‑and I use the word
"brilliant" strategist again.
I think what happened was, they persuaded themselves that now they had
the really courageous decision of passing the buck. Throw that hot potato over to the
municipalities, and they did not have to worry about it anymore.
Madam Deputy Speaker, what a courageous‑‑and
I use that again‑‑courageous government here. After the mess of having a retroactive trial
period that has since expired, now what they are doing before we have even
decided on that bill, they are going to now have another trial period and then
pass it over to the municipalities. Is
that the way to deal with public policy in this province? [interjection]
Madam Deputy Speaker, the Minister of
Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey) says, what have I got against local
autonomy? Is it not interesting the same
government is introducing a bill that takes away local autonomy in terms of
school boards? That is hypocrisy, and if
the Minister of Northern Affairs wishes to defend that, I look forward to his
speech on this issue. We have been
looking forward to speeches from members on this issue since this supposed debate
began, but it is interesting that very few of them have chosen to speak on this
issue.
We look forward to the Minister of Finance
(Mr. Manness) saying how he would have voted on the original bill, how he will
vote, how he will vote on this bill, and other members of this House, because
they were strangely, eerily silent throughout this entire process.
[interjection] Well, the Minister of Highways (Mr. Driedger) says, I do not
know the half of it. I have talked to
some of his constituents and I know their half of it. I know what half the minister is talking
about, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that
he was under some pressure, and I think that would be an understatement on this
particular bill.
But, Madam Deputy Speaker, let us look at
this. We have seen that there have been
no public hearings on this bill, none whatsoever. So today we have the minister come in and
introduce his rationale for the sequel, for Part 2, for the get‑us‑out‑of‑this‑mess
bill, so they hope.
You know what I found interesting, Madam
Deputy Speaker, is here on the one hand, on the one side of the ledger, we have
a government that will not go to the public for public hearings, as is required
under the rules of this Legislature, all major public bills. Will not go to the public. I am not just even saying to rural Manitobans. They could have had a meeting here in the
Legislature itself and invited people in to give their presentations. So what did the minister do instead? The minister trotted out, and he did it
twice, talked about surveys and polling results. Surveys and polling results?
He quoted surveys from
It is a law that goes back many
years. There have been a number of
versions of it, and it is interesting because when one looks at the history of
Sunday shopping laws, it was in many ways an attempt by a combination in those
days of many people within churches and many people within trade unions, an
attempt to give working people the opportunity to have often what was their
only day off in that period of time.
That was the origins of the law.
Originally, of course, it was a religious
focus, in terms of Sunday obviously being the Sabbath for those of Christian
faith in
So we sat down in this House‑‑we
were in government at the time, the Conservatives were in opposition, there was
one Liberal member‑‑and we came up with a compromise that dealt
with the concerns of the Supreme Court and, Madam Deputy Speaker, dealt with
the question as to what degree there would be Sunday shopping. That is where we ended up with what is still
the legislation of four people, the requirement of no more than four
workers. That was based on consensus in
this House, consensus, one of the few cases I can remember where there has been
that degree of consensus in that time period.
It was a very volatile and polarized time period.
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Madam Deputy Speaker, it is interesting
because, you know, when the minister who is bringing this bill in talks about
polling results from
The minister talks about those people who
do look to Sunday shopping in terms of demographic groups within society. Indeed that is the case, but under current
law, many of those individuals are able to buy groceries, are able to certainly
go to restaurants, are able to have access to a certain number of
services. That is very clear. The bill we have currently is a compromise in
that sense and was a compromise developed by all parties. So the real issue here is between the
existing law and the kind of structure outlined in Bill 23. So any results you have from
I would like, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a
courtesy, if the minister could table who conducted the surveys, the
methodology that was used, the exact questions that were used, because that is
important. Without that knowledge base,
really no one should be quoting those kinds of statistics in this House. I mean, it is important to lay out the cards
that way, and I look to the minister to table that information. It is very important for purposes of this
debate.
You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I go
beyond that because I am dealing with the validity of the survey results. Let us deal with the validity of government
by survey. You know, I remember, when
John Diefenbaker was Leader of the Conservative Party, he had various
descriptions for opinion polls at that time, which I will not repeat in the
House, but I know some members will recall them. The problem, when you get into that trap of
only governing by survey results, by whomever they may be conducted, is, it
depends on the questions you ask, whom you ask in terms of the impact you get.
On the other hand, is that really what democracy
is all about? I would ask, Madam Deputy
Speaker, members of the House, look at the answers, even of some of their own
ministers on other issues, because in the end result, as representatives of
Manitobans, we have to make the final decision based on consultations with our
constituents and also the unique fact that we are the only province that has
hearings on public legislation in the country, mandated hearings in which any
member of the public can come and express their views to our committee. That is not an empty process. I have been in this House 11 years. I have seen bills withdrawn or amended
significantly. I have seen bills that
have been amended in a subsequent year, in a lot of cases, based on feedback
that was brought in the previous year.
It is a very important part of our
political process in terms of the public hearings. The point of having public hearings and the
point of having the system we have of three readings is that at each stage,
there is an opportunity for members of the public to, first of all, have notice
of the bill in the case of the notice that appears and in first reading, which
is an opportunity to signal the intent.
Then the bill is printed and is an opportunity for members of the public
to see it. Then, of course, we have
second reading, where there is debate on the principle. Then we have the committee hearings at which
members of the public get to express their views. We then have the opportunity as members of
the Legislature to move amendments to bills.
Then we have the report stage, and we have the final third reading
stage. There is a reason we have that
process.
I say to the government on this issue, the
only appropriate way of dealing with a public policy mechanism of this kind is
not through surveys and opinion polls, Goldfarb and associates from Toronto, it
is not through the kind of political maneuvering that has been going on within
the Conservative caucus trying to avoid the kind of public embarrassment that
they put themselves in by proceeding down a course and not recognizing the kind
of reaction that they would get, Madam Deputy Speaker, it would have been to
put it to public hearings.
I will go further than that, Madam Deputy
Speaker. I would suggest, there are many
other issues that could also go to public hearings, some of which are dealt
with by legislation, some which are not, video lottery terminals being a good
example, where major policy decisions are made and we deal with the
consequences after. Regardless of that
debate, I am referring to the fact that there is a reason for that.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I would go even
further than just talking about specific issues. There is a lot of talk about the need for
parliamentary reform. We are at a point
where there is a growing cynicism about the political process. Does this kind of Bill 23 process help? No, it contributes to the cynicism, because
instead of giving the public the opportunity to use our committee structure‑‑I
would say it would have been innovative to go throughout the province to hold
hearings on this bill. Instead, the public have been denied, up to this point
in time, the opportunity to speak, and when it is discussed, many of the
decisions will have been fait accomplis.
So it goes beyond the public process in
terms of individual bills. It deals with
parliamentary democracy. I would note
that all parties in
We came in in a fall session. That is something that has not been the
standard practice in this province. I
think it should be. I think we then
should be in the process of having more legislation dealt with in the fall at
second reading and then have that legislation put over for intersessional
hearings that in some cases can be held across the province. We tend to pass 90 percent of legislation the
last week, sometimes the last day, the last day that we sit.
We do not, I think, do the kind of justice
to the kind of system we have when we do that.
In many cases, I have seen bills literally rammed through the public
hearing process and the public hearing process being seen as nothing more than
an obstacle to getting the bill passed.
That, Madam Deputy Speaker, may be the temptation of all political
parties in power. The point, though, is
that there is a better way, and this bill and the original Sunday shopping
bill, in terms of the public hearings, was an excellent example of that. It could have gone to the public hearing
process. So that is, I think, something
that is wrong about this bill in terms of the political process. I think that
should be dealt with.
I also want to say, in terms of some of
the arguments that were used, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it is important to
analyze those arguments, netting out the survey results, because as I said
before, that I think is misleading, and it is not really the key issue
here. I know, in my own case, I have
talked to people in my own constituency, and there are people on both sides.
There are people on both sides of the issue.
There are some interesting discussions and debates that have taken
place.
I just want to get further in terms of
some of the arguments that the minister opposite is talking about. I found it interesting that the minister
talked about Sunday shopping in the context of cross‑border shopping,
because it is interesting. He quoted
statistics showing that cross‑border shopping is down significantly and
then quickly afterwards said, well, that of course cannot all be attributed to
Sunday shopping.
Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, not only can
it all not be attributed to the Sunday shopping trial period that they brought
in, that in fact has very little to do with it.
The situation with cross‑border shopping across the country has
been that there has been a Canada‑wide decrease in the amount of cross‑border
shopping over the time period the minister referenced and including the time
period in which the trial period was in place.
Why is that the case? It is because of exchange rates, it is
because probably of tighter enforcement at the border in terms of Customs. There are a number of factors that have gone
into that‑‑probably the recession as well. The bottom line is, there has been an overall
decline. I do not think the minister can
point to the trial period as being a factor in that the evidence suggests that
it is to the contrary.
It is interesting, Madam Deputy Speaker,
because that takes away one of the arguments.
To a certain extent, that would be presumably less of an argument anyway
in terms of the kind of structure that this current bill looks at, which, if it
were to be enacted, puts in the place where municipalities can go, which
direction they wish, subject to some other pressures I will reference in a
minute. There might be a situation
develop where communities close to the border might remain open on a Sunday. It
really, I do not think, is a factor in the discussion. So let us take that out.
* (1520)
Let us deal with the question of sales and
costs, because I have talked to a number of small‑business people in my
own constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker.
You know, they say it is sort of a mixed bag. If they do not remain open on a Sunday but
their competitors do, they lose business.
If they remain open on a Sunday what happens is, they spread the
existing business out over that period of time.
They may get the occasional shopper they might not otherwise have had,
but they have to in many cases either spread the existing labour force and
salary budgets equally or in some cases have to increase their costs of
operation. So the net impact on the
bottom line for many businesses, I would suggest, is not clear at all and
certainly is not positive when you look at the cost factors and you look at the
revenue factors.
In my own area, the chamber of commerce
has been very opposed to the Sunday shopping proposals of the government. I have talked to a number of people in the
chamber of commerce. They are quite
vociferous.
It is interesting, Madam Deputy
Speaker. Some of the strongest
opposition has come from women. There are
a number of women very active in the chamber of commerce in Thompson. They have said that part of the problem is
that women in particular, in small business and the same way in the workforce,
face additional family responsibilities, often have far more child care
responsibilities, responsibilities in terms of the household generally, in
spite of all the changes in society, and they are the ones who are put in that
difficult position if they do have to work on Sunday, either as an employee or
as a small‑business person, of having less time with their families.
It is interesting because that is one of
the main reasons why many of the people in the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce
opposed the original proposal of the government to have wide‑open Sunday
shopping, and many still remain opposed.
Now of course the focus will shift to the municipalities.
I want to go further, because there was an
interesting comment in what they said, and this relates very specifically to
this bill, Madam Deputy Speaker. The comment
that I got from a number of small‑business people was, they said, you
know, the problem with this is once again that if your competitor opens up you
have to open up. It is as simple as
that. That is not just competitor in
terms of within the community. It is
competitor in terms of the surrounding community. The business people in Thompson have less
difficulty because there is no other trading centre in the area.
I asked the Minister of Highways and
Transportation (Mr. Driedger), if one of his communities was to have wide‑open
Sunday shopping and another community that is within half an hour away was then
looking at the decision, would not that be a factor? Is there not going to be that pressure on
business people in the other community who are going to have people from their
own community drive the half hour, potentially, for services in the other
community? The bottom line is, I think
the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Driedger) knows that is going
to be the case, and to talk about there being a voluntary process under this
bill, it may be voluntary, it may not be voluntary. It depends on which
situation you are in.
I know a lot of business people feel they
do not really have much choice. I know
even in the case of
It goes beyond that too because I think‑‑and
this gets to the real bottom line again of the impact this bill is going to
have. We know the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce has strongly supported wide‑open
Sunday shopping. We know that the
Manitoba Chamber of Commerce has strongly opposed wide‑open Sunday
shopping. What is one of the main
factors between that difference? It is
because, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will say this upfront, I believe that the
Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce knows that if there is Sunday shopping in the
city, it is going to add business in the city from surrounding rural
communities. Let us not forget the
trading area of
What is going to happen to a community
that says no for reasons of belief, for reasons of concern with family time,
for reasons to do with concern over employees?
What happens if they say no? Is
there not going to be an impact on those communities? I ask that question because I know the
answer, Madam Deputy Speaker. There will
be. I know that is the answer that is
coming from many small business people in those small communities.
So essentially what this bill does is that
it takes away the responsibility from the government that has found that it has
a political hot potato, but it does not detract from the underlying dilemma
that we are faced in this province if we look at a change in the existing
law. We are looking at moving under what
the government is proposing from a compromise that I would suggest has worked
relatively well, has provided some of those services that the minister has said
the people are looking for, but at the same time has not had wide‑open
shopping to the point where there has been the kind of pressure that we have
seen in other jurisdictions.
I would point out, by the way, that it is
interesting even the minister himself noted, but in passing, in his opening
comments that many other provinces have some sort of a compromise on Sunday
shopping. I recognize the Americans have
wide‑open Sunday shopping, but they have a different tradition from us.
They do not have medicare. They do not
have many of the labour laws that we have, employment standards. Does that mean that we are going to follow
their lead on those other areas? No,
Madam Deputy Speaker, we make our own laws in this country, and provinces have
done that. We have done it in liquor
legislation. We have traditionally had
more restrictive liquor laws in this province than many American jurisdictions
because we come from a different tradition.
I know the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Driedger) knows
that because many of the communities in his area have a very different attitude
and different outlook on liquor legislation.
It is our differing tradition. That is an important point. Other provinces
have compromises, and in this case what the government is doing is throwing out
what I think has worked relatively well and is going to be bringing in a system
that, to my mind, will, through the backdoor, essentially and eventually bring
in pretty well the same sort of impact that the original bill would bring in in
terms of wide‑open Sunday shopping.
I think most businesses will be forced to remain open on a Sunday.
You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are
talking about a pretty significant policy shift here, and I think this is what
is going to happen. I think this is a
political tactic to avoid doing it directly but to do it through the back door,
but I ask this question because‑‑to the member for Osborne (Mr.
Alcock) I ask this question, who asked for the change? How much public pressure was there for
changing the Sunday shopping laws?
Madam Deputy Speaker, I raised this in the
original debate and I will raise it again.
I know there was pressure from the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. I know there has been pressure from, for
example, SuperValu that could not remain open, while some of the smaller
Safeways could because of the restriction of four people.
You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not
think I have ever had one constituent of mine ever lobby me for a change in the
existing law. When I say the existing
law, I mean the compromise. I have had
many comments since this debate has begun and, as I said, on both sides. I have had people phone my office. I have talked to people in my own
community. I have taken the time to go
and talk to people as well, and there is a debate that is continuing now, but
no one would have put Sunday shopping anywhere on a list of 100 issues that
they felt this government should deal with. [interjection] Oh, yes, says the
Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey).
How many phone calls did he get on this issue prior to the government bringing
in the bill? [interjection] Private information, he says.
Well, it is interesting, Madam Deputy
Speaker, because in the original debate, the Minister of Northern Affairs, I
said, how many calls have you had on this issue, and he said, zero, so it has
gone from zero to private information.
The bottom line is, it was not what should have been on the public
agenda as a major issue.
Madam Deputy Speaker, if it was going to
be on the public agenda, I would have suggest here is how we could have
proceeded with it, because there is a point to be made and I will make this
argument, not just in terms of this issue but on other issues. There are a
number of bills that I think cross party lines in terms of public debate, and
have traditionally. Sunday shopping is
one of them. You have some strange
alliances on this, and I recognize it up‑front. You have small business in rural communities
and trade unions and you have many religious groups on the one side. You have some small businesses, yes, and some
of the larger businesses working on the other side, the urban/rural, the
differing aspects of regions. So you
have some interesting dynamics.
The first thing I said to do with the
liquor legislation, let us talk about it in the context of parliamentary
reform. Why not, in this particular
case, not even have a bill brought in which forces the issue and pushes the
debate through and rams through this type of action? Would it not have been possible to get an all‑party
committee together? I recognize it is a
relatively nonpartisan issue. There are
differing degrees. It should be made
clear in that sense. Most of the members
of our caucus supported the previous law.
I know the Liberal caucus was split and I suspect there were splits
within the Conservative party too, although they follow the whip in terms of
that. I am not saying that as a
political shot. That is the
reality. There obviously were debates
that went on within the caucus.
* (1530)
But why not have had a committee that
could have gone around the province without having the fait accompli of a bill
that was already being implemented, that has not even been passed? Why could we not have asked Manitobans, we
have this law in place since the mid‑1980s, some people have said it
should be changed, and then have public hearings, and then decide whether it
should be put on the public agenda. In
other words, before you put something on the agenda, establish whether there is
a need for it even to be on the public agenda to even be discussed as an issue
in 1993, given all the other issues we have to deal with.
I suggest, Madam Deputy Speaker, we can do
the same with liquor legislation. We
have not had an overall review of our liquor laws for a considerable period of
time. There are always pressures on the
one side and on the other side in terms of liberalization, in terms of
restriction, and there has been a history in Manitoba going back a number of
years where there have been these kind of‑‑you know, 20, 30 years
ago it was not uncommon for this kind of matter to be dealt with through, if not
an all‑party committee, it would be called into a royal commission
federally.
You know, there is I think a real positive
aspect to that. We did it on the Constitution.
We had an all‑party committee that went around the province, and I
am not suggesting it is on the same scale, but I thought that process worked
well. It forced the people that came to
the committee to be constructive and to give their real views, and it gave them
the freedom to do that. In many cases,
if you remember, we went around this province before there was any final
proposal, the
Could we not have done that on Sunday
shopping? Could we not have had public
hearings without a bill on the legislation? Could we not have gone to Thompson
and
You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, because of
these concerns that I have in looking at this bill, I hope that we will have
significant debate on this. I hope that
we will get to the public in terms of public hearings fairly soon, but I will
say that I cannot support what is a hastily patched together political
compromise within the Conservative Party to what they cannot do through the
front door and are going to do through the back door.
I say, let us do the right thing. Let us put together an all‑party
committee. Let us have real consultation
throughout the length and breadth of this province, and let us have proper
public process, not public decision making by opinion polls. Let us involve the people of this province,
and let us have what I think is going to be a good example for us to show some
real reform in terms of our parliamentary system and democracy in Manitoba by
doing the right thing, something which Bill 23 is not.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
The first thing that comes to my mind is
something that the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns) had said inside
this Chamber a while back. He talked
about what he termed as scofflaws, and he said that it is important that
government bring in legitimate laws, how important it is that you review what
is currently on the books, and you take out those laws that are in fact
completely being ignored.
I ask myself why this government brought
in Bill 4, and we talk about the process.
This government introduced to Manitobans that they were going to open on
Sundays for wide‑open Sunday shopping.
In order to legitimize what they were doing, what they did is, they
brought in a bill that in fact tried, if it would have passed, it would have
then made it legitimate, it then would have been legal for the stores to be
open on a Sunday. But, Madam Deputy
Speaker, without that bill passing, what you saw was a law which, using what
the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns) would have said, was being scoffed
at, that it was not being followed, that the government by introducing this
Bill 4 tried to tell businesses throughout the province of Manitoba that it was
okay to ignore the laws that have been set by this Chamber.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I was very
disappointed in that, and, as an opposition party, we try to find out how
legitimate this government was in dealing with the Sunday shopping issue. I recall pushing to get this bill, Bill 4,
into committee prior to the Christmas‑New Year break. There was a significant push; in fact, you
had both opposition parties that were prepared to allow it to pass so that it
would go to committee and at committee the public could have input, and after
the input, the government could do whatever it wanted to do, if it was able to
make a decision.
But, Madam Deputy Speaker, the government
never had any intention of doing that.
They did not have any intention of doing that because they knew it was a
divisive bill amongst their own caucus, and the only purpose of bringing in
that bill was to demonstrate that the government was not going to prosecute or
lay charges on any businesses scattered throughout the province that decided to
open on Sunday. They brought it in, in
order for the people to start shopping on Sundays.
We had attempted to allow this bill, and
in speaking to this bill‑‑and I would say the same thing, Madam
Deputy Speaker. I was asked how I would
be voting on this particular bill. I,
too, would like to see it go to committee, and I will vote accordingly. Nothing has changed in terms of I would like
to see the whole Sunday shopping bill being debated inside the committee room,
find out what the public has to say about it, and I think everything has to be
taken with a grain of salt.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the member for
Thompson (Mr. Ashton) talked about political reform, and I too wanted to see
some political reform or to see the prestige of the Chamber raised to another
level in terms of public perception.
This bill does nothing for that.
In fact, I would argue that both the Conservatives and the New Democrats
did a disservice with respect to Bill 4.
The government, on the one hand, with respect to the law, the New
Democrats with respect to the whole concept of a free vote. We as a caucus made a decision that we would
allow our members to have a free vote on this particular issue. If you take a look, and I cannot recall the
exact vote, I believe it was almost a dead split within our caucus.
What you saw was, there were a couple of
members of the government who were absent on that day, and one has to ask why
it is that some of them‑‑and I cannot make reference to who they
were, but I can say that the individuals who appeared to be absent‑‑who
were absent, not appeared‑‑who were absent really were not strong
advocates.
(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker,
in the Chair)
It is interesting, but I can respect
that. You know at times you might want
to tread very carefully on certain issues, and, for a number of them, they
decided to do that. What did surprise me
on that particular vote was that there were two caucuses or opposition parties
that said that they were going to be in fact having a free vote, and to this
day, I still do not understand how you could get a caucus of 19 all voting the
same on one particular issue.
* (1540)
I question whether or not it was a free
vote within the New Democratic caucus. Because
this is something that one could argue from principle, lifestyle or whatever it
might be, it just seemed rather odd to see that, and it was unfortunate in that
sense.
I wanted to make reference to the survey
because I know the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) made reference to surveys
and polls, and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) says, the survey
says. Well, the survey that I had said
yes to Sunday shopping, but, Mr. Acting Speaker, the member for Thompson is
quite right in his assessment, whether it is a poll, whether it is a survey,
that we should not read too much into them, that we do have a responsibility to
ensure that those surveys do in fact reflect what the will of the constituents
whom you represent actually are wanting.
There are other factors that need to be
taken into account, other factors such as the individuals who are going to have
to work on those Sundays, things of that nature. So when I approach this particular issue, I
can say that the survey that I did in my own constituency does have an impact
in terms of the decision or ultimately the decision that I will make on this
particular bill, but it is going to be weighted, because you do have, as I say,
the responsibility in terms of hearing the pros and the cons from all different
aspects and to ensure the validity of any survey or any poll that is being
done.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I did not want to say
too much on this particular bill, so I am going to end my comments on
that. I look forward to it going into
committee to hear what type of response that we do get. As I say, I will be voting as I did on Bill 4
and again stress some disappointment in the government and the manner in which
they are treating this particular issue, because I do not think it does service
to this Chamber or the laws that we have currently have. Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): I move, seconded by the member for Broadway
(Mr. Santos), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 25‑The
Public Schools Amendment Act (4)
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): I move,
seconded by the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer), that Bill 25,
The Public Schools Amendment Act (4); Loi no 4 modifiant la Loi sur les ecoles
publiques, be now read a second time and be referred to a committee of this
House.
Motion presented.
Mrs. Vodrey: I am pleased to offer a few brief comments on
the substance of Bill 25, which is tabled for second reading.
Bill 25 seeks to place, through an
amendment to The Public Schools Act, a format for the election of school board
in the Frontier School Division No. 48.
That format, which has been in place for many years, is at present
outlined in Manitoba Regulation 118(91), Frontier School Division No. 48,
school board election regulation.
Unlike other school divisions, the
Frontier School Division No. 48 has in place a structure for indirect trustee
elections. The division has divided itself into five areas, and each community
where a school is situated has a Local School Committee or an LSC. These LSCs make recommendations to their area
superintendent on the hiring of principals, teachers and other school staff
personnel, recommendations on proposed capital construction projects, the proposed
annual budget and monthly expenditures, recommendations on short‑ and
long‑term priorities for their local school and recommendations on the
transportation of students.
Membership on the LSCs ranges from four to
11, depending upon the size of the school area.
The members are elected by eligible resident voters in that school
area. This round of elections occurs at
the same time as other school board elections in the province, the fourth
Wednesday in October, with members serving two‑year terms.
Once the Local School Committee members have
been elected, members from each LSC elect, from among themselves, one person to
sit on an Area Advisory Committee or an AAC.
There are five AACs representing each of the five areas in the division. Membership on the AACs range from four to 11
members. The committees are empowered to
make, among other things, recommendations respecting the hiring of the area
superintendent, review and make recommendations on the short‑ and long‑term
capital construction projects, review and make recommendations on the proposed
annual budget and monthly expenditures, review and make recommendations on the
short‑ and long‑term priorities for their area.
It is from each of these five Area
Advisory Committees that the composition of the Frontier School Division No. 48
board of trustees is determined. From
each of the five AACs two members are elected to serve on the board of
trustees. This gives the school board a
membership of 10. The process to become
a trustee in the Frontier School Division No. 48 is, as I have explained, an
indirect one. No trustee is able to sit
on the school board without being a member of the Local School Committee and on
an Area Advisory Committee as well.
The reason behind this amendment is
strictly one of administrative clarification.
Although the substance of Bill 25 is already contained in large part in
Manitoba Regulation 118(91), it is the view of departmental legal counsel that
such a system for indirect elections more properly belongs within the body of
The Public Schools Act.
This amendment is supported by the school
division and represents a format for trustee elections which is currently used
and enjoys the support of the residents of Frontier School Division. Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Thompson): I move, seconded by the member for Interlake
(Mr. Clif Evans), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
Hon. James Downey
(Acting Government House Leader): Mr.
Acting Speaker, would you call Bill 16, please.
DEBATE ON
SECOND
Bill 16‑The
Public Schools Amendment Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): To continue adjourned debate on Bill 16, The
Public Schools Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les ecoles publiques,
standing in the name of the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton).
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Stand?
Is there leave for this matter to remain standing? [agreed]
Ms. Becky Barrett (
Bill 16 limits the rights of school
divisions to raise funding from their tax base.
This is one major concern that we have with this piece of
legislation. One of the main principles
that Manitobans and Canadians have followed in their dealings with the public
school system and the provincial governments is that there are local school
divisions for a number of very legitimate reasons.
You need to have local school divisions
with locally elected school boards because, while the basics of education are
considered a provincial responsibility and the basic standards and other
elements need to be a provincial responsibility, it has always historically
been recognized that local situations, local concerns and local needs need to
be addressed. That is why quite
basically very effectively the balance has been maintained up until the introduction
of this bill between provincial standards and provincial guidelines and an
overall provincial concern for education and responsibility for education with
the corresponding concept and principle of local autonomy and local authority
wherever possible.
It is an interesting principle and one
that is difficult and has been difficult in the past to maintain. There is always a creative tension in these
kinds of situations where you have a provincial jurisdiction attempting to work
with local jurisdictions. As in all
human endeavours, we never achieve perfection but we strive for it, and we
strive to maintain and live up to the principles that we espouse.
* (1550)
It can be argued that a public education
system is one of the if not the single most important thing that a provincial
government does. Along with the basic
social service network and the health system, the public education system is
the bulwark and the framework that provides the people of
It cannot be overemphasized, I do not believe,
Mr. Acting Speaker, the importance of a well‑run, well‑functioning
public education system. In the past
five years that this government has been in power in the
The public school system is, as I stated,
one of the bulwarks and one of the foundations of a good quality of life and
the ability of Manitobans to be assured of quality education so they not only
can be trained for jobs in their futures but so they have an understanding and
a basic education that they are in educated citizenry. It has been stated over hundreds of years
that if you do not have an educated citizenry, your chances of maintaining a
democracy are greatly diminished. The
less you spend and the less care you give to educating the children, the young
adults‑‑and more and more these days, people throughout their lives‑‑to
their education, the less concern that you pay to education, the more trouble
you have as citizenry in maintaining the basic standards of living that we have
so correctly in the past said have made Manitoba a wonderful place to live and
the more difficulty you have with maintaining the democratic structures upon
which we base our lives.
Again, as I stated, the public school
system is a major component in this education process, in this life‑long
learning that we have embarked upon. The
province has continued to cut funding for the public education system, as they
have announced they have cut a further 2 percent in this year's budget. This is in direct conflict with the
acknowledged additional crises that the public school systems in the province
of Manitoba are facing, largely due, I might add, to the inability or
unwillingness of this provincial government and the federal government‑‑carrying
the same political stripe as the provincial government‑‑to provide
adequate resources and to put their money where their mouths are when they talk
about the importance of education in our system.
From one end of the spectrum, the school
divisions are being curtailed by the amount of grants that the provincial
government is giving to them. On the
other hand, the school divisions are being told, through the elements of Bill
16, The Public Schools Amendment Act, that they cannot raise funds from their
local tax base over 2 percent. This is
an piece of legislation. This is maybe
unprecedented in the
We have never stated that the provincial
government does not have the right and the responsibility to make spending
decisions and to make decisions on revenue.
That is one of the basic functions of a government.
We have discussed and debated and argued
with this government about the decisions and the choices they have made, but we
have never said that it was not their obligation to make those choices.
On the other hand, while we say we
disagree completely with the provincial government's decision to cut 2 percent
off the provincial funding to the public schools of Manitoba, we have stated
time and time again in this House, we disagree with that decision, but we never
have disagreed with the government's right and obligation to make that
decision.
This bill, however, goes far beyond that
legitimate provincial government duty.
This bill takes and begins the process of dismantling the local autonomy
that has been a major element in the public schools of this province since
their inception. It begins the potential
process of taking complete control over the public school system by the
provincial government and, we feel, has a potentially devastating effect on the
public school system in the
The reason we feel that way is that, as I
have said before, it is essential for a locally delivered public education
system to have local autonomy. If the
provincial government can, with the simple introduction of a bill, take away
the ability of a school division to levy funds on its citizens to provide the
education services that it and the members of its school division feel are
necessary, then there is nothing to stop the provincial government later on
from saying, we do not like the fact that you are spending your resources,
human and financial, on providing mandatory education services in your school
division, or, we do not like the fact that you are spending some of your
resources on allowing the children in your school division to have access to
special field trips or additional kinds of schooling.
The provincial government can say, you
must deliver the education program that we demand of you, you have no control
over the content of what you teach, what you do with your class size, what you
do with the length of your class day, what you do with any extracurricular or
course and other activities that are less narrowly defined than perhaps the
provincial government would like to see it.
This is the thin edge of the wedge, Mr.
Acting Speaker. By this provincial
government's actions and Bill 16, they are taking away one of the basic rights
that a local school division must have.
The government can say no, no, we are not eliminating local
autonomy. The school divisions still
have the right to spend the money that they have been given and spend the money
that they can ask from their local tax base.
If they want to private fundraise, fine, they can go and do that. We are not saying that they do not have local
autonomy.
* (1600)
It is the same thing that they have done
with Child and Family Services agencies, with child care programs, with, I
suppose, you could even say the health care system.
It is a very deceptive kind of argument
that the provincial government is making in all these cases. It is they are saying that the local school
division retains local autonomy. Mr.
Acting Speaker, the local school division cannot retain local autonomy if the
provincial government ties its hands and says that it cannot raise local school
board taxes beyond a certain point. This
is constriction of local autonomy, not an enhancement of it and certainly not a
maintenance of even what they had before.
Mr. Acting Speaker, one wonders at the
reasoning behind the government's decision to introduce Bill 16. We have not exactly heard what the rationale
is behind the introduction of Bill 16, but what I can say is that we on this
side of the House and, I am sure, many of the local school boards and school
divisions in this province wonder if it is not an attempt on the part of the
provincial government to take away public anger at their decisions regarding
funding for the public school system.
By the government saying that the local
school divisions can only add 2 percent to the locally assessed school levy,
the government is saying that this means that an individual taxpayer will not
be asked to pay more than a very small additional amount of money. Therefore, the school boards cannot say to
the local taxpayers, we have to assess in order to maintain the programming and
the quality of education that you in this particular school division have come
to expect or that we were elected to provide to you. In order to do that, we have to raise your
local school levy higher than the 2 percent, because the provincial government
over its mandate has continually reduced the effective amount that they are
giving to each school division. Perhaps
that is an argument that the government would care to refute, and we would
certainly be interested in their response to that issue.
There is no question, in our minds, that
the provincial government is instituting Bill 16 to protect themselves
politically. There is also no question
in our mind that the ulterior motive behind the introduction of Bill 16 is not
going to succeed. The
An Honourable Member: Some might say it is a lie.
Ms. Barrett: Some might even say it is a lie. Mr. Acting Speaker‑‑
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Order, please.
Point of
Order
Hon. James
Downey (Acting Government House Leader): Mr.
Acting Speaker, I believe that the statement made in the speech from the member
opposite is unparliamentary and should be withdrawn.
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Opposition House Leader): Mr. Acting Speaker,
there is some difficulty in dealing with a point of order where the minister
gets up and basically does not even make a specific reference to a particular
word that was used. I am not sure quite
what the minister is referring to, but I think in terms of the context, the
member is talking about debate over what the reality is and that has been
considered parliamentary.
It is not parliamentary to, for example,
call an individual member a liar or accuse a particular member. We have had many references in this House to
"the big lie." I think the
Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey) in his career may have even used
similar language too, but that would be a little too close to home. If that was what the minister was referring
to, it is not unparliamentary and I think the minister perhaps might have misunderstood,
perhaps not heard the comment. The
member for
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): I thank the honourable member.
Mr. Reg Alcock
(Osborne): Mr. Acting Speaker, I would like an
opportunity to speak on this.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the same point of order?
Mr. Alcock: On the same point of order. I did overhear the remarks that the member
made and have asked for clarification. I
think it is within the bounds of debate in this House. I do not think there was any intention or any
suggestion that it was deliberate or intended.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): I would like to thank all honourable members
for their input. I will take the time to
peruse Hansard and I will return to the House with the ruling.
* * *
Ms. Barrett: Mr. Acting Speaker, I would like to suggest
that the government's rising on a point of order that turned out not to be a
point of order is an example of this government's extreme defensiveness on this
issue among others.
As I was saying, the government has stated
throughout its mandate that it has not raised taxes. Well, the people of
Mr. Acting Speaker, Bill 16 is another in
that long line of inaccuracies and hidden agendas that this government has
embarked upon. It is another one in a
long line of these actions that the people of
The
* (1610)
It is perfectly logical, Mr. Acting
Speaker, when you realize, as we do, having listened to the government in
Question Period, in debate on bills, in public hearings and in Estimates, that
the Progressive Conservative government in Manitoba does not really believe in
governing. They really believe, as the
First Minister (Mr. Filmon) has said, that in order for economic development to
occur, they must step aside. They
really, truly believe that if individuals really want to be educated, they will
go and find that education themselves.
This government really does not believe
that it has the responsibility to provide services to the people of
We on this side of the House are very
concerned that before the people of Manitoba have an opportunity to speak out
on the way this government has not governed, they will have dismantled so many
of the basic fundamental programs and services that the people in Manitoba have
come to expect as their right that there will be nothing left to govern by the
time this government leaves office.
Bill 16 carries along that tradition. You may think that I am creating a
contradiction here, because I have said earlier in my remarks that Bill 16 actually
allows the provincial government to meddle in the affairs of local school
divisions, which is not, one would say, on the surface of it a diminution of
provincial authority, but rather an extension of it. However, it is not really a contradiction,
because what the government wants to do in the area of Bill 16 is to disguise
their inability to govern, their unwillingness to govern, their unwillingness
to take the responsibility for their own decisions. They make the decisions, the spending
decisions, the program‑cut decisions, and then they say yes, but it is up
to the agencies, it is up to the people of
I would like to share with the House
another example that I think is a blatant example, again, in the education
system about this government's unwillingness to participate in a pro‑active,
positive way with the people of Manitoba in the educating of their citizenry,
and that is in the decision of the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer)
to eliminate all funding for student social allowances.
The Minister of Family Services, to his
credit, did come out and speak to the rally that was held in front of the steps
of the Legislature, unlike any of the members of his government who chose not
to participate in the demonstration by over 4,000 people against the
government's entire budget. I digress
slightly, Mr. Acting Speaker.
But, on the occasion of the minister's comments
to those who were speaking in front of the Legislative steps on the cuts to the
student social allowances program, when asked by some of the people who will be
affected by this change why the minister did that or what the minister would
do, would suggest that they do in their situations, the minister said, let them
do what I did. I lived at home with my
family until I graduated from university, and I worked part time.
Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, the reality of
life in Conservative Manitoba, in Conservative Canada federally in 1993, is
that many young adults do not have the opportunity or the ability to do either
one of those things. They cannot, for a
number of reasons‑‑
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Order, please. Could I ask the honourable members who want
to carry on a conversation to do it out in the hall or in the loge so that I
can hear whether or not the member for
Ms. Barrett: Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker, and I would
suggest that some members of the government upper benches might do well to
listen to my remarks, because I always listen attentively and quietly to their
remarks. If you believe that, I have a
bridge to sell you; however, back to the serious discussion at hand. I do hope the Minister of Family Services
continues to listen to my comments on this issue.
The comments made by the Minister of
Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) to those young people whose lives have been
potentially irreparably damaged by his actions are exactly the kind of comments
and remarks that have been made in the context of the discussion around Bill
16. The idea that school divisions in
the
Perhaps the Minister of Education (Mrs.
Vodrey) and the ministers on the government benches would do well to actually
visit some of the areas in this province and see and talk to real people about
the impacts their decisions and their cutbacks are having on the schools in the
(Mr. Jack Reimer, Acting Speaker, in the
Chair)
As I stated earlier, it is one thing for
the government to cut its funding by 2 percent.
That is its responsibility, and it will answer to the bar of public
opinion for that decision and others like it.
It is quite another thing for the
This is absolutely unheard of. These individuals are elected by their
constituents, by the members who reside within those local school
divisions. They have the right and the responsibility
and the obligations, just as the provincial government does, to make decisions
within their sphere of authority.
* (1620)
Now, what this bill does is it
circumscribes to an unconscionable degree the ability of those locally elected
school boards to make those decisions.
In effect it says to locally elected school boards, we are going to tell
you what you can do. I find this unbelievably ironic, Mr. Acting Speaker, given
that it is a government that always talks about the fact that we on this side
of the House espouse big‑brother government, that we say government
should be intrusive in all parts of a person's life, that we are the party that
eliminates freedom of choice.
Excuse me, but through Bill 16 this
government is taking one of the major basic tenets of our public education
system, developed in
The ability of this government, through
Bill 16, to tell school divisions they cannot tax past a certain rate is
unbelievable and is a massive intrusion into the long‑held rights of
local school boards to make those decisions.
The local school boards were elected to provide services and to make
decisions on funding and service provision in their local school divisions.
The individuals and the voters of each
local school division who elect them should have the right to demand
accountability on the part of their locally elected school board members to
make the decisions in their best interests of the local school divisions and
the needs in those local school divisions.
This bill will take away one of those main
rights that locally elected school boards have.
This is, as I have stated earlier, potentially only the first intrusion
into what should be local autonomy. It
comes on the heels of other changes to education that this government has
implemented in this last budget. It is
not only the local autonomy issue which is of major importance, but this bill
eliminates local school divisions from deciding that the needs of their students
demand a major or a larger than 2 percent increase in the locally levied school
tax largely due to the enormous cuts that have been made by this provincial
government in education.
When we have cutbacks to the education
system that Bill 16 is going to put into place, if we take into account that
funding for literacy is down $24,000, if we take into account the student
social assistance that was totally eliminated, if we take into account the fact
that the access programs have been cut by $1.2 million, if we take into account
the cuts in rural Manitoba to the diagnostic and assessment services that this
minister has put into place, a $2.4‑million or 37 percent cut, if we take
into account the cuts that have taken place, while this is not specifically K‑12,
the Red River Community College programs that dealt with all of women's
concerns, if we take into account the cuts to university funding, if we take
into account all of these cuts that just in this budget, the ramifications and
the implications of Bill 16 are magnified.
The reason they are magnified is, this
bill does not allow an individual school division to make a decision that says,
the needs of our children are such that we are willing as a community to put
more of our local resources into schools to make up for some of these cuts that
the provincial government has undertaken.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in
the Chair)
Bill 16 does not allow local school
divisions to have that right so that those rural school divisions that would
like to be able to hire those people who provide the diagnostic and assessment
services that the government has cut back cannot do that, Madam Deputy Speaker,
unless they make a decision imposed on them from outside to cut somewhere else.
The impact of the 2 percent cut to the
general resources of the provincial money into the public school system coupled
with the ability of school boards to only raise their local taxes by 2 percent
means in effect that the amount of money for virtually every school division in
this province is going to be exactly what it was last year. This, coupled with the other cuts that the
provincial government has made, means that schools will not be able to provide
the level of service to their communities that they were last year even though
if this bill had not been in place they could have made the decision themselves
as to whether they wanted to ask their communities to provide resources based
on their local ability to pay and the needs of their students.
This bill is an unconscionable intrusion
into the rights and the responsibilities of local school boards. As I said earlier, it is potentially the
opening wedge into what could be a massive takeover of local school boards'
ability to make decisions that have the best interests of their children at
heart. Again, as I have stated, Madam
Deputy Speaker, this is from a government that says it does not tax. This is from a government that says it does
not tax. This is from a government that
not only taxes individuals and families and particularly low‑income
people, this is a government that cuts the heart out of many of the programs
that provided assistance for those same most vulnerable people in our society
to get out of the cycle of poverty or the cycle of violence.
This bill is an abomination, Madam Deputy
Speaker, and should, under no circumstances, pass through the Legislature of
this province. The school divisions of
this province and, most particularly, the children of the province of Manitoba,
the students of the province of Manitoba, deserve far better from the government
that they are going to get in Bill 16, and we urge the government to rethink
its incredible insensitivity and blindness and revoke this piece of legislation
before it is too late. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
People who decide to give their time to
serve on school boards go through the elective process. People have a right to choose whom they want
to sit on their school boards, and they have a responsibility to deliver the
best possible education for the children of this province and other provinces
as well. They have school boards that do
the same thing. But what this government
is doing is taking away the autonomy of school boards.
It is amazing that first the government can
offload close to $50 million worth of taxes onto school boards, extra costs
they are going to have to pick up and then, Madam Deputy Speaker, restrict
their ability to raise these funds.
As I say, school board members, school
trustees have a sincere interest in the education of children, as should
members of this government. I mean, that
is one of the most important things we can do for our children, is offer them
the opportunity to get an education to whatever ability they have. They should have opportunity put to them,
that they would have the opportunity, whether it is to fit into the workforce‑‑and
most people want to fit into the workforce.
They must have that opportunity, and school boards must have the ability
to deliver those choices for them, but by restricting that ability and by
restricting their ability to raise funds, we are seeing changes and inequities
in the education system.
I have three school divisions in my
constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have spoken to many school trustees
who very much resent what this government is doing with this legislation. They also very much resent many of the other
things that his government is doing when it comes to education.
* (1630)
We see less and less opportunity for them
to be able to deliver, and we see less of a commitment on the part of this
government, particularly when it comes to distance education. That is a very
important feature, important service that we should be offering to northern and
rural children at all levels.
As the population becomes more sparse in
rural communities, it becomes more difficult to have enough teachers to offer
all programs. We have to look at new and
innovative ideas on how we can bring the courses, the opportunities to all
children.
The more you restrict funding and the more
you restrict the school trustees, the school boards' ability to raise funds,
the more you restrict the opportunity for children to get an education. That is what we are seeing by this government. Not only are we seeing the restriction of the
ability to deliver courses, but we are having a lot of other services that are
causing frustration to school trustees, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The removal of clinicians and offloading
those onto school boards has caused some hardship. Although the minister says that there are
funds, that school boards can hire these people and the funds will go along
with them, as I look at a letter that I received from representatives of school
boards, in fact, all the funds are not going.
It says, under the former grant formula,
those divisions that elected to own their own clinicians received a clinician
grant, plus 10 percent administration grant per clinician, as recognition of
the extra costs necessary to deliver this service.
This is not being passed on with the new
formula. That is a matter of concern, and it is misleading to the public to
have it say that‑‑so it is a concern when we have the services
reduced, and it is a concern that we are having many other services reduced by
this government.
An important program we had that was
delivered to the school was the dental program delivered through the school but
made children healthier. Of course, if
you have healthier children, you have the better ability to learn. We now have that service taken away, and we
see that this government is moving away from providing equal opportunity to all
children.
I think it is the inability of the school
boards to be able to deliver education in a fashion that they see meets their
needs, and each division is different; that is a real concern here. I guess one of the questions is, what will
happen to a division that chooses to offer extra courses, chooses that they are
more interested in providing quality education for their children, that that is
the most important thing they can do?
What if they decide that they are going to
raise the levy anyway? They are going to
collect the extra taxes, and they are going to provide fair education. What is the government going to do? Are they going to fire the school board because
the school board cares more about the children and the education of the
children than this government does? That
would be a very interesting scenario on how they are going to handle that.
I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are
going to see some of those instances where we will see divisions say, no, what
we want is to provide the best basic education that we can and we are going to
fund it no matter what happens. What is
this government going to do? Are they
going to follow what we saw happening in
Madam Deputy Speaker, education, as I
said, is a very important responsibility that we have, and I wonder where this
government's priorities are. They can
find money to pay all kinds of consultants.
They can find money to pay people who are going to cut back on our
health care system. They can pay, as I
said, money for a consultant, money that is going to go off to the
This government's most important agenda I
believe is to cut back on services and nothing to do with job creation and
nothing to educate our children other than to put money into the private sector
for their own agenda on job creation.
Madam Deputy Speaker, they are not
prepared to invest in the public school system, and it is the public school
system that has to be supported because that is the one that everybody has an
access to and that is the one that we should be supporting. To decrease funding to the public school
sector and increase it to the private school sector is unfair because there are
only a very limited number of children who can afford in many cases the private
school.
Madam Deputy Speaker, to move funds from
the public school sector and support to a greater extent the private sector is
unfair. There are many areas of the
province that do not have private schools.
There are many people who cannot afford to go to private schools.
[interjection] The member across the way says, they do not have to. That is right, they do not have to go to the
private school system. They go to the
public school system, but we should offer them every opportunity in the public
school system, and we are not doing that now.
By reducing the funding we are restricting the number of courses that
are available, and there is not the opportunity for many children in the
province. [interjection] Nobody is saying to close 74 schools.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the member across
the way seems to be saying that we should close down all private schools. Well, I want to set the record clear. I never did say close all private
schools. What I did say is that the
public school sector is the one that everyone has access to and that is where
the majority of our funds should go, because the majority of people cannot
afford the private schools, and the majority of people do not have access. There are many areas.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we have to look at
the remote areas of the province, to the rural areas of the province and see
that all people have‑‑I think that no matter what we do, what we
are very concerned with here is the autonomy of local school boards. Local
school boards have been elected and have the interest of the students, the
children of their communities. They know
the needs of their area, and they should be able to make decisions on what is
happening in their division. It is
unfair to restrict the money that they have, to cut back on the money and then
tell school divisions, no, you cannot raise your own money. That is where the unfairness in this bill is.
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I attended the school trustees'
convention, and I talked to many trustees there who did not believe that what
was happening here was right. They did
not think that there should be restrictions, that they should be left to use
their own best judgment. I have to say
that I trust school trustees. If you
look back at the records, at the work the school trustees are doing‑‑they
live within the community. They
understand what the tax base is there, and not very often have they increased
the taxes to an unrealistic level, but if there is a need to raise the taxes,
they should have that ability to raise those taxes. They should not be
restricted by government.
If government is going to restrict their
ability, well, then maybe they should be filling in the shortfall. There are many shortfalls that have to be
filled in because of this offloading. I look again at rural communities, and
the other division that is in my constituency is the Duck Mountain Division, a
low economic base, an area that is becoming more and more sparsely populated,
partly because of the economics and partly because of the lack of support this
government shows to rural communities.
If this government would show some
leadership and fulfill some of its commitments to economic development in rural
Manitoba and reinvest some of the money in rural Manitoba that they have said
they would do, then there would be people out there to pay taxes and there
would be growth in rural Manitoba, but we have had nothing from this
government. All we have had is lip
service for economic development in rural
Madam Deputy Speaker, lots of the reasons
for a low tax base throughout my constituency are due to lack of action on the
part of this government. In the
I can think of many of them. I think about the commitment‑‑as
I say, Repap is a major one. They made
commitments to jobs; they were going to reinvest. They said all monies raised from video
lottery terminals would be reinvested in rural
Madam Deputy Speaker, the logging industry
is suffering. The agricultural industry
is suffering. We have had no jobs. I look also at the fishing industry. We have raised the issue many, many times
with the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns) and said that there are
serious problems in the fishing industry, but we have had no commitment from this
Minister of Natural Resources.
What we do have is a government that is
offloading the costs in revenue onto seniors.
My constituency, the constituency of
Now, the minimum tax of $250. For some people, it may not sound like a lot
of money. For the majority of people in
my constituency, their taxes were very low, and, in some cases, they were
paying maybe $50, $100 which would be high taxes, but they had very low
services, many cutbacks from this government.
You have poorer roads; you have no sewer and water; you have no garbage
pickup. Many times you do not have your
roads plowed. You live with those things, Madam Deputy Speaker. You do not expect all those services, but
now, along with having no services and even additional cutbacks in services by
this government, you are going to have a minimum tax of $250. That is a tremendous increase in tax, and
this government says that this is fair.
It is a fair distribution of the taxes.
Everybody has to carry their fair share.
Well, it is not a fair share, and this is
a tremendous increase in property tax for people of rural
With the declining rural economy, we are
going to see fewer people living in rural
Well, Sunday shopping sure is not going to
help the rural communities, let me tell you, and he should go out and listen to
the people of rural Manitoba because they are very concerned about what this is
going to do. They are going to drain the
money out of rural
What we have here is a government that is
draining money out of rural
They have deliberately misled rural
Manitobans on the whole video lottery terminal issue. They said that they would put all the money
back in. They said there would be
economic development. Well, yes, we have
some economic development in the hotel industry. The hoteliers are happy with the video
lottery terminals, but that is doing nothing to help economic growth in rural
Madam Deputy Speaker, again, as I look at
this bill, clearly this government has no plans for reform. They talk about educational reform, but what
we have seen is a deterioration in the quality of education.
There are many very innovative and
progressive school divisions out there.
One of the most progressive, I believe, is the Swan Valley School
Division. These people have some
excellent ideas on how we should help people get an education.
* (1650)
One of them, I wish I had the program with
me here, they have put in a teen parent program, where the young mothers can
bring their children with them to school.
They have a daycare program set up right in the school and they can
continue their classes but they also have the responsibility of looking after
their children between classes. It is an
excellent program but the school division has shown the leadership. They have said, yes, we care about our children;
we care about our young women. They have
put money into this.
If this government continues to restrict
school boards on their ability to raise funds, is it going to mean that school
divisions will not be able to put programs into place like that? Are we saying
that, no, this government is going to put restrictions on school boards, they
can only raise so much money, and they cannot put in new and innovative
programs?
The program, just as I have outlined, we
have in the Swan River School Division, because this school division cares
about young people, they want young people to get an education even if they
have the responsibility of raising a family at the same time. They care, but this government is restricting
the ability of school boards to carry on those things.
I wonder what this government will do if
other divisions or if the Swan River School Division decides that they want to
do other more innovative programs that are going to cost money and they decide
that these programs are worth implementing even if they have to raise the
special levy. Is the government going to
say, no, you cannot do this, no, we are going to fire you and we are going to
take over?
That is not fair, but then this government
does not know very much about fairness.
They do not know about whether it is fair to have some services‑‑to
cutback on services to those people who cannot afford them. They do not care about cutting back on
services to communities that do not have any access to services. They do not
care.
Another example of where they do not care,
Madam Deputy Speaker, is they do not care about the fishing communities. They have cut off auditing services in the
fishing communities. The fishermen's co‑op,
who are some of the poorest people in this province, have had their services
cut off by this province because they do not care. They do not care about people.
Madam Deputy Speaker, this government does
not care or listen to many people.
Farmers, for example, who want to earn a fair income and think they have
a fair service right now, excellent service through the Canadian Wheat Board
which allows them to get a fair return for their product through a pooling
system, are feeling that they are having this service taken away from them, but
this government will not stand up for them because they do not.
To go across the board and just say we are
going to restrict the school boards' ability to raise taxes to 2 percent is not
taking into consideration the great variation that we have from division to
division to division. It is not taking
into consideration the fact that last year there were divisions that had cut
back on their spending and this year are going to be punished for it.
When you look at educating our children
and school divisions, you have to take into consideration the great variance
there is across the province. Some
divisions have a tremendous cost in transportation, in moving children because
of just the geographic location. That
has to be taken into consideration. Some
divisions have such a sparse population, Madam Deputy Speaker, that they have
to look at transporting children from one school to the other.
This happens in Duck Mountain Division
every Wednesday, that students go on the bus.
They go from
Some divisions want to give other
opportunities to their children. One of
the opportunities that I think this government should be looking at very
seriously, and I would hope that they will continue on in this, is the first‑year
Distance Education Program. The program
has been started. It has been in place
for three years now.
The government asked other divisions to
put proposals in on this. They asked the
Swan Valley School Division to put a proposal in. They asked the
As I understand it, there have been people
in the department who co‑ordinate distance education who are no longer
there. So does that mean that this
government has given up on distance education?
For example, in our division, the school
board is very committed to this proposal.
They have worked very hard. They
have been prepared to put in the extra dollars that are needed. Yes, I would bet
that they are even willing to raise some extra taxes if they have to, because
they believe in the children, and they believe that they should have the
opportunity to have an education in their home community. Just as people in
In light of the fact that educational
supports have been cut back so much by this government‑‑programs
such as ACCESS, student support programs‑‑it is going to be much
more difficult for those people to get an education. So it is very important that we have the
opportunity to provide those courses in the community.
If the school division chooses, believes
in its young people, believes that those opportunities should be there, they
should have the ability to raise those taxes.
That is what has to happen, Madam Deputy Speaker. By restricting them as we have done in this
bill, I believe that we are restricting the opportunity, we are restricting,
interfering with the local decision making, and that is unfair.
People have elected these school trustees
to make decisions for them. If they are
not happy with the decisions that the school trustees are making with them,
they will change the board in three years' time, but while they are in office,
the school board should have the ability to make the decisions on behalf of the
people who live in their area.
Government also has a responsibility, and
that is to provide the funds for education to all residents of
People have a responsibility to an
education, too. The students have to
fulfill their part; parents have to fulfill their part in the education
system. But the government has the responsibility
to have the services there so that people can access the programs, have the
ability to get an education when they are ready to, Madam Deputy Speaker, and
this bill is infringing‑‑
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House,
the honourable member for
The hour being 5 p.m., it is time for
private members' hour.
House
Business
Hon. Darren Praznik
(Acting Government House Leader): Madam
Deputy Speaker, I understand, in conversations with the opposition House leader
(Mr. Ashton), there may be a willingness on the part of the House to call it
six o'clock.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is it the will of the House to call it six
o'clock? [agreed]
The hour being 6 p.m., this House is
adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday).