NORTHERN AFFAIRS

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Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Department of Northern Affairs. Does the honourable Minister of Northern Affairs have an opening statement?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Northern Affairs): Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am very pleased today to have the opportunity to introduce and review the 1996-97 budget Estimates for the Department of Northern and Native Affairs.

This past year has been both gratifying and challenging for our department. The department has addressed a large range of unique issues affecting residents and the future development of northern Manitoba. These are certainly very exciting times for the North and its residents. Decisions which are made now will have a long-range impact for many years.

In order to address this dynamic environment of change, the Department of Northern Affairs has developed partnerships and co-operative approaches with communities and organizations and is determined to tackle the challenges faced by the North and its residents.

In 1995-96, I had the opportunity to travel to many northern communities and spoke formally and informally with many northern residents about their concerns. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my staff for their accomplishments and commitments to northern Manitoba over the past year.

In the past year we have made significant progress in several areas of major importance to northern Manitoba, and I would suggest, Mr. Chair, to all of Manitoba. In the area of the Northern Flood Agreement, as members know, this agreement dates back to the late 1970s as a compensation package for flooding done in the early 1970s under my predecessor, Mr. Downey, the first of five comprehensive agreements was completed with the Split Lake First Nation. In the course of the last year, we concluded comprehensive implementation agreements with both the York Factory and the Nelson House First Nation, which has literally put hundreds of millions of dollars into the hands of those communities to compensate them for loss in the past and also to give them an opportunity to build for their future.

I am pleased to report that the remaining two communities with comprehensive agreements still outstanding, the Cross Lake First Nation as well as the Norway House First Nation, are currently involved in, I would call, a fast-track process with our department where we are working very hard to complete both of those agreements. I am hopeful that they will be concluded and completed within this year, or shortly into 1997.

In the area of treaty land entitlement, an area that is very important I think for all Manitobans and all Canadians, is the completion of our obligation as citizens to provide the correct amount of land for the shortfall that was created some century ago in the original surveys of a number of First Nations in Manitoba. As members know, the Island Lake communities, four communities, signed agreements with the federal government and Manitoba as a partner with the federal government in providing land some time ago, and those land selections are nearly complete. South Indian Lake land has prepared to be transferred under another agreement as is Granville Lake which will facilitate those two communities becoming status communities.

In the past year, we have also seen the conclusion of agreements with the Long Plain First Nation, the Roseau River First Nation, and the Swan Valley, I believe, First Nation in southern Manitoba.

The remaining 19 bands are currently in, I would consider it to be a heated set of negotiations and drafting as we speak. In fact, I apologize to my colleagues in opposition, but today Mr. Jeff Polakov who heads our negotiations will not be able to join us as he has been closeted the last couple of days with the Chiefs' Committee as they work on, I would hope, the final draft of an agreement in principle to settle this over-century outstanding commitment to fulfill treaty land entitlement in our province. So it is a very exciting time to be in Estimates.

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In the area of self-government negotiations, the dismantling process, the federal government remains and is--it is their process--the lead ministry in this particular area. Manitoba, throughout the last two years, has been developing our own set of policy recommendations as to how we will be enacting or interacting with this negotiating process. I would like to stress to my colleagues that we have not yet been invited in a formal way to be part of that. We had some discussions with Mr. Irwin last year, and indicated that we would want an invitation and an outline of the areas that he wanted us to be part of. We have yet to have that given to us. That is a negotiation between the federal government and the First Nations, and not an area in which we have jurisdiction, I believe, until we are involved by invitation.

In our Northern Affairs communities, we have had a new capital review process put in place to ensure more local input in the determination of where our capital budget is spent. We have seen continuing development of infrastructure in those communities through that process. We have also seen in a number of our communities some significant economic development, I think in the neighbourhood of Bissett with the opening of the Rea Gold mine, for example, a major plus to that community in the constituency of my colleague the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson).

We also are bringing forward to the Legislature at this time an amendment to The Northern Affairs Act, which will facilitate the process of incorporation of northern communities, and I know we will have an opportunity probably to discuss that, either in debate on that bill or under these Estimates.

Mr. Chair, if I may just in conclusion make this observation, it has been an interesting and an exciting and challenging year. In some ways, one could say that we have made very little progress; in others, one can say we have made a great deal. I would think the work that has gone on, particularly in the last two months on treaty land entitlements, in concluding that agreement--and I am sure we will have an opportunity to discuss that in greater detail later in the Estimates--has probably been the most significant development, or can potentially be one of the most significant development in the lives of literally thousands of northern Manitobans to take place in many decades. The same, certainly, can be said for the communities of Nelson House and York Landing where Northern Flood Agreements were concluded. So our government is living up to our election commitment in 1988 when we were first elected to move to settle these long-standing issues in northern Manitoba, and I am glad we have made, I think, very significant progress. On that basis, much can be developed, but until those agreements are settled, quite frankly, there is an unfairness that I think prevents people from getting on to other things.

One just last example, I think, of a major potential economic development happening now in northern Manitoba that I am very proud of, because both my departments have been involved, has been with Cross Lake. Members may be aware that the Cross Lake mineral resources corporation has had a dispute with their partner, Gossen Resources, on the development of a titanium mine. I am pleased to report that both parties, through the use of a mediator, managed to settle their issues and, in my most recent discussions with them, are entering into a pretty extensive plan to look for the investors to bring that into production if it is economically feasible. That would be the first First Nations-owned mine, significantly owned mine, in operation in the province of Manitoba. I think it sets an excellent precedent for economic development in northern Manitoba, and I am looking forward to working with that consortium to see that happen.

That concludes my opening statement, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the minister for those opening comments. Does the critic from the official opposition party, the honourable member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin), have an opening statement?

Mr. Oscar Lathlin (The Pas): Well, here we are once again, Mr. Chairman, going through the Northern Affairs Estimates and getting an opportunity to ask questions of the minister in terms of developments in Northern Affairs.

This is my sixth time, I guess, going into Northern Affairs Estimates. The first time, I guess, it was a learning experience for me. I was interested in learning what Northern Affairs was all about, so I did a lot of researching on my own, looking for material and background information to try and determine what Northern Affairs was all about and what mandate it had and the responsibilities and the authorities that it had in discharging its departmental responsibilities.

We started off, even then as a rookie I thought that probably the Northern Affairs budget was not in line with the mandate that it reported to have. I mean, it was written right in the books for a huge mandate, I thought. You know, the amount of money that is allotted to the department does not coincide with the responsibilities that it is supposed to have. So even then, you know, we had a certain amount of money allocated to Northern Affairs.

Of course, since then it has gone down, but we continue to listen to the minister in Question Period and also in Estimates talking about the exciting things that are happening in Northern Affairs. I believe two or three Estimates ago, Mr. Chairman, I advised, I do not know if it was this minister or the former Minister of Northern Affairs, in any event, I made a comment then to the effect that I could not join the minister then in his goings-on, like his comments about the good things that are happening in Northern Affairs, the development, you know, the excitement that is happening, because I could not see, quite frankly, anything to rejoice about.

Even to this day, the minister, every chance he gets, will advise anybody that he is fulfilling all of these or he is doing all of these projects, such as Northern Flood, and I know that the Premier (Mr. Filmon) yesterday in this House mentioned some tax issues, the minister mentions treaty land entitlement. You know, and I have said it before, nobody in this government or even in the federal government will ever convince me that these things are being done because the minister has a good heart or this government has good heart. These things are being done because they are the legal responsibilities of the government. They have no choice but to do it. So it is not out of the goodness of the heart of the government that these things are being done.

Treaty land entitlement, for example, is finally coming to a conclusion after over 100 years. I do not think that gives us cause to pat ourselves on the back and say how good we are. I think we should be ashamed of it, quite frankly, that it has taken over 100 years to fulfill legal obligations on the part of government.

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Northern Flood, the same thing. An agreement was signed by the three parties, and that agreement is just now being fulfilled, you know, after what? 17, 18, 19 years. It is about time that it is being fulfilled. So I just wanted to give that point, in case somebody might think that this government is doing great things for aboriginal people. No, they are not. They are not doing great things for aboriginal people. You can see by the size of the Northern Affairs budget. So I think that is the main thing that I wanted to emphasize, Mr. Chairman. I am not going to take too much time. I just wanted to say that.

Also, throughout the session here this morning, I wanted to ask the minister on the Northern Economic Development Commission, the big meeting that he had in Thompson with northern community representatives a year ago, maybe two years now, where some commitments were made, and I understand those commitments are not there anymore today.

I also want to ask the minister some questions on the Urban Aboriginal Strategy that has been talked about ever since I came here. I also wanted to ask some questions on the Northern Affairs capital that he talks about, and, in particular, I want to talk about the NACC and the relationship that those communities have with the Department of Northern Affairs and the provincial government in general.

But before I do that, I would also like to acknowledge the staff that was all over here awhile ago. I would like to acknowledge the work of the staff in Northern Affairs, and also I would like to acknowledge the dedication and determination, hard work of all those people that live in the North. I know a lot of times, rightly so, people from the North feel neglected by this government, and sometimes they feel that they are being punished because they did not vote the right way. So today I would like to acknowledge all of those people from the North. I would like to tell them not to give up, but to keep working as hard as they can and perhaps we will get somewhere.

So those are my opening remarks, Mr. Chairman. Maybe Eric will want to say a few words, as well, being the aboriginal affairs critic.

Mr. Eric Robinson (Rupertsland): My remarks will be brief. I believe that the member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) summarized very appropriately some of the sentiments that we are faced with every day in northern communities. We are all aware that the northern--what we want to talk about today, particularly, is the Northern Association of Community Councils which was initiated in 1967. A lot of people perceive the creation of NACC and the creation of that organization as a method of deflecting, at that time, the workings of the Manitoba Metis Federation. Also, it is regarded as dismissing the whole notion of Metis self-government and the whole notion of nationhood, and that is the unfortunate perception that is out there in some northern communities.

We have had an opportunity to meet with representatives from the NACC, and they have some great concerns about what is going on, including the bigger issues of MTS privatization, what they feel that will mean for their communities in the time to come. We are dealing with communities here that are 90 percent, 95 percent unemployed, where unfortunately welfare is a way of life, and that is becoming generational now. So we have some of those questions that we would like to ask this morning, including what my colleague referred to with respect to some of the social conditions that are faced by people, primarily aboriginal people, in northern communities. Although we commend the work, and we have commended the work of this minister on certain issues, some of the things that were done, the bottom line is that there are still Third World conditions in communities in northern Manitoba, particularly the communities that fall within the jurisdiction of The Northern Affairs Act and particularly the Northern Association of Community Councils.

We believe that this can be changed, however, and I think that it simply takes some political will on the part of this government to perhaps consider the wishes of these people. I am talking particularly here about NACC communities, not necessarily the First Nations communities in northern communities.

There are, of course, many issues that we channel through the Minister of Northern Affairs, including matters relating to justice initiatives in that some communities do not have an opportunity to have court sittings in the communities that they come from. So a lot of the issues from the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry interrelate with the Department of Northern Affairs.

Indian people and aboriginal people in northern communities are not so hung up on the jurisdiction of a certain department. They more relate to, federally, with the Department of Indian Affairs and then, at the provincial level, more with the Department of Northern Affairs. That is the reality that we are faced with. What was told to us very recently, while we are making inroads on the information highway, people in the North consider this to be nonsense because the consideration is this: that we still have people that are living in Third World conditions. The sentiment out there is that you can build bridges and swimming pools in southern Manitoba, but, in the meantime, you cannot get $10,000 to repair roads in some of our northern communities.

So, in spite of the flowery words used by the minister, there are some very real drastic social human problems that exist in some of our northern communities. It is the leaders of those communities that describe their own areas as that of being similar to Third World countries.

We would like also to talk about the consultation mechanism used by this department in communicating with northern communities on initiatives that directly affect the lives of northern residents, most particularly, aboriginal people. So, Mr. Chairperson, by way of introductions, that is all I have to say for now for the time being, and then I look forward to a meaningful dialogue this morning.

We do not want to be in a confrontational situation here. My colleague the member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) and I are very well acquainted with the way of life of Indian people. We have come from that upbringing. We are very aware of how it is like for our fathers to go out and try and get breakfast for us when we were children. We know how it is not to be without employment. So as aboriginal people, we are, I guess, just grateful for the fact that we are still alive. Come June 21 for Aboriginal Solidarity Day, it again will be a celebration of our survival as aboriginal people in spite of the many negative things that have been inflicted upon our people, and we will again celebrate our survival as First Nations on the 21st of June.

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Having said that, I look forward to the Estimates process, and I hope that it will be a meaningful one. We do not need anybody to tell us how things are. We know how things are--the poor conditions. We simply want a dialogue and be able to have a meaningful discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairperson: We thank the critics from the official opposition party for those remarks. I would remind the members of the committee that debate on the Minister’s Salary, item 1.(a) is deferred until all other items in the Estimates of this department are passed.

At this time we invite the minister’s staff to take their place in the Chamber.

Is the minister prepared to introduce his staff present at the committee at this time?

Mr. Praznik: I have with me my deputy minister, Mr. Michael Fine, I think no stranger to you now since his arrival in Manitoba about a year ago; my assistant deputy minister who is our senior provincial public servant in northern Manitoba, Mr. Oliver Boulette, again, from member’s comments earlier, certainly a very excellent member of the civil service of the Province of Manitoba, who serves northern Manitoba very well; Mr. Harvey Bostrom, who is in charge of our Native Affairs side. Mr. Bostrom is no stranger to the gentleman opposite nor to this Chamber having served as minister of this department at an earlier part in his career; and, Mr. Rene Gagnon, who is our financial officer for the department, who keeps track of all our budgetary items.

Mr. Lathlin: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I can ask for some understanding from the minister; that is, I would prefer to go through Estimates in the same fashion as we had done before. That is, because it is a small department--it barely has $17 million in the department--I would just like to ask general questions throughout, and then at the end of everything we can ask line by line.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I must concur and accept the proposal of the member for The Pas. Last year, I think, we had a very freewheeling, wide-ranging discussion, and then concluded the Estimates going through line by line at the end.

I understand the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) indicated to me that there was some willingness, given the fact that time is drawing short for Estimates, to wrap up the department around noon or shortly thereafter. If that is the intention, I certainly have no problem with us having a very good general discussion and then completing Estimates line by line at the end.

Mr. Chairperson: If that be the will of the committee, we will deal with the entire department as a whole, except for the Minister's Salary, which we will leave till the end.

Mr. Robinson: Perhaps I will suggest my questions will be very brief, and I do not need a lengthy answer. We can go very quickly like that. We had a recent meeting with the Northern Association of Community Councils and their president and their board of directors very recently. I will get right down to the point on some of the areas that are bothering them.

First of all, in Granville Lake, there is no tower there for telephone services. I wonder if the minister could indicate what dialogue has been held with the community with respect to a tower to bring the community of Granville Lake into the 20th Century.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, my staff advised me that they have done some work on this, and they tell me that the problem at Granville is not a power problem because Granville has land-line power, but the problem is one with some technical problem with the microwave tower that I guess the appropriate people are attempting to work out. It is not one of lack of service; it is location and equipment that I believe is the difficulty.

If the member wants more specific information, I can have Mr. Boulette provide that to you. His staff has been working on that particular issue.

Mr. Robinson: Perhaps I will await that information by letter, but it is very important because there is only one telephone in the community; I believe it is a pay phone. It is a lifeline to the rest of northern Manitoba and to the rest of Manitoba in general. People rely on that. Of course, it is not only for medical services, but it is indeed, as I say, a lifeline.

The other area I would like to move into, based on our discussion with NACC, what they have told us is that when they contacted the Department of Northern Affairs, there has been no response to questions they have raised on the concerns that they have for their own particular communities. I wonder if the minister could comment on that.

Mr. Praznik: First of all, I have to tell you that on a regular basis my staff and I have had meetings with the executive of NACC. In fact, over the last year, I am looking to my staff. It has at least been two or three occasions--not four? In fact, last fall, I guess it was, or late summer, when they had their annual meeting, I did a round table workshop with a whole bunch of the committees, going into each region to take questions from their membership. Since then I think we have had--I may stand to be corrected, but if my memory serves me well--at least two meetings with their executive. In one case, we had the Premier who, in the last year and a half or so, I think, attended a meeting with their executive. There has been regular contact with them.

There is one problem that I have suggested they change; I know one concern they have had, when they have their convention, is getting attendance of ministers and others at the convention. The timing, when they tend to put that together, is not often conducive to getting everyone there whom they may necessarily want for the time that they want, and I suggest they look at some alternative dates for that meeting that would get a bigger attendance.

I have to tell the member, as minister, I have met on a regular basis with them, many meetings, and many of the issues they have raised we have dealt with. With some we have not given them the answers they necessarily would like, but I would appreciate if the member could be a little more specific as to their comments as opposed to generalities, because I think the generalities are not reflective of actually the relationship that has been there or the time invested by myself and my staff in meeting with them.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Chairperson, there were a number of issues that were brought to our attention, including the unemployment rate in many communities, the social assistance being a way of life, frustration with the Department of Northern Affairs in trying to work with the communities on addressing some issues like housing. As we know, there is overcrowding in many of the houses that we have come in contact with in NACC communities. The people that have talked to us have told us that social problems are a cause or are created as a result of these conditions causing frustration. Those are the things that I am talking about when I am addressing these things to the minister, that communities are getting frustrated in not being able to enter into any partnership arrangements and entering into meaningful dialogue to address these issues together. So this is what I am referring to when I am addressing the minister about a lack of response to questions by NACC and by the individual communities themselves.

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Mr. Praznik: Let us address those for a moment, the ones that the member has mentioned. He talks about, by and large, jobs and economic opportunities in northern Manitoba. First of all, unless the member or NACC is suggesting we get into a massive make-work job creation fund and simply go in and subsidize a lot of make-work jobs to alleviate unemployment, you are not going to deal with that problem until you have opportunities created that sees more employment for people in those opportunities. Many of the communities that NACC represents are very small, isolated communities with very limited opportunities that exist. As regards those communities, the people who live in them have to make choices for themselves and their families as to where they want to be and what they want to do and what they want to pursue.

The member talked about welfare as a way of life. I want to share with him a little story from the last or two NACC conventions ago, where the mayor of Rock Ridge, Mr. Lavalle, at the meeting, was quite indignant in fact by the position taken by the Department of Family Services, who were indicating to people in his community that because there was a 90-plus percent unemployment rate and there were virtually no opportunities at Rock Ridge, that they might like to look at relocating to other places where there were jobs. He was totally indignant that a government department would suggest to people that they might go where there are job opportunities because it would diminish the population base of his community.

Well, there is a responsibility on the part of people to make decisions, that they have an obligation to support themselves and their families if there are other opportunities that are better. That has been the whole course of human history, people pursuing job opportunities where they come about, but they have some obligation to deal with them and to pursue them because they have an obligation to support themselves and their families. Mayor Lavalle from Rock Ridge had a totally different view. He wanted his population, which was the vast majority, well over 90 percent on social allowance, to stay there even if there were not opportunities because it diminished his population. That is a community that is not sustainable if there are not economic opportunities there.

Mr. Chair, in the general theme of creating opportunities, this department or my other department, Energy and Mines, has spent a great deal of effort in the last number of years creating the opportunities, the correct environment to see more exploration and mine development in the province. I find it interesting. There are three New Democrats on the front benches. Mr. Jennissen from Flin Flon joins his colleagues. He did not speak today in opening remarks, but I am sure, if he had, he might have commented on his own constituency what has happened at Snow Lake, that the policies that we put in place to create the right environment for mining investment were one of the factors, significant factors, that led to the total revitalization of a significant community in his constituency because we have seen two mines open there in the last year.

This year alone, under those policies, we expect to see somewhere between $40 million and $50 million in exploration work go on in northern Manitoba. We have seen $225 million in investment in the mining industry in capital investment in this past year. All of those create opportunities. They do not provide jobs for everyone, but they create economic opportunities for suppliers, for people to get into those businesses, to get into exploration. Our department has sponsored a prospectors course in the community of Split Lake currently. People are taking advantage of that. We have had requests from several other communities to take us up on that course. We are having this June 20, I believe, in Thompson, a workshop forum trade show, a mining opportunities forum in Thompson, to let people know, give people an opportunity to see where they can get in and take advantage of opportunities that are there, that have been created because of our mining investment strategy and our mining strategy and upturn in mineral prices.

On the forestry side, CEDF tells me as well that they have had a significant increase in their loan portfolio in northeners, many of them from our NACC communities taking advantage of cutting contracts with Louisiana-Pacific, with Repap, with the Pine Falls Paper Company and creating jobs in those areas. In fact, the Mathias Colomb First Nation, individuals from that community established a company called Wolverine that now has contracts and is cutting in the area that a few months ago was disputed. So those opportunities come. They are there. They are being created. They are growing; they are expanding.

Government can create some environment. We can take away the disincentives. Those investors who see the opportunity, whether they be small or large, have the opportunity to create jobs and economic benefit, and people in those communities have some responsibility to pursue those and we work with them. Where there is a desire and an initiative to take advantage of opportunities and find them, we pursue them.

Certainly, it is not as large as we would like to see it. It is growing; it is far better than it was some years ago. But I say to the honourable members--and I do not mean to get into a big partisan discussion today--Louisiana-Pacific, the Repap, both of whom offer significant economic opportunities to people in our Northern Affairs communities in that area, both those projects were opposed by their party, very significantly. The member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has continually been opposing it, as has the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli).

Ultimately, if you want jobs, if you want opportunity, you have to see economic development. It is not going to happen in job creation programs that this department or any other is going to create, and people have a responsibility too to pursue those. We help where we can. We help where it is appropriate to help, and we have seen some significant development. It has not solved everyone's problem, but it is moving, I think, in the right direction.

I just want to touch on the issue of housing that the member has mentioned. There has been a raging debate in housing between NACC and the Manitoba Metis Federation. The member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) in his opening remarks talked about NACC being created initially, or a perception, as a way of deflecting the work of the MMF. Well, I tell the member sincerely that over the last two or three years since I have been minister, I have seen that debate rage again in the area of housing.

NACC would like to take over some of the housing responsibilities, the administration that the MMF is now running. The MMF does not necessarily like to give that up. We have made some effort to try to see if we can reconcile those two interests to work together, to take advantage of the programs that are there and the administration that is there--and I am not certainly picking a side. We are trying to facilitate to ensure the best delivery of service, but I say very candidly to the member, there is big battle raging between the two, and I would think the comments that were made to him by NACC is reflective of that battle.

Mr. Robinson: I do not want to lecture today. I simply want answers to some very basic questions that I have. These concerns have been raised with us for over the last number of years. We have the highest respect for both the Manitoba Metis Federation and the Northern Association of Community Councils, and we believe that there is room for both in Manitoba.

The minister answered his own question when he is talking about economic development and a job potential in some northern communities when he remarked about Wolverine Lake. I believe that the minister is implying that in order for Indian people and aboriginal people, and northerners in general, to get jobs that they should remove themselves from the communities. Well, we have experienced that with the vast migration out of communities by aboriginal people in the early '60s, consequently, winding up in places like Winnipeg and Vancouver and elsewhere and it was even worse, more damaging.

There was a northern round table that was hosted by the minister which included the industrial towns, MKO, NACC and as we understand it, $7 million was committed to the North by this government; however, up until this point nothing has been done. Since the election no dialogue on the concept has been discussed on the recommendations that came from the northern round table.

I simply want to have the minister perhaps respond to what happened to that concept and whether or not there is still some possibilities with relation to its potential.

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Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I have no intention to lecture members opposite. If I have given that impression, I certainly did not intend to.

With respect to the member's question about $7 million, to be blunt, unless he can be more specific about what we are talking about, I am not sure at all what he is talking about. At that northern round table meeting that we had, in all of the discussions, we have been very, very explicit that we were never talking, never committed a fund of $7 million or any other amount to specific projects or special development funds in the North.

In fact, the point of that committee, that round table, and what came out of our letter of understanding or agreement was that NACC, the MKO and the northern industrial round table group, the urban communities, would form an organization similar to a MAUM or UMM as a basis of developing some consensus on issues to working--because there is not, I have found, not always a consensus on issues in northern Manitoba, just like any other part of the province.

Through that forum, their political leadership could develop some consensus on issues and planning, and work with the province, including the Economic Development Board of Cabinet to pursue things together. One of those things, of course, was highway budgets, to do some prioritizing for the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) as to what projects were important on a priority basis. I regret, very much regret that one of the sad things over a year and a half is, quite bluntly, I have met with representatives of that group on a number of occasions, and they have yet, quite frankly, to get themselves organized. Now, if people are expecting me to go and organize them, too, and set them up to do this, I think that defeats the purpose of them as three bodies of northern leadership being able to come together and reach consensus. To date, they have not been able to organize themselves into any kind of effective organization.

Mr. Robinson: The point I was making was expressed to us by the president of the NACC along with his board of directors about this potential and the possible initiative. The MLA for Flin Flon as well has some questions of the department, and I will give him the opportunity to perhaps pose those questions with respect to some of the issues that he has got in mind.

However, before I conclude my portion here, and I will ask further questions later on, we have been informed by members of NACC that the previous editor of a newspaper or newsletter entitled Whispering Pines had to resign as a result of his criticism of this government three years ago, Mr. Chairperson. I wonder if the minister could comment on this. The reason why he had to resign was, according to what we were told and we certainly want to get to the bottom of this and we are not pointing fingers at anybody, is because it was ordered, according to what we have heard, by this minister.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, NACC, their board of directors make their own decision. They run Whispering Pines. They make the decision who they have. They hire editors; they make the decision to print newspapers. They do that within their budget, and we fund them through a contribution to each of the NACC communities, which in turn provide it to NACC, so, no.

Mr. Chairperson: Does the honourable member for Flin Flon have leave to ask questions from the front row? Leave has been granted.

Mr. Gerard Jennissen (Flin Flon): Mr. Chairperson, I would like to ask a few very specific questions. My colleagues and I were in the North, I think it was about a month or two ago, and in the community of Brochet there was some concern about hydro, specifically the fuel tanks that are filled with diesel I guess. There is some concern about the safety of those tanks being so near the school and the rest of the community, and there were some thoughts that those tanks were being moved. Can the minister update me on that? Are those tanks indeed being moved? Is that hydro system being moved from that location?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, from a perspective as Hydro minister, I will get an update for the member from the corporation. I would also though indicate from my staff, from the services, are people who work with the community. Manitoba Hydro has been looking at other options for servicing that community including the hookup to Saskatchewan. They recognize there is a problem there. I am not sure what will work economically and be the best option to pursue, but we will endeavour to get that information to the member by way of letter, and Mr. Boulette will prepare that for the member.

Mr. Jennissen: I thank the minister for that answer. Indeed, we have already talked with Saskatchewan about a land line from Wollaston. That did not appear to be terribly promising at this point. Is there a chance of a land line from Lynn Lake up? Is that at all in the cards or has that been looked at?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I will have to arrange for the member to get that information directly from Manitoba Hydro. I am told that Hydro has looked at the specifics. I certainly do not have and given that a lot of this deals with the technology of electricity, I do not think I would understand if I did have it. If the member would like more than we provide in the letter, we will certainly arrange for a briefing with him with Manitoba Hydro.

Mr. Jennissen: Back to the fuel tanks in Brochet itself, I am also of the impression that if that system should be moved out of the town to a safer location for the interim, there still would be a major problem with cleanup and contamination. Can the minister also give me an update on that?

Mr. Praznik: Part of any movement of the tanks would entail the complete cleanup which Hydro would have the responsibility for.

Mr. Jennissen: The member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) a moment ago talked about a communication tower or telephone tower, I guess, connecting from Leaf Rapids to Granville Lake. I hear a similar request being made from the people of Brochet, another tower between Lynn Lake and Brochet, one tower in Brochet. Is there anything to this suggestion?

Mr. Praznik: I understand that our staff has spoken to the telephone system, MTS, about this and they are considering that possibility. I would invite the member to, on a regular basis, check with my staff, Mr. Boulette, and he will keep the member up to date on that, if the member would like.

Mr. Jennissen: I have very few specific questions, I know that time is limited. I just want in general to point out to the minister or hope the minister agrees with me--and I do not know whose jurisdiction this is either--but there are some concerns about the Lac Brochet airport, that it needs to be upgraded. I know I mentioned it to the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay), but maybe a little support from this minister as well would be helpful.

Also, there is real concern in Brochet itself for the food meal program. I know this is mainly a federal jurisdiction, but perhaps the minister can put a little pressure on the feds for us. Above all, and we have talked to the Minister of Highways about this, winter roads, because that quadrant of the province is being serviced by Winter Roads, but there is no money being put in from the province as in other parts of the province, and that is a grave concern to us.

Mr. Praznik: My understanding of that, or the reason why the province does not contribute to those roads is because they are built to service stations, communities, and to supply, in essence, to fall within federal responsibility, the federal government completing its responsibility. In the eastern part of the province, I think there is a different regime in place because there are a number of other communities and other provincial interests that are being served, and that is why there is a different financial contribution. I am told that wherever we bring in an additional road or link off of it to service one of our own Northern Affairs communities, then that would be our financial responsibility.

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Mr. Lathlin: Mr. Chairperson, I would like to take issue with some of the statements that were made by the minister just a while ago. I should not say that it surprises me, because that has been generally the message that I have been getting every time that I have raised issues affecting the lives of northern people in this Chamber. When he says that if you do not like it up there, well, move somewhere; if there are no opportunities in the North, well, damn it, move somewhere, maybe to Winnipeg.

Mr. Chairperson, we are indigenous to that area. We were born and raised there. We have no second homeland; we have no motherland; that is our homeland. For the minister to suggest if we do not have work or employment opportunities there, well, maybe it is our fault for having been born and deciding to live there. I do not buy that whatsoever; not one bit. I do not see this government or this minister telling people from Winnipeg, if there are no opportunities here in Winnipeg, well, move somewhere. As a matter of fact, this government is always looking for ways to attract industry into the city of Winnipeg, southern Manitoba, by way of government programming. He knows that; we all know that. Those incentives, when it is done for business, they are called incentives. Even when we are talking about some cities for northern fishermen, it is regarded as welfare. I do not think that is right.

I am not saying that the minister said that, Mr. Chairperson, but that is the message that we are getting from this government all the time. Is the North's only purpose then for us to go up there and mine it, for us to go up there and install hydroelectric stations, for us to go up there and log it, to go and exploit it, regardless of what harm is done to the people? And we make a lot of money out of doing that. Then we tell the people, hey, if you do not like it here, perhaps you go to Winnipeg or elsewhere. Then, when we do move to Winnipeg, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) goes around saying, gosh, darn it, if those Indians would stay up North, our poverty statistics would be all right.

You cannot win for trying, you cannot. So I would like to ask the minister, is he suggesting that for those communities who are in dire straits, who were looking for help, who were looking for some compassion from this government, for some caring, for some understanding--is he suggesting to those communities that they all pack up and move elsewhere? Is that what he is suggesting?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I am glad the member has decided to get into this particular matter because I think it outlines a very significant different between us. I have sat in this Chamber and I have heard the member for The Pas speak on many occasions, and I say this to him very sincerely. I do not always agree, I rarely agree with the tone and the attitude that he takes towards a northern development. I listened to him speak just now and he spoke about coming up and harvesting forests and fishing and mining, and then talk about the harm it does to people. Well, a forest industry, a mining industry, a fishing industry, a tourism industry all create wealth. They all create jobs; they all create opportunities.[interjection] The member says, for who? Maybe that is the problem. The problem, I would acknowledge, is there has not been as many opportunities as there should be for northerners to take advantage of, and I would concur with that.

Many of the efforts that we have taken in the last number of years, including the workshop symposium we are holding in Thompson in a couple of weeks, is to give northern people an opportunity to see those opportunities, and to take advantage of them, and to work with them. In the last number of years, things like our prospector program, things that we have encouraged with CEDF and our financing for logging, instead of using CEDF as a political patronage fund, using it as a loan program. All of the things that we have done, particularly creating the right climate to see that develop in mining, see that development in forestry have meant that the opportunities are coming and growing and are there, and northerners are now in greater numbers taking advantage of them more than they ever have before.

When the member says, do we do these things or not do them, and every time many of these issues come up, his own urban colleagues particularly the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli), the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) criticize and attack them. But if you do not have those industries going on, there is not much left. If you do not have economic activity taking place, there are not the opportunities for people to take advantage of jobs, and then you are onto a total welfare economy, a welfare system, with no hope, no future and all the social programs that are there.

Now I would concur with him, and the one area we do agree, is the challenge for everybody because everybody has a piece of this. The group with I think the largest piece of it are the mining companies and the forestry companies to make sure, to give that special effort to make sure, that northerners, particularly aboriginal northerners, have the opportunities to take advantage of the economic options and opportunities that are there, to become players in the economy of northern Manitoba, and that is happening. Wolverine is a good example of that. That is happening. As people grow, as they develop, as they gain their expertise, as their capital increases, more opportunities come with that to take advantage of what is there. But what have we seen in the last 30 or 40 years of the history of this province?

The member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) sits in the Chamber and he criticizes me, and I am not a northern MLA. I come from a constituency that borders on the North, but I am not a northern MLA. He criticizes my colleagues, and, yes, we do not have northern MLAs in our caucus to maybe give us that particular view that he might offer if he were a member of our caucus, but we do not operate in a void. There is a history here. The world did not turn all bad in April of 1988. There is a long history in this province through many governments and regimens, including the governments of the party of which he is a member, where we did not see this great progress that the member looks for. We did not see it happen.

So I do not think it is time to point fingers politically and say, you are not doing enough or it is a terrible thing since you are there and nothing is happening. There has been a long history of northerners, particularly aboriginal northerners, not having those opportunities. The member must agree that there has been progress. I am not saying that that progress is necessarily due to government; I think there has been progress as a society.

Some of the things that we have done have helped in that. I think the cleaning up of CEDF into a strong loans fund, and if you look at their portfolio--and when they report to this Legislature, the member will have the chance to ask those questions about it--but their loan portfolio has a larger and larger aboriginal contingent, people who are taking advantage of opportunities, particularly in logging that have come from Repap and from Louisiana-Pacific.

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We have seen a great interest in our prospectors program that we are offering where we have, in co-operation with a number of communities, brought in courses on becoming prospectors. Our workshop that we are developing is looking specifically to let northerners, particularly aboriginal northerners, know about what opportunities exist in providing supplies or services to people who are in the exploration companies that we brought into the province.

None of this happens overnight, but I will tell the honourable member this: If we did not have the forest companies, if we did not have the interest in mining that we are building, if we did not have those things happening, the opportunities, I can assure him, would not exist at all.

When the member talks about my comment about people making choices, the question for any community, whether it is aboriginal or nonaboriginal, is sustainability. The question we all have to face ultimately is working to find real economic opportunities for communities because we know that the provincial resources and federal resources are not there to provide huge subsidies to people in any particular part of the nation. We have seen that. That is a reality of federal funding. We have to look for real ways to make things sustainable and people have to make choices.

I am responsible for approximately 56 Northern Affairs communities; some of them have no people. The reason they have no people is they were small communities that relied on fishing or some other resource that could not sustain them anymore, and people moved away and made other choices because there were better opportunities for life. Many moved to other communities in northern Manitoba. Thirty years ago there was no city of Thompson. It happened because someone found a nickel deposit and it created huge opportunities for growth. There is a large aboriginal population in Thompson today. People go there because there are more opportunities.

That is the reality of life. It has been that way since time immemorial. I do not want to be on the record that I am telling people that because they live in the North they have to move away. What I am telling people, what I am saying to people is, it is important we work towards sustainability and, sometimes, in some communities, they cannot support the population that they have given the economic opportunities that are there. If people want to have a better life, if they want to have economic opportunities, if they want to be able to earn a living, a suitable and sufficient living to support themselves and their families, perhaps they have to look at other opportunities that are there. That is why there are 14,000 people living in the city of Thompson in northern Manitoba, because there were opportunities there. There is nothing particularly wrong about that.

To suggest that every place in Manitoba, whether it is southern or northern, is able to sustain a sufficiently large population if it does not find the economic opportunities to do it is just ludicrous.

In my own constituency of Lac du Bonnet, in the community of Pinawa where we are struggling now with decisions by the federal government to pull out AECL, they come down to the same issues. They come down to exactly the same issues. Either we find things that work economically in the community of Pinawa or that community is going to decrease in its population to what it can support, because people want to earn a living. I do not care who you are, most people want to support their family and earn a living and the opportunities have to be there. So we have to work to find real opportunities in communities that are there and develop them. That is what we have been working to do.

I would agree with the honourable member that many northerners, particularly aboriginal northerners have not traditionally had the access or easy access or opportunity to pursue those options that are there. It is getting better. It is nowhere near the way either of us would like it. It is getting somewhat better, and our challenges continue to work to make sure as many opportunities as possible are created, and that northerners, as many as possible, can take advantage of them.

Mr. Lathlin: Mr. Chairperson, I am not going to dwell on this that long, but I would like to perhaps tell the minister that maybe there is another area where he might agree with me. He says, you know--when I talk about the harm that has come to the people living next door to these developments, mining, hydro, forestry and so on, of course there has been a lot of harm that has been inflicted on those communities. Why else would the minister be entering into multimillion dollar compensation packages for those communities that he has just mentioned a while ago? Why? Because that development has destroyed a whole way of life in those communities. That is what he is paying for today. Of course, there has been a lot of harm, a lot of irreparable harm.

I was listening to a radio station not that long ago where they were talking about this guy from Shoal Lake who was going to set the water off, and there was a lot of human cry, like the whole world was going to come to an end. You know, how dare does this guy from Shoal Lake speak like that and where is the city of Winnipeg going to get their water from? You know, this is insane. I could not help but think, I wonder if they would have thought the same thing, if they would have had those same thoughts when they were talking about northern development.

Do not get me wrong, Mr. Chairperson, I am not telling the minister that I am against development. I have been there myself. I have been a supporter of northern economic development. What I do not agree with is when there is development, governments or industry will ask us to come and chop the trees down, come and dig the ditch, and when everything is over, the plant is sitting there, all the southern workers go home--they made their money--we end up being on welfare, looking at this nice big plant that may have 100 jobs that we cannot access. That is one thing that I am talking about.

The other thing that I am talking about is, you know, fishing was an industry, is an industry. We made a darn good living from fishing at one time, and we made a darn good living from trapping at one time. But we build logging roads, we build dams, and there goes that way of life, there goes that sustenance, you know, like how we used to make a living, and now we are being criticized.

When we were talking about Louisiana-Pacific and Repap, I was here. I heard the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) talk for Indian Birch, Shoal River, Pine Creek and all those aboriginal communities that surround Swan River. Over and over again I heard her ask the minister to have a meeting with those aboriginal communities, get them involved somehow, let them get the spin-off opportunities, work out an agreement with the companies so that people will get jobs, work out an agreement with the companies so that those people will get business opportunities, not just doing the labour work as has always been done. So we are not against development.

I just want to say one more time, Mr. Chairperson, you see, that is the attitude that blinds the people, especially in government. I often listen to the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) tell us there are just not enough people up north, so therefore it does not warrant us spending that much money up there. Now I hear the minister telling us, well, perhaps we should move somewhere. He knows the main opportunity centre in Manitoba is Winnipeg and that is where all the action is. If he is suggesting that we all move to Winnipeg, well, I do not know if that is the right thing to do.

I will end by asking the minister--the Northern Economic Development Commission has been in the works for a long time. When I first came here in 1990, the former Minister of Northern Affairs talked about the Northern Economic Development Commission, about how he was going to launch it, a lot of good work would come out of it, recommendations, and that the government would act on it. As a matter of fact, I remember one day the former Minister of Northern Affairs telling me that I would be pleasantly surprised by what the report was going to bring. That has been--I do not how many years ago the report has been given to the government, so far I have not seen very much concrete come out of that report.

So maybe we will ask the minister again today, whatever happened to that Northern Economic Development Commission, the work that was put in by a lot of good people? There were a lot of good recommendations. I have since talked to some of the commission members, and the ones I talked to have indicated that they are disappointed that the government did not do anything. So I will ask the minister, where is that report and is it dead, are we not going to do anything, should we forget about it and not mention it again?

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Mr. Praznik: The member for The Pas touches on many, many subjects in his discussion, and I would like to just address a few of them.

The member refined somewhat his comment about harm being done living next door to various projects, whether they be forestry, mining, and I think he zeroed in on hydro specifically. There is no doubt that at the time the great diversion of the Churchill River took place and those five communities flooded that no consideration, quite frankly, was given by Hydro or the government of the day to the damage that was done to those communities. That is a blight on the history of the province of Manitoba, and let us not forget--and, again, I am not trying to be partisan--that during that whole period this province was governed by a Conservative and the New Democratic government, early planning stages under the Roblin and Weir administrations, and the building of those dams in the early '70s, under a Schreyer New Democratic Party government. So all of us in our collective responsibility as members of those parties, successors to those governments, bear a responsibility and, quite frankly, all of Manitoba bears a responsibility because it really was not an issue. People did not care. We were flooding a bunch of reserves up north and it did not matter.

The good thing of it, all I can say today, is that you would never be able to get away with that again, ever, and that is a good thing because, if the province of Manitoba embarks on another significant Hydro project that results in flooding to anyone's land, before they would ever get a licence to build it, those issues would have to be resolved one way or another through some process, compensation being made or not happening at all. So we have all progressed somewhat, and that is a good thing. I think the member for The Pas would probably share my sentiments that we have come a long way in our processes,and I would agree wholeheartedly it was a bad thing.

But let us put it into some perspective for a moment, just for a moment, that I get regular requests from northern communities who are not serviced by landlines, to bring landline power, to get 60 amp power where there is now 15 and that says something to me. That says no matter how much people talk about traditional ways of life, all people, no matter who they are, still want to take advantage of the amenities that technology has produced, and despite the damage that was done to those northern communities, which we are now compensating for in very significant amounts of money, and I do not begrudge one penny of it, except perhaps to the lawyers and negotiators who made big money in putting those contracts together, but besides that, I do not begrudge them one penny.

The fact remains that all of those northern communities continually want improvements in their lifestyle that electricity and better service bring, so despite the downsides of hydroelectric development, the positive sides have been to many of those communities, not all but many. We make progress each year in adding to the list of communities that have landline, that they are able to have a 20th Century lifestyle rather than one of an earlier period because they did not have adequate service.

With electricity, although many would not want to admit it, comes opportunities for economic activity and development and growth because without electricity you are not going to have very much happen, so I just want to put that in some perspective. The member also referred to fishing and trapping and the livings that were earned from those and, again, I think one has to put those a bit into perspective.

On the fishing side, when I was in one of the communities some years ago, I think it was--it was not Split Lake--oh, Island Lake communities for a signing of treaty land entitlement, a lot of comment was made about fishing and the fishing industry and some made the argument that the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board was a major factor in destroying that industry in northern Manitoba.

I do not know if it was or was not, but those are sometimes policies that come into effect to serve a purpose and have an ill effect for others, just something to keep in mind. In trapping, we face today a European fur market and my colleagues were part of a meeting of a delegation. I have taken a German delegation to Split Lake. We have all been doing a lot of things--the Minister of Natural Resources--but we know the world fur market is not what it used to be particularly, but in either case, if you look at the livings that were derived, the value of those livings in cash, when things happen to us all, our demand. We live in a society that requires more and more cash, more and more things that we want that require money, that our parents and our grandparents years ago never even thought about, so we have to put those a little bit into perspective.

The world we live in has changed. Fishing and trapping and some of our traditional industries that may have given a very good livelihood 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, even if nothing had changed, probably would not be able to produce that today.

Mr. Chair, I think I have a minute or two remaining in my time? Four minutes? I want to talk about the specific question that the member raises with respect to the northern round table. When we held our meeting in Thompson, a year, year and a half ago to bring those groups together and look at doing some planning, one of the things that I felt very strongly about was that three political organizations who do not always agree had to forge some sort of unity in operation between them to be effective.

I say this with great regret. I have had numerous meetings with representatives of those groups. My staff have had many, many meetings to try to put this together. Regrettably, they have not been able to create an amalgamation. Their argument always to us is, it requires vast amounts of money from government to fund a whole other level of bureaucracy with them in essence when, at the political level, they cannot even get a working group to begin the process.

It is with some regret I encouraged them to continue to do it, but they have not managed to.

Now, the member would say, well, that is fine, what are you doing, Mr. Minister? And he would be right in asking that question. Because that group does not exist does not mean we have not continued to work on our efforts, and we have. The mining initiatives that we have taken, including this showcase that we are having in Thompson of what opportunities are there, are part of that. The opportunities are being created. Let people know about them. Give them an opportunity to find out how they can plug in and how they can take advantage of it to earn a living and pursue those opportunities. That is one particular area that we have worked on in the last year. We have also been part of delegations to Ottawa on the Port of Churchill I know some members opposite were also part of. We have seen on our forestry side CEDF continues to work on a day-to-day basis to provide for capital needs of people doing things.

So although maybe at the political level we have not seen the discussions and papers and signings and all of those things to go with it, on the ground on the real level I think there still has been significant work towards pursuing and building opportunities by individuals who have been working with us in a host of ways. Ultimately that is how economies are built, by individuals taking advantages of opportunities, and that is the course we continue to pursue.

One last comment, Mr. Chair, in the time remaining to me, the member talks about the North and not spending a great deal of money, et cetera. I just wanted to remind him of some of the things we have undertaken.

In building any economic opportunity, infrastructure is absolutely critical. The North Central hydro line, a $150-million project, we are not paying for all of it. The federal government is making a substantial commitment, but Manitoba Hydro and the Province of Manitoba are also involved.

In Flin Flon, the whole process of environmental upgrades to the smelter there allows it to continue creating jobs and opportunities, some $50 million of provincial contribution; $l.5 million to Bissette municipal infrastructure to allow for the re-establishment of the Rea Gold Mine; in community capital, $2.6 million that we have taken advantage of for our Northern Affairs community.

Let us not forget, although we have a legal obligation to provide it and to agree to it, we have reached those agreements that others have not been able to do that have seen substantial amounts of money now go into the Split Lake community, $63 million; $25 million in York Factory; Nelson House $65 million. That is not our money, that was owed, I agree, but this government has resolved those issues and the cash is now flowing, which it has not done for 20 years. So there has been a very significant commitment to these things to making them happen, not just talking about them, by the Filmon administration.

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Introduction of Guests

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Before we proceed, may I direct the attention of all honourable members to the gallery, where we have with us today from Parc LaSalle School sixty Grade 5 students under the direction of Edwin Nichols. This school is located in the constituency of the Deputy Speaker, the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau).

On behalf of all honourable members, we welcome you here today. That is it, you stand up.

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Mr. Robinson: I wonder if I could ask one question and then perhaps ask for a break maybe, for five minutes, following the response I get from the minister. The proposal by the Northern Association of Community Councils for training of economic development officers to allow communities to pursue economic development initiatives, I wonder if he could give us a status report on the proposal, Mr. Chairperson.

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

Mr. Praznik: This issue has come up on occasion at some of our meetings, although we have never had a formal proposal with detail from NACC, and on this particular matter it has been one they have raised with us. I think it is important to appreciate that they have never come forward with a detailed proposal, but that would be beside the point because I do not think it would change my answer.

We have, Mr. Chair, in the last year, seconded two of our economic development staff to the MMF, who were providing a training program course which covered a number of our communities who are in NACC. Again, I say to the member, there has been a rivalry. I think he hit it dead on in his opening remarks when he indicated that there was an argument that NACC was initially created in the '60s to be a balance to the MMF. They have been somewhat rival organizations, but we made that secondment.

In this year's budget, our department by and large is out of the Communities Economic Development business in that the positions in our department were transferred to the Department of Rural Development--actually at our suggestion--because they are very much into that business; that is one of their prime reasons to be. They have a much greater pool of expertise in their department in rural development, and quite frankly, putting those officers into that shop is far more focused than what we were able to do.

They are there now, Rural Development is there. As to funding, specifically NACC setting up another program, that is not something that I have been supportive of largely because I have not seen a detailed proposal, and I do not think NACC in my opinion--and this is my opinion based on some experience--I do not think NACC at the current time necessarily is in a position to be able to provide a better program on its own than what could probably be secured through Rural Development.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): Is it the will of the committee to recess for five minutes?

An Honourable Member: Agreed.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): The committee shall so recess.

The committee recessed at 10:33 a.m.

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After Recess

The committee resumed at 10:43 a.m.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): The committee of Northern Affairs will come to order.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Chairman, another question that I have of the minister and while staff are here, perhaps they will be in a position to answer this question. That is, when community councils, the ones that fall under the NACC, fall into a deficit position, and if they are unable to balance their budgets--I am talking about one community particularly, the community being Berens River--if there is not a surplus realized within nine months, honorariums for mayors and councils are being threatened by staff. I wonder if the minister would comment on that.

Mr. Praznik: I just did not catch the last part, which is the essence of the member’s question--is it about per diems or about honorariums?

Mr. Robinson: The closing part of my question was that honorariums for mayors and councils are being threatened by staff of the Department of Northern Affairs, if, in fact, councils are unable to balance their budgets within a given period of time.

Mr. Praznik: Just in context, one has to appreciate that these councils have to have responsibility. Part of the responsibility of being a councillor or mayor is to operate within your budget, and when a community gets into a deficit position--and there are a variety of reasons why that happens, some may be bad management, some may be unforeseen circumstances, and everything in between--there still is an obligation to address that particular issue.

I am advised it is not a policy of this department to say to councillors or mayors that they have to give up their honorariums and service, but that is an option to deal with their deficit issue. They have to address it and ultimately come up with an answer. That may involve the laying off of staff; that may involve reducing other expenditures.

One comment I would make is that in circumstances where there is an uncontrollable happening that results in a problem with the budget--it might be an emergency sewer or water issue, or it may be a natural disaster, fires, et cetera--the department always has taken the view that they work very hard to assist that community in overcoming that problem. Sometimes that has meant re-allocating funding out of other parts of the budget or other communities to deal with that particular priority.

Where the problem has been one of mismanagement on the part of a council, and that has happened in one case--I think I had a question, or there was a question to the Premier at one point in Question Period regarding postal service in, is it, Thicket Portage. That community has to bear the responsibility and deal with it out of its budget, so different circumstances require different results. But in cases where the community has to deal with their deficit, their council has to look at options. That is one, but it is not forced on them. It is one that they certainly can consider.

Mr. Robinson: I wonder if the minister could just comment on what the average honorarium for mayors and councils may be. I know some of this is covered in the bill that we will be debating in the next little while, Bill 42, but at the current time I wonder if we can get the average honorarium for mayors and councils, and if this is dependent on the size of the communities, and so on.

Mr. Praznik: I am advised that the average works out to be about $110 per month for mayor and $85 per month for councillors, so it is truly an honorarium.

Mr. Robinson: I know we have not had an opportunity to debate Bill 42, and I must admit I have not had an opportunity to review the bill. Some of the concerns I am raising this morning are going to be, perhaps, addressed by Bill 42 that we are going to be debating in the very near future.

Mr. Praznik: I do not quite fully appreciate the concern the member is raising. If it is a matter of councils making decisions on their honorariums, they will always have that option, like any body who are in deficit or who have to reduce their expenditures, to look at their own honorarium levels. It is not a policy of the department to force them to give it up if they are in a deficit. They have to develop a deficit reduction plan, and that may be part of it, but it is not forced upon them.

With respect to the bill that we are bringing to the Legislature, it by and large is a housekeeping bill. The significant issue is one that was raised by NACC communities who are looking at moving to incorporation. The concern that they raise, that if a council incorporated, would that dissolve their council and require a new election?--so that the council that is elected as an NACC council, takes the community through an incorporation, would not under the current structure be allowed to continue or complete their terms. There is obviously concern about transition and all the things that go with that. So what the bill now allows for is--this is sort of the major policy thrust--if a community incorporates, their councillors are usually elected for three-year terms, that if they incorporate in the middle of year one or year two of their mandate, that they will in essence become the incorporated entity's council for the remainder of their term, which allows for a smooth transition to an incorporated community. Of course, when that term expired, they would have to have an election as an incorporated body. The bill, by and large, is to meet that purpose, which some communities wanted who were considering incorporation.

Mr. Robinson: I am sure that we will have an opportunity to get into greater detail on the bill itself. It is pointed out to me that some sections give the minister power, in fact, to deduct the amount of indebtedness from the amount of money payable to the person by the government and pay the amount deducted by the local committee, or community council, or incorporated community. But I am sure that we can leave that off for another time where we will have an opportunity to--perhaps the minister could shed some light on that possibility.

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Mr. Praznik: The issues I am now much more familiar--I think the member has zeroed in on his specific question That provision is not to address the issues with councillors because the debt or deficit position that a community council may experience is not a debt owed by the councillors. What that provision is designed to do is allow for the transfer of funds that may be owed to others by the department, or the government, to make up a debt that may be owed to a community council and vice versa.

We have had a number of instances, for example, where Northern Affairs communities bordering on another community have supplied services for ambulances, have supplied services for water and sewer, for garbage dumps, for fire protection, and have levied a bill, have not had that bill paid, and the Province of Manitoba has owed money to that body that has not paid its bill to the NACC community. This allows us now to deduct from the money owed to the neighbouring community and pay the NACC community,

As I said, we have had a couple of communities that were owed money for fire protection and ambulance service. We owed the debtor money, and we deducted it from the debt owed to that community and paid it to the NACC community. The provision is made reciprocal so that if an NACC community were to owe a neighbouring community money for a particular service, we would have the power to pay it directly to them and deduct it from their budget. It is one that I think serves everyone's purpose to ensure that bills, in fact, are paid and not left undone.

We have had some communities who have had some significant hardship because of costs that were not paid by a neighbouring community for services that they had rendered.

Mr. Lathlin: I was not quite clear on the minister's response to the previous question having to do with per diem or honorarium being attached by the government for those communities who may be experiencing financial difficulties and, in fact, incurring deficits. Are we to understand that if I am a mayor of a community council and our community runs a deficit, I will be personally responsible for the deficit?

Mr. Praznik: No, Mr. Chair, and I am glad the member has asked us to clarify that. It is not the case at all. Members of council are not personally liable for the deficits of their community. The council as a body ultimately is, as the governing body of that jurisdiction, or ultimately has a responsibility, but not as individuals. So, if a community has, over the course of a year, run a deficit and has to make it up, one of the options--just like we have in the Legislature an option, reducing our own indemnities, they, too, can reduce their indemnities for a period as well as deal with their staff, lay off staff, curtail other expenditures, capital projects, et cetera, to recover their deficits. Those are options, but they are not required to, nor does an individual serving on council, have a personal liability for the deficits of the community.

Mr. Lathlin: Why are NACC executive members telling us then that Northern Affairs staff have told members of those communities, especially those in elected office, that if they do not clear up the deficit, their per diems would be in jeopardy? We are not into balanced budget legislation in those communities, I do not think. I wonder if the minister could clear that up for us.

Mr. Praznik: It may well be, and I do not know the specifics--and I have been around here long enough to know that often accusations are made about what direction staff gives and, upon investigation, turns out to not be quite what was initially reported to me, but it is very likely that our staff were strongly suggesting to a council that they had a deficit problem, that they had to address their deficit problem, that they only had so many options to deal with it. That might be one that they would want to pursue. Quite frankly, that is not a policy; they do not have to. They have to make choices.

I do not know the specifics, Mr. Chair, of the budget of that community, nor of this instance, but they are not forced to do that. They have to make decisions as elected people, but they have to live within their budget.

Northern Affairs communities, let us not forget, are not incorporated bodies or councils. They exist actually in law as advisory councils to myself as minister, who, in law, is the administrator of those communities. We assign, under our departmental budget, a certain amount of money to be spent in those communities, and we give those advisory councils that are elected authority to spend it, but to spend to a limit. If they do not live within that means that has been allotted to them and the other revenues that we assign from their own tax base, we direct tax revenues and things that are derived in the community to them. If they do not live within that budget, they have to make it up, and they have to look at all options to look it up. They just do not have the luxury, as an elected body, of saying, I am sorry, we ran this up, we are walking away from it, unless they want to give up their council seats, and then the new council that is elected will have to deal with it, but there is a responsibility, there is an accountability. That is part of government.

Perhaps one of the troubles in our whole society over the last 30 years is, we have not had that accountability at larger and higher levels, at the federal and provincial level, and that is maybe why we are paying so much in interest today at both levels, because we did not have that accountability.

Mr. Robinson: There are a couple of other issues that perhaps the minister could respond to, and I am sure he will agree with me. I mean, we do agree more often than we disagree on a lot of issues, contrary to the relationship--[interjection] In the area of television service, particularly the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I have written a letter to the CRTC asking for service of television for people like the ones in Red Sucker Lake, Poplar River, Lac Brochet and other places who are considered Manitobans and Canadians but are not given the opportunity of having television of Canadian content, particularly CBC Manitoba, and these people want to be aware of what is going on in their own province as well.

So I wonder if the minister would commit himself to joining with me in writing a letter to the CRTC to see what could be done about this unfortunate situation, where some Manitobans are deprived of hearing news about their own province.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, the member for Rupertsland is very much correct in his observation that he and I tend to agree far more than we disagree on a variety of issues, and I would say to him that I would be very delighted to join with him in that. In fact, I would suggest that he speak to Mr. Boulette, to my ADM, about the logistics of putting together whether it be two letters or perhaps a joint letter which would carry a fair bit of weight given our different political persuasions. Perhaps even the Liberal Party would join in with that. The member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) indicates, perhaps we can do a letter representing all three parties in this Legislature to give weight.

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I would just add the comment to this, that the member for Rupertsland, in pursuing this issue, I am delighted because absolutely when we are talking about opportunities for people in northern Manitoba, communications, seeing what is happening in the world around you, having access through television, that is probably one of the great--I do not know the correct term, but that is probably one of the great unifiers in the world. Television has become one of the great educators, for better or for worse, and it is one of the means by which I think we get attached to the future and what is happening around us on this shrinking planet.

One regret I have is that so many parts of our province do not have the kind of communication access. One telephone in one community, the member puts it in that perspective, just again, one pay phone in that community again underlines the issue. [interjection] The member says we have made a lot of progress. One pay phone in the community and over 30 years, I think both our two parties have a lot to answer for. Our Liberal colleagues are probably saying, if they had been in power, there would have been two pay phones. So it makes the point, and I would be delighted to pursue it. I would suggest the member for Rupertsland, I invite him to talk to Mr. Boulette. We will work on a draft letter that we can all be comfortable with, and I would invite the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) to also contact Mr. Boulette who will co-ordinate that effort.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Chairman, we will get on that right away. I have forwarded a letter to Mr. Spicer of the CRTC on this matter already. However, I think that a co-ordinated approach as the minister suggests would probably have more effect.

The area that I would like to ask about right now is in Manigotagan with their low-pressure sewer and water system. I understand that the last phase of this project is under discussion right now. I understand that there is a financial problem there right now, after discussions with Mayor Brenda Boulet. It took 12 years for this community to resume local control in Manigotagan, as I understand it. That community should be commended for their effort and the work that they have been doing in that community. It is truly a community that should be commended for the work that it has undertaken, particularly in capital projects. I know that the community will be very successful in the time to come.

In the discussion--to talk about the last phase of this particular project on capital, I wonder if the minister would consent to meet with Brenda Boulet and her council members in the near future to discuss possibilities. Perhaps this will give the minister an opportunity as well to see how effective local control has been in some Northern Affairs communities and at the same time assist him in the work that he has to do when dealing with the other communities in Manitoba.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, the good mayor of that community I think is related to my assistant deputy minister. I would not for one moment want suggest that at family gatherings, there may be some discussion of these issues and perhaps some sympathy on the part of my senior staff having come from that community. But if it did take place, I would be encouraging it because Manigotagan has come a long way and it is a very aggressive community in developing its opportunities today. Certainly with the Rea Gold mine coming into that particular area, most of the employment in that area is coming locally, and I appreciate quite a number of people from the Manigotagan area are finding employment there and are involved in that mine. There are a lot of good things happening.

My ADM, Mr. Boulette, advises me that there has been some problem with the engineering on this last stage that is being worked through, but it is our intention to complete the project once that is done. We are committed to it. I cannot answer for the engineering issues but those will have to be worked through. With respect to meeting with the mayor and council, not only do I indicate that I would like to do that but as we plan our summer schedule and our travel, that is one of the areas that I intend to be visiting directly, not meeting here in Winnipeg. Perhaps the member for Rupertsland could be available that day, and we could do some touring in that part of his constituency as well.

Mr. Robinson: I will look forward to the minister notifying me of the date, and I certainly will try and make myself available on that particular day.

I would like to talk a little bit about another area of concern for aboriginal people, and that is the Manitoba Metis Federation. I am wondering what role the province is playing with respect to the Manitoba Metis Federation, and this is not in any way meant to discount the efforts of the Manitoba Metis Federation. As a matter of fact, we are on record as being highly supportive of the work that they are doing for the Metis nation in Manitoba.

I would like to ask the minister, what level of discussions are happening with the leadership of the Manitoba Metis Federation at this point?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I join with the member for Rupertsland, as well, and our comments are general supportiveness of the work that the MMF has done over the years and continues to do. Most regrettably, I think for all of us as members of this Legislature, as we look to events of the last couple years when the organization went into receivership--not receivership but a group of trustees were appointed to run it and then today we have a situation where they are being operated by a court receiver.

(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)

I must express my deep regret, as I am sure the members opposite would share with me, that an organization that has such a significant role to play in the province has to suffer from such continual, it seems sometimes, internecine battles. Perhaps that is the nature of democracy but it is regrettable. I say that in a general sense, not to take anyone's side, but it is very regrettable that an organization with their role to play has to have such public internecine battles, because it certainly makes it more and more difficult all the time for all of us in this Legislature to remain supportive of the financial contribution that we vote in this Legislature to that organization.

The public asks all the time, are you just paying the bills of receivers and lawyers in court battles? They want to see people get on with real work, so that is a feeling that is shared by many and it is regrettable. My general advice to all members of that association or community is to get on with resolving their internal differences and get back to finding some consensus to move forward.

Specifically, the member's question about what is happening now. I have had a meeting with the receiver, a manager who was appointed by the Court of Queen's Bench some time ago. I have also had a meeting with the president, Mr. Billyjo Delaronde. My understanding of the current circumstances is that the receiver was appointed by the Court of Queen's Bench for the purpose of winding up the Manitoba Metis Federation Inc., and the judge's comment was that in doing so the Metis community would have to go and reorganize itself into something obviously that worked.

In my discussions with the receiver at the time the appeal was launched that decision had not been heard and there was not a stay in process, if I believe. My response to the Auditor to his question about where the province would be in terms of its funding and particularly with respect to a successor organization, because should the winding up occur and a successor organization be formed through some means, what recognition does it get, and that becomes a very complicated issue when there is an internecine struggle.

We laid out some criteria that we would use, and I am in the process now today of getting over a letter to confirm this. The criteria would have to be that any Metis representative organization would have to demonstrate and have a broad base of support in the Metis community across Manitoba. They would have to be open in their membership to all Metis people. They could not say, we did not like you, we are cutting you out. It would have to be open to all people who are Metis. They would have to commit to hold elections within a reasonably early period of time in which their membership who would be of course anyone who was Metis and met whatever requirements to join, whether it be a fee or what have you, was eligible for voting and standing for office in the organization.

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Lastly, they would have to demonstrate both to us and, if the court is involved in this process, to a court that they have the legal and financial systems, processes and reporting mechanisms to ensure their accountability both legally and financially. That would be kind of the criteria which I could then recommend to Treasury Board and to cabinet because it would require a change in Treasury Board because my authority now is to deal with MMF Inc., which the court ordered wound up. Then I could make a recommendation or I could take that forward, but those criteria, before anything could happen, would have to at least be met.

The last point I make is that we also inform the receiver because provincial funding for both core activities and tripartite activities is based on having an organization that is able to develop, debate, negotiate policy with government that affect Metis people, to represent the issues that are of concern to Metis with government and give us as government policy options, whether it be in the tripartite area of self-government in institutions or in general questions. As long as the organization was operated by a receiver-manager, then it no longer could fulfill that mandate as a representative body, and so our funding really, quite frankly, could not flow.

As of the beginning of the next quarter, and unless this matter is sorted out, we will not be in a position at the current time to continue funding for a wind up of an organization. In the interim, from those discussions, I believe there was a stay on the windup pending an appeal, so we are all awaiting the results of that appeal as to what advice the court shall offer as to a course of action that will be taken. I apologize for the amount of detail, but it is a complex issue with which we are now dealing. I hope that answers the member's question.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Chairperson, there are other organizations like the Indigenous Women's Collective, the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg and others that are being funded by this government and, of course, including the Manitoba Metis Federation. There is an equally effective group that advocates the views of Metis women in this province called the Manitoba Metis women's association, I believe, under the leadership of Sandra Delorande.

I wonder if the minister would entertain the notion of perhaps funding this organization which is very effective in advancing the views of women, particularly Metis women, in this province and I wonder if the minister would consider that idea.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, traditionally, within the department, funding to Metis organizations has been done through MMF Inc. I would concur that the Metis women's organization in Manitoba has done some excellent work, has some very credible and excellent people involved in it.

From time to time I have meetings with them. I know their president. I know some of their former presidents--one being a constituent of mine, Mrs. Joyce Gus--and they have on a regular basis, informally and formally, offered some very good discussion and advice to government on issues related to the Metis community, the Metis women in Manitoba, so I think they are an excellent organization.

The issue of funding, of course, I think is dependent upon sorting out what happens with MMF Inc. Even under the proposal for reorganization that was voted on in this recent assembly, I believe the Manitoba Metis women were granted or were included for one seat on the new organization's executive, so they are very much part of whatever forum the Metis community generally has. Until we know where things are sorted out, my preference would be to continue with the funding of one central organization which dealt with component parts, but, to the member for Rupertsland, we do not know where things are going to be until they are sorted out with the courts. Anything, of course, is possible and can be considered when we know the lay of the land over the next few weeks.

Mr. Robinson: There is currently an arrangement right now at the Manitoba Metis Federation and CMHC to deliver housing in some communities under the jurisdiction of the Northern Association of Community Councils or what we generally regard as Northern Affairs communities. We understand that there were similar negotiations between NACC and CMHC some time ago, and not to take anything away from the Manitoba Metis Federation, but to be supportive of them and at the same time be supportive of NACC, I wonder if the minister has considered co-ordinating some kind of effort with both the NACC and with the Manitoba Metis Federation in addressing housing for these communities that he is responsible for and particularly dealing with the federal government, CMHC, most particularly in being able to meet some of the housing needs of these communities. I know that part of this question is federally related, but I am sure that CMHC would be in agreement that there has got to be some kind of initiative to meet the needs of all.

I am wondering if the minister and his staff have considered co-ordinating some effort to address these many needs. I do not believe that it would be a conflict. As a matter of fact, I believe that it would be a matter of each organization complementing one another in addressing this very, very dire need that most communities experience.

Mr. Praznik: I say this to the member for Rupertsland as an observation, somewhat in jest, and I must say I feel like that myself many times. He reminds me of the individual who gets up and says, some of my friends are for it and some of my friends are against it, and me, I always stand with my friends.

When he says he supports both and does not want to diminish from either, I feel exactly the same thing. I do not say that to be critical of the member for Rupertsland. This is the great dilemma. I have gone through numerous meetings with NACC, with MMF, the Minister of Housing, the former Minister of Housing, who is now the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), how many times I have been in her office on this issue when she was Housing minister. With the current minister, the member for Niakwa (Mr. Reimer), the battle goes on between the two.

By the way, in all of those meetings we have tried to facilitate the kind of working relationships and compromises, and it never has been satisfactory to at least one of the two parties. My observation as to why that is is, ultimately the organization that delivers the service is an employer and it has the ability then to hire people, whether it be on contract or as employees, to deliver the service, whether it be repair work, whether it be the administrative side, et cetera, and for both of these organizations, the ability to control those dollars and thus, the services that have to be purchased and jobs that go with it is a very important issue. There are also some questions of service delivery. Sometimes I am not sure whether the service delivery is the issue or the guise behind which the point is made. I imagine that varies from case to case, but it is an issue over who will control those budgets, in essence, and make the decisions to some degree as to who gets the work. How one ever resolves those things is never pleasant. We have tried as the member suggested to facilitate that. I say this to the member, since many of these communities are in his constituency, he can certainly be my guest in trying--if he wishes, as a member, to facilitate some relationship between the two organizations, I would invite him to try because we have, and it has never worked out satisfactorily to both communities.

In some communities where there have been issues over service, I think those have been resolved. But the larger issue is one that boils down, I think, to straight small “p” politics. If the member and his colleagues would like to try to broker a relationship, I would invite them to do so, and if they are successful in doing it, I would be supportive of their efforts. This is not one I think that is easily resolved. Someone is not going to be happy.

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The only other comment I add, Mr. Chair, the caveat I add to this is that because of the way Manitoba Metis Federation is structured, as was described to me by the receiver, it is in essence all funnelled through a common bank account and system and very much tied to one another. What happens in the next few days or few weeks with the courts in deciding the future of MMF Inc. may in fact decide the future of MMF's involvement in housing one way or the other. If that status quo in fact is changed by the courts, then we would have to work with the Housing department to look at what alternatives come into place.

I thank the member for this question, and I hope he takes my comment somewhat in jest because I feel that way very much myself from time to time.

Mr. Robinson: I am sure that at some point in time I will have an opportunity to perhaps broker some kind of a breakthrough in that regard. I know how difficult it is. I just wanted to find out from the minister what he felt were the possibilities. It is, indeed, an outstanding issue and will continue to be for the next little while as I see it anyway.

I want to ask the minister about the Rural Jobs Project that was announced by the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) recently, and we understand that this program will be continued into the year 1997. Now, the program's guidelines are similar as they were last year, and that is that the employer is the northern community council or municipality. In this case, it would be the northern community council. The wage subsidy is 50 percent of the minimum wage and 50 percent of employee benefits up to a 15 percent minimum wage. However, there are some communities that do not have that sort of money to participate in this program. I am wondering what the staff has recommended for some community councils that, perhaps, want this project in their communities, and I am wondering if some NACC communities, in fact, will be partaking in this program in the coming year.

Introduction of Guests

Mr. Chairperson: Before we proceed, may I direct the attention of the honourable members to the gallery where we have with us from Margaret Park School twenty-eight Grade 5 students under the direction of Mr. Nelson Tomsic. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak). On behalf of all honourable members, I welcome you here today.

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Mr. Praznik: I thank the member for this question. My staff, my assistant deputy minister who has a responsibility in this area, advises me that he has been working or people have been working with each community as they have come forward with their proposals. Obviously, we believe, at least our staff have a sense that the requirements are going to be somewhat different in each of the communities who want to take advantage of this kind of a program and that we will have to deal with them on a case-by-case basis, but there is certainly an interest in pursuing this. As this develops, I would invite the honourable member to raise this again with me or with Mr. Boulette directly, and if we have a problem that he is aware of in the community, please let us know and we will try to work it through. Obviously, we share the same objective.

Mr. Robinson: Before we get into other areas, I want to briefly ask a few questions about the profile of Manitoba’s aboriginal population, a document that was produced by the Native Affairs Secretariat.

As I said in Question Period yesterday, there is a lot of information that is within this report that is not news to us as aboriginal people and as members of First Nations, for example, the health of Status Indian children and adults under the age of 65 are hospitalized two to three times as frequently as other Manitobans. Life expectancy for Manitoba Indians is six years less than all Manitobans. In 1991, on average, aboriginal males earned $5,500 less in employment income than all Manitoba males. Aboriginal females earned $2,000 less than all Manitoba females, and over half of the registered Indian families living on Manitoba’s reserves live in poverty. In Winnipeg’s inner city, seven out of 10 aboriginal households live in poverty.

My question on the first part, Mr. Chairperson, will be the urban aboriginal strategy, and we have heard about this strategy for a long, long time, and I would like to ask the minister again this year--I asked it last year--what efforts have been put forth in addressing an urban aboriginal strategy, and beyond that I will have another question as it relates to all of Manitoba and the aboriginal community. So I would like to start off first with the urban aboriginal strategy,Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, the member asks a question about urban aboriginal strategy, and I guess the issue I would rather address in this context, and when you talk about strategy, I guess the answer for government always is to say we have some grandiose plan that is going to solve all problems. I do not think any government ever has that even if they have paper to suggest that.

The problem that the member raises in his introduction and if there is one of a few issues that as a cabinet minister and an MLA troubles me the most in government, and all partisanship aside because this is not a partisan issue, that we have, as the member knows far more than I, both by his background and by his constituency, is the problem faced by our aboriginal community in becoming full partners and participants in Manitoban and Canadian society. There is a long history here. We have heard the member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) speak many times of it in this Legislature. Despite the political fervour that goes back and forth sometimes in his exchanges with some of my colleagues, I have worked with him on a task force and know that he comes by many of his observations very sincerely and has observations about life, his experiences, and those of his community.

We know when you look at the profile--the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) has talked about health issues, employment issues, economic issues--I do not think it would be an understatement to say, by terms of ethnic background, aboriginal people probably are some of the poorest in our province and have the greatest health difficulties, and those are probably related. We know that health is a result or is influenced by a person’s economic position, where they live, sewer and water access, all housing, all of those types of things make a difference. So we as a province know we have this challenge to face. The aboriginal community knows it better than anyone else. Its leadership continues to advocate and to take steps to work these things through, whether it be the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs or other organizations.

This is a big task. How one approaches it, I am not entirely sure. It is a huge problem. Bit by bit, it gets addressed. Some would argue, maybe in a piecemeal fashion; others would say, with some direction.

I think fundamentally the push of this government and this administration has been to some degree to do two things. One of them--and I know my colleagues may not appreciate this because they have heard me say it before--is obviously to build and encourage and cajole and whatever needs to be done to create the general kind of economic opportunities out there of which people can take advantage in whatever place, whether it be in Winnipeg or in northern Manitoba. A lot of what this government has done has been to build the economic base for the province. That is key because if you do not have that, your province does not have growth and economic opportunities. It is very hard to do anything else, so that is fundamental.

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The second part of the thrust has been in the areas where we have had jurisdiction, where we have had some capability to ensure that people of aboriginal ancestry have the opportunities, as much as possible--and I am not saying we have been great at it. I think we have been better at it than the past 30, 40 or a hundred years of history have been. We still have a long way to go--but to work towards that.

Whether that be policies in the Department of Education that support and encourage things like the Children of the Earth School and aboriginal schools within our school divisions in urban areas that give people a greater comfort level to learn more and become better trained and more able to take advantage of opportunities, whether that be in hiring practices, whether that be in encouraging and working with people who want to get into business and take advantage of opportunities there, each department in essence works on those things. So if you ask the strategy, there are two very important thrusts of it that I think it carried out in the various operations of our department. Enough?--I do not know. I do not think so. I think there is still lots of work to be done and we continue to work at it. Can government ever do enough?--I would say not. The history of every government I think has proven that, no matter who has been on this side of the aisle.

There are some specific issues in the city of Winnipeg--and, by the way, whether we like it or not, we talked about people moving away. I am most interested in the Statistics Canada census data that will come out. My staff advised me that in the last census, despite the largest birth rate in the province, despite the return of Bill C-31, the census population of many of our particularly more isolated northern communities declined, because people do vote with their feet in essence and they do go where they perceive to be more opportunities. That is an individual's choice. Government should not be directing that. Many of those people, as the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) has pointed out, have come to the city of Winnipeg in pursuit of opportunities. Many have not found them here. [interjection] Well, the member says, force. Perhaps forced to choose--and I am not going to argue the word, because I think every migration of people in the history of humankind, it can be argued, was forced because people, by and large, do not like to leave their home. I admit that. They do not like to leave their home. Many have to.

My family has, on both sides, my mother and my father's, left their homes to cross an ocean to pursue better opportunities. They were forced, in essence, not by a point of a gun but because there was not anything there. You could not earn a living on a five-acre farm in Ukraine in 1890, so forced or by a choice, we are debating nomenclature, and I think we understand what we mean. The fact is people do move for those reasons, forced or because they choose to make the choice, not that they want to, but that they see a better opportunity.

So how does one assist that and make that happen? Well, we work and as the member pointed out, we fund the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg that does some work in this area. Enough? Obviously not. There is still great need out there. Children of the Earth School, and other things, we work with.

The Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) and the Premier (Mr. Filmon), I know on the health issues we have had discussions with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and we had a joint meeting with them. In the area of health, we recognize fully that a lot of work needs to be done there to address some of these problems. In my own constituency, the member for Rupertsland and I share a health district, to some degree, that has a long history of antagonism between aboriginal community and the nonaboriginal community. I am very pleased to say--I do not know if the member for Rupertsland is fully up to speed on things that have happened there--Dr. Moe Lerner from our department was brought in to facilitate a process to get the two groups working together. The success is unbelievable for those of us who have watched this over the number of years. It is these types of individual efforts, not programs necessarily, that I think will go a long way to alleviating the kind of difficulties the member is talking about.

The member talks about urban aboriginal strategy. I think maybe one thing we have not done well is to catalogue and to bring together in one place a number of the initiatives or programs in their own way, whether it be small or large, that have worked towards that goal of helping people improve their lives in the urban setting. I think that is something my department should undertake in the next year, and we are advised, in the process of starting to put together.

This may be a rambling answer and it may be one that sort of covers the map, but I think any thoughtful Manitoban looking ahead to the future as we prepare to enter the next century realizes that helping to improve or helping people to find and take advantage of the opportunities that are there in developing--and developing those opportunities is a major thrust to this government--helping people to find them, to develop the skills to take advantage of them, and to take their place as full citizens of this province, has to be one of the greatest social challenges facing us over the next number of years. It is not going to be solved, in my opinion, with specific grandiose programs. It is going to be solved with a lot of effort in small areas, dealing with specific problems, on a bit-by-bit individual process. I look forward to the discussions that we will have on this.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Chairperson, as you know, my questions are usually short and to the point. Perhaps we can move this along.

Yes, I am very familiar with the matter at the Pine Falls Hospital. I have worked with some of the board members that do serve on that regional hospital, I guess we can call it. The stats that have been compiled for the Native Affairs Secretariat, I am sure the minister would agree, almost warrant, no matter whose responsibility Indians may be, whether they be provincial or federal, the fact of the matter is that Indians die at a faster rate than most other Manitobans and other Canadians. We suffer from diseases that are not common to other Canadians, or at the very least we are more susceptible to these diseases.

I would like to ask the minister whether or not he would agree with us that maybe this warrants a ministry for aboriginal health.

Mr. Praznik: An interesting proposal, obviously one that the Premier creates ministries, but I think probably one of the last things one needs is to set up another specific bureaucracy--and I am not suggesting that is what the minister's thrust is--it is an observation as a minister. Obviously, the issue is, how do you get focus of attention on these issues to get results? That is really, I think, where we are trying to get our mind around.

I know my colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae), and I do not know if the member had an opportunity to address this in the Health Estimates, but within Health there is some work going on because of that meeting with Phil Fontaine in the interest of the government and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs about how we work this out. I know for the Grand Chief and the assembly, it is a very significant issue.

We know that many of the issues that he speaks of, health issues, are addressable by information, particularly where early intervention or having the right information can be most helpful. This problem, and just for a few--for example, diabetes which afflicts the aboriginal community in a very large amount, as it does some other particular ethnic communities, there are issues related to diet, treatment, care and control of diabetes that become important, and that is an information issue, a lifestyle issue, but how do you incorporate that information into lifestyle? I say that coming from a particular background where diabetes is also, not to as large a degree, but is also significant and has been curtailed somewhat because of changes in lifestyle and diet, so I appreciate that a little bit.

Another very preventable ailment is fetal alcohol syndrome and it is certainly not just restricted in any way to the aboriginal community. It is one of the major, I think, health disasters facing our community if you look at it as province. Again, these become issues of lifestyle and information that become very important. Certain rates of cancer, again the same thing, very much on lifestyle and habit and not restricted to the aboriginal community, but the flow of information becomes absolutely critical.

I know the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in their discussion on taking over responsibility for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, there is a very significant budget for the Health Promotion branch. I know from my days in Jake Epp's office that was a major area, it funded the community health care worker program, those type of things. We are very much interested in it as the government. I know the Minister of Health--how do we work with those particular areas to get into, on a community-by-community, street-by-street, house-by-house, family-by-family basis to address those very preventable or controllable health issues that are there?

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I would suggest to the member that we need to have, in my opinion, my observation, for any of this to work, you need to have, I believe, a very significant involvement at the community level because in many of these instances of which we speak, lifestyle and knowledge about lifestyle becomes very important.

If one looks at diet, for example--it never fails to amaze me when I travel to many communities, people who are involved in a traditional way of life talk about traditional diets, lifestyle and the improvement in health compared to a more modern diet, which we all probably suffer from to some degree--if you do not have involvement in the community level on that street-by-street, family-by-family way, all the best programs in the world do not become effective.

I take the member's comments sincerely. That is an issue that the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) has to address and we certainly want to work with him, but it has to become the thrust in the next few years in the efforts of his department and certainly one we want to give some direction to.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Chairperson, I do not think the next few questions have to be answered in great detail. The profile of Manitoba's aboriginal population, I am wondering why it was produced and what it is going to be used for.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, the document was prepared to compile what, in essence, are already existing public statistics into a profile that gives us as policymakers in government the opportunity to know where we are, where we need to target our particular efforts and resources and to give us a base from which to work. The member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) laughs somewhat at this, but I think it is important.

I must tell him, in my experience as a minister, in the last two years one of the things I have endeavoured to do with my colleagues is to get an interdepartmental committee together when we were addressing the issues of self-government when the federal process began.

I can tell him very sincerely that one of the great challenges that we have to overcome as an administration has been just getting all our departments working together and coming at problems and identifying where they are. One of the things we discovered in our working group was that various departments had different views of responsibilities and policies and some of them were not constitutionally sound. We had to get everybody together. That took well over a year just to get that common thinking. So the member may scoff at this, but I think it is important. We--

An Honourable Member: I am just wondering how much it cost and--

Mr. Praznik: Well, the member said, what did it cost? Just the staff time within the Native Affairs Secretariat of compiling that information.

Mr. Robinson: One more question relating to the department, I guess, before we move on to some other subject areas. I wonder if the minister could tell us how many employees aside from two very capable people that he has here today, Mr. Bostrom and Mr. Boulette, are employed by the Department of Northern Affairs currently in upper-level positions?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, could the member please tell me what he considers upper-level positions?

Mr. Robinson: I am going to speak in Cree, and my colleague will interpret for me in English, if that is all right with the Chairperson. (Cree spoken)

Mr. Chairperson: The honourable member for The Pas, to interpret what the member for Rupertsland said.

Mr. Lathlin: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Of course, I will gladly interpret for my colleague for Rupertsland. What my colleague wants to know is, how many aboriginal people work for these white guys?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I know the rules of this House. One must be a little bit careful. I think the point that the member is trying to make, of course, is how many aboriginal people are employed in the Department of Native Affairs. Could I ask him then, before I answer the question, his definition of aboriginals? Is it Status, Metis, Bill C-31? If he could be a little more specific before I answer that. Perhaps the member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) would like to translate for the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson).

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Before we continue on, the honourable member for Rupertsland had asked distinctly if it was correct for the member for The Pas to translate. I think that was within the rules as long as he offers an interpretation of what he had stated because--

Mr. Praznik: I have no problem, Mr. Chair. The member makes a valid point. I just asked him for--

Mr. Robinson: Metis and First Nations.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I would ask the honourable members to put their questions through the Chair. The honourable member for The Pas.

Mr. Lathlin: Sorry, Mr. Chairperson. My colleague is referring to those aboriginal people who are of Metis and First Nations descent.

Mr. Praznik: I must just put a caveat to this because under our civil service policy for Affirmative Action, we have a self-declaration process; not all people make that declaration. So I am giving an observation as opposed to information from that.

I would also like to point out to the members opposite who are members of the New Democratic Party that their party and the Manitoba Government Employees’ Union whom they very much support--[interjection] I know I would like to make this caveat because I think members opposite cannot have it both ways. When I was civil service minister and we talked about Affirmative Action hiring, the MGEU, which fully supports his party at the executive level, opposed it, so you cannot have it both ways.

But, to answer the member’s question, in the Native Affairs Secretariat, five of eight staff in the Secretariat are aboriginal. Of my senior managers, two of four have aboriginal ancestry, and I believe of the two of the four, one is vacant. So there are two who have aboriginal ancestry. Pardon me, they are all full, so there are two of four then, pardon me, who have aboriginal background.

But I would just like to point out, Mr. Chair, that across government it is easy to make those statements, particularly if you are an aboriginal member of the Legislature in this committee today. But let us not forget that the party to which they belong and the union that supports them very fully have never supported an Affirmative Action program beyond entry level position, and that is something we always have taken up as issue with them. So you cannot ultimately have it both ways.

Mr. Robinson: I do not want to engage in a debate over what the minister has just talked about. We have a few other questions, and I believe we can wrap up the department before noon hour, Mr. Chairperson. I thank you for your indulgence, as well.

We have a number of outstanding things that we did not raise today. Recently, we met with Lawrence Merasty, who is the mayor of Brochet. We did not get into housing at any great extent this morning. What Mayor Merasty told us about his community is that there has been no new housing there since 1972, and the number of homes amounts to 22, and there are more than 200 or more people living in a community. I know the minister is quite sensitive to these things, and I am sure that we will have an opportunity at some point in the future to discuss these in greater detail.

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In this province, in the minister's opening remarks, of course, he correctly pointed out that there is a dismantling initiative that is going on with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs with the federal Department of Indian Affairs. The province has not yet been invited to the table to discuss the dismantling initiative. Almost every aspect of the Canadian reality now involves First Nations and other aboriginal people, and there is going to be a constitutional conference that will be forthcoming in the next little while. As the minister knows, the federal government has pretty much said no to the participation of the Assembly of First Nations, most particularly the national chief. I know currently there are some questions being raised with the First Ministers across this country about their thoughts on that idea about excluding the national leader. I am wondering if the minister would recommend to his First Minister (Mr. Filmon) in this province, that perhaps it is a good idea to have the national chief attend the pending constitutional conference.

Mr. Praznik: I would just advise the member for Rupertsland--and our understanding is this is not a constitutional meeting. It is a First Ministers' meeting of the First Ministers of the provinces, territories and the nation, and Mr. Chretien, the Prime Minister, has convened this meeting. I believe he is talking about the one that is coming up as opposed to the constitutional meeting that I think is required of the amending formula.

If he is talking about the one which is coming up shortly in June--that is a Premiers' meeting--so consequently it is up to the Premiers and the Prime Minister to determine if they wish to invite anyone else to be part of that.

If he is speaking about a constitutional meeting which is due in 1997, we believe, that is a different matter altogether, so they are different. The one coming up is the First Ministers' meeting and that is up to the First Ministers and the Prime Minister, as the representatives of the provinces, territories and nation to determine should they wish to have anyone else participate in their meeting and their agenda. I am not going to recommend to my Premier, or to anyone else for that matter, whom they should include, just as ultimately when I attend ministers' meetings and we have agendas that have to be dealt with, we determine the best way to carry out our meeting depending on what is on the agenda and who is required to be there to fulfill our discussions.

Mr. Robinson: I should have qualified my question a little better, Mr. Chairperson. I did mean the First Ministers' Conference coming up and also, further down the line, the constitutional conference.

I would like to move on to treaty land entitlement. This is, of course, the issue that is very much in the minds of many people in this province. We have asked the minister, and he has kept us pretty much updated on the latest developments in this area. We have talked with some of the chiefs in recent days on what their perception is of where negotiations are currently. I wonder if the minister could just give us an indication of where treaty land entitlement is at the current time.

Mr. Praznik: Yes, Mr. Chair, a very timely question. Beginning a few days ago here in Winnipeg, the Treaty Land Entitlement Chiefs Committee with all the chiefs present, along with representatives of the federal government and with our people, have been working away at a draft on an agreement in principle pursuant to the agreements that I think were reached two months ago, a month and a half ago, as I have outlined to the member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) in his question in the House. We are awaiting the outcome of their deliberations and work. The latest report I had as of last evening was that great progress was being made and actually pending this. As the member knows from his own experience, you can agree on some general principles. When you get down to putting it in an agreement, there are always issues that arise that had not necessarily been anticipated, so those were worked out in the last few days.

If I may make this comment, I think that there is a tremendous willingness to make our current arrangement work, and as I said in the House as well, that it is our intention. Whether or not one has an agreement, we want to get on with fulfilling our land responsibilities in terms of transferring land. That was the proposal that I took to Chief Whitebird back in April that I think got things kind of rolling again.

Mr. Lathlin: Mr. Chairperson, I just want to touch briefly, as a last item. In my opening statement I advised the committee that I really do not feel like celebrating with the minister when he wants to celebrate all his accomplishments in Manitoba in regard to aboriginal people.

I just want to share with him some of the things that are happening in Saskatchewan in relation to treaty land entitlement. The government of Saskatchewan recognizes that those Saskatchewan First Nations people have distinct historical, legal and treaty rights that must be honoured. They have said that over and over again.

Just to give the minister an example of what is happening in Saskatchewan, 28 treat land entitlement First Nations receiving over 500 million, enabling them to purchase about 2 million equity acres of land, and that is going to more than double the existing reserve land base in Saskatchewan. Also, they have agreed to work in a partnership way in an initiative having to do with training. They have established a northern development fund for northern Saskatchewan Indians. That plan apparently involves over $10.5 million over five years to train First Nations and other northerners for jobs in mining and other sectors. Initiatives like that--I mean, if that were happening in Manitoba, yes, I would gladly join the party. It is not happening, so I am not really in a party mood. I thought I would share that with the minister.

Mr. Chairperson: Is it the will of the committee that the Chair not see the clock for a little bit? That is agreed, then.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I have to thank the member for The Pas for his comment about coming for the party, because I will tell you, a year from now, when we compare what has happened in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and I am being a little optimistic that we are going to get things resolved, but certainly two years from now not only will the member for The Pas, I will take him up on his offer to come to the party, but I am going to get him to pay for the refreshments, because I think the member for The Pas looks at Saskatchewan on paper. That is fine. I accept that, but I think he has to look a little bit under the scenes, because he talked about a $500 million cash transfer and, yes, the reason why the cash transfer is there, as opposed to a much smaller amount in Manitoba, is that there is not the land available, there is not the Crown land in Saskatchewan. Right? So, land has to be purchased.

But I think the member has to look at what percentage of land has actually been purchased to even get to date of first survey. It is very little, and in the discussions that we have had at a political level with Saskatchewan and certainly at an officials level, they are having real difficulty in implementing their agreement. My observation is that it is going to take a long time and have a great deal of problem, primarily for the reason that they do not have a lot of land, and the purchasing and transfer of land is never going to be an easy process. It is not going to be easy here, either, in the communities in southern Manitoba, but they account for a much smaller percentage.

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He also talked about this northern development fund that is part of it for training in the North. I remember the days of the Northern Development Agreement here in Manitoba. I worked for a federal minister. I did some openings, and I do not think anyone can point today to that Northern Development Agreement resulting in huge amounts of benefit, probably some incrementally here and there, but by and large never living up to what it was hailed to be. So I am always leery of these things.

I can tell him, though, one difference, a very significant difference, and why I think that there is going to be something to celebrate about different processes. There are two things. One, as a provincial taxpayer, and I say this, Manitoba I think will have managed to fulfill its treaty land entitlement obligations without having to pick up financially the obligation of the taxpayers of Canada. That was always our objective, and I think it is a good one, because ultimately the money that we put, if we had to put cash in like Saskatchewan has had to do, that is less money to do other things in the province, and this is a debt owed by the Government of Canada. It was the Government of Canada who did not properly do the surveys, and it has been the Government of Canada who has not settled it over the last hundred-and-some years. So it has to be the Government of Canada who assumes the responsibility. Manitoba's obligation is for unoccupied Crown land, and that we have always said we will live up to, and we will, I believe, under this agreement.

The second part of it, I think, that is unique for us in Manitoba is our government has committed to start a very quick process with First Nations. If we pen this agreement in the next few days, we will be down shortly, within months, to working with the individual communities on their selections, and our commitment as land is selected and agreed to, we are prepared to flow it. So unlike other situations where you have had to have 100 percent of land selected and then go through the additions to reserve policy of the federal government that takes one, two, three, four years to do, in the case of Saskatchewan is still not done for most of that selection, we in Manitoba will be getting land transferred and in fact in the hands of the First Nations on a much speedier basis as we get agreement on selection.

I think we will have a much more practical and better process for satisfying, and I do not want to say that is just because of the policy we have set. One thing that will make it easier is the fact that the bulk of our obligation can be satisfied with unoccupied Crown land in Manitoba, which Saskatchewan does not have.

So I think, at the end of the day, whether the member wants to give us any credit for the way we have handled this or not, in reality there will be a much larger percentage of land in the hands of First Nations, maybe still in the process of being transferred to reserve status, but certainly in their hands, usable by them, being developed by those people on a much faster basis than Saskatchewan. If that is the case, then I expect the member to be joining us for some celebration. If it is not, then I will pay for the refreshments.

Mr. Robinson: I think that the rest of these issues that we have here could be perhaps answered by letter. First of all, an update on the North Central Project. Also another issue that I am sure that we are in agreement with the minister on is the pending changes by the federal government on UI, which is going to cause hardship in areas where people are seasonally employed, and certainly in northern communities, this is unfortunately a way of life.

So, if we could perhaps join together, the minister and I, on these two common issues at some time, we could move on. I just want to by way of saying in concluding this part of the Estimates process, Mr. Chairperson, there are some issues that we wanted to talk about. Unfortunately, we did not have an opportunity to discuss these. Again, we are keeping in mind the time restrictions that have been placed on us and to allow other departments to conclude their Estimates. So we are respectful of that as well.

We would like the minister's support, of course, on being able to pass Bill 201, The Aboriginal Solidarity Day Act. We would certainly like the minister to consider that very, very seriously--[interjection] Okay, good--and join with First Nations and other aboriginal people across this country in celebrating our survival, as I said in my opening remarks.

We have a lot of exciting things going on in northern Manitoba, and I am a little more optimistic than perhaps some of even my own colleagues. We have the spaceport initiative in Churchill, which is the largest private sector development in the history of Manitoba, and we look forward to that and we hope that it is going to be very successful. We did not have an opportunity to talk about that this morning, and, of course, the mining increases that the minister alluded to earlier and the revenue that is being generated from that initiative as well. The North is creating wealth for southern Manitoba, and perhaps southern Manitobans often disregard that reality. A lot of the resources come from northern communities; unfortunately, northern Manitobans are not the ones that benefit in the long run sometimes.

But I do thank the staff for being here and also the minister and his frankness to the questions that we had, Mr. Chairperson. We are ready to proceed with concluding this part of Estimates.

Mr. Chairperson: Item 19.1.(b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $237,900--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $121,700--pass.

19.2 . Northern Affairs Operations (a) Financial and Administrative Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $360,900--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $119,200--pass.

19.2.(b) Program and Operational Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $231,200--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $90,600--pass; (3) Community Operations $5,040,800--pass; (4) Regional Services $692,300--pass; (5) Grants $253,700--pass.

19.2.(c) Community Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,294,400--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $498,700--pass.

19.2.(d) Technical Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $126,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $82,700--pass.

19.2.(e) Northern Affairs Fund (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $285,200--pass (2) Other Expenditures $58,000--pass.

19.2.(f) Inter-Regional Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $355,100--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $82,900--pass.

19.2.(g) Agreements Management and Co-ordination (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $466,100--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $151,900--pass.

19.2.(h) Northern Flood Agreement (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $121,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $24,500--pass; (3) Northern Flood Programs $1,230,000--pass.

19.2.(j) Native Affairs Secretariat (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $404,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $137,300--pass; (3) Aboriginal Development Programs $624,900--pass.

19.2.(k) Communities Economic Development Fund $1,385,000--pass.

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Resolution 19.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $14,118,300 for Northern Affairs, Northern Affairs Operations, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.

19.3 Expenditures Related To Capital (a) Northern Communities $2,379,600--pass.

19.3.(b) Community Access and Resource Roads $235,000--pass.

We will now revert to the Minister's Salary at this time. Yes, we ask the minister's staff if they could leave.

Resolution 19.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,614,600 for Northern Affairs, Expenditures Related to Capital, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.

At this time we thank the staff for their work within the department, and we will see you next year.

We will move on to 19.1. (a) Minister's Salary $12,600--pass.

Resolution 19.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $372,200 for Northern Affairs for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.

This concludes the Department of Northern Affairs, committee rise.

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IN SESSION

The Acting Speaker (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. The hour being after 5:30 p.m., the House is now adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. on Monday.