VOL. XLV No. 44 - 10 a.m., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1995

Friday, October 6, 1995

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA

Friday, October 6, 1995

The House met at 10 a.m.

PRAYERS

MATTER OF PRIVILEGE

Hospitals Emergency Departments Status

Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, I am rising this morning at the first opportunity I have on a matter of privilege, and this matter will be followed, according to the rules, by a substantive motion which I will introduce at the end of my comments.

Madam Speaker, all of us in this Chamber have been elected to represent the concerns of our constituents and Manitobans. We went through a long election campaign where there were promises made. We are sitting in session now attempting to represent the views and the concerns of our constituents. That is why we are here in this Chamber. One of my responsibilities as a member is to bring matters of importance to the attention of the minister and of the government, matters of great concern, and I feel that my rights as a member of this Legislature have been breached by the actions of the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) in this Chamber the last several days and, in particular, yesterday in this Chamber.

Madam Speaker, I was contacted late last week and early this week by individuals, by patients, by nurses and by others who indicated to me that the government was intent on permanently closing the emergency wards of the community hospitals during the nighttime. On Monday in this Chamber, I asked the Minister of Health directly whether this was happening, and the Minister of Health did not reply, did not respond.

On Tuesday, we asked the Minister of Health about the permanent closing of wards in the community hospitals, and the Minister of Health did not respond, Madam Speaker. Yesterday in this Chamber, we asked, by my count, on eight separate occasions, both the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) and myself, on eight separate occasions, we asked not only the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) but the Premier (Mr. Filmon) about the permanent closure of the wards, and the minister and the Premier refused to answer.

Yet, while this was happening, Madam Speaker, the Deputy Minister of Health, clearly under the direction of the Minister of Health, was phoning the community hospitals and advising them that the wards would be closed permanently. More crucial to the violation of my rights as a member of this Legislature, within minutes, in fact within seconds of leaving this Chamber, Madam Speaker, when the minister refused to answer, the minister went into the hallway and stated to the media and to the public, yes, that those wards would be closed permanently.

Madam Speaker, how am I, as a member of this Chamber, duly elected by the citizens of Kildonan, and how can any of us in the opposition benches, duly elected, properly undertake our job when this government contemptuously refuses to answer questions for which they have answers--and they may not answer the questions, and yet they refuse to answer them to the duly elected members of this Chamber and then go out into the hallway within seconds and confirm what we have known to be true?

How can I represent those individuals and those patients who phoned and contacted me as an individual member and asked about this very serious concern? How can I represent those individuals, Madam Speaker, when the government keeps this information to themselves and then has the contempt to march out of this Chamber and publicly state what we have asked on Monday and on Tuesday and on eight separate occasions yesterday?

Madam Speaker, how can we do our jobs in this Chamber? Why are we taking the time and expense to sit here in this Assembly when the government refuses not only to answer but contemptuously then goes in the hallway and provides those answers? What are we to do, not have Question Period, just to sit back and let the minister say nothing and let the government proceed to close hospital beds, take away people's rights and access to their hospitals with no response from the duly elected members?

* (1005)

Madam Speaker, both the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) ought to be censured by this Chamber for those actions, and I feel as an elected member that my rights as an elected member and those rights deriving to all of us in this system have been seriously harmed by the actions of the Minister of Health and by the actions of the Premier.

Therefore, I move, seconded by the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen), that this House do censure the Minister of Health for a breach of the privileges of its members by misleading its members in the matter of information made available to the media and withheld to the members of the Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the honourable member and at the end of the discussion I am quite prepared to leave matters in your hands for review or for whatever disposition you feel appropriate.

Madam Speaker, at no point have I ever intended to mislead or leave honourable members with some incorrect impression. I think some of that misleading goes on from time to time in this place, but I would never want to say that anybody would intentionally do that, and it is a very serious matter to be accused of doing something like that. Indeed, I would deny that I had any intention ever to have misled anybody.

Yesterday, the honourable member was asking questions about emergency services, and as he was doing so, discussions have been taking place amongst departmental personnel, hospital personnel, medical personnel and others, with a view to trying to respond appropriately to the recommendation of mediator, Jack Chapman, who recommended just that.

The intention had been, I believe, fairly clear on the part of everyone to address the matter, and it was a good likelihood, Madam Speaker, that certainly during nighttime hours there would be adjustments made in the emergency services capacity in the community hospitals. No one ever suggested a permanent closure of emergency rooms, and that is not what we have been talking about, Madam Speaker. We have been talking about the nighttime hours, and, indeed, yesterday, my problem with the questions being asked by the honourable members was that the issues related to the time of the closure during the nighttime hours was not resolved.

Indeed, I am able to tell honourable members today that as a result of a consensus reached amongst the facilities and the others involved in the discussions, the time of the closures would be from 10 p.m. until 8 a.m. each morning. I was not able to give that information yesterday, Madam Speaker, and that is the reason that honourable members have concluded that somehow I was holding something back. That decision had not, at that point, been taken.

So, Madam Speaker, I think honourable members, if they review my performance and comportment in this Chamber in my capacity as Minister of Health, I have tried to be very open with honourable members because I strongly believe that, through them, the public of Manitoba, all of us, will be better served if we have quite an open dialogue about the changes that are going to be required in our social service network, which is required because of the changes in the revenues coming to us from Ottawa.

Honourable members are all aware of that, and I think the more we can have the public informed on the issues, the better. If there has been a misunderstanding, I am always willing to try to make up for things like that, Madam Speaker, but I certainly would not like to be accused of deliberately misleading anybody, because I did not do that.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, I share much of the frustration that the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak) talks about. This is, in fact, an issue that we raised, in fact, last week when we first heard that there was concern about the emergency services at community hospitals being closed down for a period of time. That is why we sought confirmation from the government in terms of what their actual intentions were.

In terms of this matter being one of privilege, even though I share the frustration of the member for Kildonan because the public does have a right to know and this government has not been clear, and I would ultimately argue, as the member for Kildonan has, that the government could have been more forthright in telling Manitobans through this Chamber exactly what their intentions, their real intentions, were to do with our community hospitals, the matter of privilege itself deals with the content of answers.

* (1010)

Unfortunately, this particular Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) somehow manages to evade answering a question directly, but it is the choice of that particular minister. They do not have to be straightforward and give us a blunt answer. At times, it is frustrating, and to that end, Madam Speaker, I am not too sure if it was a matter of privilege, but it is a very important point, and that is, as opposition members, we tried, as we in the Liberal Party tried last week, to get confirmation from this government that those health emergency services would be made available.

We felt the frustration when this government was hiding behind whatever it could find in order not to tell Manitobans what, in fact, it was actually doing, and now and only now, we are starting to see what this government's real intentions are.

As for the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak), it does upset us also, but in terms of the matter of privilege, Madam Speaker, unfortunately, the minister can get away from answering a question directly, as he and the Premier (Mr. Filmon) have chosen to do.

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, a question of privilege is a very serious matter and ought to seldom be raised in the House. We have concerns about all members' privileges with respect to their performance in office as an elected member of the Legislature.

The Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) has offered his explanation, Madam Speaker, but I refer you now to Beauchesne's 416.(1): "A minister may decline to answer a question without stating the reason . . . and insistence on an answer is out of order . . . . A refusal to answer cannot be raised as a question of privilege . . . ."

Madam Speaker, I submit that the question of privilege raised by the member is out of order.

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Yes, rising on the same point of privilege raised by the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak), Madam Speaker, we asked all week and yesterday very, very specific questions to the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae).

This was pursuant to his own deputy minister the evening before and the day of the questions informing hospitals in our communities that the hours of emergency services would be reduced. We did not ask the minister what the specific hours were. We asked the question eight or nine times yesterday whether to confirm or not the government decision that was being communicated to our community facilities as to whether or not the decision had been made or had not been made, Madam Speaker, to reduce the hours of emergency services in the five specific hospitals, a yes or no question.

Madam Speaker, it is the essence of this Question Period that the public is informed about government decisions, that the public is able to determine what is rumour and what is fact, what is actual government decision and what is actual rumour about government decision and what is the impact going to be on the public.

We are the ones, Madam Speaker, who approve funds in this Legislature. We are the ones who approve legislation in this Legislature. We are the ones who have to ask questions on behalf of our constituents in this Legislature, and to have a process where the same questions are being asked to the government that were being communicated by the government's own officials to community hospitals, to have a refusal to answer those questions in this Chamber and then to have simultaneous release of that information in the hallway with the media in scrums comes to the essence of Question Period.

Is parliamentary democracy and accountability of ministers going to take place in this Chamber, or has parliamentary democracy been replaced by a scrum in the hallway, Madam Speaker? That is the essence of the point of privilege from the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak). If we cannot ask questions about a decision that is made by the government and communicated the night before in this Chamber, and if this minister feels he is more accountable to a klieg light and a microphone than he is to this Chamber, then we have to evaluate everything we are doing in this Chamber.

* (1015)

We are the elected representatives. We have a duly elected responsibility. This minister has taken an oath of office. He has taken an oath of office. He has pledged allegiance. This Premier has taken an oath of office, and surely they could have the parliamentary respect to answer his questions with candor in this Chamber, especially when the decisions have already been made, have already been communicated.

Surely this Chamber is entitled to the same information that the media is entitled to in the scrum after Question Period. That is the essence of the point of privilege from the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak).

Madam Speaker: I thank all honourable members for their advice. I will review the information that has been forthcoming, and I will take this matter under advisement and bring back a ruling at a later date.