EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Executive Council.

Does the honourable First Minister have an opening statement?

Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Yes, I do.

Mr. Chairperson, I have copies of my opening statement for the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) and the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) and an extra one for the Clerk, if it is of use.

Mr. Chairperson, I want to begin by commending my colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson), the other members of Treasury Board and the Treasury Board staff for the countless hours of work which went into the preparation of this year’s Estimates. Their effort and commitment this year and every year have enabled the government of Manitoba to restore integrity to the public finances of our province and to do so in a way which has been far less disruptive than the adjustments which have been required in other jurisdictions.

This year’s Executive Council Estimates total at $3,168,100 is virtually unchanged from the total for 1995-96. Similarly, the staff year complement remains unchanged at 44.

As I have done in the past, I would like to acknowledge the dedicated support I continue to receive from the Executive Council staff. The department is comparatively small, but I believe the quality of their work is second to none, and it is much appreciated.

In that connection, I am happy to say that some members of the delegation from the Executive Council office in the northwest province of South Africa are still with us this week, spending time with our officials, their Manitoba counterparts, to get background on a wide variety of issues of mutual interest. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) will try to meet with them, and I am sure he will give them some insights into the particular responsibilities he and his colleagues have in our legislative system.

The national and provincial governments in South Africa are looking closely at the Canadian experience to build on our successes and to apply some of the lessons we have learned. For example, we have talked with our friends from the northwest province about the efforts the Canadian federal and provincial governments are now making to clarify roles and responsibilities and to reduce overlap and duplication; in effect, to move toward rebalancing responsibilities without having to resort to constitutional change. That issue should be a major focus when the First Ministers meet in late June.

Manitobans continue to want a strong national government with a capacity to help ensure reasonably comparable levels of service and taxation across the country. At the same time, we all recognize the need for flexibility and sensitivity to differing regional and provincial circumstances. Our overall objective is to work with Ottawa and the other provinces to ensure that public services are delivered more effectively and efficiently in our own province and across the country and are fiscally sustainable for governments and taxpayers.

There continues to be a strong consensus among governments in this country, an all-party consensus, that deficit elimination and debt reduction must be primary ongoing priorities both to protect essential programs, particularly social programs such as health care, and to sustain jobs, growth and the competitiveness of our economy. I am proud of the leadership our administration has been able to provide in this regard and also of the recognition we have received both within Canada and internationally for our budgetary policies and our balanced budget legislation.

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Fiscal issues and federal transfer cuts are certain to be discussed at length at the First Ministers’ meeting. Preparations for that meeting as well as western regional co-operation and other key issues of interest to the West will be on the agenda when the western premiers hold our annual conference in early June in Dawson City, Yukon.

For the past few years, the two territorial governments have been full members of the western premiers’ group, but this will be the first time a Western Premiers’ Conference will be hosted by one of the territories. Later in the year, in August, the annual Premiers’ Conference will be held in the province of Alberta under the chairmanship of Premier Klein. The current chair of the premiers’ group is Premier Tobin of Newfoundland, who took on those duties following the retirement of Premier Wells.

As yet, we do not know whether the Premier of Quebec will attend the rumoured First Ministers’ meeting in June or the annual Premiers’ Conference in August. His predecessor was present at the last premiers’ meeting in August but only for a portion of the discussion. Whether or not the Premier of Quebec chooses to take part in the upcoming discussions, there can be no doubt his government’s separation objective will remain unchanged. He has made that clear himself, even though he has also acknowledged that the separation objective has had negative economic consequences both for his own province and for Canada as a whole.

In the months to come, it is to be hoped that Quebeckers themselves will recognize increasingly that the advantages of remaining within a united Canada are far too great to risk. These advantages are more than economic. They include linguistic and cultural protection which, if imperfect, are far greater than they could expect if they were on their own, isolated in North America.

In the coming months the government of Manitoba will be working closely with the Government of Canada and the other provinces to emphasize the benefits of unity at every opportunity. It will be important for every Canadian to do the same. We wlll also remind the Government of Canada that Canadian unity is not just about Quebec. It is about all provinces and all regions, about fair treatment and genuine consultation and lasting partnership. To its credit, the federal government has renewed its commitment to rebuilding such partnerships with the provinces. The upcoming First Ministers’ meeting will provide an important test of that commitment. I look forward to the comments of the members opposite on my department’s Estimates. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the First Minister for those comments. Does the Leader of the official opposition have an opening comment?

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, I have few comments to make.

I thank the Premier for his statement here this afternoon. We believe there are a number of issues that are important. The Premier, as the head of government, we will be asking in these Estimates, the Premier’s Estimates, of course, because he is the chair of cabinet and the head of government and allows us and requires us to ask questions on all matters dealing with government. I would serve as notice to the Premier that we will be asking a number of questions about his statements to the people of Manitoba a year ago and what the status is of those commitments and promises that he made to the people.

I will be raising a lot of questions, of course, about the policy initiative of the government to proceed with privatization of home care. I will be asking questions about his commitment on Pharmacare deductibles and now where we see this going in terms of the changes that were made. I will be asking questions about our public education system as it applies to the Premier as, again, the head of government, and I will be asking specific questions in the areas of responsibility contained specifically in the Premier’s Estimates.

As the Premier knows, the spending is unchanged from last year, but there is an increase in funds for the Premier’s salary allowance. I recognize that the salaries were adjusted last year pursuant to the commission established by the government and agreed to by all parties, but the Premier will note that, when the government did proceed with a decrease in salaries for the staff of the Legislative Assembly, we called the Legislative Assembly Management Review Committee for a similar decrease for our own salaries. We have also raised before the fact that, even though there was a modest automatic increase this year, it is very difficult in light of the present circumstances to justify those increases for all of us, including the Leader of the Opposition, cabinet ministers and Premier in light of the present position the government is taking with a number of other people in the direct public service. So I would note that I recognize the percentage increase in the Premier’s Estimates. It does not reflect this year’s increase in pay. I believe it was 1.1 percent, as opposed to the impact from last year’s printed Estimates.

Mr. Chairperson, we will be raising a number of concerns dealing with our federal-provincial affairs. The Premier and I, in minority days, I think, participated more as a team Manitoba. I think it was a good way to proceed. We would attend--as the Premier did during the Pawley years--together in delegations, a Manitoba delegation. I think the Premier was a part of the Pawley delegations in the early ’80s. I know that we were part of the delegation in the ’88-90 period of minority government; of course, from that time on till the Charlottetown Accord, we were not involved specifically with very many discussions going on at that level. At the end of the day, we had to either fish or cut bait on a proposal that we did not totally agree with. The Premier knows that with the proposed wording on equalization and some of the wording on the Canada clause, in spite of my reluctance to support the Senate proposal which I believe should have been abolished and I did not like the automatic seats for certain provinces that was tied to the Senate proposal, I joined the Premier in that ill-fated event.

So I hope that this time around--the Premier and I also joined at the unity rally a couple of days before the referendum vote in the province of Quebec. I know how we were both legitimately worried about what would happen with that vote and what would happen with our country that we believe so strongly in. Of course, it was a nail-biter, as the saying goes, and we were quite worried about possible events that may come with a yes vote to separate. At that rally, I spoke about the need for a strong national government, which I still believe in. I do not believe in this one-way delegation or separation or one-way power moves by the federal government. In fact, one could argue that the more you weaken the federal government, the more you make the argument for separation as some of the separatists did in the last referendum campaign, that a strong Canada that has great health care programs to deliver, quality education programs to deliver, a floor of income support programs that it could deliver, is a reason to stay in this great country as opposed to continuing to develop franchises with each province and continuing to weaken the federal government.

We also spoke about the need for--at the rally at The Forks it was interesting. We were at a site that, according to some historians, 6,000 years ago was first inhabited by Manitoba’s original citizens. It was rather ironic, I suppose, and important and poignant for all of us to note that at the same time that we were talking about unity in Canada, we had people camping out for housing here in the province of Manitoba at the same Forks site.

I know the Premier (Mr. Filmon) was at the Aboriginal Awards last week, and I hope that we can work in partnership with First Nations people here in Manitoba and recognize that any clause in the Constitution should include a Canada clause which should start with the First Nations and include other characteristics of Canada as articulated both in the Meech Lake task force report and in the pre-Charlottetown report.

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I will be interested to note what position the Premier has on the federal legislation that was passed in December of 1995. I was personally opposed to it. I think I said that during the debates on the Speech from the Throne. I noted the Premier was in favour of it. He appears to be moving away from that position, I think. I am not sure. I will want to ask him questions about that so I know exactly, not reading through newspapers, what is existing or present position on Canada?

The Premier knows that we think the jobs is still the No. 1 priority, and economic growth is the No. 1 priority for our country and for our province. We think that the Premiers’ meetings and western Premiers’ meetings and all these meetings that are coming up in June and August, in the summertime, will reflect some of the bread-and-butter priorities of Manitobans and Canadians. [interjection] Well, if it was aboriginal, I think it is lard and bannock as my colleagues have told me before, so bread-and-butter and lard-and-bannock issues of those First Ministers’ meetings.

We are very concerned, and I hope the Premier is as well, about what people see out there as a real tale of two cities in our economy. They hear about corporations getting record high profits. They hear about CEOs getting record high increases. Even if their stocks go down and the value of the company goes down, we hear of people getting major, major--becoming instant millionaires and millionaires year after year after year, while these same people continue to talk about everybody having to tighten their belt. People are getting tired of being told and being lectured to by people that are apparently very affluent and becoming ever more affluent, while they are having more and more difficulty making ends meet. Yes, they may be laid off and they may require now two part-time jobs to make up the income they lost or three part-time jobs, et cetera, et cetera.

So I am very, very concerned. I said this at the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce when I spoke to them a couple of months ago. I thought that I was hearing and feeling that there was a real growing sense that all was not fair in the land of our province and nationally and that we should pay some attention to it. That is why it worries us, quite frankly, about this kind of agenda on home care.

We do not want to see a society where 1,500 to 3,000 people have to take a 30 percent wage cut so three or four people can become millionaires. We do not think that is good health care and we do not think that is good economics. It is not good economics because, with that kind of loss in purchasing power with more and more people, we think that that will inevitably impede our economy and economic growth, impede investment, consumer demand and impact very, very negatively on retaining people in our province and starting to grow in our economic development.

On the other issues of federal-provincial affairs we join the Premier in the condemnation of the federal government for the cutbacks that took place in the budget. I am pleased to see that agricultural prices may stay steady this year. I am pleased to see that wheat prices may go up because of the unfortunate weather situation in the United States and other locations in the world. That is obviously hopefully good for western Canada, and perhaps it is more good luck than good management.

In terms of the lack of transition plan the prices have stayed up with the unilateral elimination of the Crow rate without any real transition plan here in Manitoba that is also negatively impacted on the pooling arrangement. But I hope the weather is suitable. I hope we can get on the fields with all that water and moisture early enough, and I know it has already been delayed, so that we can get a crop, because if you cannot get the crop, obviously the price issue is not as significant. So I know that the Premier is concerned about that in light of what the federal government has done.

I am very concerned about the Port of Churchill. I have seen press releases after press releases talking about the glory, the delegations that are going here, there. I remember the Liberal promise of a million tonnes of grain, and all the Mulroney government needed was some leadership, political will, and it would happen if a Liberal government was elected. Well, Terry Duguid, I wish him well, but he does not represent a million tonnes of grain, and I hope he does well in his discussions and his international trips, et cetera. I remember reading the Free Press last year and they had a headline, $20 million for Churchill. Where is it? What is the status of the line? What is the status of the port?

AECL is another important issue. We wish the Peter Siemens committee well. Our critic has been attending those hearings and those meetings. I hope we are able to both keep the jobs in eastern Canada and develop other alternatives for the scientific community that does reside in Pinawa. We have offered to work with the government in an all-party way. Our critic, the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk), went to Ottawa with the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Praznik), and we do not want this to be just a one-trip wonder. We want it to be longer term and look at alternatives in a co-operative way.

I look forward to what the government is going to do on other issues of education. I am quite worried about St. Boniface College being cut out of money because of a squabble between the provincial government and the federal government. I do not deny that the federal government should not have withdrawn that money for the funding at St. Boniface College, and I hope the government is successful in putting political pressure back on the federal government, but I certainly hope that we do not make precipitous decisions that will hurt the longer-term viability of that college.

I am very worried about what is going on in other community colleges in the Apprenticeship Program. We are going in the wrong direction in terms of training people for the future economic growth, and the red paper from the federal Liberal government talked about apprenticeship. So did the provincial election campaign, and finger pointing does not keep promises. I am very worried about where this is going in terms of the reduction in apprenticeship training people in Manitoba and what this means for the economy, what this means for our young people, what this means to keep people here in our province.

I am also very interested to hear the Premier (Mr. Filmon) elaborate on the answers given by his Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) on the GST negotiations. I know that there are negotiations going on. We know that. I know that in the province of Saskatchewan they got rid of the harmonization that was brought in by the Devine government. It was a tax reduction at that point for the consumers, but obviously there were other changes made subsequent to that.

I know in eastern Canada, in Atlantic Canada rather, they are talking about changes to the GST. I happen to believe that we should be looking at a systematic way of abolishing that tax, as again stated by the Prime Minister when he was in Manitoba at Brandon University about the spring of 1993, just six months prior to the election.

I want to, again, support the government on the reductions in health and post-secondary education, but I also think and I have urged the government to put the equalization numbers on the table throughout the debate. I think we are better served when we have real numbers on the table.

I think the Speech from the Throne, when you tabled it in December of 1995, we had higher numbers on equalization that the government had acknowledged both in the ’95-96 year, ’94-95 the equalization was up $70 million. We had higher numbers in the ’95-96 year which the minister confirmed later on in his second quarter statement. I think we are better served having a debate with everybody, with all the numbers on the table, with all the projections on the table, so that we will know the full measure of the federal decline.

In Manitoba, of course, we have a decline in federal-provincial funding in health and post-secondary education and social assistance, but we have an increase in equalization, unlike Saskatchewan which I believe is down to about $345 million in equalization, another $40-million or $50-million decline from last year, so I think it is good we are getting an increase in equalization. We can get into the debate about why. The government will say population, others will say it is the stagnant growth, but it is better to have the increased money in the short term with the federal cuts than not.

Finally, on the international issues, the Premier mentioned South Africa. I have met with the delegation last fall. They do not have leaders of oppositions in South Africa. I think that perhaps--listening to the Premier’s speech last night, it almost sounds like he wants to go to a one-party democracy. You know, you cannot raise questions anymore; you are too negative if you raise a question; oh, you better tell the reporters that; oh, poor us, the people are actually asking us questions.

I seem to recall the Premier was in fact even more negative than we were. We stand up with statements on Simplot. We stand up with statements on Schneider’s and the world curling championships and others and say good things, but of course sometimes we have a responsibility. We are the loyal opposition. We are Canadians and Manitobans first.

I love the province. Our family lives here; all our family live here; my friends live here, and all of us want what is best for Manitoba. It is part of our job to hold--and I know he may not like this--the Premier accountable in a parliamentary democracy. That is the wonderful part of our system.

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I do not want to go to a one-party system, where we have 57 trained seals elected in Manitoba just to clap along with the Premier, so we do not apologize for believing in a parliamentary system. We are proud of the fact that we are part of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, unlike what we have in Ottawa. I wish the Premier would stop whining about questions that he may think are negative, because that is part of our tradition. I remember him asking a number of questions himself. I did not think it was wrong that he asked them. I thought it was his job, as I thought it was other members’ jobs.

So I think we should keep in mind the virtues of a parliamentary system as a system that requires accountability. I think it is the finest system of government in the world. It is not perfect, and every day we have our moments. I think last Friday morning was not our finest hour collectively, but I think it is still the finest system in the world, and we should respect that and celebrate it, not condemn it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the honourable Leader of the official opposition for those remarks.

Point of Order

Mr. Neil Gaudry (St. Boniface): May I have leave to add comments?

Mr. Chairperson: Does the honourable member for St. Boniface have leave to make a statement? [agreed]

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Mr. Gaudry: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) for allowing me to add a few comments to the statement of the Premier this afternoon.

I did not get a chance to speak to the budget. Time is limited around here. I did not mind giving my place to somebody else. I am not the type to be negative in the first place, and it is pretty hard for me at times to criticize, because if you want to criticize, you should always have something positive to add to the comments.

I have had the chance in the last two years to attend two conferences and be a speaker on the role of the opposition, once in Africa and once in Romania for the Assembly of International Parliamentarians. When you have to discuss the role of the opposition and the role of the government, you have to be positive, and I think it gave me a chance to see what happens in other countries. For example, in Africa, when I was there it was their role there as a first-year democratic government. It seems that the role of the opposition is not recognized, and I feel very strongly about the role of the opposition, and I think they have their role to play in this House.

I think the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) this afternoon made it very clear that there is a role, and, as he mentioned, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) has sat in the opposition and played his role very well. Therefore, there is a lot to be discussed when you represent a province like Manitoba in the country of Canada.

We have concerns. I think it has been indicated from the official opposition and our members in the Liberal Party, that health care is an issue, education, but I think when we criticized, we should have proposed solutions to the government. Agriculture, health care issues, for example--I look at seniors whom I have as a strong population in St. Boniface, and I have been involved with the seniors.

They have concerns about the privatization of health care. We know that the government has given itself a mandate to privatize, but, personally, I feel they have gone too far--not too far but too fast maybe and without communicating with the people of Manitoba, the health caregivers. I am not criticizing this in a negative way, but I want to say that this is the feedback I get from my constituents. I think they are prepared to accept the reform. We all know and I think they all know also that there is a concern about the debt that we have here in Manitoba, in Canada, therefore we have to look at the benefits on a long-term basis for our Manitobans and Canadians at large.

Same thing with education--the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) touched on the concern of St. Boniface College. I had concern and I did get in touch with the college. I did get in touch with the government. We had a good meeting, and, hopefully, the end result will be positive.

I know, I mean we hear this on a daily basis about the federals. What do you call them? Bad Liberals, right. [interjection] No, we know. We have concerns about the transfer payments, and it is not just for education or health care.

We go back four or five years, before we had the Liberals, we had the Conservative government in Ottawa, and the Premier was not afraid to attack his colleagues in Ottawa, and he still does the same thing with the current Liberal government. So I have to give him credit that he was--regardless, we know that we have to work together, and I am not afraid. If I am going to work with the government here, we have to work also with my federal colleagues or my federal cousins, whatever you want to call them. I am prepared to work with the government so that we achieve together what we want to for Manitobans.

Agriculture is another issue. We talk about hog producers. I mean, I have to be very careful what spin I put on here because the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) might repeat what I say here in the House publicly. No, I know it is for the benefit of Manitobans and agriculture whatever happens and what will be done.

We talk about open market. I think it is the people of Manitoba that will decide and will want what is best for them, and I think the majority of farmers, what they want should be looked at.

Cattle producers, it is the same thing. I visited my brothers, for example, over the weekend, and they are crying about the price of beef that has gone down. I had to listen to them, and there is nothing that I could do for them. I told them, I said, do not cry to me. You go and see your MLA and cry to him, and that is my good friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns). [interjection] Well, I am not so sure. I think he does. He does the best he can for what we have and what he has to do, and I--[interjection] I will go back on those comments. No, I have a lot of respect for every member of the Legislature. So, as I said before, it will be pretty hard for me to be negative on anything.

But there is concern in education, health care, and I think, I hope that the government will consider a lot of the cutbacks and things that they have decided to do that is not to serve the best interest of our people of Manitoba.

With these few comments and other questions that will be asked during Estimates, again I thank the Premier (Mr. Filmon), the Leader of the official opposition (Mr. Doer) to allow me saying a few comments.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the honourable member for St. Boniface for his opening statement.

At this time I would remind the honourable members of the committee that the debate of the Premier’s Salary will be deferred until all other items in the Estimates of the department are passed. At this time we invite the Premier’s staff to take their place in the Chamber.

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, while the staff are coming in, I just want to make the comment to the Leader of the Opposition that I have difficulty in responding perhaps to global matters that he might want to bring forward to me as the Leader of government, but if he does intend to get into detail on issues that are more properly in the purview of other ministers of government, I believe very strongly that the only way we are going to get the information is to have those questions asked of the appropriate ministers. But I will be happy to debate with him the matters that he believes are contentious within the overall view of government, and, as government Leader, I will be happy to respond.

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The Clerk of the Executive Council, Mr. Don Leitch; the Director of the Policy Management Secretariat, Mr. Hugh McFadyen; our Finance Administration officer, Ms. Karen Popp; and the Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Mr. Jim Eldridge.

Mr. Chairperson: The item before the committee is item 1. General Administration (b) Management and Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits, on page 11.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairman, I am assuming that we can proceed as we always have with the small amount of items. We have usually completed the--I mean, we could ask any question, basically, on salaries, on administration. I am assuming we will do what we have done in the past.

Mr. Filmon: Yes, that is quite acceptable, as far as I am concerned. We can go on anything within the ambit of the Executive Council Estimates, leaving Premier’s salary to the end.

Mr. Chairperson: Then that is agreed to.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chair, yesterday and previously, we asked questions of the Premier about Connie Curran, a person the Premier is certainly aware of. He has been the steward of government when Curran contracts have been signed by two Ministers of Health, the former member for Pembina, Mr. Orchard, and now Minister McCrae. We have a contract of this magnitude, obviously, on home care. It is a huge, fairly big contract. Of course, the whole contract, the $4 million, is very large. During the election campaign, I believe, the Premier, during the debate said, if he had it to do over again, he would not hire Connie Curran, and so fair enough.

What we are concerned about is why we authorized Connie Curran to study home care in the contract that was signed on January 5, 1994. Why did we proceed with the contract of $140,000-plus expenses with Connie Curran? Why was that approved by cabinet?

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chair, I am not sure that contract would have come to cabinet for approval. It probably was within the budget allocation of the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae), but the member may want to ask the specifics of the Minister of Health.

Mr. Doer: Just so I understand in terms of enhancing accountability, I think is the latest term we have been using in a number of areas, would not a contract of this nature--well, let me ask the question. Can a minister sign a $140,000 contract without approval of the Treasury Board?

Mr. Filmon: Probably not, but that was not the question, and I have not been on Treasury Board for several years, so I cannot make any comment about Treasury Board’s approval process. I would assume that it did receive Treasury Board approval.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairman, as I understand it, contracts at $20,000 and more or $25,000 and more require Treasury Board approval under the financial administration guidelines here in the province of Manitoba, and therefore a $140,000 contract would go to Treasury Board.

Mr. Filmon: As I said earlier, I assumed that it did receive Treasury Board approval under those guidelines.

Mr. Doer: Now, when Treasury Board approves a contract of $140,000, is it not then forwarded to cabinet as part of the Treasury Board presentation to cabinet and therefore ratified at cabinet that is chaired by the Premier?

Mr. Filmon: In the context of the minutes of a Treasury Board meeting being ratified, that would be the case.

Mr. Doer: The Premier, of course, who chairs cabinet and receives minutes from committees that he establishes, reads the minutes from those meetings and would have read the minute noting the contract for Connie Curran for $140,000 on home care service?

Mr. Filmon: That is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Doer: The Premier of course appoints the secretary of Treasury Board, a deputy minister level. Can the Premier outline what Ms. Curran was required to investigate in her $140,000 home care contract?

Mr. Filmon: No, I have not seen a copy of the contract, so I could not give any details.

Mr. Doer: We have tabled the contract before in this House to the Premier’s attention. I know he reads everything we table for his attention.

Mr. Filmon: Actually not.

Mr. Doer: It would not surprise me. He is very selective.

I would like to ask the Premier, was there any report completed by Ms. Curran on home care services for $140,000?

Mr. Filmon: I have not seen a report, Mr. Chairman. I do think that that is an appropriate question to ask of the Minister of Health.

Mr. Doer: It is also a question I think it is fair to ask the Premier, who is in charge of policy changes in government. Obviously a change in policy that was contained within Treasury Board documents that have been made public is an issue that the Premier decides. Would the Premier not be the person in charge of policy changes, major policy changes in home care such as privatization?

Mr. Filmon: No, Mr. Chairman. I do not think it is accurate to say I would be in charge of that. Otherwise, we would not need to have a minister responsible for the delivery of health in this province. The minister would obviously bring a policy change like that to cabinet, but he would be the person responsible for the development of the policy and ultimately for the carrying out of the policy. He might well have received approval for the policy change and, in this respect, I can certainly confirm that, that he would have received approval for the policy change.

Mr. Doer: If the Premier did not agree with the proposal from the Ministry of Health, the proposal would not go forward. It is not a vote in cabinet. The Premier makes the ultimate decision, hearing advice from his minister and other ministers of government. He is the one ultimately in charge. Is that not the way cabinet responsibility works with the First Minister? He is called First Minister for a reason. He is also sworn in as First Minister. He is not just a minister. All ministers are equal; he is more equal than others by definition.

Mr. Filmon: Let me be absolutely clear, Mr. Chairman. I am not in any way dodging responsibility for the decision. Not that I made it personally, but certainly cabinet approved it and I chair cabinet. I might tell you that I probably have told the Leader of the Opposition privately this, that I was shocked when I read former Premier Pawley say that he regarded himself as just one vote in cabinet. I do not.

I do judge the consensus, and if it is a matter because of the fact that members opposite and the media and the public at large tend to put my name in front of the government, if I cannot live with a policy decision, I will be very open with them. Although I do not regard myself as being autocratic, if there are decisions that I do not believe I could live with, then in that respect I certainly draw a line. So I will accept the fact that this is a policy of government that has been developed by the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) and is being carried out by the Minister of Health.

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Mr. Doer: So the Premier approved the plan to privatize home care which was initiated by the Minister of Health, approved by Treasury Board and, ultimately, made public. Is that correct?

Mr. Filmon: The Premier, as chair of cabinet and as part of a government process that requires cabinet approval, was involved in the approval of that process and supports this policy as he does any policy that our government goes forward with.

Mr. Doer: Was the Connie Curran contract and the recommendations from Connie Curran utilized by cabinet in any way, shape or form to make the decision on the policy change on privatization?

Mr. Filmon: No, Mr. Chairman. Not specifically with respect to privatization. As I said earlier, the considerations involved a number of matters: (1) a desire to have more flexibility to respond to the real needs of those who are users and recipients of the services of home care; (2) the pilot project that was very successfully carried out by the Seven Oaks Hospital utilizing the services of a private operator, We Care; and, (3) the very positive experience that we have had throughout the course of home care with the utilization of services by a nongovernment agency, the VON, who have supplied our needs to a very large extent in the home care field as an independent contractor.

Mr. Doer: I would like to ask the Premier, does he have any overall study that utilizes--we have the Kane and Kane study, not from a number of years ago, which calls this home care system the best in North America and recommends against the Americanization of that home care system. We have other studies that have taken place over the years. I am just wondering what utility was the $140,000 Connie Curran contract on the home care decision. Was that person involved in the evaluation of the projects the Premier mentioned? Can we get a copy of the current report that taxpayers have paid for?

Mr. Filmon: In this respect, Mr. Chairman, I will be direct with the Leader of the Opposition and tell him that I do not have a copy of the report and that if there was any formal report, he would have to ask that of the Minister of Health and pursue it in that respect, because I have not seen one. I am not aware of a formal report having been put together.

The consultation involved, as it did with the work that was done in the major tertiary care hospitals in Manitoba, a working together with those who were involved in the organization and delivery of services to try and conceive of improvements in the efficiency and the effectiveness of the delivery of services. It was, as the Curran approach has been, a matter of working with the people in the delivery of service and helping them to understand and respond to the concerns for improved service.

The member may recall that the timing reflected a tremendous amount of unhappiness with home care and many complaints that flooded in, particularly in the six months that led up to that report or that investigation and study being initiated.

(Mr. Mike Radcliffe, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

There were many, many complaints, and it resulted in our appointing an appeal panel. It resulted in our having ultimately self-managed delivery of home care by those in our disabled community. A number of different initiatives came out during that period of time because of stated public unhappiness. In fact, I recall members opposite bringing complaints to this House on a routine, regular basis about home care not meeting the needs of people out there.

So there were a variety of different ways in which people were evaluating the system and trying to improve it.

Mr. Doer: Yes, I did bring a number of concerns forward to this House on home care because we were aware that the government had approved a certain amount of money in the budgetary Estimates for home care and was cutting a number of home care clients off. Subsequently, we tabled the briefing documents to prove our point, where home care was underspent for two annual years in a row when we had raised that issue.

Then I think there was a period of calm before the 1990 election, if I recall correctly, and after the election. Then of course there was the whole change in the scope of services by the government moving into the 1993 by-elections, and then the government again put things on a so-called pause or moratorium from then on till the provincial election.

So I do not dispute there were a couple of very major periods, if I can recall correctly, where there were people being cut off. If you look at the annual reports of the Department of Health, and I am going by memory, but you will find that in the Department of Health the concerns we were raising were verified by reductions in cases, and of course the Premier knows there is a difference between a budgeted amount of money and an actual amount of money. He also knows sometimes it takes a couple of years to find out where things were underspent. For example, we just were able to find out that we were underspending the Department of Family Services over the last couple of fiscal years. We had one number in the budget and another number in the department. There were instructions in fact not even to spend up to the budgeted amount. That way you can say, we are spending more percentage here than there, our budget contains this and that and everything else. So, yes, we were critical about some of the people who were being cut off.

The Premier is right. We did back that up with documents which I tabled in the House from the Ministry of Health, the former minister, indicating they were underspending, deliberately underspending that item. The annual reports back that up. Then everything was fine--well, not fine, but we were not raising it as frequently as when we had first raised it when there was underspending, and then the government proceeded to change the status of support for home care people which we thought was working against the independence of people. In fact, I remember attending a coalition of home care users at a clinic in 1993 where they were saying, please, government, listen to us. Please have home care provided in a way that will allow us to live in dignity and please provide greater flexibility in the way that service is delivered on a self-managed way.

We, in fact, put together a policy, which we called community care, dealing with home care that was a step forward we thought from the existing Home Care program. It was a more flexible program, you know, because the Home Care program had changed between what it was before with elderly people and being utilized more with both elderly and disabled. We felt changes should be necessary, but we never ever talked about and proposed in ’93 or ’94 or ’95 in our alternate Speech from the Throne, or our alternative platform or in our alternative documents, a move to privatize. I would like to know when the government decided to privatize. They kind of talked about it in ’93. They backed away from it till after ’95. Did they plan on privatizing all along?

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I said earlier that the decision was made on the basis of a number of different analyses, one being that seven other provinces in Canada have flexibility and choice as part of their home care system, and that they operate, as we do in many cases, with not-for-profit and for-profit aspects to the system. It was also, of course, an outcome of the review that was done, the pilot project that was done with the Seven Oaks General Hospital. It was also, of course, an outcome of seeing the very positive response and the accomplishments of the VON in their part of the independent provision of services to those who require home care in this province.

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Interestingly enough, there are a number of statements that were contained within the report that was done for the former government, the Price Waterhouse review of home care, that supported a variety of things in the system, and we have not proceeded with them, and I do not think that we have any intention to proceed with them. But, among other things, the Price Waterhouse report said that the government should give consideration to introducing measures that would serve to encourage clients to meet their needs through their own resources, that is, user fees, waiting periods prior to receiving nonprofessional services, user fees during the initial period of service and limiting hours in which services are provided.

I would argue that all of those would place dramatic limits on the availability of service and it would be a very negative response. That was the report that was commissioned by the New Democratic administration and presented to government. They said that programs should require regional program managers to manage their budgets more actively and stay within approved levels and should give program staff greater discretion over service levels per client.

That is permitting a dilution of service in order to achieve budget targets, in other words, cut back on services that they were going to provide as a means of achieving budgetary targets. They in fact, as part of that report, recommended that certain aspects of the service ought to be done outside of the home care basis and people, for instance, who were receiving--it says here: The department should adopt an expanded long-term strategy to facilitate the development of independent, not-for-profit cleaning services in all communities across the province. This effectively should take the program out of the business of providing house cleaning services. Consideration also should be given to including house maintenance services along with independent, not-for-profit cleaning services.

So they were suggesting that all of this ought to be externalized from the program, and that we ought to not be doing it as a total in-house, bureaucratic delivery of services. There have been plenty of reports that have suggested that the way of the future was to provide this kind of externally available competitive service as the means of meeting the needs of home care at a more reasonable cost and that, it seems to me, is part and parcel of all the information that leads to decisions that we make because, as has been stated many, many times, this has been the fastest growing area of health care costs in our province. It had doubled, in the seven years concluding last year, in our province from the time we took office in ’88 until 1995. It is now on target to add another $8 million to the cost. It will have gone from $42 million in 1988 to $93 million in 1996.

(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)

It is a dramatically increasing cost, and the objective is to provide the services that people require when they require them, how they require them, on as flexible a basis as possible and yet within some reasonable cost structure that we can justify for providing this level and type of service to the public. So all the various analyses have led us to say that we need more flexibility, more alternatives, and that we need to utilize external resources beyond those that are direct government employees to get the job done as well as we possibly can.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairperson, has the government got any other reports besides ones that--he talked about the future. It seems to me he is quoting the past. The Premier knows that governments receive reports; they can accept or reject them. They can accept or reject advice and they have to have reasons for it. Has the government got any other reports besides the one that is not in the future--it is in the past--that it can share with us on the issue of home care?

Mr. Filmon: I have no other reports that I can share or that I have seen with respect to this topic.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairperson, one of the parts that was missing from the Premier’s comments and has been missing quite regularly is the whole issue of clients. I sent the document from David Martin to the Premier last week. Did the Premier read it?

Mr. Filmon: I skimmed the material that the member gave me.

Mr. Doer: Was the Premier not concerned that Mr. Martin (a) was adamantly opposed to the government initiative and (b) made a number of poignant comments and statements in the report that people directly affected should be and must be consulted on a fundamental decision that affects their independence and their quality of life?

It seems to me that there is the issue of an evaluation in 1996 or 1995 about what the status of home care is and what is the best course of action, which the government has not been able to provide in terms of current reports. There are also the issues of clients, patients, community.

Did the Premier read that comment? Can the Premier advise us of what action he took further to Mr. Martin’s comments about the impact of this decision on their quality of life and their independence?

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that government’s responsibility, having assessed any given problem, challenge, or issue, is to take account of as much information as is available to it and make decisions that are directed towards providing the services that government is expected to provide to the greatest possible quality and availability that we can. Particularly in home care, the objective is to meet the needs of the clients, to provide those services as fully and completely as we can possibly afford to do so, and the decision as to whether or not they are provided by this type of delivery mechanism or this person or that person is really a decision of government.

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We appreciate that there are strong philosophical views on the part of members opposite, on the part of those who are the heads of unions in this province, and many people who receive the service who believe philosophically that they have somehow a better confidence in a person who works for government than in a person who works for an outside agency, whether that be private, not-for-profit or some other form of outside agency. This is, in our judgment, not the issue whatsoever. The issue is whether or not we can provide the services that people demand and expect of us and whether we can do it in a very efficient and effective manner that meets their needs as fully and completely as we possibly can, and that is what we are intending to do under this system. Quite honestly, I do not think that the philosophical debates are going to be helpful to anybody who receives those services.

Mr. Doer: I am concerned that the government did not assess all the issues in home care. Here we have, with the greatest of respect, the minister who just last fall was involved in major changes on the emergency wards in community hospitals. Perhaps we could be forgiven--and the Premier will never acknowledge it, but he and I both know that this minister is flying by the seat of his proverbial pants on the decision to close the emergency wards of our community hospitals. And he knows that he had to have a climb-down position from their original position to close all five community-based emergency ward hospitals from ten o’clock to eight o’clock in the morning. He knows it, I know it, he is not going to admit it. I knew he knew it when he would not answer our questions anymore about it.

He knows that it did not make sense to the citizens in those areas, in the Victoria Hospital, the Grace Hospital, the Seven Oaks Hospital, the Misericordia Hospital, the Concordia Hospital, to have an acute-care hospital with emergency wards there that were built by the people of those communities and then have them close from ten o’clock till eight o’clock in the morning.

So we had to go through this torturous kind of change in policy because there was no proper assessment to begin with because when we produced the assessments they were produced by the minutes of meetings that we tabled, the emergency committee. The saving was $1.8 million, and there were also extra costs that were produced by the changes. Surgeons told me that they were not discharging patients as early as they could because they were worried there was no back-up system in the emergency wards which was in fact backing up the patients in the hospitals.

So we are not so confident that his minister--in fact, we are not confident at all that his Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) has properly “assessed” to the Premier the situation prior to his action. The Premier knows that there was not a proper assessment of public feelings, community feelings, about the emergency wards. He knows that; I know that. Every member in this Chamber knows that, particularly those of all political parties that reside in the city of Winnipeg. They know it was an ill-thought-out decision.

Of course, he is the only minister I know of that has to announce he is opening some of them because holidays are coming. He closes them in October, and he opens them in November because holidays are coming in December. Any Minister of Health that cannot plan for Christmas and the holiday season and other holiday seasons of other religious persuasions or beliefs worries us about something as fundamental as home care.

So does the Premier feel that his Minister of Health properly assessed the situation when he closed five community hospital emergency wards from ten o’clock at night till eight o’clock in the morning as he did last fall?

Mr. Filmon: The member opposite knows full well that the Minister of Health was dealing with a number of imperatives, not the least of which was a withdrawal of services by the emergency room doctors in many of our suburban hospitals. The Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) had to ensure that he had a system in place that could meet the expected needs of the circumstances as best as possible. The Minister of Health as well of course made the ongoing decisions based on availability of resources and availability of facilities to meet those resources. The Minister of Health has also shown that he is flexible enough to be able to recognize when needs have to be met and provide the opportunity to meet those needs.

I would say to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) that here we have him moving not in any traumatic fashion. This involves one part of the services in Winnipeg, home care attendant services. It involves 25 percent of them, and it involves a volume of services for which clearly there are many, many operators who are in a position to respond to a tender and to provide those services for, so that being the case, I believe that the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) has assessed the circumstances adequately and has in place a policy response that will meet the needs.

Mr. Doer: So the Premier is saying today that he believes that his Minister of Health adequately assessed the needs of health care patients in the city of Winnipeg when he closed five community hospital emergency wards down from ten o’clock to eight o’clock in the morning. He felt that his Minister of Health had adequately assessed and planned on the basis of what the health care needs were for the people in those communities.

Mr. Filmon: The Minister of Health did not close down those emergency wards. Those emergency rooms were closed down by the withdrawal of services by the doctors.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairperson, can the Premier confirm that the day after the walkout was settled the Deputy Minister of Health phoned the health administrators all across this city, five out of the seven hospitals, specifically Concordia, Seven Oaks, Misericordia, Grace and Victoria, and told them to close down from ten o’clock at night until eight o’clock in the morning--the Deputy Minister of Health, a person appointed by the Premier?

Mr. Filmon: I cannot confirm that. I was not with him when he made any phone calls.

Mr. Doer: Is the Premier saying that the Deputy Minister of Health, after service was restored from the dispute, could order the closure of emergency wards in Winnipeg from ten o’clock at night until eight o’clock in the morning without the approval of the Premier?

Mr. Filmon: No, I am not saying that at all. You asked me to confirm whether he made phone calls, and I was not with him when he made any phone calls.

Mr. Doer: Did the Premier authorize the closure of hospital emergency wards in the city of Winnipeg at the five community hospitals after the strike was settled? Did the Premier authorize the closure of those hospital emergency wards in October of 1995 for hours at ten o’clock at night until eight o’clock in the morning?

Mr. Filmon: Not personally, but the Ministry of Health would have obtained their authority to do so, I am sure.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairperson, you know this Premier is writing statements about accountability and enhancing accountability. Boy, he should start right in his own backyard.

Did the Minister of Health make the decision, or did the Premier authorize the Minister of Health to make that decision? Who made the final decision? I have asked this question before in Question Period. The Premier told us before that he is not one of equals around a cabinet table; he is the ultimate authority. Surely, the ultimate authority would make that decision. It would not be made in the Ministry of Health by a minister, something that affected five communities in our city and affected hundreds of thousands of people. Why can the Premier not just say he made the decision? What is wrong with saying that?

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Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, there is a decision-making process in government that does involve seeking approvals when required. The Minister of Health in matters of policy of this magnitude would have sought the approvals that we require. Part of them would be a cabinet committee, and that cabinet committee’s minutes would have been ratified by the cabinet. I am a part of that. We went through this before. The Leader wants to play games. I do not make all the decisions, but, yes, I am involved in the ratification of decisions that are made, and, yes, when the strike ended, the decision was not to reopen a number of the units on a 24-hour basis. Having subsequently evaluated the effects of that policy, the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) changed the policy so that some of the suburban hospitals are back open on a 24-hour basis. I do not know why we need to play games on this. This is all a matter of record.

Mr. Doer: We do not have to play games, Mr. Chairperson. All the Premier has to say is, yes, I made the decision. The Premier, I think, has done that finally. I asked him about nine times in a Question Period, I think, in late November of last year.

Mr. Chairperson, does the Premier feel that in that decision there was an adequate assessment, a diagnosis of the impact on the citizens of Winnipeg in the community hospital catchment areas? Did the Premier feel it was an adequate assessment of the impact of that decision on the citizens when the decision was made by the Premier and communicated through the Ministry of Health?

Mr. Filmon: I want to correct the Leader of the Opposition. I did not make the decision. All he has to do is read what I have just said about how decisions are made in cabinet. I know he has been away from cabinet for a long time so that he does not understand how cabinet makes decisions, but the Minister of Health, his recommendations were accepted by a committee of cabinet, and that decision that was made was ratified by the minutes being approved by cabinet. That is how it works. For him to say that I have said that I made the decision is wrong. I accept responsibility for any decision that is made by this government and the cabinet of this government. I accept that responsibility, but I do not make all the decisions. I support the decisions that are made ultimately and the process that ratifies those decisions, which I have explained to him in detail.

The process that was involved by the Minister of Health involved evaluating the reopening of the emergency wards. Having had them closed for a number of weeks on an overnight basis, it was decided by the Minister of Health and, as I said, ratified by the cabinet process that they would not reopen on a 24-hour basis. Having then evaluated the impacts of that process and those changes, the Minister of Health directed that they then be reopened on a 24-hour basis.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairman, why did the government have to reverse its position if they adequately assessed it properly at the beginning on the five community hospitals, to reverse their position on four immediately, with a tentative nature of one of the four and not reopening the Misericorda? If they had adequately assessed it at the time they made the decision, why did they have to reverse themselves, obviously, not for the, quote, holiday season, but for a more permanent basis?

Mr. Filmon: In all decisions we make, we evaluate the impacts of those decisions, and, based on that evaluation, the Minister of Health chose his course of action, a course of action that resulted in assuring that the services are available to the people who require them.

Mr. Doer: So the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) made a mistake in his initial assessment of the impact on citizens and had to reverse the government’s position on some of those hospitals based on the fact that the initial assessment was not proper, and that is why they had to reverse themselves partially in some of the other community hospitals.

Mr. Filmon: No, Mr. Chairman. The minister made his decision based on the best advice available to him at the time, and he subsequently revised that decision and increased the number of hours of available emergency room service in accordance with the demands that were there.

Mr. Doer: Can the Premier assure us and members of this House, who have no confidence in the ability of the Minister of Health to assess and plan important decisions that impact on all the citizens of this province after the fiasco on the emergency wards, that there is a proper assessment process dealing with other urban hospital decisions? Can the Premier assure us that the decisions on the Seven Oaks Hospital and Misericordia Hospital will be based on health merit, not on geographic considerations, particularly partisan considerations? Will the Premier today agree with us and the assessment we have had, based on the reports we have seen and some of the information we have had, that the Seven Oaks Hospital should remain as an acute care hospital, with acute care services being an emergency ward and open in the evening, and that the Misericordia Hospital, yes, to have some adaptation of programs in the community but also should have an emergency capacity in the evening and retain some of the acute care features they have, along with other features that they are gaining as they have some transition in the community?

Mr. Filmon: This really is getting into a detailed discussion of issues that should be dealt with in the other committee room on Health. What I will assure the member opposite is that this government will make decisions based on the needs of the people who will be served by the health care system. It will make decisions, not on a political basis, but on the basis of the best available advice from the experts and those who work within the system. I can also assure him that this government will continue to listen, because he is making assumptions of an impending course of action based on recommendations of some of the advisory groups within the system.

I think his own critic for Health has talked to about over a hundred different advisory groups, and much of the information that they are providing and much of the recommendations are in fact in conflict. They are not all leading to the same conclusion. So we as a government, and the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) certainly is leading this process, have to evaluate what is being proposed and has to in fact continue to try and refine all of the suggestions, advice, information and come up with the best conclusions out of what often is not exact science but a composite of many, many opinions.

They may be expert opinions and expert advice, but they still are opinions, and we have to try and arrive at the best composite conclusion out of this advice and opinion.

Mr. Doer: I know the Premier has Barb Biggar in the design team over here. I know the Premier has KPMG over here. I know he has the Urban Hospital committee somewhere in between. He also has 101 or 102 committees that have been established by the two ministers of Health, but I am concerned about the people in the area. Just as the decision on Victoria Hospital and Grace Hospital and Concordia Hospital appear to be reversed, and I am happy that has happened, I am concerned we do not make the wrong decisions based on the citizens in the area for Misericordia and Seven Oaks.

Will the Premier himself, because we do not have much faith in his Minister of Health, agree to meet with the citizens’ coalitions that have been established at the Seven Oaks in the north end of the city--they have had a number of public meetings which I have attended; I have not spoken, but I listened--and agree to meet with the citizens’ committee groups that have been established at Misericordia? So, besides all the experts and consulting companies and these other groups, the Premier will have first-hand information from the citizens that ultimately we all serve.

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Mr. Filmon: I listen to thousands of people in the course of every month that I am in office. I respond to phone calls. I read hundreds of letters. I listen to people who call in to open-line shows. I listen to people who come to this Legislature. I meet with groups and individuals constantly. I do not believe that the advice from one group is any more important than the advice from another group. The decision, ultimately, will be a reflection of all of the advice that I get from all of the people.

I can tell the member opposite that the one thing that does happen is that I ultimately take responsibility. Our ability to continue to govern with the good will and support of the majority of Manitobans is based on our continued efforts to listen and to learn as much as we can when we make decisions. The one thing I do not have is the luxury that the Leader of the Opposition does, and that is to make no decisions and to take no responsibility. So I can tell him that I take responsibility every day that I live in this position. He may well luxuriate in that position so that he can constantly criticize me for every decision that I make. The fact is that only the public can only give you the chance, and they do not want you in this position--to the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans). They do not want to take that risk of putting people who are irresponsible and can only be negative and critical in the job.

Mr. Doer: If the Premier will read my comments about both Seven Oaks and Misericordia, you will find perhaps we were suggesting some of the community programs in Misericordia, that there would be a transition with an acute care component to it. If the Premier would read back our comments in the home care area, what we proposed them in 1993, in an alternative speech from the throne in ’94 and in the election campaign, we had a very modern approach to flexibility and co-ordination of home care that we felt was necessary with a nonprofit principle to it. We do not apologize for that; in fact, we are even flattered. After the alternative speech from the throne came out and we had a platform called Manitoba Works with a number of initiatives to get people working again, we were so flattered that the Conservatives had no ideas that they had to use that term in their election ads, Manitoba Works, about four months later.

Remember Joe Biden when he was a politician got accused of plagiarism? I suppose we could take that imitation is the finest form of flattery. It was not even imitation. It was exact same term that we had put in November 1994 that he had in his ads of March and April of ’95.

My question is simply to the Premier. I know he is a busy person, and I know he has calls and letters and things to do. I am just asking the Premier, would he meet with the community group from the north end of Winnipeg? They feel that the Premier advertised in 1990 that he is a north end person. They feel that that is an important link that he made publicly. They feel they should be able to make that link back with him and meet with the people of the Misericordia community, which serves a number of communities, so that people themselves can have access to the highest authority in government provincially, and that is the Premier.

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chair, I repeat that I take as much advice from as widely distributed sources as I possibly can. I have listened to many, many people from Seven Oaks and from the north end of Winnipeg. I am proud of my roots, proud of my heritage, and I know that I have heard many, many times their views on this particular issue. Whether or not I have the time or the opportunity to meet with them will not reflect the fact that I have not listened and I have not heard what they have been saying. In fact I have.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): Being an independent Liberal member it gives me the advantage of being able to become an expert on everything here in the Manitoba Legislature, so now I am at Executive Council. Looking at the Estimates here, I see in Management and Administration that there is--is it $2 million or $2 billion here goes to management administration. The last time I looked, photocopies are about five cents apiece, and prior to the election we used to get a photocopy of all Orders-in-Council delivered to our caucus office which allowed us to have--

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Could I ask the two members that want to carry on a conversation to do so in the loge? You are right in between the conversation, and it makes it very difficult to hear.

Mr. Kowalski: We used to get photocopies of the Orders-in-Council, so we could see them timely and draw them to our attention. Now, from what I understand, since the election we no longer receive these. I think this amounts to setting the photocopier for one extra copy and maybe some toner and a piece of paper, which with our limited staff resources and our limited resources is a small thing but would make a big difference. Is there a reason why our unofficial caucus, the three independent Liberal members, can no longer receive a photocopy from the Clerk of the Privy Council?

Hon. James Downey (Deputy Premier): Mr. Chairman, let me assure you that it is nothing personal, the reason that he does not get the information that he requires. Under the GMA, the GMA states that it is only the official opposition party that we are required to provide that information for. If the member so desires, he is quite free to contact the House leader and take it before LAMC with that request, but that basically is the reason. Because the Liberals do not have official party status, there is no requirement to forward that information to him.

However, I guess we got some additional news today. I am not sure what the member referred to when he called himself an "independent" Liberal. That is news. [interjection] That is the explanation which staff have provided me, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kowalski: I will be attending the next LAMC meeting and I will be bringing that up. It seems like it should not have required it being brought up. It was a very minor thing that could have been done without any discussion. Just an extra photocopy seems not like a lot to ask for.

I see in this Executive Council that Intergovernmental Relations Secretariat is part of this, and I know Marcel Dionne was recently here to see the Premier. I think our Premier, just from his longevity, is one of the most experienced premiers when it comes to constitutional talks.

Although maybe it is not the highest priority for the public, I think the constitutional talks probably bring out some of the best that this Chamber has to offer in that there is less partisanship, because I think it brings us to one common ground that we have as Canadians for the unity of Canada.

I have never been a member here while we have gone through constitutional talks, and I think this province has established a reputation of working together on this subject, and I am wondering if the Premier could tell us, will we be seeing the same vein of an all-party task force or an all-party consultation or working together in regard to the unity of Canada?

Mr. Filmon: I just want to point out to the member for The Maples that Marcel Dionne is the hockey player. Stephane Dion is the minister, but he is probably equally as good a stick handler, I might say. Having said that, I did enjoy my meeting with him and did enjoy the opportunity to exchange views and ideas about Canadian unity.

I have said publicly that if we are to engage in another round of constitutional discussion, that, certainly, it would be my plan to have an all-party task force that would prepare Manitoba’s response to that. I know that we will always have difficulty given that the Liberals are not officially a party in this House, and whether or not their representation is official or nonofficial I guess will be the subject of negotiations at some point between House leaders. It would be my earnest desire to have an all-party position that we could take forward with confidence on the national front when we engage in our discussions.

I might say that in terms of the decentralization and the disentanglement that has currently been in discussion, because that was a part of Charlottetown which was basically supported by the parties in this House, I have assumed that there continues to be support for us getting the federal government and the provinces out of each other’s hair in so many of those areas of overlapping jurisdiction, and those things that have been put forward by the federal government on that score I think have certainly been ones that we have assumed were still acceptable to members in this House.

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(Mr. Mike Radcliffe, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): I would like to ask the Premier sort of a follow-up question to his discussion with the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) on the process that is undertaken when government, cabinet, Treasury Board make decisions in the completion of their duties.

I am wondering if the Premier saw or had reported to him any studies undertaken on behalf of the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) or his department outlining the costs, the benefits, the pluses and the minuses of the privatization of home care that is being undertaken by this government.

Mr. Filmon: Firstly, I re-emphasize that the plans are to provide more choice, more options for service delivery to the clients of home care, more flexibility in the provision of those services and the utilization of outside agencies for providing that greater choice and that greater flexibility in the provision of services. I have already indicated all of the different areas of information that were considered as a decision to take 25 percent of one small part of home care, that being the home care attendant services within the city of Winnipeg, 25 percent of that, and make it open for competitive bidding.

So the process is just as I repeated it to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer).

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, I have no quarrel with the process as was outlined by the Premier (Mr. Filmon) to the Leader of the Opposition at great length earlier this afternoon. I have a very simple question, and that is, as that process unwound, did the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) either report to the cabinet or share with the cabinet any documentation that outlined the benefits and the costs of the changes to the home care system that are being undertaken by this government, specific, not general, a specific study or document that dealt exclusively with this issue?

Mr. Filmon: I repeat for the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) that there are seven provinces in this country that have services provided by external agencies, private and nonprofit agencies, in the delivery of home care. The Minister of Health read the comments of the Minister of Health, Mr. Stewart, in Nova Scotia earlier today about the rationale for the delivery of services by private sector agencies in Nova Scotia. The comparative costs are available to us as they are to anybody in this country. The experience, the very positive and valuable experience that we have had for over 20 years with the VON delivering services as an external agency to government in this whole area of home care, is valid and very, very important information that we have, ensuring that we know the benefits and the opportunities that can be provided by taking in these external agencies as partners in the delivery of home care services.

He indicated as well, and I have in my comments quoting from the Price Waterhouse report that was done for the former NDP administration that talked about taking advantage of external agencies and more competition and utilizing those elements in the system. So that is my response, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairman, the Premier, of course, knows that the Treasury Board document was released a couple of months ago, and people were very concerned about its privatization and profit orientation, that that is why it obviously was made public. That document included the divestiture of “all” home care services. The Minister of Health confirmed three things when the document was made public. Yes, they were proceeding with privatization in all four quadrants of the city of Winnipeg. Secondly, they were looking at a Crown corporation; and, thirdly, it would not save any money. Can the Premier advise us whether the Minister of Health’s statement on the public record was correct? (a) They were moving to privatize, pursuant to the Treasury Board document, all four quadrants. (b) They were going to establish a Crown corporation, which seemed odd. (c) It was not going to save any money.

Mr. Filmon: No, I cannot confirm that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Doer: Well, when the Minister of Health said, (a) they were going to proceed with all four quadrants, (b) they were going to establish a Crown corporation, and (c) they would not save any money, was he wrong on point No. 1? Was he wrong on point No. 2? Was he wrong on point No. 3 in terms of what the government’s alleged current plan is on home care privatization?

Mr. Filmon: The member will have to ask those questions of the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae). All I am aware of is the authority that has been granted by cabinet to proceed with the current plan, which is to introduce competition in the delivery of the home care attendant services for one quadrant of the city, for 25 percent of those services in the city of Winnipeg. That is the only authorization that the minister has.

I can confirm that, as the budget indicates, because of the tremendous increase in volume, we will continue to spend more money in home care, but the objective of the process is to limit the growth of the unit cost so that we may well be doing more home care services, but the cost would not grow as quickly as it would if we did it under the current circumstances. There would be that saving, not in total dollars because we are doing more services, more units of service, but certainly on a unit basis there would be savings. In other words, as I said on television not too long ago, if we were to carry on with the kind of volume we are anticipating, it would cost $10 million more under the current system than we estimate it would under the system of competition.

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Mr. Doer: So the minister was wrong on four quadrants. The Minister of Health was wrong on a Crown corporation, and the Minister of Health was wrong on this being a measure that did not save any money. I just want to know, whom do I believe, the Premier or the Minister of Health? The Minister of Health said all three things are on the public record. The Premier knows that. He reads newspapers. I know he reads them even when he is away; he reads them when he comes back, as we all do. The statement was made, and on all three scores, was the minister wrong on all three points, or is the Premier wrong? I mean, we just want to know what we are dealing with here.

It is kind of a bit of a moving program of privatization. Now, we do not know where it is moving to next. We have heard some of these things before, but it is important, I think, for all of us to know that the Minister of Health was wrong that it was all four quadrants, that the Minister of Health was wrong that it was not going to save any money, and that the Minister of Health was wrong on a Crown corporation. I just want to know that.

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I mean, this is the kind of thing that I think does not do a service to the people of Manitoba because there is a decision-making process. Whether or not the Minister of Health is investigating, doing it in other quadrants of the city, is something he will have to ask him. I am telling the Leader because I am trying to be as complete as I can in the answer. I am telling the Leader of the Opposition, he only has authorization from the government to proceed with one quadrant. That does not mean that he may not have in his mind a desire to do something else, but you would have to ask him, not ask me. I know what he has been given authority to do.

That is No. 1. No. 2 is that we will anticipate continuing increases in volume that will mean, in the long term, we will end up spending more money, but, under the proposal that is being pursued today, with respect to bringing more competition and more alternatives for delivery into the system, we believe that we would have been spending $10 million more to meet those volume needs than we are under the current proposal.

This is the circumstance with respect to the difference in how you express whether or not money is saved. Total dollars are going to continue to go up because volume is going to go up, but they would have gone up even faster if we had not adopted the proposal that the Minister of Health is currently proceeding with.

Mr. Doer: Well, when the Minister of Health said publicly that the government has authorized the Health department to proceed in all four quadrants on the privatization measure as contained within the Treasury Board document of December 16, 1995, the Minister of Health did not have the authority to proceed, or is the Premier telling us that after he said he had the authority to proceed in all four quadrants, the government changed its mind and changed its authority. I just want to know that.

Mr. Filmon: I do not have the Minister of Health’s statement in front of me. If he wants to verify the information that may have been made, I believe that the Leader of the Opposition should go into the next committee room and ask those questions of the Minister of Health. I do not have his statement in front of me, and I can neither confirm nor deny what the Leader of the Opposition is saying about what he said.

Mr. Doer: I heard him say it, I saw him say it, and I read that he had said it. I am just asking the Premier, is the Premier saying that the Minister of Health then stated that the government was proceeding with the December 16, 1994, Treasury Board proposal on the four-quadrant privatization? Is the Premier saying that he did not, the Minister of Health did not have authorization when he said to Manitobans, workers and clients, that, yes, they are proceeding with all four quadrants of the city of Winnipeg as proposed here? This is a major issue. It is not just a little, you know, we are not being a Philadelphia lawyer here, you know, looking at whether it is a split infinitive. We are talking about a minister of the Crown who is given a Treasury Board document that comes out and says, yes, that is what we are doing and, no, it is not going to save any money and, yes, we are establishing a Crown corporation.

Now, I want to know whether he had the authority to say that when he said it or whether the government changed the authority after he said it, you know, in terms of what the Premier is saying now. I can confirm that the minister said that. The Premier has read public statements and commentary after his public town hall discussion where the discrepancy of the $10 million was raised between himself and the Minister of Health, who said, we are not going to save any money.

We have a document; we have a Minister of Health who said, yes, that is what we are doing: we are doing it in all four quadrants, and we are establishing a Crown corporation. Of course, that automatically creates tremendous, tremendous concern by the workers, by the clients, the patients, by people that rely on home care service. This is not just a minor error, if it was made as an error. I want to know what authority he had to say, given the fact that he said, yes, Treasury Board has approved it, the government has approved it, that is what the government is doing. I want to know from the Premier whether he had the authority to say that and make that commitment.

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I will repeat, the minister has authority to proceed with what has been announced, which is 25 percent of the home care attendant services in the city of Winnipeg to be put out for public proposal and competition for the delivery of those services. I will repeat that you can try and make a difference out of whether or not you call the $10 million a saving when you are in fact increasing your service levels so rapidly that you will continue to spend more year over year. The real fact is that if you look at where we are going to be at the end of this process that we will still be saving $10 million over where we would have been if we kept in place the current government monopoly, bureaucracy, delivery of service versus the proposal to have services provided on an external basis, on a competitive basis by other agencies outside of government. No, to my knowledge there is no authority to proceed with a Crown corporation.

(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)

Mr. Doer: So I want to know what the Premier is doing to hold his minister accountable for statements that the Premier is now saying were false. The minister said, and, you know, verified they were proceeding with all four quadrants of the city of Winnipeg. The minister said, we are establishing a Crown corporation, and the Minister said, we are not saving any money. Now, the Premier is now saying he did not have the authority to say that. This is not a minor statement from a government minister. He is the Minister of Health. He speaks for the government on health. The Premier is now saying that this Minister of Health did not have the authority to make the statements he made to the public of Manitoba. Is that what the Premier is saying?

Mr. Filmon: What I am saying is that I believe that there is an adequate explanation for the difference of presentation about whether or not there is saving or not saving in going to the system. I have explained it, I think, to the best of my ability. If that is not adequate for the member opposite then, you know, he can seek whatever redress he has, but that is as much as I can say to explain it to him.

Mr. Doer: Can the Premier then explain and inform the House and the people of Manitoba on the issue of the four quadrants? The minister said, we are proceeding with four quadrants. He said, we are proceeding with a Crown corporation. The Treasury Board document recommends that the government proceed with four quadrants. Is the Premier saying that the minister did not have the authority to make that commitment on behalf of the province, he only had the authority to make the commitment on behalf of one quadrant? Did the minister inform Manitobans accurately and adequately in terms of his authority when he made the statement about the four quadrants, or was he exceeding the authority of the Premier and the government because the authority, when he made the statement, was only to proceed with one quadrant?

Mr. Filmon: I am informed that the conflict is between the use of the term “25 percent” and the use of the term “quadrant,” that it amounts to 25 percent of the home care attendant services but in fact it is a mix that involves all four quadrants.

Mr. Doer: So the media release released by the Province of Manitoba--yes, Manitoba government--Bison on top--March 1, 1996, will soon release tenders in the four areas of Winnipeg, one in each of the four geographic zones. Is the Premier saying that he had--two would be issued on July 1 and the remaining two on October 1. The Premier is now saying he did not have the authority to make that statement and issue that press release.

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Mr. Filmon: All I am saying, he did have the authority to make that statement that it involves 25 percent of the home care attendant services, but it may be spread amongst all four quadrants.

Mr. Doer: You can understand why the public of Manitoba does not trust what is coming out of this government because they say--they have a Treasury Board document that talks about all quadrants, and we know they are already proceeding with a hundred percent of the nurses in this service. They are proceeding with all quadrants. The document has leaked and the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) says, yes, we are proceeding with all quadrants. They put out a press release to say they are proceeding with all quadrants. It does not say 25 percent in any of them.

We both know, all of us know, that the government’s intent was in the Treasury Board document because it was confirmed by the minister. It was confirmed by the press release. I think it is important, I mean, I think we have got a huge problem on our hands here. This is not the Manitoba way, I would suggest to the Premier, this is not the Manitoba way. We pioneered a home care program in the public nonprofit area in Manitoba and, yes, it included VON which was a nonprofit agency, and it was enhanced in the ’70s and enhanced in the ’80s. [interjection]

I would suggest to the Premier we are heading in the wrong direction. If the Premier thinks that having profit, and I have no problem with McDonald’s competing with Burger King and Success competing with Angus--are they the same company? [interjection] Robertson. Okay, there is a role of the competitive marketplace, but I do not believe in having a competitive profit home care system. I believe that all the provincial resources and support for this program should go to the service and not for the profit.

I believe that this document and this press release do not describe what the Premier is describing today. So does the minister have no authority to do so, or did he just scare everybody in Manitoba beyond what--they are still going to be scared because they do not trust the government. How does this Premier expect the people to trust them when, on the emergency wards, it is five closed, and then the holidays come along two months later and three are reopened, and one is reopened tentatively, and another one, we do not know about, flying by the seat of our proverbial pants, with people not knowing one day to the next whether the acute care hospitals or the emergency wards that are supposed to be opened from ten o’clock at night to eight o’clock in the morning are going to be open in their community, and hospitals having to roll out signs that say, sorry, your emergency ward is closed down--just flying by the seat of our proverbial pants on something that important?

Now, in the home care--we have always tried to solve our problems in this province through different governments, different Premiers, in a co-operative way, in a bargaining way, with partnership. I am asking the Premier, this press release on this government position, where did it go wrong? Where did this government go wrong in terms of what is going on now for the clients who do not want privatization, the workers that do not want privatization in terms of what the government is doing? Where has it gone wrong? Does this Premier accept any responsibility, along with his Minister of Health, for this turmoil that has been created by this government?

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, from what the Leader of the Opposition has read, I do not see that it has gone wrong. He has a fundamental, philosophical difference with the delivery of services by people external to government, and he does not judge the service delivery by the quality and the outcomes of the service delivery. He chooses to judge it based on who is delivering the service and whether or not it is a union or an organized public sector--and that is the only thing that makes a difference with him. What makes a difference to me is whether or not people are getting the service they need, whether or not people are getting it for the quality that they need and whether or not people are happy with the service. I believe that they will do so under the service delivery model that we have chosen, which introduces choice, which introduces competition, which introduces flexibility that was not there in the system before.

Mr. Doer: Can the Premer indicate at what point they decided to proceed with this privatization model that they are now proposing?

Mr. Filmon: I am informed that it was a matter of discussion during the course of the Estimates approval process for the Department of Health during the past few months.

Mr. Doer: Can the Premier explain why there was no obvious work before December 16, 1995, when the document was presented to Treasury Board, dealing with the privatization of home care, which is quite a number of months before? Was there no pre-work going on on this document that was prepared for Treasury Board? Was it just ideology?

Mr. Filmon: It is not just ideology, and, to my knowledge, the department has been working on it for probably the past six months to a year.

Mr. Doer: Well, thank you, and I am glad the Premier has confirmed that it has been up to a year that they have worked on it. Why did the Premier not have the honesty to go forward to the public of Manitoba during the election campaign and campaign on their changing on a more extreme ideology in terms of moving to profit and privatization in the home care services?

You know, we talk about consulting with the people and receiving a mandate. Why did not the Premier, when he was campaigning a year ago, when they were studying this proposal to privatize home care--I remember the Premier doing all these ads with seniors on trains. I thought it was interesting. It was at the Children’s Museum, a program started by the NDP and the facility was moved by the existing government, so one would argue a bit of a partnership there.

Why did the Premier not let people know that this is what they were planning on doing? Was this just another one of these little tiptoe-past-the-tulips campaign strategies of the government? Sneak past the people and then let them know what is going to happen after that? Why did we not know about this? I have absolutely no problem debating the Premier on this issue, the privatization issue, with the people. I think it is incumbent upon a government that when they are seeking a mandate to put everything on the table. I know the government’s strategy was to have everything in the fine print or no print at all. Just look at their election signs. I am not sure whether all members used those election signs or not, but all the ones that I saw were, you know, Progressive Conservative, I had to buy these glasses to see Progressive Conservative.

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An Honourable Member: Pretty good. They work, eh?

Mr. Doer: They do. They can see that little fine print. But I want to know if this government has been looking at it for the last year why did they not campaign on it and make this public with the people as part of the mandate they were seeking? I think surely a huge decision of this nature that affects 17,000 people in our province, that affects 2,000 to 3,000 people that provide it, the public should have been consulted in a democracy before the government could proceed. I would argue you do not have a mandate to proceed.

Mr. Filmon: I said that I thought the department had been working on it for six months to a year. This was not something that was brought forward on a political basis or on an ideological basis. This was something that was generated from the department, and I understand they began working on it some time last summer or fall in response to the growing knowledge that we had that that $87 million line that was in our budget for this coming year where we did not how we were going to deal with that additional transfer payment cut from Ottawa. It became apparent from our discussions with Ottawa that they did not have any transition funding or any means of cushioning our impact from that reduction. So the departments had a variety of proposals that they were dealing with in order to become more efficient in the delivery of their services, and this was one of many that the Department of Health came forward with, having developed it over the course of the summer and fall.

Mr. Doer: The Premier knew the budget cuts from the federal government well in advance of the election campaign and he had a number of questions, as his Minister of Finance did, about what that impact would be on the spending decisions of government. They said there would not be cutbacks. In fact, the Premier had ads--I will not let them take health care services away from you. Well, you tell the people with eye examinations you are not taking any health care services away from them. You tell seniors in Pharmacare that you are not taking any health care services away from them in terms of your changes. [interjection]

Well, if you had the courage of your convictions you would have put it out in the election campaign. If you do not have the courage of your convictions, you tiptoe and sneak past the people and then do it later on. I do not think you had the courage of your convictions because you did not put this out as one of your election promises or commitments. In fact, you put the absolute opposite out. You put it on orange paper. You went out in the election campaign and had these promises on Pharmacare, the Gary Filmon way, the government way, on orange paper. Probably the deputy architect of these, you know--

An Honourable Member: You do not like orange paper?

Mr. Doer: Well, I believe that parties that have a blue colour and a blue belief should put their stuff out on blue paper. Maybe I am old-fashioned. That is what we did. We did not use blue paper to put out our election promises. We did not do that. That is why we think--well, people think that, people are cynical about all of us. I think the cynicism should start with a person who tiptoes past the issues and sneaks past the decisions they are going to make and puts things on different coloured paper.

The Deputy Premier thinks it is funny that Pharmacare is being raised dramatically. The Deputy Premier thinks it is funny that the government did not campaign on home care. You know, everything is just a big political game to him, spin game, et cetera. There are real people out there being hurt by your decisions. It is a very tough day today. Those people are very loyal to the patients, extremely loyal, and the patients are very loyal to them. That is why we have asked repeatedly what studies have you got, what evidence have you got to support your position that this will improve the quality and the cost of home care here in Manitoba?

Of course, Manitoba, you mention X number of provinces. Manitoba was the one that proceeded with this system in the ’70s as was evaluated by the Kane and Kane study in terms of being the best program here in North America. So I want to know from the Premier, does he feel he received a mandate to proceed with these massive changes in home care in the last election campaign, and why was he not frank with the people that that was his hidden agenda, given that he had promised to maintain spending at $4.465 billion, which was in his three-year projections and that was pursuant and passed the federal budget of 1995?

Mr. Chairperson: Before we continue, I would just like to advise the committee members that if you could put your questions and your answers through the Chair, it will prevent some of the provoked debate that could happen. I think the decorum has been excellent today, and I would like to continue that way.

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that we were very clear. It was even contained in the budget that we passed last year prior to the election that there was an $87 million shortfall from Ottawa that had not been dealt with in the budget for the 1996-97 fiscal year. I spoke about that on numerous occasions during the election campaign and said that our first preference was to convince Ottawa to give us some transition funding, convince Ottawa to assist us with that, but if it did not happen we would obviously have to deal with it in the way that we have dealt with it in the past, which is to ensure that we make reasonable decisions and maintain our support and maintain our commitment to ensuring that people get the support that they need.

But we do not have the luxury, like the Leader of the Opposition, of putting our head in the sand and pretending that none of this exists. Every other province in Canada has to deal with what they are dealt, and that is that when Ottawa cuts their transfers, they have to determine what it is that they cannot afford to spend and invest in in order to ensure that they maintain their budget balance, if that is their objective. And, of course, seven or eight provinces out of 10 have balanced budgets today and are maintaining that commitment. We ran on the balanced budget. We said over and over and over again that the balanced budget was what differed between us and the opposition, and we believe that that is the kind of commitment that people were looking for. They wanted a commitment that we were prepared to live within our means, to make the difficult decisions and choices but that we were not going to be all things to all people.

You know, the Leader of the Opposition, he talks about this in very glib terms because he does not have to make decisions. He wants to talk about the fact that he can promise everything to everybody. But the fact is he does not have to say whether or not he is going to raise taxes or whether he is going to raise the deficit and defer the tax burden on the next generation. If he did he would not have a hope in heck of being elected in this province, so he gets away with saying nothing and with misleading and tiptoeing past the issues, so to speak.

Throughout the election campaign he put all of this information out that suggested that he could do all of these things. It did not hold any water whatsoever on analysis. He did not have the money to pay for it. He kept talking about spending the money from the Kenaston underpass, which he spent 14 different times in 14 different ways. He put all sorts of other phony figures forward. He was going to reduce welfare by $40 million, reduce welfare spending by $40 million. There was nothing there. This is the kind of irresponsibility that, of course, Manitobans did not want then and do not want today. They would rather have a government that takes responsibility, that makes decisions, difficult choices that we have always had to make while we have been in government, and in the end makes a commitment to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and that is what we are attempting to do. I would argue with the member opposite that when you are elected to govern, you are elected by people who want you to make your best judgments throughout the time that you are in office. That is exactly what we are doing.

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Mr. Doer: I have already identified the fact that we feel that the government did not campaign on this issue and therefore did not have the mandate to proceed with the radical ideological changes in home care in terms of privatization. The government likes to talk about democracy, and that is fair enough. I have asked the Premier whether they have considered the concerns of clients in this issue. Has the government thought that there are two parts to this democracy; one is the issue of clients and the other is the workers that they always quote?

We believe the majority, well over the majority of clients--it would be impossible to say 100 percent. David Martin said that he has not met one home care client yet that was in favour of privatization. I dare say there would be some, but in our phone calls and our door-to-door communication and our advice from clients, I would say close to 95 percent of them, if not more, are opposed to this privatization. When the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) gets into this rhetoric and rants and raves and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) talks about democracy, and the Premier yesterday in his speech talked about they are basically on the side of clients on this one, is the Premier willing to have a plebiscite of clients on the privatization initiative and live by the decisions of those people that were not told in the election campaign about this change? Let us really test this democracy that some of his ministers are talking about. Are you willing to put this before those home care clients that are the most vulnerable about proceeding with this privatization initiative?

Mr. Filmon: The only real, valid test, Mr. Chairman, will be based on the delivery of the services under the new configuration, under the new proposal and the test of the acceptability and the satisfaction of the people who receive those services. That is what we are prepared obviously to answer to.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairperson, the Premier is now saying to this House that he is unwilling to have a plebiscite of the people that are most directly affected, the clients. He will not let them vote on something that he did not campaign on. I would like the Premier to confirm that he will not have a plebiscite of the clients.

Mr. Filmon: Mr. Chairman, the difficulty with any kind of rational or fair analysis is that they have only had experience with one type of home-care delivery. Those, I know, who get their delivery through VON, for instance, are eminently happy with it, in fact great satisfaction. That is a form of private delivery that is delivery outside of government. That is the kind of concept that we believe is comparative to what we are going to see in this new delivery, with choice, with competition and with opportunities for flexibility. Our assessment of it is that those who receive those services from an external agency to government are very happy with it, and we believe that we can replicate that by the model that we are proceeding with.

Mr. Doer: Mr. Chairperson, the government uses choice. What choice have the people had? Why can they not have the ultimate choice to have a plebiscite? Many of these home care patients have had both the private profit model and the nonprofit model, so let us have choice. Let us have democracy. The words just flow across this House. We will live with the choice of the home care clients, the 17,000 home care clients. We will live with it. I personally will live with it. If they choose to go with this private profit model--and many of them have experience and contacts with other people. They are very capable of making this decision. They are the ones most directly affected. The Premier is not and I am not. They are.

You know the Minister of Health talks about Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis and other patients that need home care services. I suggest to the Premier the majority of them, if not almost all of them, not everyone, want to keep a nonprofit home care system. So I am challenging the Premier to have a plebiscite. Let us have the ultimate choice. I have faith in the people that get the service that they can make the right decision for themselves. I challenge the Premier to give choice and give voice and give say to the people that are directly affected. I challenge the Premier to say today in these Estimates that he will have a plebiscite on the proposal of his government, the profit proposal, the privatization proposal versus the system today.

So will the Premier give the people the ultimate choice and will he provide the ultimate flexibility for them to have that choice because they are the most directly impacted? The government did not have a mandate to proceed with this in the election campaign. Let us give people a voice and let us give people a vote and let us give them choice. I challenge the Premier to give them democracy.

Mr. Filmon: I would just point out to the Leader of the Opposition that many of us within the government caucus have family, have friends, have close acquaintances who are users of home care in this province. We have heard the direct stories and the direct reports from people whom we know and know well.

I was just recently at the funeral of a close friend who enjoyed palliative care service on an external basis, not from government delivery, but on a home care basis from private providers of services, and the family could not say enough about the level of service, the quality of service, the availability, the flexibility, all of the elements of the service that they received. We have had many, many of these opportunities to listen to people, and, quite honestly, the only way in which anybody can make that judgment as to whether something is better or not as good is when they have the experience, the direct experience themselves.

You cannot get into a political debate or an ideological debate in which people are attempting to frighten people by saying, oh, the real agenda is that you are going to have user fees; the real agenda is that they are going to cut you off; the real agenda is that you will not get the same person here each day or each time you need the service. All of those kinds of things that are not true, need not be true, are part and parcel of the kind of debate that is destructive and is not meaningful and will not lead to well-informed decision-making.

The fact of the matter is that we have a responsibility to provide the services. We are going to ensure that in providing the services that they are to the highest standards and quality that people expect of government and we are going to ensure that these service standards and quality are maintained and in fact are monitored and very closely guarded to ensure that this remains the best home care service in the country. But what we are also going to be able to do is give them flexibility, opportunity to ensure that they are there seven days a week, 24 hours a day, that we do not have the limitations about the discharge of patients, we do not have limitations as to hours of service, that we do not have limitations as to availability of people when others are on holidays and so on and so forth. Those are the kinds of things that we believe are very important and that will be provided by this new delivery of service model.

Mr. Chairperson: The hour being 5:30 p.m., committee rise. Call in the Speaker.

IN SESSION

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Marcel Laurendeau): The hour being 5:30 p.m., this House now stands adjourned until tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. (Wednesday).