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NATURAL RESOURCES

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This morning, this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 255 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Natural Resources.

When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 2. Regional Operations (g) Fire Program (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits on page 116 of the main Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Maybe what I should do is let the minister have an opportunity to update on the fire situation, if there was anything overnight that we all should know about.

Hon. Albert Driedger (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chairman, yes, I will give a copy to the member, and maybe we can just go over that a little bit for the record's sake. We have cloudy and cooler weather which will prevail in the north and south for the next two or three days. Some rain is expected and some lightning is also expected in southern areas. This weather will help firefighters, but, unfortunately, the rainfall amounts will not be enough to have any effect on the drought in the North.

Current status: We have 123 fires plus the 20 new starts. That is 143. Fifty-six are under control, 28 are out of control and 39 have limited or no action. Manpower: We have 600 normal firefighters. We have 150 on our attack teams. We have 31 helicopters, eight bombers and 18 other aircraft. As mentioned, there are 20 new fires, including 10 in the Eastern Region. The Eastern Region was also subjected to more lightning overnight, and there was some rainfall in the area.

Initial attacks are continuing with some success throughout the province. We have problem fires on the second and third page, and maybe I should just cover it. The Tyrrell fire in Saskatchewan, the suppression program continues and this fire looks good; Fay Lake, continuing progress and success; Goldsand and Lynn Lake, loose ends being tied up in this fire; South Indian Lake, a burnout was carried out yesterday and had some success. Work is continuing on the line. Gods Narrows, this fire made a run yesterday, but it did not affect the community. Work progressed well on the fire lines threatening the community. Devils Lake--that is the one on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg--recent rainfall helped the suppression effort, and excellent progress is being made. Wabowden, action nearly completed on this fire. Moving over to Leaf Rapids, good progress is being made on this fire on all sides. The recent rainfall plus the hard work of fire crews and local volunteers has been successful.

Some new starts are expected in the north and east areas again today. Evacuation orders continue on Leaf Rapids, South Indian Lake, Gods Narrows and Granville Lake. I might just say that at ten o'clock, right now, the teams are meeting again to decide as to whether the evacuation continues, and, as is done everyday, then they make the decision as to whether any of the people are allowed back or not, based on the circumstances.

I want to take this opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to just talk about the tremendous work done by our staff yesterday. We had two virtual heroes who literally took their life in their hands to save this community of Leaf Rapids because they, with a helicopter, and Brian Wotton being one of the people who is trained in backfire, and we have four of those, comes from the town of Steinbach, in my constituency and is up there, and they literally sat on the fire and managed to twice lead it, so to speak, around the town. Otherwise the town of Leaf Rapids would have probably been burned out. Sometime, when we have more time, I would like to go into the details of exactly how they do this.

It was quite an accomplishment, and we feel very proud of the efforts that the crew made. Basically, I guess, it gives an indication of the mettle of the people we have out there, who virtually put their life at risk. They virtually sat on the fire when they backfired and blew it over to the side. It is this kind of thing that we want to recognize and make these fellows feel good because they are doing a heck of a job.

So, Mr. Chairman, that sort of covers the update. As long as the situation continues to be severe, I will be having a daily update. Normally, we would just do an update once a week. Now with the situation the way it is, we have an update every day, and I will make that available to members in the Legislature including the critic.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: I thank the honourable minister for that information.

Mr. Struthers: Thanks for that update. I, too, want to recognize the heroic efforts of the two fellows in the helicopters who created the backfire that did save the town of Leaf Rapids. I think their efforts should go recognized, and I think proper recognition of their efforts is, indeed, in order. I would like to join with the minister in congratulating those fellows.

I also want to make it clear that from our side of the House, as well, we recognize the efforts of all the volunteers in tough situations, the people in the department and volunteers and the people who are hired to do the work fighting the fires. So congratulations to them all in that situation last night.

I am interested in the last line of the report before we move on, the evacuation orders that are in place right now. I would like to know where the people from some of these communities are. I understand that Leaf Rapids, some of the people from there are in Thompson and some in Lynn Lake.

My concern is the same concern as I had yesterday about plans for further evacuation, should situations in Lynn Lake turn for the worse. I want to be assured that the minister and his department have a plan to move people out of Lynn Lake who have already moved there from Leaf Rapids, and would he consider Via Rail or air as the ways to get out of Lynn Lake, should they need to move quickly?

Mr. Driedger: First of all, let me clarify the process to the member to some degree. The evacuation portion of it is not related to Natural Resources. This is done under Government Services in conjunction with EMO, the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board plus other departments that are represented. Family Services is represented. The Health department is represented. There is a team basically that makes the decision in terms of the evacuation. Evacuation then basically is undertaken by Government Services, as I did in '89, being the Minister of Government Services, of course safety being the No. 1 concern.

The decision is made in advance as a rule, so that you do not take a chance on possibly doing the evacuation when you have smoke problems, fire problems, that will deter from that. The odd time, things still happen, like the evacuation that took place out of Leaf Rapids. When the convoy left, we had the RCMP at the head of it and the RCMP at the back, and when the fire turned and raced across Highway 391, they split the convoy. Half of them went on to Thompson, and the other half went to Lynn Lake, I believe.

There was some confusion at that time. The ministers responsible, the Minister of Northern and Native Affairs (Mr. Praznik), the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pallister) and myself, were on the phone until after eleven o'clock just making sure that things have been done properly, because what happens in a case like that is there is some confusion as to which people are where, but this is always done in conjunction with, first of all, the RCMP playing a very, very major role in terms of how these things get done, plus our people from the various departments that are involved with that.

So in the event that there would be a need for further evacuation, whether it is Lynn Lake or whether it is one of our other isolated communities, in the Lynn Lake case, we have options maybe with road and air. The rail option is maybe not necessarily a very exciting one, but in some of the communities, we basically have just the air option.

Then decisions have to be made in advance so that based on wind conditions and smoke conditions, they move before the conditions get so severe that the planes cannot land, because then we are really strapped, especially with certain people. We have people who probably are more flexible and able to move, let us say, if it would have to be, to move into a lake by boat or whatever the case may be, to save lives, but we have some people where that would not be very good judgment, I suppose.

So these are always decisions that have to be made well in advance. That is why our team meets, as I said, the total team meets at ten o'clock this morning, about the time we started here. They are meeting and then making decisions as to whether the situation warrants people to be able to go back to certain communities and whether there is a red alert, so to speak, of other communities, depending on the weather, the wind conditions and the moisture.

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That is sort of, in a nutshell, how the process works, but again, it is the various departments that are working together. It is Government Services basically that has to then provide the airlift, the airplanes to do the evacuation. My department, Natural Resources, does mostly the firefighting; that is it. The decision as to whether it warrants evacuation or not, we play a role, but not to the extent that other departments do.

Mr. Struthers: My understanding as well is that people who were evacuated from Granville Lake were taken to Wabowden. One of my concerns when I became aware of that is that it could be the same risk in Wabowden. I see in your report, it says that the action is nearly completed on this fire. My concern for their safety has subsided then.

Mr. Driedger: I appreciate the member's concern, but I have to reiterate that these decisions are made very, very conscientiously in terms that we would not go to the expense of an evacuation of a community into another community that could be possibly jeopardized as well. That is why in most cases Thompson has always been our hub, so to speak, because they have handled so many of these circumstances over the many years. They are very qualified. They almost automatically are on red alert and ready to take evacuees during the course of the summer. In many cases, that is why we fly them all the way down to Portage, as we did in this case. Brandon and Portage are usually some of the first ones where they are taken, where we bring people into.

In other cases as to where the fire situation is, depending what the pressures are, we had them in The Pas in the past. I remember we had the whole The Pas arena and community halls packed in 1989, but then the problem at that time was in the northeast. Now we feel the whole North is so volatile that they look at it and say, well, it is no sense in moving them or evacuating them to a place where we might have to do it again. There is enough disruption to people's lives by what we are doing now in many cases. It is not a pleasant experience.

Mr. Struthers: I agree. That was my concern when I heard that they were going to Wabowden, but it seems that Wabowden is under control now and I do not have a concern there.

I do want to say, too, that the people who were evacuated to Portage, I believe from Gods Narrows, the checking out that we did suggested that everything went very well and the people were generally quite pleased with the evacuation and that they are getting along fine at Portage la Prairie.

Mr. Driedger: I just want to say to the member that with the three communities that have been evacuated, it is not as dramatic as it was in 1989, where we had various experiences and, I think, learned from that. One of things that is always a matter of concern is not only the people that are coming from the community that is being evacuated, but others that are, say, in Winnipeg that belong to the reserves who do not know where people have gone and then you have confusion.

So the registry in finding out exactly where people are located is very important because people who have come into the city for whatever reason, and the community is evacuated and they do not know where the balance of their family or relatives or everybody is. It does not sound like a big deal, but it is a pretty big deal when the people get involved with that and start phoning and everybody has a bit of a panic situation until everybody knows where they are.

So it is very important that all the departments work together to make sure that there is as little stress as possible that has to be developed for these people.

Mr. Struthers: You speak of the fire of 1989. At that time, it is my understanding that there was an aboriginal co-ordinator that worked to help co-ordinate the firefighting efforts or the evacuation efforts. Is there such a position today?

Mr. Driedger: I think that, with the fires in 1989, what sort of evolved out of that, where we had a native co-ordinator together with the federal government and EMO. That has been continued. The same process is being used. Unfortunately, when you have a fire situation like you did in 1989, I guess if there was a silver lining somewhere is that we learn from that and realized some of the problems as they escalated. That was just an unbelievable situation at that time.

Now we are on the verge--we are hoping that the weather conditions are taking hold to some degree and maybe things will improve, so we do not continue on. If we had had another week of the weather of 35-37-38 degree temperatures, with the dry conditions up North, we would have probably been in the same situation. So it is not a very pleasant time for people up North, and I have to tell you that they are genuinely scared in many cases.

Mr. Struthers: What would be the job description for the aboriginal co-ordinator? What would the task entail?

Mr. Driedger: I do not know whether I can give the proper, adequate details the way the member is looking because, as I say, this comes under Government Services that does the co-ordination of that, and that department is on, I think, after this in terms of Estimates.

The Premier (Mr. Filmon) and the Minister of Native and Northern Affairs (Mr. Praznik) and the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pallister), I believe, are in the air right now going and checking, you know, just to try and help give a little comfort level to the people in Portage, and then they were going to fly up through Thompson and get a first-hand view of it. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I guess, whichever way you want to look at it, some of the Estimates can go along.

But it is my intention that later on in the season, once the session is closed down, we will again, like we have done last year, go and visit all our various fire depots, so to speak, and make contact with the various organizations that we have that basically fight the fires. It always gives them a little comfort level when they are out there in the wilderness and facing fires if you are pretty lonely, and so if we give them a little bit of a recognition factor and comfort level, I think it is encouraging for them.

Mr. Struthers: Maybe what I will need to do then is sit in on the Government Services Estimates for a more detailed description.

I am very interested in knowing about some policy in terms of training for local firefighters. What is Natural Resources' process in training firefighters locally?

Mr. Driedger: It would depend on the level of training or what kind of firefighting because we have, for example, the airplane pilots. We have the helicopter pilots who, you know, have to be trained in a different perspective than the airplane pilots. Usually these are qualified pilots already when they come here because this is done through the tendering process. I am talking of the equipment end of it.

In the communities themselves we have the various areas. We have our fire bosses, if we could call them that, that basically, in terms of the chain of command that starts out of the fires centre here in Winnipeg, call the shots down.

We have people in the various regions that have the same equipment to see which fires are developing in their own area. They have their fire bosses who then designate the Tac teams that go out with helicopters right off. And then, also, these fire bosses have the list of names of all the people in the communities, in the various communities, and we have them on all communities. People that have gone through some training in terms of self-preservation, I suppose, firefighting, and so they bring them into each community, not on ad hoc basis, but how do we do it, as required.

The heli-tac crews, of course, which are the SWAT teams I make reference to, they are the highest trained, or best trained. These are the ones that, basically, get flown in, dropped in, bang, and the initial Tac crews, once they get moved, once they have done their work, we bring in the other crews from the communities with equipment and supplies and then they do the balance of the work that is required. So the SWAT team gets a different type of training than the others.

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Because we have in the various communities right now, I believe, 75 percent of all our firefighters are aboriginal in the various communities. As I mentioned yesterday, they are just ace firefighters. Across Canada our firefighters have a recognition of being the best trained. They know what to do. You can drop them anywhere. They know how to protect themselves and how to go after a fire.

As we have the various teams, I guess, in place, the fire bosses, basically, bring in more people and train them, I guess, onsite, because we do not have classes where we train them. Basically, they would be brought in and be trained together with, I guess, serving on the teams as they get out there and understand what--a lot of it comes basically from just straight experience, on-the-job training.

Mr. Struthers: Okay, I understand that the volunteers will not be specifically trained. What I am interested in is the fire bosses. Do they get some sort of training in Manitoba? Is it through the Brandon fire college? I would like a little more specifics on exactly how those fellows are prepared to fight the fires.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, the fire training school in Brandon is basically for structural fire; it is not for forest fires. See, that is the difference, so those people would not necessarily be of any benefit to us specifically.

I found out last year when we travelled into the Thompson area and some of these areas and visited our fire locations where we have our equipment, crews and stuff of that nature, I suppose it is like a matter of seniority and evolution. Because as people are needed--you have the qualifications of firefighters--the fire boss basically looks and the best and the smartest firefighter he has is the second in command. So it is a chain of command that evolves, because we have guys out there--I think we have people out there who have basically been on the scene for 25 and 30 years. They think fire. You know, their whole mentality is geared, it is from personal experience, they know exactly what to do, and people who work with them get this kind of training as well.

Ultimately, those who are the best will then go and gradually move up the ladder as, let us say, a fire boss retires or whatever the case may be. So it is like anything else, you know, the more they are exposed to it, the better they get at it. So it is not per se the training that you can go--it is very hard to take and train somebody in a school or in a class to fight fires. Each situation is different. Every situation is different. How a fire crowns, for example, in black spruce, how it does it in jack pines, how it does it in poplars, how a fire runs, you know, the crowning part, the wind conditions, the temperature conditions, how it jumps half a mile at a shot.

I do not know whether the member can recall, but we had some of the best firefighting people in the States who got caught last year at a fire and I think a whole crew burned to death unfortunately. It is a sensitive business, so there has to be a lot of common sense. Even then, you know, there are circumstances that keep changing. So it is not something where you can say, here we will give you this book, you read, and this will teach you how to fight fires. It has to be basically practical experience that they get from being out there, and we have the best.

Mr. Struthers: I understand and I realize that every fire that you get into in northern Manitoba is going to be different. I am also told by actually some of my former students, who I knew when they were 14 years old, who have now received some training in fighting fires that there are certain commonalities from one fire to the next too, and that is the information that they received as they were trained. So there are some commonalities from one fire to the next. One of the reasons that I asked is that I was going to give the minister a chance to brag about the training that did go on because I know that there is some training because I have had former students who have taken it.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, you know, I should have mentioned this earlier. We do have a school in Teulon where basically we do training, the basic training, and the majority of those students are aboriginal as well. We bring them in. They come and go through--so I was not quite accurate when I said that most of it is still actually practical experience--but they get the basic training at Teulon, some of it, and my department helps fund that kind of training out there.

Mr. Struthers: The other part of this I would like to figure out is, is there a procedure or a guideline or anything written in the department indicating that the first preference for hiring firefighters is local people?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I do not think we have a policy, per se that way, but that is basically how the department has been working. They take and hire locally first because these are the people who have lived there, know the circumstances and that is why possibly, because the majority of the people living in the North are aboriginal and 75 percent of those are the ones that are our firefighters. They make up the biggest portion of it.

Mr. Struthers: Have you been in a situation, whether it is now or in 1989 or whenever, in which the number of fires outnumbered the amount of people you could get to work in them?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, not necessarily because of lack of manpower and equipment, though in '89 this was the case. The whole North seemed to be burning at one time. If you look at the information that I just handed to the member, the update for 9:11 a.m., June 22, you can see that out of control is 28, limited or no action, 39 fires.

I think I made reference to the fact the other day that in certain areas it just is not economically sensible to fight fires, depending on the type of area where the fire is. Either the cost of moving in or the forest is of poor quality, et cetera, so there are fires which we do not necessarily man. I will tell you something, anything where we feel there is value, for safety, then, of course, property and then forestry value, these are the fires that we really zero in on and we do not spare any cost in terms of manpower or equipment.

I want to make reference to the one at what we call the Devils Lake fire, basically it is not Devils Lake, it is at the Warpath River right up against the lake. That fire has been burning in marginal forest at this point, but we know the good forest is within a certain distance from there and any change can make a difference, so that is why we poured a lot of resources into that fire over the last few days to try and see whether we could get it under control because in the event something changed, weather-wise, wind-wise, and it got into our rich forest stands then there is real economic loss, so again it is not a cut-and-dried issue.

People in the field make the decision, say this one is one that we do not really worry about, we do not care about it, maybe; this one there is value here, value there, threatening property, threatening life, maybe or communities so they concentrate on those fires.

Mr. Struthers: The reason I asked that question is--just so the minister knows--I have been receiving complaints that local people here and there have not been hired to work in the fires this spring. In the House I asked a question and specifically named the area of Duck Bay and Camperville, where the complaints came from, that they have all these people trained but they were not being called to help out in the firefighting situation up North.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, the member should maybe understand that unemployment is very high up in the North, and for many this is an opportunity to earn some wages. I have no argument with that, but at the same time, aside from the heli-tac crews which basically are the first initial attack crews who we move around more, but to take and necessarily move people from Moose Lake or Camperville into Pukatawagan would not necessarily make sense when we have people out in that area who basically are trained and doing the fighting themselves there.

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Maybe just to put it in a little different perspective, our firefighting costs on a daily basis as we are operating now with these kinds of figures, equipment and manpower run anywhere from $400,000 to $500,000 a day, and we feel they are doing a very efficient job. Saskatchewan and Ontario, on both sides of us, their costs are running approximately $2 million a day and what our people are saying is that they are not efficient, you know, too much bureaucracy; they cannot make decisions; the system is not flowing. We feel that we are probably at the most efficient point right now in terms of being able to address the fires fast and control them, using manpower. And I am not trying to deviate from the fact that some people say, well, why do they not hire us if there are many fires? We think we are operating very efficiently.

Just to give you another example how, in other provinces, when we ask for the water bombers from Quebec--because they are bureaucratically overloaded as well in terms of firefighting, and it can easily be done--it took us 30 hours until we finally got a commitment. They had to go through the process to get approval to allow the water bombers to come to them. It took 30 hours. By the time we got approval, we did not need them anymore. So the system has to be fine-tuned and honed, and you will always have some people who feel they want to help. They would like to earn some money, and it does not always fit into the plan itself, unfortunately.

Mr. Struthers: I understand that. I realize the logistical problem of fighting a fire of this size, and I think too that a lot of the people that had talked to me had heard reports out of Alberta where the Alberta government was bringing Americans up to fight fires, and I think that probably played into their low level of comfort on this as well.

The other thing that they had heard was that there was equipment coming in from Quebec, specifically the water bombers, and I think they made the assumption that there were firefighters coming from Quebec too. And when I talked with them, I knew enough at that point to indicate that as far as I knew there was just equipment or water bombers, but not people. So I think that is probably what played into it as well.

Mr. Driedger: Maybe I could clarify. We have an overriding organization across Canada that looks at reciprocating where we can get equipment. When the hot spell started in Alberta and the northern part of B.C. and then came through Alberta and Saskatchewan, they had the fires long before us, and actually they were sucking all the equipment or a lot of the equipment in there. That is why we basically brought in water bombers from Newfoundland and from Quebec, put them in from the east. There is a good co-ordination in terms of making sure that the equipment is being shared in a proper way, but that does not relate to the manpower situation. That is a different component, and things would have to be very, very much worse than they are now before we even look at doing something like that, because we feel we have the physical manpower.

The member has raised the question whether we feel we have the equipment. We are confident we have the equipment, because we have these agreements. We can pull in helicopters and water bombers from other provinces virtually as needed, unless, of course, the whole Canada, the North would burn. Then we are onto a different problem, but Northwest Territories had their own problems. I cannot really envision a point where we would take and bring in firefighters to fight, other than things like the water bombers or helicopters.

Mr. Struthers: This, of course, is what kind of got us off on the wrong foot yesterday a little bit. My concern was based on the reports that I was getting from people who were claiming that people trained in Manitoba were not being used and that they were not being used because there was a lack of firefighting equipment. And I explained yesterday that my comments were not just pulled out of the air some place. They were from people in firefighting situations who had phoned to me and told me their impressions of what was going on. The people who called me were not feeling very good about the way things were going, and it would have been irresponsible on my part just to ignore these people and not bring up their concerns.

What I want to get a feeling for is whether his department has a list of trained people around the province that they can draw on, or is that left to local people to have those lists?

Mr. Driedger: When I went up there to look at the whole system last year, our fire bosses are the ones that have the lists. They know who their firefighters are. They are from the local areas there. They are the aboriginal people, and they know who they pull in. I suppose it is their call shot. From here we would not dictate whom they would hire. We just assume people are qualified, that they know what they are doing, and that they do the best job, and use whomever they have to. It is not as if my bureaucratic system at the top end is going to dictate who is going to be fighting fires. We allow that pretty well to the discretion of the fire bosses out there.

They are good. They have been at this for--as I said, it is very seldom that you have a young individual out there that is a fire boss. You have people who have been there for many, many years. They know exactly what is involved, and it is their life that is at stake.

To further clarify, our person who is ADM of Resources, who is Harvey Boyle, has been with the department for 30 years. He is basically our fire boss from here. He operates out of the fire centre that we have, where they do the direction. Then people like Medd, whom you have probably heard over the television along the line making comments, I do not know how long he has been with the department, an awful long time. These are the kinds of people that can do the assessment, give direction, and allow--they do not call the shots in the field. They basically allow the people out there to make the decisions so that, if Brian Smith, whoever it is, feels he has a bad fire, he needs to do this and that equipment-wise, manpower, they say: All right, you go for it. Do whatever you have to do. That is the way the system operates.

Mr. Struthers: I look forward to a day when a Natural Resources critic will not have any of these sorts of complaints come to him from people on the fire lines. I do not know if you will ever get to that day. It seems to me that if we know there are people out there who have been trained either at Brandon or at Teulon on whatever kind training there is, if there was a registry of some sort that local people could draw upon, instead of just making the decisions on their own, I think you might find that you would have fewer complaints from people who feel that they have been left out. I do not know if that is a good idea or not.

Mr. Driedger: I just want to raise a little caution here with the member because it will never get to that point where there will not be some people that are not happy or not concerned. If you bring in trained people, other than the heli-tac crews that we have, if we bring in people from Moose Lake to fight a fire out in the Thompson area, both of us will have many, many phone calls because they feel they have people qualified to do it there. You do not have to bring anybody in. So the movement of this is very sensitive. That is why our fire bosses know who to pull from their area. Unless it really got traumatic, I do not think they would be bringing in people unless it was necessary.

When we have a fire out, which is Cranberry Portage, people from that general area who are all trained, those are the ones you would bring in. If you bring in people from the eastern part of the province, all H would bust loose, because people would say: We have our own people; we are trained. Do not do that.

I do not know we will ever get a way of satisfying all these people, but I have to rely that the people in the field are very sensible and know what they are doing and would not discriminate against any community or individuals in terms of hiring. They hire for the best purpose and the best results.

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Mr. Struthers: I realize that, but I asked my question based on what you had told me about having a preference for hiring locally. If it ever got past the point, if everybody in Cranberry Portage was already involved in the firefighting and they needed more reinforcements, more people to come in and help fight, then I think a registry around the province would make sense. I think the minister is right; both our telephones would be ringing off the hook if we just flew somebody in to Cranberry Portage from somewhere else. I am assuming that you would be hiring local first, and once that was exhausted, then a registry would be a good idea.

Mr. Driedger: We basically have that. For example, if the trained people in the area of The Pas were all hired, if we needed more people, we would go to the closest other sourcing, which would probably be Moose Lake or Camperville. You would bring those people in. At the same time, if we had a fire in Moose Lake or Camperville, in the area where they log and where they have importance and we brought in people from The Pas before we had hired all the trained people out there, you have the same problem.

I know that many people say, they know that there are dry conditions up North, they know that we have many fires. Here they are sitting at home and saying, well, hey, I have been trained, I would like to earn some money, I would like to get out there and help. What is happening? Nobody cares.

That is not quite the way it is. I really hope we can lay them all off because that solves my problem to a large degree. But that is not the reality of life. We are going to have a long, hot summer, the way it looks right now.

Mr. Struthers: I think we are going to have a long, hot summer too. We talked a little bit about getting equipment in from Newfoundland and Quebec. What I would like to know is, is there any kind of an accord or agreement between us and other provinces or between us and the federal government to allow all this, or is it more ad hoc than that?

Mr. Driedger: As I mentioned before, maybe the member did not catch it, we have an organization of all the provinces, basically representatives from our province. Every province is on there. That is where we have developed an agreement so that there is equipment pulled. We share equipment. We do not necessarily send them a cheque because we have used a water bomber for three days, because next week ours might be out there. It is sort of a reciprocal agreement that we have. There is no ad hockery about that.

That is based only on certain types of equipment, let us say, helicopters, water bombers and stuff like that. The hoses and the other firefighting equipment that we have, we have tons of it, just literally tons of it. We have our depots throughout the North as well as the major depot out here. We have semi-trucks that are available, set up with the equipment, with the bunking. Everything is arranged. We just load them up and away they go. They are self-contained units, mobile trailers, which basically we pull as close to the site as we can.

You always have to consider these people are not Superman. They have to eat, they have to sleep. You move them into a fire in an isolated area, we try to get as close as we can with equipment to help. If it is tents, they still have to be somewhere in a place where they are not going to be at risk. So it is quite an art. Even having had some exposure to it now, I still find it amazing how that system really--everybody knows what everybody has to do and how it fits into the total picture.

There will always be individuals coming back to that point that feel, well, they have not got a fair shot at this. When you consider how many people we have in the northern part of the province and how many are unemployed, by and large, even those who have training for firefighting, get very frustrated. They feel that they should be part of it. I do not know how we can overcome that. I cannot envision how we can make everybody happy. Having the forest fires does not make us happy. How we can make all the firefighters out there get a sense of comfort or saying, well, they are doing it fairly, I do not know whether we ever can accomplish that.

Mr. Struthers: Is there any kind of agreement internationally between, say, the Manitoba government and the U.S. government? Is there a sharing that goes on there of equipment and firefighters?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, we do not have an official agreement with, let us say, the States, our neighbours to the south, or the other countries. Basically, our agreement is between the provinces themselves, but we have sent equipment and water bombers into the States. We have sent them as far as Venezuela when they had a very bad situation there and we had a status quo situation here.

So countries, by and large, if their need is there and we consider these disasters, countries work things out between themselves. Certainly, the Americans would not be adverse if they had no problems out there, if we asked for additional equipment. So that is why the idea that there is not equipment, I got a little upset the other day because we have all the equipment we need. We do not spare any money. We have equipment; we have manpower. It is just a matter of doing it in the most efficient way.

Mr. Struthers: In the minister's opinion, are we getting close to that point in Manitoba that we may be asking the Americans to send equipment, or not?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, no, I cannot see that happening. We feel our situation is getting a little bit more manageable right now with the temperatures dropping a bit and some of the rain. The forecast looks a little better now. No, we are not in that position at all. I suppose if things really went bad again, let us say, in the next two weeks or three weeks, July is always a sensitive one, depending on what happens in other provinces, we have equipment that we can just pull in. To go to the States for equipment would be as a last resort, and I cannot see that happening.

Mr. Struthers: In the policy that the minister sent me a couple of weeks ago, it indicated different zones in the province as far as--a primary zone and different areas where different criteria would apply for firefighting. One of the things I noticed was that within good timber stands the criteria change and, understandably, you want to try to do what you can to save as much of that timberland as possible. In the event that timberland is lost to companies like Louisiana-Pacific or for Repap, is there a mechanism of compensation for those companies through the provincial government?

Mr. Driedger: No, Mr. Chairman, there is not. When we enter into these agreements with, whether it is Repap, whether it is Louisiana-Pacific--Louisiana-Pacific is basically hardwood so it is not that much of a concern--but when we talk of the soft woods with Repap, with Spruce Products, with Abitibi, they are very, very concerned. They are the first people when things start getting bad out in the forest that voluntarily shut down their operations, knowing the sensitivity of fire starting out there. So they are the first ones that--because it is their profit or their livelihood that is at risk. When we go into agreements with them, we do it on the basis of information that the department brings forward in terms of annual allowable cut. That is done based on--so that in 50 years it renews, so we always have sustainable yield out there.

When you have fires as we had in '89, we did not have to revise but we have certain areas where because of the fire we had to take and make some adjustments in terms of reallocating the annual allowable cut for Abitibi, for example, which is more in the exposed area on the east side. They are very sensitive about this. But no, there are no guarantees. For example, we have fire; we have disease; we have the bugs--part of the disease thing that changes. We have reserves, ecological areas that we take out of it. We have areas that we basically remove from where we have a development plan with the woodland caribou, certain owls, for example. We take and make sure that these areas are protected. So they feel it is a moving target.

They always come at us and say, you have made a commitment to give us so and so much annual allowable cut, and we can manage in most cases to do that. That is one of the reasons why we feel sensitive in terms of valuable forest. You know, when we decide how much equipment we throw into there, we have to assess, like if it is one square mile, whether we have good timber and the rest of it is junk timber around, we would not maybe necessarily put all kinds of resources in there. If you have, let us say, miles and miles and many hectares of valuable timber and the fire is approaching it, we would throw all the resources possibly that we could at it to try and get it under control. So it is sort of a moving thing to some degree. No, there is no guarantee and they do not get compensated.

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Mr. Struthers: I suppose, in a sense, revising the annual allowable cut would be their form of compensation.

Mr. Driedger: From time to time, my deputy tells me that we revise the work plan that they have in terms of cutting. It is not a perfect science, but they can keep their operations going. We work with them on these things.

Now if, all of a sudden, in Abitibi's case, the timber that was set aside--because we like to look at mature timber being harvested--if a good portion of that was burned and they did not have resources, we might have to go to people like Repap and try and make some change to the work plan to allow everybody to be able to function until we have further timber that comes into that stage of harvesting.

It is quite a science. You know, for every tree that is cut, we would like to plant a tree. So you are planting one like this, or this, whatever the case would be, and it takes, depending on the kind of forest it is and conditions, 30 years, 40 years until you have a harvestable tree again. We have to make sure, and that was not always done in the past. We have to get that cycle going so you have a sustainable cycle there. That is why we challenge our professional people in Forestry all the time, make sure that we know what we are talking about, how much we can cut, annual allowable cut, because, if we let them go they would cut everything down and in 10 years time we would have nothing.

Mr. Struthers: I would be interested in knowing, I know that there are forest management licences for these companies, but do all three companies fall under the same rules when it comes to how they are treated in being compensated with revisions to their annual allowable cut? Like, for whatever reasons, would Abitibi get a different deal from the government than, say, Repap would?

Mr. Driedger: I will try and explain this to the member to some degree.

For example, with Abitibi, the deal we have out there, we have a forest management plan. They are responsible for forest renewal. They have to manage the plan. We develop it with them, and that is part of the cost that they have to do, the reforestation and how they deal with the environmental impacts on it. Then we establish a rate that they will pay, a stumpage rate that they will pay for certain types of lumber as they take it out. For example, in the forest management agreement that we have with Abitibi or Repap, if you look at the bottom line, and they say, well, they pay too little for stumpage, you have to figure that into the bigger picture as to what responsibilities they take over from my department in terms of forest renewal, the planting, the cleanups, et cetera, because, in some cases where the governments do that--in some provinces, government accepts more of that and less for the company. Then, of course, they charge more for the stumpage.

I had some concern, at one point, that our stumpage was lower than other provinces, but you then have to compare that as to what the forest management program is and how much money they are forced to put into the whole system to take and renew it. It is in their interests as well to make sure that there is renewal taking place. By and large, it is very seldom ultimately--the bottom line is--that anybody gets a better deal than anybody else. It all part of how much they have to put back in.

No, the agreements are not all identical.

Mr. Struthers: Actually, that answer is helpful for me later on. I should have been more specific in my question. I wanted to know, if each of the companies had lost some of their timber to a fire, when they then get their annual allowable cut revised, is there a formula that applies to each of them or is it handled in the forest management licences?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, when these annual allowable cuts are developed, we take certain conditions into the formula that we have developed when we developed that. That is going to be approximately so and so much lost to forest fires, so and so much to disease, so and so much--we also work with a safe cushion, so these things are covered off a little bit.

The only area where we possibly run into more difficulty than anywhere else is an extreme southeast region which has always had more pressure on it than anywhere else for the simple reason we had a lot of smaller quota holders in there. Because it was road accessible, all the little operators, if we can call them that--basically, there was more pressure on it.

Then, when you have a fire going through an area on the southeast, it has more dramatic impacts, and I know that in the past when I first got elected, which is some years ago, in the southeast there were some cutbacks in the quotas percentage-wise across the board because of the losses to fires. So then adjustments get made over a period of time.

Mr. Struthers: That leads me into the next couple of questions I have, and it has to do with the smaller quota holders. Is there any sort of compensation for a quota holder if he loses a bunch of timber through fire?

Mr. Driedger: No, Mr. Chairman, we do not compensate. You have to understand that the quota, by and large, was given to the operators at one time; then, ultimately, as there was more pressure on it, the government made a decision quite some time ago, long before my time obviously, to allow the sale of quota from one to the other. Ultimately, you have less and less quota holders all the time because the bigger guys keep buying up the smaller guys and the smaller guys say: It is not worth it; I cannot buy the kind of equipment and trucking, et cetera. I will take my money and run and then I will go and work for the big guy.

So there is an ongoing progression in terms of gradually there will be less and less operators, and the quota holders, by and large, in many cases, work with companies like Abitibi.

Then we also have the permits which we work with according to, for example, salvage. I do not want to confuse the member, but let us say we have a fire going through a good forest area and then we issue--never mind the quota holders--special permits for the cleanup, salvage costs and that.

Aside from that, we still always have a permit system in which we allow certain individuals. I can recall as a youngster when farmers, by and large, if they wanted to build a barn or a house or stuff of that nature, went and got a permit. I am talking of the days when they still used horses and a bucksaw and stuff of that nature.

That would be before the member's time obviously--[interjection]--but do not get too cute with me. They used to get out there, and that was what it was about. They had to get a permit from Forestry; they went and cut their trees. They could get somebody with a sawmill, and then they would have their lumber cut. I know that we built some of our buildings at that time at home with lumber like that.

An Honourable Member: And you guys cancelled the program.

Mr. Driedger: No, we still have permits. What do you think those guys are doing out there? We still have all kinds of people who still got--not to that extent because many people do not bother with it anymore. But that is why we have, we probably have more sawmill operators in the province right now than we had many, many years ago. They are there now because lumber is valuable. They are making money, and there used to be a limit that you could not get more than 300 cubic metres, which would be enough to build a house or a barn maybe.

What they do, they go and take a permit and they get their mother to go and take a permit, their father to take a permit, cousin Joe takes a permit, and they have their sawmill. They keep making money; they sell the lumber. Then, when we start getting a little tight with them and try and get a little rationalization into here, everybody is mad, including the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), who feels that we should have them and their 15 cousins all having a permit--well, however, many there are in the family.

So it gets to be a bit of an art, but we have always tried to accommodate the smaller operator, I maintain, and we always try and do that when we do the bigger picture with Repap, with L-P, with Abitibi or Spruce Products. We always have provision and make room in there for the smaller operators, the permit holders. I have gone through that extensively with the member for Swan River, and I think we have had an understanding from time to time. Sometimes a little confusing, a little testy from time to time, but we have managed to take and always come through with the commitment that the permit holders have been looked after.

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I want to tell the member, though, to understand that, that the quota holders who basically have bought quota say the permit holders should not have endless permits, because they are doing the same thing as the quota holder and they are not paying for it, so there is always that area. That is the challenge we face in terms of--I feel that especially with L-P, Louisiana-Pacific moving into the valley, they will be buying a lot of their hardwood, and that our operators out there who basically want to will be able to harvest, even with their permits, and sell to L-P. It is always an art. Some of them would rather want to cut hardwood and use sawmills and sell it that way. That is because the market is just really good right now.

In fact, is it five years ago when there was virtually no pressure on hardwood? They bulldozed it, burned it. Now all of a sudden we have a precious commodity and now everybody wants to get into the action and say, hey, how much can I have of this? You have given it all to L-P. That is not the case necessarily. There is provision for all the permit holders, yet keeping in mind that they are not quota holders.

Mr. Struthers: The last question I have is for this area, just to finish off on the smaller quota holders. They have obviously worked within an allowable cut every year as well, and if they are hit by a fire, do they get the same kind of revision options as what L-P, Repap, Abitibi and the others get?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, that is why when we talk of annual allowable cut, or a quota holder who has 50 cords--we go by metres now, I am still going by cords--let us say he has 100 cords. They work it out with my forest resource people as to where they can cut so that they still have that. Let us say that the area that was designated was burned out, they would get together with the individual and say, well, listen, we have another 200 cords in this area here, you can cut there. It is an ongoing negotiation and discussion with them in terms of making sure because they have the quota, they are entitled to cut.

Mr. Struthers: I have no more questions under that line.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Item 2.(g) Fire Program (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,674,300--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $7,498,800--pass.

Resolution 12.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $33,403,100 for Natural Resources, Regional Operations, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

Item 3. Resource Programs (a) Water Resources (1) Administration (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $370,800.

Mr. Struthers: It seems kind of strange that we go from talking about the North being on fire to Water Resources in the next line. I want to get into a little bit of a discussion picking up on what we were talking about yesterday with water managers, technicians, engineers, and all the different people involved in providing farmers, tourists and everybody with the amounts of water that they need.

I want to start out in this area talking specifically about the Shellmouth Dam. If I am not mistaken that is the western region, that is where that dam is found. This spring I received some complaints about the way the dam is constructed, that it posed some problems for a lot of people living and trying to make a living in the area. Part of the problem seems to be that while the minister assured me in the House that they knew what was going on with how much water was coming up to the Shellmouth Dam, there are a lot of people who approached me saying that because of cutbacks that took place in 1990, officials in the department were taken by surprise this spring and did not release the water in time, and then when they did release the water, it hit everybody hard, and that seems to be the crux of the problem.

I just say that to let the minister and his officials know the direction of my line of questions in the new few minutes. What I would like to know is what person, what position was responsible for determining how much water was out there and determining when to start the flow of that water through the Shellmouth?

Mr. Driedger: Yes, Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence, I am going to sort of try and just give a bit of a background as to what has happened. At the time when the Shellmouth Dam was built, it was a flood control structure at that time. And in the last 25 years, I think, we have had 10 years where there has been flooding downstream from the Shellmouth at certain periods. The function of the control structure has basically been questioned over the last period of time as to whether government knows, whether engineers know what they are doing.

I made reference yesterday, I believe, to the Assiniboine River Advisory Committee that we have set up with the stakeholders all along from Winnipeg right to Russell and that area. I have charged them with some of the responsibility to verify whether the Shellmouth Dam is being operated properly.

Mr. Struthers: That is the group that Dr. Tim Ball is in charge of?

Mr. Driedger: Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is correct. Mr. Tim Ball is the chairman of that advisory group, and they have also taken it upon themselves, because of the stakeholders involved--and on that board we have people that are directly involved with the downstream from the Shellmouth who basically have always been critical about the way it has been operated.

I have asked that sort of independent assessment be done, aside from the department, because many people in the Shellmouth area basically have no confidence in terms of my department of Water Resources, so I need to have somebody else that is going to justify whether that is being operated properly or not. The member is probably aware, because some people are very critical of the operations of it. I see there is a guy, an engineer sitting in Dauphin, and out here in Winnipeg somebody says go and turn up the dam so-and-so-many screws, and we will see what happens.

It is not done by gosh and by golly. It is done on technical information. They release water based on the precipitation that--basically, all the information which we went through yesterday. People compile information, the decisions get made as to releasing certain amount of water in spring prior to the breakup, so that we have storage in there. Because the capacity out there is 305,000 acre feet, and this year we had 800,000 acre feet of water coming down this system, it gives you an idea that no matter what kind of storage we had, there would have been major flooding.

Accusations were made that they waited too long with releasing some of the water, that they kept back some of the water because in Brandon there was some infrastructure going on and stuff of that nature. Basically, once they realized that we had more precipitation coming down, we opened it up right to the 1600 cfs that is maximum, that the river can take. And in spite of what the people say--and I am not the specialist, I am not an engineer, but everybody else out there is--so they tell me that because of the way it was operated, this is what created part of the problem.

I feel very comfortable, based on the information I have, that I do not think we could have operated it much more efficiently. Maybe we would have made a difference of half a day in terms of storage. When you have that amount of water coming down, and your storage capacity is 305,000 acre feet, and you have 800,000 acre feet of water coming down, no matter what you do you are going to have a flood.

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One thing that the people downstream somehow--and this is not a reflection on them necessarily, they are nervous, and we are trying to address this somewhere along the line--they claim that because of the Shellmouth they get flooded, they should be compensated. But, if there was no dam, I will tell you something, they would get flooded like you would not believe more often. St. Lazare would be wiped off the map virtually every third or fourth year.

If you wanted to really go back in history, the structures were built at the time when a commission was set up and that commission I think made recommendations. It was done under Campbell--what was the name of the premier at the time--Doug Campbell was the one who I think at that time had established a commission to look at the flooding, because we had annual flooding coming down the Red River Valley, and the Assiniboine as well could be a contribution to that.

That commission basically made recommendations, which was the Shellmouth Dam, which was the Portage diversion, which was Duff's Ditch, the diversion around Winnipeg, but he never implemented it. It was under Duff Roblin that these things were implemented, but it was Campbell who, in his wisdom, asked the commission to come up with recommendations, and it worked. The structures were built and they have saved an awful lot of property damage over a period of time.

Unfortunately, you have in a 60-mile stretch downstream from the Shellmouth people who at certain times, based on the operation of the dam, flood the lowland, but they have to understand, they are living in the Assiniboine Valley. They are living in this valley and from to time they get flooded now but feel that there should be some compensation, that everybody else is gaining because of the structure and they are the front end of it.

But, because there is that criticism out there, I have asked the Assiniboine River Advisory Committee to do some checking and if they are going to recommend an independent study--I do not care, either--to see whether we are operating the structure properly, because there are a lot of accusations. The members heard that. Everybody has heard that, and I am not going to be defensive of staff. If they do not operate it right, we will set it up so it will be operated right.

Mr. Struthers: The concern is not so much the staff who are there not doing their jobs; the concern is that, since the realignment in 1990, there are not staff there to properly gauge when to open the flow through the Shellmouth Dam.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I cannot accept that. I cannot accept that, because we have very qualified people. I mean, how many people do you need to take and adjust the dam? We have the information basically that has accumulated as to how much we would let out of there, and it takes one person to open or close the dam. It is not like we need 20 guys there who are going to take and do that.

All we need is, once we have the information, the information we have no difficulty with. We have all the information. We have the technical/professional people who get the information together and the decision gets made by Water Resources together with the executive saying, this is what the precipitation looks like. We should start releasing in February, 400 cfs; by March, maybe we should be at 1,000 cfs based on what we think is out there. Maybe the beginning of April, we should have it at 1,600 cfs filling up the river. Past 1,600 cfs, it starts flooding the flats.

I would want to maybe just tell the member that when people contacted him about being trained for fire and they could not be working, the same thing applies here. I have heard it all. I hear from everybody every time I go out there, and I have had the occasion to be there many times. They have said to the Premier (Mr. Filmon), you know, you are not operating these things right. He has said, he has challenged me to make sure that basically the terms that were set up, the agreement that was set up as to how to operate it, that nothing has changed. Have we changed anything? That is what will be established by the Assiniboine River Advisory Committee, if they feel we are not operating it right.

In conjunction with the Shellmouth Dam, you also have to look at what happens with the Portage diversion, which we operated at virtually full capacity this year. We poured a lot of water straight into Lake Manitoba instead of putting it down the Assiniboine River. We would have flooded out. We might not even be sitting here. Well, here we would be sitting, but there would have been a major impact on people along the Assiniboine if we had not used that structure this year.

As you saw, probably, even our walks and everything at The Forks, we had it right up on top there for awhile. It was sort of a, how high do we bring it in Lake Manitoba, the Fairford Dam, Assiniboine and the Shellmouth. We closed the Shellmouth down, brought it right down to--what did we have it?--500 cfs for a week to dry out the valley a little bit so that they could get in there.

My understanding from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) is that most of the people basically have done their seeding in spite of it all.

Mr. Struthers: I know that a lot of water went down through the Portage diversion into Manitoba because I had some cattle ranchers who were not very happy about that--[interjection] Yes, I am sure. What bothers people is not so much the fact that they have to face Mother Nature and her flooding, but their feeling is that they are not just taking on Mother Nature, they are taking on the people who are supposed to be controlling the water at Shellmouth. They are frustrated because they consider it to be a man-made problem. That is just where people are coming from on this.

I do not just take my information from people who are angry about flooding in their pasture land and flooding so that they cannot get their seeding done. I think their complaints should be taken seriously, as well, but some of the information that was given to me was from people within the minister's own department. That is why my little antennas went up, the alarm bell started ringing in my head, and I thought that it justified asking some questions about the management of the Shellmouth Dam.

The minister indicated that the dam was opened and 1,600 cfs--that is the level that it was set at. Could you tell me when that occurred?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, from the time in February, I think, we had it down to 200 cfs at one time, which really was not much of a draw-down. They did that to accommodate to some degree, and they were right. People said we needed that to help the construction at Brandon where they were doing some work. The Department of Highways say they never really requested that, but, anyway, be that as it may, it was a comfort level that we could do that.

Then it was picked up to approximately 400 cfs for a certain period of time. Then, as they finally realized that we had the heavy snows in March, precipitation was up, especially into the Saskatchewan area, it was then cranked up to--was it 16? We had ongoing charts, you know, where they showed exactly how much water. It kept shifting, but we never moved it above 1,600 until mid-April, I guess, when we finally started opening it up more, realizing that we would not be able to hold all the water coming, regardless.

Once the reservoir filled up, she just piled over the top of it, and it is constructed that way. That is when you had that whole valley flooding all the way right up to, well, up to Brandon and past. But, as I say, this was a record, almost double any record we had of flooding along the Assiniboine River.

There are many concerns, and there are many players in this thing. There are groups formed. There is the group around Lake Manitoba, the ranchers whom we work with, and we levelled off Lake Manitoba at a certain point, also told them that they qualified for, under Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board if the municipalities would apply for transportation of feed, et cetera, the normal things that would apply under Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board.

Then we had the people along the valley that were impacted as well, and you know the reserves that were impacted, as well. So there were many people that basically were affected by this thing once it really hit. We just still tried to control it and we did, we thought, relatively well.

Again I repeat, we cut back on the Portage diversion at a certain time. In fact, in that decision I played a role in that because we sat with all our key people and the engineers. I asked, well, if we do this what happens here, and if we do this what happens here? If we keep Fairford at the level it is, we do not flood the people in the reserves any more, and if we cut back on the Portage diversion, what happens? If we pour more water down the Assiniboine just to the point where the dykes will still take it without putting any concern--all these things we sat hours and said, well, if we do this, can we do this?

It all was subject to that there was no three- or four-inch rain. Had that happened everything would have bust loose again. We would have had to re-adjust.

I want to maybe clarify to the member why I am explaining this way. It is not a matter of because of 1990 somebody felt that there was a reduction or reorganization within the department of Water Resources that this has a bearing how these things operated, not at all, because basically the decisions still get made in a proper manner, and it has no bearing. If there were only five guys left in the department of Water Resources, the decisions would still be made and could conduct the activities of the dam.

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Because of the mistrust that is out there about my department of Water Resources--and I want to dispel that--I would want to have the Assiniboine River advisory group tell me that we are operating it right or wrong and if wrong, then what is right so that once and for all we can deal with this, because it is an annual thing.

It has been going since even before I got into the Legislature and that is 18 years ago. They have been concerned, not sure about this thing for the last 20-25 years.

Mr. Struthers: Certainly they have been concerned ever since the undertaking began in the late '60s. I understand that.

I want a little more clarification on the whole question, the allegation that all this occurred because of a realignment in 1990.

Who in that western region makes the decision then to go to 1,600 cfs in mid-April and how does that decision come about?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I sense the member feels that because of what happened in 1990--and it is Jack's fault, the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner). It was his fault. He was minister at the time when some of these changes took place. I am being a little facetious here, a little.

I am trying to convince the member that,irrespective of how the department of Water Resources was reorganized, it has absolutely no bearing as to how the structures get operated. Even if we would have had added 10 more people or 15 more people, it would not have changed anything in terms of how it gets operated. The decision-making role between the regional Mr. Wooley from the western region with my Water Resources people, with my ADMs, Dr. Shoesmith, deputy and moi. We basically, you know, when we realize it is normal, then there is no problem. There is a standard how it is done.

When things get abnormal, as they did this year, then we all get involved in the decision making. It is not an individual that basically, because he was or was not there, made a decision and made a mistake. We could never operate that way.

These decisions basically get made with all the professional people that we can have around us that know what it is all about. We say listen, we should start drawing down more because we know there is so and so much snow up there, so and so much--and depending on the breakup, how fast that is, whether it is fast, slow. All these things have a bearing on it.

I am trying to convince the member that it is not a matter of somebody out there having made a mistake in terms of the decision. It is much broader than that.

Mr. Struthers: Usually I am a pretty easy person to convince, based on logic and all that. I want to be prepared for the next time somebody in the area phones and makes some allegation about what went on. I want to be sure that I can explain to them the whole situation. I would like to be able to say to them that the person in this position has the job of going out and figuring out how much snow and water is out there, and it is going to put this much pressure on the dam, and then this person makes the decision to either draw down more water or open the gates. I do not feel I have those specifics to be able to tell people.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, again, see, I was trying to explain to the member that it is not one individual that makes a decision like that, because I certainly would not feel comfortable with having one individual make that decision and then make a mistake. That is why the system itself is set up in such a way the information comes together.

The regional director, for example, Mr. Wooley out of Brandon, plays a major role in this. He has all his people giving him the information. He feeds that into the Water Resources people, my ADMs and my directors. They basically decide this is the problem that we have, and these are the decisions that get made.

I do not know whether I can ever at this point give the member the comfort level that if somebody phones and says they did it again, the minister and his staff did it again, they made a mistake again--that is why I have the Assiniboine River Advisory Committee looking at these things and telling me are we operating it properly, because if not then we will take and--in fact, I am prepared to, under the circumstances--and I think I have made this statement already--set up an advisory committee just for the operation of the Shellmouth Dam and having local people have their noses right there and they know what is going on.

Ignorance, they say, is bliss. It is not so. Ignorance is problems very often. I want people to know exactly what is involved in terms of how a structure of that nature gets operated.

Mr. Struthers: I wonder if the minister has been looking over here at my notes, because that was my next question. I was going to recommend that the--

Mr. Driedger: ESP.

Mr. Struthers: Okay, good.

I was going to make the suggestion that, based on the success of the advisory board in Lake Dauphin the same kind of a setup could be proposed for the operation of the Shellmouth Dam, again on an advisory basis, because there are people, as the minister says, who have responsibility ultimately for making decisions there. I think it would be very helpful to have local interests at least with some input into these decisions. It may mean that his phone and mine do not ring as often with as many complaints as what have occurred this spring.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I have suggested that I am looking very strongly at setting up an advisory group. However, I do not intend to do that until I have the--and I am expecting sort of that maybe the Assiniboine River advisory group is going to be making some of these recommendations to me as well as when they tell me as to whether they think it is operating properly or not.

Just for the public's sake, the people that are involved, we will take and have them maybe play a role that they have people that can participate in terms of knowing exactly how the decision gets made and maybe have a role in it.

The key I keep. When I say that, I say that ultimately the decision still has to be made by--I will take the responsibility, good, bad or otherwise. Somebody has to; I cannot put that into somebody else's hands.

There can be an advisory committee, basically he says, and we will understand better exactly what is going on.

Mr. Struthers: Is there a time frame then on when the Assiniboine advisory group is going to report to you and make their recommendations?

Mr. Driedger: I am going to have an interim report coming down to me within the next two or three months. I am hoping that it will address many of these specifics that I have made reference to.

Mr. Struthers: I also want to deal with the question of compensation in that area. I would imagine that there are some legitimate cases to be made for compensation. Have packages been sent out to the R.M.s in the district, and have any of them been flowing back through to your office?

Mr. Driedger: There are two elements to this question. We can maybe clarify that. Under the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Program, we have flood, fire or pestilence, whatever it is. There is a system in place under the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board. Municipalities are well aware of this. They basically make application to Government Services, and the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board, by and large, then authorizes the chairman, who is Mr. Sid Reimer, who has been doing a very capable job for many years. His staff people then go out and do investigations.

They have under the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board--and these are questions that possibly should be pursued--the member for Portage (Mr. Pallister), the Minister of Government Services, is going to be mad again if I give too much information. But there is a system and a formula in place as to what qualifies for compensation, what does not. The one area where there is always some confusion is that anything that is insurable you cannot claim under the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board. So, if you do not buy crop insurance and you cannot seed your land, tough beans, you know. But they always keep saying, well, it is because of the flooding.

Hi, Doug, got to see you one of these days. It is your cousin here.

An Honourable Member: Nephew.

Mr. Driedger: Nephew? Oh.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable minister to finish his remarks.

Mr. Driedger: Sorry, Mr. Chairman, I sort of got carried away, but I used to deal with that Mr. Struthers over there. Now I am dealing with a Struthers over here.

Mr. Struthers: You are a lucky man.

Mr. Driedger: Well, debatable. Okay, where was I? Can you correct me, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: The honourable Minister of Natural Resources to finish your remarks.

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Mr. Driedger: The one challenge that we are faced with even now and the requests that we have is that people say, well, they put on chemical and fertilizer in fall and now they could not get on because of flooding. Who is going to pay for that?

There are insurance programs that they could have participated in, but they feel that they cannot get enough money back out of that. So they still say, well, now there should be some compensation, but under the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board it does not qualify. If they do not have crop insurance--I mean, it has been a problem that has been outstanding there since the day that the dam was built. If there was an easy answer to it, it would have happened a long time ago, prior to my time. But I am trying to see whether we can maybe work out something after the flood subsides and the Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board has got all its investigations and settlements out of the way.

We are prepared to look and see whether there is some way of maybe working something out. The most rational thing would be, because it is a flood-prone area, that government should buy out the acreage and be done with it. The individuals do not want to necessarily be bought out. Then it gets to be a bit of a standoff as to what is the best way to do it. They want compensation. They know they are going to get flooded so and so often. It is a flood control structure, but they do not want to sell. So it gets to be a bit of a standoff, but we will try and work with that and see whether we can resolve that. This is where part of the suspicion comes again from the operations of the Shellmouth Dam. So it is a big, related thing.

Now I will throw something in there for the member just so he has something more to think about. We have a problem there with what we call the Langenberg drainage. The Langenberg drainage is coming from Saskatchewan where the Saskatchewan is looking at draining five major watersheds into the Assiniboine River and adding to the problems. That is coming in upstream, downstream from the Shellmouth Dam.

My colleague the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings) and myself have been trying to dialogue with the Saskatchewan government in terms of, there has to be some understanding how we do this here, because it is going to be war out there. If the member thinks that is a light statement, water was always a source of many, many conflicts, and it is starting to develop between the two provinces now.

My understanding is that the conservative Romanow won yesterday in Saskatchewan? Am I right, Jack? My understanding was that the conservative Premier Romanow won yesterday in Saskatchewan and now once he will reappoint his cabinet, it will be our intention to deal with the respective ministers, to sit down and see whether we can come up with some understanding as to how to deal with the Langenberg thing. A request has been made to have an environmental study take place, and we will pursue that.

But I throw that in only as part of the mix. If the member wants to know, we can continue. There are so many, it is like an octopus, this whole system, in terms of the Assiniboine River. But those are sort of the things that I wanted to maybe let him know where we are.

Mr. Struthers: I have seen people looking for silver linings before but to analyze the Saskatchewan vote last night that way is something else. There were only five Tories elected, I think.

An Honourable Member: It is the best conservative government that Saskatchewan has ever seen.

Mr. Struthers: I have no questions left here. I just want to defer to my colleague here from St. James (Ms. Mihychuk).

Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing that some of us--and I only want to make a few comments to correct the minister on his assumptions or allegations that he has made here today. I want to assure the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) and the rest of the members of this committee that it has always been my intention and in the best interest of the province to ensure that there will be adequate water supplies in southern Manitoba.

I think the demonstration of that was in 1988-89-90 when many of our communities were in very, very severe need of assured water supplies. The construction of the Shellmouth reservoir--and I think the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) might want to pay some attention to what I am saying--is a demonstration of what can be done if the province has a will to take it upon itself to ensure that there will not only be adequate water supplies in years of drought but can actually be constructed in such a way that in years such as this when we have an abundance of water and the runoff which would have created havoc and chaos had there not been some controlled type of a release mechanism in place at that point.

I would hate to think what the Assiniboine River would have looked like had there not been a Shellmouth structure. The damage that would have been created by the huge flooding that would have gone on can only be demonstrated when we reflect back on 1948, 1950 and the Red River Valley when there are no structures and there are no control mechanisms to release water in a controlled manner down the pipe.

We all know that farmers want to get the water off their land in spring as quickly as possible that they can get on and put their crops in. That is normal. It is, however, up to government to ensure that the kind of structures that are built at Shellmouth are built on other areas.

I want to reflect, and the minister referred to this, on what Saskatchewan did and the Romanow government in Saskatchewan which was elected, which I consider to be the best conservative government that Saskatchewan has ever seen. They are in disguise under the NDP banner because that is the only way that Saskatchewan people will allow the government to make the radical changes that Romanow has made.

I want to also say to you that the cuts that the Saskatchewan Romanow government made in Saskatchewan during the last four years, moving 57 rural hospitals out of the system, could only have been done by a conservative administration under the guise of a socialist administration, as Romanow did. Similarly, the acceptance of the Rafferty-Alameda project, which the former Conservative premier of the province, without being disguised, put into place to ensure that there would be adequate water supplies in a drought-prone area; plus there would be adequate cooling to provide power to an area that does not have relativity to power or access to proper power can now be done.

Roy Romanow and his government will, in fact, be the beneficiary government that will be credited for alleviating the drought in that area, supplying proper regulated flow down the Souris River, and we in Manitoba will be beneficiaries. We in Manitoba will be beneficiaries of the actions taken under the previous so-called Conservative government.

So I say to you that we should, Mr. Minister--and this is a reflection of what you indicated--take a good hard look at our own situation in Manitoba. We should take a look at the Souris River and start looking at designing proper storage structures that would alleviate flooding, not only down the Souris River but down the Assiniboine River, as well, at the same time providing adequate water supplies for communities for irrigation, that we could continue the expansion of our specialty crops which add huge foreign currency dollars out of Japan, the United States, in sending finished products out of this country such as potato chips and others.

If we did that in every watershed area that we had in this province, we would not only enhance the environment; we would enhance the whole natural mosaic and allow us to expand the industries that are dependent and allow us to expand the agricultural possibility within this province. Therefore, I say to you, Mr. Minister, that some of the things that we kicked in place through the land and water strategy, some of the recommendations that the people of this province made during that process are still on record and will be utilized, in my view, by some future administration, whether we do it or whether some future administration does it, be they NDP or disguised as NDP under a conservative type of administration, right-wing type of an approach as Roy Romanow does now, but they will be done in may view.

It will cause a much more regulated system and will decrease the liability of our Disaster Assistance Board and the liability on government and will add revenues to our province and at the same time enhance your environment.

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So I think, Mr. Minister, that we should move not only as we have on the Shellmouth reservoir, we should look at Lake Dauphin. That is why the Dauphin Lake advisory committee was established. That is why the local people are going to have an ability to design a system that will satisfy the needs of those communities. That is why the Carberry aquifer advisory committee was established to ensure that the local people had input into the decision-making process. That is why there is now a discussion about setting in place an Assiniboine River Advisory Committee to allow again that local input and then build and design the kind of projects that this province needs.

If we could only get the acceptance of that kind of a process by the opposition NDP members and their environmental friends to allow us to move in this direction, this province's economic viability would be tremendously enhanced. So, Mr. Minister, I think you are on the right track. I think this government is on the right track. I would only hope that we could expedite the processes to make some of these things happen more quickly.

Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): I have just a few questions. I am going to start with my constituency questions in terms of Water Resources, primarily in terms of information. As a new member, I would like to get some information as to jurisdiction and--primarily jurisdiction, actually.

My questions are in regard to Omand's Creek. It is one of the few waterways that we have in our city that needs some clear protection. There is always the imminent threat that it is going to be paved over by development in that area. Can the minister inform me as to whose jurisdiction that waterway is?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, to the member for St. James, I believe--I will have to check to ascertain this--that it is within the city authority, as we, under Water Resources, have the responsibility for third-order drains, fourth-order drains, et cetera, and natural waterways.

In this particular case with the City of Winnipeg, I will have to ascertain that specifically because I do not know whether we have any jurisdiction on that kind of a waterway within the city. I think we have played a role in terms of giving advice under Water Resources on some of these things, but I do not think we have the authority. I will ascertain that for sure.

Ms. Mihychuk: I appreciate that. At the same time, could the minister perhaps explore whose responsibility or jurisdiction is the bank stabilization program in terms of waterways that go through urban centres?

Mr. Driedger: This has been a debatable question for a long period of time because navigable waters the federal government has responsibility. I know we have in various cases worked together with the federal government in terms of trying to do some stabilization on our major waterways.

There was a case in the St. Norbert area where the banks of the Red River were caving in. We have cases further towards Selkirk where we have had bank deterioration, and it is always a very costly aspect of it. We have tried in the past--I will have to ascertain--but I know that we have cost-shared some of these. We have some responsibility. I do not know whether that is necessarily that though, you know. It depends a little bit.

Because of the tremendous costs involved, everybody sort of plays footsie with it a little bit and nobody wants to get really serious about saying, well, this is our responsibility or this is your responsibility. Because, invariably, as you have the riverbank deterioration taking place, and it does during periods of high flow, people who have bought land along there feel that it is our responsibility to make sure that they retain the same amount of land, and that does not always happen.

We have the same thing happening, I know that in the case of lakes, for example, it is sort of a gray area in terms of who basically has the responsibility. I know that the federal government on navigable waterways, they are the authority. They dictate what happens at the Lockport dam, which basically controls the level of the Red and Assiniboine to some degree, and that affects actually the bank deterioration from time to time.

I wonder if the member can maybe be specific on something and then maybe I can get a better handle on it.

Ms. Mihychuk: My questions were still in regard to Omand's Creek, which is not a navigable waterway unless you are talking about perhaps a small toy boat. It is a feature which we cherish in St. James, and I am sure probably the whole city of Winnipeg. It is one of the only open natural creeks that we have available.

The bank stabilization or the erosion of the bank and the actual bank stabilizing on Omand's Creek, particularly on the west side that I noticed, is an issue and is very unsightly.

So I am trying to establish, is the creek, since it is an open waterway, the jurisdiction of the province, of the city, and now, in terms of the bank stabilization, whose responsibility would that be?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the member that I will get some specifics on that.

However, there are programs, and depending how extensive, I think the government has funded some under the special conservation fund. I think we had some funding that was given for some work on Omand's Creek, which I know is a very sensitive creek out there.

I will try and get some information, but if she could give me a little bit of something in writing, let us say, specifically related to the area where she is concerned about the banks, I would be prepared to have our Water Resources people first of all establish authority and maybe have our people available to give some comments on the thing. Depending on, of course, what kind of money we are talking about, there is, within my department, certain funds that we have been allocating under certain special projects where something could be undertaken. I do not know how extensive this is.

Ms. Mihychuk: I appreciate the minister's comments and look forward to the information he is going to provide and look forward to working with the department staff or whoever. I truly appreciate that. That is a natural treasure that we want to preserve and we do not want to see it be an eyesore.

My second question in regard to my own constituency is in regard to the Assiniboine River. When it enters Winnipeg and goes through--my constituency is near Assiniboine Park. In general, what is the water quality like for the Assiniboine River? Is it, for example, safe to explore water sports? What degree of change has there been, let us say, in the last few years?

Mr. Driedger: Without being definitive, when I look at the quality of water that is coming down the Assiniboine, especially in a year like this with the high water with all the silt that is in there, I will not offer to swim it like Harry Enns did the Red River, because I do not think I would feel comfortable in it.

Part of the problem that we have with both the Red and the Assiniboine is that I cannot really give a definitive answer in terms of the quality of water. The member probably looking at it has the same opinion as I do, that it is not really good, clean water. People downstream towards Selkirk still take and process that water and use it for drinking purposes, but so do most of the communities basically downstream from Shellmouth to Brandon, Portage. They all basically have treatment plants and use the water out of the Assiniboine for drinking purposes. Others use it for irrigation; others use it for livestock operations.

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I do not have the ability within my department to assess the quality of water. I think we probably have to ask the Department of Environment, my colleague Glen Cummings, to see his people who are doing the monitoring on these things.

Maybe I can make a note of this and make reference to the Minister of Environment and have somebody that would probably be able to talk to you about that and make contact with yourself. Is that acceptable?

Ms. Mihychuk: Yes, that would be satisfactory. I would ask that--it is not really the degree of silt and mud that is carried. I am sure that we all know that the Red River is red because of the clays that it goes through in the Red River basin, and although it looks dirty, that is not the major concern. The concern would be the toxins and the phosphates that are within the water, and I understand that is within the jurisdiction of the Environment. So it would be more appropriate perhaps for me to ask those questions of the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings). I take that recommendation and will follow up. I appreciate that information.

Mr. Driedger: In the letter that I will be sending the member related to the responsibility on Omand's Creek, we will also have a name reference from the Department of Environment in that correspondence so that contact can be made.

Ms. Mihychuk: Now I would like to move in terms of my questions to my critic area, which is Energy and Mines. What relationship does the Department of Natural Resources have with Energy and Mines? We are in the Water Resources section of this department. Is there a link between those two areas?

Mr. Driedger: I probably have to check with my deputy who was the deputy of Energy and Mines and is now the deputy of Natural Resources. He has been playing a role in various cases.

Maybe I will try and clarify it in terms of at the time when the Hydro projects along the Nelson River were being contemplated, there was a close liaison between my Water Resources people and the Department of Energy and Mines. Now that that project has come to a halt, we have dealings with the Department of Energy and Mines based on Hydro water levels in Lake Winnipeg and some of the control structures that basically operate. So there is that liaison.

For example, on the Winnipeg River we have a series of structures, the old dams, the electrical dams, which are basically under my department. We have the board that dictates how much water comes down the Winnipeg River from Lake of the Woods which affects all those little lakes there and all the structures there in terms of what level do we let down so that the generators can operate and that we do not flood out people. So there is that liaison where my people work together with the people from Energy and Mines. I do not know if this was the question that the member is basically asking. I know I am talking on a general basis, but we have, like we do with most other departments, quite a interrelationship in terms of decision-making roles.

Ms. Mihychuk: No, it is true that the departments, especially in terms of Environment, Energy and Mines and Natural Resources, are closely linked. If I remember correctly there was even a time that Energy and Mines was a part of Natural Resources. Maybe just to put that on the record, is there any intention to do that type of amalgamation of departments?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I think the member probably read my deputy's lips. He just said we want it back. No, I have to say at the present time this is not being contemplated, not saying that governments in their wisdom might take and realign some of the departments from time to time as has happened. But at the present time this is not under discussion.

Ms. Mihychuk: Let me ask then, I understand that there is a close link in terms of the production of Hydro dams. I am sure that the department worked closely on the Conawapa project, for example. That one is still on hold, and, as we look at the future, it is fortunate to think that will have minimal amount of damage compared to some of the other major structures that we did proceed with. and, quite frankly, that we reap the benefits of today as we see some of the lowest Hydro rates in Canada and a source of energy that we can be proud of and is going to be available for the future.

In terms of the mining component, does the Department of Natural Resources in fact do some type of monitoring of water quality? What I am talking about is the acidification of lakes near the smelter areas in the North.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to try and pass the buck on this, but between the Department of Energy and Mines and the Department of Environment would be the ones that basically would co-ordinate the level of toxicity or where you have environmental concerns in terms of--I forgot the word. I am getting old. Anyway, those are the two departments that would sort of establish exactly whether there is some problem with the toxicity or whatever the case may be in terms of there. We would not be involved in that.

Basically, ours is the water management end of it under Water Resources, though we have to rely on Environment with many of the things we do, for example, in terms of our structures, if we do build structures, the environmental impact by certain drainage aspects of it. So there is always that liaison but in this particular case it would be between Energy and Mines and Environment.

Mr. Struthers: Just quickly in the last few minutes before we break for noon, I want to talk a little bit about the situation around Dauphin Lake. I am very well familiar with the problems involved. I am familiar with the lake advisory board and the groups involved with that outfit.

I had asked a question a while ago in the House about the channel that has been proposed to be constructed north of Lake Dauphin to Lake Winnipegosis. My understanding was that the commitment was made that the surveying of the channel of the area where it may be constructed will be done this summer. I also asked at the time if there was a plan to handle the increased flow of water downstream. What I am concerned about is Lake Winnipegosis and eventually the higher levels of water hitting that bottleneck known as the Fairford Dam.

I wonder if the minister could comment.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, first of all, I believe the member is correct that we are doing some survey work based on the recommendation that came forward from the Dauphin Lake Advisory Board. I think I have said this a few times before, and will again, they have done a tremendous job of getting all the interest groups together and coming up with sort of a suggested plan that we basically can follow.

In terms of the work that is being proposed, we will do the survey work now but in order to undertake any physical work, whether it is doing the channel or any structural part, before we do that we have to go through an environmental process. Even government has to do that. We are not exempt from that. We are working, I am told, with Canada Fisheries and Oceans, Manitoba Fisheries Branch, my Department of Natural Resources' Fisheries Enhancement Initiative, Wildlife Habitat Canada, Turtle River Watershed Conservation District, Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation, Manitoba Environment, Manitoba Water Services Board, PFRA, Manitoba Agriculture, and individual landowners, so it is a real big complex.

So, once we have this survey work done, I suppose, that is when somewhere along the line a decision would have to be made in terms of what is physically going to be undertaken, at what cost and how can that be staged because there is big money involved here, and that would have to be prioritized, I guess, in terms of can it be done in stages, or how would we undertake that? I can say that--I know the chairman is getting antsy--but I want to maybe get up to the water retention and structures maybe a little later on.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being twelve o'clock, the committee will rise.